Monday inside
Fraternity on probation
The University placed the Sigma Nu fraternity on probation until Dec. 2004 for an August hazing incident.PAGE 3A
Still Standing
Victory blocked
Last Comic Standing winner Dat Phan brought his ethnically oriented humor to Woodruff Auditorium this weekend. PAGE 3A
The women's soccer team lost in an intense game
Soccer travels to Ames, Iowa, next to take on the lowa State Cyclones. PAGE12A
Cowboy Jamboree
The men's and women's cross country teams competed Saturday at Oklahoma State. PAGE1B
Game over
Former Jayhawk Nick Collison's rookie NBA season is
over following injuries to his shoulder in training camp. PAGE12A
Weather Monday
7753 Sunny
Two-day forecast tomorrow wednesday 8355 7954 Mostly sunny Partly cloudy
Vol. 114 Issue No.33
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Monday, October 6, 2003
Student flees campus attacker
Victim assaulted between Ellsworth and Lied Center
It wasn't her purse that a masked man wanted when he attacked a woman walking from Ellsworth Hall to her car parked at the Lied Center.
By Danielle Hillix and Johanna M. Maska dhillix@kansan.com and jmaska@kansan.com Kansan staff writers
"She tried to give him her purse and he refused," said Valerie Thudium, Wichita freshman and
friend of the victim.
Thudium's friend finally reached a friend, who came and picked her up.
A man holding a knife attacked a female University of Kansas sophomore and Ellsworth resident a little after midnight Friday morning, according to police reports filed by the victim. He jumped from behind the bushes on the west side of the Irving Hill Drive bridge.
The victim was not available for comment. She was out of town this weekend, Thudium said.
Thudium's friend had been studying sociology for several hours before she decided to take a break, Thudium said. Like any other night, she told her friends she was going to walk to her car to take a short drive.
Her friends weren't surprised when she wasn't back quickly. Thudium said the victim often returned late at night because she worked as a tutor. Her friend was usually cautious when she walked after dark. Thudium said, always making a point of parking her car in well-lit areas.
Though she parked in a well-lit area Thursday night, it did not help. Thudium said. Less than one-tenth of a mile away from Ellsworth, Thudium's friend was attacked in a dimly lit area, just a few feet away from an emergency blue phone.
"She never got to her car to drive," Thudium said. "The guy got her as she was on her way to her car."
Thudium said he must not have followed her.
The woman's attacker, a 6-foot male of medium build, came out of the bushes and grabbed her. Thinking she was being robbed, Thudium's friend tried to give him everything she had, but he didn't want any possessions, Thudium said. The attacker had Thudium's friend within his grasp when they both heard a noise from behind. As the man turned to look at what could have been a car, his grip loosened and Thudium's friend was able to run away, Thudium said.
"She ran to try to get away and started calling people to try to get them to pick her up." Thudium said. "She never got in her car. She was just running and calling people."
Maj. Chris Keary, associate director of the KU Public Safety Office, said he received her call when she got back to Ellsworth around 2 a.m. The woman filed a report with the KU Public Safety Office but was only able to give a vague description.
Keary said his office was asking students to help with the investigation.
"Our officers are aware of the situation and are increasing their patrol of the area, but there are
By Abby Mills almills@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
The University of Kansas has had more accidental falls off residence halls than any other university in the Big 12 in recent years.
Eric Wellhausen, Mount Prospect, Ill., freshman, was the fifth KU student to fall from a residence hall in the past 10 years. In the same period, other Big 12 universities reported either one or no accidental falls from a residence hall.
The ledges were a standard architectural feature for residence halls built in the 1960s, said Ken Stoner, director of the Department of Student Housing. All halls on Daisy Hill and Oliver Hall have ledges. They are about two feet wide and five feet below the window above them. The ledges block sun from windows below and are not designed for students to stand on.
Although four Big 12 universities have residence halls with ledges similar to those at KU halls, officials at those schools said no students had accidentally fallen off a ledge.
Wellhausen was standing on one of these ledges outside of his seventh-floor room in Oliver when he fell to his death about a month ago. The death is causing the Department of Student Housing to consider ways to make residence halls safer.
Policies for keeping students from getting out of the windows vary between universities.
Iowa State University fines students who remove their window screens. Staff look at the outside of buildings for windows with
missing screens, and residents who violate the policy are charged $50.
Oklahoma State University makes ledges harder to access by putting devices on windows to keep them from opening more than a foot wide.
At the University of Kansas, these and similar options to increase student-housing safety will be among topics discussed at a Student Housing Advisory Board meeting at 4 p.m. today at the Department of Student Housing in Corbin Hall. The board consists of staff and students involved with the Department of Student Housing.
This fall, Kansas State University put tamper-resistant stickers on all screens in residence halls to discourage students from removing them. Once removed, the stickers cannot be relaced, and students in rooms without a sticker receive a $25 fine.
Students can find a way around any safety measure the board could create, Stoner said. He said such accidents were caused by irrational behavior under the influence of alcohol.
"We cannot impute rational decisions to people that are so intoxicated," Stoner said. "When you get that inebriated, you're confused and disoriented."
Stoner said a group of rational people could not make policies to control such irrational behavior.
More than 1,400 college students, ages 18 to 24 years old, died of alcohol-related injuries in 1998, according to a study in the 2002 Journal of Studies on Alcohol.
SEE SAFETY ON PAGE 7A
X
By Joe Hartigan
jhartigan@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Kirsten Roberts was the first person to realize something was wrong.
She knew as soon as she laid eyes on the boy she had met only three weeks ago that he was suffering from something far worse than alcohol poisoning as other students were telling her.
"He was just lifeless." Roberts said. "His eyes were rolled back halfway in his head and were kind of glossy. He was starting to turn blue."
It was 2 a.m., a Friday morning, and Eric Wellhausen was lying on the grass outside of Oliver Hall, unconscious. Roberts and other students would learn later that Wellhausen had fallen from the seventh floor of Oliver, where he lived. Although several people were outside, near where he was lying, students thought he was drunk and passed out.
ATTACK ON PAGE 5A
Lt. Schuyler Bailey of the KU Public Safety Office said Wellhausen lay in the grass between 30 and 45 minutes before anyone realized that he had fallen off the seventh-floor ledge.
Someone, thinking Wellhausen was drunk and passed out, had drawn on Wellhausen's face with a magic marker as he lay in the grass, a ritual performed by KU students on friends who pass out early.
SEE MEMORY ON PAGE 7A
Brothers shooting injures 11
By Amanda Kim Stairrett
tairrett@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
A 21-year-old Topeka man was arrested yesterday morning on 11 counts of attempted second-degree murder and one count of criminal possession of a firearm.
"It was like a firework going off," said Jonah Ballow, Lone Tree, Colo, senior and Kansan sports columnist. Ballow said he saw a male laying on the ground on the south side of It's Brothers.
At about 1:50 a.m., Lawrence police officers responded to gunshots from the 1100 block of Massachusetts Street. They found a large crowd of frantic people outside It's Brothers Bar and Grill, 1105 Massachusetts St.
"I saw a guy hopping around," he said. "I assumed he got hit."
Doyle Murphy, Baldwin City senior and Kansan copy editor, said the bar was closing and people were milling around outside. He said there were a series of gunshots and everyone dove down to the ground.
According to the Lawrence Police Department, 11 people were struck by gunfire or by bullet fragments which ricocheted off the sidewalk and building.
One female gunshot victim was taken by ambulance to Lawrence Memorial Hospital. Five victims were taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital by private vehicle and one was transported by private vehicle to Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center in Topeka.
None of the injuries were reported to be life-threatening, according to the Lawrence Police Department. The victims' ages ranged from 18 to 26. Six were male and five female.
Four victims did not seek medical attention. The four were residents of Leawood, Manhattan, Lone Tree, Colo., and Parkville, Mo.
Witnesses said the suspect got into a blue-colored car with Missouri license plates. The car was last seen turning north on Kentucky Street. According to police, none of the victims or witnesses claimed to know the suspect or know why he was shooting into the crowd.
Police said victims and witnesses reported seeing a man walk down the sidewalk through the crowd of people, firing a handgun repeatedly at the ground.
At 1:56 a.m., a one-car accident was reported at Sixth and Kentucky streets. Two men abandoned the wrecked car and ran away, according to area residents.
Officers located a man fitting the description of the shooting suspect at Sixth and Florida streets at approximately 6:15 a.m.
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SEE SHOOTING ON PAGE 5A
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