Sudden Danger
Several students at the renowned Gallaudet University for the deaf and hearing impaired in northeast Washington, D. C. noticed one Thursday that Eric Plunkett’s door in Cogswell Hall was closed. When it remained that way all day on September 28, 2000, some grew concerned. Those who knew the nineteen-year-old gregarious boy from Minnesota realized how unusual this behavior was. Eric liked to keep his door open so he could see who was walking by. He’d often invite others into his first-floor west wing room and let them borrow freely from his music or video collection.
In fact, says Manny Fernandez in the Washington Post, during the academic orientation in August, Eric had joined other young men from his dorm Thomas Minch, Joseph Mesa Jr., and Benjamin Varner among them at a campus café. Communicating in sign language, they all agreed to call their wing the Wild, Wild West. They had joined hands that evening in solidarity and the anticipation of friendship at their new school. All were happy to be there. All had great ambitions a chef, an accountant, an attorney, an advocate for improving the world for the deaf and each was about to have those ambitions dashed in a terrible way.
When Eric failed to show up for dinner that evening, the student across the hall, Joseph Mesa Jr., told resident advisor Thomas Koch that he smelled a bad odor coming from the closed room. Around 8:00 P. M., Koch went to see for himself but detected nothing unusual. Still, Eric had cerebral palsy and it was possible he was ill or had fallen. When Koch tried the knob and found the door locked, he used a master key to enter. The room was too dark to see anything, so he switched on the light.
In front of him, amid videogames, books, and taped-up pictures of a happy family, Eric lay on the floor. When Koch ventured closer, he saw bruises on Eric’s face, as if he’d been bludgeoned. The boy did not move, so Koch retreated and notified school officials. As improbable as it seemed at a school where most students treated one another like family, it appeared that Eric Plunkett had been murdered.
Officers arrived to tape off the room and to prepare for processing evidence and questioning other students. From the bruises on Eric’s face and neck, it appeared as if he had been beaten with a chair, so they looked for someone with whom he’d had a known altercation. Given the heavy security on this campus, due to the school’s location near questionable neighborhoods, it seemed most likely that another student or a staff member had committed the homicide someone with access to the dorm. Yet investigators also knew they must keep an open mind. Although students needed a magnetic key card to enter, it was human nature to let others in who claimed they’d forgotten their cards. Thus, it was not that difficult for a determined outsider to enter a secure building. At the moment, almost anyone could be a suspect.
On Friday, the student body was notified about Eric’s death and a crisis team stood by for those who needed help to process this difficult news. Right away, several students had theories. A campus group for gay students, for example, believed it had been a hate crime. Eric had signed on to be the secretary of the Lambda Society, and that school year had already seen a number of anti-gay incidents. However, neither the school officials nor the investigating police accepted this notion. The crime seemed more personal than that.
A memorial vigil was held and several friends of Eric’s, including Joseph Mesa and Thomas Minch from his dorm, rose to say a few words about how they would miss him. They all commented on Eric’s love of adventure and willingness to accept challenge and take risk. Even coming to the school had meant a challenge, in light of his cerebral palsy, and they admired his courage.
At this time, the student population at Gallaudet numbered about 2,000. With a charter signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1864, the university is the only four-year school in the world to tailor classes and services for the deaf and hearing-impaired. The campus had long been considered a safe haven for young people who often experienced social prejudice and ostracism from the hearing world. Many considered it a privilege to be there, as had Eric.
Reporters found Eric’s family, hoping to learn more about him, and his mother, still stunned, remembered with sadness his last words to her: “Don’t worry about me.”
The whole school mourned and students readily answered questions from detectives, but the situation soon worsened when one from among them became the key suspect.
Freshman Thomas Minch, eighteen, had come to Gallaudet from Greenland, New Hampshire, and he’d quickly befriended Eric. The son of two deaf parents, Minch had a brother and five cousins who were also deaf and he often inspired people with normal hearing to learn sign language. He had looked forward to attending Gallaudet and was shocked and grieved over Eric’s murder. Minch had even helped with the memorial for Eric and had posted a dedication to him on his Web page. But then the police arrived on Tuesday to bring him in for questioning. Another student had told them about a fight between him and Eric not long before Eric was killed.
With the help of an interpreter, detectives asked Minch about his relationship with Eric. They came to the conclusion, based on forensic evidence and Minch’s responses, that as a result of his disagreement with Eric, he had killed him. Minch admitted to arguing with Eric the day before he died and even to hitting him; as he said this the interview was curtailed. Minch was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. The other students, already reeling from the drama of Eric’s death, could hardly believe this terrible news. They rallied a group to attend his hearing, and Minch’s incredulous parents flew in as well. They insisted their son was not a murderer and refused to accept that he had confessed, as was rumored.
But at the arraignment, the U. S. Attorney’s office dropped the charges against Minch, citing insufficient evidence. Thus, he had clearly not confessed, or he would not have been released. However, the decision not to charge him did not clear him. The detectives, who claimed Minch had admitted to the crime, believed they just had to work harder to get evidence against him. Minch remained their chief suspect
Seven detectives were assigned to continue the investigation, and Minch was suspended from the school. The provost made the announcement about his departure to an assembly of students, over protests that Minch’s rights had been violated. But the provost insisted that the suspension was necessary for safety, both of the student body and of Minch himself. Reportedly, there had been threats against him from students who believed he had killed Eric. His dreams for a Gallaudet education were over.
The investigation intensified, but by Christmas the police had been unable to make a case and Eric Plunkett’s murder went unsolved. It would heat up again after the new year began, as officials prepared for a grand jury hearing in February. Eric’s parents flew in, as did Minch, his parents and his attorney. On February 2nd, Minch appeared before the grand jury to explain what he had said to the officers questioning him.
He also submitted a handwriting sample for the jury to examine. Since September his life had been hell, despite his denial that he had harmed his friend.
The next day, it would be clear to everyone that he was not guilty.
A fire alarm went off in Cogswell Hall during the early morning hours of February 3, 2001, and the RA who investigated the fourth floor came across Benjamin Varner, a nineteen-year-old resident there. He was in his dorm room, murdered. The room was spattered with blood, and it looked as if a struggle had occurred; Benjamin apparently fought for his life. Once again, the police arrived to process the scene. Almost no one could believe that two murders had occurred on this campus, in the same dorm.
The autopsy revealed that Benjamin had been stabbed multiple times in his head, chest, and neck. One lung had collapsed, his throat was cut open, and the knife had penetrated his skull in at least one place. Like Eric, Benjamin had lived alone.
The police failed to locate a murder weapon on the room or anywhere outside. However, they did notice a blood trail leading away from the room and out the door toward the adjacent dorm, an indication that the killer had been injured. They collected samples to run tests so they would something to compare should they identify a suspect. They also found a bloody shoe print, which a detective identified as a Nike cross-trainer. Now with two deaths in the same dorm, it seemed most likely that someone with access to a key card had committed this crime.
A search of the grounds recovered a bloodstained jacket and knife in a trash bin beside a dormitory. The team of crack detectives determined that the day before he was found, Benjamin had failed to meet with two friends, as scheduled, and had not gone to class. He also had not kept a doctor’s appointment. That information helped to narrow down his time of death. His mother, who heard from him daily, had not received a call or email since February 1.
Some people wondered if media coverage about the grand jury had triggered a copycat murder. The FBI was asked to assist and a reward of $10,000 was offered for information leading to an arrest. Students whispered about a serial killer haunting the dorm, but the idea seemed absurd. In fact, the similarity between the crimes seemed superficial the victims had lived in the same dorm in single rooms. The fatal attack had not been the same, nor were there many similarities between them as people. Unlike Eric, Benjamin had kept to himself and was not involved in many campus activities. An industrious student, his goal had been to become an accountant. He was from San Antonio, Eric from Minnesota. They did not travel in the same circles.
The university beefed up security, including implementing 24-hour identity checks on anyone entering campus, posting more surveillance cameras, and closing all gates except the main entrance, as they had done for a few months following Eric’s death. They also recorded the license plate numbers of anyone coming or going from campus. Students were required to use their key cards to enter the dorms and more staff and volunteers were recruited to stay in the dorms during overnight hours. Cogswell Hall itself was closed and its residents reassigned to other dorms.
Understandably, many students and their parents were worried about safety. Murder in a dorm was a rare event, period, and Gallaudet had now had two. During the previous two years, according to the statistics gathered by the U. S. Department of Education, from 1997-1999 there had been 53 homicides on college campuses around the country, and in 1999 only three of eleven nationwide had occurred in dorms. Eric Plunkett’s mother, already in town, mobilized to plead with students not to leave, because that would only compound the tragedy. Nevertheless, several withdrew.
The police quickly interviewed a number of students to learn if anyone in Cogswell Hall that night had seen a stranger, especially near Benjamin’s room. They also wanted to know who had set off the fire alarm, although it was clear that Benjamin had been dead for at least a day. Complicating the investigation was the need to use interpreters for every interview. Time was of the essence, but the process was slow.
It was clear from the crime scene that the attacker had been injured, so detectives watched for someone with recent injuries. They also kept an eye on Benjamin’s bank accounts, since it looked as if his checkbook was gone. That hunch paid off.
Bank records showed that he had visited the Riggs Bank branch on Friday, February 2, to cash a check. Detectives, knowing it could not have been Benjamin, requested the bank’s videotape. After they viewed it, they knew what the culprit who had probably committed the crime looked like. They just had to identify him. On the subject line of the check was “used laptop.” However, there was no laptop in Benjamin’s room, used or otherwise.
Secret Service handwriting experts said the check had been written by someone other than Benjamin and it was made out to Joseph Mesa, a freshman at the university who had lived in Cogswell Hall. He proved to be the young man on the bank surveillance video. The police went to arrest him.
Thus, ten days after the murder, they had a suspect and to the horror of the students and staff, he was potentially implicated in both homicides. He had lived across the hall from Eric Plunkett and had been the one who’d alerted the RA to look in on him. That alone made him a potential suspect.
Mesa, age twenty, was from Barrigada, Guam. On his body was evidence of fresh wounds and his fingerprints matched those found in Benjamin Varner’s room. His handwriting matched that on the check. The police awaited a blood analysis, but they had no doubt they had apprehended a serial killer. Had he not been caught, he would likely have killed again, as do most such offenders who commit murder for self-enrichment and get away with it.
After several interviews, Mesa admitted to the crimes. “To be honest with you,” he said to a detective, “I did it.”
The story he then told police over the course of four hours, which he would later contradict somewhat, was that he had gone into Benjamin Varner’s room after 9:00 P. M. during the night of February 1 to rob him. Benjamin was there and Mesa asked if Benjamin had a checkbook. He also spotted a 4-inch paring knife next to Benjamin’s microwave. Mesa said he grabbed the knife and stabbed Benjamin in the back of the neck. When he fell to the floor, Mesa slit his throat. He then took the checkbook and wrote a check to himself for $650. He also admitted to killing Eric Plunkett and said they both had seemed to be easy targets.
While this story was not consistent with the fact that Benjamin had been stabbed seventeen to nineteen times in different areas of his body, it was nevertheless clear that Mesa was telling at least part of the truth: he was the Cogswell Hall killer.
Based on the confession, the police got a warrant to search Mesa’s room, now in the adjacent Krug Hall, where he and other Cogswell residents had been moved after the murder. It was not long before they found a pair of bloody Nikes and some blood-stained clothing, which they confiscated. They also turned up credit cards from both victims. After an analysis, the shoes proved a match to the bloody shoe print preserved outside Benjamin’s room.
Mesa’s attorney, Ferris Bond, argued that his client should be released on his own recognizance, since he had no criminal record and had a history of community service. The judge declined to allow him to go free: Mesa was to remain in jail until his preliminary hearing, because with a family in Guam there was danger that he might leave the country. In addition, since the evidence was substantial that he had killed twice, the community’s safety was the foremost concern.
Mesa’s family was notified, and his father was utterly stunned and bewildered. His son was not a violent person, he insisted. How could the charges be true? All their hopes for their son, who’d had a difficult time being deaf, were dashed.
The families of both victims were notified of Mesa’s arrest, as was the attorney for Thomas Minch. Eric’s sister was horrified to realize she had actually seen Mesa in Eric’s room one evening. She had been conversing with Eric online via live-action video camera and had spotted a boy moving behind him, taking a videotape. She asked who it was. Eric had assured her the other boy was “my friend.” Only a few days later, Mesa, who admitted to scouting out how easy it was to get access to the room, killed Eric to get his credit card. Eric’s sister had actually seen him engaged in pre-crime surveillance.
University President I. King Jordon offered a statement for the media: “Obviously for the Gallaudet community, there’s a sense of relief that someone has been taken into custody for this terrible crime. Also, there’s a sense of sadness.”
At Benjamin Varner’s memorial service, friends talked about his hope to travel around the world and make changes for the better. His mother and sister were there from San Antonio. They said that Benjamin would have wanted them to forgive his killer, so they had. “He forgave the moment the life left his body,” said Dianne Varner. “He was just pure love.”
A few years earlier, Benjamin had adopted the Muslim faith after an inquisitive search through the world’s religions, and he observed the rituals with the same vigor he applied to his studies, earning a grade point average of nearly 4.0. He had tutored others and set a good example with his desire to learn. His mother could not help but remember how he had cried when she brought him to school in August. He had prepared diligently, as he did in all things, but he was close to her and told her he would miss her. She had assured him he would be all right. They’d then parted, both in tears. She had heard him crying in the hallway as he walked away. He would email her every night, once even mentioning that he had met a boy from Guam Joseph Mesa.
The parents of both victims were overwhelmed by their inability to have protected their sons, and while they were glad for an arrest that looked as if it would stick, they did not feel closure over the senseless nature of the killings.
However, one family was relieved. The arrest exonerated Thomas Minch, who was officially welcomed to return. He declined the invitation.
That the killer had emerged from a community more like family than what most campuses offer seemed especially wounding. “It hit us hard when we didn’t expect it,” a student wrote on a reporter’s pad.
Students who knew Mesa still could not believe the news, despite his arrest and impending trial. One told reporters that he’d attended high school with Mesa and believed he was not the kind of person who would kill anyone, but others said he’d often been in trouble. A former roommate had even seen him swipe money from other students. Still, Mesa was friendly and respectful, and generally considered to be a nice guy. It was difficult for students to ponder a person who had vowed to dedicate himself to the deaf, yet had looked around for just the right person to kill and calculated the best way to do it. He did not even form a plan to just rob them, which he’d apparently already done without discovery. Murder had been on his mind.
But then the story emerged about Mesa’s suspension from the school the year before. He had taken another student’s debit card and used it to the tune of several thousand dollars. But he’d been allowed to return. And this would not be the only disturbing pre-trial revelation.
Charged with two counts of felony murder, one while armed, along with some robbery and burglary charges, Mesa was held without bail for his preliminary hearing. He showed no reaction as he answered the charges, but like the thief in the night that he was, he already had plans to slip off his responsibility. He had admitted to robbery, yes, but the murders had been motivated by something else, he would say. He started writing to several people he believed could assist him in his scheme.
The trial was set for November 2001.
In April, the original police investigation at Gallaudet University took heat from reporters at the Washington Post. They had tracked the records back to the arrest of Thomas Minch to try to learn why the police had never considered Mesa a suspect. It turned out that the detectives had missed some key evidence that could have prevented the murder of Benjamin Varner.
Among the problems was the fact that Eric Plunkett’s wallet had been missing from his room, which would point toward robbery as a motive and alert police to look for financial transactions. In fact, Eric’s debit card had been used on the day he died, yet no one followed up on this obvious clue. In addition, Mesa already had a record of debit card thefts and he was the one who had alerted the RA to the supposed odor. (A basic rule of police work, apparently not followed in this case, is to check out the first person at the scene.)
The mistakes began almost immediately, with the assignment of the case to an investigator with a mixed record, with nearly half of his cases over the six preceding years still unsolved and three arrests dismissed for lack of evidence.
The police had interviewed Mesa, since he lived across the hall, but had not requested a background check on him, which would have revealed the suspension for theft. They also did not investigate the fact that Mesa’s account differed from that of others; no one else had smelled an odor. His behavior had been indicative of a person who wanted the body to be found.
Once it was found, there was no routine inventory of items in Eric’s room, which would have turned up the missing items. The detectives also failed to follow up on purchases made with the card, which meant that no one requested videotapes from the stores where the purchases were made until after the tapes had been erased.
Then there was the Minch interrogation. He was arrested for murder as soon as he admitted to hitting Eric during an argument. He did not confess to murder, but records indicate that the interrogating detective told his superiors he had extracted a confession. No one asked for corroborating evidence and a newly promoted commander had failed to question the detective closely as to whether he actually had a case against the boy.
A new team of detectives had been assigned after Minch was released, but they had accepted Minch as the suspect, failing to look for new clues or consider other angles. It was a classic case of tunnel vision: they all were thinking inside the box that the first detective had built, despite his obvious errors. No one established a timeline leading up to the murder, another routine investigative activity. In short, there were many inexcusable errors.
Officials acknowledged this. “We are accountable,” said Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer in the Post. “We need to do better.”
The November trial date came and went, with legal delays. Judge Robert Richter ordered Mesa to undergo psychiatric examinations at St. Elizabeth’s hospital to assess his mental state at the times of the crimes. He would also be evaluated for competency to waive an insanity defense in the event he disagreed with his attorney’s strategy. The findings were due in court on February 19, 2002. The defense knew the odds were against an acquittal, especially given the obvious and petty motive, but it was not impossible. What both sides gained was a delay, as the trial was further postponed.
Richter ruled that Mesa would stand trial for both murders, contrary to Bond’s hope to have two separate trials. Bond also attempted to suppress the evidence found during a police search of Mesa’s dorm room, but the judge ruled that the prosecutor could use the items.
In the meantime, Mesa had made his own plans for his defense. Contrary to resisting an insanity defense, he had some ideas for how to make it work for him. In March and April of 2002, he wrote to his girlfriend, Melani de Guzman, and asked her to help beef up his case for mental illness with a few little lies. “It isn’t true,” he stated, “but I hope it will work, anyway.” He also sent a letter to his brother-in-law in Guam to persuade him to destroy evidence. Investigators who learned about these communications confiscated a series of letters, and defense attorney Ferris R. Bond moved to have them suppressed.
The federal prosecution team was Assistant U. S. Attorney Jeb Boasburg and Assistant U. S. Attorney Jennifer M. Collins. Their argument was simple: Mesa had methodically selected specific individuals to rob and kill so he could purchase items for himself and his girlfriend.
Bond’s argument was more surprising. A lifetime of frustration over his inability to communicate had triggered Mesa’s bad behavior. He had directions to kill in his head, not from voices, as hearing people might, but in sign language. Supposedly, two hands directed his behavior and he could not stop. Thus, at the time of both murders, Mesa had been legally insane. (Bond apparently had no explanation for Mesa’s lack of remorse afterward.)
The trial required an interpreter for Mesa, which meant the procedure would be much longer than normal because all comments had to be relayed to him. The courtroom windows were covered and Mesa was given a partition for private conferences with his attorney, which had to be conducted in sign language. Once everything was in place, the trial commenced.
As part of the case against Mesa, the prosecutors presented the post-arrest videotaped confession, which made it disturbingly clear that Mesa had targeted Eric Plunkett because he had cerebral palsy. He had figured the boy would be weak. Not only that, he was also open with his belongings and his space, so Mesa had practiced going into Eric Plunkett’s room to see if he could sneak in without being noticed. Then he did go in one night. From behind, he grabbed Eric in a choke hold and squeezed until he fell to the floor. Mesa then used a chair to beat him repeatedly until it was clear he was dead. Then Mesa rifled through the unlocked desk drawers to find the debit card. He went out the next day to use it to purchase some items for himself and his girlfriend.
Not long after this, Mesa considered killing his roommate, but changed his mind when he thought it would too obviously point the finger at him, and looked for someone else. He did steal the roommate’s credit card.
After Christmas, Mesa was running out of money. When he noticed that Benjamin Varner lived alone on the fourth floor and learned he had money, Mesa next targeted Benjamin. Since he was larger than Eric had been, this time Mesa armed himself with a knife. Benjamin put up a fierce struggle, during which Mesa stabbed him seventeen times, escaping the room in such haste after Benjamin died that he left a few incriminating items behind, including the knife.
Mesa sweated it out but when he did not hear any mention of Benjamin’s death the next day, he decided to return to the room to grab his possessions and Benjamin’s checkbook. He put his bloody jacket and the knife into a bag and dumped them into a trash bin, but he failed to spot or clean up the blood trail he’d left. He also neglected to wipe down surfaces where he’d left a few fingerprints. Thus, he was caught. Nevertheless, he claimed on tape that he had confessed out of guilt and to allow the school community some peace of mind. He probably thought his “generous” impulse would count in his favor. According to one reporter, throughout the confession, Mesa alternated between being disturbed by his actions and being indifferent. At the end, he even placed a fast-food order.
Three psychiatrists who’d examined Mesa for the prosecution found him to be depressed and antisocial but sane and malingering faking a mental illness but defense experts said that Mesa suffered from a rare condition known as Intermittent Explosive Disorder, and thus he could not control his actions.
Intermittent Explosive Disorder: an impulse control disorder in which a person fails to resist aggressive impulses that are out of proportion to the provoking situation. The person often describes the episode as being precipitated by significant tension or rage; their thoughts race, their body tingles or tightens, they feel overwhelmed by the need to act out. Once they do, the episode results in a sharp decline in arousal and a feeling of relief.
The experts also talked about Mesa’s childhood difficulties with a father who had beaten him over his inability to communicate. The result was that he would fly into uncontrollable fits of rage and do terrible things. He felt distant from his family and unloved. (His father told reporters that he had not understood the effect of his behavior on his son it was just the way children were raised in Guam. He had not known any better.)
Yet Mesa was not about to let the experts speak for him. He had his own card to play, and to do so, he took the stand in his own defense.
Testifying via an interpreter, Mesa claimed he’d been unable to stop himself from killing the other two boys. He’d had a devil on his shoulder urging him to get money and an angel urging him to resist the devil. This cartoonish rendition of “voices in my head” probably swayed few who heard it. In fact, theft is a far cry from murder, so if the “devil” was urging him to steal, that did not explain the rest of his actions.
Mesa further explained the nature of his experience. He said that a pair of hands, gloved in black leather, had signed to him the commands to commit the murders. “I felt as if they were more powerful than I am,” he claimed. He identified the hands as those of a professional wrestler known as the Undertaker, but also said they had been signing to him since childhood. At their instigation, he once had used a baseball bat to bludgeon the family cat and her kittens until they were dead. The hands had shown him exactly how to kill both Eric and Benjamin. To fight the evil hands so he would be caught and not have to kill again, he went to a bank that he knew had a surveillance camera to cash Benjamin’s check. But the hands had already directed him to kill both the lead prosecutor and himself.
At this revelation, Boasburg pointed out to Mesa that he had not obeyed the hands because he had not done what they asked.
“Not yet,” was Mesa’s quick reply.
In the end, his devil’s hands defense did not prevail. Neither did the diagnosis of Intermittent Explosive Disorder. The jury deliberated only three hours and found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. The boy once named by classmates “Most Likely to be Rich” was going to spend the rest of his life in prison. He showed no expression as he heard his fate via an interpreter. His family was absent, having received notification too late to get to the courtroom. In July, Mesa was sentenced to life without parole. Bond said he would appeal, based on the fact that Mesa had not understood his rights when he gave the confession. In addition, it was not clear that police interpreters had accurately communicated their questions to Mesa. That appeal is pending.
After the trial, Eric’s father commented that it was the “right verdict,” and Benjamin’s mother said that while she was happy with this resolution, it did little to alleviate the pain of her loss.
Thomas Minch filed a lawsuit for false arrest and defamation of character.
Cogswell Hall was converted from a dorm into a general use building. A memorial was set up to honor the victims. The incident inspired an episode on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, in which the world of the deaf was explored.
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