I posit that as a question because it’s difficult to tell from the news today how much of the crime just wasn’t. Muddying the issue is that there are several guilty pleas already entered. It is enough, however, to wonder.

The essence of the matter today is that the alleged victim of horrific sexual torture in West Virginia has now come forward and said it never really happened. From the Charleston Gazette:

Seven people pleaded guilty for their part in abusing Megan Williams — but now Williams says that abuse never happened.

She will hold a press conference Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, to recant her claims of abuse, attorney Byron L. Potts, who represents Williams, told The Charleston Gazette on Tuesday night.

“She has decided she has been living this lie for approximately two years and she has decided to tell the truth,” Potts said. “She fabricated the story and she did this in retaliation because she was having a relationship with one of them.”

But former Logan County prosecutor Brian Abraham, who was in charge of the case, said no one ever went to jail because of Williams’ statements.

Instead, Abraham said Tuesday night, he decided early in the case not to rely on Williams’ statements, but on the physical evidence and the statements of the co-defendants.

“It’s ironic to me that today she’s saying she made all this up. At the time she was criticizing me for offering them plea agreements,” Abraham said.

“This isn’t to rejuvenate her 15 minutes of fame, but to regurgitate her 15 minutes of fame. Is she proposing to give back all the donations she got?” …

“Each of [the defendants] made statements incriminating themselves and others. When you sat back and looked at it in its entirety, there was a pretty clear picture of what had taken place,” Abraham said.

“As she got hooked up with her family and with additional handlers joined in, she continued to embellish. But we had her original statements that she gave. For the most part, they were consistent with what the co-defendants said happened.” …

See what I mean? One thing that the police decided not to trust Williams on was her allegations of racial slurs. Frankly, that was the aspect of the case ? and its coverage ? I found most baffling. As I wrote at the time,

But why in the name of all that’s holy would you focus on the “hate crime” aspect of it? Talk about woefully misplaced priorities. She was allegedly kidnapped, raped, stabbed, molested, brutalized, tortured, enslaved, strangled, forced to eat animal feces, etc. ? but out of all that, what really horrifies the AP was that she was called the n-word?

Similarly, what first caused me to suspect the notorious gang-rape allegations against the Duke lacrosse team was hearing the 911 call that set the whole sham in motion ? an emergency call to report racial slurs being shouted from the house. In both cases, intuition said it is flat-out unnatural for someone physically assaulted and violated in unspeakable ways to be most upset about being called a bad word.

Both those incidents should be remembered in future reports, especially amid sensational allegations that can cause one to be so moved by sympathy and shock as to overlook suspect details. If, however, racial or other politics (remember the pro-Obama mugging hoax from Philadelphia?) overshadow the actual human suffering that must necessarily be taking place if the allegations are true, that alone should give thinking individuals pause toward lending them complete credence.

The hate hoax requires people to believe the worst about each other, which is why they are particularly odious. Just ask Duke and Durham about racial harmony torn apart by a widely believed but utterly false story about “violent, white, male, athletic privilege” and the “spirit of the lynch mob.”