Crystal Mangum Revisited

Ever since I wrote my commentary for CCBC on the Duke Lacrosse case in 2007, I could not get my mind off of the well being of Crystal Mangum, the primary accuser of the Duke Lacrosse team and the one person in the whole affair who seemed to have the most to lose.

Well during my research I learned that Ms. Mangum did earn her degree in Police Psychology from North Carolina Central University. Sadly, my beaming was brief upon discovering Mangum would be arrested only two years later for fighting with her boyfriend and setting fire to property in the house, inadvertently endangering her children with them. The year 2010 only got worse for the young woman as she continued to violate her house arrest and child visitation orders. As of April 2011, Ms. Mangum sat in jail awaiting trial for the murder of her boyfriend. That started with him hitting her. He was still alive when she stabbed him.


Whenever tragedies occur, like school shootings or any murders by people who collaspe under the weight of social abuse, we always ask "why didn't anyone catch the signs before hand?" Well, Mangum did what she could to get help herself before she would reach a breaking point, by checking into a Raleigh psychiatric hospital and even confiding in her minister.   Her loved ones did what they could to warn her of her self-destructive behavior. What they couldn't fix though was an insecure girl who needed approval from others. A girl who did what she could to make everyone happy: mother, father, children, friends, lovers and anyone else, even it it killed her. Only consistent psychiatric support and intervention could fix that. Mangum's need to please others lead her to falling into attorney Mike Nifong's trap and exploitation of her mental vulnerability.

Despite all this, the courts found her mentally competent to stand trial. So Mangum's illness would declare her too incompetent to be a reliable accuser but just competent enough to be charged with murder.

What?

I'm sure everyone outside her family circle saw the signs, they just didn't give a fuck about a poor black girl with mental issues. Who now sits in jail. With a degree in Police Psychology. Never to be used now that she might be a convicted felon.



















Did I mention she'll never get to see her children again for a long time?



Let's see what those accused players are up to…..

You know what? Let's not. I just don't give a fuck. Too many people do.



And here's a link to Mangum's Memoirs.... (she has a right, after all)