Yale Student Slain Sunday

NEW HAVEN--Police said yesterday they had no suspects in the shooting death of a 19-year-old Yale University student, but their investigation continued.

Christian H. Prince was shot early Sunday on the steps of St. Mary's Church on the school's New Haven campus. The church is located a short distance from the home of Yale President Benno C. Schmidt Jr.

"We are making some progress in our investigation," said police Cmdr. J. Thomas Butler. "We're certainly not stymied, we're not stumped."

Butler said investigators were combing the neighborhood around the church, which he said was not a dangerous area. The police department received numerous calls Monday with information and tips concerning the slaying, he said.

Police believe Prince was killed during a robbery attempt. He was pronounced dead at Yale-New Haven Hospital of a gunshot wound to the chest, police said.

Prince was the fifth or sixth generation in his family to go to Yale. His father is a lawyer, his brother is a student at Duke University Law School, and his sister works for the Environmental Defense Fund. All three went to Yale.

"This is a tragic day for the Yale community," Schmidt said. "We are outraged by this despicable, senseless crime."

Prince, a university lacrosse player, who lived off-campus, is the first student to be slain at the campus in more than 16 years.

The sophomore history major from Chevy Chase, Md., was a former high school All-America lacrosse player at prep school in Lawrenceville, N.J., where he played on state championship hockey and lacrosse teams in 1988.

Last year Prince was a reserve defenseman on Yale's lacrosse team, which won 16 of 18 games and made it to the semifinals of the NCAA Lacrosse Championship.

"It's such a waste," Yale men's lacrosse coach Mike Waldvogel said Sunday. "He was everything you would want in a person and had everything going for him."

Waldvogel had projected Prince as a first-stringer on this spring's 1991 lacrosse squad.

Prince wanted to attend law school after graduating from Yale and was also interested in filmmaking, according to Rocky Mould, a friend of the slain student.

After taking a canoe trip with his father around James Bay in Ontario, Canada, Prince learned that a hydroelectric plant under construction in Ontario threatened to disrupt the lives of the Cree Indians.

For the last year, he'd been arranging to shoot a documentary film next summer with a fellow student, Katrina Berger, on the impact of the plant on the Crees, Mould said.

Funeral services for Prince are scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Columba's Church in Washington, D.C. A memorial service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday at the Yale chapel.