Duke Lacrosse Scandal

amazing [Music] the devil is on his way devil is on his way devil is on his way [ __ ] the devil's gonna make you pay bow to your knees devil is on his way fall to your knees never gonna make you pay fall to your knees devil is Mountain murders is an Appalachian True Crime podcast some content may not be suitable for all listeners listener discretion is advised we say [ __ ] a lot hey y'all welcome back to Mountain murders I'm Heather and I'm Dylan and this is like episode 344 I think oh my gosh that's episode A lot can you believe that Dylan that is a lot of long-form content and I cannot believe that four pushing five years later we're still doing this still doing the damn thing and we have some long-form content for you today I have a feeling this is going to be quite a lengthy episode Dylan oh well you know what I have a lot to talk about I think the listeners deserve a good fat juicy episode oh my gosh you make it it sound like it's a burger yeah sink your teeth into this oh wow it's like meaty yeah the mountain murders juice is going to run down your chin oh well I can't have any of that so that means we need to dive straight in speaking of we went to eat burgers at like a local spot that has amazing Burgers the other day and you my daughter you we all were at the burgers and I feel like I was the only one that was juicing my burger was juicing on me okay and I had it all over my hands and I had to go wash my hand you guys were just like having the burger like normal people and then I look like a sloppy like a monsoon of burger juice had hit me yeah you needed one of those big lobster bibs I did uh I was too busy enjoying my burger to notice you getting Juiced over there wow it's quite juicy with my burger ah yes if you're in the area Church Street Depot the burgers are banging cool and they're not even sponsoring the show Dylan no I'm just passing it along in Germany don't care about that burger joint s it's true okay so we have a very interesting story today do you think this will be a lengthy episode but I'm ready to get right to it Dylan how about you let's go the prestigious Duke University was founded in 1838 by methodists and Quakers in Trinity but they relocated it to Durham in 1892. students at Duke are in the top five percent of their high school and top division one athletes making it one of the most selective schools in the country it is one of the top 10 research universities dedicating nearly one billion dollars annually to research projects wow that's quite impressive right yeah I think sometimes people forget that a lot of your r d in various fields and things like that happen in University Labs Duke is alma mater to president Richard Nixon and 14 living billionaires okay yeah a 2006 graduate summarized Duke as quote Work Hard Play Hard mentality while some burn the candle Too Close others were able to handle successfully all of their responsibilities and took pride in doing so yeah so you it's uh even if you can afford to go there very expensive University that still doesn't mean you're going to get in so you got to have great grades great GPA you've got to have all the academic Acumen I don't even think those are right words no it's fine as you can tell I did not go to Duke University right I know you guys are fooled for a minute but yeah I mean it's like the who's it's very prestigious I am quite competitive very competitive hard to get into yeah so just having a like say uh Rich parents or something like that's not enough usually well I guess if they're alumni maybe they can help you out but uh yeah you gotta you gotta be a smart a smart [ __ ] yeah I don't think you're gonna pose on a treadmill and then say you're part of the cross country team to get into the school no it doesn't matter if your mom is on Full House or not yeah most students either stayed away from the wild parties to focus solely on academics or work as hard as they played most of the 47 lacrosse players were in the latter category and were viewed as something like big men on campus like fraternity Brothers even though they were not exactly a fraternity okay so they're kind of like this jockey popular whatever crowd of guys right relaxers as the players were called were considered to be the most desired and most confident men on campus in Rolling Stone magazine Janet Reitman said quote they're fun and they're hot oh wow I bet you spent a lot of time checking these pictures out didn't you no I would never do that they're too young others saw them as full of arrogance they urinated out windows kicked in doors of homes and were disruptive with their parties the laxers were known for their elaborate tailgating on a Saturday morning pre-football keg parties binge drinking beer bonging costume wearing and foam machines were all part of the laxers Digs at this tailgating scene anytime foam machines are an integral part of your party equipment it's a good time yes right I've always wanted to get buckwild in a pool full of foam now have you ever been to a phone party you ever been somewhere where they cranked it up no I mean I know of those things and I've just never went to one okay we're gonna I'm going to rent the phone gear and we're going to have a phone party here at the house just didn't seem very hygienic to me a foam kind of weirds me I don't like foam I don't seek foam out I don't want it in my beer I don't want to be overly sudsy when I'm washing my hands you know I've never been like well we don't want to be like sort of sudsy and then like foamy and like touching strangers now your son Zane could be the foam guy who runs the equipment and because he loves foam right he does he will use the entire bottle of hand soap to make foam he loves all that now they had a pit for booth soap dancing and we're among the most popular tailgate tailgate attraction I will get that out like folks came from all around just to see what the lacrosse team was doing at the tailgate so they're throwing down this big banger party in the parking lot yeah before every game yes nice the football team was not very good so tailgating was the main attraction this Duke really ever had a good football team no but obviously Duke basketball is legendary yes Duke UNC rivalry is uh one of the biggest in uh in the country absolutely but both to the Tar Heels and the Blue Devils their football teams are mediocre yeah that's what I thought yeah I mean I've always been interested in college basketball I know very little about football I hate it but even I kind of thought that Duke had a shitty football team yeah I mean they're middle of the road you know they're not you know they're usually just middle of the road kind of they're not terrible you know what they say Dylan if you're not first or last well that's what they say that's what Ricky Bobby said yeah so they suck are they winners no well then they're losers a lot of students were falling down drunk by mid-afternoon and didn't bother showing up to the game at all now that's proper tailgating yes yes Athletics were divided at Duke some people felt a great sense of Pride with the top tier players and all the accolades that the teams earned yet other more serious students and faculty were ashamed about the emphasis on Sports some saw the university bending admission standards and misusing scholarship funds to build teams like lacrosse some professors saw the team members as the mostly well-to-do white boys who were already over represented at the school and would rather see the money poured into recruiting diverse students such as those from the Black and Hispanic Community they supported a club sports program one that didn't Focus so much on competitive competitiveness and what they felt was a culture of quote displacement of moral conduct ethical citizenship and personal integrity okay I just don't know I think you're gonna have I'm I don't know exactly how to say this I think you're gonna have trouble finding a lot of persons of color to recruit to the lacrosse team right possibly but I think the whole point of that what I just said Dylan is they wanted to get rid of the teams and have club sports oh right okay so I don't you must not have been listening to it so uh so it'd be more like a um so they were saying instead of the money being poured into the team it would just be poured into like academic scholarships and to help like get a diverse group of students okay like disenfranchised students who couldn't have you know the financial support or whatever to go to the school ah okay so it's not about the lacrosse team it's not about diversifying it it's about getting rid of it and reallocating that money for things that would benefit a more diverse group of people yeah that's exactly what I just said in the paragraph before yes Dylan yay you got it I understand now good so the lacrosse see [ __ ] me up I'm sorry the lacrosse players also boosted a certain social status having been born into affluent families they had attended North Eastern prep schools where lacrosse was huge and planned to make big money in fields like Investment Banking in 2005 to the Year 2006 eight of the ten seniors playing lacrosse plan to begin careers on Wall Street so The Stereotype persisted that they were rich kid entitled with big jock Swagger which doesn't sound like a fun combination to me no that sounds like a prick these sounds like people I would not really probably want to associate with or hang out with but I'm just saying I'm sure it's not true these ain't my peeps of every person on the team every person that plays lacrosse but I'm gonna guess a lot of them have a certain type of attitude and they're probably um rather uh like you said earlier rather arrogant um they know they're not going to play lacrosse professionally there is no I don't think there is such a thing not in this country anyway and they're just doing it's just it's all about it's linked to the prep schools and the prep high schools in the you know thirty thousand dollar a year K through 12 they've always been in these Elite schools treated a certain way where the teachers and staff bend over backwards they get away with murder so I could imagine this creates a certain type of young person man or woman on Monday March 13th of 2006 the captains of the Duke lacrosse team hosted a party that was to bring them a great deal of pain media attention and ultimately lose their coach a job the location was a rented house at 610 North Buchanan Boulevard in the Trinity Park neighborhood near East Campus also this would become known as the Evans Flannery zash house oh of course I mean that makes total sense well it will when we get into our story it was spring break and the campus was largely deserted yet most lacrosse players had returned Sunday night to campus after beating Loyola College 9-7 in San Diego in order to resume practice so Monday morning the team had a light running and then a weightlifting practice so despite the fact that it's spring break like they're still training they're still on campus they're still lacrosse and baby they are still lacrosse and according to team tradition they needed to have a bonding party that week Duke students were living it up on much needed spring break trips right people were hanging out in like Panama City Mexico like Cabo whatever and then these guys are just stuck on campus and the only vacation that they really had was a rainy trip to San Diego to play yeah it never rains in southern California but just that one time yeah and I'm sure you know they're all about business they're going to play so they don't get much time to themselves so it probably doesn't feel like much of a trip at all feels like work the year before the team had gone to teasers gentlemen's club along with a dozen members of the women's team yet the local strip club had began cracking down on fake IDs many of the younger players would be turned away or didn't even have like a fake at all some of the seniors had an idea how about we bring the strippers to the team what a great idea you don't think that's a good idea so let's take the stripper out of the club into a private setting where we can have our own party and it doesn't matter who's under age or what we're drinking or what drugs we're doing great plan well you know this kind of thing happens all the time I would I would counsel against this if I was one of the members of the team you would I think it's a terrible idea what if your buddy was getting married and it was a bachelor party would you advise against it then I don't want to go to it I don't want to do it I've seen too many uh movies where the stripper like somebody accidentally gets killed right very bad thing yeah about the movie with um John Favreau and all of them Cameron Diaz very bad things if you've never seen that movie you've got to watch it because it is uh it's yeah somebody's gonna accidentally get killed it's a very dark comedy something crazy is going to happen and now we're gonna have a body we have to give I remember not particularly liking that movie when I first saw it I haven't seen it in years I should re-watch Dan Flannery did an online search for female escort services he actually had to try several before he got someone on the phone like the first two had been disconnected so he was able to reach Allure escort services and Bunny hole entertainment bunny hole Yeah that's great so they're having trouble getting into teasers to see the strippers in the club yeah so now they've been forced to contact bunny hole entertainment yes an escort service okay when Flannery called a lure he gave them a low ball number he said between 20 to 30 men might be there and he requested white dancers for the party okay about 15 minutes later a lure phoned down to say they had two women in their late 20s one Hispanic and the other with brown hair and blonde highlights their measurements were 36 25 35 and for 400 each the dancers would show up at 11 and perform for two hours okay that's a fair rate I think yeah Flannery agreed to the terms and presented a credit card but then he told them his last name was Flanagan because he was worried about identity theft however this will come back and buy him so that's okay that means the payment's not going to go through right seems like to me if you gave him the wrong name on the card um he paid well I think this was like a deposit and he paid the dancers in cash okay gotcha yeah later law enforcement will suggest this was a conspiracy by players to conceal their identity all part of this master plan they had from Jump Street okay so just keep that in mind because we are talking about a crime Dylan I think you forgot we were talking about crime when you heard bunny home entertainment well yeah that name alone is Criminal well the basketball team had only two weeks before hired strippers for their own party in the 2005 to 2006 year it was reported that fraternity sorority and athletic teams had hired strippers for more than 20 parties wow so this is not an isolated event at campus parties so this isn't uncommon no okay certainly folks should keep in mind right coach Pressler that is the lacrosse coach had handed out ten thousand dollars in cash to players that morning for meal money around 500 per player because like the cafeteria is closed they're going to have to make do for the week poor kids that's a lot of money how in the hell are they going to make it it's like booster money or something how in the hell are they gonna eat for a week on 500 as a young person terrible Jesus Flannery's roommate David Evans had already called some of the players to come over for a cookout which many were already at this house drinking kind of earlier in the evening the idea was to have some fun and blow off steam while the others were away at the cookout some guys were betting their meal money on beer pong others were drinking Ryan McFadden didn't have uh any beers instead he was like I'm just gonna show up and eat and then he was heading back to the gym to work out again like afterwards and then he planned that he would get a ride back after he worked out to the party so he's not even like drinking at this party right a lot of the players were but then there were other players who weren't even at the party and this is all going to be important this sounds like a fun party Dylan they were grilling playing beer pong washers which sounds like a very similar game to beer pong okay listening to music and just having a good time according to Ryan McFadden you know I've never played beer pong you haven't now have you yeah I don't like it yeah that's too much it's stupid under a stream up here I don't want to have to like think I mean that's not the whole point in playing a drinking game or try yeah I don't want to do all that you're just drinking that's not for me yeah I don't need I don't need to accomplish some other goal to take a drink no no I'm just drinking bro I'm like someone I don't need to play darts to drink I don't need to do any of that I don't need to have other goals okay if drinking is my goal or like just hell bent on their beer koozies I'm like I've never in my life needed a beer koozie because my beer does not get warm in my hand so is everybody chilling and hanging out Flannery walks around the party and he starts taking up a collection of 25 dollars from player to pay for these different dicks that were coming over around 6 10 p.m Melissa from the Allure agency called Kim Roberts who was also known as Kim Pittman Kim was a biracial woman she's half black half Korean who've been working for about six months at this agency and she was also a single mom she had been in trouble for embezzling from a previous employer Kim had gotten into trouble for a parole violation when she had ran off to California she had an outstanding warrant for her arrest but came back to Durham anyway with few job prospects dancing was a way to get steady work and pay the bills she was under the impression that this was a bachelor party with maybe around 15 men okay she assumed it was older men at the party because again it's a bachelor party so she's like oh this will be a mature group and she knew she was going to be working with a more experienced dancer in case things got out of control so she went to Priscilla's to buy an outfit and I got tickled because I know Priscilla's it's Priscilla McCall's yeah I have them like all over Raleigh and Durham I've seen him before yeah yeah so I just kind of that made me laugh because when she said I was like Priscilla McCalls I always have like the Billboards when she first arrived at the house Kim saw it was a Duke party and didn't know if she wanted to stay there were a lot of young men around so instead of just like pulling up she kind of circled around the block before parking and taking a few minutes to observe the situation so she's taking the scene in trying to see what she can figure out maybe get an idea of how if the party's already really Rowdy or something to that effect which seems smart it is smart and and I I could see her if she thinks it's a bachelor party I could see her um being a bit aggravated that no it's indeed a college party which is quite different exactly and it's information that you probably would have liked to had beforehand Flannery came out to meet her and he is sure her things would not get too crazy and told her they were all graduate students she told him she was a UNC Chapel Hill graduate which was also a lie so they're just mutually lying to each other and that the other girl would be arriving shortly now according to Flannery Kim Pittman was sober alert and seemed eager to start working they waited about another 30 minutes for the second dancer Crystal Mangum to show up so Kim goes inside the house and she ends up in David Evans room where he makes her a drink of whiskey and Diet Pepsi she collected her four hundred dollars and at some point she goes outside to smoke with Dan Flannery that's right you always get paid up front for sex work the players were surprised when Crystal Mangum showed up and she was African-American okay right quick is it is it improper to call this sex work a stripper yeah no that's fine okay I didn't want to be rude no it is sex work yeah okay so now um you have a biracial girl yes and now the other stripper is African-American yes which is he requested white girls yes okay I can see this already causing a bit of an issue now Kim Pittman could pass for his like the lady of phone had said um but again they had specifically asked for white dancers so at first there was some initial discussion about this show and whether it should proceed given that the dancers were not quite what they had requested right you know like can we do this is it gonna work out like what's gonna happen here and I wouldn't necessarily view this as like a racist thing or anything people have people like what they like I don't think do you think it's weird to request raised or is it any different than saying I want some blondes or brunettes do you think it's a normal thing I think it rides a line you think it's like I I only want to see white girls well because I'm thinking and well yeah I mean if you want to see dancers what does it matter I mean my attitudes who care like bring on the you know bring them on woohoo yeah bring up I mean women are beautiful so I would just be happy especially these dudes I'd just be happy that women showed up I was about to say right they should be glad anyone's willing to even come over to their dumbass party exactly and perform and I'm all for whatever beautiful woman shows up it doesn't matter to me so yeah well that's how I feel like there was it's borderline I don't I mean I feel weird I wouldn't say this isn't racist because yeah I mean I think to an extent yeah it's not okay I mean they should just be happy Rob we'll just call and say do you have any girls available and if they were like yeah sure um I'd be like send them over I wouldn't be like I only want one with a peg leg right I guess not yeah unless that's your thing which you know yes I mean you were mentioning preferences I hope they all both need to have a glass eye one in the left one in the right that's kind of hot if she popped it out dude chicks with a eye patch oh yeah [ __ ] hot eye patches are hot like the Daryl Hannah like I've never particularly thought she was that hot but Daryl Hannah with her eye patch and killed Bill like does things to me she went up her on the hot scale like three points she totally did it's very hot so when Crystal arrives Flannery would later say that the single mother of two arrives at the party and that she was already drunk and high she could hardly stand up and her words were incomprehensible guys on the team were commenting on how high she seemed to be wow so you have one girl who seems to be more professional incredibly professional shows up ready ready to get to business she's checking the scene out making sure about what's what uh you know kind of negotiating with him and then the other girl very unprofessional shows up drunk and high yes because honestly this is work this is being done for money and you should you should be uh professional professional about it Flannery went around alerting everyone that the show was about to begin and encouraging folks like to come inside into the living room where the show's going to start come forth and seek it they filed into the living room Flannery told everyone quote both girls are here and they're chocolate yeah he's a piece of [ __ ] Devin Sherwood the only black player on the team said hell yeah bring them in so I was like hey at least somebody there is in good spirits right the one black guy's like yeah bring on the girls that aren't White yeah these they they're they're under that's why it's like now this we're just point at having to say that they're chocolate you know or saying I mean who the [ __ ] are you dude that's he's gross this is gross you're right yeah the whole thing is gross it feels gross Crystal who is going by precious and Kim as Nikki went to the back of the house to collect the other four hundred dollars for crystal okay so now I'm gonna call him by their dancer names Nikki told Dan Flannery the men needed to be respectful and cited that they did seem to be respectful she's like they seem to be okay guys but I don't want anybody acting up and if anybody starts acting a fool like we're getting the [ __ ] out of here like I'm just here to tell you my stripper name would be sassy it would be yeah it's kind of lame you think Sassy's lame yeah I don't think that's good what what do you think of star cinnamon cinnamon ooh yeah kind of spicy we are because if you get a big mouthful of me you're going to be choking but rare because you know that's not a super pop I mean what do you really use cinnamon for besides like baking ah the cinnamon challenge baby once you come take the cinnamon challenge with this big boy over here yeah yeah right yeah okay okay send them I'm cinnamon hey guys I'm about to shake his Fanny for you you should I shouldn't use the word Fanny bro why can't you just say in your normal voice because oh yeah so I'd be like well I'll be like I could be a DJ at a strip club I'd be like welcome to the stage coming to the stage saffron get your dollars ready fellas I can do that right yeah sure why not okay you are looking for a new career it's true it could work but you have a list Dylan would be like and you know welcome to the stage saffron and then he'd crank up like the saddest Avett Brothers song yeah Dawn would be like only one jamming in the corner by himself yeah like the strippers crying before she gets done with her set yeah thanks Dylan yeah no excuse me cinnamon whatever DJ Cinnamon okay so she's like I don't anybody acting up and damn Flannery assured her that the guys would be on the bill and that the women would be fine and safe the women changed into costumes and that's when precious um you know puts on her outfit and they realize that she has like a kind of a cut on her knee and foot that she had like before she got there so they noticed that she has uh some kind of a wound yes okay it's noticeable yes okay and the show began for about 25 guys who were crammed into this very small living room it's not a huge house Nikki felt the show was going well Nikki noticed the guys weren't just drinking beer but then sees a bottle of Jack Daniels making the rounds it kind of starts to make her feel uncomfortable right she's like oh they're bringing out the harm liquor I don't know about this she's supposed to be there two hours so in two hours atmosphere can change considerably yes but the women began simulating like an oral sex scene wow damn right getting 800 worth Flannery recalled that throughout this little uh play or improv this fall sex act they were faux yes that they were doing that precious the crystal dancer that Crystal Mangum she just seemed totally out of it like she wasn't into it she seemed sloppy and drunk and kind of fallen down and it was noticeable like she's intoxicated I saw a burlesque show at a birthday party at midnight one time like that was about like that the performer was uh drunk yeah she was almost uh but actually she sucked it up and she pulled it off yeah no one noticed well he said her movements were kind of wishy-washy like she was just really [ __ ] up on something his words so she's like uh like nail taying the wind with the arms and [ __ ] okay yeah sure she's just totally lost it sure Nikki took off her bra but never the underwear of her outfit precious had only pulled her top halfway down so this performance some thought was kind of sloppy and pretty lackluster I'm considering they had paid 800 for this show I must say 800 of the Fairly stiff amount for uh it's a big amount for a two-hour show well and also just the sloppy performance because precious seems very intoxicated or oh okay Precious it's Crystal yeah so these guys are just feeling like they got ripped off because they're like that's this is it like this is the show so that starts rumbling through the crowd I would say yeah well according to Nevada guys start to get Rowdy and one of them asks did y'all bring any sex toys and according to her one of the guys grabbed a broomstick and said use this no see no this is when some of the other guys are supposed to wait a [ __ ] minute hold on just no no foreign objects I'm not having any part of this well she felt unsafe and wanted to get out of the situation I don't blame her well by this point there are words kind of being exchanged like she says to one of them because your dick's too small to do it or something like that so you know whatever they're kind of yelling things back and forth and that's when Kim grows angry and she tells them y'all are disrespecting me and I said no disrespect and so the whole atmosphere the whole thing's kind of going off the rails a little bit and that's when she tells Dan Flannery she wanted to leave so Kim grabbed Crystal and they headed to David Evans bedroom Flannery and Evans along with two other players follow along to the bedroom and they're apologizing the guys on the team were upset and felt they had gotten ripped off for the 800 and the guys were just trying to explain like we're so sorry but they kind of feel like they've been ripped off you performed for like two minutes hardly got naked it's eight hundred dollars come on you know and you know they felt like they were getting hustled because again these women had not even performed for five minutes oh wow and this is like a two-minute thing and it was like uncoordinated and kind of sloppy yes so the women went to Kim's car where Crystal continues yelling and screaming making a scene this is according to everyone at the party frustrated by the scene outside David um Evans he goes back inside and he tells everybody everybody's got to leave because there's commotion outside and at this point um you know the police are going to come and break the party up and we don't want that so we just need everybody to go home now you don't want Cops to come when you have strippers outside fighting about money yeah so at this point Evans is still because they're causing a huge scene outside so they're like it's over it's just basically over everybody just to clear out we'll regroup figure it out yes and just talk about the time we got ripped off by the strippers so there's a barrage of racial like verbal assaults being thrown around Kim yells quote limp dick white boys you had to pay for us to these players that was a good one um of course then the team members are saying things back to these women um and then Kim tells them this is a hate crime and I'm calling the police oh no yeah so she did call the police to report what had happened but she didn't give her name um she said she was driving by Duke this house and that these players were yelling racial like racial slurs and she was like there's probably not anything you can do about it but I'm just so upset and wanted to call and let you know wow so she's a misconstruing the entire situation two Yeah by just acting like she's just passing by and these guys are hauling she's not being 100 truthful but remember she doesn't want to give him her name because she has an outstanding warrant well then don't call the cops I'm not being mean now she's feeling unsafe or it feels in danger obviously reach out for help but I mean they're the look at this situation again as in being in the mindset of a sex worker these types of dumb things happen you know the guys always be worked up and Goofy and you know [ __ ] even just get out of there get crystals don't you know drunk ass stuff her in the car and leave that's the safest thing to do this whole words back and forth and I'm not saying anybody had a right to use any racial slurs obviously and I'm sure they started getting hurled because we already had the undertones you have a bunch of rich white Pricks let's be honest um but just yeah stuff crystal in the car and get the hell out of there well by this time crystal is stuffed in the car and she's totally passed out at this point nice that is when Kim drove to a 24-hour Kroger parking lot where she asked a security guard to help her with Crystal she's like there was this drunk lady in my car I need help getting her out she won't get out of my car and Kim made it sound like well I'll get to that in a minute so the the security guard calls the police and they come down to help Crystal get out of this car now there's an officer in the meantime who had gone to that North Buchanan Street address to check out the report of someone yelling racial slurs but by this point he finds it completely quiet it's abandoned there's no one around nearly everyone had left for home or to nearby bars the same officer is the one who went to Kroger to take this call oh he's already in the area yes okay now Kim that she and Crystal walking near Ed her up because she felt This Woman's life could be in danger and that she was intoxicated so it took officers about 45 minutes to figure out she was lying and that the women had met at the party earlier where they were hired to strip yeah I mean if anybody if you they go back and talk to anyone around that address you know this is gonna it's just really dumb to lie in this situation I think well due to Crystal's level of intoxication and lack of any kind of ID I mean she was so drunk she didn't know her address her phone number anybody to call she was completely unhelpful to police so they decided to admit her to Durham Access Center which is a halfway house sort of emergency room setting for indigents with substance abuse and psychological crisis Crystal Mangum met the criteria for involuntary commitment as she was aggressive she was fighting the cops and she wasn't able to speak or walk she had gone to jail like had she gone to jail sorry for a 24-hour hold it might have changed the course of what happened because crystal mangum's children she had two children they were home alone asleep while she was out working oh my God Crystal so she told the officer that her children were home alone once she got to the center and that's when this discussion came up about your kids are home alone she starts to realize like oh [ __ ] you can't do that that's neglect I can't let him know my kids are home alone they could be taken from me you know and that's when she tells the intake clerk at the center that she had been raped oh my God okay now in that moment the situation where she might lose her kids and face criminal charges Slipped Away to perform a sexual assault examination on the ride to Duke Hospital Crystal Mangum told the driver about how Kim had stolen two thousand dollars of her money her purse and her ID but she said nothing on this car ride about the alleged rape that had just happened supposedly right around 2 45 a.m Crystal Mangum told the female officer at the hospital that she was a stripper who'd been hired for a party at North Buchanan they put on a show for the men and then went outside got into Nikki's car she said someone from the party wanted them to come back in but she didn't want to go and that Kim AKA Nikki had wanted to go back inside to make more money but Crystal did not want to go she said some of the men pulled her out of the car and groped her but none had raped her the officer called his Watch Commander to say that the woman had recanted the rape story Crystal then said no she was raped but refused to talk to this officer further she said something about being dragged into a bathroom and raped like but she wasn't really speaking very directly or coherently about it right she's kind of came around a little bit and realized that she's in a hairy situation it seems like but she's still quite intoxicated I'm sure well this officer initially felt this woman was lying the female officer that was also present her Crystal's version that five men had raped her in the bathroom at the North Buchanan House crystal then revised her story to say she may have deposited some of the missing money into her bank account earlier so perhaps that all the 2000 hadn't been stolen it was just some of it maybe so could you imagine from the investigator's point of view you're looking into this and this girl's all over the place but you also wonder because she is really drunk maybe she's just kind of confusing maybe something really did happen and she's just having trouble conveying exactly the the events so I don't know I would I could imagine they're kind of not sure what to think about this a nurse conducted a sexual assault test kit and while this lady is asking her questions and they're kind of going through all the questionnaire part of it Crystal tells her she has been raped the nurse noted that Crystal did seem anxious when asked about her Pain Scale she said it was a 10 but the nurse was able to determine there was no acute pain she told a doctor there was pain in her vagina but the doctor found no evidence of vaginal pain like during the exam after this exam police determined the house and property fell under Duke's jurisdiction and should be handled by the University's Police Department in the Duke police report the officer noted quote Crystal Mangum was claiming to be raped by approximately 20 males at 610 North Buchanan Street noting that Crystal had changed her story multiple times Durham Police considered this and said there would likely be no charge other than maybe a misdemeanor simple assault of the house occupants if there was any charge at all because you know the initial officers like This Woman's changing her story I don't know if I believe her and this is the University police's assessment yes the police okay when they get the report from the Durham Police Department yeah now despite transferring the case to the Duke police Durham's Police Department continues to make inquiries about this around 7 A.M a sane nurse which means sexual assault nurse examiner met with Crystal Purdue Hospital's policy all victims must meet with a trained certified sexual assault nurse so according to her one of them and then this is according to Crystal one of the men whose name was Brett had asked for a threesome she declined she was then dragged into the bathroom by Brett and a guy named Adam also a man she thought was named Matt yeah and we also must remember now she's in the Duke University Hospital now yes in Duke University Hospital and UNC Chapel Hills Hospital their world renowned for how good they are yes everything's Cutting Edge my mom lives there um and they found a cancer in her very very early on colon cancer and I'm I'm certain saved her life and uh so they're just this is very she's in a very um very prestigious hospital so she's getting the best care at this point absolutely now according to Crystal they ordered her to take her clothes off what she was wearing they then proceeded to rape her vaginally orally and anally she even told the nurse that was the reason her breath smelled bad because of the oral sex Crystal could not be sure if the man had used condoms but she thought they had not she said all three men had ejaculated but wiped her down with a rag in the bathroom afterwards Dr Julie Manley did the pelvic exam taking swabs of Crystal's vagina mouth and rectal area she also collected blood skin and saliva samples these would prove to be essential pieces of evidence in the weeks to follow the only physical trauma on Crystal's body were three small scratches on her leg which again she had these before dancing but they don't know that right she said she had intercourse one week before without a condom but had not had intercourse recently with anybody right so that's outside the window yes of someone else's sperm being present in her vaginal area right okay the pelvic exam took over an hour because Crystal kept screaming out with extreme pain though the doctor noted she had no outward signs of pain meaning like sweating facial distress changes in vital symptoms due to this the sexual assault team they were not able to complete this exam so there was no pelvic or rectal exam no forensic toxicology report or blood test taken oh wow wow that's a big deal now I would imagine in this if you've been forcibly raped by one person let alone multiple people up to five it seems to me like there would be quite a bit of trauma yes it seems like there'd be visible traumas so maybe tearing or bruising it seems like you would have fingerprint bruises starting to come up all over your arms and legs so yeah this is very interesting the doctor did find a white substance some kind of a vaginal discharge which she did not mention on the report she didn't test the fluid for semen and would later say it was likely from a yeast or some other kind of vaginal infection doctor yeah I kind of thought Crystal might have a yeast infection I'm not being mean I'm not being mean she seems kind of whoa hmm okay well showing up sloppy drunk for one and now she's doing all this is some and now she's doing all this I mean she's lying so you're saying that lioness woman's gonna have yeast infection I just think Chris I'm sorry Yet Dylan will you just stop I don't even know what she talking about but you're gonna have a lot of hate from women out there she did have vaginal swelling which could be caused by sex it could also be caused by having sex within 24 hours of the exam smoking using flexeril a Flexeril a muscle relaxant which we will find out later that Crystal had taken Flexeril and also antidepressants could cause this it is known that Crystal had used a vibrator had sex with her driver and may have had a yeast infection prior to March 14th so that information she has divulged or would divulge later despite the lack of physical evidence the nurse was sure Crystal had been raped all other medical professionals who examined Crystal noted her body was normal and that she seemed to have no obvious discomfort but this nurse wrote in her notes that Crystal showed signs of rape trauma starting in which she began screaming at a male nurse who entered the room and this is the same nurse the the specialty sexual assault yes and oh by the way she same nurse but she but she's not a full y certified in training in training yes okay but I gotta imagine her opinion carries a lot of weight yeah right right she was released around 1 pm on Tuesday and told to check in with her primary care doctor regarding any bacteria that might be in her throat anus mouth or cervix Crystal called a Durham police detective to inquire about her stolen property she believed Kim Roberts had taken her purse and her money and I believe a shoe um so she is telling the this detective this woman has stolen my stuff I want to get it back but at no point in the conversation did she mention being raped or assaulted the night before Okay so okay that's a valid point I mean if you had just been you know horribly raped by multiple people or one person seems like you would that would be your uh foremost thought not getting your property back she made an appointment with this investigator to discuss the you know the what she felt like was a stolen purse and her stolen money but she ended up missing that appointment with the investigator now I really need that one chew back because I have this other shoe and I really like the shoes and I don't know how why I have just the one shoe but she needs to get my shoe back the assistant dean of students was informed of the allegations by Duke police soon the coach Mike Pressler was called the team was at an annual bowling tournament when he received this phone call that is when Pressler confirmed confronted his four co-captains so the news is kind of spreading yes he said quote I told them they were being charged with rape he said in an interview with Men's Health Magazine quotes and look I was livid that they'd had a party livid but when I told them they were being accused of rape the absolute look of astonishment in their eyes told me they were innocent okay now according to Pressler he spent every day with those boys he knew their parents their brothers and sisters they spent time in his house with his family and he didn't believe these allegations were true so he feels like he knows these young men very very well yes and that he would I mean I guess that's a point to make as a group you say hey look this is what's happening this is what this is turning into um I think their genuine reaction you should be able to make a call on that for the most part right whether you believe them or not I mean it depends it would be tricky I mean it would be like if your child was accused of something or your best friend or your like someone you spend a lot of time with and you could argue all day this is an amazing person but they could still be a creep that's true and I'm sure you know John Wayne Gacy's wife was like my husband's great or whatever I don't know was it cliche of the neighbor their friend or family to say they I never could imagine they would do that and it's the same in this instance exactly so again I don't know I mean it's a tough call because people are capable of doing very very shitty things to others and sometimes if it's someone you're close with or believe in your judgment is clouded yes yes Sue was waziolet assistant dean of students told the players not to lawyer up this is her advice she told them not to tell anyone about this situation including their parents and that she didn't think the charges would stick because the victim was quote unreliable Dan Flannery who had been on this phone call with waziolic would say quote we believed albeit falsely that these people would look after our best entrance our interests sorry in accordance to her advice because again she's the assistant like dean of students right so she's right she's got a pretty important role at the school they take her advice and they don't tell their parents and they don't contact any attorneys and they're just uh waiting to see what happens next yeah and just trying to be cooperative and just do what they're told at this point Mangum returned to North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill with complaints of neck pain so this is like the following day after she's been released that morning so this would probably be like late afternoon when are they going to talk to the other dancer well we'll get to that because that that should quickly solve it in my book she told the doctor she had been raped at a party and was not feeling uh very well um and had no pain when it happened because she was intoxicated but that now she was you know sober and was having this very painful neck couldn't turn her neck whatever injury and they sent her to X-ray and they prescribed her Flexeril which seems like she really likes this because she had had Flexeril before the party along with I believe a beer which she's getting more Flexeril could explain why she seemed so out of it yeah because Flexeril and muscle where the other muscle relaxers don't really mix with alcohol very well so the doctor noted that due to Crystal's bipolar disorder and past history of high-risk narcotics abuse she should not be prescribed anything for pain that the muscle relaxant would suffice by the following day um after the alleged rape Durham Police were focusing on the incident despite having turned it over to Duke police Crystal Mangum was working as a stripper at Platinum Pleasures near Hillsboro and going to school at North Carolina Central University she also worked at Angel's escort service but explained to law enforcement that she was only a dancer and not a prostitute in the days following police interviewed her at home and she seemed to have difficulty walking and was propped up on the couch with pillows so that her buttocks was almost like raised up off the sofa okay and police were noting this and when she like got up to answer the door and led them back of the house like she was wobbling gingerly moving and seemed like she was in a lot of pain they gave her a photo lineup with some of the lacrosse players pictures but the only person she could identify was a player named Reed Seligman she told them during the assault that she'd broken four of her red fingernails off in to the bathroom of the men she identified several had not been at the party at all Durham Police did not seem to be phased at all that she couldn't pick out faces from this photo lineup well maybe they're considering the fact that she was intoxicated while she was there and maybe they're just thinking to her but they don't know that oh I mean not necessarily because they didn't do blood draw that's true I mean they might know that she was but they don't know exactly how intoxicated so they're just uh even though it's been turned over Duke the University Police they're still moving and forging ahead with their own investigation which in a way I think smart police work because you had it originally you know you keep you don't want anything to get missed or go cold but it seems I don't know it seems like they're intent on making this a case would you say that yes okay a search warrant was drawn up and there were 12 items specifically that the police wanted to find DNA evidence such as blood semen hair saliva they were looking for a blue rug like a bathroom rug mangum's lost money her purse missing shoe four fake fingernails and photographs or digital images from the party which might be on phones computers cameras wow and I would say if they found any of that evidence it would be damning on the warrant the crimes were listed as first-degree forcible rape first degree kidnapping first degree forcible sexual offense common law robbery and felonious strangulation wow on March 16th the warrant was signed by a magistrate it was around 8 47 PM that two officers went to the Buchanan address um the gentleman zash I say gentlemen uh he's a player on the team his last name is Ash he um explained that the woman's person items had been outside the house on the grass after the party and that he had brought them in for safekeeping zash agreed to go to the station and he ended up giving a five-page written statement about what had happened on the nine in question so he's very Cooperative Dan Flannery signed a non-custody form and wrote out a six-page statement about what had happened from his perspective David Evans who's the third roommate at this house also signed a non-custody form and wrote a seven page statement about the night's events one of the detectives told Flannery he should tell his parents and they should get lawyers yeah and so they're writing all these uh rather big statements multiple pages and by the way by the way days after the party before police are getting statements from these men or have interviewed them at all they just show up at their house with a search warrant three days after yes oh and they're they're making all these statements without the um advice of attorneys exactly wow the three men then agreed to a voluntary suspect kit process at Duke hospital each player gave samples of blood hair saliva and pubic hair samples each agreed to be photographed they all three agreed to submit to polygraphs though law enforcement told them that wasn't necessary Flannery and Evans had told one of the investigators that a guy named Kevin Coleman had been taking pictures at the party that night including ones of Crystal being passed out on the back porch and that they would get copies for the police okay and I've seen these pictures really yeah they're on the internet wow and she is like kind of sprawled out on the back porch that's not I mean I don't know I don't find that like when people are passed out like I don't think it's funny and I don't think I wouldn't be taking pictures I guess soon after the police released the information about the rape on a digital bulletin board soon the story was making its way around to administrators at Duke University Chris Kennedy who was head of the Athletics program told the three players to call their parents and hire lawyers he was very frustrated that they had not done this despite um having been given this advice from the assistant dean of students yeah he was like no I don't care what she told you you need to call your parents and you need to get lawyers like what are y'all thinking this is crazy this is not cool I mean that would be my first thought I don't care what anyone told me us if I especially if I'm innocent my first thing would be to contact my parents and say yeah we need uh we need a high power lawyer okay so this is where things are gonna get a little murky Dylan an attorney brought in by Dean waziolic now that's the lady that is the assistant dean of students that told them do not hire a lawyer don't tell your parents we're going to keep this under wraps for now she brings in an attorney his name is j Wesley Covington and he is here to handle any potentially embarrassing legal problems waziolic said he was a wonderful attorney with lots of experience yet the truth was he had little experience as a criminal attorney at all also he had been disbarred in 2000 for ethical violations so he wasn't even licensed to practice law in North Carolina what the hell Covington also told the young men y'all just need to lay low and not worry about hiring attorneys if you just follow the Duke University Playbook as it's laid out for you everything's going to be okay now do you think I'm starting to think the assistant Dean's true intent was to keep this quiet and her bigger concern was Duke and the university I believe so right okay later court documents filed by The Athlete's attorneys will say quote Covington was careful never to enter into a formal client attorney relationship with most of the players or their parents while repeatedly advising them and urging them to allow him to work on their behalf and to not retain other counsel while secretly acting on behalf of Duke University and its administrators that's messed up that's super messed up and here's here's the thing I'm saying and here's the slime ball who would do something like this because this this is the reason he's disbarred because this is unethical the Duke Chronicle which I believe is the school newspaper break the story officially on Sunday night which was nearly a week later after the party had taken place it it took place on Monday night so this is almost a week later finally Kim Roberts was contacted by police so it took a long time to get her on the phone dude that would have been like two hours into this I'd be like okay I need to talk to the other dancer I want to talk to everyone at the party and that's not that's the first thing we do now finally they are able to get him on the phone and she tells them what happened and how she had been with Crystal for the whole night save for maybe five minutes when she could not get Crystal to leave the house okay like she's having to kind of like sorry physically like try to drag her to the car you're right she said the rape allegation was quote a Croc okay agreeing to mate lighter for a formal statement Kim didn't show up to talk to police and they had to track her down while trying to locate Kim detectives spoke with Brian Taylor who happened to be a friend of Crystal mangums who had driven her to the party that night he said she had a beer and a half at his house and he wasn't sure about the drugs okay well beer and a half's not going to get her into the state she was in when she arrived I think everybody agrees including Kim that she was tore down so okay a Durham attorney named Robert eckstrand had heard the players were cooperating and willing to give up these DNA cheek swabs without legal representation and he was so angry when he heard this he I believe he was also like a Duke alumni and he hears the story and he is like what and then he finds out this guy Covington is sort of offering legal advice to these boys through the administration and he is like this guy's mad so he sets about calling the parents of all the players yeah so this Covington is that the grease ball lawyer guy so yeah he's uh careful not to enter into an official relationship with the so that means they have no attorney client privilege and but they're divulging yeah the all the inside info to him right so that yeah so excellent he gets on the phone and he's calling all the parents and for many it was the first time they'd heard anything about the party or the rape charges so you can imagine these parents are beside themselves I bet these parents are pissed yes since the dating coach had gone along with not telling the parents or hiring legal counsel these families were shocked I mean they were just like what is going on at this school when Kim Roberts finally agreed to sit down she wrote out a seven page statement for police then she was served with the warrant for the parole violation that she had right the statement didn't say the allegation was a Croc but did back up that they were together for most of the night later some of the players attorneys would argue that Durham Police tried to make a deal with Roberts that if she would alter her version of what had happened that night to create a fictional window of opportunity where it might have been plausible for Crystal to be raped in exchange for possibly like you know dropping these charges the other legal charges or the other charges she had before yeah police wanted to get a judge to sign off on a non-testimonial order which would require lacrosse players to submit to DNA testing if they would not voluntarily give up the DNA then a judge could force them to do it the order would require 46 team members excluding the one black player to give up DNA they would also need to submit to upper body photographs which could show potential injuries what their current hairstyle is to make it a little easier in a lineup and to get a good idea of their injuries right right in order to establish probable calls for this nto the paperwork stated that the victim told police she'd been raped and sexually assaulted at the Buchanan Street address when they had met her at Kroger but she had not made the Declaration until later in the evening when she realized that involuntary commitment was on the play so I think the whole time people are kind of forgetting that part of the story that she did not begin with the saying she was raped yes right once the nto was signed the players showed up at the forensic lab most of the young men had bruises and scratches on their bodies from playing lacrosse it's a rather this is like a week later yeah they've been practicing they've been beating the [ __ ] out of each other and so none of these injuries are likely from a week before yeah right I mean it would be hard to differentiate what could have come from this party and what happened on the field lacrosse is a I like in it in my head to kind of rugby because there is a whole lot of contact and there's very little very little padding exactly uh Reed Seligman the the one guy that she said with certainty had been one of the one of the guys right had a bruise down his arm from practice and police were photographing it and documenting his arms saying things like get a picture of this you got to get a picture of the spruce what now I wonder why the um now you think this is just one of the case with the Durham Police when they just said they have a theory and they think they're right yes and they're going to tunnel vision it out I think so and then we're gonna get into another big player in the story that's coming up and I'm very detailed on the first part of this because I just think it's such interesting background and all the details and it helps us better understand what's happening oh I I certainly remember this case it was a it was a big case especially here in North Carolina and uh um but I did not know any of these details so thank you once the media got this story it was like catnip there were many preconceived notions in the press the stories focused around racism classism sexism the district attorney Mike Nifong this guy is going to play a huge role in this case he was up for re-election and trailing badly in the polls behind his opponent free to Black which this was in an upcoming primary race for the Democratic district attorney seat oh my gosh Nifong who had been named to the seat just previously to fill in for someone who had left had fired free to Black the year before so if she won she would probably return the favor and fire him two years before he was to get his maximum monthly pension payments so like he can't lose this election you know I've always had issue with the DA's and judges and things like that having a uh being political I I honestly think it should be simply merit-based I don't think we need to know our D.A and judges uh whether they're Republican or Democrat personally I think we should go off of how they act and Rule from the bench and how they carry themselves at the table as the D.A do you agree or do you think the politics matter I'm not getting into all that right now okay but that's a a great question that we can discuss later oh wow now many think Nifong took charge of the Duke case to increase visibility when his campaign was losing steam Nifong told his campaign manager that this case would be worth a million dollars of free advertising and boy he wasn't wrong and see this is the exact reason I disagree with it being done like that because it gives them a motivation to you try to get political Capital out of the case so let's talk about Crystal Mangum for a few moments Dylan like she's at the center of the story let's learn a little bit about her she was born in Durham the youngest of three children raised in a working class neighborhood in 1996 she graduated from Hillside High School on August 18th of 1996 Mangum reported to police in Creedmoor North Carolina that in June of 1993 when she was 14 she had been gang raped by men who lived in a house on Hillsborough Street an officer told her she would need to write out a detailed chronicological sorry chronological chronicological I was like wow it's like a Dylan word chronological that's how you say that yeah yeah like the other day when you said it was minimalizing minimalizing and I said do you mean minimizing and you were like no minimalizing I need to minimalize it well this is chronicologically Dylan okay so if she writes out this chronicological um look it's light she's trying to minimalize her her actual involvement yeah so if she would write out this report on what had happened then they would be able to pursue charges but Crystal never did that the men were never arrested and the matter was dropped she enlisted in the Navy in 1996 and spent two years on active duty six years on reserve duty she moved to Virginia Beach where Virginia Beach where she went to school to learn to operate radios and navigation equipment in 1997 she married Kenneth McNeil he was illiterate and Crystal taught him how to read and one thing that he said even though at this point in time they were divorced is that she was like a very gentle teacher and like never judged him right for not being able to read yeah I mean like you have a new girlfriend but look I always have a special place in my heart for her because she taught me how to read yeah yeah I mean that's pretty cool could you imagine no getting the opportunity to teach an adult how to read the couple moved to Concord California where Crystal was assigned to the USS Mount Hood she went out to see the marriage became the couple fell behind on bills and Kenneth McNeil told his wife she could make some money dancing but she wasn't ready to do that at this point in time but Crystal did fall in love with another sailor who would later become the father of her two children because she's in love with a sailor so she like begins this affair with this other sailor her marriage is falling apart the bills are falling behind I mean it sounds like you're uh Stanton the Navy oh yeah I'm just kidding yeah I was just falling in love with all the sailors she divorced McNeil and about six months later she was discharged from the Navy but they're um I couldn't find any indication of like what type of discharge it was by 2003 their relationship with her child's father had dissolved He was ordered to pay child support and I think he paid her about 400 a month Crystal returned to Durham where she worked several jobs in sales and she also worked at a computer Factory like doing assembly work Crystal had her first brush with the law in 2002. she tried out to be a dancer at the Diamond Girls Club and she didn't get the job by the way let me tell you why she was tasked with giving men lap dances and the manager said she was quote acting kind of funny okay she gave a lap dance to a taxi driver and asked him if he would give her a ride home he told her yes but he needed to use the restroom first that is when Crystal finagled the keys from his pocket and stole his Chevy Caprice what the hell how dare you steal a man's Caprice what the hell Crystal Like My Daddy had this Caprice that he bought for like a good deal off somebody it was like this big old Blue Caprice and you can tell him nothing when he was driving that car oh man yeah he'd be like this is a luxury vehicle and he'd be sitting in it it's very comfortable yeah he was all about it it's like riding a comfy couch down the road yes exactly big bench seat she was driving the car on the wrong side of the road with no headlights when police caught her she made officers chase her speeding away over 20 miles per hour over the speed limit so she's in this High uh Pursuit high chase pursuit with cops ending up at a dead end Road she tried to drive through a fence she refused to get out of the car nearly backed into an officer and hit the side of his patrol car what that what was the point of all this the alcohol blood level of Crystal was .19 nearly two times the legal limit wow she was given three consecutive weekends in jail plus two years probation for the misdemeanor larceny speeding to elude arrest assault on a government official and a DWI that's a lot she just wanted to go home what the hell like would you give me a ride sure just let me hit the can right quick and you come back out and the [ __ ] is gone in your car maybe she should have gone damn maybe she really had to go poop but she didn't want to do it at a strip club I saw this woman's crying when the cops pulled over that she wouldn't stop and finally the maker stop and she's like I have to poop yeah do you like please don't take me to jail and he's like oh you're going to jail and she's like I'm gonna poop in your car and he's like no poop in my car and she's like I'm pooping right now yeah yeah maybe that's okay after after he got a job at a nursing home however she didn't get paid because she refused to submit her criminal record to the employer and had what they considered an incomplete hiring file yeah so she left before handing over this record so she would rather quit and not get paid than to just give them her police record Crystal's making a lot of really good choices so far her father said the criminal record didn't keep her from getting odd jobs though he was not aware that she worked for this escort service she started working I'm sorry she started going to school at North Carolina Central University and was also working as a dancer slash escort and she was in the Navy well this is after the Navy yeah I know but I'm saying she she went I applaud her for having the guts to go into the Armed Forces yeah and going through that okay I thought I appreciate anyone who does that I appreciate your service or anyone because I don't have the guts to go through boot camp I don't know if guts is the right word but you can't tell me what to do you know what I'm saying no I think with your gut you could probably not make it through boot camp oh okay so this is how this is going to finish up let's wrap it up now no I could have made it but I I have a problem with authority okay because I am the authority okay yeah I can see you trying to like run your your PFA test yeah and smoke at the same time well when I was 20 I could have done it sure yeah yeah I believe you yeah that's why you did it what's now I'm just going to cosplay Soldier and go around walk around town with like an AK slung across my shoulder and like play this on across Patriot yeah yeah class Patriots in the coming days Duke canceled lacrosse games against Georgetown and some of the other teams the parents were upset and angry they were demanding meetings with school officials up until now no charges had been filed parents wanted to know if other team sports were being canceled because they held parties it was hard for the school to defend its decision because they have all these other teams who've had parties who've had strippers at the parties and they're not getting their Seasons canceled and there's still no charges still no charges wow after the release of of information to the Press some 175 outraged community members showed up to the Buchanan Street house to hold a candlelight vigil as a protest of the alleged crimes the group included students neighbors and Duke faculty and staff no lights were on inside the house though people could be seen like in the darkness their Silhouettes the following day which was a Sunday morning around 150 protesters returned to the house for a quote wake-up call against sexual assault others walked around the corner to Markham Avenue where Duke Provo Peter Lang lived and they banged pots and pans in front of his house yeah you're not going to have any pro in this area people do not mind to protest and speak out against things they did they believe it is wrong so it doesn't surprise me at all that people are turning out for a crystal the victim in this case the way they view it a bunch of damn liberal Elites at the college well no I mean you know it's young people it's college towns multiple colleges I'm just making fun yeah okay we're allowed to make fun right the other players adamantly denied a rape had occurred it was backed up by others who were at the party saying no rape had occurred no one wanted to hear that it seemed um they didn't want to hear that version of the story everybody seemed to be supporting Crystal's version of events some of Duke's faculty and staff urged the community to continue protesting planning an ongoing response to the quote rape protesters showed up in front of the Allen Building demanding the firing of Coach Pressler Duke made the decision to remove the team from their website goduk.com shutting down the roster which included pictures and other information about these players so they've removed the entire team from this website wow in the meantime Nifong and the detectives realized how botched the investigation had been no one had gone to the house the night Crystal made her statements but they'd waited three days to get a search warrant no one had spoken to the players that night no one seemed to be concerned about the inconsistencies in Crystal's story or that the other dancer was supposedly in the house when the attack happened no one seemed to notice that Crystal could not pick her attackers out from the photo lineup or that the players had been Cooperative with law enforcement yeah I don't understand how all this was overlooked by so many people and look I was on the I was on the wagon with the pots and pans as protesters because I was just like those [ __ ] pieces of [ __ ] dude when the story broke now I totally thought these guys yeah [ __ ] bags I just assumed they were Rich Pricks well I think everybody did and jocks on top of that and they thought they could do anything they wanted to this poor woman that's exactly what I thought for quite a while when this broke one of the players Ryan McFadden now you remember I spoke about him in the beginning he's the one that had come for the cookout left to go to the gym wasn't drinking I wasn't drinking and then came back like much later okay so immediately following the party McFadden had sent out an email to the other team members that he called um a kind of a dark American psycho-inspired email okay like he was a big fan of the book by Freddie stanellis and this was just basically saying that like he was going to kill like oh we'll just have all the strippers come over and we'll kill them so it was some dumb joke it was a dumb email for real but police got their hands on the email and they ran with it Nifong said it was proof they had quote intent to carry out a serious crime a warrant was drafted to search his dorm room though he had not been named as an attacker the email which had garnered several responses from others who recognized that there was an American Psycho reference that was all lost on Nifong right like he doesn't get that he didn't get it no he saw it as a conspiracy to commit murder the officers added that as the sixth crime and these are very serious charges kidnapping alone can carry like a 20-25 year sentence so on this warrant to search Ryan McFadden's dorm room they hope to find items relating to the crime scene including Crystal's shoe digital photographs recordings and about 340 dollars in twenty dollar bills it's funny it went from two thousand dollars to now it's 340 yeah and where's the shoe I still need to know where the shoes at detectives noted there were hand-drawn penises on the walls with nicknames and jersey numbers along with the hangman's noose on a light fixture which just further adds to this young man just being a horrible delinquent right you got a bunch of dicks drawn on your wall not only that the dicks have jersey number you know have jerseys and numbers on them they probably had their own names and uh then I could also see the news it makes me think of Jonah Hill in Superbad yeah when he gets caught with the the notebook full of dicks yeah and I'm sure the Noose um could be played up on from the racial angle which I think is a a dumb thing to I don't think nooses are cool personally do you no I'm not going to have a noose in my collection because just the the very symbol of a noose not ju for the racial you know things here in America but it's just uh I don't know it's like a gross thing to me nooses gross me out no I I had a very tragic death of someone in my family with a rope swing yeah so uh no I I'm I'm not okay with the news it's not it's not something you're going to tie up and put up for decoration yeah professors addressed entire classes which were half lacrosse players and they were citing that it was material fact that a rape had occurred many of the players got up and left class a player was slapped by another student in public while being verbally reprimanded like why were you there why did you let this happen you support rapists wow you know I gotta say especially it's easier to now that we know all the facts have came out and we know what really happened I feel bad for these poor these young men I mean this is terrible this is this is one of those things even if you're proven not guilty in the court of law uh the court of public opinions already passed judgment on oh you're dude I mean it did hardcore for these guys meanwhile the DNA was being analyzed from Crystal's clothes and the swabs that had been taken Roy Cooper now governor was attorney general at the time and he asked the state Bureau of Investigations lab to expedite testing on these DNA items one of the forensic biologists who was working in the lab wrote that it would be futile to test these items because there was nothing to test no semen saliva or blood the rape kit and clothing had no evidence of blood semen or saliva and that they would be able to to wrap up their testing if there was no further evidence to share yeah so there's nothing to test there's nothing here the results would be negative for any DNA match but between mangum's rape kit the clothing and the Duke players instead of dropping the case district attorney Nifong he doubles down Okay police informed Crystal that the DNA test came back negative despite the North Carolina rules of professional conduct that required prosecutors to refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public combination of the accused nifon continued to publicly decry the players he told the news media the DNA was bulletproof and would reveal who the attackers were he told the media he might fall charges against others who didn't stop the attack because by now defense attorneys had told the players to remain quiet on the issue as most lawyers advise their clients Duke faculty law enforcement and Nifong begin calling it a wall of silence as though the players were not being cooperative so he gets DNA evidence it's all been expedited from the state lab yes very you know very good very professional lab nothing nothing across the board like absolutely nothing nothing and he still has the gall to go in public and say that the DNA evidence is bulletproof yes this is CR how is this not criminal wait just wait to D.A I'm sorry do DA's uh operate under qualified immunity like police officers just wait oh she's cool you just hang on tight to yourself I'm sorry just knock on guy's an idiot a vigilante poster created by the Durham Police and that's why people started calling it is the Vigilante poster was created by Durham Police and it surfaced on campus showing the 47 lacrosse players with the words please come forward in large type wow I wonder if my uncle works for the poster guys in Chapel Hill Durham and he this is what he does he posters uh everywhere I wonder if he posted these look this was printed at a Duke facility with the knowledge of Duke officials to print these posters for police and hang them up on campus man there's a lot of people in the um in the Durham Police and the DA's office and the Duke University that are just really [ __ ] this up amid all the protests about what had happened Nifong had continuously told the media for a week that the DNA evidence would seal the deal he began Shifting the conversation away from DNA to focus on the sexual assault exam performed to explain the absence of DNA he said quote I would not be surprised if condoms were used he told Dan Abrams of MSNBC quote I am convinced there was a rape okay attorney Joe Cheshire told the Raleigh news and observer quote not about Nifong he'll say whatever he wants to say in public but he won't say in public what the evidence is a valid point during another official photo lineup Crystal had a hard time identifying her attackers once again she pointed to a photo of David Evans saying he kind of looked like a guy one of the attackers but the attacker had a mustache and it was the first time Crystal mentioned a mustache to anyone she also said that Reed Seligman looked like one of the attackers Colin finnerty was also named as one of the attackers so those were the three men she named as her rapists well at this point I gotta imagine Crystal's seen newspapers or news reports with all these boys pictures I mean I don't I don't see how you could be having at this point a fair lineup that's not been takened in the beginning she said it was Brett Adam and Matt and now one of them has a mustache right we have read Colin no bread or Adam that doesn't matter you think Nifong gives a damn he don't care he's going to say she's picked out three more attackers now one of the men that she recognized she said quote with 100 certainty as being a party guest was Ryan McFadden's roommate Brad Ross but Brad Ross now she's swearing up and down this guy was at the party she's the most sure of this guy yes he was 100 at this party he'd actually been in Raleigh with his girlfriend on the night of March 13th and had a very solid Alibi for having been in Raleigh doesn't matter at an iPhone one bit another player Chris Loftus who was supposedly 100 of the party was actually in his dorm room according to the key card reports he hadn't been at the party at all one of the players not liking the DNA results from the state lab Nifong ordered the DNA to be tested by a private lab in Burlington North Carolina on April 10th one of the attorneys representing a player stated that the time stamp photos existed that showed Crystal Mangum having injuries when she arrived at the party and that she was very impaired the attorney also announced that the State Crime Labs DNA testing failed to confirm a rape by any of the players on the lacrosse team but on April 18th Mike Nifong indicted Seligman Infinity on first-degree forcible rape first degree sexual offense and kidnapping Seligman told the media he was glad they had picked him because of his solid Alibi which consisted of ATM receipts photographs cell phone records and an affidavit from a taxi driver and also a record of his dupe card being swiped at his dorm room what the hell dude so he's like yeah sure bring it on because I mean I'm out of all the all the guys I have the bulletproof yeah yeah okay the private DNA company was called DNA security Inc which nifon wanted to do that second round of testing released an incomplete report it contained information about the fake fingernails which one of the players had found in the bathroom and had thrown in the trash so she had broken Nails she had but they said it's because she was flailing around but she had actually left some fake nails behind she had oh yeah um so these fake fingernails were procured from the trash and they said two percent of the male population uh could not be excluded from this DNA match like of a male on these fake fingernails oh and there's oh so they're okay and that David Evans is one of the persons that could not be excluded from this match oh however uh Brian Meehan will later testify that pursuant to an agreement with Nifong this is the the forensic tester at this lab um he deliberately withheld information from this report because Nifong wanted him to again that seems criminal to me so on May 15th Evans became the other player to be indicted so at this point he's the third player so we're going to fast forward a little bit to December 22nd of 2006 Mike Nifong dropped the rape charges against the three players after Crystal told an investigator another different version of events she said she could no longer be sure about her recollection could you think it was on December 28th of 2006 the North Carolina Bar Association filed ethics charges against district attorney Nifong the 17-page document showed he violated rules of professional conduct citing more than 100 100 examples of his statements to the Press Roy Cooper the Attorney General took over the case in January of 2007. Cooper spoke of a rush to accuse citing that Nifong had withheld exculpatory evidence in March the charges were officially dropped Cooper announced not only were the charges dismissed but declared the three players innocent okay at nifong's ethics trial it would later show there were DNA findings the lab discovered at least two unidentified males DNA in Ma and mangum's pubic region and two unidentified males DNA in her rectum four to five unidentified male dnas in her underwear and one unidentified DNA a male DNA in her vagina whoa yeah okay what does that lead you to believe well this leads me to believe that this is some pretty crucial information that they're leaving out of the DNA report I'm sorry it leads me to believe that she may be doing actual you know like sex for money work well yeah I mean I think that's yeah I think I mean that's what's going on Dylan yeah because and like do change underwear because you only got one DNA in your vagina but you've got like multiple dnas on your underwear bro them things to stand up in the corner about herself girl you got to change them out at least twice a day just being like gross would you I would I would think you're a gross Heather if you had five males DNA on your underwear and one in your vagina that means it's like you're just gonna keep wearing the underwear now you're shaming me I'm not [ __ ] shaming you if I want to [ __ ] four or five dudes and you can wear them around in my panties all day I'll do it and it's not your business what is that God wear them around in your panties you just grossed me out good let's move on okay I think it's funny [Laughter] is I'm the one person it is my business how many dnas is in your vagina oh so you're just worried about the vagina ain't worried about my rectum well I'm just damn nearly killed him you can at least change what about my ear how many dnas are in your you don't even know how many dicks I had in this ear Jesus that's why I'm hard of hearing oh my God get it hard but you're you're totally in a whole group of tiny penised men just no it's a Family Guy reference where all the kids are having ear sex okay you don't remember that episode I do okay it was also revealed that Mangum had Ambien methadone Paxil and amitriptyline [Music] or tryptaline I'm probably saying that wrong inner system she also had a long history of bipolar disorder which was not included in any information or reports a security officer who worked at a strip club said that Mangum was telling co-workers four days after the incident that she was quote gonna get some money from some boys at Duke oh so she was supposedly at the strip club telling folks this and on December 15th of 2006 it was reported that Crystal Mangum was pregnant and the judge in the case ordered a paternity test yeah well anyway all this gets dropped the baby has like six fathers and bye come on see now you're just you're being mean that's not mean right he has multiple dnas in the baby too see now you're see you're [ __ ] shaming now you're watching baby Shaman there's nothing shameful about it and now you're shaming this baby babies like a genetic cocktail it's just like you know got all the things from all the players maybe it's like um like the Arnold Schwarzenegger character and uh twins yeah it got all the good stuff yeah right by 2008 Crystal graduated from college with a degree in Psychology but Dylan her story does not end there really oh we got some more to talk about just when you thought I was done but wait there's more Crystal wrote a book in which she claimed the rape did happen but it was dropped out of political motivations on February 17th of 2010 Durham police were called to Crystal's home by her nine-year-old daughter Mangum and her boyfriend Milton Walker were fighting crystal had set fire to his clothing in the bathtub the building suffered smoke damage wow she was arrested on charges of attempted murder first degree arson assault and battery identity theft communicating threats damage to property resisting an officer and child abuse she was only allowed to see her children under supervision of Social Services they were removed from her custody but she was arrested again for failure to comply with this visitation order she was given 88 days in jail with Social Services left to make the custody decision like the judge just Char you know sentenced her for the crimes but then let DSS take care of the custody part then Crystal was arrested again on April 3rd of 2011 after stabbing her boyfriend Reginald day oh my gosh he died 10 days later from his injuries day said he was trying to get away from her as she stabbed him and she was claiming it was self-defense but the evidence proved that day was telling the truth from his injuries they could see that he had been trying to get away from her as she was stabbing him yeah the 12 stab wounds in his back on November 22nd of 2013 Crystal was convicted of second-degree Murder She was given a maximum of 17 years and she is currently serving that at the Noose Correctional Institute so Crystal the Catalyst of this entire thing yes went on to kill her boyfriend yes wow I never I never had any idea that that happened right I'd never heard that the three accused students were given a settlement by Duke University on June 18th of 2007. it is for an undisclosed amount supposedly Duke paid 60 million dollars to the three players but they say that's not exactly true Duke says this that's not true the players are like oh it wasn't that much oh well this then disclosed some meals I bet you ceiling men was motivated to pursue a law degree after the experience and finnerty went on to enroll at Loyola College in Maryland and he graduated in 2010. oh so he left Duke yeah he left Duke wow David Evans who I believe had already graduated at the time this trial was taking place he went to the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and he graduated with his MBA in 2012. on July 12 of 2010 the North Buchanan house was demolished by the university detective Sergeant Mark Gottlieb committed suicide really in July of 2014 while living in Georgia that's unfortunate um there's an ESPN documentary called fantastic lies it premiered in March of 2016 if you would like to see like a documentary about this case and I referenced a ton of newspaper articles because this was a fairly recent case days of the internet we had lots and lots of news reporting on this and another major resource I used for this is the price of Silence by William D Cohen wow I'll tell you what there was a lot of information there I'd never heard and I would have liked to think that many of the listeners feel the same so thank you for revisiting this uh very very pop well-known case and I think you did a wonderful job on digging out all the Deets there's a lot and I kind of it's like I wanted I mean we could have like a damn sorry I keep hitting this yeah we could have like a 10 part podcast holy [ __ ] I mean there's so much information and detail that I was able to find but I wanted to try to condense it in a way that was interesting and kind of highlight some of the I guess bigger things that were happening right as the story played out I think you've done good it's wild I mean I remember this pretty well you know when it happened and uh of course it was me immediately like most people I think kind of a rush to Judgment of like ah this is a horrible story they better not get away with it well I mean time and again but then when the information came out right that there was no DNA evidence and that this didn't happen I mean it was it was shocking that someone would go to this extreme to lie and potentially ruin the lives of many people I mean the coach the administration the players uh the players uh I mean as I'm sure it devastated their parents I mean this is a very serious accusation and and then you know you got to have in the back of your mind are these boys really telling me the truth so now you start wondering about yourself such a prevalent media case I mean these guys the whole lacrosse team I mean they probably went on to face scrutiny oh yeah later on whether it was interviewing for jobs or yeah you know anything like oh you're a Duke lacrosse player uh right I mean it really sullied the school's reputation and athletes reputation for a long time well and time and again we've seen these uh athletes uh actually commit sexual assault in various forms and it gets swept under the rug or covered up and I think that was one of the reasons the public was so quick to oh yeah here we go more you know uh more [ __ ] athletes who think they can do anything you know and uh but in this case actually they were all innocent so it was a it was something else now I I did googleize that question I asked can you sue a d8 or do they operate under qualified immunity such as cops do and here it says uh the generic answer although it's possible prevailing in a malicious prosecution or similar lawsuit against a district attorney or equivalent government lawyer for the act of filing charges is usually a tall task a criminal defendant turned civil plaintiff must typically prove outrageous conduct by the lawyers in question so it can't that's interesting it flips from hey this prosecutor was uh you know maliciously prosecuted me on these criminal charges now I got to go over to civil court to sue him so yeah it's not criminal you can't even bring him up in Criminal Court interesting huh no but you can get them disbarred you can get them to the bar and you can get that paycheck sign but unfortunately that paycheck those settlements are always taken care of with taxpayer money and I think that's wrong well there you go all right so so what's amazing to me with this story is that you have all of this time and the resources that were put into this investigation and then you have someone who ultimately is lying right I mean why is there nothing done about that uh could do they not file perjury charges or I mean I don't know it just seems that's a very dangerous game you're playing and it's those kinds of stories that really discredit yes real victims real victims yes and people are like oh you could just be making it up it's your word against his word we hear that so often even though I think that rarely happens but when you have this case that's such a a prominent uh very public Scandal right at a you know major university and it's making the news everywhere then people automatically are going to refer to that and be like well remember that case I guarantee you so it's just it really does a disservice to True victims I guarantee you time and again that has been referenced in that very way I'm sure it has um to real victims who have actually been assaulted and I think that um we always always err on the side of the victim just in case because 99 out of 100 times it really happened right but I do believe if you lie likes you Crystal did in this case I believe you should be brought up on criminal charges I think there should be some kind of a charge for that no different than if someone accuses someone of molestation rape or any of that and it didn't really happen it's proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that you know it is a lie and that those things did not happen I think you should be brought up on charges personally well it also reminds me of a few years after this back in 2014 there was a writer Sabrina Rubin early who wrote a piece for the Rolling Stone called a rape on campus and it was this bombshell story that ignited a ton of conversation about sexual assault on college campuses it was published as I mentioned in 2014 it was like a 9 000 word article that was recalling a student known as Jackie was his first name I'm experiencing her first frat party at the University of Virginia and specifically her account of how she was brutally gang raped by seven men while other fraternity Brothers looked on my God I mean they talked about how they pushed her through a glass table grabbing her I mean this it was just this very horrific story she stumbled away from the frat house in the middle of the night she was barefoot bleeding she called uh people to come help her but none of her friends would come because they were concerned about like the social price of helping her Jesus and her reporting it this is like the black dog yeah everybody's just going to stand around and watch what his woman's attack the thing is Dylan crack soon surfaced in the story this lady early the writer hadn't fact checked her source so this isn't true and these claims were not substantiated no no and rolling stone had to retract the story wow and then they had to pay like one point I think it was 1.65 it was like over a million dollars over a half a million and a half dollars to this fraternity for writing this like fake story man how in the world could you do this huge 9 000 word article and not have everything buttoned down because this is very serious serious allegations and not only should when I was saying you should be brought up on criminal charges against the victims that you know that you have accused who are innocent is also what you said it does the disservice it does to True sexual assault victims there should be some I mean you're deluding that you know that the just the very term rape or the idea of rape with your [ __ ] and then that is in turn used to discredit True victims and I think that is one of the shittiest things you can do well she declined this writer declined to say what she knew about the attackers or should reached out to any of the men that were part of the story for comments and a lot of people noted that she had almost a cinematic writing style and they were kind of saying that her over-the-top writing style had sort of uh obscured the fact that this was like a completely fabricated story what the hell yeah I mean so this and you you couple that with this um case at Duke and I mean this doesn't look good no and it looks bad for victims no and it's been used against victims more than once yeah wow well thank you for that Heather and and for all the real rape and the true rape victims you know I think all the rapists should be killed I think everybody knows that but um I don't want people to go away from this thinking and we would ever um you know trash a victim or anything like that because we wouldn't when he was I wasn't trashing her she's not the victim he was trashing her panties well her panties is on one thousand her panties just get up and leave by herself but I'll see you later well I'm curious what a lab would find in your draws oh my draws get changed every day and there ain't but one well there might be your DNA in them but that's going to be it why because I wear them when you're not here there's not going to be nine people put them on and then I stretch and kick and stretch yeah and then I put them back ooh is that what you do yeah okay yeah I run around like a ninja like doing cool moves that's because I got the spandex Mark everybody was kung fu fighting and I'm like kicking okay and then I take your drawers off nice in your area I like it you warm them up for me yeah all right so uh thank everyone for tuning in uh we're gonna turn this episode out on time which is amazing and we are Heather's worked so hard on all these stories and uh yeah let's just keep it moving and if you would like to get any extra content of course you can join us over at patreon.com forward slash Mountain murders podcast for tons of extra content and the commercial free experience on every episode plus you get access to our Discord fam plus we've started a new feature with patreon uh we're calling it Mountain the mountain Murders movie club Dylan oh my gosh where we are going to choose like true crime documentaries or like movies based on true crimes and we're gonna float it out this is what we're watching this week and then we're gonna watch it and talk about it discuss it on an episode nice I can't wait yeah I think patrons are going to be excited about that and I have one a lot easier than a book club and uh as uh everyone's been so very helpful with our YouTube channel that's took the time to pop in there and just hit the Subscribe button we're almost at the on the verge of monetization there so every time I ask we get a 10 or 15 uh joyous Souls who uh pop that hit pop in there and hit the Subscribe button on YouTube so just look up Mountain murders podcast on YouTube hit subscribe we're almost there I believe in you okay Dublin thank you for that all right okay until next time same Mountain murders Channel same oh Mount murders time yeah all that yeah okay bye bye