UPDATED: 9:40 pm EDT May 12, 2006 RALEIGH, N.C. -- A second round of DNA testing in the Duke University lacrosse rape case came back with the same result as the first -- no conclusive match to any member of the team, defense attorneys said Friday.
Attorney Joseph Cheshire, who represents a team captain who has not been charged, said the tests showed genetic material from a "single male source" was found on a vaginal swab taken from the accuser, but that material did not match any of the players.
"In other words, it appears this woman had sex with a male," said Cheshire, who spoke at a news conference with other defense attorneys in the case. "It also appears with certainty it wasn't a Duke lacrosse player."
Cheshire said the testing did find some genetic material from several people on a plastic fingernail found in a bathroom trash can of the house where the team held the March 13 party. He said some of that material had the "same characteristics" -- a link short of a conclusive match -- to some of the players, but not the two who have charged with rape, kidnapping and sexual assault.
Two members of the team have been charged with raping a stripper hired to perform at the party.
The dancer, a 27-year-old black student at nearby North Carolina Central University, told police she was raped and beaten for a half-hour by three white men at the party. A grand jury has charged sophomores Reade Seligmann, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, of Garden City, N.Y., with rape, kidnapping and sexual assault.
Defense attorneys have strongly proclaimed that all the players are innocent, consistently pointing to an initial round of DNA tests they said found no match between the 46 players tested and the accuser.
District Attorney Mike Nifong did not immediately return a call to his home seeking comment Friday night.
After the first round of tests came back without a match, Nifong said that in 75 to 80 percent of all sexual assault cases, there is no DNA evidence.
"We had to deal with sexual assault cases the good old-fashioned way. Witnesses got on the stand and told what happened to them," he said.
Cheshire said the fact that the players turned over the fingernail shows they had nothing to hide.
"Is that consistent with someone that knowledgeably and knowingly committed a rape?" Cheshire said. "That they would leave fingernails that were ripped off a person in a violent struggle in their trash can after they're told there's an investigation and that police were going to come to their house, and when the police do, they give them the fingernails?"
The "single male source" who matched the genetic material found on the vaginal swab take from the victim is named in the report on the second round of DNA results, and "is known to the Durham police department," Cheshire said. He declined to give the man's name or comment on his relationship with the accuser.
"There is no indication that this man should have his name dragged through the mud," he said.
Single source DNA that doesn't match any players. I think we were right all along and she had sex before the appointment with lacrosse players and she didn't get paid or she got hurt and decided to blame it on the rich white boys.
District Attorney Mike Nifong did not immediately return a call to his home seeking comment Friday night
which is the rightful thing to do...
it also means the police believe that that sexual act was consenual....
too bad Nifong didn't have similar reguard for the LAX team instead of making rapists out of everyone of them ....