Bill Bickel’s Crimeweek

Though Drew Peterson has not been charged in either his fourth wife Stacy’s October 2007 disappearance, or for his third wife Kathleen Savio’s murder, the first book about these cases — Fatal Vows: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson by Joseph Hosey – hits the bookstores today.

Coming out next month: A book “written by” Crystal Mangum (The Last Dance For Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story), the North Carolina exotic dancer whose false rape accusations against three Duke University lacrosse players created a national controversy and ended the career of the district attorney who exploited the case for political gain.

It’s unclear what Ms. Mangum really has to say here: The most charitable version of events would be that, drug-addled as she appeared to be the night of the March 13, 2006 party, she really had no recollection of what happened and got caught up in a media witch-hunt instigated by other people’s agendas.

The other alternative is that she lied, and continued to lie, and enjoyed both the attention and the gifts lavished upon her as the victim of racial and sexual injustice.

In the first case, she really doesn’t have much to say (”What happened on the night of March 13? Heck if I know!”). In the second, she’d be acknowledging her good fortune that she was never prosecuted for a deception that ruined several lives, led to millions of dollars worth of lawsuits, and made it just that much more difficult for future actual rape victims to be taken seriously — especially exotic dancers or, if we may be more precise, strippers.

As it turned out, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong’s abuses of the legal system were so egregious, that any move to punish Mangum’s own offenses sort of fell by the wayside.

Now that Nifong’s been disbarred, though, it might not be in Mangum’s best interests to throw herself back into the spotlight.

• Drew Peterson/Stacy Peterson/Kathleen Savio
• Mike Nifong: Why We Should Be Afraid
• Mike Nifong Doesn’t Apologize

“I agree with the attorney general’s statement that there is no credible evidence that Mr. Seligmann, Mr. Finnerty or Mr. Evans committed any of the crimes for which they were indicted — or any other crimes [against Crystal Mangum] during the party” -Mike Nifong, former Durham County (North Carolina) district attorney

The interesting thing about this comment is that newspapers are using headlines such as “Nifong Admits That Duke Lacrosse Players Didn’t Commit Any Crime” and “Nifong Apologizes to Duke Defendants”. In fact, he worded his statement very carefully to avoid doing either: He said that he agreed with North Carolina’s Attorney General that there was no evidence that could convict them — which he knew a year ago. He never said they were innocent. He never said he was sorry he prosecuted them (only for his unspecified “mistakes”). (more…)