The harrowing case of Crystal Magnum: True crime doc lays bare twisted tale of stripper and escort who shot to infamy after falsely accusing three Duke lacrosse players of rape – before being convicted for stabbing her own boyfriend to death

An upcoming true crime series will delve into the terrifying case of an exotic dancer and escort who was jailed for the brutal murder of her boyfriend – just five years after she made false rape allegations against members of a college lacrosse team .

Crystal Mangum, from Durham, North Carolina, first made headlines in 2006 when she accused three students of raping her at a party where she was hired as a stripper.

The case became one of the most racially charged in recent history and ended explosively when the prosecutor was disbarred and the young men were found innocent.

But mum-of-three Crystal would later be convicted of fatally stabbing her 46-year-old boyfriend with a kitchen knife.

Here, FEMAIL has exposed the sordid details as an episode of Lethally Blonde sets out to unravel the case.

The chilling case began on March 13, 2006, when three of the four co-captains of the Duke men’s lacrosse team hosted a party for their teammates at their off-campus home.

The group paid a total of $800 for a performance by two exotic dancers, including single mother Crystal, who was studying at nearby North Carolina Central University.

All but one player on the lacrosse team were white and in the aftermath, Crystal, who is black, made a series of accusations against three of the team members.

She accused David Evans, Reade Seligmann and Colin Finnerty of raping and sexually assaulting her in the bathroom.

And the ensuing fallout set off a firestorm across the country — highlighting racial and socioeconomic divisions at the elite university and beyond — in what became known as the Duke Lacrosse case.

The coach was forced to resign and the university canceled the remainder of the season.

After he was charged, David said: ‘You have all been fed some fantastic lies, and I look forward to seeing them unravel in the coming weeks, as they have in recent weeks… The truth will come to light. ‘

The students hired lawyers, but the situation became cloudy when Crystal claimed she could not remember the exact details of what happened that night.

The DNA evidence did not match any of the 46 white players on the team and she eventually recanted her statement.

She later said she was unsure she had been raped, but insisted some form of sexual assault had taken place LA times said.

The tide eventually turned against prosecutor Mike Nifong, who had “overzealously defended his case in the media.”

The boys’ lawyers advocated for the North Carolina State Bar to intervene and charges were filed against a sitting district attorney for the first time in history.

It was decided that Nifong had been too candid and had concealed the crucial DNA findings from the investigation; he was later suspended.

As a result, the case was then transferred to an alternate prosecutor, Roy Cooper, who dropped charges against the players just four months later.

He declared the students “innocent” and labeled Nifong a “rogue prosecutor.”

Ultimately, the case did not go to trial and the three players received $20 million each in a settlement with Duke.

The house has since been demolished and the university has spent more than $100 million in legal fees, settlement costs and other expenses to maintain its “brand,” the university said. Vanity fair.

Crystal, who later released a memoir titled The Last Dance For Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story, was never charged with making false accusations.But her legal problems would only worsen.

Just a short time later, in February 2010, she was convicted of misdemeanor charges for starting a fire that nearly razed her home with her three children.

In a videotaped police interview, Crystal told officers that she got into a confrontation with her then-boyfriend, Milton Walker, and burned his clothes, smashed the windshield of his car and threatened to stab him.

The one-story duplex had heavy smoke damage, but no one was injured, according to a news release from the Durham Fire Department.

But there was one last tragic twist in the story.

On April 3, 2011, she and her 46-year-old boyfriend, Reginald Daye, who had been dating for about a month, had become involved in a heated argument after she was allegedly caught flirting with another man.

She claimed Reginald punched her at the time before grabbing the kitchen knife and stabbing him in self-defense.

Crystal told the court: “He straddled me, hit me and then started choking me. I couldn’t breathe. My head hurt really bad.’

“I was just trying to survive and it felt like Reginald was trying to kill me,” she added in her testimony.

The mother eventually stabbed him in the side of the chest in his apartment.

In a call to emergency services immediately after the stabbing, Reginald’s cousin told the operator: ‘It’s Crystal Mangum. The Crystal Mangum. I told him from the damn beginning that she was trouble.”

Reginald died 10 days later at Duke Hospital due to complications from his injuries.

It took the jury just six hours to reach a unanimous verdict.

In 2013, Crystal, then 34, was sentenced to a minimum of 14 years in prison for manslaughter.

The Lethally Blonde series premieres March 25 on Investigation Discovery