Duke Lacrosse rape allegations: Father describes condition of victim, DNA results as early as this week

The father of the woman who said she was raped at a party near the Duke University campus said in an interview Tuesday that when he saw her the day after the party, her eyes and face were swollen, her arms were scratched, and she was complaining about her leg.

She told him she thought some part of her leg had slipped out of joint, he said.

The woman told her father that she had been dancing at a party and that someone had hit her. It wasn't until the next day the woman told her father she had been raped, he said.

"I think she was ashamed. ... I just felt numb, angry," the father said.

The father said Tuesday that early on the morning of March 14, he went to Duke Hospital with his son and waited more than two hours to see his daughter. Doctors wouldn't say why she was there, he said.

The father went home and waited for word from his daughter. Later that morning, she came to her parents' house with her boyfriend.

"After she came home, that's when I knew she had been beaten up," her father said.

His daughter had kept private several details of the attack, he said. It was only through reporters and articles that he learned his daughter told police she had been threatened with assault with a broomstick and that fake nails police say were ripped off the victim's fingers during the attack were found in a police search March 16.

District Attorney Mike Nifong has said he believes the woman was raped, based in part on a medical examination hours after she reported the alleged attack.

....The results of DNA tests in the investigation of a reported rape at a Duke University lacrosse team party could be made public by team members' lawyers who say the players did not commit a crime.
The tests could compare samples from players with any DNA collected from the woman who said she was raped. State Bureau of Investigation experts are performing the tests.

All but one of the team's 47 members were ordered to give a DNA sample in the investigation. District Attorney Mike Nifong said he has no plans to release to the public or media the test results.

Lawyers for the players said those test results must, by law, be given to the players. One of the lawyers, Joseph B. Cheshire V of Raleigh, said Tuesday that he had not decided whether he would release the results.

"I haven't made that decision, but there's certainly a good chance that will happen," Cheshire said. "I'd be real surprised if we don't release it."

Cheshire said there are now 11 lawyers working for team members.

Nifong has said in interviews that he expected the test results this week. Cheshire said he had been told the results would be back next week.

The results could be a key to unraveling what, if anything, happened during the party, which started March 13 and was attended by team members. The woman, who works for an escort service, told authorities she was raped by three men in a bathroom at the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd.

 

......Houston Baker, an English professor, authored a letter decrying the university's lack of response. He correctly criticized the academic and athletic administrations for being slow to provide information, and for tepid rebukes of the team's alleged actions. And, he said the players were avoiding punishment through “white privilege;” though of course a good portion of the student body at Duke is both privileged and white.

Baker also called for immediate action against the team and its coaches, and that's a call that is hard to support.

Wrote Baker: “Surely the answer to the question must come in the form of immediate dismissals of those principally responsible for the horrors Š coaches of the lacrosse team, the team itself and its players, and any other agents who silenced or lied about the real nature of events.”