August 27, 2025 • 27 mins
In May 1995, Harvard sophomore Trang Ho was found murdered inside her dorm suite — the attack carried out by someone shockingly close to her. The killing stunned the Harvard campus and left classmates asking how such violence could erupt behind dorm room walls.
In this episode of Murder U, we follow Trang’s journey from Vietnam to Harvard, her rise as a standout scholar, and the troubling signs of obsession and isolation her roommate Sinedu Tadesse revealed before everything collapsed in violence. Behind the ivy-covered walls, this case revealed painful truths about mental health, cultural isolation, and the consequences of ignoring red flags.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/murder-u--6152042/support.
In this episode of Murder U, we follow Trang’s journey from Vietnam to Harvard, her rise as a standout scholar, and the troubling signs of obsession and isolation her roommate Sinedu Tadesse revealed before everything collapsed in violence. Behind the ivy-covered walls, this case revealed painful truths about mental health, cultural isolation, and the consequences of ignoring red flags.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/murder-u--6152042/support.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh my gosh. I can't thank you all enough for listening.
We've had thousands of downloads already and we're just getting started. Anyway,
can I ask you a huge favor. If you're loving
Murder You, could you give us a five star review?
It really helps us out and ensures we can keep
bringing you great true crime stories. Thanks a bunch Abnornia.
(00:25):
From high school hallways to expansive college campuses and the
sanctity of their homes, these once secure spaces have transformed
into hunting grounds for sinister individuals seeking to inflict harm
on the unsuspecting. I'm your host, Mattie. Join me here
each week as we investigate the bone chilling stories of
senseless murders occurring in and around our centers of education.
(00:48):
Welcome to Murder You, an Abnormia original. Thank you for
(01:15):
supporting this new original podcast. It's so exciting to put
something out and see it connect with you, the Murder
You alumni. Now let's get into this week's case. If
you took a poll asking people what the most prestigious
university in the world is. Along with Cambridge, Oxford and Yale,
Harvard University would be at the top of the list.
(01:37):
With five thousand acres of plush greenland in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
and iconic Ivy covered walls, It's a dream university for
esthetic reasons and its academic reputation. Harvard's pre med program
especially boasts perks like major networking opportunities and an individualized curriculum.
(01:58):
It's no wonder over eighteen thousand students a year were
applying to the university by the end of the twentieth century.
Despite its reputation, at that time, Harvard only received three
point five out of five satisfaction rating from its students, which,
if given a letter grade, would be a C plus.
So why were students dissatisfied with the most revered college
(02:22):
in the United States. Well, for one, the immense pressure
students feel to excel academically while trying to fit in
among a socially elite student body can weigh heavily upon
students regardless of their background. The strict standards and policies
of the Ivy League school can also exacerbate students dealing
with mental health issues, and in the late nineties, students'
(02:45):
mental health didn't seem to be a priority at Harvard.
The problem became apparent with the infamous nineteen ninety five
dormitory murder of a pre med student at the hands
of her mentally unstable roommate. The two roommates were young
women who had incredibly similar pasts as migrants attending college
in America. Both were impressively hard working and highly intelligent,
(03:08):
and the fact that they were assigned as roommates was
a serendipitous event but not out of the ordinary. After all,
they had much in common. But unfortunately, their story doesn't
end with the two of them becoming lifelong best friends.
In fact, fate would set them on a deadly collision
course that would end in both of their deaths. Let's
(03:30):
talk about Trang fu Ung Ho. First. Treng was born
in nineteen seventy four, the second child of parents fut
Yuk Shwanho and Quihayun. Nineteen seventy four was the year
of the Tiger, according to the Chinese zodiac, which prophesied
that any child born that year would be extraordinary, something
that Treng would become living proof of. The woe. Family
(03:52):
lived in central Vietnam under a communist government that sent
the two parents to a re education camp where they
were starved and tortured for months. Thankfully, they were both
set free after six months and returned home to their
daughters and even had another child named Tram. Trang's older sister, Tao,
(04:13):
stated that their childhood was rocky, which is understandable considering
what the family was dealing with. Not only had their
parents been unable to parent for months while being held captive,
but when they did come home, they often fought. Each
parent favored one of their children. Huac the father, favored
(04:33):
the older daughter Tao, and Qui, the mother, favored the youngest. Tram.
Toe stated that trayg the middle child, was quote on
her own for much of the time, but that didn't
mean her family ignored her positive traits. Her mother remembered
her as being incredibly empathetic. Whenever her mother gave money
(04:55):
to beggars, Tray would tell her she wasn't giving enough.
One she set birds her family raised free, and they
came home to discover empty cages. Traying was generous and
wanted everyone, whether family, friends, or pets, to be happy.
The family made plans to migrate to the United States
in the early nineteen eighties with money they'd saved up
(05:18):
from running a coffee shop in their hometown. Wow, I
see where Train got her tenacity. Her entire family was
just as ambitious. She, her older sister, Toe, and their
father escaped first, then helped the rest of the family
follow suit. After arriving in San Diego, the whole family
moved to Boston, hoping Huac could find work there. He
(05:42):
also dreamed of his children someday attending an esteemed university
like Harvard, which was local to them. As we've discussed
in other episodes, the pressure to succeed academically is often
a staple of the first generation migrant family experience. The
whole family was no exception. Even the family patriarch had
returned to school to earn a degree in electrical engineering
(06:04):
at Bunker Hill Community College. Treang's father prioritized academics, encouraging
his daughters to focus on their studies rather than socializing.
While oldest child, Tao, challenged this idea and prioritized having
a social life and dating, Trang seemed to be taking
it in stride. She'd even tell her sister, remember, you
(06:26):
don't just have a boyfriend, you have a future. Ah.
Let's just say I know some people who could have
used that wisdom. In school, Trang was also active in
extracurriculars like poetry club, which she organized, ping pong club,
and badminton club. Her former English teacher, Crystal cooy Gonfa,
remembered Trang often running down the hall with her backpack
(06:48):
full of books, always having somewhere to be. She kept
very busy and was succeeding at an incredibly high level.
Treng worked so hard that she graduated from high school
as valedictorie and was accepted to Harvard on a full scholarship,
just as her father dreamed for her. She was even
one of only two students to receive a perfect score
(07:10):
from the admissions committee, which is just incredible. Tray knew
that to be successful as a first generation American, she
would need to be undeniably talented and intelligent, which she
certainly was. She majored in biology on a pre med
track and was described by her peers as kind, polite,
(07:31):
and outgoing. After a successful freshman year, Traying was housed
with a new roommate named Sinadutadesse for her sophomore year.
Let's talk a little about Toedessa's life, since these two
women had such similar backgrounds at least on the surface. Tedessa,
born in Ethiopia in nineteen seventy four, came to the
(07:52):
US specifically to attend Harvard. Like Vietnam, at the time,
the Ethiopian political climate was tumultuous, with violence and death
everywhere due to the Red Terror, a campaign of oppression
and mass killings. Her father was the head master of
several government owned schools, earning his degree at the American
University in Beirut. Her mother was a nurse and was
(08:15):
responsible for being the family's breadwinner when Tedessa's father was
imprisoned by the government under suspicion of rebel sentiments, simply
because he was an educated, elite member of society and
therefore a threat to the tyrannical government. Regardless, Tedessa's family
valued education. While her father was imprisoned, Tdessa went to
(08:37):
a Catholic private school where she thrived academically. Throughout high school.
She was one of two students to receive the International
Baccalaureate diploma there. She was accepted to twenty four American universities,
including Harvard. That's right, both women involved in this case
were originally born outside of the US, and both of
(08:58):
their fathers had been wrongly imprisoned for a portion of
their childhoods. Both were among the highest achieving students in
their class and received full ride scholarships to Harvard. The
two students were placed in the same dorm room their
second year at Harvard. Maybe it was some weird coincidence
that they became roommates, or perhaps the powers in charge
(09:19):
of housing knew of their shared struggles growing up and
thought these girls would have much to relate to After
being paired as roommates for their sophomore year, the twenty
one year olds did initially relate to each other, with
Tedessa speaking highly of Traying in her journal, She wrote
that she was excited to be asked who her roommate
was so she could smile proudly and answer trang Ho.
(09:43):
As for Traying, she felt positively toward Tedess, but in
a more casual way. She thought they got on as
roommates because they were both tidy and studious. However, Senatu
saw them as best friends. In any event, they got
along well enough to continue being roommates after their first
year together. Even though they got along, Traying had many
(10:04):
friends and a social life outside of her school studies.
Tedessa found making friends incredibly hard. Despite having similar backgrounds,
the girls had very different personalities. After three years working
toward her undergraduate degree, Tedessa hadn't made any friendships that
she felt good about. Maybe it was the fact that
(10:25):
she felt like an outsider at Harvard. She was one
of only two Ethiopian students at the institution in her
time there. This can take a toll on a student
and lead them to feeling incredibly isolated. Many Harvard students
came from extremely privileged backgrounds. I can imagine it was
hard for someone who was born during the Ethiopian Red
(10:45):
Terror to feel like she belonged among students whose families
could afford twenty thousand dollars in yearly tuition that would
be over forty thousand dollars in today's money. Throughout her
time at Harvard, Todess kept multiple journals with titles like
My Small Book of Social Rules, The Social Problems I Faced, Depression,
(11:06):
and Stress, where she detailed her attempts at assimilating to
American culture, pointing out the differences from how she was raised.
For example, in Ethiopia, eating with your hands is common.
Tedessa held herself to an extremely high standard when it
came to adapting to Western table manners, even chastising herself
once for forgetting to place a napkin on her lap
(11:27):
in a social eating environment. She thought her peers must
have believed she was a quote barbarian. I can't help
but sympathize with her on that front. I mean, the
relationship between a migrant person and their own heritage when
facing constant comparisons to Western ideals and be toxic and invalidating.
(11:48):
It's sad that she felt like she had to feel
that way about her own culture. These extreme social rules
she held herself ate away at her. It was intense.
She felt like she had to act a certain way,
react a certain way, have the perfect level of upbeat
cadence in the way she spoke to people. It became obsessive.
I'd be exhausted if I constantly had that kind of
(12:10):
inner monologue running through my head. So get this. Todessa
was even so desperately lonely that she would send handwritten
letters to random addresses out of the phone book, begging
them to be her friend. That just really blows my mind.
Imagine receiving that kind of letter from a stranger. I guess.
(12:31):
In the day where you could find almost anyone's personal
information from the phone book, this may have been less troubling,
but in twenty twenty four, we guard our personal information
very securely out of fear of the wrong people finding
out where we live. And maybe this case is a
good example of why. Even if Tedessa wasn't targeting these people,
(12:52):
it must have been unsettling in hindsight for any recipient
of her letters to know that an eventual killer once
had their information. Here's an excerpt from one of the
letters that is totally chilling in hindsight. Todas I said,
I am like a person who can't swim, choking for
life in a river. You are one of the very
few people who see me struggle. All you have to
(13:15):
do is give me a hand and put into words
what you already know. No expenses are involved, and there
are no risks. She wrote to this random person, letting
them know that these letters were the only way she
would ever let someone see her inner struggles. She went
on to say, I am sure one of your concerns,
if you have gotten this far in the letter, is
(13:36):
what if I am one of those criminals lurking around
but believe me right now, I am not strong enough.
I would have been aggressive rather than shy if I
was to hurt others. We know now that either that
wasn't true or something in her changed. Before the Fateful
day of May twenty eighth, tensions began growing between Tedess
(13:59):
and trains Hoe in their second year of living together.
Just as she was fixated on how her peers perceived her,
Tedess became obsessed about her friendship with Trang. In one
of her journals where she coached herself through social norms,
Tedessa had to remind herself that wanting to own someone
was not how to maintain a friendship. Still, she considered
(14:21):
Trang all she had and grew jealous of the other
girl's blossoming social life around campus. Treng was a member
of the Vietnamese student union at Harvard and had a
best friend, Toe Wehn, who was also from Vietnam. And yes,
you heard correctly. She had the same first name as
Tray's older sister. I want to make that clear in
(14:42):
case there's any confusion moving forward in this story. This
Toe is a student at Harvard and Train's close friend.
Tedess was jealous of their friendship She would take phone
messages from Toe, but failed to pass them on to Train,
Hoping to drive a wedge between the two. Tedess became
completely obsessed with Traying, wanting her undivided attention, yet harboring
(15:04):
a burning jealousy of her. She resented Traying's close relationship
with her family and her ability to form meaningful relationships.
It's common for stalkers to be obsessed with their victims
and simultaneously resentful of them, but it must be tricky
to identify stalking when a stalker lives with their victim.
The two probably just seemed like very close roommates, one
(15:27):
with a life outside of their dorm and the other
who kept to herself. But there were even more troubling
things going on beneath the surface. At the start of
their junior year, Tedessa, who was once a neat and
clean roommate, became uncharacteristically messy. Their Harvard sweet was constantly
littered with dirty clothes and rotting food. Unfortunately, this is
(15:49):
a telltale symptom of severe depression, and Tedessa's journals seemed
to confirm her fragile mental state. However, neither time Tedessa
nor Trang seemed aware of the situation's seriousness. To Trang,
this behavior change meant that she and Cinnydo were no
longer compatible as roommates. Instead of confronting her roommate, Trang
(16:14):
decided to take a different course of action by requesting
a new housing assignment. Unfortunately, the administration did not grant
the request for the new semester, but she was allowed
to choose a new roommate for her senior year. Ultimately,
that was what Trang decided to do. However, that involved
telling her obsessive roommate something that would undoubtedly hurt her feelings.
(16:37):
Things only worsened when Trang admitted to Tedessa that she
no longer wanted to live with her. Tedessa was crushed
by this news and refused to let it go. She
constantly pestered her about why, but Train would only answer politely,
never vocalizing her true feelings that living with Tedessa had
become unbearable. Like a jilted ex lover. Tedessa began writing
(17:01):
Train letters, begging her to reconsider her choice. Still, Train
remained firm in her decision, leaving Tedessa to become what
Harvard students considered a floater for her senior year aka
a person with no friends who want to room with
them even in their fourth year of school. According to
Harvard students, to be a floater as a senior is,
(17:22):
for lack of a better term, social suicide, and Tedessa
had made it clear that she cared deeply about how
others viewed her. After spending her spring semester withdrawn and
even more depressed than before, Tedessa wrote in her journal,
the bad way out I see is suicide, and the
good way out is killing, savoring their fear, and then suicide.
(17:46):
But you know what annoys me the most? I do nothing.
You would think I was both hand and legcuffed to
a couch stuck in the ground. Sometimes even if a
bomb falls beside me, I would be scared at first
and then not even bothered to see what happened. How
creepy is that? To her, the bad outcome was harming herself,
(18:08):
and the good outcome involved taking others down with her.
At this point, her grip on reality was so warped
it was only a matter of time before she snapped
and harmed herself for others. Sinetu Tadessa meticulously devised her plan,
and here's one of the most disturbing parts. She even
(18:28):
mailed a picture of herself to the school newspaper, the
Daily Crimson, with a note that read, keep this picture.
There will soon be a very juicy story involving the
person in this picture. I don't know what's more disturbing
that she put this much thought into the public perception
of the crime she was about to commit, or that
(18:48):
she considered the crime a juicy story, like a piece
of celebrity gossip in a magazine, rather than a life
or death situation. Regardless the photo she attached to the
note did indeed become infamous, just as she'd planned. On
May twenty sixth, Tray's friend tell Wyn stayed with the
(19:09):
two girls to help Train pack for summer vacation. During
this time, Toe and Train could tell something was off
about Tedessa. They saw her in her bedroom in a
fetal position, remaining unmoved for hours. Eventually, Toe told Trang
she should ask her roommate what was wrong. Train reluctantly agreed,
but Tedessa waved her off, refusing to answer any questions. Later,
(19:33):
she left her bedroom, though she remained silent and seemed off.
She didn't even attend the exam. She and Treng had
that afternoon something was definitely wrong with Sinetu Tudessa. Finally,
on the morning of May twenty eighth, till when was
once again sleeping in Traying's bedroom, the two girls slept
on the bed, heads on opposite ends. Early in the morning,
(19:57):
they heard an alarm go off. Tray assured Toe that
it was Sinadou's and that they could go back to sleep.
They heard Tadessa awake in the bathroom. A little while later.
Toe woke up again when she felt the presence of
someone standing near the bed. When she opened her eyes,
she caught a horrific sight Sinidi Tadessa standing over Traying,
(20:21):
hoe stabbing her repeatedly. Tray held her hands up, trying
to block the knife, but Tedessa did not relent. Toe
jumped to her friend's defence, kicking at Tedessa, but ended
up getting stabbed in both the foot and the hand
when she tried to grab the knife. She ran out
of the dorm to escape her attacker, but was filled
(20:43):
with dread when she realized that once she ran out
of the suite, the door would lock automatically unless she
had the key, which she didn't. As soon as the
door closed, behind her toe. Knew Traying was now locked
in there with her killer, and no one could go
in to help. I can't imagine how that must feel,
being put in a fight or flight situation, but also
(21:05):
feeling responsible for her friend's safety. She tried to alert
other students, banging on their sweet doors in the hallway,
but it was so early no one was awake. She
then ran out into the courtyard and got the attention
of another student, who quickly called the police for her.
Police arrived a short time later and entered Sinnatu and
(21:25):
trained Sweet. In Sinnatu's bedroom, they found Traying stabbed forty
five times in the neck, chest and arms. They figured
she may have gotten up and tried to escape by
running into the second bedroom, but succumbed to her injuries
once inside. Then they found Sinatu Todessa in the bathroom,
hanging by her neck from a noose tied to the
(21:46):
shower rod, having died by suicide. After inspecting the crime scene,
they determined that the noose had been pre cut and
pre tied when Tudessa attacked her roommate, proving it was
a premeditated attack. Many people's first question after this heinous
crime occurred, was what could have been done to stop it?
(22:06):
Many were shocked to learn that Sinetu Tadessa had been
seeing a campus mental health specialist since her freshman year.
Weren't there any signs that she was planning to harm
herself in her roommate. Harvard's reaction to these questions was
to ignore them all and pretend there was no problem.
The school had been dealing with other controversies that year.
(22:28):
In February nineteen ninety five, the co chair and the
treasurer of a Harvard charity that benefited children with cancer
were caught stealing over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars
from the charity's earnings. And in April, just one month
before the training home murder, the institution faced scrutiny for
granting admission to Gina Grant, an incoming freshman who years
(22:49):
earlier had killed her mother. That's just crazy to me.
They rescinded her acceptance, but nineteen ninety five was a
year of intense scrutiny for the university. Melanie Thurnstrom, a
former Harvard professor of both treng Hoe and Sinatu Tadessa,
described Harvard's closed lip attitude during this case as stone walling,
(23:10):
meaning they refuse to give answers to delay or block
an outcome. In this case, Harvard was trying to block
the potential blame for Trang Hooe's death. Thurnstrom took an
interest in the case and delved into the details in
her nineteen ninety seven true crime book Halfway Heaven. It's
a really interesting read. Definitely check it out if you're
(23:31):
interested in more details about this case. In it, she
interviews the dean at the time, Fred Jewett. He stated,
in a case of this complexity, we prefer to centralize information.
Everyone's looking for a villain and we don't want to
be it. Wow. Talk about dismissive, especially considering how, according
(23:53):
to detective James Dwyer, Harvard was notorious for forgetting to
report campus suicides and sexual assaults to the Cambridge police.
He expressed frustration with how often Harvard wanted to handle
serious cases internally. He said, the coroner's office calls us
about a body, and we say what body. It turns
out there's been another suicide at Harvard and Harvard hasn't
(24:16):
reported it. When we contact Harvard, they say, oh, sorry,
our mistake. But there's a pattern of these mistakes that's infuriating.
It seems like the school's main priority was to uphold
its reputation rather than dig deeper into the issues that
could have played a part in why these things happened
in the first place. A bombshell piece of information that
(24:38):
Thornstrom revealed in Halfway Heaven was that one of Sinadou's
letters to a stranger got forwarded back to her dorm
and after it was read by a dean. Rather than
talk to her about it or bring it to one
of the mental health professionals on campus, the dean instructed
the dorm advisor to just keep it in her file
and to make matters worse. When Thornstrom asked the adviser
(25:00):
about this, according to Thornstrom, he lied to her face
and denied that he'd ever read it, like I said, infuriating.
Harvard clearly made no efforts to understand Tedessa's mental state
or intervene to offer the help she needed. In her book,
Thornstrom traveled to Ethiopia to better understand Sinatu's culture and
(25:23):
her past. Many people close to Tedessa could not wrap
their heads around the fact that she committed this crime
nay gash Keba Day, Sinatu's former physics teacher in Ethiopia, said,
it is impossible. The only way I could conceive of
Sinato having done this is if she had some problem
in her brain, like a brain tumor or some hormone imbalance.
(25:47):
Here was a person who had a vision of the future,
and it was very bright and very promising, and she
was motivated to work hard and earn that vision. Why
would that person want to die? End quote? Her American
English teacher Maura McMillan had a different view of Tedessa,
though in an interview, she said, quote, she was not
(26:09):
like other students. She was resourceful, meticulous, poised, mature, never
goofy or silly. I never remember her laughing or goofing
off or tending to her personal happiness. I think it
would have gotten in her way. This case really brings
up questions about mental health, cultural isolation, the model minority obsession,
(26:29):
and more. Maybe if Harvard had caught the red flags
earlier on or not treated Sina Doo, Tedessa to be
as invisible as she felt traying Hoe would still be alive.
There's no doubt she would have had a beautiful future.
That's it for this episode of Murder You. Thanks for listening,
and remember, if you or anyone you know is struggling
(26:51):
with mental illness, you can contact the Samson National Helpline
at one eight hundred six six y two Help. That's
one eight hundred sixty six y two or three five seven.
Be sure to like and subscribe to Murder You on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Murder You is an Abnormia original in association with Launchpad
(27:13):
Creative Group
Oh my gosh. I can't thank you all enough for listening.
We've had thousands of downloads already and we're just getting started. Anyway,
can I ask you a huge favor. If you're loving
Murder You, could you give us a five star review?
It really helps us out and ensures we can keep
bringing you great true crime stories. Thanks a bunch Abnornia.
(00:25):
From high school hallways to expansive college campuses and the
sanctity of their homes, these once secure spaces have transformed
into hunting grounds for sinister individuals seeking to inflict harm
on the unsuspecting. I'm your host, Mattie. Join me here
each week as we investigate the bone chilling stories of
senseless murders occurring in and around our centers of education.
(00:48):
Welcome to Murder You, an Abnormia original. Thank you for
(01:15):
supporting this new original podcast. It's so exciting to put
something out and see it connect with you, the Murder
You alumni. Now let's get into this week's case. If
you took a poll asking people what the most prestigious
university in the world is. Along with Cambridge, Oxford and Yale,
Harvard University would be at the top of the list.
(01:37):
With five thousand acres of plush greenland in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
and iconic Ivy covered walls, It's a dream university for
esthetic reasons and its academic reputation. Harvard's pre med program
especially boasts perks like major networking opportunities and an individualized curriculum.
(01:58):
It's no wonder over eighteen thousand students a year were
applying to the university by the end of the twentieth century.
Despite its reputation, at that time, Harvard only received three
point five out of five satisfaction rating from its students, which,
if given a letter grade, would be a C plus.
So why were students dissatisfied with the most revered college
(02:22):
in the United States. Well, for one, the immense pressure
students feel to excel academically while trying to fit in
among a socially elite student body can weigh heavily upon
students regardless of their background. The strict standards and policies
of the Ivy League school can also exacerbate students dealing
with mental health issues, and in the late nineties, students'
(02:45):
mental health didn't seem to be a priority at Harvard.
The problem became apparent with the infamous nineteen ninety five
dormitory murder of a pre med student at the hands
of her mentally unstable roommate. The two roommates were young
women who had incredibly similar pasts as migrants attending college
in America. Both were impressively hard working and highly intelligent,
(03:08):
and the fact that they were assigned as roommates was
a serendipitous event but not out of the ordinary. After all,
they had much in common. But unfortunately, their story doesn't
end with the two of them becoming lifelong best friends.
In fact, fate would set them on a deadly collision
course that would end in both of their deaths. Let's
(03:30):
talk about Trang fu Ung Ho. First. Treng was born
in nineteen seventy four, the second child of parents fut
Yuk Shwanho and Quihayun. Nineteen seventy four was the year
of the Tiger, according to the Chinese zodiac, which prophesied
that any child born that year would be extraordinary, something
that Treng would become living proof of. The woe. Family
(03:52):
lived in central Vietnam under a communist government that sent
the two parents to a re education camp where they
were starved and tortured for months. Thankfully, they were both
set free after six months and returned home to their
daughters and even had another child named Tram. Trang's older sister, Tao,
(04:13):
stated that their childhood was rocky, which is understandable considering
what the family was dealing with. Not only had their
parents been unable to parent for months while being held captive,
but when they did come home, they often fought. Each
parent favored one of their children. Huac the father, favored
(04:33):
the older daughter Tao, and Qui, the mother, favored the youngest. Tram.
Toe stated that trayg the middle child, was quote on
her own for much of the time, but that didn't
mean her family ignored her positive traits. Her mother remembered
her as being incredibly empathetic. Whenever her mother gave money
(04:55):
to beggars, Tray would tell her she wasn't giving enough.
One she set birds her family raised free, and they
came home to discover empty cages. Traying was generous and
wanted everyone, whether family, friends, or pets, to be happy.
The family made plans to migrate to the United States
in the early nineteen eighties with money they'd saved up
(05:18):
from running a coffee shop in their hometown. Wow, I
see where Train got her tenacity. Her entire family was
just as ambitious. She, her older sister, Toe, and their
father escaped first, then helped the rest of the family
follow suit. After arriving in San Diego, the whole family
moved to Boston, hoping Huac could find work there. He
(05:42):
also dreamed of his children someday attending an esteemed university
like Harvard, which was local to them. As we've discussed
in other episodes, the pressure to succeed academically is often
a staple of the first generation migrant family experience. The
whole family was no exception. Even the family patriarch had
returned to school to earn a degree in electrical engineering
(06:04):
at Bunker Hill Community College. Treang's father prioritized academics, encouraging
his daughters to focus on their studies rather than socializing.
While oldest child, Tao, challenged this idea and prioritized having
a social life and dating, Trang seemed to be taking
it in stride. She'd even tell her sister, remember, you
(06:26):
don't just have a boyfriend, you have a future. Ah.
Let's just say I know some people who could have
used that wisdom. In school, Trang was also active in
extracurriculars like poetry club, which she organized, ping pong club,
and badminton club. Her former English teacher, Crystal cooy Gonfa,
remembered Trang often running down the hall with her backpack
(06:48):
full of books, always having somewhere to be. She kept
very busy and was succeeding at an incredibly high level.
Treng worked so hard that she graduated from high school
as valedictorie and was accepted to Harvard on a full scholarship,
just as her father dreamed for her. She was even
one of only two students to receive a perfect score
(07:10):
from the admissions committee, which is just incredible. Tray knew
that to be successful as a first generation American, she
would need to be undeniably talented and intelligent, which she
certainly was. She majored in biology on a pre med
track and was described by her peers as kind, polite,
(07:31):
and outgoing. After a successful freshman year, Traying was housed
with a new roommate named Sinadutadesse for her sophomore year.
Let's talk a little about Toedessa's life, since these two
women had such similar backgrounds at least on the surface. Tedessa,
born in Ethiopia in nineteen seventy four, came to the
(07:52):
US specifically to attend Harvard. Like Vietnam, at the time,
the Ethiopian political climate was tumultuous, with violence and death
everywhere due to the Red Terror, a campaign of oppression
and mass killings. Her father was the head master of
several government owned schools, earning his degree at the American
University in Beirut. Her mother was a nurse and was
(08:15):
responsible for being the family's breadwinner when Tedessa's father was
imprisoned by the government under suspicion of rebel sentiments, simply
because he was an educated, elite member of society and
therefore a threat to the tyrannical government. Regardless, Tedessa's family
valued education. While her father was imprisoned, Tdessa went to
(08:37):
a Catholic private school where she thrived academically. Throughout high school.
She was one of two students to receive the International
Baccalaureate diploma there. She was accepted to twenty four American universities,
including Harvard. That's right, both women involved in this case
were originally born outside of the US, and both of
(08:58):
their fathers had been wrongly imprisoned for a portion of
their childhoods. Both were among the highest achieving students in
their class and received full ride scholarships to Harvard. The
two students were placed in the same dorm room their
second year at Harvard. Maybe it was some weird coincidence
that they became roommates, or perhaps the powers in charge
(09:19):
of housing knew of their shared struggles growing up and
thought these girls would have much to relate to After
being paired as roommates for their sophomore year, the twenty
one year olds did initially relate to each other, with
Tedessa speaking highly of Traying in her journal, She wrote
that she was excited to be asked who her roommate
was so she could smile proudly and answer trang Ho.
(09:43):
As for Traying, she felt positively toward Tedess, but in
a more casual way. She thought they got on as
roommates because they were both tidy and studious. However, Senatu
saw them as best friends. In any event, they got
along well enough to continue being roommates after their first
year together. Even though they got along, Traying had many
(10:04):
friends and a social life outside of her school studies.
Tedessa found making friends incredibly hard. Despite having similar backgrounds,
the girls had very different personalities. After three years working
toward her undergraduate degree, Tedessa hadn't made any friendships that
she felt good about. Maybe it was the fact that
(10:25):
she felt like an outsider at Harvard. She was one
of only two Ethiopian students at the institution in her
time there. This can take a toll on a student
and lead them to feeling incredibly isolated. Many Harvard students
came from extremely privileged backgrounds. I can imagine it was
hard for someone who was born during the Ethiopian Red
(10:45):
Terror to feel like she belonged among students whose families
could afford twenty thousand dollars in yearly tuition that would
be over forty thousand dollars in today's money. Throughout her
time at Harvard, Todess kept multiple journals with titles like
My Small Book of Social Rules, The Social Problems I Faced, Depression,
(11:06):
and Stress, where she detailed her attempts at assimilating to
American culture, pointing out the differences from how she was raised.
For example, in Ethiopia, eating with your hands is common.
Tedessa held herself to an extremely high standard when it
came to adapting to Western table manners, even chastising herself
once for forgetting to place a napkin on her lap
(11:27):
in a social eating environment. She thought her peers must
have believed she was a quote barbarian. I can't help
but sympathize with her on that front. I mean, the
relationship between a migrant person and their own heritage when
facing constant comparisons to Western ideals and be toxic and invalidating.
(11:48):
It's sad that she felt like she had to feel
that way about her own culture. These extreme social rules
she held herself ate away at her. It was intense.
She felt like she had to act a certain way,
react a certain way, have the perfect level of upbeat
cadence in the way she spoke to people. It became obsessive.
I'd be exhausted if I constantly had that kind of
(12:10):
inner monologue running through my head. So get this. Todessa
was even so desperately lonely that she would send handwritten
letters to random addresses out of the phone book, begging
them to be her friend. That just really blows my mind.
Imagine receiving that kind of letter from a stranger. I guess.
(12:31):
In the day where you could find almost anyone's personal
information from the phone book, this may have been less troubling,
but in twenty twenty four, we guard our personal information
very securely out of fear of the wrong people finding
out where we live. And maybe this case is a
good example of why. Even if Tedessa wasn't targeting these people,
(12:52):
it must have been unsettling in hindsight for any recipient
of her letters to know that an eventual killer once
had their information. Here's an excerpt from one of the
letters that is totally chilling in hindsight. Todas I said,
I am like a person who can't swim, choking for
life in a river. You are one of the very
few people who see me struggle. All you have to
(13:15):
do is give me a hand and put into words
what you already know. No expenses are involved, and there
are no risks. She wrote to this random person, letting
them know that these letters were the only way she
would ever let someone see her inner struggles. She went
on to say, I am sure one of your concerns,
if you have gotten this far in the letter, is
(13:36):
what if I am one of those criminals lurking around
but believe me right now, I am not strong enough.
I would have been aggressive rather than shy if I
was to hurt others. We know now that either that
wasn't true or something in her changed. Before the Fateful
day of May twenty eighth, tensions began growing between Tedess
(13:59):
and trains Hoe in their second year of living together.
Just as she was fixated on how her peers perceived her,
Tedess became obsessed about her friendship with Trang. In one
of her journals where she coached herself through social norms,
Tedessa had to remind herself that wanting to own someone
was not how to maintain a friendship. Still, she considered
(14:21):
Trang all she had and grew jealous of the other
girl's blossoming social life around campus. Treng was a member
of the Vietnamese student union at Harvard and had a
best friend, Toe Wehn, who was also from Vietnam. And yes,
you heard correctly. She had the same first name as
Tray's older sister. I want to make that clear in
(14:42):
case there's any confusion moving forward in this story. This
Toe is a student at Harvard and Train's close friend.
Tedess was jealous of their friendship She would take phone
messages from Toe, but failed to pass them on to Train,
Hoping to drive a wedge between the two. Tedess became
completely obsessed with Traying, wanting her undivided attention, yet harboring
(15:04):
a burning jealousy of her. She resented Traying's close relationship
with her family and her ability to form meaningful relationships.
It's common for stalkers to be obsessed with their victims
and simultaneously resentful of them, but it must be tricky
to identify stalking when a stalker lives with their victim.
The two probably just seemed like very close roommates, one
(15:27):
with a life outside of their dorm and the other
who kept to herself. But there were even more troubling
things going on beneath the surface. At the start of
their junior year, Tedessa, who was once a neat and
clean roommate, became uncharacteristically messy. Their Harvard sweet was constantly
littered with dirty clothes and rotting food. Unfortunately, this is
(15:49):
a telltale symptom of severe depression, and Tedessa's journals seemed
to confirm her fragile mental state. However, neither time Tedessa
nor Trang seemed aware of the situation's seriousness. To Trang,
this behavior change meant that she and Cinnydo were no
longer compatible as roommates. Instead of confronting her roommate, Trang
(16:14):
decided to take a different course of action by requesting
a new housing assignment. Unfortunately, the administration did not grant
the request for the new semester, but she was allowed
to choose a new roommate for her senior year. Ultimately,
that was what Trang decided to do. However, that involved
telling her obsessive roommate something that would undoubtedly hurt her feelings.
(16:37):
Things only worsened when Trang admitted to Tedessa that she
no longer wanted to live with her. Tedessa was crushed
by this news and refused to let it go. She
constantly pestered her about why, but Train would only answer politely,
never vocalizing her true feelings that living with Tedessa had
become unbearable. Like a jilted ex lover. Tedessa began writing
(17:01):
Train letters, begging her to reconsider her choice. Still, Train
remained firm in her decision, leaving Tedessa to become what
Harvard students considered a floater for her senior year aka
a person with no friends who want to room with
them even in their fourth year of school. According to
Harvard students, to be a floater as a senior is,
(17:22):
for lack of a better term, social suicide, and Tedessa
had made it clear that she cared deeply about how
others viewed her. After spending her spring semester withdrawn and
even more depressed than before, Tedessa wrote in her journal,
the bad way out I see is suicide, and the
good way out is killing, savoring their fear, and then suicide.
(17:46):
But you know what annoys me the most? I do nothing.
You would think I was both hand and legcuffed to
a couch stuck in the ground. Sometimes even if a
bomb falls beside me, I would be scared at first
and then not even bothered to see what happened. How
creepy is that? To her, the bad outcome was harming herself,
(18:08):
and the good outcome involved taking others down with her.
At this point, her grip on reality was so warped
it was only a matter of time before she snapped
and harmed herself for others. Sinetu Tadessa meticulously devised her plan,
and here's one of the most disturbing parts. She even
(18:28):
mailed a picture of herself to the school newspaper, the
Daily Crimson, with a note that read, keep this picture.
There will soon be a very juicy story involving the
person in this picture. I don't know what's more disturbing
that she put this much thought into the public perception
of the crime she was about to commit, or that
(18:48):
she considered the crime a juicy story, like a piece
of celebrity gossip in a magazine, rather than a life
or death situation. Regardless the photo she attached to the
note did indeed become infamous, just as she'd planned. On
May twenty sixth, Tray's friend tell Wyn stayed with the
(19:09):
two girls to help Train pack for summer vacation. During
this time, Toe and Train could tell something was off
about Tedessa. They saw her in her bedroom in a
fetal position, remaining unmoved for hours. Eventually, Toe told Trang
she should ask her roommate what was wrong. Train reluctantly agreed,
but Tedessa waved her off, refusing to answer any questions. Later,
(19:33):
she left her bedroom, though she remained silent and seemed off.
She didn't even attend the exam. She and Treng had
that afternoon something was definitely wrong with Sinetu Tudessa. Finally,
on the morning of May twenty eighth, till when was
once again sleeping in Traying's bedroom, the two girls slept
on the bed, heads on opposite ends. Early in the morning,
(19:57):
they heard an alarm go off. Tray assured Toe that
it was Sinadou's and that they could go back to sleep.
They heard Tadessa awake in the bathroom. A little while later.
Toe woke up again when she felt the presence of
someone standing near the bed. When she opened her eyes,
she caught a horrific sight Sinidi Tadessa standing over Traying,
(20:21):
hoe stabbing her repeatedly. Tray held her hands up, trying
to block the knife, but Tedessa did not relent. Toe
jumped to her friend's defence, kicking at Tedessa, but ended
up getting stabbed in both the foot and the hand
when she tried to grab the knife. She ran out
of the dorm to escape her attacker, but was filled
(20:43):
with dread when she realized that once she ran out
of the suite, the door would lock automatically unless she
had the key, which she didn't. As soon as the
door closed, behind her toe. Knew Traying was now locked
in there with her killer, and no one could go
in to help. I can't imagine how that must feel,
being put in a fight or flight situation, but also
(21:05):
feeling responsible for her friend's safety. She tried to alert
other students, banging on their sweet doors in the hallway,
but it was so early no one was awake. She
then ran out into the courtyard and got the attention
of another student, who quickly called the police for her.
Police arrived a short time later and entered Sinnatu and
(21:25):
trained Sweet. In Sinnatu's bedroom, they found Traying stabbed forty
five times in the neck, chest and arms. They figured
she may have gotten up and tried to escape by
running into the second bedroom, but succumbed to her injuries
once inside. Then they found Sinatu Todessa in the bathroom,
hanging by her neck from a noose tied to the
(21:46):
shower rod, having died by suicide. After inspecting the crime scene,
they determined that the noose had been pre cut and
pre tied when Tudessa attacked her roommate, proving it was
a premeditated attack. Many people's first question after this heinous
crime occurred, was what could have been done to stop it?
(22:06):
Many were shocked to learn that Sinetu Tadessa had been
seeing a campus mental health specialist since her freshman year.
Weren't there any signs that she was planning to harm
herself in her roommate. Harvard's reaction to these questions was
to ignore them all and pretend there was no problem.
The school had been dealing with other controversies that year.
(22:28):
In February nineteen ninety five, the co chair and the
treasurer of a Harvard charity that benefited children with cancer
were caught stealing over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars
from the charity's earnings. And in April, just one month
before the training home murder, the institution faced scrutiny for
granting admission to Gina Grant, an incoming freshman who years
(22:49):
earlier had killed her mother. That's just crazy to me.
They rescinded her acceptance, but nineteen ninety five was a
year of intense scrutiny for the university. Melanie Thurnstrom, a
former Harvard professor of both treng Hoe and Sinatu Tadessa,
described Harvard's closed lip attitude during this case as stone walling,
(23:10):
meaning they refuse to give answers to delay or block
an outcome. In this case, Harvard was trying to block
the potential blame for Trang Hooe's death. Thurnstrom took an
interest in the case and delved into the details in
her nineteen ninety seven true crime book Halfway Heaven. It's
a really interesting read. Definitely check it out if you're
(23:31):
interested in more details about this case. In it, she
interviews the dean at the time, Fred Jewett. He stated,
in a case of this complexity, we prefer to centralize information.
Everyone's looking for a villain and we don't want to
be it. Wow. Talk about dismissive, especially considering how, according
(23:53):
to detective James Dwyer, Harvard was notorious for forgetting to
report campus suicides and sexual assaults to the Cambridge police.
He expressed frustration with how often Harvard wanted to handle
serious cases internally. He said, the coroner's office calls us
about a body, and we say what body. It turns
out there's been another suicide at Harvard and Harvard hasn't
(24:16):
reported it. When we contact Harvard, they say, oh, sorry,
our mistake. But there's a pattern of these mistakes that's infuriating.
It seems like the school's main priority was to uphold
its reputation rather than dig deeper into the issues that
could have played a part in why these things happened
in the first place. A bombshell piece of information that
(24:38):
Thornstrom revealed in Halfway Heaven was that one of Sinadou's
letters to a stranger got forwarded back to her dorm
and after it was read by a dean. Rather than
talk to her about it or bring it to one
of the mental health professionals on campus, the dean instructed
the dorm advisor to just keep it in her file
and to make matters worse. When Thornstrom asked the adviser
(25:00):
about this, according to Thornstrom, he lied to her face
and denied that he'd ever read it, like I said, infuriating.
Harvard clearly made no efforts to understand Tedessa's mental state
or intervene to offer the help she needed. In her book,
Thornstrom traveled to Ethiopia to better understand Sinatu's culture and
(25:23):
her past. Many people close to Tedessa could not wrap
their heads around the fact that she committed this crime
nay gash Keba Day, Sinatu's former physics teacher in Ethiopia, said,
it is impossible. The only way I could conceive of
Sinato having done this is if she had some problem
in her brain, like a brain tumor or some hormone imbalance.
(25:47):
Here was a person who had a vision of the future,
and it was very bright and very promising, and she
was motivated to work hard and earn that vision. Why
would that person want to die? End quote? Her American
English teacher Maura McMillan had a different view of Tedessa,
though in an interview, she said, quote, she was not
(26:09):
like other students. She was resourceful, meticulous, poised, mature, never
goofy or silly. I never remember her laughing or goofing
off or tending to her personal happiness. I think it
would have gotten in her way. This case really brings
up questions about mental health, cultural isolation, the model minority obsession,
(26:29):
and more. Maybe if Harvard had caught the red flags
earlier on or not treated Sina Doo, Tedessa to be
as invisible as she felt traying Hoe would still be alive.
There's no doubt she would have had a beautiful future.
That's it for this episode of Murder You. Thanks for listening,
and remember, if you or anyone you know is struggling
(26:51):
with mental illness, you can contact the Samson National Helpline
at one eight hundred six six y two Help. That's
one eight hundred sixty six y two or three five seven.
Be sure to like and subscribe to Murder You on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Murder You is an Abnormia original in association with Launchpad
(27:13):
Creative Group
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