Wigglesworth J-Entry Broken Into

A 29-year old man posing as a student researcher was arrested Saturday afternoon after breaking into a room in Wigglesworth.

The man, Deen Hull, opened the unlocked door to Wigglesworth J-22 and told the four residents of the he was doing a project for his communications class.

"He claimed he was a UMass student taking a class in communications and that the assignment of the class was to meet as many people as possible to get over the fear of talking to people," Hyland Hunt '98 said. "It all sounded pretty weird."

Toting a typewritten list of magazine titles, Hull also claimed to be selling subscriptions at very low prices. Hull told the students he was in third place in a sales contest and would win $10,000 if he could only sell 30 more subscriptions.

Hull apologized for entering the room, claiming that he thought the door led to another hallway, the students said.

The students said they suspected Hull because he kept changing his story.

"The guy kept on contradicting himself," said Jennifer Bolstad '98. "One minute he would say "It's not like I'm a college student, and the next he would say 'But I am a college student."

Susannah E. Hills '98, who had been stopped by Hull in the hallway earlier, called Harvard police.

Police arrested Hull after he failed to show them UMass identification, the students said. A Harvard police officer who declined to be identified said police could not determine if Hull attended UMass.

Hull was charged with breaking and entering and trespassing, according to the officer.

He was transferred to the Cambridge police department and will be arraigned today.

Residents said the episode hadn't affected them much.

"I wasn't really scared," said Hunt. "He didn't look that imposing."

Bolstad said she wouldn't start locking the door, but added, "It was just lucky that he didn't walk in on one of us coming out of the shower or walking around undressed."