Wednesday, 5 April 2006

More lacrosse morons

Well, now we know what that search in Edens 2C was all about:

Police obtained an e-mail from a confidential source sent from [Ryan] McFadyen’s Duke e-mail address March 14 at 1:58 a.m., right after the party.

“After tonight’s show, i’ve decided to have some strippers over to edens 2c,” the writer of the e-mail wrote, noting, however, there would be no nudity. “i plan on killing the [bitches] as soon as [they] walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off while [ejaculating] in my duke issue spandex.” [I slightly unredacted the Chronicle version of the quote here.]

Lovely. On the bright side, at least there would have been no nudity. And what’s up with the spandex reference?

The News & Observer provides their version of the story, which reports the defense angle on things:

Joe Cheshire, a lawyer representing one of the team captains, said the e-mail helps support the team's story. Team members told police, according to Cheshire, that they hired women to dance and those women left the party early.

"This e-mail, while the wording of it is, at best, unfortunate, if you read this e-mail and you also are aware of other e-mails that exist contemporaneous with these events, it's quite clear that no rape happened in that house," Cheshire said. "These boys were frustrated because they, as is already been reported, they thought these women had come and taken a bunch of money and started dancing and just decided to leave."…

Cheshire and other defense lawyers involved in the case have been critical of Nifong's public statements. He said the unsealing of the warrant today shows desperation on the part of investigators.

"If you see this case with things the police have not released, you see this case in a different light than the prosecutor going out there and saying, ‘they're guilty,'" Cheshire said. "Is it a horrible e-mail? Yes. Does it make the writer look good as a human being? Are there all kinds of moral and social issues that can be discussed about what went on that night? This e-mail does not in any way shape or form show that there was a violent sexual act that went on in that house. I would tell you that it in fact shows the opposite."

Sure, Joe, whatever…

Perhaps of more interest: the warrant for this search has more details on the allegations and the list of items siezed, including $60 cash and “piece of paper in vehicle — suckie suckie $5.00.” It also includes the full text of McFadyen’s email on page 7 of the warrant (I've adjusted the blockquote above accordingly).

Update: Aquaman writes:

I don't think this e-mail's author raped anyone. But the damage he's done to himself is just staggering. Think about it -- any future employer will Google him and find this. …

The author went to the prestigious Delbarton School in Morristown, New Jersey, before moving on to Duke. Both schools are probably in the process of removing all web mentions of him right now.

The lesson? Save your insane ramblings and scary threats for the phone.

Update 2: There is some speculation here that the quote is a riff on something from either American Psycho or Fight Club; having seen neither, I cannot judge, but it certainly wouldn’t have been out of place based on these quotes from American Psycho. Not really sure that helps McFadyen’s case all that much, though.

Update 3: A commenter at Through a Glass Darkly says that the “suckie suckie $5.00” reference is from South Park.