For Four Years, Crimson Crimes Bordered on the Bizarre

Crime happens, even at Harvard. These are some of the most memorable crimes of the last four years: the sad, the scary, and even the slapstick. From a graduate student convicted of manslaughter to a professor charged with stealing manure, this is the dirty business of life at Harvard—a hallowed university where veritas is just a motto.

MISSING PROFESSOR

NOVEMBER 2001

Until his body showed up in the Mississippi River, the only trace of Don C. Wiley was his rental car abandoned on the side of a bridge. Wiley, Loeb professor of biochemistry and biophysics, went missing on Nov. 16, 2001, while in Memphis, Tenn., for a scientific conference. The FBI looked into the case on the suspicion that his work might be of interest to terrorists.

They determined it wasn’t. Police had speculated about suicide, but after Wiley’s body surfaced on Dec. 20, 2001, the coroner said it was most likely an accidental death. It appears that Wiley pulled over on the bridge, exited his car, and was blown over by gusty winds.

STEALING HARVARD

JANUARY 2002

Two active members of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals did their best to take ownership of their extracurricular activities­—literally—embezzling almost $100,000 to finance their lavish lifestyles. In January 2002, Suzanne M. Pomey and Randy J. Gomes were indicted; nine months later they pleaded guilty to the charge of grand larceny and were sentenced to two and five years of probation, respectively. Pomey, former producer of the Hasty Pudding show and ex-president of the sorority Kappa Alpha Theta, was said to have spent her $23,000 share of the loot on shopping trips and spa visits. Court records indicate that Gomes’ share paid for his drug habit and a lavish open-bar party he threw for Pomey at T.G.I. Friday’s. Though they had completed all of their course requirements for graduation, the College voted not to grant degrees to the pair in 2002. In February 2003, after the court ruling, the College voted to dismiss Pomey and Gomes from Harvard.

WHO FRAMED JONATHAN MURSTEIN?

APRIL 2002

In one month, Jonathan A. Murstein ’05 lost a flip-flop, tennis shoe, and laptop. He thought he was losing his mind. The footwear turned up on top of a vending machine and in the men’s bathroom. His computer appeared on his Greenough floormate’s desk. In a single week, Murstein’s lock was jammed with plastic five times, including the night before an Ec10 hourly when he waited until 7:15 a.m. to get back into his room.

The final straw came when Murstein’s laptop was stolen. He ordered a new one and when the replacement arrived, his “friend” Brian Wan ’05-’08 offered to retrieve and set up the computer for him. But the computer Wan set up turned out to be the one that had been stolen. Adding insult to injury, Wan informed his proctor that Murstein had faked the whole theft just to collect the insurance money for what Wan claimed was Murstein’s drug habit. Wan confessed to making up the whole story. Murstein collected his second stolen computer from Wan’s partner in crime, Michael D. Wang ’05-’06. Both Wan—at the time a member of the varsity tennis team—and Wang left Harvard for three and two years, respectively.

Wan, who returned to Harvard this spring, wrote in an e-mail that he is sorry about the thefts. “I made some mistakes that I deeply regret and hurt some people in ways I wish I had not,” he wrote. “I hope I am a different person now and that people will be able to judge me for who I am today and not for who I was then.”

Wang, who returned this fall after working for two years as a crisis counselor, wants to start up his own online peer counseling service at Harvard. He said counseling is something he’s doing to “atone.” Though Wang and Murstein are on speaking terms, Wang said that he no longer talks to Wan. Murstein spent sophomore year in a Kirkland House two-room single after his nightmarish freshman setup. But he said that the experience hasn’t had lasting effects for him.

“It’s an interesting story to tell people,” Murstein said. “I ask if they want the abridged or unabridged story.”

COMMENCEMENT LOCKDOWN

JUNE 2002

The arrest of Palestinian activist and suspected terrorist Jaoudat Abouazza in Harvard Square triggered a “lock-down” on Commencement Day 2002. Police had considered heightening security in anticipation of the “American Jihad” speech by Zayed M. Yasin ’02 and a World Bank protest in Cambridge scheduled for the next day. But it was the arrest of Abouazza that led to the metal detectors, bomb technicians, and National Guard presence at Commencement.

Abouazza, 24 at the time, was arrested near the Au Bon Pain in Holyoke Center on traffic violations and weapons charges.

THE SNOW PENIS

FEBRUARY 2003

Some of Harvard’s rowers took a break from stroking down the Charles in order to erect a nine-foot snow penis in Harvard Yard on Feb. 11, 2003.

Complete with a vein and two large, well-defined testicles, the phallus rubbed campus feminists the wrong way. Amy E. Keel ’04 said she and her roommates destroyed the snow penis because “pornography is degrading to women and creates a violent atmosphere.”

It was the cock block to end all cock blocks, making it into the Economist, Playboy, and Weekend Update on “Saturday Night Live.”

TOWN-GOWN KILLING

APRIL 2003

A nasty exchange of words outside of a Cambridge Pizza Ring turned into a deadly stabbing early on April 12, 2003, when a liquored-up Harvard graduate student killed a local teenager. Alexander Pring-Wilson, then a 25-year-old graduate student at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, used a pocketknife to kill Michael D. Colono, 18, of Cambridge.

Pring-Wilson called it self defense; a year and a half later, a jury called it voluntary manslaughter. The killing catapulted Pring-Wilson into the infamy of Court TV and made his case into a cause célèbre. He is now serving his six-to-eight year prison sentence. The verdict is being appealed.

HUPD SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT

DECEMBER 2003

On Dec. 2, 2003, a female undergraduate was assaulted while cutting through the dimly lit parking lot of St. Paul’s Church on her way to Dunster House.

The assailant, who was never identified, struck the victim from behind with a blunt object and attempted to rape her, according to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD). This was the most serious incident in a spate of more than a dozen indecent assaults against Harvard students reported near the Square between fall 2003 and fall 2004.

Geremias Cruz Ramos, a Harvard custodial worker arrested in January 2004, admitted to groping about 100 women over several months—many of the gropings remained unreported. But even after Ramos’ arrest, the assaults—particularly by bicycle-riding assailants—continued.

The attacks resurrected the old Safetywalk program under the revamped name Harvard University Campus Escort Program (HUCEP), and discouraged undergrads from walking alone late at night.

‘RATHER GO NAKED [AND GET ARRESTED] THAN WEAR FUR’

MARCH 2004

Kristin M. Waller ’05 was arrested on March 1, 2004, along with five representatives from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), for shedding her clothes in support of animal rights. Practically naked except for some strategically placed tape, the six activists staged a protest in the Square as part of PETA’s “Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign. In August 2004, a judge dismissed charges of indecent exposure against all six participants.

Protest leader and PETA Vice President Dan Mathews was fined $300 for disturbing the peace. Mathews was scheduled to speak that day in the popular class Religion 1529, “Personal Choice and Global Transformation,” but could not guest lecture due to his arrest.

LOUIE, LOUIE

FEBRUARY 2004

Just a month after everyone’s favorite booze salesman was held up at gunpoint, Cheng-San Chen—the owner of Louie’s Superette near Mather House—fell victim to the heightened security around his store. An undercover Cambridge Police Department officer, suspicious about four people who exited the store carrying alcohol, discovered that the students were underage. Chen avoided jail time and had his liquor license suspended for 12 days at the end of June 2004. Only a week after that Cambridge Licensing Commission decision, Chen was again robbed at gunpoint. Chen announced in March 2005 that, after 18 years behind the counter, he sold the superette.

‘H’ IS FOR HOOLIGAN

NOVEMBER 2004

The rowdy behavior of some 10,000 partiers at this year’s Game soured Boston Police Captain William Evans on the idea of the Harvard-Yale tailgate. This year’s celebration of Harvard’s fourth consecutive Game victory landed at least four Harvard affiliates a date in Brighton District Court. Boston police officers booted 29 students for underage drinking and confiscated 97 IDs.

“I was embarrassed to be a policeman on that field seeing what I had to see,” said Evans in November.

Apparently Evans did not approve of students who chose to answer the call of nature not in the port-a-potties, but on the Ivy walls of the top-ranked Harvard Business School.

THE ILLEGAL SOUND OF MUSIC

APRIL 2005

This year, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed suit against hundreds of college students nationwide to crack down on copyright infringement. A dozen Harvard affiliates, mostly graduate students, grooved their way into legal trouble for sharing an average of 2,300 mp3 files apiece. This was the year the music died.

HARVARD HATE CRIME

APRIL 2005

Galo Garcia III ’05 was struck in the head and chest on Bow Street early on April 30, 2005, when he confronted a man who had just called him a “faggot Jew.”

Garcia’s quick-thinking friends called HUPD and the police made it to the scene in time to catch the attackers. Though police did not make any arrests at the time of the incident, Garcia said that he is set on seeing the attackers prosecuted. “They were trying to negotiate with me out of court, and I didn’t want to negotiate with them,” Garcia said.

Four days after the assault, 200 people turned out in front of the Science Center to rally against hate crimes and show their support for Garcia. He has recovered from the assault.

%*IT HAPPENS

APRIL 2005

For Monrad Professor of Economics Martin L. Weitzman, Ph.D. may very well stand for piled higher and deeper. The Rockport, Mass., resident was accused of stealing over 100 cubic yards of manure from town property on April 1. Weitzman, who will return to court on June 27, was charged with larceny under $250, trespassing with a motor vehicle, and destruction of property.

But Weitzman said he didn’t realize there was a problem. “The property was completely unposted. There was no indication that anyone put any value on [the manure],” Weitzman said. “I had been told by someone working at a nearby stable that it was okay to take it.”

The widespread publicity surprised Weitzman, too. “I guess it must be a man-bites-dog story. It’s kind of a blue collar situation with a Harvard professor,” he said. “I think that accounts for the interest in it.”

­—Staff writer Jonathan P. Abel can be reached at abel@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Jenifer L. Steinhardt can be reached at steinhar@fas.harvard.edu.