Crystal Mangum, Duke lacrosse rape hoax accuser, released from prison after conviction in Reginald Daye murder

DURHAM, N.C. — Crystal Mangum was released from a North Carolina prison Friday morning after a murder conviction.

She was convicted of second-degree murder in 2013 for the 2011 stabbing death of her boyfriend, Reginald Daye, and sentenced to 14 to 18 years. Mangum claimed the stabbing was in self-defense.

This followed an earlier attempted murder charge in 2010 involving another boyfriend, Milton Walker, which was later dropped.

Mangum was at the center of a high-profile Duke lacrosse sexual assault case that made national headlines in 2006. The State Attorney General’s Office later found no credible evidence of an attack, and all charges against the players were dropped in 2007.

She admitted in 2024 to fabricating those allegations.

Mangum was released from the N.C. Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh. Just before 10 a.m., our Raleigh sister station, 11 Eyewitness News, saw her escorted by corrections officials to Durham, where she will stay at a friend’s home.

The Duke lacrosse case, though proven false, remains a defining moment in national conversations about race, class, and the justice system.

Former 11 reporter Tamara Gibbs-Franklin, who covered Mangum’s legal troubles extensively, noted the case’s underlying tensions of race, class, and town-versus-gown dynamics in Durham.

She said: “There was a lot going on underneath the surface. This case had racial undertones. It had class undertones…You also have a city that is really economically struggling for some communities and so there was tension there.”