Missoula by Jon Krakauer

was dressed, I told him I needed to ask him a few questions about an alleged incident but that I needed to read him his Miranda Warning. He, for the most part, was uncooperative but that may have been due to his intoxication level. He kept attempting to speak as if [he] was a lawyer using legal terms that made no sense in the way he was using them….He had difficulty giving me a “yes” or a “no” when I asked him if he understood his legal rights, stating I was trying to “co-horse [i.e. coerce] him.”
    He finally said he would speak with me. I asked him if he had been at Sean O’Kelly’s [sic] this evening and if he had met a girlnamed Kerry. He said he thought I was trying to get him to say something without his legal counsel. When I reminded him that he had agreed to speak with me, he told me I was trying to get him to admit he had met “people” [at Sean Kelly’s]….
    Zeke then went into a long incoherent speech on the “exact definition of meeting people.” [When] I attempted to explain to him I was just asking him if he met Kerry tonight he replied [with] words to the effect that I was attempting to “co-horse him once again and he thought he needed legal representation.”
    I told him I was done interviewing him and that someone would be in touch with him later concerning his side of events.
    —
    ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2011 , a female detective named Jamie Merifield called Kerry Barrett to say she had been assigned to Barrett’s case. According to a transcript of the phone conversation, Detective Merifield warned her that it was a “tough case,” because she and Zeke Adams were the only witnesses. Based on Adams’s level of intoxication, Merifield said, and what Barrett had told the officers, “It seems very, very clear” that Barrett’s account was “a very believable story,” and that the events she described actually happened. Merifield cautioned, however, that the case was going to be “very, very difficult” to prosecute. “Shy of him confessing,” she said, “we have nothing to go on.”
    Nevertheless, Detective Merifield told Barrett that if she wanted to go forward with the case, Merifield would ask Adams to come to the police station to give a statement. “At the very least,” Merifield explained, she might be able to “scare the shit out of him,” and thereby prevent him from sexually assaulting someone else.
    “This was very discouraging to hear,” Barrett said. “I felt like I was getting the brush-off, like they weren’t serious about pursuing it. I told the detective I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and she said, ‘Well, think about it for a few days and let me know.’ ”
    Initially, Barrett wasn’t sure if she wanted Zeke Adams to be charged with a crime. She said, “I remember thinking, ‘Yes, what he did was wrong. But he seemed like a nice guy. Maybe it was just a misunderstanding.’ ” As Barrett replayed that night in her mind,however, she recalled that before she’d fallen asleep in Adams’s bed, he had assured her that he was trustworthy and “nothing would happen.” And then, some thirty minutes later, she woke up to him sexually assaulting her. No, she told herself, it definitely wasn’t a misunderstanding. Adams had intentionally deceived her.
    “The only reason Zeke didn’t rape me is because I woke up,” Barrett said. For all she knew, Zeke Adams was a serial predator who made a habit of luring women into his bed in this fashion. She decided that he should be held accountable for his actions, and she notified Detective Merifield that she wanted to pursue charges against him.
    Detective Merifield didn’t find time to interview Kerry Barrett until October 13, 2011, twenty days after Barrett reported the attempted rape. After taking Barrett’s statement, Merifield phoned Zeke Adams to get his side of the story, but couldn’t reach him. So on October 26 she went to Adams’s apartment and left a note asking him to call