Parents of alleged rape victim who killed herself speak out
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- The family of Megan Rondini, a former University of Alabama student who was allegedly raped and later took her own life, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Rondini's parents say her rape claims were mishandled by sheriff's investigators and school officials. They also believe her alleged attacker escaped prosecution because of his prominent and wealthy family.
According to her parents, Rondini blossomed from a shy introverted girl into an outgoing honors student during her first two years on campus. That all changed in July 2015 after she reported being raped. Her parents say she felt betrayed by the people she thought were going to help her, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann. Rondini spoke to a sheriff's investigator hours after escaping her alleged rapist's house.
"I had already said like I needed to leave, and he just wasn't really responding to that," Rondini said in the interrogation. "I feel like I wanna like throw up," she also said. She thought that she was being treated like a suspect because when she fled, Rondini said she found and accidentally fired her alleged attacker's gun and also took three dollars from his wallet to pay for cab fare. "I'm really sorry, like, I didn't, I just – " Rondini could be heard saying.
"Well, and that's, you know, I told you we just gotta touch base on everything," the investigator responded. "It was then that we started to learn that this wasn't going like a normal investigation," father Michael Rondini said.
"She's like, 'Mom, they think it's my fault,'" mother Cindy Rondini said, crying. "Like, 'It's not your fault baby, it's not.'" Cindy drove from Texas to Alabama to comfort her daughter. "It was the most heartbreaking moment of my life," Cindy recounted in tears.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/parents-of-alleged-rape-victim-who-killed-herself-speak-out/ar-BBDMNan?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=edgsp
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