Cryptic Note Found; Killing Perhaps Planned

In a stunning twist to Sunday's murder-suicide in Dunster House, authorities are trying to determine if a letter delivered to The Crimson last week suggests that the killing may have been premeditated.

And the sole witness to the Dunster House stabbing--the 26-year-old friend of victim Trang Phuong Ho '96--said in a published report today that she believed the brutal killing had been premeditated.

"I think she planned it," Thao Nguyen, 26, said in today's editions of The Boston Herald of the stabbings committed by Sinedu Tadesse '96. Nguyen was visiting Ho to help her move out of her dorm and was also injured in the attack.

"I heard the screaming and I opened my eyes," Nguyen told The Herald. "I tried to get the knife...but I couldn't."

On Sunday night, Harvard police recovered a strange envelope from a dumpster outside The Crimson's building at 14 Plympton St.

The envelope contained a wallet-sized color photograph of Tadesse along with a cryptic typewritten message: "Keep this picture. There will soon be a very juicy story involving the person in this picture."

According to editors, the envelope had neither a postage stamp nor a return address, and Crimson staffers had thrown it in the trash soon after it was received last Tuesday, five days before the Dunster stabbings.

After Harvard police discovered the letter at The Crimson, they turned it over to state police. Those authorities will conclude fingerprint, handwriting and other tests on the letter this week, according to First Assistant District Attorney Martin F. Murphy.

He refused to comment further.

The letter provides fodder for those who speculate that the murder may have been premeditated.

"It would seem to me that someone who sent a letter like that must have been planning something," said Dr. Randolph Catlin Jr., a psychiatrist who is the director of mental health services.

Murphy's Report

In other news, Murphy yesterday released the contents of the autopsy reports performed on the corpses of Tadesse and Ho.

According to Murphy, doctors at the state medical examiners office confirmed that Ho's death was the result of about 45 stab wounds to the face, neck, chest, arms and legs.

Tadesse died of strangulation as a result of suicidal hanging, Murphy said. He added that there were no signs of any other injuries, which could indicate that there was little if any struggle between Ho and Tadesse.

Murphy said that Tadesse used a buck knife--a type of hunting knife with an average blade length of six to eight inches--to stab her roommate and her roommate's friend.

The assistant district attorney also reported that the investigation into the case by the Harvard, Cambridge and state police is continuing.

The district attorney's office is focusing on the personal relationship between Tadesse and Ho.

The two were placed together in a double by chance at the beginning of sophomore year, after "floating" separately into Dunster House.

After rooming together for two years, their ties became strained, according to friends. Several weeks ago, Ho entered the Dunster housing lottery with Jennifer A. Tracy '97 and Malikah J. Sherman '96--and not Tadesse--several friends of Ho's said.

Statements from acquaintances of the two describe a relationship that had become increasingly fractured in recent months.

In contrast to some press reports, many Dunster residents said that the women never seemed especially close.

One friend who spoke frequently with both claimed not to have known they were roommates until the morning of the murder.

"I never heard about relations between them, whether they were good or not," said the friend.

"They weren't friends," said another sophomore in Dunster House who knew both women. "They didn't like each other."

After Ho decided not to room with Tadesse again next year, the soon-to-be killer is reported to have grown irrational.

Last month, Tadesse sent a one page letter to her roommate, Ho's sister Thao told The Boston Globe.

"I thought we were going to do stuff together, you'll always have a family to go to and I am going to have no one," Tadesse wrote, according to The Globe.

Tadesse is an Ethiopian citizen who attended the International Community School in the capital of Addis Ababa. Ho's immediate family lives in Medford, Mass.

But despite rooming problems between the two women, Murphy emphasized that authorities remain puzzled about Tadesse's motive in killing her roommate.

"I could still say we'd say this was an inexplicable event," Murphy said. "There'snever a really good reason for murder. But in thiscase, the nature of the crime, its suddenness,makes it different and less like many other crimesthat we investigate."

Murphy declined to comment on any specificpieces of evidence or theories for potentialmotives. Murphy did say that he had "no reason tobelieve" that there were any "romantic links"between the two, indicating that he was ruling outthe possibility of a jealously-tinged lovetriangle

Murphy declined to comment on any specificpieces of evidence or theories for potentialmotives. Murphy did say that he had "no reason tobelieve" that there were any "romantic links"between the two, indicating that he was ruling outthe possibility of a jealously-tinged lovetriangle