Rolling Stone never contacted the friends of a woman at the center of an alleged rape at the University of Virginia that was the cornerstone of an explosive article that is now falling apart, The Washington Post reports.

The Post’s T. Rees Shapiro, who has been at the university re-reporting the incident, also found that the woman at the center of the piece, “Jackie,” has identified two different men as the one who orchestrated the date-turned-attack. One of them doesn’t attend the university and photos Jackie sent to her friends of him appear to be of a man who attended high school with Jackie, but now attends a different university.  The other, whose name is similar to the second one Jackie used for her attacker said he has never met her and was not a member of the fraternity that Jackie associated with the attack.

In the Rolling Stone piece, three friends identified as “Randall,” “Andy” and “Cindy”, discouraged Jackie from alerting authorities. “Randall” is quoted in the piece as not wanting to be interviewed for fears of harming the reputation of his fraternity. But the three friends, using the same pseudonyms in the Post, said they were never contacted and that they had actually encouraged Jackie to seek help.

“The friends said they never were contacted or interviewed by the pop culture magazine’s reporters or editors. Though vilified in the article as coldly indifferent to Jackie’s ordeal, the students said they cared deeply about their friend’s well-being and safety. Randall said that they made every effort to help Jackie that night,” the Post reports. “[“Randall”] told the Post that he never was contacted by Rolling Stone and would have agreed to an interview.”

Rolling Stone has backed away from the article written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely in November, issuing an editor’s note, apologizing for inconsistences in the piece. 

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