Bethany Storro's false claim of acid attack baffles Vancouver police

VANCOUVER -- After rampant speculation online, a canceled appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and a police search of her parents' home, Bethany Storro finally broke down.

The 28-year-old Vancouver woman claimed last month that an attacker threw acid in her face, but she admitted that she had disfigured herself Thursday under questioning by detectives.

Police remained baffled as to why Storro would hurt herself in such a horrible way.

"It's obvious to everybody here that she's got a fragile mental state," said Cmdr. Marla Schuman , who helped lead the investigation.

Storro recently divorced and moved from Idaho back in with her parents . She had just started a job at an area Safeway.

"She is extremely upset and remorseful," Schuman said. "This got much bigger than she expected."

Storro's claim created an immediate outpouring of sympathy, including letters from around the world and bank accounts set up at Umpqua and Riverview Community banks to help her. Images of her burned face before surgery and her head swathed in white bandages after an operation popped up on national websites as Storro talked publicly about forgiving her attacker and recovering from the ordeal.

More:
The Oregonian's continuing coverage of Bethany Storro's attack
But police began to find holes in her story, said Vancouver Police Chief Clifford Cook. Investigators had trouble finding witnesses to back up her version -- people reported seeing Storro writhing in pain, but none saw the attacker she described.

Storro had told police that she was on her way to buy coffee at a Starbucks near downtown's Esther Short Park about 7:15 p.m. Aug. 30 when a woman walked up to her and threw a cup of acid in her face. She described the assailant as an African American woman in her late 20s to early 30s, with slicked-back hair and three piercings in her right ear.

"She said, 'Hey pretty girl, do you want to drink this?'" Storro's mother said the day after the attack.

Storro was injured by an extremely strong acid, possibly hydrochloric or sulfuric acid, her doctor said. If she hadn't been wearing sunglasses that she said she bought 20 minutes earlier, she could have been blinded, the doctor said.

But police became concerned that the splash pattern of the acid appeared to correspond with a liquid being poured or rubbed on the skin, rather than thrown, Schuman said. And the burn pattern appeared to reach high up her cheek, above the area that would have been covered by large sunglasses.

storrocrop.JPGCourtesy of Nancy NeuweltBethany Storro before her face was burned by acid
"Forensically, this is odd," Schuman recalled investigators thinking.

Days after Storro's report, people online began questioning the authenticity of the attack and the description of the attacker.

Storro had been scheduled to appear Thursday on Winfrey's show, but the segment was canceled. Storro, in Facebook posts, said the show was going in another direction from what she had hoped.

Police did not say what they recovered from the search of Storro's parents' home, although they said they didn't find the acid. They were still interviewing Storro while the chief was talking to reporters in front of the police station.

Storro could not be reached for comment. Her mother, Nancy Neuwelt, did not return calls.

Police and city leaders said they were relieved to crack a case that a half-dozen detectives spent hundreds of hours investigating and that had focused national media attention on Vancouver. City officials had worried that the attack had cast a negative light on a part of the city that has seen a resurgence in the past five years.

"You go down there now and see young families, the elderly," the police chief said. "It's nice to be able to tell the community that the area is safe. We consider it a jewel of the community."

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