In 2013, a Vanderbilt student woke up after a night she could not remember and was told by the man she was dating that he had spent the night taking care of her. What she didn’t know was that while she was unconscious, several Vanderbilt football players had brought her into a dorm room, where prosecutors said she was sexually assaulted. And unlike most cases where investigators have to reconstruct what happened from conflicting memories, these men had documented parts of the night themselves.
The case began with a damaged dorm-room door, but surveillance footage showed an unconscious woman being carried through the building. Investigators eventually recovered deleted videos, photographs, messages and other digital evidence, including material sent to people outside Tennessee. Four football players were indicted. Brandon Vandenburg and Cory Batey were ultimately convicted at retrials and sentenced to 17 and 15 years, respectively, while Brandon Banks received 15 years. Jaborian “Tip” McKenzie cooperated with prosecutors, pleaded guilty to lesser charges and received probation.
More than a decade later, the Vanderbilt case is being discussed alongside allegations in a separate Cornell University case. A Cornell student who reported an alleged sexual assault at a fraternity house in 2024 has filed a civil lawsuit, prompting renewed scrutiny and a reopened investigation. No criminal charges have been filed against the men named in that lawsuit, and the allegations remain disputed. But the Vanderbilt case shows how surveillance footage and digital evidence can completely change the course of an investigation.
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