A woman who awoke to find her friend being stabbed to death in a Harvard University dorm room said she believes the slaying was planned.
Thao Nguyen's left arm and foot were severely cut in the Sunday morning attack that killed 20-year-old Harvard student Trang Ho. Authorities said Ho's roommate, Sinedu Tadesse, also 20, stabbed Ho nearly 4 dozen times with a knife. Tadesse, a junior pre-med student from Ethiopia, then hanged herself in a dormitory bathroom.Nguyen had been visiting Ho to help her move out of the dorm for the summer.
"I think she planned it," Nguyen told the Boston Herald on Monday.
She said she awoke to Ho's screams and saw a "crazy looking" Tadesse stabbing her friend, completely ignoring Nguyen though she was in the same room.
"I tried to get the knife, but I couldn't," Nguyen said.
Then she began to weep. "I feel like it's my fault: I didn't get the knife," she said. "She was my best friend, my only friend here. I hope she can forgive me."
Investigators were examining a cryptic message sent to the Harvard Crimson newspaper last week. "Keep this picture," read the unsigned note, which was received a week ago Tuesday. "There will soon be a very juicy story involving the person in this picture."
Officials believe the subject of the photograph was Tadesse.
Family and friends said the relationship between Tadesse and Ho, who had lived together two years at the Dunster House dormitory, had soured recently when Ho decided she would room with someone else next year.
The daughter of a provincial school administrator in Ethiopia, Tadesse won a scholarship to Harvard.