Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler took the time to sift through the 41-year-old case of Kathy Shelton, who said she was raped when she was 12 years old by a then-41-year-old man.

Ordinarily, I’d expect the Post to take Shelton’s claims at face value (and to be fair, Kessler does call her a rape victim, as her attacker, Thomas Taylor, agreed to a plea bargain). The Post would be accused of “victim-blaming” if it dared point out an accuser’s changing story, even if it ultimately seemed sympathetic to her.