Police arrest suspect in fatal shooting at college

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) — Authorities late Thursday arrested the suspect in the slaying of a Wesleyan University student. Police said the suspect had threatened to kill other students and Jews.

A police spokesman said 29-year-old Stephen P. Morgan was taken into custody in the central Connecticut town of Meriden, about 10 miles from Middletown, and turned over to police investigating Wednesday’s fatal shooting of 21-year-old Johanna Justin-Jinich.

A law-enforcement officer in Washington said Morgan turned himself in. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because it was not his case.

Middletown police said they planned to make an announcement late Thursday.

Justin-Jinich was shot several times inside a bookstore cafe just off campus by a gunman wearing a wig. Authorities have said Morgan and Justin-Jinich have known each other since at least 2007, when Justin-Jinich filed a harassment complaint against him while they were enrolled in a summer class at New York University.

An official with knowledge of the investigation told the AP that police stopped Morgan shortly after the shooting, spoke to him and let him go, only to later realize he was a suspect.

When police confiscated Morgan’s car, they found a journal in which he spelled out a plan to rape and kill Justin-Jinich before going on a campus shooting spree, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is under investigation.

Justin-Jinich, of Timnath, Colo., came from a Jewish family.

Morgan’s brother told the AP that Morgan wasn’t anti-Semitic. His family issued a statement pleading with Morgan to turn himself in “to avoid any further bloodshed.”

Apparently applying the lessons of Virginia Tech, police and administrators locked down the 3,000-student campus and stepped up patrols as authorities launched a hunt for the killer.

Wesleyan officials had told students to stay indoors and staff members to stay home. Most buildings on campus, including cafeterias and the library, were locked Thursday. Normally bustling sidewalks were empty, and police cruisers patrolled the campus of the elite liberal arts school.

In dorms, students in flip-flops, gym shorts and pajama pants shuffled downstairs to pick up box lunches.

“We’re supposed to do some work, but really I just keep checking my e-mail and checking on friends and letting people from home know that I’m OK,” said freshman Christina Yow of China. “Anything to distract.”

Brenna Galvin, a sophomore from Amherst, N.H., said her family was considering bringing her home. “It’s hard to know what to do,” she said.

The university’s Usdan Center was opened briefly Thursday night so students could have dinner, but they were asked to return to their dormitories by nightfall. Officials planned to open the university library today and start returning the campus to a normal schedule.