The Nation - News from May 5, 1988

A black teen-ager who reported being raped by white men over four days last November in Upstate New York attended a party during that time, a youth who said he was at the party told WCBS-TV. The youth, identified as “G” and interviewed in the Dutchess County town of Newburgh, told a reporter for the New York television station that he saw and spoke with Tawana Brawley, 16, at the party Nov. 27, 1987. “She needed a ride home,” the youth said, but indicated Brawley found other transportation. Brawley was found the day after the party behind a Wappingers Falls apartment her family once lived in, her body smeared with racial epithets and dog feces. Since then, Brawley has declined to cooperate with local investigators or with a state special prosecutor appointed by the governor.