Christopher Elser, a junior in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, was fatally stabbed during a burglary at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity house on Apr. 17, 2004. Bridget Phillips, a graduate student, was brutally murdered in her off-campus apartment on March 22, 1989. Ten and 25 years later, respectively, both cases remain unsolved.
Elser was 20 years old in the spring of 2004. He was remembered as a bright student, a varsity soccer player and a loyal SAE brother.
“His personality was something you’d never forget,” James Miervaldis, who played on the Hopkins soccer team with Elser, said. “He would celebrate everything — big and small.”
Dennis O’Shea, the University’s director of communications, said that Elser was very well-liked at Hopkins.
“He was kind and generous, committed to his soccer teammates, to his fraternity, to community service, to academics and to Johns Hopkins,” O’Shea said. “He was a relaxed, easygoing guy.”
On Apr. 17, Elser spent the night at the SAE fraternity house on the corner of St. Paul and 30th Streets instead of returning to his own apartment. Around 6 a.m., two hours after a party had ended at the fraternity house, a burglar broke into the house through an unlocked back door and entered the room where Elser was sleeping.
Elser woke up and confronted the intruder, who drew a knife. After stabbing Elser repeatedly, the burglar stole a computer and fled the premises.
When found by his fraternity brothers, Elser told them, “I tried; I fought.” He was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support. Elser died of his wounds the next day.
The Baltimore Police launched an investigation, but leads were scarce. The only promising lead was a surveillance video from a building adjacent to the SAE house showing an unknown man walking around the time of the murder.
In the months after the murder, the University contributed to a $50,000 bounty for the capture of Elser’s killer; However, there have been no further developments in the years since the murder.
Faced with the loss of a beloved student, the University held a memorial service held on the Keyser Quadrangle on Apr. 20, 2004. More than 2,000 students, friends, and family attended, recounting humorous anecdotes of Elser’s life and grieving his loss.
“Everyone at the memorial service dressed as Chris did - a proud South Carolinian,” Miervaldis said. “We wore button down shirts, untucked with shorts, and Rainbow flip flops. We sat on the Upper Quad and listened to Chris’ favorite country songs. I stayed up all night making CDs with his roommate. That service was the saddest [yet] most hopeful thing I’ve ever been a part of.”
In the wake of the murder, the University accelerated plans to acquire more security technology. Today, the University operates more than 314 closed-circuit TV cameras on and around campus, as well as 100 campus emergency telephones. According to O’Shea, there are increased security patrols and increased contact between campus security and Baltimore police.
Elser’s is not the only unsolved murder near the University in recent history. In the spring of 1989, Bridget Phillips was a 22-year-old graduate student, aiming for a doctorate with a focus on Byzantine and medieval history.
“She was an open and friendly person,” her father Kelley W. Phillips said to The Baltimore Sun in 1989. “A bit more trusting than she should have been. I don’t know if that is a fault, but in our society, it can be a problem.”
Originally from Kansas with an undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, Phillips was fluent in six languages. She made the honor roll in her first year of graduate studies.
“For a young woman, she was unusually motivated for a highly difficult course of study,” John Baldwin, a former History professor, told The News-Letter after Phillips’ murder.
Phillips was last seen studying in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. She got to her apartment at 2843 N. Calvert Street, where she lived on the second floor. She was discovered at 2:45pm the next day in her apartment by a friend who came by to investigate why she hadn’t attended a seminar.
Phillips had been bludgeoned to death by a blunt instrument, possibly a hammer, sustaining the injuries to her head. She had also been stomped on while on the floor. The killer then lingered in the apartment for an hour, taking the time to clean himself before leaving.
Police took down the door to her apartment as evidence, hoping for fingerprints, but were not able to pursue any leads from it. There were no signs of forced or covert entry, leading police to believe Phillips had let her killer into the apartment, suggesting she knew the person. Phillips had not been burglarized or sexually assaulted either.
The investigation focused on a few suspects who had or wanted to have romantic relations with Phillips, but without a clear motive, a murder weapon, or a witness, the investigation ran into a dead end.
In the wake of Phillips’ murder, the University contributed to a $5,000 bounty for her killer’s capture, and a scholarship in Byzantine and medieval history was established in her honor.
Anyone with any information at all on these two cases in encouraged to report to the Baltimore Police Department.
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