Intruder enters two Lovett rooms
Daniel Wolfe, a Lovett sophomore, was the first student to report the stranger.
"I woke up Monday morning, and I walked over to the other room and found a guy looking through my shelf," Wolfe said. "I asked him who he was, and he said he was from University Housing." When Wolfe asked the burglar more questions, "the guy took off through the door."
Lovett junior Stephanie Richards also met the intruder.
"I left my room for five minutes to grab some breakfast, and I came back and found this guy in my room." The man claimed that his name was Rico and that he was from Food and Housing. "I told him to come downstairs with me so I could verify his story with the college secretary. He did everything I told him to -- it was really strange," Richards said.
"I think he just felt caught and didn't know what else to do. Anyway, we ran into the police on our way down." She then told the police what had happened.
"They told him, `for your safety and ours, we're going to handcuff you,' and they searched him for a gun. He just stood there. He said something about needing to call his grandmother, too. It was all pretty sad. I was sort of feeling sorry for him, because he lookd pretty young."
According to campus police, the burglar had been sent to jail on two counts of burglary and was violating parole. In addition, he was perhaps under the influence of alcohol.
"I heard later that he was just high on crack," Wolfe said. "He was so mellow and everything."
Both students said they did not find the situation intimidating or threatening in any way. Wolfe's reaction to his position was that of curiosity.
"I never felt that my life was in danger. He was obviously looking for something in particular -- in my opinion, cash -- there was a CD player and tons of CDs, and he didn't take any of those."
Richards did not feel frightened by her circumstances, either. "I just confronted him. ... I was really authoritative."
Lovett sophomore Bassam Latif, who is Wolfe's roommate, did not find the situation traumatic.
"I was waking up, and I heard my roommate in the next room say, `So, who the hell are you?' and I heard someone say something back. That was all the excitement in my life that morning," Latif said. "But all day, my friends were coming up to me asking, `Are you OK?' and `Are you scarred for life?'"
According to all three students, the burglar was very ordinary in appearance.
"If I just saw him, I'd have thought he was a Rice student," Latif said. "He was about 19, and he just looked like any other guy."
Both Wolfe and Richards described him as very polite.
Wolfe added that he still thinks Rice has one of the safest campuses in the country.
"Nothing like this has happened in quite a while," Bickers said. He attributes the burglar's quick apprehension to "good work on the part of the students."
This item appeared in the News section of the January 31, 1997 issue.
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