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Mangum, a mother of two, worked for several escort agencies and danced at a Hillsborough strip club. She said three men had pulled her into a small, tiled bathroom and assaulted her.

Sgt. John Shelton, the first officer who saw Mangum after the party, doubted her story. After talking with her in the Duke Hospital emergency room, he loudly announced, "I think she is lying."

Later, police showed Mangum photographs of 36 lacrosse players. She looked at more than three-quarters of the team but couldn't identify any players as her assailants.

If Mangum couldn't make an identification, forensic science could. Mangum said that her attackers did not wear condoms and that one and perhaps all three had ejaculated. A crime lab could identify attackers from the DNA in any semen, blood or hair left during a 30-minute attack.

On March 27, a Durham police investigator, Angela Ashby, drove to the State Bureau of Investigation laboratory in Raleigh and hand-delivered the DNA evidence, which can provide a direct, unchallenged link to a suspect. She handed over swabs that an emergency room doctor took from Mangum's body March 14, a few hours after the party.

Lab technicians would scrutinize the samples for semen, blood and saliva, and then see whether the DNA matched any of the swabs taken from the mouths of the 46 players. Nifong asked the lab to move the samples to the front of the line.

On the same day, Nifong started a media offensive. The News & Observer had broken the story of the team giving DNA samples and then published an interview with Mangum. Activists and neighborhood residents had responded with two protests outside the house where three lacrosse captains lived: a candlelight vigil and a raucous affair where protesters banged pots and held signs that read "Castrate" and "Get a Conscience, Not a Lawyer."

Nifong gave scores of interviews to television and newspaper reporters who called or showed up at his office. The coverage worried Bob Ekstrand, a Durham lawyer who represented dozens of team members. Ekstrand set up an appointment with Nifong on March 27.

The meeting started cordially. Ekstrand said he asked Nifong how he would make decisions. He urged the prosecutor not to do anything until the DNA test results came back.

Nifong ended the meeting abruptly. Ekstrand recalled Nifong's parting words: "If you've come here to ask me questions instead of telling me what you know about who did it, then we don't have anything to talk about. You're wasting my time. You tell all of your clients I will remember their lack of cooperation at sentencing. I hope you know if they didn't do it, they are all aiders and abettors, and that carries the same punishment as rape."

As he left, Ekstrand noticed several reporters milling in the hall outside Nifong's office.

A vacation surprise

Jackie Brown was at her vacation home on North Topsail Beach in late March when Nifong called, she said in an interview. Brown, a political insider who worked many election campaigns in Durham, had agreed to run his campaign.

Nifong told Brown he was going to be on the news, something with Duke lacrosse.

Brown was surprised: "I said, 'Hold it, do you have any idea what this could do to your campaign, good or bad?' He said no."

Brown told Nifong to keep quiet until they figured out how it would affect the election. She hung up the phone and turned on the television. As Brown channel surfed that evening, she saw her candidate on local news. She watched him on Fox News, her favorite network, and another national show. Brown tried calling Nifong on his cell phone and at his office, but he wasn't answering.

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