Another Campus Casualty in Connecticut: Student-Athlete Killed

Two recent, unfounded murders have haunted Nutmeggers across the state and vaulted campus security into the national spotlight once again.

On September 13, law enforcement authorities discovered the body of 24-year-old doctoral student Annie Le at the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology.  She had been missing since September 8.  A little over a month later, Jasper Howard, a junior cornerback for the University of Connecticut’s football team, was fatally stabbed and killed.  The stabbing occurred October 18 outside a university-sanctioned dance.

While police have made an arrest in Le’s death, nobody has been charged in the case of Howard.  As of Tuesday, UConn police made no new developments.  However, Henry Williams, Howard’s stepfather, has expressed confidence that the killer would be brought to justice.

Connecticut ranks 31st arbitrarily in murder rates based on the 2008 FBI Uniform Crime Report with the rates hovering around three per 100,000 people for the past six years.  The same report shows no murders on the campuses of Connecticut or Yale in 2008.  In fact, there were none at the two universities for the past three years according to the US Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education.

The Le and Howard murders not only shattered this unblemished record but it shattered the mood at both schools and the surrounding communities.  Students at Yale were naturally excited for the new school year while UConn students were just coming off celebrating a win over conference foe, Louisville.  Furthermore, the fall marked a personal and significant milestone for both Le and Howard.  Le was to be married the weekend of her disappearance.  Howard had a career-best game against Louisville, with 11 tackles and a forced fumble, the day before his death.

Crime and violence, especially murder, are almost always inexplicable, more so when they occur on school grounds.  This certainly explains the fascination and glamorization of murder mysteries in television, film and the media.  However, the people involved and affected by the latest cases surrounding two transplanted Connecticutians hope that their stories will not simply serve as another script for Hollywood’s silver screen, that after the mourning will come justice, and that the tragedies in New Haven and Storrs will not be remembered as simply another haunting statistic.