Execution-style murder of Wesleyan student

On Wednesday, Stephen Morgan, 29, walked into a campus cafe at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and shot dead in execution style a 21-year-old female student, Johanna Justin-Jinich. Their only known previous contact had been attending a summer course two years ago at New York University on “sexual diversity,” after which he had sent her harassing e-mails. There are so many murders of young women that the New York Times ignores. I wonder why they gave lengthy coverage to this one.

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QR writes:

You write:

“I wonder why they gave lengthy coverage to this one.”

Because the killer was white. Also apparently a racist, as the article says he “didn’t like Vietnamese people”. And it seems he hadn’t even converted to Islam.

Also because the victim was liberal and agnostic.

LA replies:

But I wondered if he is white. He’s very dark, and looks like a mixture of Euro with something else. But it may just be the photo.

Now that I look at the photo again, I see he’s definitely Caucasian, though on the dark side.

Johanna Jinich and the man who murdered her, Stephen Morgan

QR replies:

Looking at his picture a second time, I think you may be right. A quick google didn’t clear the matter up, and I only found one more picture of him, which is also ambiguous.

David B. writes:

You wonder why the New York Times covers the murder of the Wesleyan student when they ignore the murders of so many other young women. The reason, I would guess, is that this murder is like the plot of an episode of the Law and Order TV show.

Howard Sutherland writes:

You ask why the New York Times gives such lengthy coverage to Stephen Morgan’s murder of Johanna Justin-Jinich at Wesleyan. There are two banal reasons I can think of: it is a story in the New York region, and it happened at a chic liberal college. The third possible reason occurred to me as I read the Times story. Timesman Robert McFadden drops hints throughout his story that Morgan was motivated by anti-Semitism. McFadden presents no substantial evidence of that, but that doesn’t stop the Paper of Record from doing its best (worst?) to spin it that way.

Whether or not the murderer is in fact an anti-Semite, though, look at this crime through the Times’s ideological filter and it becomes clearer: “Apparently disturbed” WASP man “with shaky relationships and a malevolence toward Jews” murders “disciplined, fearless” young Jewish woman “with a passion for women’s health issues.” It so perfectly fits the Times’s stereotypes and the views of people it wants its readers to have. How could the paper resist it? As David B comments, it fits the “Law and Order” alternative reality template perfectly. For the Times and its liberalizing mission, this vile murder was almost too good to be true.

LA replies:

Funny that purported anti-Semitism becomes a reason for the Times to highlight a murder, when the purported anti-Semitic murderer is white, while the same Times reliably sides with Jew-exterminationist Muslims. Of courses it’s not funny or odd, but perfectly consistent with liberal world view. It’s not anti-Semitism the Times cares about, but being against whites and the West, and for nonwhites and the non-West.

I’ve just read the New York Post’s article on the Wesleyan murder and it’s more informative than the Times’. I’ll post it in another entry. Also, from a photo in the Post of Morgan after his arrest, he’s definitely white.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 08, 2009 09:59 AM | Send