Crystal Mangum’s hour of terror the morning of April 3, 2011 to which the mainstream media turns a blind eye

The following narrative is the product of a brief but in-depth direct conversation with Crystal Mangum (the Duke Lacrosse victim/accuser) about the specific rampage by Reginald Daye during the early morning hours of Sunday, April 3, 2011 which resulted in his being stabbed and Ms. Mangum charged with first degree murder and larceny.
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 In 2011, Reginald Daye was an African American male in his mid forties who was an alcoholic and imbibed prodigious amounts of beer, whiskey, and other ethanol-based liquids. Around the first part of March 2011, Crystal Mangum and her three children moved into Daye’s apartment, with Ms. Mangum contributing a washing machine and other of her possessions and financial assistance to the living arrangement. Daye, who had recently returned to work after a layoff as a commercial painter, was in arrears on his apartment rent and was threatened with eviction at the time Ms. Mangum moved in with him.
 Sometime shortly after moving into the apartment with Mr. Daye, Ms. Mangum entered into an intimate relationship with him. It was at about this time that she learned from Daye, himself, that he had battered previous girlfriends. She also became of his addiction to alcohol as he drank up to a case of beer (24 cans) a day during weekdays, and a gallon of whiskey on weekends. Crystal Mangum also became aware of Reginald Daye’s possessive nature and jealous side, which resulted in his confiscating her cell phone for his own personal use and to control the calls which she made.

On March 25, 2011 and April 1, 2011, Daye purchased a cashier’s check, with both checks totaling $700.00, the amount of April’s rent. The apartment landlord was listed as the payee and Reginald Daye as the remitter. Sometime after their purchase, Daye gave the checks to Ms. Mangum with instructions to drop them off at the rental office on Monday, April 4, 2011 during its office hours… a time during which Daye was scheduled to be at work. For safekeeping, Ms. Mangum placed both checks in her purse.
 On Saturday evening, April 2, 2011, Mangum and Daye attended a birthday party. Daye drank heavily, and Crystal had two Jell-o shots (Jell-o made with a mixture of gin) and a drink with gin. Crystal estimates the party began around 11:00 pm and that she and Daye returned home sometime after 2:00 am.

Upon arriving back at Daye’s apartment, the nightmare began when, according to Crystal, Daye started into his accusatory jealous rant. With no previous history of physical abuse against Crystal, Daye began punching Crystal in the face. In addition to punching her, Mangum claims that Daye spit on her. The assault by Daye took place in the living room, and Ms. Mangum retreated to the master bedroom where he caught her on the bed. He tried to pick her up as she clung to the mattress which was then deposited on the floor along with Ms. Mangum. She then ran to the bedroom’s bathroom to seek refuge and locked the bathroom door behind her. A furious Reginald Daye proceeded to kick the door off its hinges. Daye then grabbed Crystal by the hair, leaving clumps of her hair at the site, and carried her back into the bedroom.

Daye told her that he wanted her to leave his apartment immediately, but when she scurried to comply he held her and told her that she wasn’t going anywhere. Crystal was cornered in the bedroom and the apartment by Daye who wandered off and momentarily left her alone in the bedroom. He returned to the bedroom about five or ten minutes later with a pot of boiling water. Daye left and shortly returned from the kitchen with a set of steak knives which he threw at Mangum, who tried to shield herself behind the mattress.

Crystal said that Daye began having what appeared to be a psychotic conversation with an imaginary person with the discussion centering about his intention of killing her. Shortly thereafter, Reginald Daye was astride Mangum on the floor next to the mattress and he gouged at her face with his fingernails leaving small lacerations around her left eye. In a futile effort she tried to push Daye off of her but to no avail. Daye placed both of his hands on her throat and began strangling her. It was at this time, with her head throbbing, that she managed to grab a steak knife that was lying around and she blindly stabbed Daye once in the left torso. (Daye never attempted to block repeated knife thrusts and did not incur “defensive wounds” to his left upper extremity as described in the April 14, 2011 autopsy report.)

After sustaining the wound, Daye got up off of Mangum and exclaimed, “You stabbed me, Bitch!” Crystal quickly retrieved her purse (containing the cashier’s checks) and raced towards the door and ran out into the dark night and the shadows and concealment of the woods nearby. She believes that Daye was in pursuit for some time after the stabbing but is unaware when exactly he gave up the chase.

Crystal Mangum estimates this horrific episode lasted approximately an hour. After her escape, she walked to her aunt’s residence.

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The above scenario was given by Crystal Mangum of events that transpired during the early morning hours of April 3, 2011, and they are supported by evidence of the crime scene as presented in prosecution’s discovery. The prosecution’s story, which is illogical and flawed, wants the public to believe that Crystal Mangum stabbed Daye in the commission of the theft of his money.

This makes absolutely no sense as Ms. Mangum did not take Daye’s money and was not even charged with taking Daye’s money. She was charged for taking two cashier’s checks given to her earlier by Daye that she could not even convert for her own personal use… checks that she put away in her purse long before the incident involving the stabbing. It is reasonable that Crystal Mangum did not have the presence of mind, while fleeing for her life after stabbing Daye, to stop before going out the door to pull both cashier’s checks out of her purse, to leave them inside the premises, and then to continue with her escape outside.

The prosecution theory doesn’t make any sense when one considers the apartment’s disarray, with the bathroom door knocked off its hinges, tufts of Crystal’s hair in the apartment, and the physical injuries to Crystal’s face. Does the police believe Crystal kicked in the door? Does the police believe the brass knuckles belonged to Crystal? How does the police explain clumps of Crystal’s hair at the scene?

Sometime prior to the stabbing which took place around 3:00 am, it is my understanding that Crystal and Daye were outside arguing, and that Ms. Mangum approached the police officer, who I believe was called to the scene by a neighbor in the apartment complex. She pleaded for his help, but was instructed to go along with Daye back into their apartment to continue their argument. I don’t have all of the particulars of this or the timeline, so I did not include discussion of it in this blog. In the future, I will update this incident as I accumulate more firsthand information.

To show how selective, skewed, one-sided the mainstream media’s reporting of this incident has been, a link is provided below that will give a critique of but a small sampling of the media’s presentations.

LINK: http://www.justice4nifong.com/direc/flog/flogblog17.html