Apparent Murder-Suicide Shock Student Population

Yeshiva Campus Train Stop Sight of Disaster

On Saturday, February 5, Thomas G. Nelford, a 23-year-old former Columbia student jumped from the subway platform in front of an oncoming "1" train at the 181st street station, dying instantly. The suicide came just hours after Kathleen A. Roskot, a popular sophomore athlete at Columbia and Nelford's girlfriend, was found murdered in her Columbia University dormitory in Morningside Heights.

The suicide is the second incident of death around Yeshiva University's uptown campus in recent weeks. Although the alleged murder-suicide did not involve any members the Yeshiva community, its proximity to the campus and the involvement of the broader college community raises concerns and stirs fears.

The murder of Roskot is another in a string of tragedies that has rocked the college community this year. Beginning with the celebration-turned-tragedy in Texas and piquing with the fatal fire in Seton Hall, the sometimes impregnable boundaries of college campuses have now been torn down, exposing their unwilling residence to the pathologies of the outside world.

"The campus is shocked, deeply saddened and in mourning at the death of this young woman," said Virgil Renzulli, Columbia's Associate Vice President for Public Affairs.

The local police of the 34^th precinct were unaware Saturday night that the suicide at the train station was related to the murder on Columbia's campus. The officers maintained that originally the suicide investigation was being handled by transit police. After watching the local news at eleven, they concluded that the precinct closest to Columbia would probably be handling the rest of the inquiry. The suicide caused the closure of the train station for a time Saturday and disrupted service there as well.

This tragic episode is one of three violent crimes committed on college campuses in the New York area this past week. Cross-gender attacks occurred both on the CW Post campus and in Westchester Community College. Late last week, a female CW Post student was raped by an unknown intruder as she showered in her campus dormitory. Just two days after the Columbia incident, a man, apparently enraged over the end of a relationship, shot a Westchester Community College student as she fled down the hallway of a campus school building. The man then dashed across campus to a small hill by the student center and fatally shot himself. The woman, Joy Thomas, an 18-year-old student from Mount Vernon, suffered a superficial gunshot wound to the forehead. She was listed in critical condition at Westchester Medical Center, but a police spokesman said the injury was not life threatening. Regardless of how these incidents are independently explained, the brutalities of the outside world have permeated the protected walls of the college community.

Security officials in Yeshiva maintain that the student body is safe and that incidents such as these will not happen here. However, residents of Ruggles Hall, the Columbia dormitory in which Roskot was found, said that security at the dormitory was tight. Guards on duty at the 24 hours a day at the front entrances of Ruggles, and video cameras in the lobby and at a locked rear entrance record the comings and goings of everyone entering the building around the clock.

Ruggles Hall residents and other Columbia students are required to hand the guard a university-issued picture identification card, which is then swiped through a machine to ensure its authenticity. Nonresident visitors must also provide identification and must either be accompanied by a resident or have a resident's approval to enter.

On the Westchester Community College Campus unarmed guards patrol each of the many buildings on campus. Apparently a guard responded to the shooting at WCC last week, explained Dr. Julius Ford, a Vice President of the community college. Ford insisted that he did not know what action the guard took and that the university will review its security. Ford further explained that this was the first shooting on the 219-acre campus since it was founded in 1946.

In light of all the facts surrounding this case and the other attacks in neighboring colleges, Yeshiva students remain confident that the unlikely circumstances would not be repeated on this campus. "The current string of attacks on college campuses appear to all be cross-gender and do not seem probable to occur at YU," said Yoram Schwell a Yeshiva College Junior.

However Eduardo Delgado, a 22-year-old Columbia senior from Rye, N.Y., said of his fellow Ruggles Hall residents, "The mood is pretty surreal. I guess nobody really believes it could actually happen here."

Regina Benchs, a 21-year-old student from Putnam Valley said, "You hear stories about people spraying bullets at school, but you never realize you could be a part of it. You just don't feel safe."