McLeod, a tall man with thick, brown hair, was at Shooters, a bar popular among undergraduates. Shortly after midnight, he spotted a girl on the dance floor, a freshman whom he didn't know. She had been drinking at a pre-game gathering that evening, and says she had at least two shots of tequila at the bar. Most of the night she talked to another Duke student, but at some point she began dancing with McLeod.
Shortly after 2 a.m. she and McLeod got in a cab together. She later testified that she believed the cab driver was taking her back to her dormitory. She recalled not wanting to argue with McLeod when the cab arrived at his Sigma Nu fraternity house, though she did make up an excuse about having four exams the following day. She assumed McLeod wanted to have sex with her. Upon their arrival, a fraternity brother saw them outside his window. He would later report that they were having a friendly conversation.
When the two entered the house, McLeod knocked on the bedroom door of a roommate to introduce him to the freshman. He declined to come out, but he later reported hearing McLeod and the freshman "laughing and enjoying each other's company" through his doorway.
Inside McLeod's bedroom, the freshman and McLeod started having sex. During intercourse, the freshman started crying.
McLeod says that when the freshman became emotional, he immediately stopped. She contends he did not. During interviews with police, medical administrators, a Duke investigator and Duke's disciplinary hearing panel, as well as to friends via text messages, the freshman outlined several allegations, including the following: Her memory of the night was cloudy; she did not agree to intercourse; he disrobed her; she begged him to stop and pushed him away; she told him to stop several times; that "I told him to stop and that I would call the police"; and that "he raped me and told me not to cry."
After McLeod fell asleep, the freshman sent a text to her ex-boyfriend saying, "I need you." She continued sending several text messages to at least four people. Among them: "He just said to stop crying," "I said to stop but he wouldn't," and "I don't wanna look like a slut." In another text to her ex-boyfriend, she said, "I'm so sorry."
She texted an anonymous friend, saying that the reactions from other friends implied they wanted to "kill" McLeod. (During later testimony, she recanted that suggestion: "This whole 'killing,' no one said that.")
She texted her best friend, saying, "I told him to stop." Her friend replied, "Who did you fuck?"
When the freshman left McLeod's room, she knocked on the bedroom door of another fraternity member. He later testified that the freshman seemed coherent, but embarrassed. (In a text to McLeod later on, the fraternity brother suggested the freshman was "terrified," according to Duke.)
The freshman asked the fraternity brother to retrieve her wallet in McLeod's room, and then she called a cab to pick her up.
The next day, her best friend sent her a text: "Did he actually rape you." The freshman replied, "It's like hard to explain I'll tell you the story in person." In another text she said, "It hurts soo bad like there's no way it was consensual."