A woman who falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of raping and then murdering her boyfriend was released from prison in 2017. North Carolina Friday, according to multiple reports.

Crystal MangumReginald Daye, who has been in prison since 2013 on charges of murdering her in 2011, left the North Carolina Correctional Facility for Women in Raleigh on Friday morning. She is serving a 14- to 18-year sentence.

In December 2024, Mangum admitted in an interview with the independent media outlet “Let’s Talk With Kat” that he lied about being raped by a lacrosse player.

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Crystal Mangum, a figure at the center of the Duke University lacrosse scandal, is accused of stabbing a man in his Durham, North Carolina, apartment on April 3, 2011. (Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT)

“I perjured myself against them, saying they raped me when they did not, which is false. I betrayed the trust of many others who believed in me,” Mangum said. “(I) made up a story that was untrue because I wanted people’s approval, not God’s approval.”

When Mangum initially charged the three men, she thrust herself into the center of national news coverage. Duke University student She was raped in March 2006 while performing a striptease at a lacrosse team party.

The players she accused were subsequently arrested, and the accusations even led to the team having to cancel its season.

Those players – David Evans, Colin Finnerty and Red Seligman – were ultimately found not guilty. Despite this, Mangum was not charged with perjury due to mental health issues.

But Mangum cannot now be prosecuted for perjury because the statute of limitations on perjury charges in North Carolina is only about two years.

The lead prosecutor in the case, Mike Nifong, who was the Durham County district attorney at the time of the trial, was ultimately disbarred in 2007 because he failed to provide DNA evidence that would have helped the defense case.

Associated Press report Nifong said at the time that he was unaware that key evidence had not yet been turned over to the defense.

Crystal Gail Mangum appears at a press conference on October 23, 2008 to promote a book about her life in Durham, North Carolina. Mangum went on to say that she was attacked in March 2006 at a Duke University lacrosse team party where she was hired to dance. (Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News Observer/MCT)

Mangum was charged with first degree murder In March 2011, she was charged with two counts of theft. A year ago, she was convicted of a misdemeanor for setting a fire that nearly destroyed her home while her three children lived inside.

In a videotaped police interrogation, she told officers she had gotten into a fight with her boyfriend, not Daye, and burned his clothes, smashed his car windshield and threatened to stab him.

She was born on July 18, 1978, to a truck driver, according to North Carolina Department of Corrections records. She was the youngest of three children, not far from the house where she claimed she was attacked in 2006.

In 1993, when she was 14 years old, Mangum claimed she was abducted by three men, taken to a house in Creedmore, North Carolina, 15 miles from Durham, and raped. She said one of the men, her then-boyfriend, was a physical and emotional abuser who was seven years older than her.

In this August 2010 file photo, Crystal Mangum, a figure at the center of the Duke University lacrosse scandal, is accused of stabbing a man in his apartment in Durham, North Carolina, on April 3, 2011. (Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT)

Creedmoor Police Chief Ted Pollard said Mangum filed a report about the incident on Aug. 18, 1996, three years after the alleged rape. However, the case did not proceed because the accuser dropped the charges out of fear for her life, according to her relatives.

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Vincent Clark, co-author of Mangum’s self-published memoir, said he hopes people will not rush to judgment, echoing one of the oft-cited lessons from the lacrosse case itself.

Clark said Mangum realized she had mental health issues.

“I feel bad for her. I hope people realize how difficult it was for her,” Clark said.

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