
DATE: Wednesday, October 29, 1997           TAG: 9710290046

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review

SOURCE: BY PEGGY DEANS EARLE 

                                            LENGTH:   91 lines

BEHIND A BLOODY CRIME AT HARVARD

IT'S NO SURPRISE to learn that Harvard graduates feel they're part of an elite group. Since only 14 percent of all Harvard applicants are accepted, those who make it are entitled to assume a general ``chosenness,'' as author Melanie Thernstrom writes.

She should know. Thernstrom is a Harvard grad and even taught there for a while. But she covered its recent shocking murder/suicide as a free-lance journalist on assignment from The New Yorker.

``Halfway Heaven'' is based on that article. It is a compelling, if uneven, study of how something so wrong could have happened at the renowned and respected Gibraltar of higher learning.

On May 28, 1995, Sinedu Tadesse stabbed her roommate, Trang Phuong Ho, to death, then committed suicide by hanging herself in their dormitory bathroom. Both women were 21 years old; both were foreign students on full scholarships. An eyewitness to the crime, Trang's best friend, had slept over the night before. She described awakening to the horrific sight of Sinedu stabbing Trang repeatedly (police reported 45 wounds).

The author examines both women's lives in detail. Trang, a Vietnamese refugee, came to this country as a ``boat person'' with her father and sister. Energetic and optimistic, she was beloved by her family and many friends. An officer of Harvard's Vietnamese Students Association, she tutored other refugees and worked two jobs to help support her family. She was pre-med, interested in pediatrics.

Sinedu, from Ethiopia, also wanted to be a doctor - she dreamed of returning to her country as a healer.

At the time of the murder, Sinedu and Trang had been roommates for two years. Sinedu's focus and dependence upon Trang and her assumption that they were ``best friends'' apparently were inappropriate. Shortly before the killing, Trang had planned to move in with another student; news of this appears to have been the spark that ignited Sinedu's fatal ``revenge.''

The author traveled to Sinedu's home in Addis Ababa, seeking insights into her life and the etiology of her bloody act. And that is where the irony begins.

In Ethiopia, family and acquaintances provided few clues, except the fact of Sinedu's lack of close friends. Many of those interviewed refused to believe she had committed the murder; others thought she had been under an evil spell.

It turns out that the most telling information about Sinedu was back at Harvard, in her obsessive diaries and a bizarre letter she wrote, sent to strangers and posted on the Internet.

Also ironic is the author's own encounter with Sinedu. The student had submitted a writing sample for a class on autobiography Thernstrom was teaching. She could only choose a handful of applicants, and Sinedu didn't measure up.

What soon becomes clear is that Sinedu arrived at Harvard a very disturbed person - severely depressed, flat in affect, and socially impaired. In a few years, her illness progressed to psychotic episodes of delusions and paranoia.

A question Thernstrom asks repeatedly is what was Harvard's responsibility to Sinedu? Could intervention have prevented the tragedy? Sinedu was in therapy for a while at the university's health service, but much was overlooked or ignored.

Thernstrom makes a case that there is no adequate support system for foreign students who must both adapt to American life and fit into Harvard's rarefied culture - one of fierce academic, as well as social, pressure.

The author delves into several recent suicides at Harvard and indicts the university's administration for its insensitivity, lack of resources, and refusal to discuss the incidents. While these are germane, Thernstrom gives them too much space, distracting from the book's narrative flow.

At one point, Thernstrom remarks that she'll never feel the same about Harvard after her experiences. She was repeatedly stonewalled by angry middle managers in their roles as ``spin doctors.'' I suspect, in turn, she won't be invited to any upcoming alumni teas.

Like Sinedu's murderous frenzy, resulting in what law enforcers call ``overkill,'' Thernstrom's attack on Harvard can be seen as extreme. While she admits to being haunted by her own rejection of Sinedu and, without a doubt, Harvard must reexamine its foreign student services, the case may be beyond finger-pointing blame.

The factors that led to the terrible loss of two promising young lives were countless. ``Halfway Heaven'' is a fascinating look at some of them. MEMO: Peggy Deans Earle is an artist and staff librarian. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MARC RABOY

Melanie Thernstrom explores a 1995 murder-suicide at Harvard.

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BOOK REVIEW

``Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder''

Author: Melanie Thernstrom

Publisher: Doubleday. 219 pp.

Price: $23.95