Former stripper and now-convicted murderer Crystal Mangum confessed Thursday in an interview with the independent outlet Let's Talk with Cat that she lied about being raped by Duke lacrosse players. did.
“I gave false testimony against them, saying they raped me when they didn't, and that was a mistake. I owe the trust of many others who believed me. I betrayed him,” Mangeum said. “[I] I wanted validation from people, not God, so I made up stories that weren't true. ”
Mangum, who is currently in prison for killing her boyfriend, falsely accused three Duke University players of raping her during a performance at a team party in March 2006. The players she accused were arrested, sparking a national debate and conversation about racism.
All three players, David Evans, Colin Finnerty, and Reid Seligman, were acquitted. However, Mangum was not charged with perjury due to mental health issues.
Former North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said at the time: “She may have actually believed the stories she's been telling.”
Mr. Mangum cannot currently be charged with perjury because the statute of limitations for perjury in North Carolina is only about two years.
The allegations forced the team to cancel a game against Georgetown in March 2008.
Former Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, the lead prosecutor in the case, said in a March 2006 statement: interview CBS News reported that there was “no doubt that a sexual assault occurred” and that it was “racially motivated.”
“The information I have leads me to the conclusion that rape did occur,” Nifong said. “The circumstances of the rape showed that there was a deep racial motive on the part of the act that was committed. It made the crime one of the most offensive and invasive by its very nature. It makes me even more so.”
Nifong was subsequently disbarred by the North Carolina State Bar on June 16, 2007, for lying in court and withholding DNA evidence that would ultimately exonerate the defendants from liability for Mangum's allegations.
Ms. Mangum also claimed in her 2008 book titled Grace's Last Dance: The Crystal Mangum Story that “something” happened that night.
“I will never say nothing happened that night,” she wrote.
Mangum was charged in March 2011 with first-degree murder and two counts of theft. A year earlier, he was convicted of a misdemeanor for setting his home, where he had three children, on fire and nearly burning it down.
In a recorded police interview, she told officers that she had gotten into an argument with her boyfriend, not Daye, and that she had burned his clothes, smashed his car windshield and threatened to stab him.
She was born July 18, 1978, the son of a truck driver, according to North Carolina Department of Corrections records. She grew up as the youngest of three children, not far from the home where she claims she was assaulted in 2006.
In 1993, at age 14, Mangum claimed three men kidnapped her, drove her to a home in Creedmoor, North Carolina, 25 miles from Durham, and raped her. She said one of the men was her then-boyfriend, a physically and emotionally abusive man who was seven years older than her.
Creedmoor Police Chief Ted Pollard said Mangum filed a report on the incident on August 18, 1996, three years after the rape occurred.
However, the case was not pursued because the accuser withdrew the charges fearing for her life, according to her relatives.
Mangum's friend Vincent Clark, co-author of her self-published memoir, said she hoped people would not jump to judgment, echoing one of the oft-cited lessons of the lacrosse incident itself. .
Ms Clark said Ms Mangum was aware that she had mental health issues.
“I feel sorry for her and I hope people understand how difficult it is to be her,” Clark said.
