Re: Mad bad magic at EMU

On Jun 23, 12:54 pm, "deb.rube...@xxxxxxxxx" <deb.rube...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Outrage at school's silence on killing
Victim's parents and students question Eastern Michigan University's
silence about homicide in dorm room.
By P.J. Huffstutter, Times Staff Writer
June 19, 2007

Victim
Victim
click to enlarge
Tough testimony
Tough testimony
click to enlarge
YPSILANTI, MICH. - As most students at Eastern Michigan University
were heading home for the holidays in December, the school put out a
news release announcing that student Laura Dickinson had unexpectedly
passed away in her dorm room.

There was no foul play, the school said. Staff members assured worried
students they were safe. The campus fell into mourning, with
candlelight vigils for the lanky 22-year-old member of the crew team.

Neither students nor Laura's parents knew that investigators had found
a grisly scene in Room 518 of Hill Hall.

Dickinson's body was on the carpeted floor, naked from the waist down.
A pillow covered her head and traces of semen were on her leg.

For 10 weeks, neither her family nor fellow students knew that
authorities were investigating several suspects as part of a criminal
inquiry into Dickinson's death. Then, on Feb. 23, Orange Amir Taylor
III, an Eastern Michigan student, was arrested.

Only then did the university acknowledge that Dickinson had been raped
and killed in her dorm room by someone who took her keys and locked
the door when he left.

The school's secretiveness has left many students and residents of
this suburb southwest of Detroit, with a population of 22,000, shaken
and outraged. For many, this bucolic campus - founded in the mid-1800s
to train teachers - had been violated.

The school "lied to us," Laura's father, Bob Dickinson, said. "They
let us bury her thinking that a healthy 22-year-old girl died by some
freak accident."

School officials will not say why they kept silent. But some parents
and people in the community believe administrators endangered students
in an effort to protect the university's image.

An independent investigation initiated by the school's Board of
Regents agrees. In a 568-page report released this month,
investigators with the Detroit law firm of Butzel Long detail how
school officials violated the Clery Act, a federal law requiring
colleges and universities to disclose information about campus crimes
and warn students of threats to their safety.

The report, as well as court documents, show that Eastern Michigan
University police either suspected or believed all along that this was
a homicide.

Some university officials did not know there was a criminal
investigation, and unknowingly passed along misinformation, according
to the Butzel Long report. Others made a conscious decision to not
warn the public or tell the Dickinsons.

University President John A. Fallon III said he was unaware that the
death was a homicide. Fallon repeatedly told the public and local
media that university officials did not suspect a crime.

James Vick, vice president of student affairs who oversees the
school's housing and campus police, told the Dickinson family that no
foul play was suspected in Laura's death. He also directed, in "damage-
control mode," that school staff shred a police report about the
investigation, according to the report.

Fallon did not return calls for comment.

Vick, who denies the allegations, has become a designated scapegoat,
his lawyer Thomas C. Manchester wrote in a Wednesday letter to the
Board of Regents. The letter says that Vick, eager to clear his name,
has taken a polygraph test which shows he is telling the truth.

The U.S. Department of Education is looking into whether the school
violated the 1990 Clery Act, which takes its name from the 1986 death
of Jeanne Clery, who was raped and killed in her residence hall room
at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Though the department has
conducted 70 similar inquiries since October 2003, only three
institutions have been fined under the law.

For Bob Dickinson, 51, the search for answers has been exhausting.
Behind the counter of the family's coffee shop in Hastings, Mich., he
faces pitying looks from customers as he froths milk and works the
espresso machine.

It's a routine that has stretched on for months here inside State
Grounds Coffee House, where photographs Laura took while traveling
with her boyfriend, Travis Scott, line one wall: the sun rising over a
lake in the upper peninsula of Michigan, waves crashing on the coast
of Washington, a wild horse gazing on the plains of Wyoming.

After Laura earned her associate's degree from Grand Rapids Community
College, she decided to get a bachelor's degree in nutrition.

"We wanted her to stay close. She didn't want to go too far away,"
Dickinson said. "Eastern had a very good nutrition program and was
close enough for her to drive home on the weekends."

In September, the family drove the two hours southeast to Eastern's
campus in Ypsilanti and her new home at Hill Hall, a 10-story brick
high-rise.

Dickinson and his wife, Deb, gave Laura some last-minute advice before
they left: Make lots of friends. Call if you get lonely. And always
keep the door locked.

She followed their guidance. She joined the novice crew team, spending
her mornings sweating on the water and her evenings hanging out with
teammates.

The night Laura died, she attended a team Christmas party where they
swapped "Secret Santa" gifts. It was Dec. 12 - a Tuesday - and finals
week. Some neighbors in Hill Hall were cramming for exams; others had
already left for winter break.

Video surveillance cameras show that she returned to Hill Hall at
11:12 p.m., carrying a stuffed toy inside a red-and-green holiday gift
bag.

In her room, Laura called Scott at Covanta Energy in Grand Rapids,
Mich., where he worked as an engineer. It was the last time she used
her phone.

When she failed to show up for exams, friends and family grew
concerned and began calling her cellphone. For two days, there was no
answer.

On Friday morning, Bob Dickinson contacted the university housing
department and Scott decided to drive to campus. But it was a
custodian, answering an odor complaint from one of Laura's Hill Hall
neighbors, who opened the door to Room 518 and found her body.

Laura's slaying came at a time when Eastern Michigan University -
which has churned through three presidents in three years - had spent
months dogged by bad press and scandal.

In 2004, state auditors found that the university had under-reported
the budget of, and failed to get state approval for, a $6-million
mansion for its president at that time.

The controversy fueled a two-week staff strike in September. Days
before Laura was killed, three of the school's eight regents resigned,
citing a campus culture of "distrust and open animosity."

In this tense climate, the school made public assurances about Laura's
death. But school police were interviewing at least three men as
suspects - including her boyfriend, Scott, and Taylor. They cleared
Scott, but Taylor, who told campus police he had previously roamed
through dorms to steal electronics, remained on their list of people
to watch.

As the investigation progressed, semen samples taken from Laura's body
and her bed matched Taylor's DNA. Surveillance cameras showed Taylor
sneaking into Hill Hall in the early hours of Dec. 13 - and leaving 90
minutes later, with one of Laura's gift bags in hand.

Dr. Bader J. Cassin, the Washtenaw County medical examiner who
conducted Laura's autopsy, ruled that Laura probably died of
asphyxiation, according to court testimony.

Some physical details that might have shown how she died were not
present, because of the body's advanced state of decomposition,
according to court records. Some media reports surmised that Laura,
who had experienced stress-related cardiac arrhythmia in the past, may
have died from a heart attack.

Taylor was arrested on Feb. 23 and charged with open murder, larceny,
home invasion and two counts of sexual criminal conduct. He has
pleaded not guilty and is being held in County Jail without bond. He
is expected to go on trial this fall in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Stephen Gillers, professor of legal ethics at New York University's
School of Law, said there were legitimate reasons why administrators
and school police would not comment on the details of a case,
particularly early in an investigation.

But to lie to the parents of the victim is "an abdication of every
responsibility a university administration has," Gillers said.

"There's no reason for law enforcement to fear that keeping the
parents informed will frustrate the ability to apprehend the
perpetrator," said Gillers, a former vice dean of NYU's law school.
"This is not the theft of a computer. It's the death of a child."

In the weeks after Taylor's arrest, school officials held public
meetings to let students air their complaints. "I was specifically
told I was not in danger, that we weren't in danger, and unless you
guys already had a guy in custody, we were in danger," student Jaclyn
Armstrong said in one meeting, according to the school newspaper, the
Eastern Echo. "And the fact that he is being charged with criminal
sexual assault, not only were our lives in danger, but we were in
danger of many other things."

The Board of Regents is meeting on campus today to discuss the case
and possible administration staff changes, said James Stapleton, who
led the subcommittee of regents in commissioning the Butzel Long
report.

"Clearly, the report shows that the university has a lack of
protective systems and policies in place," Stapleton said. "It's
tough, but it's a completely dysfunctional culture at EMU. And we are
going to change that culture."

"Possible administration staff changes"? It looks like it's past
time to clean house. Why anyone would think it was a good idea to
cover this up is way beyond me.




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