"She may actually believe the many different stories that she has been telling," said Cooper, but, "in the best interests of justice," the case was being closed.

Beyond the accuser's credibility, he cited other flaws in the case: a lack of physical evidence, a questionable identification process and pretrial publicity by Nifong.

The case began at a lacrosse team party in a rundown house just off campus on March 13 last year. The ensuing media frenzy had every ingredient needed to rivet national attention, starting with sensational allegations that white athletes at the elite university raped a black exotic dancer. Stirring the pot of sex, race, class and politics: a talkative prosecutor now up on ethics charges.

On Wednesday, the three now-vindicated young men, who had maintained their innocence from the start, appeared with families and lawyers at an emotional news conference. They had, Evans said, been "to hell and back."

Duke invited Finnerty, 20, of Garden City, N.Y.; and Seligmann, 21, of Essex Fells, N.J., to return last winter. Neither did so. Finnerty is now a student at Hofstra University.

"They are going to live the rest of their life with this as part of their biography," said James Coleman, the Duke law professor who was an early critic of Nifong.

"There's a famous quote: 'Where do I go to get my reputation back?' " said Joshua Marquis of the National District Attorneys Association. "The answer is, there isn't any way."

Suspicions lingered in Durham's black community, said local attorney John Fitzpatrick. He said Cooper's move to overrule a grand jury indictment fuels the perception among some "that the justice system could be bought."

Irving Joyner, a law professor at historically black North Carolina Central University, said a few African-Americans see the dismissal as "continuing part of an effort to taint this young woman." He said questions of differing treatment of blacks and whites by the justice system "will exist after this case is over. This case does not impact that one way or another."

The case's ending shouldn't lull people into believing all is well on college campuses, said Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University. It doesn't mean athletes "are a bunch of choirboys," he said. "This showed us an underbelly of college life."

For the three former Duke lacrosse players, though, the case that Seligmann said "opened my eyes up to a tragic world of injustice I never knew existed," was long overdue.

"It's been 395 days since this nightmare began. And finally, today it's coming to a closure," Evans said. "We're just as innocent today as we were back then."

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