who allegedly assaulted Kelsey might also have assaulted other women, and might rape again if not held accountable. The Belnaps believe a more motivated prosecutorthan Van Valkenburg would have ordered a more thorough investigation, charged the perpetrators with rape, and either persuaded them to make a plea deal or taken them to trial—where he or she could have discredited the testimony of Kelsey’s assailants and, possibly, persuaded a jury to convict them.
Instead, as Terry Belnap lamented to Gwen Florio, “We were left with no answers and no further investigation….I really felt that we were brushed off.” When Terry Belnap asked her daughter if she wanted the family to hire a lawyer to pressure Van Valkenburg to prosecute, according to Florio’s article in the
Missoulian
, Kelsey Belnap said, “Mom, they’re football players and nobody’s gonna listen to me. They’ll make my life hell.”
—
GWEN FLORIO’S PIECE about Kelsey Belnap appeared on the front page of the
Missoulian
on December 21, 2011. When Allison Huguet read that Belnap had shared her story with Florio in the hope that it would prevent other women from being sexually assaulted, it boosted Huguet’s confidence that reporting Beau Donaldson to the police had been the right decision. She was further encouraged when Detective Baker learned from nurse Claire Francoeur that Huguet’s rape kit, along with other evidence pertaining to the assault, had not in fact been destroyed and was being stored at the Montana Department of Justice in Helena, the state capital. On December 22, Baker received this evidence from Francoeur.
A day later, after obtaining a warrant, Baker asked Huguet to come to the police station and call Donaldson from her cell phone while Baker surreptitiously recorded the conversation, hoping to obtain a confession that could be used as evidence.
“When I filed the police report,” Huguet told me, “this call was something Detective Baker warned me I might have to do. But it wasn’t something I thought I’d actually be able to do. It was really difficult.” Baker plugged Huguet’s phone into a recording device, and she dialed Donaldson’s number, but he didn’t answer. Baker had Huguet wait ten minutes and call Donaldson again. When he failed to answer this time, Baker asked her to leave a message on Donaldson’s voice mail asking him to call her back.
After half an hour, Beau Donaldson hadn’t called, so Baker turned the recorder off and told Huguet they’d try again in a few days. As they were walking out of the interview room, however, her phone began ringing. “It was Beau,” she said, “but Detective Baker didn’t want me to answer because the recorder wasn’t hooked up.” She let it ring, then called Donaldson back after the recorder had been reconnected to her phone. “That was probably the most awkward conversation of my life,” Huguet said. “I don’t even remember how I started it. I think I told him that I was becoming upset about what had happened….Then I told him that I had read about the sexual assaults that had been going on at the university and wondered if he was involved. He got very defensive immediately. He was like, ‘I don’t know anything about that! I didn’t have anything to do with that!’ He was freaking out.”
Huguet pointed out that when Donaldson had apologized, the day after raping her, he’d promised that he would seek help for his abuse of drugs and alcohol, but from the way he’d acted when she’d run into him at the Mo Club just before Thanksgiving, it appeared he hadn’t made any progress on that front. According to Huguet, “Beau said, ‘Oh, so you think it’s a problem that I have a few drinks with my friends?’ And I told him, ‘Yeah, I do think it’s a problem, because that’s exactly how you ended up raping me.’ ”
As Allison Huguet spoke on the phone with Beau Donaldson, Detective Baker was coaching her about what to say, hoping to get
Instead, as Terry Belnap lamented to Gwen Florio, “We were left with no answers and no further investigation….I really felt that we were brushed off.” When Terry Belnap asked her daughter if she wanted the family to hire a lawyer to pressure Van Valkenburg to prosecute, according to Florio’s article in the
Missoulian
, Kelsey Belnap said, “Mom, they’re football players and nobody’s gonna listen to me. They’ll make my life hell.”
—
GWEN FLORIO’S PIECE about Kelsey Belnap appeared on the front page of the
Missoulian
on December 21, 2011. When Allison Huguet read that Belnap had shared her story with Florio in the hope that it would prevent other women from being sexually assaulted, it boosted Huguet’s confidence that reporting Beau Donaldson to the police had been the right decision. She was further encouraged when Detective Baker learned from nurse Claire Francoeur that Huguet’s rape kit, along with other evidence pertaining to the assault, had not in fact been destroyed and was being stored at the Montana Department of Justice in Helena, the state capital. On December 22, Baker received this evidence from Francoeur.
A day later, after obtaining a warrant, Baker asked Huguet to come to the police station and call Donaldson from her cell phone while Baker surreptitiously recorded the conversation, hoping to obtain a confession that could be used as evidence.
“When I filed the police report,” Huguet told me, “this call was something Detective Baker warned me I might have to do. But it wasn’t something I thought I’d actually be able to do. It was really difficult.” Baker plugged Huguet’s phone into a recording device, and she dialed Donaldson’s number, but he didn’t answer. Baker had Huguet wait ten minutes and call Donaldson again. When he failed to answer this time, Baker asked her to leave a message on Donaldson’s voice mail asking him to call her back.
After half an hour, Beau Donaldson hadn’t called, so Baker turned the recorder off and told Huguet they’d try again in a few days. As they were walking out of the interview room, however, her phone began ringing. “It was Beau,” she said, “but Detective Baker didn’t want me to answer because the recorder wasn’t hooked up.” She let it ring, then called Donaldson back after the recorder had been reconnected to her phone. “That was probably the most awkward conversation of my life,” Huguet said. “I don’t even remember how I started it. I think I told him that I was becoming upset about what had happened….Then I told him that I had read about the sexual assaults that had been going on at the university and wondered if he was involved. He got very defensive immediately. He was like, ‘I don’t know anything about that! I didn’t have anything to do with that!’ He was freaking out.”
Huguet pointed out that when Donaldson had apologized, the day after raping her, he’d promised that he would seek help for his abuse of drugs and alcohol, but from the way he’d acted when she’d run into him at the Mo Club just before Thanksgiving, it appeared he hadn’t made any progress on that front. According to Huguet, “Beau said, ‘Oh, so you think it’s a problem that I have a few drinks with my friends?’ And I told him, ‘Yeah, I do think it’s a problem, because that’s exactly how you ended up raping me.’ ”
As Allison Huguet spoke on the phone with Beau Donaldson, Detective Baker was coaching her about what to say, hoping to get
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