University of Arizona Roommates Involved In Fatal Altercation
An 18-year-old student died Wednesday after an early morning fight with another woman who had been her roommate, in their dormitory room at the University of Arizona in Tucson, the police said.
The university police identified the dead woman as Mia Henderson, a freshman and member of the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona. She apparently died of stab wounds, said Sgt. Eugene Mejia of the campus police.
The roommate, also an 18-year-old from the Navajo Nation, was treated on Wednesday at a hospital for injuries that were not life threatening, Mejia said.
The campus police declined to release the name of the roommate, who is also a freshman. The police had not made an arrest and were investigating the incident.
Details of what led to the fight were sketchy. The campus police responded to reports of screaming in a room on the second floor of Graham-Greenlee Residence Hall at 5:45 a.m.
Officers discovered both women with injuries and transported them to the University Medical Center a mile away. Henderson died about 45 minutes later, Mejia said.
It was not clear whether the two women knew each other before going to the university, Mejia said.
Henderson told the university police on Aug. 28 that she suspected that her roommate had stolen personal items from her, Mejia said. The police declined to describe the items, saying they could not do so because the report was under investigation.
Although the women were originally assigned the same room, they had been staying in separate rooms while arrangements were made to separate them permanently, Mejia said.
“How they ended up being back in the same room is still under investigation, but they are both residents of that room, so I guess they could return if they wanted to,” he said.
The university has more than 37,000 students; 6,000 live in on-campus dormitories.
In 2002, Robert Flores Jr., 41, a nursing student at the university, shot and killed three instructors before killing himself.