Police: Suspect in Connecticut shooting wrote 'Kill Johanna'

'I think it okay to kill Jews' says journal thought by police to belong to man who killed Jewish student

Associated Press|Published: 05.08.09 , 22:29

Police responding to the fatal shooting of a Wesleyan University student found a journal with an entry saying "I think it okay to kill Jews and go on a killing spree" and "Kill Johanna. She must Die," according to an arrest warrant released Friday.

Turned Himself In

US: Man suspected of threatening to kill Jews nabbed

Associated Press

Connecticut Authorities arrest suspect in slaying of Wesleyan University student who police say threatened to kill other students, Jews

US: Man suspected of threatening to kill Jews nabbed

Stephen P. Morgan, 29, was arrested Thursday night after seeing his photo in a newspaper and asking a convenience store clerk to call police. Officers found him standing outside the store, 10 miles from the bookstore where Johanna Justin-Jinich was gunned down by a man wearing a wig Wednesday.

Police said they found the journal, which has no name on it but appears to belong to Morgan, inside the bookstore. The composition book also had an entry dated May 6 at 11 am — about two hours before Justin-Jinich was killed — that mentioned seeing all of the beautiful and smart people at Wesleyan.

Morgan was arraigned Friday in Middletown Superior Court. A judge increased his bond to $15 million.

Morgan's parents and two sisters attended the brief hearing. One sister wept as Morgan, scruffy and unkempt, left the courtroom accompanied by judicial marshals. Outside court, defense attorney Dick Brown said Morgan would plead not guilty.

"He denies any effort to target the Wesleyan campus or anyone else," Brown said.

Morgan's father identified his son as the man seen in bookstore surveillance photos and told investigators his son was a loner who kept a journal and was known to make anti-Semitic comments, according to the warrant.

Justin-Jinich, of Timnath, Colo., came from a Jewish family, and her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.

Authorities in New York said Morgan and Justin-Jinich had 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. In the complaint filed in July of that year, Justin-Jinich said Morgan called her repeatedly and sent her insulting e-mails.