The tower had already approved what they called a "toll road departure" which is apparently local jargon for an early right turn. Probably because it lines up with Irving Park Drive being the tollroad in question, but that's a pure guess. So they were turning as permitted.
Right rudder would have been automatic, due to an interlock between the rudder and control yoke. It's spring-loaded so it can be overcome. I'm told it's common to not touch the pedals on many flights/planes because this interlock gives the right degree of rudder for turns. There was no hint of unresponsive left input until they actually tried a left input when turned far enough right, and then nothing happened. At that point they had about 22 seconds left in the air.
I think they were experiencing pre-stall buffet and that's why the nose was down (as witnesses reported). The stall angle at 160-ish knots was about 63 degrees and they were close to 60, so (speaking as a non-pilot) my understanding is they would have felt the shaking. What I look for here is feedback from pilots to tell me if I'm on the right track.
They were absolutely in an extreme bank, in my view, and were rapidly recovering from that when they ran out of altitude. When they hit the embankment at about 35 degrees, that was a highly transient state.