On Monday, Charlottesville, Va. police chief Timothy Longo said he was unable to “conclude to any substantive degree” that a University of Virginia student named Jackie was gang-raped by seven members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at a party in 2012. (RELATED: Police Conclude UVA Rape Fabricated Story)
The investigation resulted after Rolling Stone published a wildly inaccurate, 9,000-word, agenda-driven excuse for journalism back in November by Sabrina Rubin Erdely alleging the false, gory rape tale.
The national president of Phi Kappa Psi has now publicly stated that the chapter is “exploring its legal options to address the extensive damage caused by Rolling Stone.” (RELATED: President Of Phi Psi Shares Details Of Who May Be Sued)
Presumably, Erdely is high on the list of people to sue into bankruptcy.
But where is Erdely? Though the police chief has indicated that she provided some details to investigators, she has hidden herself from public view since late November when her story began to fall hopelessly apart.
Erdely had engaged in much braggadocio about how brave she thinks she is. Her last tweet on her (still-active) Twitter account reads:
The @washingtonpost wrote an article about me, and how my UVA article came to be: http://t.co/rBLpdVaYRG
— Sabrina Rubin Erdely (@SabrinaRErdely) November 30, 2014
She even bragged that she shopped at several elite colleges for what she believed would be an ideal rape story. (RELATED: Here Are EIGHT Campus Rape Hoaxes Eerily Like The UVA Rape Story)
Then, for months, Erdely went silent. She appears to be a missing person.
The Daily Caller is deeply concerned.
Here then, are the eight best guesses about where this national laughingstock of a journalist could possibly be.
It’s way too hopeful, but perhaps Erdely has quietly enrolled in a high school journalism class somewhere in America, where she can learn something about this thing called ethics. She could learn the importance of reporting true things instead of ridiculous fiction sourced by a single unreliable person. (RELATED: Rolling Stone’s Bumbling UVA Rape Detective And The Vexing Case Of The Dead Flamingos)
Erdely could possibly be co-hosting a primetime show on MSNBC. The perennially-declining network would be a safe place for Erdely to spout crazy tales without hurting anyone, since no one is watching. (RELATED: MSNBC Falls To New Ratings Low)
Erdely is a bit like Edward Snowden, except that Snowden exposed a massive surveillance system out of deep-seated (perhaps misguided) principle while Erdely merely exposed herself as a poor, poor journalist. In any case, Snowden managed to flee the country into the open arms of Russia. Perhaps Erdely has found a home there. (RELATED: The Daily Caller Advises Edward Snowden About His Little Asylum Problem)
Erdely could be hanging out on some beach in Los Angeles with Stephen Glass, the 1990s-era New Republic writer who spun ridiculous, fictitious tales that catered to shallow, elitist prejudices. Glass was Erdely’s classmate at the fancypants University of Pennsylvania.
Such an outcome would certainly be poetic. In a deliciously irony, TheDC unearthed a sanctimonious, painfully hilarious 2004 screed by Erdely excoriating Glass for his fabricated stories. “The adorable little weenie I knew was nothing but a con artist,” she proclaimed. (RELATED: Disgraced Journalist Behind UVA Rape Story Sanctimoniously Criticized FALSE REPORTING)
Erdely’s gushing hagiography about herself on her very own website indicates that she wanted to be a medical doctor before she changed course and decided to become a journalist. Well, “journalist.” Perhaps she has now gone to medical school to pursue that dream, given that her career as a credible reporter is irretrievably finished.
Lots of Europeans and a handful of Americans have traveled to the Middle East to fight on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Perhaps Erdely is secretly hiding among these daft extremists. It’s unlikely, sure. The highfalutin Ivy League grad wouldn’t last an hour there. But it’s a theory as good as any. (RELATED: ISIS Believes Jesus Will Reappear Soon And Nine More Things You Won’t Believe About These LUNATICS)
Pyongyang, North Korea is the largest city and the capital of a horrific basket case of a communist state. However, the impoverished hellhole may soon feature a number of tourist attractions including a couple water parks, a swanky beach resort town and an ostensibly luxurious ski resort. Obviously, the speculation is getting incredibly crazy at this point. Just wait until you see the next one, though …
Back in December, after Erdely’s story initially fell apart, the disgraced Rolling Stone correspondent reportedly floated the idea that she would “re-report” the story. This absurd notion of a reporting mulligan failed miserably. “Rubin Erdely is deeply compromised by her original shoddy reporting, and she is now part of this story; it makes no sense for her to be a part of ‘re-reporting’ it,” wrote Richard Bradley, the editor-in-chief of Worth magazine who was the first to raise questions about Erdely’s hack job.
But maybe she really is back on the University of Virginia campus, hitting the fabled bricks, in search of the story about herself and how she reported a preposterous hoax. Or something. TheDC wishes Erdely luck in this event, because she is unlikely to get people to speak with her — especially the woman she labeled as a “self-described hookup queen.” (RELATED: Is Rolling Stone Reporter Really ‘Re-Reporting’ Debunked Story?)
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(Photos: Getty Images/Jeff Mitchell, YouTube screenshot/Licentiahe8th, Getty Images/Barton Gellman, YouTube screenshot/fendergibsonsounds, Getty Images, AFP/Getty Images, YouTube screenshot/David Pakman Show, Getty Images/The Washington Post; all Erdely images YouTube screenshot/PBS NewsHour)