Around midnight on the evening of March 13, 2006, something untoward happened in the nondescript rental house at 610 North Buchanan Boulevard, right off Duke’s East Campus, where three of the university’s lacrosse team’s senior co-captains lived. It was spring break, and Duke’s bucolic campus, in the heart of North Carolina’s Piedmont region, was quiet, maybe too quiet. The lacrosse team had practiced that morning and afterward had met with coach Mike Pressler. Since Duke’s cafeterias were closed for the week, Pressler doled out around $10,000 in cash to the 46 players to pay for their meals and other sundries. Afterward, most of them retired to the North Buchanan Boulevard house for an afternoon and evening of drinking and drinking games, such as beer pong and washers.

Also on the agenda, at 11 P.M. to be exact, were performances by two “exotic dancers.” That afternoon, co-captain Dan Flannery called the Allure Agency, in Durham, and hired the women for two hours. He specified that he wanted white women. They would be paid $400 each—money that the co-captains collected from some of their teammates, who put in $20 each.

Kim Roberts, then 31, who is half black and half Korean, arrived at the appointed hour. Crystal Gail Mangum, then 27, who is black, showed up about 30 minutes later. A friend had driven her there in his car and then left. There were some signs that she had been drinking and was already unsteady on her feet. Both women were single mothers and both had had previous run-ins with the law—Roberts for embezzling from an employer, Mangum for a variety of incidents, including a bizarre drunk-driving episode after stealing a taxi. (There was a warrant still out for Roberts’s arrest; after the taxi incident, Mangum had pleaded guilty to four misdemeanors, served a short time in jail, and was placed on two years’ probation.) The two women had never met before. For some reason, Roberts referred to Mangum as “Precious.”

After Roberts and Mangum arrived at the house, the players debated whether to proceed, because the dancers were not white, as Flannery had requested. But they decided to go ahead anyway. Just before midnight, it was showtime. “There were about 20 to 25 young guys there who were all sitting down,” Roberts recalled. “[Mangum] and I began our show, which, in my opinion, seemed to be going well.” Observed Flannery, “Guys were cheering and yelling.”

Things quickly got out of hand. David Evans, another of the senior co-captains who lived at the house, noted that Mangum “couldn’t talk or stand up straight, she was so high.” The girls were sloppily dancing and began to kiss. Evans said Mangum “went down” on Roberts, although later neither Roberts nor Mangum recalled having had oral sex. Roberts was increasingly nervous. “Things were said that made me concerned for my safety,” she recalled.

After the women got up off the floor, according to Flannery, Roberts asked the guys “who was going to step up and take their pants off. No one would.” Peter Lamade, then 21, from Chevy Chase, Maryland, asked Roberts “if she put objects up her vagina.” Her response, according to Flannery, was “something along the lines of ‘I would put your dick in me, but you’re not big enough.’ ”

Lamade then grabbed a broomstick, showed it to Roberts, and said, “Would this do?” (In another version of this incident, according to Matt Zash, the third co-captain who lived at the house, Roberts allegedly said, “What’s wrong, white boy, is your dick too small?” Lamade then grabbed a broomstick and told Roberts, “I’m going to shove this up you.”)

“That statement made me uncomfortable, and I felt like I wanted to leave,” Roberts later explained. “I raised my voice to the boys and said the show was over.” To decide what to do next, Roberts then grabbed Mangum, and together they headed into David Evans’s room, and then back into his bathroom. Some of the lacrosse players felt shortchanged. “Guys on the team were upset and wanted their money back,” Flannery recalled.