At the same time, sources sympathetic to the defense decided to show a small group of reporters a set of photographs from the March 13 party, taken by one of the partygoers. Rumors about such photos had been circulating for weeks, but no journalists had seen them. On the afternoon of April 10, a few reporters—from ABC, NBC, and Newsweek —congregated outside a conference room at the Durham courthouse. They were called in, one at a time, to view the images. The photos were not, however, released for publication.

A thousand words. When their turn came, Avram and his team trooped into the conference room, where they looked at 12 time-stamped photographs. The images showed the living room of the lacrosse house with three couches in a semicircle, the two exotic dancers performing in the center. Some images showed the women dancing while students drank and horsed around—but they did not show any sign that the youths reached toward the women or touched them. In fact, some of the partygoers appeared to be talking among themselves and paying little attention to the dancers. The sources argued that this contradicted the accuser’s claim that the students had grown “excited and aggressive” during the exotic dancing. In one photo, taken at 12:34 a.m., minutes after the alleged victim had said she was raped, she was shown rifling through her purse and—the defense believed—smiling. Another, taken minutes later, showed her lying on her side on the porch, apparently passed out.

The sources pointed out several other ways in which, they said, the photos belied prosecution claims. For instance, Nifong had said no DNA had been found under the woman’s fingernails because the students had been wearing long-sleeve shirts and jackets that protected their arms. But the photos showed all the partygoers wearing short-sleeved shirts. Also, the photos showed that the alleged victim had arrived at the party with bruises and scrapes, casting doubt on her claim that she sustained significant injuries while there. Reporters were not shown any photos time-stamped between 12:03 a.m. and 12:30 a.m., the period during which the woman claimed she was raped.

Avram was not sure what to make of the images; “I was still completely agnostic,” he says. On the one hand, they disputed the woman’s reported timeline. But Avram felt there was a good chance that, if she had been raped, she had become disoriented and confused about the exact timing of events. Nor was Avram convinced the woman was smiling in the photo taken at 12:34. The images were of low quality and her expression—was that a smile or grimace?—was difficult to interpret. Even if she was smiling, Avram thought, it did not mean she had not been raped. And Avram found the half-hour break in the photos’ sequence suspicious.

On the other hand, Avram believed the photos represented a major break in the story and wanted to get them on the air. Avram asked the sources if ABC could have the photos for an exclusive report, before they were released to other networks. In the world of broadcast journalism, it was common for reporters to ask their sources for this kind of “exclusive,” and sources tended to bestow such favors judiciously. “[An exclusive] was kind of a public recognition that you did a good job,” Avram says. In fact, the sources did agree; they promised to send Avram the photos in a few days. ^[25]

Indictments. In the meantime, on April 17, a grand jury handed down indictments against two sophomore lacrosse players—neither of them the team captains, who had been the apparent focus of the investigation early on. Nifong said he expected a third student to be indicted in a few days, and hinted that a second round of DNA tests would follow. At 6 a.m. on April 18, television cameras captured the handcuffed 19-year-olds arriving at the Durham jail where they were charged with first-degree forcible rape, sexual offense, and kidnapping. They posted $400,000 bond and were released to await trial.

ABC and other news organizations quickly shifted gears to report on the students’ affluent East Coast backgrounds. Television broadcasts showed manicured lawns in the wealthy suburban neighborhoods of New York and New Jersey where the suspects had grown up. Lawyers for the accused, meanwhile, insisted that the party photographs—combined with taxi receipts, bank photos, and other records—would show that at least one of the youths had not even been at the party when the woman said she was attacked.