Mississippi college student’s mother furious over $20K bond for daughter’s alleged attacker
Published 10:13 am Tuesday, April 17, 2018
A University of Mississippi student alleges she was kidnapped and raped by a man she shared an Uber ride with after leaving a party April 7.
Dustin McGee (pictured above)—a fellow UM student, according to his now-defunct LinkedIn profile, and Phi Kappa Psi’s philanthropy chairman—was arrested three days later after the Oxford Police Department took a report from the student who said McGee raped and held her against her will.
McGee was booked into the Lafayette County Detention Center on a $20,000 bond, ordered by Justice Court Judge Carolyn Bell. The amount of the bond — $10,000 for the rape and $10,000 for the kidnapping charge — angered the victim’s mother, whose name is being withheld to protect her daughter’s identity.
“The judge showed she didn’t take this seriously,” the mother said. “But I’m watching. I’m doing my research, and any inadequacies other than the obvious that I find will be made public. I’ll make this a national media issue if I have to.”
Within a few hours of OPD posting McGee’s arrest information and mugshot, other possible victims began to contact the police department.
“We have already had other people reach out with information or (sic) past encounters with McGee. If you have any information please reach out to us. We will listen,” OPD said via Twitter and other social media sites.
OPD Maj. Jeff McCutchen said his department has received two calls from potential other victims.
“We have spoken to a couple of people and of those individuals, one wanted to pursue criminally so we are helping them connect with the appropriate law enforcement agency, and another just wanted some information about resources for victims,” McCutchen said.
The mother told The Oxford Eagle Sunday that McGee offered to share the Uber ride with her daughter as the two were leaving the party. McGee said he would re-route his ride and have the victim dropped off first, the mother said.
However, when the two arrived at his apartment, McGee said he couldn’t re-route the Uber and invited the victim inside to wait for another Uber to arrive, the mother said.
Once inside McGee’s apartment, the mother said that’s when he began raping her daughter for more than an hour before passing out. The victim ran out of the apartment and hid behind a vehicle in the parking lot of the apartment complex and waited for a ride, the mother said.
The victim went to the health clinic on campus and then, under the advice of her mother, to Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi where photographs of her injuries were taken by OPD. The photographs, which showed multiple bruises, bite marks and hematomas all over the victim’s body, were presented at McGee’s bond hearing following his arrest.