WASHINGTON - The first clue that something had gone terribly wrongat Gallaudet University was the door to Eric Plunkett's dorm room. Itwasn't open.
Several students noticed, but it is likely only one person knewthe reason. Only one person knew why Plunkett, an ebullient 19-year-old freshman, wasn't inviting people into his room as he usually did,to hang out and talk about life at Gallaudet, the nation's premiercollege for deaf students.
That person, police say, bludgeoned Plunkett to death sometimearound Thursday, Sept. 28, probably with a chair in his room. Thebody was left behind the locked door.
In the days since, Plunkett's death has become a mystery. It hasspawned a tortured police investigation, and pierced the leafysanctum of Gallaudet, where generations of deaf students have come tolearn and bond with one another, to feel protected and free ofdiscrimination.
But most of all, it has turned the silent world of one Gallaudetstudent - Tom Minch, a well-known member of the deaf community inPortsmouth, N.H. - into a living nightmare.
Minch, 18, who came to Gallaudet nine weeks ago and formed a closebond with Plunkett, has gone from dreaming about being a lawyer tobecoming the chief suspect in his friend's murder.
Eight days ago, Minch was publicly mourning the death, assistingwith a memorial, and dedicating his Internet home page "in lovingmemory" to Plunkett. "MAY HIS SOUL BE IN HEAVEN!" it read.
Investigators questioned Minch last Tuesday, with an interpretercommunicating in sign language, and that evening arrested him on acharge of second-degree murder.
Mercy Coogan, a Gallaudet spokeswoman, said school officials weretold by police that Minch admitted the crime. But on Wednesday, justbefore a scheduled arraignment, prosecutors stunned a packedcourtroom by announcing they did not have enough evidence to chargeMinch.
"We really agonized about whether there was enough to go forward,and there wasn't," said Executive Assistant Chief Terrance Gainer ofthe Washington, D.C., police. Asked about the interrogation of Minch,he added, "If he had confessed, he'd still be in jail."
Minch remains a top suspect of the seven detectives and threeother officers who took over the investigation after the murdercharge was dropped.
At the same time, Minch has become the source of rampant anxietyand speculation at Gallaudet, which has roughly 2,000 students. Manyhere were stunned when the mild-mannered freshman was arrested. Butthey were also relieved to think the killer had been apprehended. Nowpeople don't know what to believe.
"Right now I feel like I'm on an emotional roller coaster," saidGallaudet's provost, Jane Fernandes, in sign language to a packedstudent assembly on Thursday, the morning after Minch was freed. Sheadded, with the translator's voice rising in tone, "I'm as frustratedas hell."
Murder is relatively rare at colleges: About 40 students have beenmurdered this year, but only three (including Plunkett) have died indormitories, according to Security on Campus Inc., a nonprofit groupthat tracks campus crime.
Yet these cases severely test the sense of safety on campus, wherestudents often feel protected from the outside. A murder-suicide atHarvard University in 1995 was a scarring experience for many there,not least because it involved two dormitory roommates.
Dan Carter, vice president of Security on Campus, said that in theinsular world of a college campus, homicides tend to be committed bymembers of the local community. Gallaudet, however, is supposed to bethe exception.
Walled off against some of the bustling and blighted neighborhoodsof northeast Washington, the campus is a haven for hearing-impairedstudents.
"Inclusive" is the buzzword here. Students speak to one anotherthrough eye contact, body language, and, of course, their hands,creating real physical intimacy in the dorms and classrooms. The onlynoises on most days are the tap of a shoe on concrete, the buzz of alawn mower, a siren in the distance.
Thursday, Sept. 28, was not like most days. Residents of CogswellHall kept waiting for Plunkett's door to open; after dinner, when itstill hadn't, a few friends went by and detected an "odor," said oneof them in an interview, declining to give his name. They alerted adorm resident assistant, who entered the room at around 8 p.m.Plunkett, a slight man who had cerebral palsy, lay inside. He hadbeen beaten around the head and neck, and there were no signs oflife.
Coogan, the university spokeswoman, was called around 9:30 p.m.and was tapped to join a "crisis management team" that has met dailysince then. At 1:30 a.m. the next day, she sent an e-mail to allstudents, including Minch, with the news of Plunkett's death.
"We felt people needed to know right away, before rumors started,"she said. Yet the speculation began almost instantly.
Thomas Green, for one, felt he knew the motive right away:homophobia. Plunkett had been the secretary of the Lambda Society, acampus association for gay and straight students that Green led. Thegroup has heard reports since mid-September of antigay slurs writtenon dormitory message boards and epithets hurled at some students.
"The university's just starting to see that there's discriminationon campus," said Green, a junior majoring in business.
But the theory that antigay violence triggered the murder seemsoff to others. Chris Soukup, the student body president, said thatbetween 10 and 20 percent of those attending Gallaudet are openlygay, and that the deaf community - whose members often struggle withissues of identity and acceptance - are welcoming to those who aregay.
Moreover, echoing the university's president, I. King Jordan,Soukup said that the notion of hate crimes is irreconcilable withGallaudet's image as a welcoming place.
"We have such a hard time saying this is a hate crime," saidSoukup, who speaks and signs. "If we labeled this a hate crime, thatwould open up the doors to everyone feeling they could or might bediscriminated against."
Police have not labeled the murder a hate crime but would notdiscuss their reasons. Gainer said they were now building a strongerbody of evidence and facts than they previously had. While decliningto place blame for the premature arrest of Minch, he said a"seasoned" detective had taken over the investigation.
Given the vacuum of information, Minch has been the focal point ofsuspicion on campus. Some students remember him acting sad and afraidafter Plunkett's murder; others said that he seemed unusually normal.Very little is certain. Police hope that forensic evidence willprovide some answers in the case, but until then the glare is onMinch.
At the school assembly Thursday, Fernandes surprised many in theaudience with the announcement that Minch had been suspended fromGallaudet and would not be coming back.
That news did not sit well with Sheila Monigan, among others. Afreshman from Methuen, she marched up to the front of the assemblyhall and, at the start of a question-and-answer period withFernandes, challenged the provost over the suspension, saying itviolated Minch's rights.
"We are more concerned about the safety of our students here, andwe're concerned about his safety," Fernandes said of Minch, referringto reports of threats against him.
Afterwards, Monigan said she was satisfied with the answer, sinceMinch's own safety was being taken into account. She said she feltsomeone had to stick up for Minch, and she felt comfortable doing so,being acquainted with him from the deaf community in New England.
In Portsmouth, where Minch was "mainstreamed" into the public highschool with hearing students, teachers and school officials wereperplexed by the news from Gallaudet. "He was just a regular, hard-working kid, with a great sense of humor," said Wendell Purrington,the musical director for several shows in which Minch performed atPortsmouth High School.
Minch, the son of deaf parents who are active in the hearing-impaired community in Portsmouth, was especially active in the highschool's theater program. He acted in several plays and played thelead in an original play, "Denmark Vesey Plans a Revolt" - the storyof an attempted slave rebellion in South Carolina in 1822 - and was alove interest in a production of "Bye Bye Birdie."
"During `Birdie,' I'd tell him, `You have to learn the tenor parta little bit better,' " Purrington said. "We'd laugh and smile andhave a big joke about it."
He and others hope to hear soon from Minch, who is now secludedwith his family. Attempts to reach him and the family wereunsuccessful. Monigan, too, said she spoke at the school assembly toremind people that there are two sides to every story, every mystery.She said she hoped there would not be two tragedies here as well.
"I'm angry because there are two lives that may be wasted here,"she said. "Eric is forever gone. And Tom, if he's guilty, his futureis wasted as well."
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