Authorities arrest suspect in the slaying of a Wesleyan (Conn.) University student

Police: Wesleyan slaying suspect in custody

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — Authorities late Thursday arrested the suspect in the slaying of a Wesleyan University student who police said had threatened to kill other students and Jews.

A police spokesman said 29-year-old Stephen P. Morgan was taken into custody in the central Connecticut town of Meriden, about 10 miles from Middletown, and turned over to police investigating Wednesday’s fatal shooting of 21-year-old Johanna Justin-Jinich.

A law-enforcement officer in Washington said Morgan turned himself in. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because it was not his case.

Middletown police said they planned to make an announcement late Thursday night.

Justin-Jinich was shot several times inside a bookstore cafe just off campus by a gunman wearing a wig. Authorities have said Morgan and Justin-Jinich have known each other since at least 2007, when Justin-Jinich filed a harassment complaint against him while they were enrolled in a summer class at New York University.

An official with knowledge of the investigation told The AP that police stopped Morgan shortly after the shooting, spoke to him and let him go, only to later realize he was a suspect.

When police confiscated Morgan’s car they found a journal in which he spelled out a plan to rape and kill Justin-Jinich before going on a campus shooting spree, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anominity because the case is under investigation.

Justin-Jinich, of Timnath, Colo., came from a Jewish family, and her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.

Morgan’s brother told the AP that Morgan wasn’t anti-Semitic. His family issued a statement pleading with Morgan to turn himself in “to avoid any further bloodshed.”

Apparently applying the lessons of Virginia Tech, police and administrators locked down the 3,000-student campus and stepped up patrols as authorities launched a hunt for the killer.

Wesleyan officials had told students to stay indoors and staff members to stay home. Most buildings on campus, including cafeterias and the library, were locked Thursday. Normally bustling sidewalks were empty, and police cruisers patrolled the campus of the elite liberal arts school.

In dorms, students in flip-flops, gym shorts and pajama pants shuffled downstairs to pick up box lunches.

“We’re supposed to do some work, but really I just keep checking my e-mail and checking on friends and letting people from home know that I’m OK,” said freshman Christina Yow of China. “Anything to distract.”

Brenna Galvin, a sophomore from Amherst, N.H., said her family was considering bringing her home. “It’s hard to know what to do,” she said. “Really, we’re just trying to keep in touch with people at home.”

The university’s Usdan Center was opened briefly Thursday night so students could have dinner, but they were asked to return to their dormitories by nightfall. Officials planned to open the university library on Friday and start returning the campus to a normal schedule.

Middletown’s only synagogue, Congregation Adath Israel, across the street from the bookstore, was closed Thursday and congregants were considering canceling Sabbath services Friday night and Saturday.

“It was a no-brainer to close the building until we knew more information,” synagogue president Eliot Meadow said.

On Thursday afternoon, police got an arrest warrant charging Morgan with murder.

The shooting stirred memories of the Virginia Tech shootings, in which a deranged student killed 32 people and himself. A panel that investigated the 2007 massacre said university officials erred by not acting more quickly to warn students. Police had mistakenly concluded that the first two victims were shot as a result of a boyfriend-girlfriend dispute.

Sebastian Giuliano, mayor of Middletown, a city of 48,000, immediately thought of that tragedy as he saw five police cars race by Wednesday. “Don’t tell me it’s another Virginia Tech situation,” he said.

The shooting occurred early Wednesday afternoon as several hundred students gathered for a concert held annually to allow students to blow off steam before finals. Police and university administrators moved everyone indoors and canceled the concert.

Police gave the all-clear late Wednesday afternoon and said there was no danger, but did an about-face two hours later, warning students to take immediate shelter.

Police said evidence uncovered at the scene prompted the renewed warnings, but they offered no details. Later Wednesday, they released a surveillance photo of the gunman and said they were looking for Morgan, a former Navy man who university authorities said had no connection to Wesleyan.

“Everything we did was based on information we received from Middletown police,” Wesleyan spokesman David Pesci said.

There was more confusion when the university posted a photograph purportedly of Morgan on its Web site, only to use a photo of another man. It was replaced Thursday afternoon by two images supplied by police.

The last day of classes for the year was Tuesday. Final exams are scheduled to begin on Monday.

Morgan and Justin-Jinich had known each other at least since 2007. Police records show she filed a harassment complaint against Morgan when they were enrolled in the same six-week program at New York University. In a complaint filed in July 2007, Justin-Jinich said Morgan called her repeatedly and sent her insulting e-mails.

One of the e-mails warned: “You’re going to have a lot more problems down the road if you can’t take any (expletive) criticism, Johanna.”

Both were interviewed by university police, but Justin-Jinich decided not to press charges.

Earlier Thursday, Morgan’s brother Greg said family members had tried to contact Stephen but did not know where he was.

In a statement read to reporters outside his parents’ Marblehead, Mass., home, the Morgans said they were “shocked and sickened by the tragedy” and extended their condolences to the victim’s family.

They added: “Steve, turn yourself in right now to any law enforcement agency wherever you are to avoid any further bloodshed. We love you. We will support you in every way and we don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

Penny Wigglesworth, who lives in the same upper-middle-class neighborhood, called them a “model family” and described Morgan as pleasant and polite.

Justin-Jinich would have graduated next year from Wesleyan. She was a 2006 graduate of the Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school outside Philadelphia.

“It’s just a tragic irony that her grandmother would survive the Holocaust and she would be gunned down in a bookstore,” said Eric Mayer, a religion teacher at Westtown School who was her academic adviser.

Wesleyan officials said a memorial vigil for Justin-Jinich will be at 1 p.m. Friday in a campus courtyard.

Christoffersen reported from New Haven. Associated Press reporters Colleen Long in New York, Dave Collins in Hartford, Jay Lindsay in Marblehead, Mass., Patrick Walters in Philadelphia, Devlin Barrett in Washington and AP researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.