Harvard's Forgotten Murder/Suicide

Summary

The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told - Episode: Harvard's Forgotten Murder/Suicide

Host: Mary Kay McBrayer
Release Date: June 17, 2025
Production: Diversion Audio

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1. Introduction and Context

In the episode titled "Harvard's Forgotten Murder/Suicide," Mary Kay McBrayer delves into a tragic true crime story set against the prestigious backdrop of Harvard University. This narrative explores the complexities of immigrant experiences, mental health challenges, and the dark consequences of unaddressed emotional turmoil.

2. Profiles of the Central Figures

Sinadu Tedesa and Trang Ho are the central figures of this story—two ambitious immigrant women pursuing their dreams at Harvard.

• Sinadu Tedesa
  Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1975, Sinadu hailed from an elite class that afforded her access to one of the city's coveted international schools. Her academic excellence earned her a full scholarship to Harvard, fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. However, her journey was marred by intense social isolation and mounting pressure to succeed.

• Trang Ho
  Born near Saigon in 1974, Trang's early life was shaped by the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Escaping with her family as refugees, Trang's resilience and academic prowess led her to Harvard, where she thrived both academically and socially. Her ability to form meaningful relationships starkly contrasted with Sinadu's struggles.

3. Development of the Friendship

Sinadu and Trang met during their freshman year in a science class and eventually became roommates in Dunster House. Initially, Sinadu saw Trang as a beacon of hope for overcoming her social challenges. Mary Kay recounts Sinadu's excitement, quoting her diary:
"The last four days were the highlight of my life thus far in Harvard. My roommate problem was solved in the best way possible with a girl I thought I would really enjoy to be with." ([10:15])

4. Signs of Struggle and Desperation

Despite their shared backgrounds and aspirations, the two women's inner experiences diverged significantly. While Trang flourished, Sinadu's mental health deteriorated. Sinadu's diary entries became increasingly paranoid and resentful:

• "Do not show off what you really think. Put on a mask." ([15:30])
• "I am boring her. If I ever grow desperate enough to seek power and a fearful respect through killing, she would be the first one I would blow off." ([22:10])

These entries reveal a profound sense of isolation and jealousy as Sinadu perceived Trang's friendship with Tao, a teacher and Trang's best friend, as a personal rejection.

5. The Final Days and Tragic Incident

By their junior year, the tension between Sinadu and Trang had escalated. Trang decided to switch roommates, leading to a breakdown in their already fragile relationship. On Saturday, May 27, 1995, the following events unfolded:

• Morning: Trang felt Sinadu's unusual absence from studying and found her roommate emotionally distraught.
• Afternoon: Trang and her friend Tao visited the dorm, leading to a brief moment of normalcy.
• Early Morning: Tao discovered Trang brutally attacked by Sinadu, who was later found dead by suicide hanging in the bathroom.
  (Timestamp: [29:45])

6. Aftermath and Reactions

The immediate aftermath was one of confusion and disbelief. Media outlets struggled to find a clear motive:

• Boston Globe: "There is no conventional motive. It is not about sex or revenge." ([35:20])
• New York Times Headline: "Harvard Deaths Leave a Puzzle whose Central Piece May Never Be Found" ([36:00])

Criticism soon focused on Harvard's mental health support systems, highlighting long wait times and insufficient resources:

• Dr. Randolph Catlin, Chief of Harvard's Mental Health Services: "In cases of mental distress, where a person's self-esteem is narrowly based, rejection might lead to enormous anger." ([40:10])

7. Cultural Perspectives

The tragedy was interpreted differently within Sinadu's Ethiopian community compared to the American context:

• Ethiopian Community Views:
  • Lesbian Theory: Some believed Sinadu was expressing her true feelings by ending her life and that of Trang.
  • Spirit Possession: Another prevalent belief was that Sinadu was possessed by spirits, a view supported by the traditional Ethiopian Orthodox framework.

Sinadu's father, however, refuted these explanations, maintaining, "I know my daughter did not commit these crimes. Something no one yet knows must have happened." ([45:30])

8. Analysis and Conclusions

Mary Kay McBrayer explores deeper societal and psychological factors contributing to Sinadu's breakdown:

• Mental Health Infrastructure: Harvard's inadequate mental health services played a significant role in Sinadu's inability to find the help she desperately needed.

• Immigrant Narrative and Assimilation: Dr. Mena de Messi's theory of "assimilation unaccomplished" is discussed, suggesting that the immense pressure of living up to familial and cultural expectations can lead to severe mental strain and exhaustion.
  "There is a price one must pay to become an American, a price that tests the strength of one's mental stability." ([48:20])

• Impact on Friends and Family: The devastation extended beyond the immediate victims. Trang's family and friends grappled with loss, while Sinadu's family struggled to reconcile their grief with cultural explanations.

Mary concludes that Sinadu's story is a poignant reminder of the urgent need for robust mental health support systems, especially for vulnerable populations navigating the complexities of immigrant life and elite educational environments.

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Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

• Sinadu's Diary Entry:
  "The last four days were the highlight of my life thus far in Harvard. My roommate problem was solved in the best way possible with a girl I thought I would really enjoy to be with." ([10:15])

• Sinadu's Desperate Letter:
  "Why am I writing this letter? Because I am desperate... Please do not close the door in my face." ([12:35])

• Harry Garth on Harvard's Mental Health Services:
  "Making an appointment to see a mental health professional often took 10 to 15 days, far too long for someone in crisis." ([38:45])

• Sinadu's Father:
  "I know my daughter did not commit these crimes. Something no one yet knows must have happened." ([47:10])

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Conclusion

"Harvard's Forgotten Murder/Suicide" is a heart-wrenching exploration of how unmet social needs, compounded by cultural and institutional shortcomings, can culminate in tragedy. Mary Kay McBrayer not only recounts a gripping true crime story but also invites listeners to reflect on the broader implications of mental health support and the pressures faced by immigrants striving for success in unfamiliar and demanding environments.

For a more comprehensive understanding, Mary Kay recommends Melanie Thurnstrom's New Yorker article, "The Harvard Student Who Killed Her Roommate," and her book Halfway Diary of a Harvard Mother Murder, which provide an in-depth examination of the case.

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Produced by: Emma Demuth
Edited by: Antonio Enriquez
Theme Music by: Tyler Cash
Executive Producer: Scott Waxman

For more information about this case and others covered in the series, visit diversionaudio.com.

Transcript

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A note this episode contains mature content and descriptions of violence that may be disturbing for some listeners. Please take care in listening. There's nothing like being on a college campus during the final week of classes. The relaxing exhale of summer is right around the corner, and the energy of what's next bubbles up in every conversation and social circle. For students of Harvard, there's an added pride in having completed another semester at an Ivy league on Saturday, May 27, 1995, two young women in Harvard's Dunster House dorm building were celebrating the end of a long, hard year. The women were juniors, both pre med and both immigrants to America with dreams of becoming doctors. Decades of dedication, sacrifice and faith had brought them here to the world's most prestigious institution, and they were a source of immense pride for both of their families. That the girls would meet in a science class their freshman year and end up roommates seemed like fate. Both had made journeys of many thousands of miles to end up in Massachusetts, and they must have felt like kindred spirits. But while from the outside their similarities were impossible to deny, the girls inner worlds couldn't have been more different. While one found purpose and thrived in her college environment, the other struggled to find a place. While one made strong friendships and found community, the other grew isolated and distant from her loved ones. What started as a faded friendship after a while became estranged. Admiration turned to jealousy, goodwill turned to resentment. And late on that Saturday night in May 1995, when the air was thick with anticipation of good things, one girl saw the end of her world. Other residents of Dunster House would wake up the next morning to screams coming from the girls dorm room. Harvard campus security and Cambridge police would be called, and the gruesome scene they would find on the other side of that door would would be like something out of a nightmare for the two women, for their families and for the university. Welcome to the greatest true crime stories ever told. MARY I'm Mary Kay McBrayer. Today's episode we're calling Harvard's Forgotten Murder Suicide. It's the story of a friendship gone wrong, the limits of human ambition and the dark underbelly of the American dream. Because the thing they don't tell you about having your greatest dream come true is what to do with yourself afterwards. We'll get into all of that right after this quick break. The college experience is so much less about academics than you think it's going to be when you're 18. It isn't until you're well out of school that you realize that the most important lessons you learned during those years or how to be a normal functioning adult in the world, one who knows how to make friends, form a community and take care of themselves. It's a time to figure out where you fit inside this much bigger pond. And it's something that doesn't come easy for a lot of kids. I know this from experience. I showed up to a liberal arts school from suburban Georgia and had to answer the question, where are you from? Twice. Once to name my hometown and again to say where I was from from. It highlights your experience, or at least other people's experience of you. Introducing yourself means explaining parts of you that you've never had to articulate before. But my experience was nothing compared to the task that immigrant and international students face when they come to college in America. Not only are they learning how to handle new levels of academic challenge, but many also carry the dreams of proud and expectant families. Being there, finding your place, making the most of the unparalleled opportunities in front of you after decades of sacrifice and single minded dedication is a big task for an 18 year old. Reconciling your past self with the person you're becoming is one of the greatest transformations any person can experience. The story I'm going to tell you today is about the limitations of the human psyche when those needs of community and social connection aren't met. Even in a place as picture perfect as Harvard, Sinadu Tedesa had big dreams for her life from the very beginning. She was born and raised in addis Ababa in 1975, the capital of the world's third poorest country at the time, Ethiopia. Walking those crowded streets of Addis Ababa, you'd see livestock, hungry mothers with outstretched hands, and malnourished children selling trinkets. In public schools, students sat on dirt floors, dozens and dozens to a class. Books and supplies were a luxury. But Sinadu Tedesa was fortunate. As a member of an elite class, her family had the resources to send her to one of Addis Ababa's coveted international schools. There, she was given opportunities few Ethiopians had. English instruction, rigorous courses, preparation for university in America. The gravity of this opportunity was not lost on Sinadu. While her country buckled under the weight of a political turmoil, warfare and famine, Sinadu studied. One of her English teachers remembered her as being, quote, quiet and demure, academically focused to the point of tunnel vision. And she was successful. In fact, Sinadu wasn't just good in school, she was exceptional. During her senior year of high school, she was named the number two student in all of Ethiopia. Her high school guidance counselor said you couldn't tell her that academics weren't everything, because they were. They were her ticket out. The day she received her acceptance letter and a full scholarship to Harvard was the happiest day of her life. She would go to America, get the best education money could buy from the world's most prestigious institution, and return home a doctor. But the way Harvard looked in Sinadu's dreams was a lot different than her reality. Accustomed to being exceptional, she found classes difficult. The reinforcement and praise she was used to receiving for her efforts didn't come far from standing out. She struggled to make bees. The cold Massachusetts weather depressed her and she felt deeply isolated. Visiting her family in Ethiopia was out of the question Financially, the only person she knew on campus was Neb, a smart and popular classmate of hers from the International School. But the two of them didn't run in the same social circles. Learning how to make friends wasn't something Sinadu had spent much time doing. Now she not only had to learn how, but do so among young adults who had grown up with entirely different customs, cultural references, and social etiquette. When she didn't have friends to confide in, Sinadu would divulge her feelings in her diary and journals. One of her spiral notebooks was labeled My Small Book of Social Rules. In it, Sinadu wrote pages and pages of numbered instructions for how to address the problems she was facing socially. Things like what to discuss with the other students in the cafeteria. Every morning when you wake up, you have to come up with three fat topics of conversation. This is always your greatest problem, so deal with it properly, one entry said. But as the diary goes on, her words take on a more paranoid tone. One said, do not show off what you really think. Put on a mask. These social exercises didn't seem to bring Sinadu much success, though. The summer after her freshman year, Sinadu reached a point of desperation. In a baffling move, she sent a letter to a stranger at Harvard's Law School, pleading for help making friends. The glimpse this letter gives into Sinadu's psyche is honestly fascinating and frankly, she writes beautifully. I'm going to take a minute to read a few paragraphs from it. Why am I writing this letter? Because I am desperate. As far as I can remember, my life has been hellish. Year after year, I became lonelier and lonelier. When I am with a group of people, I keep so quiet I have nothing to say that I send the chills through those who notice me. Then I cry when people forget about me or dislike being with me. When I am with one person, I shake with nervousness, fearing that we will run out of things to say or she or he will be bored. For math, I had a teacher. For painting, I had a teacher. For social life, I had no one. All you have to do is give me a hand and put into words what you already know. All it takes is a few hours from your week and some energy. Please do not close the door in my face. Even if you are not interested, please give this letter to a friend or relative who might be. We don't know much about who the recipient of this letter was, but what we do know is that they forwarded it to a Dean at Harvard, who then placed it in Sinadu's file and left it at that. No investigation, no follow up. To be fair, this was probably unlike anything the Dean's office or Student Health Services had ever seen before. But still, it's a literal cry for help. More on the Student Health Services later. Though there was one bright spot in Sinadu's freshman year. It came in the form of another student named Trang Ho, whom Sineadu met in her science class. The two had a lot in common. Both were polite, hard working biology majors who had moved to America from across the world. Both had risen from humble circumstances to become valedictorians of their high school graduating classes. And both dreamed of becoming doctors. Trang was born near Saigon in 1974, just five months before the culmination of the Vietnam War. Both of Trang's parents were sent to re education camps in the wake of the war. And in 1984, when Trang was 10, they made the difficult decision to attempt to escape Vietnam for a better life abroad. Trang, her older sister and their father went first. Under the COVID of night, they crammed inside a small boat along 265 other refugees. Their destination was Indonesia, where they'd stay in a refugee camp for a few months and hopefully continue on to America. The boat was so crowded that the passengers were forced to stand for seven days at the refugee camp. Mr. Ho gave the girls English words to learn, to prepare them for their life in America. At first it was 10 or 20 words, and later nearly 100 a day. Mr. Ho knew about the famous universities on the east coast, and in 1986 he settled his family in the Boston area, hoping to send his daughters to one of the Ivy Leagues one day. Like Sinadu, Trang took her studies very seriously. Once, as a young student, when she found herself stuck on a homework problem, she called 911 to ask for help. The dispatcher told her that someone would call her back, and when her father answered the phone a few minutes later, he heard a policeman on the other end asking for the little girl who needed help with her assignment. But unlike Sinadu, Trang didn't seem to have a problem forming friendships. Her teachers would later describe the joy and excitement she found in learning. All through high school, she tutored her classmates. By the beginning of her sophomore year at Harvard, Trang had established a solid group of friends and was thriving. Her grades were good and she seemed well on her way to the goal of medical school. A few weeks before meeting Trang, in that science class, Sinadu had been hurt to find that her then roommate wanted to live with someone else next year. Finding yourself without a roommate at the end of the spring semester is a tough blow for anyone, but it must have been especially tough for Sinadu, who was struggling so hard socially. Trang was kind and it's not difficult to imagine how the two must have formed a connection around their similar upbringings and dreams for the future. Sinadu decided to ask Trang to be her roommate, and Trang agreed. Sinadu was overjoyed. Perhaps this would finally be the chance for the kind of close friendship that had always been beyond her grasp. In her diary entry from that week, Sinadu wrote, the last four days were the highlight of my life thus far in Harvard. My roommate problem was solved in the best way possible with a girl I thought I would really enjoy to be with. With a girl I would make the queen of my life. Sinadu would later tell her father she had found a best friend. Unfortunately, Trang seems to have had no idea of the role she was playing in her new roommate's life.

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[Mary Kay McBrayer]

The high hopes Sinadu had for her friendship with Trang would never come to be. Far from being Sinadu's new confidant, Trang was away from campus nearly every weekend, visiting her family, who lived close by. Even more of a blow was the fact that Trang already had a best friend. Her name was Tao. Nguyen Tao was 29 years old and working as a teacher in a nearby town. She too had immigrated to America, but only recently Trang had become her first friend here. The two would go shopping and Trang would insist that they spoke English to help Tao learn. Tao would even stay over in Trang, in Sinadu's dorm from time to time. Before long, this friendship became a source of jealousy for Sineadu. Sometimes she would even neglect to tell Trang about Tao's telephone messages to Sinadu. Tao and Trang's friendship felt like another rejection. And little by little, this feeling of rejection was hardening into something else, something closer to anger. Sinadu's diary entry from a month into their living arrangement shows a sharp and alarming turn taking place in her mental space. On the way to depression and battered with pessimistic thoughts Trang told me I am boring. I felt like I'm boring her. If I ever grow desperate enough to seek power and a fearful respect through killing, she would be the first one I would blow off. Reading words like this in someone else's diary, it's hard to know what to think of them. Was this a serious consideration? Was it sarcasm? How does a person shift from frustration and loneliness to murderous anger? Are these the kind of words that only become significant in retrospect? Or are they a clear marker of a break from reality? These are questions I unfortunately can't answer. But what is clear is. Is that Sinaidu was having a hard time reconciling the dream she had for her friendship with Trang and the reality that Trang was her own person. With a busy routine and a well established social circle. Sineadu's anger grew, and as it did, so did the tension in the dorm room. By the middle of their junior year, Trang's patience with Sineadu was coming to an end. This was their fourth semester as roommates, and according to accounts from people who knew Trang, Sinadu had become uncharacteristically and aggressively messy. She leave fruit peels out around the room to rot. Trang complained about Sinadu to her mother and sister, who asked if there was anything they could do to intervene. But Trang assured them she would handle it. She made up her mind to tell Sinadu that for their senior year she'd be rooming with someone else. She knew it would be a difficult conversation, but in the spring, when the deadline for next year's roaming decisions was approaching, Trang got up the courage to break the news to Sinadu. Trang was right to be worried. Sinadu was beside herself. After their conversation. According to an article in the New Yorker, Sinadu followed Trang onto the street and into the subway after their conversation, pleading with her to reconsider. Sinadu even wrote Trang a letter saying that Trang would always have a family to go to. But Sinadu had no one. Couldn't they just please finish out their time at Harvard together? Trang, whose impulse was always to be kind and accommodating, felt terrible. She asked her friend Tao whether she was making a mistake, but Tao assured her that everything she was doing was completely reasonable. So she wrote Sinadu a note in response. I respect you, so you should respect my decision. Despite what happened, I hope that we can still be friends. It said for Sinadu, a boundary like this just wasn't acceptable, she retaliated by giving Trang the cold shoulder, a powerful gesture in their tiny shared space. Once, Sinadu even refused to unlock the door when Trang was accidentally locked out, forcing her to call building security. Now, on some level, all of this feels like a serious overreaction, but I think it's worth taking a minute to consider this from Sinadu's perspective. Here she was, weeks before the start of her senior year, a time when most students had well established friend groups and were solidifying next year's living arrangements with people they really loved. Instead, Sinadu would be added to the general roommate pool as a floater to be matched with someone else she didn't know. She was probably feeling supremely lonely and maybe even embarrassed. These social failings of hers were now on display. For someone with so few emotional resources and so little community, this must have been really difficult. Of course, circumstances like this are no excuse for emotional warfare, but they may help give context to her behavior. According to Dr. Randolph Catlin, Chief of Harvard's mental health services, during Trang and Sinedu's time at the university, in cases of mental distress, where a person's self esteem is narrowly based, it becomes terribly important to feel there is one person who cares about you. If you take that person's rejection as clear evidence that you as a person are not valuable, that might make you enormously angry. A primitive response to this is that you might want to destroy that person or yourself or both. According to Sinadu's diaries, Trang appears to be Sinadu's only source of emotional support at this time. Her name shows up again and again in the pages of her notebooks. But the truth was, Sinadu had others she could have turned to. Neb, Sinadu's classmate from Ethiopia, who also went to Harvard, was in her same year. Her brother was also studying in the US by now, and she had cousins in the Boston area. Sinadu told none of them about the loneliness she was facing or her sadness over losing Trang as a roommate. Two weeks before the end of the semester, Sinadu methodically packed her computer into its original packaging and sent it to one of her cousins to use. She acquired two knives and a nylon rope. She she sent her school photo to the staff at Harvard's student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, along with an anonymous note that read, keep this picture. There will soon be a very juicy story involving the person in this picture. Editors at the newspaper looked at the photo, unsure what to do before throwing it in the trash, only to fish it out a few days later when its significance became very clear. Sinadu did one other thing that was totally out of character. During that last week of school, she called her friend Neb, whom she hadn't spoken to in months. Sinadu invited him to brunch on Sunday, May 21, a week before the end of classes. According to Neb, when he sat down across from Sinadu at the restaurant, she was practically unrecognizable. She was brighter, lighter, wearing makeup, high heels and shorts, something she never did. In fact, in Ethiopia, shorts were considered disrespectful. Sinadu was usually a modest dresser, and Neb was later quoted as saying that there was a profound change in the way she looked and moved and carried herself. It was the happiest Neb had ever seen her. It was only after what happened in Dunster House a week later that the memory became a disturbing one for Neb.

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[Howie Mandel]

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That week, Sinadu turned in the final work for one class on which she got an A but didn't study for her next few classes. Students who saw her in the library said she looked distracted and distant. She would end up requesting medical forbearance for the rest of her exams and spend much of the next few days in bed. On Friday, May 26, just a few days before the official end of the year, Trang invited her best friend Tao to stay the weekend at their dorm. Tao would offer moral support as Trang finished her exams and would help Trang move out once she was done. On Saturday, May 27, Trang left the dorm around 10am to study for the physics exam she'd be taking that evening. Sinadu was taking the same physics course, so Trang found it odd that Sinadu wasn't also studying that day. Instead, Sinadu had been laying in her bed all day, knees to her chest, quietly crying. At this point, the two women hadn't spoken in months, but Trang hesitantly broke the silence to ask if Sinadu was okay. Sinadu waved her off without saying a word, so Trang left to focus on her exam. Once she was finished, Trang met Tao back at the dorm before heading out to celebrate. Together, they watched a movie in another friend's room until about 2am when they returned to Trang in Sineadu's room to sleep. This time they found Sineadu lying face down on her bed with the light on. The two friends talked for a while in Trang's bed about how far each of them had come, the summer ahead, and their big dreams for the Future. Sometime before 8am the girls woke to an alarm after realizing it was Sinadu's. The two closed their eyes again, Tao heard the sound of running water coming from the bathroom before drifting back to sleep. Sometime later, Tao awoke to see Sineadu standing above Trang's small bed, silently stabbing Trang with a 5 inch hunting knife. There was a glazed, determined expression on Sineadu's face. Tal watched as Trang held up her hands to block the knife and cry out, but no sound escaped her lips. Tao sat up and tried to grab the knife from Sineadu, but Sineadu pulled it away, slicing through Tao's hand in the process. That's when instinct took over. Tal rolled out of bed and stumbled toward the dorm room door. Her life was in danger. She had to escape. Blood from her hand smeared on the handle as she pulled open the door and dragged her body into the quiet hallway. Then she heard the sound she'd never forget. The heavy self locking door clicking shut behind her. Tao was safe in the hall. But now only someone with a key would be able to get into that room. And the only two people who had a key were inside. Trang was trapped. In a panic, Tal ran down the hall, banging on doors, trying desperately to get someone's attention. But it was early in the morning on a Saturday. Few students were awake. Finally, she got the attention of a student in the quad who called the police. When officers entered the room, the first thing they saw was Trang lying lifeless on the floor with 45 stab wounds to her face, chest and legs. Sinadu appeared to be missing until they checked the bathroom. There, hanging from the ceiling by the rope she'd purchased a week earlier, was Sinadu's body. Officers attempted to resuscitate her, but pronounced her dead just moments later. The initial story about the murder suicide that circulated in the media was one of confusion and disbelief. A Harvard official was quoted in the Boston Globe saying that there is no conventional motive. It is not about sex or revenge. There is no apparent reason. A New York Times piece ran with the headline Harvard Deaths Leave a Puzzle whose central piece May never be found. People magazine wrote that the sense of mystery is unlikely to lift anytime soon. But how much of a mystery was it really? As we already know, there were plenty of signs that things were unraveling for Sinadu. She was withdrawing socially. She sent that pleading letter to the law school student asking for help making friends. And as investigators would soon discover, Sinadu was in fact receiving counseling from a therapist through Harvard Student Health Services and had been for months prior to the stabbing. As more and more reporting came to light, the central question shifted from how could this have happened? To how much was Harvard to blame? Harvard was reluctant to comment much to reporters in the weeks and months that followed, but not for the reason you might expect. Yes, Harvard is an elite institution that relies heavily on its reputation. But as it happened, the murder suicide occurred just a month after another murder scandal that had put the school in a very tough position. An applicant, Gina Grant, had been accepted into the newest freshman class. When it was later discovered that she had bludgeoned her mother to death with a candlestick five years before, a great deal of debate ensued about whether a murderer should be admitted to Harvard. The answer turned out to be no, and Gina's acceptance was withdrawn. But having the school appear in headlines next to the word murderer had done enough PR damage. The last thing they needed was to figure out how to deal with another killing, this time on their own campus. Members of the Harvard community who were willing to speak to reporters revealed some stunning information. According to them, appointments with mental health professionals through Harvard Student Medical Services were few and far between. In 1995, according to an editorial piece from the Harvard Crimson, making an appointment to see a mental health professional often took 10 to 15 days, far too long of a wait for someone going through a mental health crisis. On top of that, the most any student could get was one appointment a month. Students who were in need of long term therapy were referred off campus as the school's health plan didn't cover treatments like this. In the year before Senadu suicide, three other Harvard students had taken their lives, two of whom had lived in the same building. These rates were very unusual for the university, said Randolph Catlin Jr. Who was chief of Harvard's mental health services at the time. All of this information led to a growing mistrust in Harvard's ability to support its students mental health and raised questions about how much the school was to blame for what happened to Trang. But while in America, Sinadu's attack and suicide were spoken about in the context of mental illness, the story was much different in Ethiopia. This, as you'll remember, is where Sinadu grew up and where her family still lived. When news of the stabbing reached Sinadu's community, there were two common explanations for her actions. One was the belief that Sinadu was a lesbian, perhaps in love with Trang, and so she did the right thing by killing herself and the object of her affection. I am not an expert on Ethiopian culture, but in the research we did for this story, I learned that the culture in Ethiopia is modest, predominantly Christian and very conservative when it comes to LGBTQ issues. Mental health is also not commonly discussed. At least it wasn't in the 90s. Big life altering incidents like this one at Harvard were understood within the context of the traditional Ethiopian Orthodox framework that the Tedessa family and their community were brought up in. Sinadu was plagued by improper thoughts and feelings, and her decision to end things could be seen as a noble one. Whether or not her feelings toward Trang were indeed romantic isn't totally clear. Most seem to think it was a platonic relationship based on her diary writings which mentioned dreams of a husband and children. The other potential explanation whispered about in Ethiopia was that Sinadu was possessed by spirits. According to an article about the murder in the New Yorker, spirit possession is regarded as a kind of consequence of leaving Ethiopia and living in the West. Sinadu was a good girl from a good family. It was plausible that the devil had taken hold of her and influenced her behavior. If she had stayed in Ethiopia, none of this would have happened because the moment she started feeling unwell, her parents would have taken her to holy waters to be cleansed. In Ethiopia, possession is perfectly curable. In America, there are psychologists, but they can't address the possession of spirits, can they? Regardless of the explanation, Sinaduth's death was a tragedy for the whole culture. 2000 people attended her funeral. Funerals are usually a major expense to an Ethiopian family, and church burials are normally not permitted for suicides because it is believed that the devil has claimed that soul forever. But Sinadu's family insisted on both, in large part because they believe that no one really knows what happened to her. In an interview for the New Yorker article I mentioned earlier, Sinadu's father explained to a reporter that I don't care what a hundred psychologists or a thousand police detectives tell me. I know my daughter did not commit these crimes. The stories we read, we do not believe. Something no one yet knows must have happened. One day the truth will come to light. Who would know if not her parents? Her mother and I. We have been with her all her life. We ate from the same table every week. For the first 49 days after Trang Ho's death, there was a service at the Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Boston. Relatives and friends came to pray that Trang's consciousness would be accepted for salvation and not reborn again on earth. Trang's mother was in a deep depression for months after Trang's death. She feared she did something gravely wrong in this life or a past one to have a daughter die this way. Trang's younger sister took a leave of absence from Tufts, where she was studying biopsychology, so she could better care for her broken mother. But she had plenty of healing to do herself. There is no one I talk to now, she said in the New Yorker article. I have lost my best friend, my life companion, my sister. Trang's father was also left broken in the aftermath of her stabbing. But while so many were quick to villainize Harvard for their lack of preparedness and failure to take responsibility for the incident, Trang's father's feelings about this school were complicated. Having Trang go to Harvard was everything the Ho family had dreamed of and worked for. It is the future they envisioned when they left everything they knew in Vietnam and boarded that crowded boat 20 years earlier. Harvard will always be in my heart, her father said in an interview. For me, it is the best place and the worst place. There is one more less talked about but equally compelling explanation for Senhutadese's fate. It's a theory that Mena de Messi, a PhD in political science and public policy, lays out in her paper titled Rethinking the American the Cost of coming to America. Dr. De Messi attributes Sinadu's social and mental health challenges to a state she calls assimilation unaccomplished. Essentially, her argument is that the traditional rags to riches American immigrant narrative is incomplete and in some ways even harmful. It doesn't make space for the darker, less favorable aspects of making life work in America. In her words, there's a price one must pay to become an American, a price that tests the strength of one's mental stability and in some cases can lead to severe fatigue, forms of depression that go unannounced or misconstrued. It's a fascinating concept because in America, if we look far enough into our own past, almost everyone's family is an immigration story. So why is this theory such a new one? Are we descendants, just the product of accomplished assimilation? I have to think sort of decades of sacrifice, single minded focus, dreaming, fantasizing even about what life would be like in the United States must have left Sinadu's expectations for her time at Harvard impossibly high. Sinadu's success meant so much not just to her, not just to her family, but to her whole country. Imagine the weight of that, the fear that by not fitting in, not thriving at the best college in the world, she was squandering a fantastic opportunity. Expanding the immigrant narrative to encompass these challenges could do a lot to prevent the kind of heavy self criticism and unhappiness that Sinadu experienced. It may have even saved Trang Ho's life. I'd like to shout out a few of the excellent sources I relied on for this episode episode. The first is a New Yorker article called the Harvard Student who Killed Her Roommate written by Melanie Thurnstrom. It's a fascinating telling of the incident and a look at some of the angles of the story that other news outlets overlooked. The author of that article, Melanie Thurnstrom, eventually expanded the piece into a book called Halfway Diary of a Harvard Mother Murder, which is by far the most comprehensive and immersive exploration of this story. I highly recommend it. The rest of our sources can be found in our show Notes. For information about this case and others we cover on the show, visit diversionaudio.com the greatest true Crime Stories Ever Told is a production of Diversion Audio. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer and I hosted this episode. This episode was written by Grace Heerman. Our show is produced by Emma Demuth, Edited by Antonio Enriquez Theme music by Tyler Cash Executive produced by Scott Waxman.

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