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Murder of Christian Prince

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Christian Haley Prince (1971-17 February 1991) was a Yale student whose murder in New Haven highlighted racial and class tensions between town and gown.

Prince, the son of Edward and Sally Prince of Chevy Chase, Maryland, was a fourth-generation Yale alumnus, a member of the class of 1993 in his sophomore year, in Pierson College.

Having dined at Mory's and attended a party at Sterling-Sheffield-Strathcona Hall, he left his friends behind and was going to his off-campus apartment on Whitney Avenue to rest up for lacrosse practice the next day.

He was killed on the steps of St. Mary's Church, New Haven on Hillhouse Avenue, the first Yale student killed on campus since the murder of Gary Stein during a robbery near Grove Street Cemetery in 1974.

His death stunned the campus, and more than 1,000 mourners attended his funeral in Washington, D.C., where Prince's brother Ted, also a Yale graduate, gave the eulogy. There was a short term significant decline in applications to Yale which was directly attributed to the murder.

After his killing Yale reevaluated and improved its campus security. Emergency phones and improved lighting were installed; the university police department's size was expanded and a new security force was founded.

Arrest and trial

In May 1991, James Duncan Fleming was arrested for Prince's murder on a tip from one of his friends, Randy Fleming (no relation).

Randy Fleming later said that he and James wanted money to attend a rap performance and James suggested they "stick up a cracker." James Fleming spotted Prince walking home and demanded his money at gunpoint. Prince had handed over his wallet, whereupon James Fleming pistol-whipped him, said "I ought to shoot this cracker", and killed him. Fleming then dropped the wallet in his haste to get away.

A year later, at James Fleming's trial, Randy Fleming recanted his original statements, claiming that the police had forced him to lie. The jury convicted James Fleming on conspiracy to rob Prince, acquitted him on the charge of first-degree murder, and failed to return a verdict on charges of felony murder and attempted robbery. A second jury acquitted James Fleming on the latter two charges in March 1993, and Fleming was sentenced to a nine-year prison sentence.

References

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