Message spoke of 'killing'

Sophomore is suspended; players' lawyers say hostile e-mail doesn't prove rape

Less than an hour after a woman says she was raped, robbed and beaten at a Duke University lacrosse team party, police say, one of the team's players sent an e-mail message in which he talked about hiring strippers and killing them.

The university suspended the student, Ryan McFadyen, on Wednesday.

The text of the e-mail was in a search warrant application that was unsealed Wednesday. According to the warrant, the message originated from McFadyen's Duke e-mail address. It was sent at 1:58 a.m. on March 14, about a half hour after police received a 911 call that led to the rape report.

"[T]ommrow night, after tonights show, ive decided to have some strippers over," the message read. "However there will be no nudity. i plan on killing the bitches as soon as the walk in and proceding to cut their skin off."

The act would be sexually gratifying, the writer said in the message. The message was signed "41," McFadyen's jersey number.

It was "sickening and repulsive," Duke President Richard Brodhead said in a statement.

Lawyers representing team members said the e-mail was in bad taste. But they said it does not prove a rape happened at the March 13 team party at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. In fact, they said, it supports the players' contention -- that no sexual assault happened after two women were hired to dance at the party.

But investigators, who received a copy of the message from a confidential source, thought the message significant enough to get a warrant to search McFadyen's sport utility vehicle and dorm room.

According to the warrant, police seized from McFadyen a poster, cash, computers, memory cards, a hard drive, papers, drawings and a disposable camera.

The warrant also said Daniel Flannery, a team captain and resident of the house where the party occurred, admitted hiring the dancers under a false name. The woman who said she was raped said she was one of two women sent by escort services to dance at the party.

No charges have been filed in the case, and Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong has said none are likely to be announced before next week.

The warrant had been sealed under order of Superior Court Judge Ronald Stephens, who said it was necessary to avoid compromising the investigation. In opening the warrant Wednesday, Stephens said the need "no longer exists."

Stephens also unsealed his orders requiring all but one member of the team to submit to DNA testing. Those orders required the members to allow investigators to take a saliva swab and to photograph their faces and upper torsos.

The accuser told police that she was being strangled by one of three male attackers and may have scratched someone. She also said she broke fingernails in the struggle. In earlier documents, police say they found four red fingernails in the house.

McFadyen, 19, is a sophomore from Mendham, N.J. He could not be reached. A woman who answered the telephone at his family's home Wednesday said the family was aware of the e-mail and had no comment.

The neighborhood is about 15 minutes west of Morristown, N.J., where McFadyen attended the Delbarton School, a prestigious college prep school. Recent rosters show that McFadyen is one of five Delbarton alumni on the Duke team.

According to The Chronicle, a Duke University student newspaper, McFadyen attended a "Take Back the Night" march against sexual violence and spoke to a reporter last week.

"I completely support this event and this entire week," he told the newspaper. "It's just sad that the allegations we are accused of happened to fall when they did."

McFadyen's attorney, Glen Bachman of Durham, said he would not comment on the e-mail. He said that the suspension was on an interim basis and that McFadyen has left the campus.

"I think it was a safety concern for him and the university," Bachman said in an interview.

Raleigh lawyer Joe Cheshire, who represents one of the team captains, said the "inappropriate anger" displayed in the message supports the players' account.

"These boys were frustrated because they ... thought these women had come and taken a bunch of money and started dancing and just decided to leave," Cheshire said.

On campus, Duke students reacted wearily to news of the e-mail. Several said they were offended but not surprised because of the reputation of lacrosse players as hard-drinking, brawling athletes.

"It's disgusting; there are no other words to describe the feeling," said Simone Randolph, a sophomore from Cleveland. "You can't say somebody's guilty based off the e-mail, but it certainly does not help their case."

(News researcher Brooke Cain contributed to this report.)