Mirror - Vol. 31, No. 12 - December 01, 2005

              WEEK OF DECEMBER 1,2005
Vol. 31, Iss. 12-20 pages
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The WWW.FAIRFIELDMIRROR.COM
The independent student newspaper
of Fairfield University
Fairfield grad slain by former
boyfriend in murder-suicide
BY KELLY SHEEHAN
While Ciara McDermott '97 was a student
at Fairfield, one of her classmates was frequently
absent in her English class.
Her professor, Dr. Kim Bridgford, read a
letter from the absent student explaining why she
could not attend class. Her son was dying.
According to Bridgford, McDermott began
crying and when the. woman returned to class,
she hugged her in sympathy.
"That's the kind of student [McDermott]
was," Bridgford said. "She knew what the im-portant
things were in life."
"She lived each moment to the fullest," she
added.
McDermott, 30, a Newington, Conn, po-lice
officer, was_ shot last Monday in her West
Hartford home by a state trooper who later
shot himself in an upstairs room. He was her
ex-boyfriend.
Police said that Victor Diaz, 37, could not
bear to see McDermott with another man.
The West Hartford Police Department
declined to release any information about
McDermott's death to The Mirror. However,
published reports said that McDermott was found
by her current boyfriend, West Hartford Police
Officer James DeLuca, shortly after Diaz placed
a disturbing phone call to his lawyer.
McDermott had been shot five times in the
head and chest.
Only three weeks before the murder, Mc-
Dermott and DeLuca filed a complaint when
SEE "MCDERMOTT" ON P. 5
UP, UP AND AWAY!
Sean Corbett/The Mirror
Mo' mentum: Members of the Engineering Club launched pumpkins Nov. 20 on Barlow Field as
part of a competition with the Physics Club. For more photos see page 2.
Meningitis kills Marist
student unexpectedly
Outbreaks at colleges across U.S.
BY LAUREN PEPICELLO
Earlier this month, one Marist
College student noticed her roommate
suffering from strep throat, fever and
aches in her joints. Shortly thereafter
her roommate was dead.
Caitlin Boyle, 19, a junior at Marist
College, died Nov. 17 of bacterial men-ingitis.
She became the second person
to die of meningitis at Marist in less
than 10 years.
"She got achy to the point where
she could not get out of bed because
her legs hurt so much," said Boyle's
roommate, who wished to remain
anonymous.
Boyle had all of the common symp-toms
of meningitis. Gary Nelson, direc-tor
of Fairfield's Health Center, said that
headache, fever, stiff joints, photopho-bia,
nausea and vomiting are the most
likely indicators of the disease.
"Symptoms aren't the same for
everyone," said Nelson. "Sometimes
the early symptoms of meningitis can
be mistaken for the flu."
Nelson added that there are two
types of meningitis: viral and bacte-rial.
Viral cannot be treated but is less
severe than bacterial. Bacterial comes
in five different strands: A, C, Y, W135
and B. Bacterial meningitis B cannot
be prevented by the A meningitis vac-cine.
Connecticut passed a law in 2002
requiring all students living on campus
to be vaccinated.
Even though New York does not
require students to be vaccinated, Boyle
had been vaccinated, according to the
Marist Circle.
In the past month, meningitis has
begun to plague students at some col-lege
campuses nationwide. One man
from the University of Michigan is
now recovering from Type C bacterial
meningitis. He had been vaccinated
as well.
Nelson did not recall any deaths
here at Fairfield of meningitis. The last
reported incidents were in 2001. Three
students were confirmed to have con-tracted
meningitis that year, according
Contributed Photo
Marist student Caitlin Boyle, who
died from meningitis in November.
to Mirror reports.
"The best way to prevent menin-gitis
is to get vaccinated," said Nelson.
"It will offer students 70 percent of
coverage against the disease."
Nelson added that there are other
things students can do to avoid it, such
as wash their hands, keep a bottle of
Purell in their room, not share cups or
cigarettes with other students and take
care of themselves so their immune
systems remain strong.
There are also antibiotics students
can take if they have been in contact
with someone who has contracted the
disease.
"The school made my housemates
and anyone who had been in contact
with Caitlin take the antibiotic Cipro,"
said her roommate. "We also had to go
through our house and clean everything
with disinfectant."
Students who currently attend
Fairfield have not encountered incidents
in their time here. However, given the
recent circumstances at other campuses,
some are still concerned.
"As college students we do run
ourselves down and live unhealthy
lifestyles, which really makes us targets
for something like this," said Elizabeth
Orgera '06. "I am definitely going to
be cautious about sharing cups during
drinking games and try harder to keep
myself healthy."
Federal law to expand FBI's access to college networks, but who will pay??
BY LAUREN PEPICELLO
Fairfield has joined the hun-dreds
of universities around the
country in their opposition to the
federal government's extension
of the 11 -year-old law, which will
now require universities to alter
their computer networking ser-vices
to make it easier for the FBI
to monitor potential criminals and
terrorists through live wiretaps.
The price tag is $7 billion,
which will need to be funded
entirely by the universities them-selves.
"I am skeptical about un-funded
mandates, in general," said
James Estrada, vice president for
Information Services. "The prob-lem
is that the government is not
telling us exactly what they want
us to do. There is a big infrastruc-ture
behind these walls and it could
be a huge investment."
The Communications Assis-tance
for Law Enforcement Act
(CALEA) was passed in 1994 and
requires providers of commercial
voice services to engineer their
networks in such a way to assist
law enforcement agencies with
wiretap orders. It was extended
this year to include universities,
libraries and airports providing
wireless service and commercial
Internet access providers, accord-ing
to The New York Times.
Because the university is still
unsure about how far the federal
government wants universities to
go with this project, there is no tell-
SEE "NEW" ON P. 4