A former student and Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity brother at the University of Minnesota was sentenced to 74 months in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to raping two women in 2014.
According to the Star Tribune, Daniel Drill-Mellum, 22, assaulted the first woman in the laundry room of his fraternity house during a Halloween party and the second woman a week later in his apartment. During the trial, both victims gave extremely visceral accounts of how Drill-Mellum had attacked them, detailing at length the horrific violence they'd endured.
"I thought I was going to die," one of the women said, according to Fox9. "I kind of hoped I was going to die."
"Sometimes I passed out because I wasn't breathing steadily enough," the other woman said. "I would come to terrified and confused."
The woman who had been attacked at Drill-Melum's apartment also spoke at length about the awful, victim-blaming treatment she'd received during the investigation. In particular, she said one detective told her the case "probably wasn't gonna go anywhere," and that "Mr. Drill-Mellum had insisted that I wanted what happened to me, because I 'liked rough sex.'"
Despite his apologies in court, both victims said they did not believe Drill-Mellum was actually remorseful for his actions or that he would change his behavior. The Star Tribune reports he never once looked at the women he'd raped while they read these statements.
"He knows what his actions were," the second victim said in her statement. "All of this is permanent for me. I wonder how permanent it is for [him]?"
Drill-Mellum was convicted of two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and will remain a registered sex offender for the rest of his life. The woman who was attacked on Halloween said the sentence was "a victory for women and daughters everywhere" — which rings especially true in light of how similar cases of assault have recently been treated in court.
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