Possible DNA Link To Duke Player?

Newspaper Reports Tissue 'Consistent' With 1 Of 46 Players

(CBS/AP) 
In addition, the newspaper's sources said a male pubic hair had been linked to the case. But no identifiable DNA was obtained from it, the Durham Herald-Sun reports, except that it was determined the hair came from a white man.

In another development, comments made by Durham police questioning the credibility of the alleged victim woman were made during a conversation overheard by a campus officer, officials said Wednesday.

Those comments, which included a judgment the accuser "kept changing her story," led university officials to respond slowly and underestimate the seriousness of the allegations, according to an independent university report released earlier this week.

That independent report did not include any details about how those comments were obtained. When providing that detail Wednesday, Duke police chief Robert Dean said the campus officer who overheard the conversation did not ask the Durham officer any follow up questions.

Aaron Graves, Duke's associate vice president for campus safety and security, said the campus officer did nothing wrong as he "documented what took place that evening from his perspective," including "what he felt or perceived he heard from the Durham police officer."

However, Graves said, "We clearly could have done a better job."

Both Durham's mayor and city manager have objected to the suggestion city officers didn't take the accuser's complaint seriously. The woman, a 27-year-old student at a nearby university, told police she was raped at a March 13 party where she was hired to perform as a stripper.

"The Duke officer got a snapshot of the conversation. He didn't have the context of the conversation," said Patrick Baker, the city manager. "Everything that the Durham Police Department has done has been consistent with taking the allegation of a sexual assault seriously."

A campus police operations report filed March 14 states that the accuser, who is black, initially said she was raped by 20 white men. It goes on to say she changed her story several times, and that "Durham Police state that charges would not exceed misdemeanor simple assault."

"I think it's important to understand that this initial report was a preliminary report," Graves said. "This was not the conclusion of the entire investigation."

The independent Duke report concluded the comments about the accuser's credibility shaped Duke's thinking, and that was a "major mistake." The issue of the accuser's credibility has been raised by defense attorneys, who have asked the court to hold a hearing on her reliability.