In July of 1977 a young man named Richard Herrin murdered his ex-girlfriend,
Bonnie Garland, by smashing her head in with a hammer as she slept.
Herrin and Garland had met as students at Yale, and
had dated for two years, but she had told him she wanted to be free to see other people.
Amazingly, Herrin was not convicted of murder, but only of
manslaughter, in large part because of the support he received from the Yale community, including the University's Catholic chaplain.