Sinedu Tadesse
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Sinedu Tadesse (1974-1995) was a junior at Harvard University when, in 1995, she murdered her roommate, Trang Ho, and then killed herself. The ensuing scandal played out in the courts and Boston newspapers, and resulted in a variety of changes to the administration of living conditions at Harvard.[1]
On May 28, 1995, Sinedu Tadesse stabbed her roommate, Trang Ho, 45 times with a hunting knife and then hanged herself in the bathroom. (On the way to the bathroom to commit suicide, she took a swipe at one of Ho's visiting friends, a 26-year-old named Thao Nguyen, injuring her as well.)
Tadesse had purchased the knife in advance, and the week before the murder, Tadesse had even sent a photograph of herself with an anonymous note to The Harvard Crimson, saying "Keep this picture. There will soon be a very juicy story involving this woman."
In the days after the murder, it was speculated on campus and in the press that Tadesse had resorted to violence because Ho had asked not to room with her again in the fall, though members of Tadesse's family countered that she was the one who opted out of rooming with Ho, as she was often alone in the dormitory because Ho often stayed with her family in nearby Medford, Massachusetts.[2]
Most analysis of the murder follows the 1997 publication of Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder, a book by 1987 Harvard grad Melanie Thernstrom. Thernstrom was sympathetic towards Tadesse, and blames the university for what happened.
Thernstom travelled to Tadesse's home in Ethiopia and gained access to her diaries, diaries that reveal her deteriorating mental health, her obsessive fantasizing about an ideal friend, and her troubles obtaining psychiatric care.[3][4]
Tadesse had grown up in a relatively well-off family, but during times of chaos and murder in Ethiopia. Her father had been thrown in jail for two years when Tadesse was 7. To escape, Tadesse devoted herself to her studies, gaining admission to the prestigious International Community School where she graduated a valedictorian and earned admission to Harvard.
However, she was unable to keep up academically when she arrived at Harvard, and she made no friends, remaining distant even from relatives she had in the area. Tadesse even sent a letter to dozens of strangers that she picked from the phone book, describing her unhappiness and pleading with them to be her friend.
For her second and third years she roomed with Vietnamese student Trang Ho. Ho was apparently very popular and Tadesse was obsessively fond of her. She was offputtingly needy in her demands for attention. She apparently reacted with despair when Ho announced her decision to room with another group of girls their senior year.
Trang Ho's family thought Harvard could have prevented her death, and in 1998 they filed suit against the school, alleging "wrongful death, conscious pain and suffering and emotional distress," and charging the university, as well as various people in charge at Dunster House with negligence. They felt that the university had plenty of evidence that Tadesse was melting down, and could have prevented the deaths.
After the murder, a debate erupted at Harvard over whether the school should establish a scholarship in the names of both girls or only in Ho's. They decided on the latter, and students can now apply for the Trang Ho Public Service Fellowship to pay for charitable good work during the summer after junior year.
[edit] References
- ^ Thernstrom, Melanie. Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder. Plume Books, September 1998. (ISBN 0-452-28007-9)
- ^ Goldstein, Marianne. "Death At Harvard" People Daily, June 7, 1995.
- ^ Pergament, Rachel. "Review of Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder", Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Section Newsletter. Volume 18, Issue 1, 1998.
- ^ Dunlop, Katherine. "Institutional Isolation", Perspective magazine at Harvard-Radcliffe, November 1997. Personal recollections, and analysis of Halfway Heaven.
