Stacy Galbraith, one of the Colorado detectives who worked the infamous serial rape case that inspired the Netflix series, discussed the case with PEOPLE
In 2011, Golden, Colo., Det. Stacy Galbraith (whose Unbelievable alter-ego, Karen Duvall, is played by actress Merritt Wever) reached out to Det. Edna Hendershot of nearby Westminster, Colo., to ask about a rape that sounded alarm bells.
Det. Galbraith was investigating a violent attack in Golden in which a grad student in her mid-20s was raped at home, at gunpoint, by a masked intruder. The victim noted a distinct birthmark on the rapist’s leg, as well as the pink Sony camera he used to take photos of her throughout the attack.
When Galbraith told her husband, a police officer in nearby Westminster, about the Golden woman’s attack, he made a suggestion. “He immediately said, ‘You have to get in contact with our records department [in Westminster]. We have had two in the recent past that it matches the m.o. for,” Galbraith told the Denver Channel.
Galbraith met Det. Edna Hendershot there. Hendershot (whose Unbelievable character, Grace Rasmussen, is played by Toni Collette) had worked hundreds of previous rape cases — including, the previous year, a case involving a 59-year-old Westminster woman raped by a man in a black mask who had stolen her pink camera. Hendershot was also aware of a similar case in Aurora, Colo., from a year earlier.
After comparing notes, the two detectives realized they were likely pursuing the same rapist (who also happened to be Marie’s attacker, though they didn’t know it yet).
“It was the day after I received the Westmister police report, before I talked to the lead investigator, that I knew those two rapes were connected,” Galbraith recalls to PEOPLE. “After reading their [report], it was clear that Westminster believed their case was related to [the rape in] Aurora — and my eyes were opened to the fact that there was a 99.9 percent chance this was a serial thing, not just a random attack.”
Working together to trace the perp, they found four very different victims, in different cities, who’d experienced eerily similar attacks. “It was truly a stranger attack, which created a very uneasy feeling,” Galbraith says. “You didn’t know where to start, or where he was picking out his victims.”
After a high-pressure investigation, with the help of DNA, a white Mazda truck, Adidas shoeprints, and some telling surveillance video, Galbraith and Hendershot finally caught their criminal: army vet Marc O’Leary.
After closing the dramatic case, Galbraith received an Officer of the Year Award in 2012 for her work on the O’Leary case, as well as her work on a bank robbery and a domestic murder case, according to a release from the city of Golden. She went on to work at the Colorado Bureau of Investigations and is now a criminal investigator for the Jefferson County District Attorney’s office.
In 2013, Hendershot was promoted to sergeant for the Westminster Police, Oxygen reports, and was promoted again in 2017 to patrol commander. She no longer works sexual assault cases, she told Oxygen: “I miss working the hard cases very much, but now have the opportunity to mentor new officers and impress upon them the ‘right’ way to do things.”
Galbraith says that although she and Hendershot don’t collaborate on cases like the O’Leary rapes anymore, they’re “friends” and are called to speak at events and conferences together about twice a year. “In law enforcement, there’s a lot of interest in how we worked together,” she says.
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