A Manchester woman described being tied up, beaten and raped for several days in her Beech Street apartment.

I was skeptical. “It’s a story that stretches credibility,” I wrote at the time.

But the very-alleged victim Kelly Papaleo provided a photo of her bruised face. She sat for an interview. And police had arrested two people and eventually a third.

But now I can say it was all B.S.

A few months after the arrests, prosecutors quietly dropped the charges against the three defendants.

Tests for bodily fluids came up negative. Four months after the supposed attack, Papaleo staged a break-in that police doubted. And by year’s end, two defendants had passed a lie detector test.

But the truth-and-justice system works in a funny way in New Hampshire. Law enforcement loves to trumpet arrests and plaster the names and pictures of suspects all over media and social media.

Yet, when it turns out they were wrong, prosecutors drop the case and scribble a word or two in a dusty court file. Jailers quietly release the true victim back into the world with a blackened reputation.

“It’s destroyed me,” said Rodney Rosado, who was jailed for four months on charges of rape and destroying evidence. “If it wasn’t true, why won’t they clear it up?”

Rosado is now 57, and the case haunts him.

He meets someone, they run his name on Google, and up pops a story written by me. A budding friendship wilts.

Rosado contacted the Union Leader last month to ask that we make it right. I filed a public records request with Manchester police, and they provided 161 pages of the investigation.

If I were to sum it up, illegal drugs permeated the case like snow on a February landscape.

Papaleo had overdosed and been left alone. When Rosado found out, he and his girlfriend at the time, Jillian Armstrong, went to her apartment and removed the fully clothed Papaleo from the cold water in her bathtub.

Papaleo eventually revived and drove them home. She had no bruises at that point, according to statements they made before passing the lie detector tests.

Money also was involved.

Papaleo was a defendant in a class-action medical malpractice case, and she used the prospect of a payout to convince a cocaine dealer to front her drugs, numerous people told police.

Papaleo launched a GoFundMe to help cover her medical expenses associated with the false attack.

Meanwhile, about four months after the initial article ran, Rosado and Armstrong passed lie detector tests.

“I would never do that (rape) to a woman. I have three sisters and a daughter,” Rosado said.

So how to rectify the damage?

The third defendant in the case, Shawn McGrath, used the tried-and-true American way: He sued Papaleo. The case folded when Papaleo died in July 2018.

It seems the proper thing would have been for police and prosecutors to announce publicly that the charges had been dropped and that they no longer believed Papaleo.

Manchester police won’t.

“We have no comment on this case,” said Heather Hamel, the police spokeswoman. She also wouldn’t help me reach the lead detective in the case, Patrick Maguire, who has retired.

I tried to talk to the prosecutor, assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Michael Zaino. Surely a lawyer understands the notion of innocent until proven guilty.

Zaino is now a circuit court judge and feels it would be inappropriate to discuss any of his past cases, said Laura Kiernan, a spokeswoman for New Hampshire courts.

(When I grow up, I want to be a New Hampshire judge. It would be nearly impossible to fire me, and when someone asks me to explain myself, I can clear my throat and pronounce that it would be inappropriate to do so.)

Some simple questions: Why didn’t you announce your decision to drop the charges? Do you think you have a duty to repair a damaged reputation? Did you consider charging Papaleo with making false allegations?

As for me, I regret the damage the story did to Rosado, Armstrong and McGrath. This newspaper was within its legal rights to run the story, and at the time I believed Papaleo. Her supposed treatment at the hands of sadists angered me.

Could I have done more? I should have tried to speak to Rosado and Armstrong. (Both were in jail at the time.)

One thing is certain. Legacy media are too diminished to follow up on every story. But we run a lot of what authorities provide us. If you ask me, the authorities who announce arrests should follow the story through.

The Papaleo story ran in print, broadcast and internet media in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Rosado’s lawyer, Brian Lee, said that his client wanted the stories taken off the internet. But as a court-appointed lawyer, Lee said he wasn’t in a position to confront internet companies and demand they do so.

“You know how it is these days. Somebody gets in the paper, it seems they’re there forever,” Lee said.

Rosado lives with his father and sister in a Massachusetts apartment. He said he hasn’t worked since 1990 because of a traffic accident. He has three grown children. His scrapes with the law in New Hampshire are minor — a small amount of jail time for a case involving thefts and drugs in 2013, according to online court records.

Rosado said he visited and contacted media to no avail once the case was dropped. He claims he left messages numerous times at the Union Leader. I know he never called or wrote me.

But he reached Night Editor Melanie Hitchcock last month, and we started looking into it.

“Why,” Rosado asked, “would they destroy a person’s life and not fix it?”

An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Rosado's girlfriend. Her correct name is Jillian Armstrong.