CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo said investigators did not find evidence to support that a sexual assault happened at a fraternity house at the University of Virginia in September of 2012. Police began investigating after Rolling Stone last November published a story detailing the account of "Jackie," a college student who said she was raped at the Phi Kappa Psi house.
Long also noted that just because police found no evidence to support the article's content, "That doesn't mean that something terrible didn't happen to Jackie" on the day in question," he said, only that law enforcement were unable to gather facts to legally prove it.
The article
"A Rape on Campus," horrified readers when it was published last November. It described how a University of Virginia freshman named Jackie was sexually assaulted by seven attackers during a fraternity party, and how the university failed to adequately respond. The article sparked conversation about sexual violence on college campuses, but the details of the story soon came under withering scrutiny.
Days after the article's publication, critics began to ask questions about some of the details in the alleged victim’s account and about Rolling Stone’s decision not to contact the seven alleged attackers. On December 5, the magazine published an extraordinary editor’s note that said “we apologize to anyone who was affected by the story and we will continue to investigate the events of that evening” in late 2012 when the alleged attack occurred.
On December 22, it enlisted Columbia University's graduate journalism school to conduct an independent review. Columbia University's review of Rolling Stone's disputed article about the college gang rape will be published in the magazine in early April.
Last month, Charlottesville police "informed the university at the start of the spring semester that its investigation has found no evidence that the brutal gang rape happened at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, as the Rolling Stone story alleged. However, the police have not ruled out that Jackie was raped -- possibly even gang raped, somewhere else, perhaps on a different day."
A news conference will be held Monday at 2 p.m. in Charlottesville.
The CNN Wire was used for this report.
