I'm back after several months away and excited to see Prof Mitchell contributing. Since we are now closer to someone who personally knows something about this case, I'd like to throw out a couple of rumors that were reported to me by the anthropology professor who first told me this story. Perhaps Don Mitchell can shed light on these or dismiss them as yet more inaccurate hype.
One of these was that an address book or diary found in Jane's apartment contained fantasies about one of her professors, and possible evidence of a tryst, which is what caused the police to suspect a faculty member. A news account does mention that a faculty member admitted to "dating" Jane once, and another account notes that a faculty member was a prime suspect at one point. Prof Mitchell also referred to something like a casual sexual relationship with a faculty member. Are these all referring to the same person? If so, who? Could he be the person who was polygraphed but never identified?
I don't know anything about an address book or diary. Certainly it's possible.
As for any "date" or "tryst" all I can offer is this: one night, my wife, Jane, and I were drinking with a faculty member (not on a tenure-track line, but I'm pretty sure not a "visiting" professor, meaning that he was there for at least a few years). I can't say when, except that it definitely wasn't around the time of the murder.
I'm pretty sure we started at our place, but I can't say how the guy arrived. It might have been after a party at someone else's place. No matter how it started, it ended pretty late at the guy's place, with a lot of drinking having been done. No other substances. My wife and I went home. Jane stayed, and arrived home the next morning, very hungover. What happened? I don't know.
A week or maybe a couple of weeks later, Jane was over at our place and we were hanging out, and the guy came up the stairs (remember, the outside door was only sometimes locked). It's possible that he called first, but I seem to remember being surprised. Jane did not want to see him (she was explicit, to us) but I can't remember whether or not he stayed for a few uncomfortable minutes in the apartment, or not. We might have lied and said she wasn't there. I'm sorry, but I can't remember.
As to whether there was any contact after that, I can't say. I believe I said something about "casual" but by that I did not mean "casual sexual" relationship in the way that term's used now. I don't know what happened in the guy's apartment that night. I can imagine several scenarios but that means nothing.
I'm not prepared to name this person. I don't know whether he was polygraphed. What I do know for certain is that he was scheduled to leave for fieldwork very soon (a matter of a few days) after the murder and was not prevented from doing so and to the best of my knowledge, he left before his scheduled time. I was gone when he would have returned, and I can't say whether he was questioned then, or not. I'd be surprised if Lt. Joyce didn't have a talk with him.
Maybe a little aside about "faculty." Harvard, and probably other institutions like it, offer limited-term contract faculty positions as assistant professors but it's understood that there will be no opportunity to move towards tenure. A great many people want "professor at Harvard" on their resume, and this is a legitimate way to get that. Harvard chews up and spits out these people. They know they're not going to get tenure, are not ever going to be considered for it, and so on. They do it anyway, and it's not hard to understand why. To the best of my knowledge, the guy I'm talking about had that kind of position.
The other professors either had tenure or were on tenure-track lines. They had higher status and more power. What I'm saying is that "a professor at Harvard" can mean several things. No one's fibbing or shading the truth, because indeed they are all professors. Just not quite the same kind of professors.
As to whether that's still the practice, I can't say.
