A newly released phone recording is giving the public a closer look at the conflicting accounts surrounding a sexual assault case that has put Cornell University under intense scrutiny.
The recording captures a conversation between a former Cornell student identified in court documents as Jane Doe and Matthew Ingalls, a former member of the university's Chi Phi fraternity.
The conversation took place on November 7, 2024, several weeks after an October 19 incident at the fraternity house and one day before Doe reported the incident to Cornell University Police.
Doe contacted Ingalls because she said she was trying to understand what had happened that night.
"The only way for me to heal is to know what happened," Doe said during the call, according to audio obtained by ABC News.
She described herself as confused about the events and said she was trying to piece together what had happened.
At another point, Doe told Ingalls that she had been heavily intoxicated before arriving at the fraternity house.
She also told him that if she pursued the matter, she believed what happened could be classified as gang rape.
Ingalls gave a different account.
He questioned Doe's recollection and told her that she had previously said she was sober.
He also described his own memory of the night and questioned whether both of them could have incomplete or inaccurate recollections.
At one point, Ingalls said it was possible that they both remembered the night incorrectly.
The recording does not resolve the dispute.
Instead, it captures two people describing the same night in very different ways.
The audio is emerging as the broader case enters a new phase.
Doe filed a civil lawsuit in September 2026 accusing seven former members of Chi Phi of sexually assaulting her after she says she was incapacitated by alcohol and drugs.
The men named in the lawsuit have denied the allegations.
No criminal charges were filed against the seven men in 2024.
Cornell conducted its own investigation and disciplinary proceedings. The university has said the process resulted in expulsions and suspensions involving several students.
The case returned to national attention after Doe's lawsuit brought new allegations and evidence into the public spotlight.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced in September that his office was reopening the criminal investigation.
Then New York Gov. Kathy Hochul took another major step.
On October 1, Hochul appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor to oversee the criminal investigation.
Hochul said the decision followed concerns about the original investigation and the need for public confidence that the case would be examined independently.
The newly released phone recording is only one piece of evidence in a much larger investigation.
Other records reviewed by ABC News include text messages, phone calls and documents from Cornell's internal investigation.
Those records have raised questions about how some fraternity members responded after the allegations emerged and whether they were more concerned about containing the situation than reporting what happened.
The accused men and their attorneys have disputed the allegations.
The case is now being examined again by state authorities, meaning the legal consequences of the events at the Chi Phi house are still unresolved.
For now, the newly released audio does something important.
It lets the public hear directly from two people who remember the night very differently.
And as the investigation continues, the question is no longer simply what each side says happened.
It is what the evidence can ultimately establish.
