Dartmouth's Last Murder

by Ryan Gorsche

Ax Murderer: Girmay

With the murders of Half and Susanne Zantop, students, faculty, and residents are bewildered; how could such an atrocity happen in a community considered as safe and protected as Hanover? Now is not the first time, however, that the Dartmouth community has lost members to homicide. In the summer of 1991, Hanover witnessed the brutal ax murder of two 24-year-old female graduate students at Dartmouth.

The victims, Selamawith Tsehaye and Trhas Berhe, had previously resided in Ethiopia prior to enrolling for graduate study in physics at Dartmouth, and had been classmates at the University of Asmara. Upon arriving in Hanover, the two decided to share a residence in the 8 Summer Street apartment complex where Haileselassie Nega Girmay, also an Ethiopian national, arrived for a two-week visit during which he murdered the two women.

A neighbor of the two women alerted the police to a disturbance coming from Teshaye's and Berhe's residence shortly after 5:00 a.m. on the morning of June 17, 1991. The neighbor, a Dartmouth Medical School student, reported screams from one of the downstairs apartments. After a rapid police response, Girmay was arrested at the scene.

Girmay was a graduate student at Uppsala University in Stockholm, Sweden. He was staying with the two women during his visit with Tsehaye, whom he planned to marry. When Tsehaye told Girmay days before the murder that she no longer wished to marry him, he went out and purchased an ax which he used to kill both of them early in the morning June 17, according to Girmay's taped confession.

Roy Dennis, a driver for the Dartmouth Cab Company, testified at the trial that he took Girmay to a K-Mart two days before the killing. Girmay argued about the fare, said Dennis, who was "relieved to get rid of him."

State prosecutors said that Girmay hid the ax in the women's apartment. A knife was recovered in the apartment along with the ax, and an autopsy revealed that Tsehaye had also been stabbed.

Dr. Robert Fossum, New Hampshire's chief medical examiner at the time, testified that Tsehaye had 8 to 12 wounds and that Berhe had 12 to 16.

Girmay and both women were known for their quiet, non-emotional manners. There had been no indication that the relationship between the three students was in any way strained. Physics Professor Jay Lawrence dined with the three the night of the murders, and had described their behavior that night as typically polite and reserved.

Defense lawyers moved to suppress Girmay's taped interview with police, in which he detailed the manner and motives of the crime. The police interrogation lasted 10 hours after he was arrested. The defense charged that the interview violated Girmay's rights to counsel and due process as well as his right to avoid self-incrimination. Girmay's lawyers said he did not have adequate understanding of his rights when he waived them.

The state maintained that he voluntarily and intelligently waived his rights, and that the police officers fully informed him of his rights. Presiding Judge Peter Smith took the defense motion under advisement, effectively siding with the state.

Girmay relied on an insanity defense in his trial, which ended in 1993. Richard Ryerson, a Lebanon resident who was a juror in the case, said that jurors found Girmay sane "right off the bat."

"Crazy? That could be a defense for anyone," Ryerson told the Manchester Union-Leader. "You have to look at the evidence and ask yourself if he knew right from wrong."

"Anyone who hacked to death a couple of women is insane," Dartmouth English professor Ernest Hebert, who was also a juror, said at the time. "So does that mean he goes free? You almost have to ignore the issue of insanity and [look] solely at the issue of murder."

The finding that Girmay was both guilty and sane triggered an automatic sentence of life imprisonment.

Registration for summer term classes was July 19 of that year, two days after the incident occurred. In general, the reaction of Dartmouth's undergraduate population was mild. Sophomores were greeted with the news upon returning to Dartmouth for the summer term.

Tsehaye and Berhe were reticent, and relatively unknown on campus. As graduate students, they were separate from the undergraduate community.

Students said they would be more concerned if the suspect had not been immediately apprehended. However, nearly all the students were shocked that such a tragedy could occur within the community.

One student who had Berhe as her Physics 3 tutorial leader said that the details of the brutal murder made her feel "very uncomfortable."

"It was a very scary feeling, the kind that makes you wonder about human nature. Why do things like that happen in Hanover? It's just unbelievable. I mean, an ax murder? In Hanover, New Hampshire?"