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High-Profile Murders Haunt Yale

Race and class issues feature heavily in killings from past

By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff

Posted Sep 15, 2009 5:01 AM CDT

(Newser) – Graduate student Annie Le's murder is just the latest in a series of high-profile killings to rock Yale University in recent history, reports Gawker, which dubs the university "Murdertown of the Ivies." The Yale killings too often feature a troubling mix of race, class, and bungling by authorities, Gawker notes. Among the notorious cases:

  • Suzanne Jovin. Jovin, a 21-year-old from Germany, was found dead on a street near the campus in 1998, with her throat slit and 17 stab wounds. Her thesis adviser was identified as a suspect but never charged, and her killing remains unsolved.

  • Bonnie Garland was killed with a hammer by her boyfriend and fellow student Richard Herrin in 1977. Yale's Catholic community rallied around Herrin, a Mexican American from a poor background, helping raise funds for a high-priced lawyer. Herrin was convicted of manslaughter.
  • Christian Prince was a fourth-generation Yalie from a wealthy family who was allegedly killed by a 17-year-old African American looking for money to attend a rap concert. Prince was found shot dead on the steps of St. Mary's Church. The man charged with his murder was found guilty of armed robbery but acquitted of murder after two racially charged trials.


Yale has had a list of high-profile crimes long enough to support a Law & Order spinoff, Gawker writes.
Yale has had a list of "high-profile crimes long enough to support a Law & Order spinoff," Gawker writes.   (Getty Images)
Yale University students and faculty participate in a candlelight vigil for Annie Le in  New Haven, Conn last night.
Yale University students and faculty participate in a candlelight vigil for Annie Le in New Haven, Conn last night.   (AP Photo/Douglas Healey)
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Yale students have demonstrated a disconcerting tendency for turning up dead over the years, often in circumstances that implicate race, class, and sex in a potent Bonfire-of-the-Vanities concoction. - John Cook, Gawker

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 5 comments
Guest
Sep 17, 2009 4:53 AM CDT
And the moral of the story is....don't attend Yale. I mean is the education really worth the chance of being brutally murdered?
Guest
Sep 15, 2009 5:35 AM CDT
Gary Stein was killed near the Grove Street Cemetery in 1974.
Guest
Sep 15, 2009 5:04 AM CDT
Enough with the adjectives.
 

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