Pring-Wilson Moves To Strike Statements

A Harvard graduate student arrested for stabbing a local Cambridge teen last April has filed a motion to suppress statements he made to police and friends the night of the incident, claiming he was suffering from a concussion and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Alexander Pring-Wilson, a student at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the time of his arrest, was charged with stabbing 18-year-old Michael Colono to death April 12 after an early morning altercation outside of Pizza Ring, a local pizza parlor.

In a motion filed in Middlesex Superior Court on Feb. 23, defense attorney Jeffrey A. Denner and associates wrote that Pring-Wilson’s contradicting statements the night of the incident “were not knowing, intelligent, or voluntary.”

Emily J. LaGrassa, a spokesperson for the Middlesex County district attorney’s office, said Wednesday she could not comment because the case is pending trial.

According to the motion, Pring-Wilson called police the night of the incident and told the dispatcher he was a bystander who had witnessed a stabbing.

Pring-Wilson also told police on the scene that he had seen another male being attacked and tried to come his defense.

That same night, Pring-Wilson left a message for his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Hansen, in which he said he had been attacked and stabbed one of his assailants.

When police arrived to arrest Pring-Wilson at his house on April 13, he told them he had observed a scuffle, according to the motion.

But Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Lynch argued in a May 13 bail hearing that Pring-Wilson “has attempted to avoid responsibility” and was “trying to cover up his wrongful conduct” by lying to the police.

At the same hearing, Denner said that his client did not instigate either the verbal or physical altercation, and stabbed Colono in self-defense.

Pring-Wilson’s attorneys argued in the motion that their client made these contradicting statements in a vulnerable mental state.

An officer who responded to the scene said that Pring-Wilson had an obvious bruise on his forehead and that he appeared to be intoxicated, according to the motion.

The motion said that Pring-Wilson sustained “repeated persistent blows to the front and back of his head. At one point [during the altercation], Pring-Wilson briefly lost consciousness and fell to his knees.”

A psychiatrist examined Pring-Wilson several days after the incident and determined he was likely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, the motion said.

“As a direct result of his assailant’s actions, Pring-Wilson suffered a conclusive brain injury that has lasted for months and may still persist today albeit with diminished manifestations,” the motion said of Dr. William Stratford’s report.

The defense also filed a motion on Monday requesting to move the trial, scheduled for April 15, to Pittsfield, Mass., claiming that the publicity the case has attracted in Cambridge would deny Pring-Wilson the right to an unbiased jury.

A judge will rule on both motions in a March 15 hearing.

—Staff writer Hana R. Alberts can be reached at alberts@fas.harvard.edu.