EXTRAIT

            The second lie connected to the Arbuckle case involved an alleged rape with a Coke bottle or champagne bottle. There are two persistent stories, neither of them in any way credible.

            To this day many people "remember" Roscoe as "that fat comedian who raped that girl with the bottle". They believe that Roscoe was impotent from too much liquor or the drugs that were rumored to be at the party, and finding himself unable to perform, used a bottle, with ruptured Virginia's bladder and caused the internal injuries. Another account claims that when Maude Delmont broke into the room and saw Virginia lying in bed bleeding, either she or Roscoe grabbed a bottle and jammed it inside the girl to "catch the blood" or stop bleeding. When the police entered the room, Roscoe reportedly tossed the bottle out the window shouting, "There goes the evidence."

            Nowhere in any testimony in the court transcripts, police reports, or personal interviews did this story appear. The only newspapers who carried it to any degree were the Hearst papers. Everyone connected with the case vehemently denied it, yet it is the most popular story, and one of the most ugly lies, still connected with the ordeal. The fabrication haunted Roscoe throughout the remainder of his life.

Andy Edmons, 'FATTY', Macdonald, 1990.