Murder Coverage Unfairly Implicates Yale Teacher

To the editors:

The Crimson's article about the murder of Yale student Suzanne Jovin (News, Dec. 10) was irresponsible and sloppy journalism.

The central premise of the story--that a Yale faculty member is the "lead suspect" in the investigation of this tragic murder--has been refuted by the police categorically. Yale's college newspaper, the Yale Daily News, reported that New Haven Police Department's communications supervisor David Burleigh said that reports that a faculty member may have killed Jovin were "grievous errors" and "premature and reckless."

Further, the police did not "grill" anyone: They questioned the professor over the phone, and then called him a second time when investigators realized they had forgotten to ask him a question.

To take this story at face value--a story which quoted no direct sources--was at best incredibly naive, and at worst downright malevolent. Then, to top it off with a sensationalist and misleading headline does a disservice to the Yale faculty member involved and a disservice to the Harvard community. LAURA E. MORANCHEK   Dec. 9, 1998 The writer graduated from Yale in 1998.