Episode 152: The Murder of Trang Phuong Ho
20-year-old Sinedu Tadesse
Sinedu Tadesse was born on September 25th, 1975, in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. She grew up in a relatively wealthy family, and her father, Tadesse Zelleke, was the administrator of several governmental schools. In 1977, when Sinedu was 2-years-old, the Red Terror began, and in 1982, Sinedu’s father was imprisoned without trial for two years on “suspicion of subversive sentiments.” Sinedu’s family had no idea if or when he would be released, and her mother had to work as a nurse in a government hospital to keep the family from starving to death. Over the next year, more than half a million Ethiopians died from famine. Sinedu went to a Catholic school, putting all of her spare time and energy into her education. She eventually earned her admission to the International Community School, which was very prestigious. She was also president of her class of twenty-nine total students, most of whom were children of wealthy Europeans and even diplomats. Sinedu graduated as valedictorian and got into Harvard on full scholarship to major in biology with a pre-med track. Academics were her ticket out of Ethiopia and everything going on there, and she felt a lot of pressure to succeed, not just for herself but for her family as well.
While at Harvard she maintained a B average, and this was too low to be accepted into their medical school. Sinedu isolated herself from her peers and even her brother and other family members who had moved to the area, and she had no friends. At one point she sent a letter to dozens of people in the area that she chose at random from the phone book, begging them to be her friend and saying how unhappy and miserable she was. One of her letters actually reached a Harvard law student, who turned the letter over to two Harvard employees. Part of this letter states “I am desperate. As far as I can remember, my life has been hellish. Year after year, I become lonelier and lonelier. I am like a person who can’t swim, choking in a river. All you have to do is give me a hand and put into words what you already know. No expenses, commitments or risks involved. You can say no at any minute. 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.”
The employees who received the letter never reported it to anyone, not even to mental health services, and they didn’t reach out to Sinedu to check in on her. Instead, it was forwarded to the Dean and tucked away in Sinedu’s student file.
At the end of her freshman year, her roommate Anna let her know that she was going to be rooming with someone else next year, so Sinedu was placed with Trang Phuong Ho, a Vietnamese American student who was well-liked and was doing great in school. Both girls would be living together in Dunster House.
Trang was born in Vietnam and fled the country on a fishing boat with her father and older sister at the age of 10, seeking refuge. The journey was incredibly difficult. They landed in Indonesia where they stayed for a year, and Trang’s father taught her and her sister English. They arrived in the United States in 1985, landing in San Diego. The girl’s father learned of all of the Ivy League universities in Boston and they then settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts. They were able to reunite with Trang’s mom and her little sister in 1993. Trang was absolutely brilliant and excelled in school, and she was the valedictorian of her senior high school class and was voted “Most Likely to Succeed.” She received a perfect score from the admission’s committee at Harvard, got a full scholarship and started there majoring in biology on a pre-med track to eventually pursue medical school.
The girls seemingly had a lot in common, but Sinedu quickly became obsessed with Trang, developing an unhealthy infatuation and was always seeking Trang’s attention. Sinedu was struggling mentally and did seek out counseling for herself, but she ended up being seen just once a month by a professor of education, not an actual counselor or therapist.
After the girl’s junior year of college, with them now both being 20-years-old, Trang let Sinedu know that she would not be rooming with her the next year and that she would be living with another group of girls for senior year. Sinedu began to spiral, begging Trang to stay with her, following her out of the building, into the street and eventually the subway. Trang continued to be kind to Sinedu and attempted to smooth things over, but Sinedu stopped speaking to her.
Sinedu then missed three of her final exams, which was not at all like her, but no one checked in on her. On May 23rd, 1995, The Harvard Crimson office received a letter with Sinedu’s picture, and the letter stated “Keep this picture. There will soon be a very juicy story involving the person in this picture.” The letter was seemingly disregarded.
On the morning of May 28th, 1995, at 8:00am, Sinedu attacked Trang by stabbing her 45 times with a hunting knife. She also attacked one of Trang’s friends, 26-year-old Thao Nguyen, who was at the dorm helping her move out. Thao tried to take the knife from Sinedu, was seriously injured, but was able to run for help. Thao had been sleeping in the same bed as Trang, sleeping with her feet up by Trang’s head and her head by Trang’s feet. Her foot got cut as Sinedu stabbed Trang in the head and her hands were cut trying to stop the attack.
Sinedu then went into the bathroom and hung herself.
Investigation revealed that Sinedu was the one who sent her own photo with the letter to The Harvard Crimson, likely as another cry for help. Sinedu’s journals were also read by police after the murder, and she kept a record of every single interaction she had with another person in those journals. She also wrote in her journal that killing her roommate and then herself was the best option for her. Her journals went back into childhood with evidence of depression, anxiety and social isolation, but things really escalated once she got to Harvard. She felt like she went from being the best and most brilliant student to just average once at Harvard, and not having good enough grades to get into medical school was extremely hard on her. Sinedu struggled making any kind of friends and the New England winters only added to her depression and isolation.
Trang’s family filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against Harvard University in 1998. Their main arguments were that the school should have done more to protect Trang and even do more for Sinedu with mental health services and support. The lawsuit addressed the fact that it would take anywhere from 10-15 days to get an appointment with a mental health counselor, but that even with these appointments the students had to be referred off-campus for services because of how limited the school’s resources were. Once connected with services, counselors were limited and students were more likely to be paired with professors who were not trained in mental health. This was the case with Sinedu.
As a result of the lawsuit, Harvard made some significant and much-needed changes. They increased their emergency hours, staffing and services, mandated that appointments with students seeking help for the first time would be addressed within seven days, they changed their overall hours to fit better with class times and schedules, mental health liaison tutors were installed in each house on campus and they set aside empty dorms as spaces students could access to just take a break. They have since continued to add onto these resources that are extremely important in such a stressful environment.
Image sources:
wikipedia.org - “Murder of Trang Phuong Ho”