Police Call Yale Prof. Interview Routine

On a day when hundreds of Yale students mourned the loss of a slain friend, New Haven police downplayed suggestions that a Yale lecturer has been named a prime suspect.

Suzanne Jovin, 21, was found stabbed and bleeding late last Friday on the corner of Edgehill Avenue and East Rock Road in New Haven, mere blocks from the Yale campus.

She later died in a New Haven hospital.

Tuesday's New Haven Register cited unnamed sources close to the investigations, who said police are questioning a Yale teacher in connection with the crime.

At the time, the newspaper did not reveal the name of the man who was questioned. But Wednesday, that lecturer, James R. Van De Velde, identified himself and denied his involvement to numerous media sources minutes after leaving New Haven police headquarters.

Van De Velde served as Jovin's senior thesis adviser in the political science department.

New Haven Police Department Sergeant David Burleigh said in an interview that querying people who knew the victim is part of the standard procedure for police detectives.

"They're questioning him," Burleigh said. "It's difficult to characterize somebody as a suspect when they're being questioned."

Burleigh said the Register and other media sources "have not been fair" in playing up the fact that police questioned Van De Velde twice, noting that it is standard procedure for police to question a variety of people several times as they narrow their investigation.

"They made a big point that he was interviewed twice," Burleigh said.

"They shouldn't jump to conclusions."

Burleigh did confirm a report in yesterday's Yale Daily News, which said that police were focusing their investigations on a three-block area around the site of Jovin's murder.

The crime has puzzled detectives from the start. Police said in a press conference Tuesday that witnesses had reported hearing a violent argument between a man and a woman minutes before police arrived on the scene.

Police have not found a murder weapon and have not identified any possible motives for the killer.

Van De Velde, who faced a barrage of requests for interviews from the media, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Yesterday, the University also released a letter written by Dean of the College Richard H. Brodhead to Yale students' parents, which expressed the university's sense of "shock and profound sorrow."

"If there is any comfort in this situation, it is that Yale is a place with a very strong sense of community," he wrote.

The letter notes that "although crime in New Haven is down 33 percent since 1990 and Yale's campus police force has been doubled in the last decade, the tragic things that happen in the world will happen here from time to time - which does not make them less grievous when they occur."

A Yale student from Branford College, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said yesterday she felt Brodhead's letter "reframes [the crime] totally in light of all the things Yale has been doing to improve the safety at New Haven."

Although Yale has a reputation among Ivy League undergraduates for being crime-ridden, university officials claim their campus is actually among the safest of the eight colleges

Police have not found a murder weapon and have not identified any possible motives for the killer.

Van De Velde, who faced a barrage of requests for interviews from the media, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Yesterday, the University also released a letter written by Dean of the College Richard H. Brodhead to Yale students' parents, which expressed the university's sense of "shock and profound sorrow."

"If there is any comfort in this situation, it is that Yale is a place with a very strong sense of community," he wrote.

The letter notes that "although crime in New Haven is down 33 percent since 1990 and Yale's campus police force has been doubled in the last decade, the tragic things that happen in the world will happen here from time to time - which does not make them less grievous when they occur."

A Yale student from Branford College, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said yesterday she felt Brodhead's letter "reframes [the crime] totally in light of all the things Yale has been doing to improve the safety at New Haven."

Although Yale has a reputation among Ivy League undergraduates for being crime-ridden, university officials claim their campus is actually among the safest of the eight colleges