Ethiopian student, who later said he realized she was saying goodbye to him. On May 28, 1995, Tadesse stabbed her roommate Ho 45 times with a hunting knife, killing her. Tadesse also attacked one of Ho's visiting friends, a 26-year-old named Thao Nguyen, severely injuring her as well. Tadesse then hanged herself in the bathroom. Tadesse is buried at the Ethiopian Orthodox Cemetery, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Aftermath It was speculated on campus and in the press that Tadesse had resorted to violence because Ho had asked not to room with her again in the fall. Members of Tadesse's family countered that she was the one who opted out of rooming with Ho, as she was often alone in the dormitory because Ho often stayed with her family in nearby Medford, Massachusetts. Trang Ho's family thought Harvard could have prevented her death. In 1998, they filed suit against the school, alleging "wrongful death, conscious pain and suffering and emotional distress," and charging the university, as well as various people in charge at Dunster House, with negligence. They felt that the university had plenty of evidence that Tadesse was losing her mind and becoming fixated on violent vengeance, and that the university could have prevented the deaths. The Trang Ho Public Service Fellowship was established to pay for a student to perform charitable work during the summer after junior year. In popular culture In 1997, Melanie Thernstrom, who had graduated from Harvard in 1987 and taught creative writing there, published a nonfiction book about the case and its aftermath, Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder, which was sharply critical of how Harvard handled the crime. She also detailed several instances of Harvard students with mental health issues having their situations exacerbated by unsympathetic university officials and ineffective advisors. Thernstrom traveled to Tadesse's home in Ethiopia and gained access to her diaries, which revealed her deteriorating mental health, her obsessive fantasizing about an ideal friend, and her attempts to find effective psychiatric care. References Murder–suicides in the United States 1975 births 1995 deaths Crimes in Massachusetts Ethiopian female murderers Harvard College alumni Murder in Massachusetts Suicides by hanging in Massachusetts