The Cirrotta Case

A second indictment in connection with the death of Raymond J. Cirrotta '49 was returned by the Grafton County grand jury at Woodsville, N. H. on September 15. William C. Felton '48 of Tiffin, Ohio, one of the suspended students who engaged in the fatal fight with Cirrotta in his Middle Mass room, was charged with first-degree manslaughter and will stand trial at a date not yet announced. The indictment is the same as that brought against Thomas A. Doxsee '5O, who was fined $5OO and given a suspended sentence on a reduced charge of second-degree manslaughter. Felton, still incapacitated from injuries received in an automobile accident while on his way to the Doxsee trial, was not present in court.

Eugene Rea, author of a series of articles on the Cirrotta case published this summer in the Italian language paper II Progresso Italo-Americano and reprinted in other papers, was called as a witness but did not appear. During the hearing State's Attorney William L. Phinney '31 said, "Without discussing in any way the evidence presented in this case, it is apparent that Rea's articles were not, in many instances, based on fact."

At one point in the series President Dickey felt impelled to take public exception to the "false impression" given that Dartmouth officials had withheld information from the public authorities. A long statement about the Cirrotta tragedy was made by President Dickey late in August, in reply to a letter from the New Hampshire State Commissioner of Education. The correspondence is printed in full in this issue, beginning on Page 24.