Durham Police are investigating the possibility that a female student was drugged and raped at the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity house earlier this month, according to a search warrant filed during the investigation of the sexual assault claim against the fraternity.
The alleged incident took place the evening of Jan. 8 at ADPhi's house on West Chapel Hill Road. The Durham Police Department announced it was investigating the claim at a news conference Tuesday morning. While police investigate, the University has suspended the fraternity.
According to DPD's probable cause affidavit, the female student who filed the claim arrived at an Alpha Delta Phi party at their off-campus residence around 10:45 p.m. Jan. 8. She had one drink, a cup of Aristocrat and Lime, and began talking with a member of the fraternity.
"He wanted to show her where his room was as he led her upstairs," the warrant reads. "She said she refused to go in the room and went back downstairs."
The female student returned downstairs and was dancing with her friends when she was told that the fraternity had begun making hot chocolate. The drink was in small clear containers with a lever switch in front to pour into cups. It did not taste as if it had any alcohol, the student claims in the affidavit, so she determined it was safe to drink.
The last thing she remembered was dancing with her friends before she woke up the next afternoon in her own room, wearing a t-shirt she did not recognize without a bra or underwear. The leggings she had been wearing the night before were torn on the floor next to her bed.
Her roommate, who had been at the party with her, told her she did not remember the female student returning to the room the night before, as the roommate had been "passed out," the affidavit reads.
The female student's phone was broken, so she checked her computer to see if she had received any text messages the night before.
At 1:30 a.m. she had received a text from an unknown number reading, "YO." A second text from the same number saying, "HA HA.. YOU WENT BACK WITH A KID I KNOW...YOU'RE SCREWED!!" according to the affidavit.
The student went to the Duke University Medical Center Emergency Room for a rape kit that day.
Police filed for a search warrant of the ADPhi residence in a second-degree rape investigation Jan. 10. The house was searched by police that day, and three liquid samples were seized, along with photographs.
Second-degree rape, per North Carolina law, occurs when one individual engages in vaginal intercourse with another by force and against their will, or when someone engages in vaginal intercourse with someone who is mentally disabled, mentally incapacitated or physically helpless, and the person performing the act knows or should reasonably know of this status.
The allegations come slightly over a year after Alpha Delta Phi was permitted to join Duke's Interfraternity Council. In Fall 2013, the fraternity was officially recognized by the University after previously being denied recognition. The chapter has been a part of the national Alpha Delta Phi organization since 2006.
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