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Abby Honold has never discussed how University of Minnesota Greek Life was involved in the aftermath of her 2014 rape — until now.
“I started to slow down about sharing my story, but I had never really talked about the Greek life aspect of it all,” Honold said. We weekly exclusively while promoting her episode of A&E’s Houses of Horror: Secrets of College Greek Life docuseries. “It really played a big role in what happened to me.”
Honold’s story is featured in the second episode of the docuseries, titled “Rape Culture,” which premiered on Monday, August 12. She recalled being sexually abused by Sigma Phi Epsilon’s brother. Daniel Drill-Mellum at a tailgate during her freshman year of college. At the time, Drill-Mellum’s fraternity brothers protected him. Although he was ultimately convicted of the crime, Honold never received an apology from Sigma Phi Epsilon members.
“I definitely have a different perspective on everything 10 years later, but it still has an emotional impact on me,” Honold explains. Usnoting that even after attending police training “quite regularly,” she still needs time to “process” after sharing her story. “It became so much easier over time.”
After reporting Drill-Mellum for rape, Honold described the response she received from members of the Greek life organizations on the University of Minnesota campus. Two of Drill-Mellum’s fraternity brothers even recorded a phone conversation with Honold in which they got her to admit that they had had consensual sex. Drill-Mellum was released from police custody without charges after the fraternity brothers shared the recording.
“I thought I was crazy. I really thought I had somehow blurted out something that hadn’t happened,” Honold recalled. “I knew I wasn’t lying about the attack, but I thought I had really gone crazy.”
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A recording of the phone call was played during Honold’s episode of the A&E series, in which she explained in detail what happened to Drill-Mellum. Honold clearly stated that she had been raped before the fraternity brothers asked a follow-up question about having “consensual sex,” but the inquiry was mumbled so it sounded like “real sex.” Honold said yes.
“It was proof that they were trying to deceive me on the phone,” she said Us. “It really gave me hope at that moment that maybe something can be done about this. One of the guys who made the call had gone around campus bragging about how he had found the truth and exposed me. So to hear it for myself, it was…justify isn’t even a strong enough word.”
After Drill-Mellum’s release, Honold published an anonymous blog post naming him as her rapist. Other victims subsequently came forward, some of whom initially did not want to report their rape.
“I’m just angry at him because he did what he did to so many people. I think for most people, when that happens to them, it’s isolating,” she explained Us. “I think he was just really good at isolating victims and finding people who didn’t have a lot of support. This was true of many of his victims. He knew we were the type of people who might not have come forward.”
After the Drill-Mellum case was reopened in 2015, he was rearrested and tried for raping Honold and a second victim. In August 2016, Drill-Mellum pleaded guilty to two counts of rape and was sentenced to 74 months in prison. He was released in September 2020.
Despite Drill-Mellum’s guilty verdict, Honold never heard from his fraternity brothers again.
“I’m a very forgiving person and when I came forward about this, I had this hope in me that maybe people would apologize,” she said. “Maybe we can come together and make something good out of it. And that wasn’t what happened to them.”
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Honold’s experiences led to the creation of The Abby Honold Act, which was signed into law in 2022 and establishes trauma-informed training programs for law enforcement agencies regarding their response to certain crimes, including sexual assault. Although in the 10 years since her rape, she has been able to “create a lot of good,” Honold said Us “It still makes me sad” that no one admitted wrongdoing in the situation.
“In my head I was hoping that maybe they would try to come forward and say, ‘Hey, I really made a mistake,'” she added. “That wasn’t the direction we were going. But there were many other men in Greek life at the University of Minnesota, who were years younger than these men and didn’t know them, who really took it upon themselves to start focusing on that topic. I really appreciated that.”
When Honold discussed her healing process specifically, she thought of herself as a student.
“My teenage self never thought I would talk about it so openly,” she admitted to Us. “I was very quiet for a few years after it happened. I think there’s a lot of healing in being able to talk about your own experiences instead of letting other people talk for you.”
New episodes of Houses of Horror: Secrets of College Greek Life premiering via A&E Monday at 9pm ET.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).