When she first arrived at a North Carolina prison in 2013, she thought she would be getting out. She gave away her few belongings to her fellow inmates: an earring, her radio – thinking she wasn’t coming back.

But, with each trip from the prison to the courthouse and back again, Crystal Mangum’s hope of release dwindled. With less than a year left in her 14-year sentence, Mangum, 46, is still fighting to convince both the courts and the public that she’s innocent.

Mangum – who gained national notoriety after accusing three Duke University lacrosse players of rape in 2006 – was found guilty of second-degree murder of her then-boyfriend Reginald Daye in 2011. Mangum, her attorney at the 2013 trial, and an independent autopsy review say that although Mangum stabbed her boyfriend during a domestic dispute, medical malpractice was the cause of his death.

Since her conviction, Mangum has filed several motions for appropriate relief, asking the Durham County Superior Court to reconsider the hospital records as proof of medical malpractice. 

Her appeal to be released has been denied six times.

“I feel like I deserve for my truth to be told,” Mangum said.

 

Time in prison

Mangum’s friend Kim Floyd, who was incarcerated with her until 2023, said she saw Mangum’s mental health decline over the years as the prospect of exoneration faded. Every time Mangum came back from a court appearance, Floyd said she had gone “downhill.”

By the end of Floyd’s prison sentence, she said Mangum wasn’t the same person she met in 2013. The two of them once spent a lot of time together, but later, Mangum started eating and exercising alone. Floyd noticed Mangum sometimes talked to herself and up to the sky.

“I feel like they did her wrong,” Floyd said. “She didn’t have a fair sentence, and I think it started messing with her mentally.”

Mangum’s son, RJ Ramseier, who talks with her regularly by phone and visits once or twice a year, recalled a turning point about four years ago when he thought she was “really going crazy.” She was saying “off-the-wall stuff,” he remembered — even talking about seeing vampires. But over time, he’s seen a shift. Her deepening connection to Jesus, he believes, has been a source of strength, and her mental health seems to have improved since then.

“I can only imagine what it’s like going in there, when you’re trying to be the light, and you’re trying to walk right and live right, but you look all around and it’s just darkness around. And I think that got to her, and she was saying things that she probably didn’t see. It was just hard to hear,” Ramseier said. 

 

Duke lacrosse case

Mangum believes the bias from the Duke lacrosse case has kept her in prison.

In 2006, Mangum, a Black exotic dancer, accused three white Duke lacrosse players of rape – which led to a national uproar over race, class and the justice system. The accusations turned out to be false, and Mangum publicly apologized in a December 2024 interview on “Let’s Talk With Kat,” admitting she lied about the accusations. 

“The players were right in what they did,” Mangum said.

In Mangum’s motion for appropriate relief from March, she writes that four of the twelve jurors on the murder case were potentially biased because they were Duke University employees at the time. 

During jury selection for the murder trial, potential jurors were asked about opinions on the Duke lacrosse case and were dismissed if they said they could not be fair and impartial. The four Duke employees who served on the jury all stated they could put any prior opinions of Mangum aside.

Arianna Torelli, Mangum’s 25-year-old daughter, said she believes the Duke lacrosse case portrayed Mangum not as a victim of domestic violence but a perpetrator. Torelli believes this image of her mother played a role in Mangum’s sentencing.

Both in the Durham community and in the media, Torelli said she felt her family was treated unfairly after the Duke lacrosse case. 

“I just remember my teachers being meaner, not all of them, but I remember a few specific ones just being really nasty – and it was kind of like a 180, because they weren’t like that before,” Torelli said, who was in elementary school at the time.

Both Torelli and Ramseier said they were surprised by their mother’s December apology. 

“They should never have used the judicial system to punish me for the Duke lacrosse case, even though I was stubborn in not admitting the truth,” Mangum said.

 

Legal proceedings

Mangum does not dispute the fact that she stabbed Daye, but she and Harr contest the events that followed. 

On April 3, 2011, Duke University Hospital admitted Daye with a stab wound to the torso. He had surgery to repair his colon and spleen, and medical staff noted a high level of alcohol in his system. The following day, a doctor informed Durham Police Investigator Marianne Bond that Daye was stable after surgery but required close monitoring.

According to an April 13 medical summary, doctors prescribed Ativan to prevent delirium tremens, a potentially fatal complication of alcohol withdrawal. On April 6, Daye became agitated, with a fast heart rate, high blood pressure and low oxygen levels, prompting his transfer to the surgical ICU. During preparation for a CT scan, he vomited and aspirated the contents, causing his oxygen levels to drop sharply.

The medical summary states that hospital staff incorrectly inserted a breathing tube into his esophagus, leading to cardiac arrest. After the hospital staff corrected the tube placement and restored his heartbeat, Daye fell into a deep coma and staff placed him on life support. The afternoon of April 13, Daye died after being removed from life support.

Mangum’s state-appointed attorney, Daniel Meier, said her murder conviction was based on proximate cause — meaning the jury found that the stabbing directly led to Daye’s death. Under North Carolina law, Meier said, medical errors are considered foreseeable and not an independent cause of death.

Meier said he thinks proximate cause is “an insane law” and that North Carolina has a broad reading of it. 

“Duke killed him,” Meier said.

Meier said the judge determined the defense could not raise the issue of medical malpractice at trial. Meier instead argued for self-defense, as Mangum and Daye were fighting when she stabbed him. 

“Reginald’s family deserves to know the truth,” Mangum said. “His death deserves to be avenged. People deserve to know that the stab wound wasn’t responsible.”

At the trial, prosecutor Charlene Coggins-Franks argued the stabbing alone met the threshold for proximate cause and that Mangum intended to kill. 

“If Reggie had never been stabbed, he’d never be in the hospital, and he would not be dead. It only has to be a proximate cause,” she said in her closing argument.

Duke Health did not respond to requests for a comment.

 

A forensic pathologist’s report

Harr, a 77-year-old former doctor and now fiancé of Mangum, has devoted his life to clearing Mangum’s name since her conviction.

In 2019, Harr licensed a report for $4,000 from forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht, a leading professional in the field until his death last year. Wecht examined sources including police, hospital and autopsy records to inform his report.

Wecht wrote that Daye died from complications of delirium tremens – not the stabbing. Doctors expected Daye to make a full recovery post-surgery, and therefore the delirium tremens was an intervening cause of death.

Mangum cited Wecht’s report in her motions for appropriate relief.

After Wecht released his report in 2019, CBS 17 conducted a video interview with him over Skype. The news agency never aired the 20-minute interview, and it has since been deleted due to a lack of newsworthiness, according to CBS 17 news director Derek Rowles. 

 

The trial

Now, having spent over a decade in prison, Mangum said she is “extremely disappointed” with her legal team’s performance. She said she wished her attorney Daniel Meier had called Daye’s surgeons and her own children to testify. 

According to Meier, the defendant can request witnesses to be called, and he said Mangum did not make these requests at the time of the trial. He added that the hospital successfully treated the stab wounds and that having the surgeons testify would not have contributed to the defense.

Torelli, who was 13 at the time of the trial, said she definitely would have testified. 

“I could have testified to the fact that she was being abused, because I saw that firsthand,” Torelli said.

Meier called two external witnesses, a relationship psychologist and an accident reconstruction consultant, to answer questions about the Daye’s and Mangum’s fight at the time of the stabbing. Thirty-four witnesses, including Chief Medical Examiner Clay Nichols, who conducted Daye’s autopsy, were called by Coggins-Franks, the attorney representing the state.

Medical reports of Daye’s stab wounds confirm injuries to the colon and spleen, which were treated during surgery. However, Nichols’ autopsy reports additional perforations to the left lung, diaphragm, stomach and left kidney. 

During Meier’s cross-examination of Nichols, Nichols testified that the surgery report did not mention any damage to these other organs, as mentioned in the autopsy. Nichols did not have photos of the injuries he wrote about in the autopsy report.

“It was a sloppy autopsy,” Meier said. “I don’t normally see any that are quite that bad.”

Mangum has cited discrepancies between the autopsy and surgical reports in her motions for appropriate relief.

Just weeks before the trial, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation fired Nichols for mishandling autopsy evidence. Meier sought a delay in the trial, but state Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway determined the investigation independent of the issues in Mangum’s case, so the trial proceeded.

 

Harr’s efforts fighting for innocence

Harr and Mangum jointly filed a lawsuit against Durham District Attorney Santana DeBerry last year, alleging DeBerry violated State Bar Rule 3.8, which requires a prosecutor to disclose all evidence available to them. 

Harr has made several attempts to present DeBerry with the hospital records and Wecht’s report since she took office in 2018. DeBerry has not met with Harr or responded to his emails, and in the lawsuit, Harr claims DeBerry is depriving Mangum of her due process rights. 

DeBerry moved to dismiss the complaint, stating prosecutorial immunity against his claims and a lack of standing because Harr represents the interests of Mangum and is not personally affected. 

The office of North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, who represents DeBerry, declined to comment because this is pending litigation. DeBerry said she has not personally reviewed Daye’s hospital records or Wecht’s report, and she said she would not meet with Harr without legal counsel present.

Harr operates under his organization “Justice4Nifong,” named after District Attorney Mike Nifong who the North Carolina Bar disbarred after mishandling evidence in the Duke Lacrosse case. 

Since Mangum’s conviction, Harr has sent letters and emails to North Carolina politicians, social justice organizations and members of the media to present his claims of hospital malpractice as the cause of death. His requests to meet with them have largely been unanswered or denied. 

“No one will do anything to find out the truth,” Harr said.

North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services represented Mangum until 2017, when they informed her they could do nothing further regarding her murder conviction and advised her to represent herself. 

On behalf of Mangum, Harr estimated he has contacted about a dozen private attorneys, with the most recent attempt from April 14. None have taken up the case.

Harr filed a complaint in 2023 for the North Carolina chief medical examiner to review Nichols’ autopsy report, and after the medical examiner upheld the cause of death, Harr filed an appeal. 

On Jan. 17, Harr was sentenced to 30 days in jail for practicing law without a license. His sentencing occurred ten days before a hearing about the autopsy report, where Mangum represented herself. 

“I wish she had a proper attorney,” Torelli said. “I know Sid tries his best, but I think because he’s not a legit lawyer, nobody’s really listening to him, and they’re not really taken serious, so she’s not really getting much help.”

 

Missing out on motherhood

As Harr sends out emails and makes phone calls, rushing between prison visits and dropping letters off at the courthouse, Mangum remains behind bars. 

Mangum’s 18-year-old daughter Kayla visits monthly through a program that gives them a space to cook and play games together. Mangum calls each of her children several times per month, and speaks with her grandchildren on the phone as well. But, nothing can mimic what their relationship would be outside of prison. 

“I’ve missed out on a lot,” Mangum said.

Torelli said she’s learned to accept her reality. She graduated high school, got married and had two children during the time that her mother has been incarcerated. 

Ramseier, 26, said this time of year is especially difficult with Mother’s Day approaching.

“A lot of times it’ll be hard for me to even look forward to something, to actually enjoy it, because she’s not there to enjoy it,” Ramseier said.

With less than a year left in her sentence, Crystal Mangum still fights to convince both the courts and the public that she’s an innocent woman. Until then, her children will continue to grow up without her as she waits for the day a judge will clear her name or she’s released – whichever comes first.

“I’m not asking people to like me,” Mangum said. “I’m not asking them to understand me. I’m just asking them to understand the facts of the case, to interpret the facts. That’s all I’m asking.”