When I first read this story this afternoon, I thought something seemed kind of fishy about it. Things that struck me as really questionable:
- She claims that she was at the ATM when it happened, and yet the incident occurred when she was conveniently out of range for the ATM's surveillance cameras?
- She refused any kind of immediate medical treatment -- she clearly wasn't worried about tetanus or permanent scarring -- and yet she went to the hospital today. Not wanting to go in the first place could be chalked up to lack of health insurance or something, but going back the next day blows that theory.
- The cut seems awfully superficial to be the work of a violent mugger in an angry rage wielding a decent-sized knife. (One of my college roommates was a self-injurerer. I've seen her make far nastier cuts than that with a pair of scissors.)
- Her
twitter comments seemed ridiculously staged. She somehow manages to more or less predict how her evening will turn out before it even happens. Oh, and look, there's a McCain plug at the end!
Things that seemed kind of suspicious, but probably wouldn't have seemed that weird if it weren't for the above major red flags:
- She described the assailant as wearing a wife-beater. It's October in Pittsburgh at 9 PM. Either he's too poor to buy a coat, strung out on some great drugs . . . or he's imaginary. Who else would wear a wife-beater when it's 45 out?
- Why a B? A real Obama fan probably would have opted for an O.
- While we're on the subject of the B, why is it backwards? Sure, he could have knocked her to the ground and stood over her to carve it in upside down, but that leaves her in a pretty good position to escape. If you were trying to immobilize her, you would sit on her chest and pin her hands down while you cut her up. (In fact, one article claims that Ashley Todd described it happening exactly like that.) But that would make the B forwards, not backwards. . .
- Could not provide a physical description beyond height, weight and race. (Surprise! It's a black man!)
- Why did she leave the scene of the crime and then return later, only calling the police when she came back? By all accounts, it's a fairly well-populated neighborhood at that hour of the night, with restaurants still open even on the block where she was claiming it happened. Wouldn't it have made more sense to go to the pizza place down the block, call the cops and wait for them there?
- The photo accompanying most articles was not distributed by the media or the police, but by Todd herself. That makes it pretty clear that -- whether she staged the attempt or not -- she's distributing the image in order to get something from the public. Whether that's simply attention or a furthering of her candidate's political agenda, we can only guess.
At any rate . . .
turns out the police agreed that her story didn't add up. Because of inconsistencies both in her story, and between the story and the crime scene evidence, they want her to take a polygraph test.
So what do you guys think? Hoax or legitimate?
Hybrid Mode
