Authors: Jeff Benedict,Don Yaeger
As Nichols walked away from Yon Hall, her boyfriend emerged from the dorm and persuaded her to go up to his room. She agreed. But to her dismay, the boyfriend then let Mickell in his room as well.
Nichols told the police that within minutes, another member of the football team and Tony McCoy entered the room. According to the police report, Nichols, on more than one occasion, asked her boyfriend to make Mickell leave the apartment. Nichols told police that Mickell refused and instead started fondling her breasts and leading her toward the bedroom. At this point, the police report notes, Nichols “told them [the players] that she wanted to go home.”
In response, her boyfriend “told her ‘she knew what was up, and don’t play games,’” according to the report. All four players started pawing at Nichols. McCoy and the fourth player, according to Nichols, then had sexual intercourse with her, each looking on as the other took his turn.
In her statement, Nichols said that neither McCoy nor the fourth player used physical force prior to intercourse. The police report notes, “She was too scared to say no.”
A
fter taking Nichols’s telephoned-in report, the Florida campus police were left with an alleged four-year-old incident involving suspects who had all since moved out of state. Most troubling was the accuser’s admission that she had not said no to McCoy and the other player. Hardly a provable case, the police nonetheless turned the matter over to the State Attorney’s Office for review. Why? Because Nichols was not the first woman to file a formal police report singling out McCoy and Mickell in conjunction with a sexual assault.
According to other University of Florida police reports obtained by the authors, in the summer of 1991, weeks after the time period during which Nichols claimed she was assaulted, Gretchen Daniels* met with Officer Angel Allen and reported a scenario remarkably similar to the one described by Nichols. In a 1991 police report, Daniels said she too was assaulted at Yon Hall after being invited to the room of Nichols’s former boyfriend. Like Nichols, Daniels also knew him socially and felt comfortable going to his room at his invitation. Also like Nichols, Daniels told the police that she was surprised when she arrived at Yon Hall expecting to meet the player and was instead greeted by Darren Mickell.
Daniels told police that a short time later, while she and the player were in bed together, Mickell and McCoy and another male athlete barged in. The three players then “took turns having sexual intercourse with Daniels,” according to the police report. Additionally, the report notes, “Daniels felt helpless to resist as she was naked in a room with several football players. …” In the course of taking turns climbing on and off Daniels, the players, as they did with Nichols, repeatedly remarked “that [Daniels] would not have come to the room if she was not expecting to have sex with all the athletes.”
In her 1991 report, Daniels said she realized she had been “set up” by the players. According to the report, Daniels told police that she believed the experience was “a common scam among this particular group of athletes.” The report also takes note of a concern that “many other females were too afraid and ashamed to report the gang rapes occurring in Yon Hall.”
Attempts to interview Darren Mickell for this book were unsuccessful. Tony McCoy claimed he had no knowledge of the police reports against him until they were brought to his attention by the authors. “I never knew those reports were filed,” McCoy claimed in an exclusive interview. “To this day, they never came up. I don’t even want to dignify them.” McCoy did, however, confirm that he was friends and teammates with the other players named in the police reports. “Mickell and [the other player] were good friends, but I didn’t make it a habit of hanging around them and doing the things that they did,” said McCoy. “We didn’t hang around the same crowd. We are from two different sides of the street.”
McCoy’s agent, David Levine, skeptical toward the reports, asked rhetorically why a woman would bother filing such a complaint if she had no intention of pressing charges. He also suggested that it was “hard to believe” that authorities would not pursue the charges upon receiving a complaint of the nature described in the police reports.
Perhaps. But it is not uncommon for police to take formal statements from citizens and file a report while stopping short of opening an investigation when the person declines to swear out a formal complaint.
Daniels said she was too scared to press charges.
And Nichols claimed she was too afraid to say no to the players.
But afraid of what?
In her 1991 report, Daniels provides a clue. She told police that she feared McCoy “because she was aware of the recent sexual battery charges against McCoy by his girlfriend.” Previously, McCoy had been indicted in a nine-count felony sexual assault case. The charges against him included kidnapping (one count), sexual battery by use of threat of a deadly weapon (two counts), aggravated battery (three counts), aggravated assault (one count), and battery (two counts). Daniels knew about the incident because it took place on campus, with some of the sensational details unfolding in broad daylight in front of numerous witnesses.
According to police reports, on November 21, 1989, at just after one o’clock in the afternoon, U.S. postal carrier Joe Simpson was delivering mail on campus when he stumbled across a completely naked woman cowering behind a newspaper box. Startled by his discovery, Simpson’s attention was nonetheless immediately diverted away from the nude woman when a large man began shouting at the woman from an apartment across the street.
“Becky,* come here,” the man from across the street demanded as he stepped out of the apartment to come toward the woman and Simpson.
Simpson quickly removed his shirt and handed it to the woman to put on.
“He’s got a knife,” Becky screamed as she sprang from behind the newspaper box and ran hysterically down the street wearing only Simpson’s U.S. Mail shirt.
Minutes later, police were on the scene and Simpson recounted his experience to investigators. Becky, the woman discovered by Simpson, was McCoy’s girlfriend.
Despite living in Yon Hall with the other football players, McCoy also had his own apartment. He rarely slept there, but he let Becky live there on a full-time basis. According to Becky, when McCoy showed up at the apartment on November 19, 1989, and his male neighbor was inside watching television with Becky, he was angry.
Two brothers had taken Becky out for dinner on the nineteenth, and then returned to her and McCoy’s place to watch television. One left prior to McCoy’s arrival. The other left when McCoy showed up.
“What is this guy doing sitting in my house and in my chair?” McCoy yelled at Becky, according to police reports. He then accused her of having sexual relations with the man. Ultimately, he told Becky to get out of the apartment. As she packed her bags, however, McCoy entered the bedroom and demanded that she take just one set of clothes and return to get the rest of her things at a later date. Although he confiscated her key, McCoy told her that she could contact him and he would open the apartment so she could recover the rest of her things another time, according to the police report.
Heading for the door with her one set of clothes, Becky was suddenly stopped by McCoy. He told her to “get undressed, go to bed, and get some sleep.” According to the police report, when Becky indicated that she needed to call her mother first, “McCoy told her she was not going to see or talk to her mother that night.” He took her purse, searched through it for her address book, and began flipping through the pages looking for names and numbers that were unfamiliar to him. Then he threw it at her.
That night McCoy decided not to return to the dorm. Becky told authorities that he had intercourse with her before going to sleep and again in the morning. At noontime, he got out of bed and left the apartment, telling Becky that he was going to pay a visit to the apartment of the guy who was watching television with her the night before. Becky reported that she hurriedly got dressed and followed McCoy to the man’s neighboring apartment. Her arrival angered McCoy, who escorted her outside and back toward his apartment.
Initially reluctant to return with him back to his apartment, Becky gave in when McCoy lifted her off the ground and started carrying her. Once inside, “McCoy demanded that she take her clothes off,” the report indicates. Becky told investigators she complied out of fear “because he had previously been violent with her.” McCoy insisted that she get back on the bed. After he started kissing her, he exited the bedroom and went into the kitchen.
The following excerpt from the police report details what happened after McCoy returned from the kitchen and climbed into bed. “After McCoy got back in the bed [Becky] felt what she thought was fingernails scratching her neck. She said when she looked down she saw McCoy holding what she identified as a steak knife that had a serrated edge. McCoy was using the blade of the knife to make cuts on Becky’s body. When she yelled out he told her he would kill her.”
McCoy then grabbed Becky’s right breast, took the tip of the knife, and cut her chest, according to the police report. Repeating the threat to kill her if she yelled, McCoy “asked her how she would like to lose her eye. He then took the knife and moved it around her eyes, face and ears,” the report states.
Officer Jackie Kerr examined Becky shortly after the attack and documented the following observations: “The most visible of the cuts were observed by this investigator on Becky’s chest just above her right breast and close to the center of the sternum. This appeared to be a puncture type wound. The wound was approximately a quarter inch in diameter. Above the breasts this investigator observed numerous small lacerations. These were made when McCoy used the sharp edge of the knife to inflict cuts. On the left breast near the nipple, there is what appears to be a large bite mark. This investigator observed a laceration on Becky’s left leg, that appeared to be approximately one half inch long. There were lacerations on her left hand, including a laceration on the inside of the thumb and one on the palm. These were approximately one half inch long.”
Becky told Kerr that while McCoy was cutting her with the knife, he asked her if she had ever been raped. According to Kerr’s report, “he took the edge of the knife and cut away her bra and also one side of her underpants.” The report also notes that McCoy struck Becky in the face and spit on her.
Kerr’s report then describes the following: “He took the handle of the knife and placed it inside her vagina, rubbing the knife in circular motions. He got up on her chest and had her arms pinned to the bed with his knees. McCoy forced his penis into her mouth telling her to perform oral sex on him. After she had done this he told her she was a ‘chicken head.’ McCoy put his hands around her throat and started to choke her….”
According to Kerr’s report, McCoy finished by taking a pillow and placing it over her face. When she faked having passed out, he slapped her in the face before walking away from the bed area and over toward the window. Becky reported that at that instant she ran for the door and dashed out into the street naked. Kerr’s report notes, “[Becky] said the reason she felt she was able to escape from McCoy was the fact that he did not think she would run out the door nude.”
N
one of that stuff happened,” McCoy emphatically stated in an interview with the authors. “I do admit to there being an argument and some pushing and shoving. I do admit there was a strong relationship between Becky and I. She is someone who I cared about tremendously. I really loved her as a person. And I didn’t treat her right. A lot of men don’t treat women right, especially when they’re young. But the rape and the knife, none of that stuff ever took place.”
According to McCoy, a lot of the information in the police reports was “fabricated, stuff that did not happen.” When asked by the authors, McCoy acknowledged that Becky was mentally stable when she told her account to the police. He also added that in his three-year relationship with Becky, he had never known her to falsely accuse him or any other individual. Nor was she known for making up outlandish stories.
What, then, was her motivation to lie? “We had an argument,” McCoy explained without hesitation. “I got this other girl pregnant and Becky was asking me to leave this girl. I told Becky, ‘No, I’m going to marry this girl,’ which I later did. This is the thing that really pushed Becky over the edge. I was involved with a lot of women at the time. She knew I was fooling around, but she always had this ideal that I would be with, her. I thought I loved her, but I never showed it because I was always fooling around with other women. That would make anyone who is stable unstable.”
Why would she run into the street naked? “She never ran into the street naked,” McCoy said. “We were arguing. She pushed me and I pushed her. I went and sat down in the chair. She looked at me and said, ‘You’ll never know how much I love you.’ And she walked out. I was thinking that she wanted me to run after her. Well, I didn’t. And my apartment was tucked back away from the road, meaning you could step outside and no one would see you unless someone just happened to be walking by. It was just my luck that when she stepped out, lo and behold, a neighbor was walking by, saw her, and pulled her into her apartment.
“When this lady saw her, Becky came up with this story. Becky was embarrassed and she got herself into something too deep, where she had to continue to cover up. My mother always used to say, ‘You tell one lie, and you have to tell another and it just never stops until you tell the truth.’ And eventually the truth came out, we had an argument and there was nothing more than that.”
But what about the postal worker who told police that he removed his shirt and gave it to Becky after discovering her completely nude and cowering behind a newspaper box? “I’m saying she was not naked,” McCoy said. “She did have her panties on, but no bra. And she didn’t run, she walked out.”
M
ailman Joe Simpson was not the only witness who reported seeing Becky nude and hiding behind a newspaper box. Cris Iddings, who lived across the street from McCoy, and her friend Sylvia Campedelli called 911 after noticing Becky hiding without any clothes on. As a result of Iddings’s call, police were on the scene in minutes and discovered Becky wearing Simpson’s shirt and otherwise unclothed.