The woman at the center of the Duke University lacrosse rape case has finally admitted she lied when she accused three young men of sexual assault in 2006.
Crystal Mangum, from Durham, North Carolina, came under the spotlight in 2006 when she accused the trio of gang raping her during a party where she was hired as a stripper.
The 46-year-old mother-of-three is currently in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder for stabbing her boyfriend with a kitchen knife in 2011.
It was from prison where she spoke to Let’s Talk with Kat, an independent content creator who released an interview with her Thursday.
There, Mangum admitted that she’d made the entire thing up.
‘I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t and that was wrong, and I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me,’ she said.
Mangum even admitted that the three men ‘trusted me that I wouldn’t betray their trust.’
‘[I] made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.’
Crystal Magnum, the woman at the center of the Duke University lacrosse rape case, has finally admitted she lied when she accused three young men of assault in 2006
Mangum, from Durham, North Carolina, first made headlines back in 2006 when she accused the men – Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann – of gang raping her during a party where she was hired as a stripper
She claimed that it was her search for validation that led her to become a stripper despite having a college education.
Mangum then asked the three men she accused – David Evans, Colin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann – to accept her apologies.
‘I want them to know that I love them and they didn’t deserve that and I hope they can forgive me.
‘I hope that they can heal and trust God and know that God loves them and God is loving them through me, letting them know that they’re valuable and they didn’t deserve that.’
Mangum made it clear that she’s attempted to find religion in prison, saying she mostly reads the Bible to ‘get through the day.’
‘You can get all of that [growth] in Jesus, he loves us just the way we are. He’s enough and we’re enough.’
She claims that she would describe her time in prison as one of ‘growth’.
However, she said that she had ‘no regrets’ and that everything happens because of God.
The case became one of the most racially charged in recent memory which ended explosively when the prosecutor was disbarred and the young men were declared innocent.
Mangum admitted that she’d made the entire thing up in an interview released Thursday
The 46-year-old mother of three is currently in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder for stabbing her boyfriend with a kitchen knife in 2011
The chilling case began back on March 13, 2006 when three of the four co-captains of the men’s lacrosse team at Duke hosted a party for their teammates at their off-campus house.
The group had paid a total of $800 for two exotic dancers to perform – one of whom was single mom Crystal, who was a student at the nearby North Carolina Central University.
All but one of the players on the lacrosse team were white and in the aftermath Crystal, who is Black, made a series of allegations against three of the team members.
She accused Evans, Seligmann, and Finnerty of raping and sexually assaulting her in the bathroom.
And the ensuing fallout created a firestorm across the nation – highlighting racial and socioeconomic divides at the elite university and beyond – in what became known as the Duke Lacrosse Case.
The coach was forced to resign and the university canceled the remainder of the season.
Speaking after he was indicted, David said: ‘You have all been told some fantastic lies, and I look forward to watching them unravel in the weeks to come, as they already have in weeks past…. The truth will come out.’
The students hired defense attorneys but the situation became hazy when Crystal claimed she could no longer recall the exact details of what happened that night.
Mangum claims that she would describe her time in prison as one of ‘growth’
The chilling case began back on March 13, 2006 when three of the four co-captains of the men’s lacrosse team at Duke hosted a party for their teammates at their off-campus house
The DNA evidence failed to match any of the 46 white players on the team and she eventually recanted her statement.
She later said she was not sure she had been raped, but insisted some sort of sexual assault had taken place, the LA Times said.
The tide eventually turned on prosecutor Mike Nifong who had ‘overzealously championed his case in the media.’
The boys’ defense attorneys pleaded for the North Carolina State Bar to intervene and charges were brought against a sitting district attorney for the first time in history.
It was decided that Nifong had been too outspoken and concealed the crucial DNA findings from the investigation – he was later disbarred.
As a result, the case was then handed over to an alternative district attorney, Roy Cooper, who dropped the charges against the players just four months later. Cooper recently finished up two terms as the state’s Democrat governor.
He declared the college students to be ‘innocent’ and branded Nifong as a ‘rogue prosecutor.’
Ultimately, the case did not go to trial and the three players received $20 million each in a settlement with Duke.
The house has since been torn down and the university spent more than $100 million on legal fees, settlement costs, and other expenses to preserve its ‘brand’
On April 3, 2011, she and her 46-year-old boyfriend, Reginald Daye, who had been dating for about a month, had become caught up in a heated argument after she was allegedly caught flirting with another man
The house has since been torn down and the university spent more than $100 million on legal fees, settlement costs, and other expenses to preserve its ‘brand,’ according to Vanity Fair.
Crystal, who later released a memoir titled The Last Dance For Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story, was never charged with making false accusations – but her legal troubles would only continue to worsen.
Just a short time later, in February 2010, she was convicted on misdemeanor charges for setting a fire that nearly razed her home with her three children inside.
In a videotaped police interrogation, Crystal told officers she got into a confrontation with her boyfriend at the time – Milton Walker – and burned his clothes, smashed his car windshield and threatened to stab him.
The single-story duplex had heavy smoke damage, but no one was hurt, a Durham fire department news release said.
But there was still one final tragic twist in the tale.
On April 3, 2011, she and her 46-year-old boyfriend, Reginald Daye, who had been dating for about a month, had become caught up in a heated argument after she was allegedly caught flirting with another man.
She claimed that Reginald had been beating her at the time before she snatched the kitchen knife and stabbed him in self-defense.
Crystal told the court: ‘He straddled me, hit me, and then he started choking me. I couldn’t breathe. My head hurt real bad.’
‘I was just trying to survive and I felt like Reginald was trying to kill me,’ she added in her testimony.
The mom ultimately ‘poked him in the side’ of the chest at his apartment.
In a call to emergency services immediately after the stabbing Reginald’s nephew told the operator: ‘It’s Crystal Mangum. The Crystal Mangum. I told him she was trouble from the damn beginning.’
Reginald died 10 days later at Duke Hospital due to complications from his injuries.
It took the jury just six hours to reach a unanimous verdict.
In 2013, Crystal, then 34, was sentenced to a minimum of 14 years in prison for second-degree murder.
