INC NEWS - Father: Injuries were telling, says he felt 'numb, angry' (N&O)

[John Schelp]

Father: Injuries were telling
He says he felt 'numb, angry'
by Samiha Khanna, News & Observer, 5 April 2006

The father of the woman who said she was raped at a
party near the Duke University campus said in an
interview Tuesday that when he saw her the day after
the party, her eyes and face were swollen, her arms
were scratched, and she was complaining about her leg.
She told him she thought some part of her leg had
slipped out of joint, he said.

The woman told her father that she had been dancing at
a party and that someone had hit her. It wasn't until
the next day the woman told her father she had been
raped, he said.

"I think she was ashamed. ... I just felt numb,
angry," the father said.

The party was at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. and was
attended by Duke lacrosse team players. Lawyers for
players deny the woman's allegations. No charges have
been filed.

In an interview March 25, the woman told The News &
Observer that she hesitated to report her story to
police but that thinking about her father helped her
make the decision.

"I knew if I didn't report it that he would have that
hurt forever, knowing that someone hurt his baby and
got away with it," she said in the interview.

It is the policy of The News & Observer not to
identify people who report sexual assaults to police,
or the names of their relatives, in an effort to
protect the victims' identity.

The father said Tuesday that early on the morning of
March 14, he went to Duke Hospital with his son and
waited more than two hours to see his daughter.
Doctors wouldn't say why she was there, he said.

The father went home and waited for word from his
daughter. Later that morning, she came to her parents'
house with her boyfriend.

"After she came home, that's when I knew she had been
beaten up," her father said.

His daughter had kept private several details of the
attack, he said. It was only through reporters and
articles that he learned his daughter told police she
had been threatened with assault with a broomstick and
that fake nails police say were ripped off the
victim's fingers during the attack were found in a
police search March 16.

Since news of the woman's reported attack, she has
been approached by several lawyers wanting to
represent her, her father said. He didn't know who, if
anyone, had been chosen.

With local and national news crews staked out at the
home where she lives with her two young children, the
woman, 27, has been staying elsewhere, her father
said.

"I don't think she wants to go home," he said.
Meanwhile, the woman's two school-age children are
trying to keep their routine, spending parts of each
day with their grandparents, he said, as he waited for
the children to arrive in their school bus.

The father said his daughter can identify the men she
says attacked her. "She said ... 'I'll never forget
those faces,' " he said.

****

Houston Baker Jr., a professor of English, said no
matter what unfolds from the rape investigation, there
is little question that the Duke lacrosse players were
involved in underage drinking, hiring exotic dancers
and making racial slurs.

"Those are three things that in some institutions
would call for immediate corrective, severe, stern
internal sanctions," Baker said this week. "In a
corporation, the team and the coach would be gone."
(N&O, 4/5/06)

****