Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Gorgeous College Professor-Turned-Bloody-Pulp, Eyes Gouged by Love-Obsessed Co-Worker

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

When state troopers arrive at Lauret Savoy’s home, just after midnight, they find the acclaimed author lying in a pool of blood. She had been severely beaten. By Savoy’s side is her friend of 14 years and colleague at Mount Holyoke College, art professor Rie Hachiyanagi. It was Hachiyanagi who called 911. Savoy tells the police she can't offer any information on the person who attacked her. The professor is rushed to a local hospital with severe blunt force trauma. She has multiple broken bones and fractures in her face, numerous cuts, and puncture wounds and there was evidence that the assailant had tried to gouge out the Savoy's eyes. At the hospital,   Lauret Savoy tells police, she lied, out of fear. Her attacker was her long time friend, Rie Hachiyanagi.Joining Nancy Grace Today: Wendy Patrick - California prosecutor, author “Red Flags,” www.wendypatrickphd.com, 'Today with Dr. Wendy' on KCBQ in San Diego, Twitter: @WendyPatrickPHD Dr. Bethany Marshall - California Psychoanalyst, www.drbethanymarshall.com, Netflix show: 'Bling Empire' Dr. Kendall Crowns – Chief Medical Examiner, Tarrant County, Texas, Lecturer: The University of Texas and Texas A&M, Affiliated Faculty: University of Texas Medical Branch Lisa M. Dadio - Former New Haven Police Lieutenant, University of New Haven Senior Lecturer, Director University of New Haven Forensic Science Department "Center for Advanced Policing" Domenic Poli - News Reporter, The Greenfield Recorder (Greenfield, Mass.), www.recorder.com, Facebook: "TheRecorderNewspaper," Twitter: @TheRecorderNews Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How does a gorgeous New England college professor end up brutally beaten, stabbed in the face, her eyes nearly gouged out, horrific injuries, her bloody body left lying in the floor. How does that happen to a lady college professor? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, we often think of college professors kind of balding with spectacle glasses, carrying books and papers and let's just say a plaid blazer with the elbow pads in a world of their own, an ivory tower, so to speak, of education, right? Never colliding with a world of crime. Well, what happened to Lorette Savoy changes all of that.

Again, thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Take a listen to this. Moments after opening the door, they were hit over the head with something hard and then repeatedly attacked. People are capable of lots of scary things. So, I mean, unfortunately, that does happen. But I mean, it is kind of scary to hear that that it happens so close to home. I mean, they're, you know, well-educated, well-informed usually. It's, yeah, I guess you don't always expect that, but it kind of could be anybody. You can say that again. You don't expect a high level university professor, a female especially, to have her eyes gouged out. No, that's pretty uncommon. With me, an all-star panel. You were just hearing Sidney Snow at WWLP 22. With me, California prosecutor, author of Red Flags and host of

Today with Dr. Wendy KCBQ. Joining us, Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst to the stars. Joining us out of LA at drbethanymarshall.com. Dr. Kendall Crowns, the chief medical examiner in Tarrant County. That's Fort Worth. Lecturer at University of Texas and Texas A&M. Lisa Daddio, former police lieutenant, New Haven, and senior lecturer at the Center for Advanced Policing in New Haven. Dominic Poli joining us, news reporter with the Greenfield Recorder. And you can find him on Facebook at the Recorder newspaper.

What a case. This beautiful professor brutally attacked. Dominic, first, let me talk to you about where this went down in Leverett, Massachusetts. Tell me about that first. What kind of town is that? Where did this happen? Yeah, it happens in Leverett, Massachusetts. It's a pretty quintessential New England town just next to Amherst, where UMass Amherst is. It's a very quiet, peaceful town.

It's known for the Peace Pagoda. It's this Buddhist sanctuary that's very popular with tourists and UMass students, as well as students from Amherst College or Hampshire College. It's a very quintessential New England town. Okay, Hold on. When you were saying the Peace Pagoda, you just can't reel something like that, Dominic Polly, off to me and may not want to know how a woman basically gets her eyes

gouged out near the Peace Pagoda. What is the Peace Pagoda? It's a holy place for Buddhism. It's a very quiet, tranquil place. It's been there since I think the 80s. I've been a few times in my life. And it's in the same town where this attack occurred. A Peace Pagoda, a Buddhist stupa, and it is to inspire and promote peace, designed to provide all around it a focus to unite them, to unite their souls in a peaceful way. I'm looking at a picture of it right now, and it's really hard for me to imagine this university professor, and I'm going to explain why I keep emphasizing that she is a female, why she is attacked so brutally, even attacking her face and her eyeballs. Joining me, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor and author of Red Flags on Amazon.

Wendy, typically we see violent crime involving men. No offense, Dr. Kendall Crowns and Dominic Pauley. This is not about you. This is statistically men are involved in violent crimes. So when you see a university professor attacked in this manner, your mind naturally leaps to it being a man, but not so. That's exactly right. And that was one of the very first things that struck me about this case. And it just goes to show you, you know, sometimes we can't assume or stereotype what victims would look like in a case like this. And I guess another thing is the stereotype that a professor is going to be a man. I'm thinking back to law school, Wendy Patrick, where my only female

professors, let's see, in ethics and in tax, there were very few female professors. So when you hear this New England professor has been brutally attacked, just a bloody mess, you think of it being a man, but it's not. Yeah, no, that's right. And you know, it's a sign of the times that we actually not only have women fulfilling some of these traditionally male positions, but then victimized in this manner. You know, it was always surprising to hear that a case like this ends up having this type of a victim. And, you know, another thing about it, Dominic Pooley, you know what, let me go to our shrink, Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst joining us out of L.A. When you think of New England, a lot of people may imagine, I don't know, Jessica Fletcher, okay, who was a teacher and she was a mystery writer in Maine. Remember her?

And those that aren't familiar with New England, you have this idyllic setting in your head about what New England is, much less a university campus, Dr. Bethany. Yes, but Nancy, I've been in academic settings for many years. And yes, it might be a very idyllic setting. You have a female professor, you have her students. But Nancy, there's no worse war than a war of ideas. And academic settings can be quite vicious. You have people vying to be department chair. You have people writing competing stories. You have them publishing articles, scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals. And then all their colleagues read the articles and the colleagues weigh in in a vicious way. They refute the articles. So these seemingly idyllic academic settings where you're teaching young people to be smart and think critically and lead a great life can be a hotbed of envy, resentment, professional and intellectual resentment against each other, competition and rivalry.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Do I need to remind everybody of Amy Bishop? Is that name ringing a bell? A university professor opens fire, killing three of her colleagues, I believe, when her dissertation was rejected or she didn't get tenure, something along the lines Dr. Bethany is talking about right now. She opened fire and killed three colleagues. Do you remember that, Dr. Bethany Marshall? So maybe the ivory tower is what we think it is.

The ivory tower can be quite homicidal and aggressive. In my academic institute, it was a non-medical psychoanalytic institute, and I introduced the idea that maybe some patients who are depressed should be on medication rather than in psychoanalysis. They argued with me for three years before passing my dissertation on the subject, just because it was a new idea, but it was really a recycled old idea. So these are not always friendly places, Nancy. You know, the cutthroat nature of advancement, getting that tenure. I mean, I also taught for nine years at the college level to Dr. Kendall Crowns, who was currently teaching at University of Texas and Texas A&M, also the chief medical examiner, Tarrant County in Fort Worth.

Never a lack of business there, Dr. Kendall Crowns. I mean, it's cutthroat to get tenure. That is very true. I mean, my dad was a professor, and it was always publish or perish. So, you know, you have people stealing your ideas to try and get ahead. And it was just it is cutthroat and it's unfortunate. So to you, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, explain what is tenure? Well, actually, it's a great question because I actually moonlight as a lecturer at my local college, at my local college.

And it really is when you attain a permanent post as a teacher, as a professor, it is that level of permanency that many academics vie for, which explains some of the competitiveness that the other guests are talking about. It really does get to be cutthroat when you only have so many tenured positions and many qualified candidates. To Dominic Pauley, joining us with a Greenfield recorder. Dominic, what college was it? It was Mount Holyoke College. Wow.

Pretty famous institution, Mount Holyoke. Yes. Wow. And what had Lorette Savoy been teaching? She was a professor of environmental studies in geology. Wow. Do you know, was she up for tenure or was she tenured? She was tenured.

In fact, she was the David B. Truman Professor of Environmental Studies. Wow. And that's, I think, an endowment, the Truman chair. In other words, they pay that professor a bonus or they pay their whole salary because they are very, very valued. Wow. This woman, no idiot by far, Lorette Savoy. So how does she end up being attacked with garden shears, a fire poker, a rock with someone trying to rip her eyes out of the socket? Take a listen to our cut 1B from our friends at Crime Online. Lorette Savoy is rushed to a local hospital with severe blunt

force trauma. She has multiple broken bones and fractures in her face, including a broken nose and a broken orbital bone. That's one of the bones that surrounds the eye. There were numerous cuts and puncture wounds on Savoy's head and face, resulting in significant blood loss. And there was evidence medical personnel say indicating that the assailant had tried to gouge out the victim's eyes. Okay. Gouging out eyes. I need to go to two people on this, two experts, Dr. Bethany Marshall, and I need to go to Dr. Kendall Crown, the chief medical examiner in Tarrant County, Fort Worth.

Okay. Dr. Bethany, here's my experience with eye gouging. Familiar with the case that was worked in my office, the Fulton County District Attorney's Office, inner city Atlanta, where a victim was murdered and her eyes were gouged out. Then the perp was arrested. He was missing an eye. He had to be straight jacketed behind bars because he was caught trying to pull out his other eye. Now, if the jury couldn't put together two plus two who killed this woman and gouged out her eyes, I don't know who can. They did convict, by the way.

Dr. Bethany, that's not just killing somebody. To gouge out their eyes is a whole other level of evil. And I'm sure you have an opinion. What is it? Well, the idea of gouging out eyes is prominent in literature and mythology. Narcissus falls into the pool because he's gazing at himself. But according to one theory, he's trying to gouge out his own eyes because he doesn't want to see himself accurately. If you watch the Squid Games theories, one of the contestants in the Squid Games has her eyes surgically removed. Happens to be a woman, of course, not a man. I tend to think that when a

perpetrator wants to gouge out the eyes of the victim, they don't want the victim to see what they are doing. There's something about the all-seeing, all-discerning eyes that have to first be removed before the aggressive attack on the victim. It leads me to the eyes are the mirror into the soul. And it also leads me, of course, that's on an English literature note, but it leads me to who is my perp. I can tell you this much, Lisa Daddio, former police lieutenant, New Haven. This is not a random attack. A random attack, you want to go in and you want to burglarize the place?

You want to rape her? You want to steal her pocketbook, you're not going to sit around and waste time. You kill, rape, or steal, and then you leave. No hanging around to remove somebody's eyeballs. Yeah, that's correct. I mean, typically, like you said, Nancy, you go in, you commit the crime or crimes that you set out to do, and then you leave so that you don't get caught and, you know, people don't see everything or, you know, risk all of that. And yet in this case, the victim was brutalized for hours. It seems to be with all the attacks on her. Straight out to you, Dr. Kendall Crowns,

Chief Medical Examiner, Tarrant County. What does that mean? What do her injuries, first of all, tell me about her injuries, the injuries to Lorette Savoy. So she had multiple injuries, cuts, stab wounds, fractures of her skull. And what it shows is there's a variation in the objects that are used. There's a rock, there's a fire poker, and garden shears. So with the sharp force injuries, you have the garden shears. The blunt force injuries is going to be the rock and the fire poker. Often with the blunt force injuries, when people beat someone with an object, they don't instantly incapacitate them. So they often will switch up to a sharp object to try and stab them

to death. The fractures of the skull, the orbital plate fractures that are described, the orbital plate is basically around your eyeball and it's kind of thin. So if she's hit in that area it causes fractures it can cause brain injury etc so but none of the injuries that are described are necessarily lethal but in in combination they would have eventually ended up in her death but they're all very debilitating and crippling just the gouging the eyes out or the attempt to pull her eyes out of her skull. You know, I don't know what it means psychologically, but to a jury, it will mean a lot. And the pain, the pain inflicted on the victim. Take a listen to our cut 1A.

State troopers arrive at Lawrence Savoy's home just after midnight. They find the acclaimed author lying in a pool of blood on the floor, having been severely beaten about the head and face. By Savoy's side is her friend of 14 years and a colleague at Mount Holyoke College art professor, Rhi Hachianagi. It was Hachianagi who called 911. She tells police she and Savoy had plans to meet around 11 p.m. Hachianagi reported seeing signs of a struggle in the home when she found her friend in the foyer barely breathing. Savoy, who was still conscious, tells police she cannot offer any information on the person who attacked her, not even gender, as she lost her glasses during the assault.

Troopers searched the property and immediate area, but no suspect is found. So as it were, when she could still speak, she stated that she could not identify her attacker having lost her glasses. And that's a whole nother level, Wendy Patrick, who would attack a female professor who can't see without her glasses? That's exactly right. You know, you start thinking, was it a student? Was it a competitor? Was it just a random attack, a home invasion?

Was anything missing? And you just start going through a list of suspects. And most female professors I know couldn't identify who would want to do something so brutal and vicious. So that's right. It becomes a big mystery when you have someone like this attacked so viciously. crime stories with nancy grace check and listen to our cut one our friends at court tv my name is reha chianagi i've taught here at mount holyoke for five years that was beloved professor and current chair of the Mount Holyoke Art Studio. In a 2009 video on Christmas Eve of 2019, Higinaki called 911 from the home of a fellow Mount Holyoke professor, a longtime friend of hers. She stated that she found her friend lying on the floor of the residence, barely breathing,

semi-conscious, and with a head injury. The officer who responded to the call found the victim and Ms. Hajinaki lying together on the floor. Ms. Hajinaki told the trooper that there were signs of a struggle in the house. The victim told the trooper that she did not know the gender or any other identifying descriptions for the alleged suspect. To Dominic Pooley joining me, H.V. Porter with the Greenfield Recorder. You can find him on Facebook, the Recorder newspaper. Dominic, tell me about her home. Was it an apartment?

Was it freestanding? Was it a condo? Who had access to it? It was just a freestanding home in Leverett. And you refer to that as an idyllic New England home area. But what about her neighborhood? It's very sparsely populated. The entire town is. So it's very sparsely populated, Dominic? Yes. Which really rules down, not out, but rules down random crime, because who's going to drive out?

There's really no such thing as foot traffic there. It's pretty much just all winding roads and wilderness. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, have you ever encountered a crime victim that couldn't make an identification because they didn't want to make an identification psychologically. They didn't want to think about it, so they couldn't make an ID. Well, we see this in domestic violence all the time, right? One person feels very threatened. Their spouse, their intimate partner, because we know all about intimate partner violence, is aggressing against them, stalking them, calling their boss at work, threatening them at home. It finally escalates to the point where they have to call the police.

But once the police get there, the loyalty and the guilt sets in. And then they are so reluctant to identify their most beloved person as the perpetrator. It happens all the time. Dominic Pauly, wasn't she attacked from behind initially? She was. That's how the attack started. It was very late at night, and she heard something sort of in the shadows outside the back door of her home, and she called out to see who it was. When law enforcement arrived, they find her near death. Yes. And she says she cannot identify her attacker. But take a listen to our friends

at Court TV, our cut to hours later at the hospital, the victim told police that Professor Hajiaki was the one who attacked her. The defendant, who was at the time a friend of the victim, comes to the house, uses a pretense to get into the house, and attacks her upon entry with anything that she can find. She beats her in the head with a rock. She attacks her and punctures her face with garden scissors. She beats her in the head with a rock. She attacks her and punctures her face with garden scissors. She beats her with a poker. The victim told police that Professor Hajinaki had shown up on the deck of her residence and told the victim that she really missed her and

wanted to talk with her about feelings. Once Professor Hajinaki was inside, according to the victim, she began hitting her repeatedly in the head. In a statement to police, the victim says Hajiaki told her the attack was because Hajiaki had loved her for many years and that she should have known. She should have known. Listen, when a work friend shows up on your patio at midnight wanting to talk about feelings, that is very unusual. There was no relationship between these two. They were not lovers, nothing secret, nothing. Just work friends. Take a listen to our cut.

One see our friends at Crime Online. At the hospital, Lauren Savoy tells police that she'd lied out of fear about losing her glasses and about who her attacker was. It was her longtime friend, Ree Hachianagi. Savoy says the woman turned up at her home, which she had never been to before, unannounced, on the premise of needing to talk to her about her feelings and a failed relationship. Savoy invited her in, and as they walked away from the door, Hachianagi attacked her from behind. The art professor had come to the home

to admit her feelings for Savoy. The attack on Savoy lasted for four hours with Hachianagi using multiple implements in the attack, including fists, rocks, garden clippers, and a fire poker. And more from our friends at Crime Online. Cut 1D. Savoy tells police she remembers being hit again and again and again. At one point, Hachianagi straddled the victim on the floor and continued punching her. When Savoy asked why she was doing this, Hachianagi said she loved the author for many years and she should have known. Savoy says she was taunted by Hachianagi during the four-hour attack, saying that she would be blinded, disfigured, and then murdered. And at one point saying that because there was so much blood loss,

that Savoy didn't have long to live. Savoy says she thought she was going to die. To Dominic Pauly joining us from the Greenfield Recorder. Dominic, what happened? Lorette had no idea this female professor, Rhi Hachianagi, was obsessed with her? Yes, that's correct. The first time any type of feelings toward one another were brought up, and it is, as far as Professor Savoy is concerned, completely out of the blue.

Take a listen to our friends at Crime Online, our cut 1E. Savoy says she tried to get Hagi Inaci to stop beating her by saying she loved her. It took some time, but she was able to play along, begging Hagi Inaci to let her go and call 911. With Hagi and Nagi convinced there was hope for a relationship, the two women hatched a plan to tell police that someone else had beaten Savoy. Savoy tells police while still in her home that she has no idea who her attacker is. Hagi and Nagi tells police she is covered in blood from trying to help her friend. Finally, around 4 a.m., safe in the hospital, Savoy tells police the truth. Hagi Anachi is arrested about 7 a.m. near Savoy's home

with the victim's keys, cell phone, and glasses on her. crime stories with nancy grace take a listen again to our friends at crime online our cut 1e savoy says she tried to get hagi and nachi to stop beating her by saying she loved her. It took some time, but she was able to play along, begging Hagi and Nachi to let her go and call 911. With Hagi and Nachi convinced there was hope for a relationship, the two women hatched a plan to tell police that someone else had beaten Savoy. Savoy tells police while still in her home that she has no idea who her attacker is. Hagi and Nachi tells police she is covered in blood from trying to help her friend. Finally, around 4 a.m., safe in the hospital, Savoy tells police the truth.

Hagi and Nachi is arrested about 7 a.m. near Savoy's home with the victim's keys, cell phone, and glasses on her. Okay, Dr. Bethany Marshall, this is right up your alley. Hit me. Oh, Nancy, it definitely is. It seems that Hageanachi obviously used the word obsessed. When we think of stalking, and you've heard me say this so many times, in stalking relationships, the perpetrator feels that there's a unique and special relationship with the victim, even when there is no evidence to support that. So Yagiyonachi was obsessed with the boy, felt herself to be in love with her. So what happens is it sets up a cycle where the perpetrator continually feels rejected by the victim because the victim has no idea that the other person's in love with them. But you might ask yourself, why would a professor with such high standing launch such a vicious attack? I mean, how could she pass in everyday life as a professor,

as a person with good mental health, when obviously she's so disturbed? And can you think of Lisa Nowak? Remember the astronaut? Oh my goodness, the astronaut. Yes, the child all the way across the country in adult diapers to attack her love rival. Okay, when the guy, the love object had totally broken up with her. Yes, so you have these high-functioning women, and because they're academics, they have a veneer of sophistication that lends the public to believe that they can never be so sinister and so disturbed. And when that veneer cracks, all the aggression comes out. To Dominic Polly, joining us from the Greenfield Recorder.

Now, I hear Dr. Bethany Marshall going on and on and on. And I liked every word you said. I just didn't agree with some of it, Dr. Bethany. She made it sound like the defendant in this case, another female professor, had some sort of a mental disability. I call it rage and rejection. And she sought revenge. Take a listen again to our friends at Court TV. Professor Hajinaki is now facing six charges, including assault with intent to kill. The defendant, who was at the time a friend of the victim,

comes to the house, uses a pretense to get into the house, and then attacks her upon entry with anything that she can find. She beats her in the head with a rock. She attacks her and punctures her face with garden scissors. She beats her with a poker. The motive that I love you, therefore I have to kill you doesn't make sense. And it continues to not make sense. That was the first question when the defendant was attacking the victim and the victim rolled over onto her back.

Was the victim looked at the defendant and said, why? The allegation is that the defendant did this. There's no doubt that the victim's orbital bones were broken. There's no doubt that the victim received multiple stitches to try and put her face back together. The punctures to the victims, to the tissue surrounding the victim's eyes from the gardening scissors are horrifying. Both after indictment had been made aware of another allegation a few years prior. A former colleague of the defendant's

was subject to what she describes as harassment on the part of the defendant. And speaking with counsel for the college, the counsel affirmed that this kind of antagonism was present, but wasn't really able to go into detail and wasn't able to turn over the records of documenting that without a subpoena. The victim told police that during the attack, she thought she was going to die and she says she survived by playing along with miss hajianaki and convincing her to call 9-1-1 for help professor hajianaki has pled not guilty to the attack so where does the case stand now dominic polly uh the professor The professor, Rihachi Nagi, has been sentenced to 10 to 12 years in Franklin County House of Correction.

Take a listen to our cut 17 from Crime Online. Lauren Savoy tells a court that after her attack, which she calls torture, she still has not healed and probably never will. Savoy says she suffered nerve damage to her face. Two of her fingers no longer work. She caused torture. She still has not healed and probably never will. Savoy says she suffered nerve damage to her face. Two of her fingers no longer work. She also has trouble sleeping, suffering nightmares and headaches daily. Savoy also says she has suffered financially. Insurance has not covered all her medical bills and post-traumatic stress disorder therapy.

Security in her home has had to be upgraded for her to feel safe. Savoy says she has also lost significant income since she has not been able to return to teaching and has had to turn down at least 30 professional opportunities since the attack. And that in itself has been difficult for this acclaimed author. Laurent Savoy is the winner of Mount Holyoke College's Distinguished Teaching Award and an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. She has held fellowships from the Smithsonian Institute and Yale University. Her book, Trace, Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape won the 2016 American Book Club Award from Before Columbus Foundation and the 2017 ASLE Creative Writing Award. It was also a finalist for the Penn American Book Award and Phyllis Wheatley Book Award. It was also shortlisted

for the William Soroyan International Prize for Writing and the Orion Book Award. Let's listen to Savoy speaking about her book, Trace, to the 2016 brattleboro literary festival trace began in my struggle to answer or come to terms with questions that have haunted me since childhood questions like these if each of our lives is an instant like a camera shutter that opens and closes. What can we make of our place in the world for that instant, our latent image? And then, over time, over generations, what do accumulated instants mean? The book grew to become a mosaic of personal journeys and historical inquiry that crossed a continent in time trying to understand or at least explore how this country's still unfolding history has marked the land has marked the society and marks an individual savoy says the health

issues she has suffered since the attack all came about because her friend thought she would get away with murder. Well, she didn't. And this poor woman, Laurette Savoy, must be on pins and needles because if the perp is sentenced to nine or ten years, she'll be out in three. That gives her three years behind bars to stew and fester about the one that got away. Nancy Gray's Crime Story signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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