This past Wednesday, Washington Post reporter T. Rees Shapiro published an article that significantly undermined the account of the UVA “rape” published in Rolling Stone magazine, casting serious doubt on the credibility of the accuser.

In the original account, published in Rolling Stone on November 19, a handsome upper classman invited Jackie to dinner and then a date function at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.  After arriving at the fraternity house, Drew invited Jackie to go upstairs with him; she agreed, and he led her into a bedroom, where a group of men violently raped her.

However, accounts provided to the Post by the friends who rushed to Jackie’s aid that night in the fall of 2012 cast doubt on her story.  Jackie had pursued a romantic relationship with one of the three friends, Randall.  After he rejected her, she told him about a handsome upperclassman who was wooing her.

Her friends, including Randall, began exchanging text messages with the mystery upperclassman.  The mystery upperclassman informed them of how attractive and intelligent he thought Jackie was.  He also raved about their shared interests and complained that she was interested in “some freshman nerd.”

The Washington Post quoted one of these text messages: “Get this she said she likes some other 1st year guy who dosnt like her and turned her down but she wont date me cause she likes him…She cant turn my down fro some nerd 1st yr. she said this kid is smart and funny and worth it.”

The photographs of the handsome upperclassman belong to a former high school classmate of Jackie’s and were taken from social media.  The man in the photographs told the Post that he had never attended UVA and barely knew Jackie.  UVA has also confirmed that the name she gave her friends did not match the name of anyone who attended UVA at the time of the attack.  The Washington Post article doesn’t specify whether the name she gave her friends matches the name of her former high school classmate.

In the Rolling Stone story, Jackie’s date, “Drew,” leads Jackie into a bedroom in the frat house where a group of men throw her through a table and rape her as part of a fraternity initiation.  Afterwards, her friends discourage her from reporting the rape, claiming it will ruin her reputation and they won’t get invited to any more parties.

Jackie’s friends, who met her that night, recounted a rather different story.  They arrived at one in the morning to find Jackie distraught and crying.  She told them her handsome date (whom she had told them about earlier) took her into a room and forced her to perform oral sex on a group of men.  Her friends urged her to go to the police, and she refused.  They also do not remember her having injuries consistent with being thrown through a glass table.

In other news, Rolling Stone writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely told a gathering that she has an excellent bull**** detector.

Shapiro has clearly demonstrated a preference for showing rather than telling.  The mystery upperclassman, “Drew,” doesn’t exist.  Rape accuser “Jackie” perpetrated a transparent hoax, in a desperate attempt to win the attention of one of her male friends; Jackie’s friends are too polite to call her a liar.  Sabrina Rubin Erdely has perhaps the world’s worst BS detector, and the prestige press was too politically correct to question an obvious hoax.  The emperor has no clothes.