Police say trail stabbing never happened

The Tahoma student who reported last week being stabbed by two men as she ran along a trail has admitted that she made up the story, King County Sheriff’s Office detectives say.

Detectives say some of the evidence did not match the 15-year-old girl’s story, and when they confronted the girl, she admitted that she fabricated the story. Detectives declined to explain what that evidence was. They also declined to give the girl’s reason for making up the story.

“While it is unfortunate that the false report created anxiety and a great deal of work for our deputies, we are pleased that there is closure for the community and that the student finally did do the right thing,” King County Sheriff Steve Strachan said in a news release Thursday.

Prosecutors have not decided whether to file charges for false reporting.

The girl had reported that she was out for a jog around 8 p.m. May 23 when two men saw her running on a dirt trail near the Burlington Northern – Santa Fe railroad tracks west of state Route 169 just south of the Maple Valley city limits. The girl told deputies that the men began verbally harassing her, and when she ignored them, they grabbed her from behind, threw her to the ground and tried to remove her pants.

She reported that as she tried to escape, one of the men stabbed her in the leg with a pocket knife, but she ran to a friend’s house on a nearby street. The girl even provided a specific description of one attacker so that deputies could sketch him. With the new information that the stabbing was fabricated, deputies did not explain how the girl’s wound occurred.

To read the earlier story, click HERE.

Want to share this story with neighbors? Click the “share” button below to post it to Facebook OR email the link.

Want to receive an alert when a new story appears in the Post? You have three options: Click the “like” button below to receive alerts on your Facebook newsfeed; click the Twitter icon in the sidebar to follow us on Twitter; OR type your email address in the sidebar (to the right of this story) to receive once-a-day digests of new posts.

Tags: , , , ,

Casey Combs Henry is a Maple Valley-based journalist and editor of the Maple Valley Post. If you have corrections, questions, or ideas, you can reach Casey at mvp@maplevalleypost.com
advert

3 Responses to “Police say trail stabbing never happened” Subscribe

  1. James June 5, 2012 at 10:19 am #

    She definately has some issues she needs assistance with. Hopefully the prosecutor will file charges of false reporting and make an example out of her. Hopefully the word will spread and it will make the next kid think about consequences. She needs to know emergency services might’ve been needed for someone with an actual emergency. Not only could it have cost someone their life, but the first resonders need to be available for people with actual emergencies. I think she should at least have to go through counseling and have community service to pay the public back for wasted tax dollars for the whole debacle.

  2. MIke Barer May 31, 2012 at 5:23 pm #

    I didn’t see that twist.

  3. Sue May 31, 2012 at 1:34 pm #

    I feel bad for the whole situation. Obviously the girl needs some help. She should be punished. I feel very bad for the parents. And yes, they can be good parents. As many known, teenagers do things that parents have no control over. Doesn’t make them a bad parent. Don’t blame the parents. My oldest has done some terrible things and I am very thankful that everyone didn’t judge me on his choices. You can do everything possible to help your kids make the right choices but in the end, they are in control. And the court system lets kids off too easy when they do wrong. Maybe we need to start having tougher consequences.

Leave a Reply