Two years ago, we embraced Megan Williams because of what had been done to her.  Her horror story of abduction and abuse at the hands of a foul lot at a trailer in Logan County appalled West Virginians who demanded justice.

Megan was 20-years-old at the time, but still childlike in both appearance and behavior.  Her apparent naiveté added to the initial presumption that she had been kidnapped and tortured in what may have been a hate crime since Megan was black and her attackers white. 

Megan’s story, which had a habit of changing, brought her national attention.  She appeared on the Montel Williams show where she told a fabricated story of how she escaped from her captors. 

Malik Zulu Shabazz, the race-baiting head of the New Black Panther Party, came to West Virginia to demand justice for Megan Williams, or so he said.  Shabazz and several willing sycophants sought to incite the community with inflammatory rhetoric, ignoring emerging details about the case.

U.S. Attorney Charles Miller resisted the temptation to pursue hate crime charges to satisfy those who had rushed to conclusions about what happened. The Logan County prosecutor at the time, Brian Abraham, kept his wits about him and methodically built cases against the defendants. 

Abraham and investigators determined that Megan Williams had been abused, assaulted and held against her will, but the exact circumstances differed from Megan’s constantly changing story.   He pushed ahead, shifting away from any dependence on Williams’ testimony. 

“We had six co-defendants that, to a person, had made admissions and incriminated themselves and others,” Abraham told me this week.  “We had the forensic evidence and the physical evidence that matched some of the things being said.”

Now, two years later, Megan Williams has reappeared with a story nearly as fantastic as when we first met her.

“Megan Williams is now recanting her story,” Columbus, Ohio attorney Byron Potts told reporters Wednesday.  Megan was supposed to appear, but apparently became camera shy at the last minute.

Potts says Megan made up the whole story to get revenge on her boyfriend, Bobby Brewster, who had beaten her up. 

Megan Williams’ new story has a couple of problems, however. 

First, the evidence and statements of the co-defendants that landed her abusers in jail did not depend on what Megan told police.  The defendants all appeared in court with their lawyers and admitted to their crimes.

And second, if Megan’s initial story changed, why should anyone believe she is now telling the truth?

“If she says that none of this happened and she made it all up, I would have nothing else to say than she’s a flat liar,” Abraham told me on Talkline Wednesday.

Lord knows what this poor woman  is thinking.  She has previously fallen under the influence of people who have taken advantage of her and maybe that’s happened again.  There is also a money angle since cash donations flowed in when the story first broke and there’s been a lot of speculation about where the money actually ended up.

Or maybe she’s just a lost soul who has had some really bad things happen to her. 

We may never find out.