Duke lacrosse false rape accuser Crystal Mangum released from prison after murder conviction: reports

Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume reacts to the Duke lacrosse accuser admitting she made false claims on 'Special Report.'

The woman who falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape and then murdered her boyfriend was released from prison in North Carolina Friday, according to multiple reports.

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

Mangum confessed to lying about being raped by the lacrosse players in an interview on the independent media outlet "Let's Talk With Kat" in December 2024. 

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Crystal Mangum, who was at the center of the Duke University lacrosse scandal, was charged with stabbing a man April 3, 2011, at a Durham, N.C., apartment.  (Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT)

"I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn't, and that was wrong. And I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me," Mangum said. "[I] made up a story that wasn't true because I wanted validation from people and not from God."

Mangum thrust herself into the center of a massive national news story when she originally accused the three Duke students of raping her while she was performing as a stripper at a lacrosse team party in March 2006. 

The players she accused were then arrested, and the allegations even resulted in the team having to cancel its season.

The players — David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann — were eventually found innocent. Still, Mangum was not prosecuted for perjury due to questions about her mental