When an assault turns into a homicide

Nifong and Mangum detractors are quick to accuse Crystal Mangum in the mysterious April 13, 2011 death of Reginald Daye, who the media has propped up as Ms. Mangum’s live-in boyfriend. As you may very well know, Ms. Mangum is alleged to have stabbed Daye in the torso, on April 3, 2011 after a heated argument over finances. At issue was where money, which Crystal Mangum had earned, should go. Mr. Daye wanted to use the money to purchase alcoholic beverages (my sources have informed me that Mr. Daye had a serious alcoholic problem, and that he may have had liver damage as a result of his drinking), whereas Crystal, who was unable to find anyone willing to rent an apartment to her, wanted the money to go towards rent to pay for the apartment in which she and her three children moved into with Daye. Reginald Daye, who had been laid off work was on the verge of being evicted when Ms. Mangum entered into the living relationship with him.

I have not received any further information regarding what precipitated the physical altercation which resulted in the stabbing of Reginald Daye. It is generally agreed that Mr. Daye was conscious when paramedics arrived on the scene, and that he underwent immediate surgery for the stab wound to the torso at Duke University Hospital. It is unclear, as well, the number of stab wounds Daye sustained, although ABC-11 News reported that he had been sustained as many as eight wounds.

The mystery surrounding Reginald Daye’s death will undoubtedly continue at least until the autopsy report is released… being withheld an unprecedented 120 days after the autopsy was performed. Why the delay? It is very suspicious and only adds to the sowing of doubt about the report’s credibility and the emergence of conspiracy theories.

What seems to have likely transpired is that Daye’s Sunday morning emergency operation went without a hitch and his immediate recovery was uneventful. By the following weekend, however, Daye was suddenly and without explanation, found to be in a coma… one that was deep and determined to be irreversible. There had been no media coverage of the coma, and the media, not surprisingly, does not have any curiosity about why Daye, who was up and walking around and ready for discharge by week’s end, should be at death’s door by the Saturday. Although Daye’s condition was judged to be not salvageable by the medical staff by weekend’s end, April 10th, he was not taken off life-support until Wednesday, April 13, 2011.

There was obviously some event that took place on the Friday or Saturday before his death that contributed to it. Without access to medical records, charts, lab work, toxicology results, nurse’s notes, etc. it is impossible to have even an inkling of what caused the death of Daye. But one thing can be ascertained without doubt, and that is that Crystal Mangum was not responsible for Daye’s demise. During the weekend in question when Daye sustained an insult which eventually deprived him of his life, Crystal Mangum was locked away. There was no way possible for her to have contributed to the comatose state of Reginald Daye.

Without even having a cause of death documented, Durham prosecutors rushed to charge Mangum with murder. Never mind awaiting the autopsy findings. Duke prosecutors were of the mindset that they were going to appease the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants… and to achieve that end, they were going to charge her with murder. The blind loyalty of the Durham prosecutors to the Carpetbaggers is mind-boggling when one realizes that these same avaricious actors who shook down Duke University for a total of $60 million, are actively trying to pry loose another $30 mil from Durham itself. That makes about as much sense as a poor and disenfranchised person voting for a conservative Tea Party candidate.

Because the Duke Lacrosse case has been such a galvanizing cultural event, especially in the Triangle Area, it is not unreasonable to speculate about the possibility that the death of Daye may have been premeditated by someone for the sole purpose of having Mangum face a murder charge instead of merely one for assault with a deadly weapon. A similar tact was carried out last February 2010 when Durham police set clothes ablaze in a bathtub for the purpose of being able to charge Crystal with a serious charge… arson. The police knew at the time that the charge of “attempted first degree murder” against the unarmed Mangum would never stand up in court. And although logic shows that a weekend event was responsible for Daye’s loss of life, the Durham police have elected to turn a blind eye to that possibility and focus on a stab wound from which Daye had been in full recovery.

Daye may have been murdered, but if he was, Mangum is not the culprit… and if determined that he was a homicide victim, the authorities doggedly have no one other than Mangum in their sights.

Now, let me give and example of a patient who is wounded, is taken to the hospital, and then dies from his wounds. On Tuesday morning Darrice Jamar Covington, a 24 year-old man, was shot in a east Raleigh residence. According to the Wednesday newspaper article, which give only the basic rudimentary information, the person was shot Tuesday morning. Whether he underwent surgery or other treatment at the hospital is unknown. It is unknown whether CPR was performed, and if so, when. But the gist, from the article, is that he was alive when he was admitted to the hospital, but that his condition deteriorated thereafter resulting in his death.

There is no doubt amongst individuals of reason and common sense that Mr. Covington most likely died from the gunshot wound he sustained earlier. The proximity in the time from the infliction of the wound to the death is a major determination in the cause of death. Even had Mr. Covington lingered on a day or two after the wound, if his condition had not improved, if he never regained consciousness, and if there was never any up-tick in his condition, it could still be assumed that his death was a proximate result of the gunshot wound he received.

The deaths of Covington and Daye are diametrically opposed, in that the former is a direct result of the initial wound he received and the other strongly suggests an interim unknown insult was responsible for death and not the initial wound.

To many unknowns and irregularities are associated with the death of Reginald Daye, and the lag time in release of the all important autopsy report does nothing to assuage concerns about the truth and justice being compromised.

The next flog is scheduled for release on Tuesday, May 31, 2011.