What exact words did Candace Owens quote from the Stamford voicemail recordings in her statements?
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Executive summary
Candace Owens has repeatedly described a 2007 incident in which anonymous classmates left her racist, threatening voicemail messages while she was a Stamford High School senior; she has quoted some lines in public statements but the exact verbatim phrases she has cited vary across her own accounts and local reporting (see Owens’ open letter and local profiles) [1] [2]. Contemporary local coverage and her 2016 open letter recount that the messages contained “threatening and racist” language and “threatening to kill her,” but the precise words she publicly quoted are not fully reproduced in the sources provided here [2] [1].
1. What Owens herself wrote and said about the voicemails
Owens’ 2016 open letter to the Stamford Advocate recounts that “one night … a group of anonymous boys called my cell phone and left me a series of voicemails,” and she described their words as “to this very day, represent the most horrific that I have ever heard uttered against another human being” [1]. Local profiles and interviews repeat her characterisation that the voicemails included graphic racial epithets and death threats, and that the incident “threatening to kill her” left lasting harm [2] [1].
2. How local reporting framed the messages’ content
Multiple Connecticut outlets summarized the recordings rather than publishing full transcripts. Reporting says the messages contained “death threats and racial and sexual slurs” and that Owens alleged the callers left “threatening voicemails threatening to kill her and spewing graphic racist epithets” [3] [2]. Those articles cite the family’s lawsuit and school-board settlement but do not quote a verbatim transcript of the voicemails in the material provided here [3] [2].
3. What the public record shows was litigated and settled
The Owens family sued the Stamford Board of Education alleging the school failed to protect her after the voicemails; reporting and court-related coverage note a $37,500 settlement paid by the schools and reference the nature of the messages as racial threats [4] [3]. Court and settlement reporting focus on the fact of harassment and the school’s response, not on printing exact lines from the recorded messages [3] [4].
4. Discrepancies and limits in the sources
Available sources document Owens’ characterization and the legal outcome but do not provide a full verbatim transcript of the Stamford voicemail recordings or a comprehensive list of the precise words she quoted in subsequent public statements [1] [2] [3]. When outlets paraphrase, they describe “threatening and racist” language or “death threats and racial and sexual slurs” rather than reproducing explicit phrases [2] [3].
5. Alternative perspectives and why they matter
Local coverage mentions that one youth identified in the case denied the allegations and that political connections (the mayor’s son) were referenced in the family’s complaint, indicating contested elements around responsibility and institutional response [1] [3]. This reporting suggests the incident was both personally traumatic for Owens and legally disputed in how authorities and the school reacted [1] [3].
6. What is and isn’t in the provided reporting — and what to ask next
The materials available here show Owens quoted the incident’s content in emotive, condemnatory terms — calling the messages “the most horrific” she’d heard and describing threats to her life — but they do not document a single consistent, exact phrase she quoted across all statements [1] [2]. If you want the precise words Owens recited in specific appearances (a particular interview, tweet, or speech), request which appearance and I can check whether any of the supplied sources record verbatim quotes from that occasion; current reporting in these sources does not provide full verbatim transcripts of the voicemails themselves [1] [2] [3].