The Transcript

After a semester off campus, some of our fellow Bishops are back at Ohio Wesleyan University with a taste of what is soon to come: adult life.

Students from OWU traveled domestically and internationally last semester and agreed that it is “weird” to be back in Delaware. While some of these travelers went to different universities in search of cultural experiences and to take new classes, other students gained work experience through internships.

According to junior Mackenzie Sommers, who was in the District of Columbia interning at the National Archives, the life she was living last semester felt like an adult life, and she enjoyed every second of it.

“Every single day was a joy, I always liked getting out of bed in the morning to go to work, it felt like a full-time, adult job,” said Sommers. “I was an adult in D.C. and now I’m back here being a college student and that means different things, I don’t have to do my own grocery shopping, and I have to be at class but I don’t have to be at class.”

Junior Nicole Nitti went to The Philadelphia Center where she had much different responsibilities than she has at OWU.

“I was working a 9 to 5 job, and after coming back from work I had to think about what I was going to cook for dinner. Here I have to think about my homework and my sorority,” said Nitti.

Besides readjusting to the demands of college, reconnecting with friends has been an important part of some students’ return to campus.

“It feels like I’ve been gone for a lot longer than I actually have, but it’s great to see everyone that I’ve been missing,” said junior Brittany Spicer, who traveled to Florence, Italy.

Campus underwent many changes while the students were away, but among the returners there is a consensus: traveling was a great experience and was worth the time away from OWU.

By Noah Manskar and Olivia Lease
Online Editor and Copy Editor

A jury of eight women and four men has found Nicholas Eber, 24, guilty on three felony charges in the stabbing of Anthony Peddle ’14.

Eber was convicted of attempted murder, felonious assault and aggravated burglary for stabbing Peddle in his bedroom at the Chi Phi fraternity house in the early hours of May 3.

Peddle, who was Ohio Wesleyan’s senior class president at the time, sustained a wound to his chest three-and-a-half inches deep and a large wound to his wrist that had to be surgically repaired.

In his testimony Thursday, the third day of the four-day trial, he described Eber as “less than an acquaintance” with their communication primarily occurring through Sean Anthony ’14, Eber’s ex-boyfriend and Peddle’s close friend and fraternity brother.

When asked about Anthony and Eber’s relationship, Peddle said he didn’t approve or disapprove of him. He said, however, he had acknowledged that there was wedge between himself and Eber, which caused tension. Peddle said he saw Eber on campus unaccompanied by any students after Anthony and Eber broke up in December of 2013, after dating for 10 months.

On Wednesday, Delaware Police Department detective David McQuigg testified that he and other investigators identified Eber as a person of interest after interviewing some of Peddle’s fraternity brothers. The person who got into the house must have known the security code to the door, McQuigg said, and Anthony testified that Eber had the code.

Eber was arrested May 8 after police found a sweatshirt matching the description of the attacker’s and a pair of shoes with blood on them in his apartment.

The location of the hole in the sweatshirt matched a cut on Eber’s arm, which he said he got when he broke a glass doing dishes. An analysis of the fibers around the hole in the sweatshirt showed one side had been cut and the other had been torn.

Police did not find any of Eber’s blood at the crime scene, and the blood on the shoes from his apartment was not Peddle’s.

 

On Tuesday, Eber’s defense attorney Joel Spitzer argued Matthew Costello, a Delaware man who matched the description of the attacker and was seen with blood on his nose in a nearby United Dairy Farmers convenience store, could have been a suspect.

But DPD detective sergeant John Radabaugh testified Wednesday that it would have been “a waste of time” to pursure Costello. He was not a person of interest and was cooperative when officer Joseph Kolp confronted him later that morning.

Eber faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, according to Ohio Revised Code statutes.

By Noah Manskar and Hannah Urano
Online Editor and News Editor

Defense attorney Joel Spitzer continued to raise doubts Wednesday about the state’s case against Nicholas Eber, the Delaware man accused of stabbing Anthony Peddle ’14.

Spitzer showed the jury a series of text messages from May 3 between Sean Anthony ’14, Eber’s ex-boyfriend, in which he told Eber he did not think he attacked Peddle early that morning at the Chi Phi fraternity house.

“… I know it’s not you. Anthony (Peddle) did not target you, but I can’t control it anymore. I don’t know what I can do,” he wrote.

On May 6, Anthony said he would defy the police’s request that he not contact him. “You can text me any time you want, I don’t care what the police say,” he wrote to Eber. “I’ll reach out to you and they can’t stop me from reaching out to you.”

Spitzer also noted Anthony, Peddle’s close friend and roommate, paid Eber a visit in jail after he was arrested May 8.

In response, prosecutor Andy Bigler argued Anthony said those things because he did not want to believe Eber, whom he dated for 10 months, would have stabbed his roommate and best friend. Anthony testified that he still loved Eber at the time of the crime.

On Tuesday, Spitzer argued there were links between the stabbing and Matthew Costello, who was acting erratically in a nearby convenience store three hours after the incident. He had blood on his nose and was wearing a hooded sweatshirt that looked like the assailant’s.

In his cross-examination of Delaware Police Department detective sergeant John Radabaugh on Wednesday, Spitzer argued “media pressure” on the investigation may have caused him to be too hasty in ruling Costello out.

Because police did not get his DNA, search his cell phone or residence or question him, they could not have eliminated him as a suspect completely, Spitzer said.

Police felt certain Costello was not involved in the stabbing, Radabaugh said. He was never a person of interest and it would have been “a waste of time” to pursue him.

Police found an olive green hooded sweatshirt in Eber’s apartment that matched Peddle’s description of the attacker’s clothing. The garment had a hole that matched a cut on Eber’s arm, which he said came from a glass he broke doing dishes.

The fibers around the hole indicated the left side of it had been cut and the right side torn away, according to Suzanne Noffsinger, the state’s trace evidence expert who testified Wednesday on her examination of the sweatshirt.

Peddle was in the courtroom for the first two days of trial and is expected to take the stand before the jury of eight women and four men on Thursday.

Spitzer and Jason Halsey, Eber’s other defense attorney, will present their side of the case following his testimony.

Editor-in-Chief Ellin Youse contributed reporting to this story.

By Ellin Youse and Noah Manskar
Editor-in-Chief and Online Editor

On the first day of the trial of Nicholas Eber, the Delaware man charged with attempted murder and three other felonies for allegedly stabbing former Ohio Wesleyan senior class president Anthony Peddle ’14, his defense attorneys argued another man, Matthew Costello, should be the suspect on trial.

In his cross-examination of three Delaware Police Department officers Tuesday in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas, defense attorney Joel Spitzer argued there were links between the May 3 stabbing at the Chi Phi fraternity house at 216 N. Franklin St. and another incident at a nearby convenience store.

Three hours after leaving the Chi Phi house that morning, officer Joseph Kolp said he and officer Mark Jackson responded to a call reporting a man in a deep blue hoodie with blood on his face had entered the United Dairy Farmers store at 123 W. William St., went to the bathroom and tried to sell the cashier his cell phone. The cashier told officers she assumed the man had been in a fight.

In reviewing the footage from the store’s security cameras, it was unclear who the man was and whether he had blood on his face. Kolp told Spitzer store employees said there was no indication of any blood in the store.

Later that morning, around 6 a.m., Kolp saw a man who fit the description of the person at the store walking on Sandusky Street. He identified him as Costello, adding he consented to a search and was “very cooperative.”

Kolp said Costello explained the blood on his nose was from a pimple that he had “cut off.” When prosecuting attorney Doug Dumolt asked Kolp if he suspected Costello was involved in the stabbing, he said no.

Eber was arrested May 8 after police found a green sweatshirt with lettering on the arm that matched the description of the one Peddle’s attacker was wearing in his apartment on N. Washington Street on May 5. There were spots on the garment that may have been blood, DPD detective sergeant John Radabugh said in his testimony.

That led to a more thorough search permitted by a warrant, in which police found shoes that were later found to have blood on them and three other sweatshirts that matched the assailant’s.

Additionally, a knife was missing from the knife block in Eber’s kitchen, and the detectives could not find a one that fit the space.

He was eventually indicted on charges of attempted murder, felonious assault, aggravated burglary and tampering with evidence.

When Radabaugh and detective David McQuigg first questioned Eber at the Chi Phi house on May 3, McQuigg noticed a “significant cut” on his arm, Radabaugh said on the stand. Eber told them he got it from a glass he broke doing dishes in his apartment, which is about three blocks southwest of the crime scene.

One of the sweatshirts police found in the second search had a hole in the sleeve similar to the location of the cut on Eber’s arm.

On the first visit to the apartment, officers found a broken glass in the sink and shards of glass around the sink, including some that appeared to have brown droplets on them. They also found a trash can in his bathroom filled with bloody bandages.

Eber’s charges require the prosecution to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Eber committed the crime.

Judge Everett Krueger instructed the 12 selected jurors and the appointed alternate that if they are not “firmly convinced” Eber attacked Peddle after considering all the evidence presented in the courtroom, they must acquit him.

A reasonable doubt, Krueger said, is one by which “an ordinary person would be willing to rely and act upon it in the most important of his or her on affairs.”

The jurors visited the Chi Phi house Tuesday morning to view the scene of the crime. The trial is expected to continue through Friday.