Oct. 8, 2026

Cornell Case: Letitia James Named Special Prosecutor, No One Has Been Charged, Christa Pike Is Awake and Speaking, Paitin Fields Trial

Show Notes
Transcript

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James special prosecutor on Oct. 1 in the Cornell University case, saying she had lost faith in Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten's handling of it. A former student identified in court papers as Jane Doe has filed a civil suit against seven then-members of Chi Phi, the university, the national fraternity and others, alleging she was pressured into taking ketamine and assaulted over several hours in October 2024. All seven deny wrongdoing; no one has been charged with a crime. Van Houten, who declined to bring charges in 2024 based on a six-page sworn statement, has said he never received the full transcript of her interview with campus police, and has reopened the case; he says he supports the special prosecutor's appointment. Also: Christa Gail Pike is conscious and speaking a week after Tennessee's failed execution, her attorneys say, though she remains in critical care and shackled to her bed. And in Pender County, North Carolina, David Prevatte, 27, is on trial in the 2017 death of five-year-old Paitin Fields; he has pleaded not guilty. Garret Fisher reports.

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WEBVTT

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Calaroga Shark Media. Good morning. This is Daily Crime and

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Justice from Calaroga Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher.

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It's Thursday, October 8th, 2026. Before anything else, a correction.

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On Wednesday's show, I told you Krista Pike was still

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unconscious and on a ventilator. That was out of date

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by the time you heard it. On Tuesday evening, her

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attorneys announced that she is conscious and speaking. We got

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that wrong, and I'm sorry. We'll have the full update

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in a few minutes. First, though, the story that has

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taken over the country this week. Two years ago, a

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20-year-old Cornell student went to campus police and said she

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had been assaulted at a fraternity house. The district attorney

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looked at her statement and declined to charge anyone. Now

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she has filed a lawsuit, the governor of New York

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says she has lost faith in that district attorney, And

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the state's attorney general is running a criminal investigation. Seven

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young men deny all of it. Nobody has been charged

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with anything. Then Krista Pike, awake, talking, and still handcuffed

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to a hospital bed. And new questions about the man

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who ran Tennessee's prisons. And in a courtroom in Burgaw,

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North Carolina, a jury is hearing how a five-year-old girl

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named Peyton Fields died in 2017. and whether the uncle

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who carried her into the emergency room is the man

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who killed her. Let's get into it. I want to

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tell you up front how we are going to handle

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this story because it matters. No one has been charged

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with a crime. The allegations at the center of this

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case come from a civil lawsuit, which is one side's account,

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and every one of the men named in it has

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denied wrongdoing. So I am not going to say their names,

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I am not going to read the most graphic allegations,

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and I am not going to read you the group

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chat messages that have been all over the internet. What

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I am going to do is walk you through what

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is actually known and what has gone wrong in how

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the system handled it. Here is the timeline. In October

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of 2024, a 20-year-old Cornell student went to an after-party

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at the Chi Phi Fraternity House in Ithaca, New York.

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She had been drinking before she got there. What happened

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over the next several hours is the whole case. About

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three weeks later, on November 8th, she went to Cornell's

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own police department, which is a sworn law enforcement agency

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with jurisdiction on campus, and reported that she had been assaulted.

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The fraternity was suspended that same day. Over two days,

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she gave an interview, and it was turned into a

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six-page sworn statement she signed. That statement went to the

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Tompkins County District Attorney, Matthew Van Houten. His office declined

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to file charges. He has said that the statement described

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her drug use and the sexual activity as voluntary and consensual,

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and that it did not allege she was drugged against

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her will or assaulted by multiple men. Cornell ran its

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own Title IX process, which included a hearing over several days.

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According to the university's president, two of the men were

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expelled Two were suspended, one had already graduated, and two

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were found not responsible. The chapter was shut down and

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is still barred from campus. And for almost two years,

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that was that. Then on September 16th of this year,

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the woman, identified in court papers only as Jane Doe,

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filed a 101-page civil lawsuit against the seven men, against Cornell,

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and against the fraternity and others. She alleges that she

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was pressured into taking ketamine until she could not consent,

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that a message was sent to the fraternity's group chat

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inviting others in, and that multiple men assaulted her over

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a period of hours. She also alleges that Cornell failed

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to protect her. Within two weeks, the district attorney reopened

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the criminal investigation. Then CBS News obtained a transcript of

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her original interview with campus police, in which she said

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she was completely confident she had been raped. Van Houten

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says that statement never reached him and that if it

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was left out, someone outside Cornell needs to find out why.

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Cornell says it gave the DA her sworn statement and

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a screenshot of the group chat, which it says is

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standard protocol. The DA has also said he has no

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indication that campus police ever interviewed the seven men. On

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October 1st, Governor Kathy Hochul said she had lost faith

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in the DA and named Attorney General Letitia James as

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special prosecutor. The next day, James said, quote, This is

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now an active criminal investigation. She can take evidence to

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a grand jury if she decides the facts warrant it.

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Cornell has hired an outside investigator to review how it

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handled the whole thing. Now, here is why this case

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is genuinely hard and why I would ask you to

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be careful with what you read online. The evidence does

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not point in one direction. Days after that night, the

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woman texted one of the men and said that none

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of what happened was illegal. Roommates gave investigators accounts that

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differ from each other. One accused man's attorney says a

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hair test shows his client never took ketamine and that

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the university cleared him. Another says the allegations in the

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lawsuit are different from what Cornell actually investigated. A lawyer

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for one of the accused has also called on James

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to step aside, pointing to a social media post in

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which she appeared to express support for the woman before

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she took over the case. On the other side, her

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attorney says those texts came from a young woman who

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was traumatized in denial and trying to find out what

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had happened to her while she was too intoxicated to

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remember it. He told CNN and quote, I don't think

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it was ever consensual. And he points out that after

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her first report, no one from the district attorney's office

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ever sat down and talked to her. Van Houten, for

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his part, called the group chat messages disgusting, but said they, quote,

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had nothing to do with the issue of consent, which

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is the legal question a jury would have to decide.

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So where do I land? I don't know what happened

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in that room, neither do you, and neither does anyone

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posting about it. That is exactly why there should be

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a real investigation, and it is fair to say there

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wasn't one the first time. A prosecutor decided a sexual

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assault case without ever speaking to the person who reported it.

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Campus police apparently never interviewed the people she accused. If

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you are one of those men and you are innocent,

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you should want a full investigation too, because a quiet

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decision in 2024 is what got everyone here. And one

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more thing. According to the free press, people online have

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already gone after the wrong man in this case. And

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her lawyer says people have been trying to expose her identity.

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That is not justice for anybody. Let the special prosecutor

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do her job. She has a name. You don't need

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to know it. When we come back, Krista Pike is

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awake and Tennessee has to decide what happens to her now.

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Krista Pike's lawyers put out a statement on Tuesday evening. Quote,

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against all odds, Krista Pike is conscious speaking. They said

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she remains in critical care, that she has severe injuries

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to both arms from the IV lines, and that she

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is still handcuffed and shackled to her hospital bed. Her

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prognosis is unclear. At a minimum, they expect a long recovery.

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They call her the only person known to have survived

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a complete execution attempt in the United States. If you're

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just joining this story, Pike was convicted of the 1995

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murder of Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. On September 30th, Tennessee

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gave her two doses of pentobarbital, the maximum its protocol allows,

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over a procedure that ran more than two hours. Her

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lawyers say the IV lines were not placed correctly, that

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her veins had blown, and that the drug went into

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her body instead of her bloodstream, and that no one

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on the execution team realized it. She was taken to

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a hospital, unconscious and on a ventilator, and stayed that

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way for days. Her lawyers have asked a Nashville judge

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to order the state to preserve every piece of evidence

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from that night, physical, written, and electronic. That matters, because

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it is the foundation for whatever legal challenge comes next.

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A lawyer who helped write Tennessee's death penalty statute has

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said Pike could argue that what has already happened to

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her amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Meanwhile, the man

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who ran the prison system is on his way out,

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and his record is now getting a much closer look.

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Frank Strada became Tennessee's Commissioner of Correction in January of 2023.

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The governor brought him in specifically to fix the state's

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execution process after it was paused over drug testing failures.

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Before that, Strada was a senior official in Arizona's prison system,

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where he oversaw three executions in 2022. In all three,

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according to the inmates' lawyers and observers, the teams had

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trouble establishing IV lines. The problems were serious enough that

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Arizona's governor ordered an independent review of that state's protocols.

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That review was announced just weeks after Tennessee hired him.

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Under Strada, Tennessee resumed executions with a new single-drug protocol.

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This year, it has now failed twice. On Saturday, the

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governor announced that Strada will step down later this month.

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Strada says he still believes his department followed protocol. Tennessee's

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Department of Correction declined to comment to CNN about his

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record in Arizona. The man leading the review of what

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happened is Ed Stanton, a former US attorney. And here

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is a detail I find important. Stanton has done this before.

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When Tennessee called off an execution in 2022, he led

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the review that found the state had not followed its

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own lethal injection process. So this is the same investigator

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looking at the same department four years later. Pike's lawyers

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are asking Governor Bill Lee to commute her sentence to

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life without parole. Lee is term limited and leaves office

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in January. One of her attorneys, Stephen Farrell, has said

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he does not believe another attempt would bring justice. On

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the other side, some Tennessee lawmakers, including the Speaker of

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the State House, have proposed adding the firing squad as

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an option. So the question nobody in Tennessee wants to

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answer is now unavoidable. The state set out to end

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Krista Pike's life. She survived. Doctors are now working to

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heal her. If she recovers, does the state try again?

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There is almost no law on this. And whatever you

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believe about the death penalty, it should bother you that

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the answer may depend on who happens to be governor

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in February. Through all of it, there is a family

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in Florida that drove to Nashville expecting the end of

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a 30-year wait and went home with nothing settled. Colleen

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Slemmer was 19 years old. Someone has to say her name.

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When we come back, a five-year-old girl, her uncle... and

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the long road to a North Carolina courtroom. Peyton Fields

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was five years old. She and her older sister lived

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with their grandparents in Pender County, North Carolina, outside Wilmington.

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It wasn't because of any court order. Their grandmother testified

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that her home offered stability and a better school. In

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November of 2017, Paitin had been sick all weekend with

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a cough. On the night of November 12th, she fell asleep,

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and her grandmother moved her to the couch in the

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living room, where her sister was sleeping too. A few

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days earlier, the girl's uncle, David Privat, had moved back

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into the house after a fight with his girlfriend. He

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was 19. He came home around 10 that night. Sometime

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around 3 in the morning, Paitin's grandmother found her on

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the couch, having what looked like a seizure. She called

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911 twice and could not get through. So her husband

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drove and Pravat held Pytan in the front seat, giving

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her CPR. Hospital security video shows him running into the

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emergency room with her in his arms. Nurses and doctors

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testified that they saw marks on her neck right away.

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They also found injuries indicating she had been sexually assaulted.

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Pytan was declared brain dead the next day. Her organs

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were donated. Nearly nine years later, David Pravat, now 27,

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is on trial for first-degree murder and two child sex

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offense charges. He has pleaded not guilty. The prosecution's case

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is circumstantial, and they have said so plainly. Prosecutor Shirley

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Smircich told the jury that crimes like this happen behind

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closed doors, and that the only eyewitness Payton is gone.

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But she said, quote, the evidence taken altogether can speak

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for her. Here is some of that evidence. The forensic

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pathologist who performed the autopsy testified this week that Paitin

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died from a lack of oxygen caused by ligature strangulation,

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and that the illness she had been fighting did not

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cause her injuries. She testified that a U-shaped mark on

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Paitin's neck was consistent with a cord from a pair

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of red earbuds that investigators collected from Pravat's bedroom. A

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detective testified that Privat's fingernails were long and dirty the

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day Paitin was hospitalized and cut and cleaned the next day.

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And prosecutors say Paitin's sister, who was seven, woke up

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in the middle of the night and saw her uncle

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standing by the couch before walking back to his room.

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Now the defense, because they have a real case to

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make and you should hear it. Privat's attorney, Luther Britt,

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calls the investigation a witch hunt. He says detectives focused

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on his client from the start and never looked seriously

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at anyone else. He says no male DNA was found

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in the sexual assault kit. He says Pyton's DNA was

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on Pravate because he was holding her in the car

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on the way to the hospital, and on the earbuds

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because she played with them. On the stand, a lead

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investigator acknowledged that clothing from the scene was originally packaged

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together in a single bag, raising the question of contamination.

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He also testified that the underwear Peyton was wearing was

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thrown away by hospital staff and never tested. And the

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defense is going after the sister's account. They point out

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that she did not describe seeing her uncle that night

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until years later. They say that when prosecutors were preparing

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her to testify, her aunt had to leave the room

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because the girl kept looking to her before answering. The

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jury will also weigh recorded forensic interviews she gave as

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a child. Privat's own mother, who is Peyton's grandmother, testified

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that her son had a great relationship with the girls,

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who had a nickname for him, and that she saw

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no marks on Peyton's neck when she found her. She

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was in tears through most of it. As she left

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the stand, Court TV reports, Pravat turned to the gallery, smiled,

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and blew a kiss. Make of that what you will.

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It is not evidence of guilt, and the jury's job

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is the evidence. Here's what I keep thinking about. This

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family has been split down the middle for nine years.

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The same grandmother lost a granddaughter and may lose a son.

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And the girl who was seven years old that night

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is now 16 and being asked in public to be

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certain about the worst night of her life. Whatever this

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jury decides, it should decide on the evidence and it

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should take its time. Peyton Fields was five years old.

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She had a big sister and grandparents who were raising her.

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She was sick that weekend, and she should have woken

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up and gone to school. Someone has to say her name.

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That's the show for this Thursday. A question for the

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Spotify crowd today. Krista Pike survived. If she recovers, should

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Tennessee be allowed to try again? It is a genuinely

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hard question, and I want to hear how you think

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about it. If you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment.

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And if this episode was worth your time, do me

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a favor and send it to someone who follows these cases.

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A text, a share, whatever is easiest. Word of mouth

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is how this show grows. If you listen on Apple Podcasts,

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tap the listen uninterrupted button at the top of your screen.

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It's $ 5 a month for this show with no ads,

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00:16:36.789 --> 00:16:39.950
along with thousands of other Calaroga Media shows, and you

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00:16:39.970 --> 00:16:43.250
can try it free for 30 days. And to everyone

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00:16:43.289 --> 00:16:46.769
who already subscribes, Thank you. You keep the lights on here.

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Coming up, we will keep following the Privat trial in

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North Carolina as the state works toward resting its case.

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We are watching for a date in the Fort Hood execution.

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And on Monday, Russell Brand's rape trial begins in London.

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He has pleaded not guilty. I'm Garrett Fisher. Do better.

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This episode of Daily Crime and Justice is produced with

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the assistance of artificial intelligence, and is intended for news

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and commentary purposes only. It is not legal advice. Everyone

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charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until

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proven guilty in a court of law. David Prevatt has

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pleaded not guilty and has not been convicted. No one

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has been charged with a crime in the Cornell case. Correction,

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Wednesday's episode said Krista Pike remained unconscious and on a ventilator.

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Her attorneys announced Tuesday evening that she is conscious and speaking.

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That update came after our episode was produced. On Cornell,

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allegations described in this episode come from a civil complaint

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and from documents and transcripts obtained and reported by news outlets,

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including CBS News and CNN, which we have not independently reviewed.

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Allegations in a civil lawsuit are not findings of fact.

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The men named in the lawsuit have denied wrongdoing. Accounts

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of the university's disciplinary outcomes differ between the university and

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the plaintiff's attorney. We use the figures given by Cornell's president.

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We have deliberately not named the accused men, and we

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have not named the woman, who is identified in court

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only as Jane Doe. Some tabloid coverage has published extensive

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text messages and graphic details that we chose not to use.

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On Krista Pike, her condition is based on her attorney's

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statements and may have changed. Descriptions of what happened during

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her execution attempt come largely from her attorney's court filings

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and from media witnesses. The state has said it followed

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its protocol. A court hearing on her lawyer's evidence motion

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was scheduled for Wednesday, after this episode was written. Its

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outcome is not reflected here. Concerns about Arizona's 2022 executions

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come from inmates, attorneys, and observers, as reported by CNN

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and others. On David Prevat, testimony described here reflects proceedings

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through Tuesday, October 6th. Outlets differ slightly on the date

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of Peyton Fields' death. Peyton's sister is a minor and

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is not named here. If you or someone you know

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has been affected by sexual violence, you can reach RAINN's

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National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 anytime.