True Crime with Kimbyr - Deaf Student's Dreams Shattered: The Tragic Case of Eric Plunkett: Part 2

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

Eric’s story is not just about his tragic end but also a testament to his determination and passion for life. Born with profound deafness and a mild form of cerebral palsy, Eric overcame significant hurdles with grace, humor, and a fierce will to succeed. From mastering sign language as a child to excelling academically, he inspired those around him with his positive outlook and resilience. As we unravel the details of his journey, we’ll explore the unique challenges faced by the deaf community and how Eric turned them into strengths. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After doing this initial walkthrough and collecting photo and video evidence, Eric was transported to DC General Hospital, where a medical examiner would conduct the autopsy. Now back in Burnsville, Minnesota. Kathleen and Chris are just finishing dinner, and they hear the phone and the doorbell ring at the same time. Eric's stepdad Chris answers the phone, he's confused, and someone on the other line tells him,

please open the front door for the police. Chris's heart dropped. He and Kathleen opened the door and were met with two uniformed officers as well as a chaplain. That's not a good sign. They asked if it was the home of Eric Franklin Plunkett, and that is when Kathleen and Chris both had this overwhelming feeling that something horrible had happened. And of course, they were right. Once this horrific news was delivered, Kathleen sobbed uncontrollably. Chris remembers her saying over and over again,

I took my baby to college and he's never coming home. She just kept repeating that. It was unbelievable. How horrible would it be to say goodbye to your only son as he goes off to college and find out a month later he's dead? He had taken a big risk. He was leaving home to pursue his passion for learning, but it's a risk that many teenagers take.

Parents shouldn't be worried that they're going to end up dead. And now Eric would never be able to proudly place his diploma over that acceptance letter. He'd never start to start. a career. He never have a family of his own or travel the world. Kathleen would never get to hug him again. And that's heartbreaking. When Eric's father, Craig and his stepmon lowest got the news, they were equally devastated. Craig was inconsolable. Meanwhile, Kathleen, Chris and Aaron took the very first light they could get from Minnesota to Washington, D.C. The plane was so empty at the time

that everyone decided to spread out and sit separately from one another. Aaron said that you would think in this moment, the family would want to be close. But they needed time and space alone to process what had just happened. They were all desperate for answers. They didn't know what was happening. And I can understand both. I think there are definitely times

for grieving people to come together, but I think we know that everyone grieves differently, and sometimes you just want to be alone in silence. The very next day on Friday, Eric's family got to DC and immediately went to Gallaudet to find out what happened to Eric. His dorm room was taped off from the public, and police were still

conducting their investigation and documenting all of the evidence. So far, they'd only determined three things. First, there was no sign of force entry, which is no surprise, because Eric always had his door unlocked. And September 28th would have been no different. Second, there had been a struggle. And third, his computer was still on with a bunch of screens open. Tragically, as they were searching, they found no fingerprints or DNA evidence on the scene. There was nothing that police could process and use to determine who the killer was right away. Kathleen and Chris went to talk to the police to get solid answers to find out who killed Eric,

but instead they realized they just walked into an interview. Detective Kyle Semioidi, who had been put in charge of the case, began asking them a bunch of questions right away, and I know why this could seem very insensitive, and I'll go as far as saying it is insensitive, but it's also imperative for police to get as much information as they can about the victim as fast as they can so they can provide those answers to grieving families. But that doesn't mean it makes a process any easier. Detective Simeoity wants to know who Eric was, who he was friends with, what his lifestyle was like, how often did he use his computer, why was there a digital camera attached to it? And Chris and Kathleen were left speechless. They were shocked that these police

officers didn't even have any leads, passed just a logged-in computer. But the case was still fresh. There was not much information for the detectives to share. But the family hadn't prepared for anything like this. Kathleen said that Eric had sent him an email the day after that FaceTime call with Aaron. So that would have been September 27th. All it was was an update from him like usual. She did email him back and she never heard anything. She didn't think anything of it at the time because Eric was always busy studying. He was doing student organizations and hanging out with his friends because he was an overachiever. And he had been telling her he was doing so well. So it did not raise any suspicion at the time. Investigators are trying to narrow down his time of death.

And that's when the police eventually asked Kathleen to come to the morgue and identify her son's body. She wanted to be brave for her son and for everybody else and her family, but she made it to the door and she couldn't go inside. And that made me tear up when I read it. That's her baby. So her husband, Chris, he's trying to be as supportive as possible for his wife. He decides that he's going to go in. in and he did confirm that Eric was the person that had been killed. It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. I don't think many things could come close to that. At Gallaudet, students would

normally be finishing up with class and getting excited to hang out over the weekend, but not that day. Students woke up on Friday to find all their classes were canceled, and there was a lockdown at Cogswell Hall. The students were evacuated from the rooms and they could not go back inside to retrieve anything. not their books, their clothing, even their toothbrushes, and they were virtually homeless. They had to find a place to stay, like in their friends' dorm rooms, until further notice. There wasn't exactly a protocol for this. Rumors were also swirling about what happened, but soon everyone was notified. One of the most extroverted, enthusiastic freshmen had been murdered in his dorm room.

To say that it shocked the campus would literally be an understanding because no one could believe this could ever happen, especially to someone like Eric. Why? Everyone liked him and how? The campus had security measures. Had somebody snuck into campus, had they stolen a key card, and then just walk through Eric's open door? If so, was he targeted?

Or was this some kind of crime of opportunity, and his door just happened to be the one that was open? Even worse, was the perpetrator a part of their community? Was it another student? Or was it a hate crime? What kind of person would be capable of something so savage? And what would their motive be? And what if it happened again?

All of these unanswered questions kept the students up at night. Imagine you're living on this island, you're in a protective oasis in this college, and then a friend or a classmate is murdered out of nowhere for no apparent reason. Now students are fearful that they could be next. They kept imagining getting caught off guard with no time to protect themselves as their key was turning in their lock. There's no calling for help.

There's no person next door overhearing the struggle because they can't. And that's terrifying. Gallaudet University provided crisis counselors for the students so they could talk about their fears, but for many people, it was a matter of life or death. And they had to decide whether they wanted to take that risk and stay on campus.

And many of them left. Meanwhile, there were theories that began to circulate, with the biggest one being whether Eric had been a victim of a hate crime. It would line up with the other hate crimes that had already happened on campus. So what if someone was targeting queer people? The Lambda Society asked police to

take a deeper look into Eric's death as a hate crime, especially since he was openly gay. Now I've got to mention that I met such a compassionate podcaster at an event that I was at. Her name is Mallory Jenna Robinson. She is an Afro-Caribbean transgender woman and a community leader and the creator of the true crime and investigative journalism podcast called A Hateful Homicide. It is dedicated to covering hate crimes, especially against the transgender members in the United States and abroad. So I will link her podcast below because hate crimes are sadly going up in our country. And in Eric's case, it was the most obvious theory being looked into as the reason for his murder. The Washington Metropolitan PD, and I'm

going to just abbreviate it as the MPD, they set up headquarters at Gallaudet so they could pin down a culprit. They called it the Department of Safety and Security. And after interviewing Eric's family, Detective Simeoiti began interviewing everyone who knew Eric, his friends, his professors, people he interacted with on a daily basis, and any Cogswell Hall students that had access to his room, which was pretty much everyone on all four floors. During these interviews, many people said that Eric was gay, and he might have been murdered for that reason. That was a reoccurring theme, as I said. But Detective Simioli thought that Eric's injuries seemed, quote, too personal to be a hate crime, and quote, whatever that's supposed to mean. The amount of blood on the floor, the way he had been bludgeoned,

It made it look like his death was motivated by rage or revenge, which I was confused about because isn't that what would also be the motive for a hate crime? But he was a professional, so this is what his point of view was. Because this campus was so secure, in students' opinions anyway, they began to suspect each other. They didn't know who to trust. The campus started to look like a ghost town. But after a long day of interviews and grieving, the students, as well as

Eric's family met right outside his first floor window on Friday night. They held a candlelight vigil and they had framed pictures of Eric. They had pink carnations and a huge poster board for everyone to sign. A few of the students stood up and they talked about Eric, including Thomas Minch, who had spent all day working on Eric's online memorial site. At the end of the vigil, everyone stood in line to sign this poster and write notes to Eric and his family. Chris, Eric's stepdad remembers how surreal this experience was.

Kathleen was seen writing a note to her son. And when he was watching her, trying to hold herself together and say goodbye to her baby boy, it was too much. His knees actually gave out. Two goodbyes within one month, and one of those goodbyes turned out to be forever. She wrote, quote, Eric, my only son, you are my pride and joy, and I will always love you. You will always live on in my heart. Please watch over us. All my love forever, mom."

End quote. Erin also felt like she needed to sign the poster as well. And she wrote, quote, My only brother, I'm sorry, I didn't get to talk to you more. I can't wait to see you in heaven. Take care of mom and dad. End quote. Then the students came and they hugged this family.

Kathleen got hugs from Eric's Wild Wild West crew. Then Thomas and Joseph. and they had compassion for his parents. They sympathized with them. Kathleen was so proud that even though her son had only been at Gallaudet University for a brief time, he had made a difference. He had a profound impact on his classmates and several even commented about how he embodied the school's spirit and taught students and staff members many lessons with his cheerful personality and his smile. Eric's R.A. Lauren,

she couldn't help but feel a sense of guilt, considering she was the one of the one of the one of the who found him. And she was supposed to keep students safe. She felt like she'd failed him. And that would be tough. That sense of guilt is natural, but this isn't her fault. Then without any answers from the police, Chris, Kathleen, and Aaron, they returned home to start preparing for Eric's funeral. You never think you're going to do that as a parent. Meanwhile, over the next couple days, Detective Smyoity continued the slow process of interviewing every student. Now detectives are highly trained to rely on tone of voice, word choices, and watching someone's demeanor, their mannerisms, things like that.

But that's when you're interviewing someone in the hearing world. Since all of these interviews were with deaf individuals, this interview process took so much longer. The police had to ask more questions than usual. They had to have interpreters there. And they were trying their best to fully capture exactly what was being said, and that's really tough. Things can get lost in translation. Again, not something that I've ever thought about.

The autopsy results were finally in, and the report revealed that Eric had been strangled and then hit repeatedly in the head. His cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and it broke a neck. The manner of death was, of course, homicide. With the savage and intense nature of his wounds, it was speculated to be a crime of passion. Detectives believed they needed to take a deeper look into Eric's personal life to solve this murder. The medical examiner estimated that Eric's time of death had been between possibly when he was found at 8 p.m. on Thursday the 28th, up to two or three days earlier. So now they had to kind of do the math, connect the dots. And luckily a lot of people were coming forward.

Thomas, the RA, wanted to help any way that he could. He even provided the investigators with a detailed drawing of the entire building so they could help ascertain different entry points, for example. Friends and classmates were asked when the last time they saw Eric was. They knew that Eric had apparently sent that email to his mom on Wednesday, so police wondered if anyone had contact with him after that. And it turns out, Eric had missed all of his classes and been absent from every meal the entire day on Thursday. So now the time of death is narrowed down to sometime between

the afternoon of Wednesday 27th and the afternoon of the 28th. But since he didn't go to school all day or even eat any meals, They thought it probably happened on the night of the 27th, but they couldn't be sure. Oh, and it was also rumored that Eric was in a romantic relationship with a guy named Thomas. But as far as the last name was concerned, no one had solid information to provide them. Well, we know of two Thomas's. Thomas Minch, who is one of Eric's friends and Thomas Koch, which was the RA. Each person that was close to Eric was being interviewed in depth. And when they spoke to Joseph, which was Eric's friend that lived right across from him,

he was a member of the Wild West Group, he told them that they might be interested to know that Thomas Minch and Eric had argued before his murder. And he said that there were rumors they were more than friends. Aha! Okay, that's one of the Thomas's, the quiet one. So now the investigators are eager to bring him in. But while waiting to speak to Thomas Minch, the Lambda Society president, yet another Thomas, he's Thomas Green. He described concerns that other LGBTQ plus students had at this university and he told this to the Washington Post. It was kind of a big deal. It was in the news.

Although the police were not investigating Eric's murder as a hate crime, the group's president urged them to do so. In an interview with the newspaper in October 3rd, Thomas Green said that several gay students had been harassed in the days leading up to Eric's death. There were several anti-gay slurs that were painted on memo boards outside of the dorm rooms. That's not all. There were offensive remarks that were actually made to gay students as well. According to this article, an interview with Thomas Green, he said he was waiting for the latest news on his friend being murdered.

He was on campus in the plaza right after they discovered Eric's body. Thomas said that his friend watched a student standing nearby sign, quote, oh good, one less gay, end quote. When he turned around, he saw the other people that were standing around smiling and gesturing in approval of that statement. After Eric's murder, a faculty member actually taught a self-defense class for the Lambda Society members for that reason, because they were so convinced that there was a connection there. They even had the Lambda Society created buddy system so that members were never alone on campus. However, the Gallaudet president of the student government, he stated that the problems on campus were just like all the other ones across all universities.

He said, quote, to say that this is a problem, I don't know if that's fair to say. We don't know what there is to be afraid of. And he was basically saying that this is no different than any of the problems on any other university. It can be seen as invalidating real people's feelings and experiences. But I also think this could be damage control. When a murder happens on campus, you lose students. If they don't think this is a safe environment, they're going to leave in droves.

Eric's funeral was held on October 3rd in Burnsville, Minnesota. And while Chris and Kathleen were getting ready to lay their son to rest, They received a call from Detective Sumoity. Now, you're probably not going to believe this, but bear with me. The police had actually made an arrest. They had the killer behind bars. All they needed to do was match it up with all the evidence they had. That was fast. But it turned out that earlier that same day, on Tuesday, October 3rd, five days after Eric's body had been found, detectives went up to Thomas Minch in the school

cafeteria, and they asked him if you could come in for an interview. They had two interpreters, Two interpreters sit down with Thomas, which is Eric's quiet friend, that 18-year-old freshman from New Hampshire. He came from a deaf family. He, his brother, his parents, and his five cousins were deaf. And growing up, this family was widely known and respected in the New Hampshire area. Thomas earned a reputation as high achieving and hardworking. And now he'd been rumored to be involved with Eric romantically and had argued with him before

his death. Something we hadn't heard was that he apparently had a short short, fuse, and a very bad temper. During over a hundred interviews, detectives had gathered that Thomas and Eric had a toxic, romantic relationship and had gotten in a few public fights. Well, as you know, I've covered a lot of murders and domestic issues come up again and again as motives. And the detective's eyes, this was a promising lead.

They sat down with Thomas and two Gallaudet interpreters, and this interview took almost six hours. I told you it takes a lot longer for these detectives to do this when they're working with interpreters. When Thomas came in, he was visibly nervous. He was shaking. He was covering his face. And he started off by signing that he and Eric, yeah, they were really good friends, but they were not super close like best friends, but they had hung out regularly since they moved to DC. But he stated that he had not had any sexual relations and they were not in a romantic relationship. He insisted that he was not gay. He was pounding his fists on the table to illustrate how frustrating he was that people thought he was gay.

The detectives asked Thomas where he'd been on Thursday night, and he said he was at rehearsal for theater. He was there all evening. He was the assistant stage manager. However, he got off just before 8 p.m., leaving a tiny window of time where he could have slipped away and killed Eric. Thomas said he remembered walking home from practice,

but interestingly, he couldn't recall what he did for the rest of the evening. After some more questioning about the nature of their relationship, Thomas denied ever having a relationship more than friends with Eric, even though many students had come forward and confirmed that they had at least one sexual encounter, and detectives thought there was a motive in there somewhere. They were sure of it, so they doubled down.

Thomas eventually admitted that he had experimented with Eric once, but he said he immediately regretted it, and all they did was touch, that Thomas was lying, at least partially. He had been told by someone he interviewed that Eric was seen on Wednesday night being pushed into his dorm floor by Thomas. All Detective Semioidi needed was to get a confession from Thomas and they could get all the evidence to back it up. Then they'd have their murderer and the rest of the students

could feel safe again in their beds. And that's when Thomas finally came clean. He said that Eric invited him over to hang out with him in his room. Then he made a romantic move on him. And Thomas signed that he would rather not do anything because he considered Eric to be a really good friend and just a friend. Allegedly, Eric tried again. Thomas said he was feeling like he wasn't respecting his boundaries,

so he pushed Eric. That's when he stumbled back, but he said he didn't hit the floor, and Thomas just ran out of the room. But according to him, this happened one or two weeks before Eric's murder, and he hadn't seen him since. But the detective wasn't buying it. He believed it happened Wednesday to 27th,

when witnesses said they saw both of them together. But according to Thomas, Sumoity said, if he didn't confess to the crime, He would put him in jail for the rest of his life, and everyone would think he was gay. But according to Detective Sumoity, he said, no, we said the Lord's prayer together. And then five hours into the interview, Thomas said, I did it. And actually confessed to killing Eric. So what was the truth?

Well, Thomas was arrested at 5.30 p.m. and spent the rest of the night in jail. Meanwhile, the detectives were celebrating with Champagne because they caught their killer. But you know there's going to be more because the video is not over yet. When Kathleen got the call that Thomas was in jail, she was relieved, she was outraged, she was upset, she had all these feelings going through her. But they hoped that this meant that they were gonna find out why Eric was killed.

A confession is a confession, right? And now all they have to do is get that evidence to confirm it. Well, that's not what the US attorney felt like. Because the next day, when Detective Simoidi tried to file the actual charges against Thomas, the attorney refused. He didn't believe that there was enough evidence to show that Thomas confessed to killing Eric.

He had only admitted to rejecting advances. And when the interpreters were questioned, they came forward explaining that they may have misunderstood or misinterpreted Thomas' words. It was a mess. Thomas also came forward and said he was exhausted at the time and he was telling the detectives what he wanted to hear so he could be let go.

So the DC police, they had to release Thomas for a lack of evidence. And even worse, they had to call Kathleen and tell her that the charges were dropped. Of course, the family was outraged. The police had just let their son's murderer go. And this is a great example of how investigations can be so frustrating, and you can't jump into conclusions, and you've got to do things right.

But Thomas had a motive and a confession. His use of force against Eric was a huge cause for concern. But there just wasn't any forensic evidence to keep him in jail at that point. Because the police had to keep in mind, they can be sued for unlawful arrest without enough evidence, probable cause, that whole thing. but Detective Samuody vowed to keep investigating and prove that Thomas was the killer. I mean, Thomas should not have hit or pushed Eric. That is not okay.

But if Eric was truly crossing Thomas's boundaries and he wanted to break free, so to speak, would that be out of line? And would that be a motive for murdering Eric? Or was he just trying to backpedal and use misinterpretation as an excuse? There were also questions about whether you can try, trust a confession after a six-hour interview. We've heard this before. And whether it's okay to arrest someone on just a confession alone when you haven't gotten that evidence, like which comes first? Especially when this confession is made through interpreters. English is hard enough as it is,

but translating ASL to English, something can definitely get lost there. It seemed like both the detectives and Thomas Minch were dishonest with one another. They both did things that were questionable. But if Thomas is guilty, they should be able to prove it, even without a confession. So that's what they sought to do. At this point, about half of the Gallaudet community thought that Thomas was responsible. He had received anonymous threats saying that if he didn't leave campus, he would be beaten or killed. The other half, including most of the freshman class, could not believe Thomas did it because they knew him. Why would a nice guy like him murder one of his closest friends? Were they in a relationship? Was Thomas even gay? Also,

many of the students believed a deaf student would not kill another deaf student. That was their belief system. With all these polarizing opinions on Thomas, the university felt like they had no other choice but to expel him, both for Thomas's safety and the safety of the school. Thomas picked up and he moved back to New Hampshire. Many of his former friends then came forward after he left Washington, D.C., and they told investigators that Thomas had a bad temper. One person said that he threw a trash can across the room when he got mad about something. Yeah, he had to go. They didn't want to take another risk and have another murder happen on their once safe campus. The school took steps and installed more security cameras. They had more security guards patrolling

the area. And after the dumpster fire of the arrest, the confession, the things have gone wrong, Detective Simo80 was asked to step down from the case. And now Detective James LaFranchise took over, but the case had gotten a little cold with no new leads. However, 30 days after Eric was killed, The investigation picked up once again. There was a search warrant granted that gave them access to unlock Eric's computer. Now they could check Eric's AOL, his discs, and all those accounts. And they found some transactions showing that someone had used Eric's accounts

to purchase bikes. And they couldn't figure out who had done this. Was it Eric or someone else? Also, when Kathleen received Eric's being statements in the mail, she looked through them and she realized that there were debit card charges from Thursday morning. This was the day he was found dead. It looked like Eric had actually been shopping

at various stores in Union Station. There were at least 10 different transactions made. So remember how Eric wasn't seen on Thursday. He didn't go to classes. He didn't eat at the cafeteria. Was it because he was shopping? Or was he already dead? And someone else was using his card? Those are good questions.

So the new detectives figured there's an easy way to find out. They go to Union Station and check the footage. They could find out exactly who was using Eric's card. But when they got there, They found out that Union Station automatically erased all of their camera footage 30 days after it's recorded. And guess what? It had been 31 days since Eric's murder. I can't believe it, but I can believe it.

I swear. I don't know who decides that footage has to be erased after 30 days. I don't know if there's a way to like check the recently deleted folder, but I guess not. And especially because it was the early 2000s. The detectives are frustrated. They head back to headquarters and they had to send updates to Eric's family. they're not going to be able to tell who made the transactions. As October and November dragged on,

Gallaudet students continued to wonder if the killer was Thomas. Or was it someone else on campus or someone on the outside? A few more students had dropped out or withdrawn from the school altogether. The first floor of Cogswell Hall was now considered the danger zone, and it was abandoned. All the students that lived down there were moved up to the fourth floor instead. The police gave Gallaudet students constant reassurance that they would be safe before they left for the holiday season.

Even though the students were scared, they were reassured countless times that the murderer would be found. Thanksgiving and Christmas came around, which was what everyone needed. A break, to feel safe in their own homes, to be surrounded by their support systems. People left campus and spent the rest of the winter decompressing.

And when students came back on campus, their spirits were lifted. Just being home was enough to make them feel confident again and ready for another semester of learning. It was January 2001. The spring semester was about to start and it had been five months since Eric's murder. Thomas Minch was still their main suspect. And forensic evidence finally came back. And guess what? Police found some light brown hairs at the crime scene. And they weren't Erics.

And guess who had light brown hair? Thomas. But it turns out they weren't Thomas's either. And I can't help but think, uh, so many people went in and out in this college. How are you going to find out who that is? But somehow, this new evidence caused detectives to say that they could pretty much remove Thomas Minch from suspicion. But that's not what the Washington, D.C., grand jury thought. They convened, and Thomas Minch was forced to return to the state. He had to provide a handwriting sample to the grand jury. They wanted to know, did he sign for any of those transactions on Eric's bank account? Investigators hoped that Thomas' handwriting would match the signature on Eric's bank receipt. Before this hearing took place, many students came back from break and a few were moved from Cogswell to other

dorms because they wanted to feel safer. But not everyone could be accommodated in that way. And unfortunately, for one student, that would have been the difference between life and death. Thomas Minch flew in from New Hampshire with his parents on February 1st, 2001. The hearing was scheduled and he was going to testify that he never confessed to murder Eric, that he never would murder Eric. Eric's family and at least a dozen members of the student body watched as Thomas testified, in front of the DC grand jury. The main thing the jury wanted from Thomas was proof that he forged the signature of Eric Plunkett.

So in front of this jury, Thomas signed Eric's name. When the two samples were compared, guess what? The jury found inconclusive results. The signatures were not the same, but not different enough to release Thomas from suspicion. And this is even despite the evidence of the hair that wasn't his on the scene.

Now Thomas, his family, Eric's family, they could all go back home. But I'm sitting here thinking, if you're being accused of murder, and they're basing it on whether you forge a signature, and let's say you're guilty, wouldn't you just do this signature wrong on purpose? Like, that does not seem like viable evidence to me.

It doesn't seem like a good way to rule someone out, and no one knew it yet, but another student was about to suffer the same fate as Eric Plunkett. In the early morning hours of February 3rd, the night after Thomas testified, horror struck the Gallaudet campus. At 4.15 a.m., someone in Cogswell Hall pulled the fire alarm. R.A.'s Lauren and Thomas were not sure why the alarm had been pulled because there didn't seem to be

a fire or smoke anywhere. But they did their duty and evacuated all the students from their rooms. They started on the second and third floors, checking to see if the students had all gathered outside in the cold. Then on the fourth floor, that's when Thomas came running down the hall towards Lauren. His face was pale. He was shaking and he signed while screaming. It happened again. Lauren thought he was joking at first, because denial seems to be that first stage of grief. She just stood there and shook her head, but Thomas led her down the hall. And together, they entered Eric's friend Ben's single room. And it was true. And it was so much worse than Eric's crime scene. What happened to Ben was horrific. This appeared to be an intense fight with

Ben trying desperately to get away from his assailant. Ben was bigger than Eric and he had way more mobility. So despite not being able to call for help, he had done his best to survive. That was apparent. There was blood everywhere on the ceilings all over the floor, all over his body, even on his hearing aid that was lying next to him on the floor right by a pair of smashed eyeglasses. Lauren and Thomas called 911 and the university immediately went into lockdown. It was unreal. It just so happened that Thomas Minch was back in town and there was another murder at Gallaudet. How? How does this happen again? Like the last time Gallaudet closed down, Cogswell Hall was completely evacuated again, moving students into now other available dorm rooms.