For me, Rachel Dolezal's race was never the issue. It was her credibility.

And that was a big issue for me because for several years, I was the reporter assigned to cover her activities in Coeur d'Alene. I wrote many stories about her work at the Human Rights Education Institute, and several about the hate crimes she reported.

Even before she called to tell me in September 2009 that someone had left a noose on the doorstep of her Spokane home, I saw troubling signs that Rachel might not be telling the truth about her background.

I was surprised when she told another Press reporter in February 2009 that she was the product of a biracial marriage and had been discriminated against as a child growing up in Troy, Mont. By that time, I had written five stories about Rachel and her human rights work and this was new information. I did a little research at the time, and could not find evidence contradicting what Rachel had said about herself.

Her race did not become relevant to my reporting until I interviewed her about the first noose.

At that time, I asked her if she is black. She sidestepped the question and identified herself and her biological son as "transracial." Other media outlets began referring to Rachel as a black woman. Rachel never corrected them, which she admitted Tuesday to Matt Lauer on the "Today" show. Then she resigned from the human rights institute and moved from the area.

Last year Rachel began appearing in the media again, but in Spokane, as a black woman.

Why was the story relevant to Coeur d'Alene? Because she began reporting earlier this year that she was once again the victim of hate crimes.

When my colleague and fellow reporter Jeff Selle and I looked deeper, we found that in telling her story as a black woman in Spokane, she was also painting a picture of North Idaho as a hotbed of racism - a painful reputation people here have worked hard to shed. She told reporters she was the victim of multiple documented hate crimes in North Idaho when the truth is, none of her claims have ever been substantiated.

The more we looked into Rachel's activities in Spokane, the more clear it became that she was fabricating many details of her life. We knew she was now referring to her adopted black sibling as her son. We were fairly certain she never lived in South Africa.

Meanwhile, she was being given awards and recognition for her civil rights work. She was appointed to the police oversight commission in Spokane. She was elected head of the NAACP chapter there. Rachel was writing a column about her black experiences for a Spokane publication.

I kept thinking to myself, she may be white, but what if she is? Does it matter? Do people in Spokane know this?

It was a confusing ethical dilemma for me as a reporter, and as a white woman. I didn't know if it was even my place to point this out. It wasn't my cultural heritage being appropriated.

It seemed that a lot of people were buying into Rachel's persona as a black woman - most of the Spokane media outlets, the NAACP, and Eastern Washington University where she was teaching Africana studies.

I knew that if we could provide solid evidence that Rachel was falsely portraying herself as a black woman and we reported it, it would rock the region. I knew it would hurt Rachel, and it would likely have a negative impact on civil rights efforts in Spokane.

I admit, I secretly hoped someone else would break the news. I thought Rolling Stone magazine might catch on and do a story similar to the one it did about Nate Norman, Coeur d'Alene's famous marijuana-smuggling pizza boy. But it didn't.

So Jeff and I kept digging. We kept questioning. When Jeff told me Rachel's father is black, and showed me a Facebook photo of the man Rachel was claiming to be her dad, the deception became more clear. I knew Albert Wilkerson. I had met him through Rachel and I was almost certain he was not her father. That's what prompted us to contact Rachel and her parents in May and ask about Rachel's ethnicity, and request her birth certificate.

Then, through a public records request, Jeff received a copy of Rachel's application for her position on the police oversight committee. We learned she had declared her ethnicity to be multi-racial, including "Black, African-American."

During this time, I was contacted by several members of the social justice community in Spokane. They were very upset about Rachel's portrayal of her ethnicity but were afraid to go on the record about it. They pleaded with me to report on it. Jeff and I knew we had to go forward with the story, and Mike Patrick, our managing editor, and Jim Thompson, our publisher, supported us in that decision.

Through all of this, I am reminded of what Nontombi Naomi Tutu, the daughter of South African Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, said when she spoke about race and community healing in Coeur d'Alene in 2009.

"The first step is to speak the truth. Admit and celebrate that we see difference," Tutu said during the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations' annual banquet.

When I first met Rachel, it appeared she was doing that. Now we know otherwise.

Maureen Dolan is city editor of the Coeur d'Alene Press.