Can someone please explain to me what the student murder has to do with the Duke case? Sorry, I've missed something.....
It was thought the murdered woman, because she worked on the student newspaper at NCCU, might know something.
That's turning out to be a red herring.
Kristiana Bennett is a reporter for the Campus Echo, NCCU's student newspaper. Early on, Bennett went to the accuser's house to talk. The woman was not at home, but Bennett spoke with neighbors. One told of a barbecue where the woman behaved in an unflattering manner. Bennett could not bring herself to include the details in the article for her paper.
The more indepth article is here:
He asked Bennett if her sources would talk on the record. You want to use that? Bennett asked him. Do you know how that will look?
In the real world, you have to print the facts, dePyssler told her. You can't worry about how things will look.
Bennett disagreed. Not only did she and her fellow students instinctively trust the accuser, they understood the political implications of doubting her. This case was about much more than the facts, which were still in question. It was about the realities of being a black woman in America in 2006.
"I'm going to give it to you straight," 22-year-old Echo photographer Khari Jackson told dePyssler. "You are privileged because you're a white man, and everybody knows that white men rule the world."
"I'm not going to argue with that," dePyssler said. "But does that mean they committed a crime?"
The Echo staffers hungered for justice, but many in Durham's black community doubted the woman would get it. Already, defense attorneys for the lacrosse players were chipping away at her story. They pointed out that in the 911 call reporting the racial slur, the female caller three times gave the address of the house where the lacrosse party was taking place, even though the address is not clearly visible from the street. The caller said she and her friend were driving, then that they were walking, and finally that she was sitting outside the house..