...As would with many days to come, I walked off the elevator and onto the floor where the Philadelphia Special Victims Unit office was and had no idea what to expect. I met with Detective O'Malley who was a kind, compassionate man yet tenacious when it came to his role in the investigation of Jeffery Marsalis. He showed me into the interview room and we started to talk. I was to give my statement and he would explain the details of the extensive case already prepared. He walked me through every detail of my "date" with Marsalis. In the two hours I spent with Detective O'Malley I learned a lot of about the man I had only 1 date with.
I was told that Dr. Jeff (his Match.com profile name) wasn't really a doctor nor was he a part of the NASA training program for astronauts. You see his profile had many pictures of him in scrubs and his white coat and formal pictures taken by NASA in an astronaut uniform. Not only that but during our date he opened his wallet to show me medical credentials from a prestigious Philadelphia hospital and those provided by NASA too. All the photos and credentials were fake. I learned that he never even came close to completing his college education therefore not a doctor or an astronaut. He at one point in his life had been an EMT and also taken some nursing school classes. This training would allow him to get by just enough while fabricating stories about his identity.
I was told there was an upcoming trial in January 2006 involving Marsalis in which 3 women accused him of raping and drugging them in order to commit the sexual assaults. While out on bail for that trial he fled Philadelphia for the state of Idaho to a resort town he was familiar with because he vacationed there with his family as a child. He then befriended a woman, went out to a bar for some drinks and subsequently drugged and raped her. As it turned out she was a lesbian a detail she had disclosed to him while they were together. She woke up the next morning in the exact same manner of undress and sickness as I had but immediately knew something wasn't right because she never would have consented to sex with a man. This brave woman called her sister who took her to the hospital for an examination and the police were called. The police ran his name, saw his prior arrest in Philadelphia and got a search warrant for his apartment. They discovered a computer and substance he was mixing up himself and using as his date-rape drug. This is where the EMT training and nursing school courses involving medications and drugs came in handy for him.
As far as the police were concerned the computer was full of evidence that would be used in the investigation that I was now a part of. If you watch TV series and movies involving criminal investigations they often talk about criminals keeping trophies from their crimes. Marsalis' computer had dozens of Match.com profiles of his victims that he saved and mine was one of them. The call to me less than a week earlier was the result of that computer search. They already had one trial pending and another victim accusing him of being drugged and raped so the prosecutor began contacting all the women whose profiles they found in order to find out if they knew Marsalis and what had happened to them if anything.
My head was spinning!! I was sitting there telling the detective an extremely personal and embarrassing story and to add to that I find out there were so many more women like me who had been lied to and sexually assaulted by the same man. I got angry!! The detective was wrapping up our conversation and completing my statement when he asked one final question. He asked me if I wanted to press charges against Jeffrey Marsalis and my response without hesitation was "HELL YES!". It's funny now because the detective wrote my words down verbatim. It was at that moment I knew I was going to do whatever I had to and forever how long it took to put my rapist behind bars for as long as possible. If it was up to me (and it was) I would never let him do this to another woman ever again. I just didn't know the impact those words would have on my future and life going forward.
Detective O'Malley was explaining some final information about what I could expect next as part of the police and court process and mentioned to me that because of the number of victims in this case and it's salacious details there may be some involvement by the local press. I really wish I would have taken those words more seriously because it would play an important part of what was to come next for me...
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