Thernstrom Speaks on Murder-Suicide Book

Melanie R. Thernstrom '86, author of Halfway Heaven, an account of the 1995 murder-suicide case involving two Dunster House residents, spoke about her book and read portions of it to an audience of more than 30 people at the Cambridge Public Library yesterday.

"The real reason for which I wrote this book was because I gained access to Sinedu's diary," Thernstrom said. "I found it an incredibly moving experience to read and I felt like I wanted to write her story."

Dunster house resident Sinedu Tadesse '96 stabbed her roommate Trang Phuong Ho '96, as well as an overnight guest, on Sunday May 28, 1995 at 8 a.m. The studious, altruistic Ho died from the injuries. Tadesse, an international student from Ethiopia, then hanged herself in the suite's bathroom, dying soon after.

Thernstrom described Halfway Heaven not as criticism of Harvard as an institution or a reflection on the lack of support services for students suffering from mental illnesses, but as a narrative, an "attempt to understand what happened, to get inside Sinedu's mind, to unravel the mystery. That was my focus."

Thernstrom said her interest in Tadesse resulted from a brief contact the two had while Thernstrom was teaching an English department seminar in 1992, for which Tadesse applied.

Thernstrom did not admit Tadesse to the seminar, so the student approached her to appeal her case.

Her claims of having come from a troubled country only made Thernstrom think her just another "rich foreign student" talking of her nation's suffering while concealing her background.

In retrospect, Thernstrom says she feels like "one of the long list of people Sinedu had reached out to only to be turned away".

Steven J. Turner '98, who attended the talk, said he felt he could identify with the author's feelings of guilt about this incident.

"We all face choices like that," he said. "It's only after tragic things like this happen that you begin to realize that perhaps you could have made a difference."

In a question-and-answer period following a reading, many questioners said they perceived her book to be an attack on Harvard and inquired about both the College's accountability and the difficulty of investigating at Harvard.

"I do feel it's been a misreading of my book-was it Harvard's fault or was it not Harvard's fault," she said. "You can't see an institution as responsible for something like murder. That said, I think that there were a lot of opportunities that were missed."

Both during her research and since publication of the book, Harvard officials have criticized Thernstrom's information gathering methods and the anti-Harvard bias they perceived in the book.

Some campus administrators alleged that Thernstrom abused her position as a University official to obtain private information and records that would not have been available otherwise.

Thernstrom began her investigation of the case as an assignment for the New Yorker.

After reviewing police documents, interviewing school officials and peers of both students, the author travelled to Ethiopia in her search to understand Tadesse, because she discovered that "no one in America knew her."

Thernstrom said her visit to the family yielded very little answers; the family's confusion and ignorance of the facts of the incident became another baffling part of situation.

Particularly moving was Thernstrom's reading of a five-page letter Tadesse wrote in which she described her frustration and sense of alienation more than a year before the tragedy.

"Why am I writing this letter?" she writes. "Because I am desperate...The mention of Harvard might make you think, okay, she's one of those successful people who've made it in life. Unfortunately, I don't feel one tiny bit of the success."

The letter, sent to an unknown number of people, pleads for someone to reach out into her abysmal solitude and befriend her before she finished her spiraling plunge into psychosis.

One concerned recipient sent the letter to a Harvard administrator, who then referred it to the master of Dunster House. The letter was read and filed without action being taken upon it. Police investigators came across it after the crime ocurred.

At the time of the tragedy, both students were pre-med biology concentrators in their junior year and had been roommates since they had entered Dunster House as floaters.

Struggling with intense depression, falling grades and loneliness, Tadesse became more self-absorbed and self-critical as the year progressed.

Ho had informed Tadesse of plans to room with another student, and in spite of subsequent friendly overtures from Ho, Tadesse reacted with anger. The two were not on speaking terms at the end of the year, when the incident occurred.