New Hampshire's Supreme Court last Friday upheld the conviction of an Ethiopian man found guilty of hacking to death two Dartmouth graduate students.
Haile Selassie Girmay murdered physics graduate student Selamawit Tsehaye, who was Girmay's former fiancee, and her roommate Trhas Berhe with an ax in their Hanover apartment in June 1991.
Girmay pleaded insanity at his trial but was still convicted in March 1993 and sentenced to mandatory life in prison without parole.
Girmay, who was studying in Sweden, killed the women on a visit to Hanover after Tsehaye rejected his marriage proposal.
When police arrived at the murder scene, minutes after the killings, Girmay shook an officer's hand and told him, "I killed them. I killed them with an ax."
In his appeal, Girmay attempted to argue that his statements to police immediately after the murders should have been inadmissible in court, even though he was read his rights and said he understood them.
Girmay also argued experts were not allowed to give testimony about Ethiopian culture and history, but the high court ruled the statements would have been irrelevant.
The court also ruled the psychiatric evidence Girmay wished to present had already been presented in the earlier trial.
The murders, the first in Hanover since 1948, shocked the College and the community.
The two women had known each other since their undergraduate studies at Asmara University in Ethiopia.
Tsehaye planned to return to Ethiopia with her doctoral degree to teach. Berhe was in the midst of seeking political asylum in the United States in an attempt to escape the war and violence of Ethiopia.
