Family sues Harvard over student murder

The Harvard Crimson CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (U-WIRE) -- Nearly three years after a tragic murder-suicide rocked Harvard University, the family of the victim, Trang Phuong Ho, filed a lawsuit against the school Wednesday. Ho, a junior biology concentrator at the time of her death, was stabbed 45 times by her roommate, Sinedu Tadesse, on the morning of May 28, 1995. After fatally wounding Ho and injuring 26-year-old visitor Thao Nguyen, Tadesse hanged herself in the shower of her dorm room. The suit -- filed in Middlesex Superior Court on behalf of the deceased's elder sister, Thao Phuong Ho -- alleges "wrongful death, conscious pain and suffering and emotional distress." It also charges Harvard, the faculty master of the students' dorm Karel Liem, former residential tutor Suzi Naiburg and Ho's tutor David Lombard with negligence. The suit does not specify monetary damages. According to one of the plantiff's attorneys, Max Stern, the family decided to sue in order to collect evidence and prepare for a trial. "It took some time to investigate the matter for [the family] to decide it was something they wished to pursue," Stern said. "They would not have done it if they had not believed Harvard was truly at fault." Harvard spokesperson Alex Huppe declined to comment on the suit, noting that he had not yet read the document. "We can't comment on something we haven't seen," Huppe said. Stating the school owed Ho the "duty to maintain a reasonably safe and secure environment," the court papers note Tadesse had demonstrated "desperate and antisocial behavior" about which Harvard officials "knew or should have known." The 20-year-old native of Ethiopia had missed three of her four final examinations the week before the murder-suicide and had sent letters to random individuals expressing her desperation with life. The suit claims Ho's death "was proximately caused by the failure of the defendants to have adequately monitored Tadesse's situation and progress after having knowledge that she was troubled, and their failure to inform [Ho] of Tadesse's troubles." Lombard declined to comment on the suit, and Naiburg was unavailable for comment.