Father: Injuries were telling

He says he felt 'numb, angry'

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.