Student retracts assault report

A student who had reported she was assaulted near the Duke Forest Oct. 22 admitted Monday that the incident never occurred, University officials said. Her admission has cast doubts upon the veracity of a much-publicized 2002 sexual assault in Randolph Dormitory.

The same student reported in 2002 that she was sexually assaulted in a bathroom in Randolph, the woman’s close friends said. University officials and police would only comment on the October report, but the student’s friends said the police described evidence that indicated the 2002 attack may never have happened.

Maj. Phylis Cooper, a spokesperson for the Duke University Police Department, said the 2002 sexual assault investigation was still open. She would not comment on the specifics of the case or confirm that the same student filed both incidents.

“We look at facts,” Cooper said. “When we’re able to put facts together that bring things to light about a case, that’s what we use—rather than whether we think someone is lying in another case.”

Inconsistencies related to the most recent incident spurred police to question the woman’s story. The woman originally told police that Oct. 22 a white man approached her from behind and placed a cord around her neck as she prepared to go jogging through the Forest near Route 751.

Police used security camera footage of the alleged crime scene and the activity report on the woman’s DukeCard to determine that her story could not be true, Cooper said. She left the University immediately following the incident and has not returned, and officials had difficulty contacting her.

Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, said the woman’s father contacted him about withdrawing his daughter from Duke after the Oct. 22 incident.

Moneta explained to him the University’s suspicion that the woman was not actually assaulted. “As a parent, he was surprised to hear it but willing to hear the information I had,” Moneta said.

The student reported in January 2002 that a man beat and sexually assaulted her in the bathroom of her East Campus dorm. Many residents of the dorm were interviewed as part of the investigation, and students said a culture of fear blanketed the campus.

Several friends said they recently learned that physical evidence from the sexual assault suggested that the woman’s injuries were self-inflicted. Until this recent revelation, many of her friends said they believed much of what the student had told them.

“It’s a situation where you absolutely trust your friend, but when another person you trust tells you it couldn’t have happened then it calls that into question,” one close friend of the woman said.

The woman’s friends said she was generally an outgoing and playful person with many creative talents. She could not be reached for comment.

After the 2002 incident, the student took time off from school, and friends said she was reluctant to talk about the assault. When several more assaults were reported on campus in Spring 2004, the woman became a vocal advocate against sexual violence.

The woman’s friends underscored the need for continued vigilance and attention to campus safety. “The greatest problem that could come out of this is that girls, specifically, will assume that there’s no threat whatsoever,” a friend said. “Sexual assault is a huge problem on college campuses. This is just one very specific incident.”

Police will still continue to patrol campus at increased levels, as they have since a series of armed robberies earlier this year. They encouraged students to continue to report all suspected crimes as soon as they occur.

University officials hope the news that the most recent assault did not occur will ease some of the anxiety surrounding campus safety, but they recognized that the process may take several months or years.

“The fact that we’ve had a community for a few years now on edge is damaging because it fuels fears,” Moneta said. “Even retracting the allegation may not necessarily retract the fear.”