Abby Honold never discussed how Greek life at the University of Minnesota was involved in the aftermath of her 2014 rape — until now.
“I had started to slow down on sharing my story, but I had never really talked about the Greek life aspect of everything,” Honold told Us Weekly exclusively while promoting her episode of A&E’s Houses of Horror: Secrets of College Greek Life docuseries. “It really did play a huge role in what happened to me.”
Honold’s story is showcased in the docuseries’ second episode, titled “Rape Culture,” which premiered on Monday, August 12. She recalled being sexually assaulted by Sigma Phi Epsilon brother Daniel Drill-Mellum at a tailgate during her junior year of college. At the time, Drill-Mellum’s fraternity brothers protected him. While he was eventually convicted for the crime, Honold never received an apology from any Sigma Phi Epsilon members.
“I definitely have a different perspective on everything 10 years later, but it still really does impact me emotionally,” Honold explained to Us, noting that even after doing police trainings “pretty regularly,” she still needs time to “process” after sharing her story. “It got so much easier over time.”
After reporting Drill-Mellum for rape, Honold detailed the backlash she received from members of the Greek life organizations on the University of Minnesota’s campus. Two of Drill-Mellum’s fraternity brothers even recorded a phone call with Honold in which they tricked her into admitting they had consensual sex. Drill-Mellum was released from police custody with no charges after the fraternity brothers shared the recording.
“I thought that I was crazy. I really thought that I had somehow blurted out something that didn’t happen,” Honold recalled. “I knew that I wasn’t lying about the assault, but I thought that I had really lost my mind.”
A recording of the phone call played during Honold’s episode of the A&E series, in which she detailed what went down with Drill-Mellum. Honold clearly stated that she was raped before the fraternity brothers asked a follow-up question about having “consensual sex,” but the inquiry was mumbled, so it sounded like “actual sex.” Honold said yes.
“It was evidence that they were trying to trick me on the phone,” she told Us. “It really gave me hope in that moment that maybe something can be done about this. One of the boys who made the phone call had gone around campus and bragged about how he found the truth and he exposed me. So to hear it for myself, it was … vindicating isn’t even a strong enough word.”
Following Drill-Mellum’s release, Honold published an anonymous blog post naming him as her rapist. Other victims then came forward — some of whom did not want to report their rape at first.
“I’m just angry at him for doing what he did to so many people. I think most people, when that happens to them, it is isolating,” she explained to Us. “I think that he just was really good at isolating victims and finding people who didn’t have a lot of support. That was the case for a lot of his victims. He knew that we were the types of people who maybe wouldn’t have come forward.”
After the Drill-Mellum case was reopened in 2015, he was arrested again 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 any of his fraternity brothers again.
“I’m a really forgiving person and when I came forward about this, I just had this hope inside of me that maybe people will apologize,” she said. “Maybe we can kind of come together, we can make something good out of this. And that wasn’t what happened with them.”
Honold’s experienced 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 regarding their response to certain crimes, including sexual assault. Even though she was able to “create a lot of good” in the decade since her rape, Honold told Us “it still makes me sad” that no one admitted their wrongdoing in the situation.
“In my head, I was hoping that maybe they would try and come forward to say, ‘Hey, I really made a mistake,’” she added. “That wasn’t the direction it was taken. But there were a lot of 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 issue. I really appreciated that.”
When discussing her healing process specifically, Honold reflected on herself as a college-aged student.
“My teenage self would’ve never thought that I would be talking this openly about it,” she admitted to Us. “I was really quiet for a couple years after it happened. I think it does bring a lot of healing to be able to talk about your own experience instead of letting other people talk for you.”
New episodes of Houses of Horror: Secrets of College Greek Life premiere via A&E Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
