Murder of Jeanne Clery
| Jeanne Clery | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | November 26, 1966 Pennsylvania United States |
| Died | April 5, 1986 (aged 19) Bethlehem, Pennsylvania |
| Parent(s) | Connie and Howard Clery |
The murder of Jeanne Clery occurred in 1986, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania at Lehigh University. Clery, who was a student at the time of her death, was killed in her campus dormitory. Clery's parents, who believed the University had failed to share vital information with its students regarding campus safety, campaigned for legislative reform for several years following their daughter's death. Their sustained efforts ultimately resulted in the passage of the Clery Act, a federal law requiring all universities and colleges receiving federal student financial aid programs to report crime statistics, alert campus of imminent dangers, and distribute an Annual Campus Security Report to current and prospective students and employees.
Since the act's passage in 1990, numerous institutions have been found noncompliant and significantly fined. From 2008–2012, 14 higher education institutions were fined for Clery Act noncompliance. Large scale Clery violations resulted in financial fines at institutions such as Pennsylvania State University, Eastern Michigan University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
On April 5, 1986, Jeanne Clery was raped and murdered in Stoughton Hall at Lehigh University by Josoph M. Henry, who was also a student. Clery was awoken by Henry in the process of robbing her, in which Henry beat, cut, raped, sodomized, and strangled Jeanne. Prior to Jeanne's death, there were reports that her dorm had had 181 situations of auto-locking doors being propped open by residents. The propped doors, as well as Clery's own room door left unlocked (for her roommate, who forgot her key) are believed to be how Henry entered Stoughton Hall. He was reported to the police after confessing the murder to his friends and was subsequently apprehended. He was later sentenced to death via the electric chair, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania upon appeal. In 2002, after his death sentence was thrown out, Henry opted to give up his appeal rights and accept life in prison rather than face another death penalty hearing with the possibility of a reinstated death sentence.
As Connie and Howard Clery learned more about their daughter's death, they grew convinced that their daughter had died because of "slipshod" security on campus. Beyond this, they believed the university had "a rapidly escalating crime rate, which they didn't tell anybody about". At the time, Lehigh University's vice president John Smeaton, denied claims saying security measures were "more than adequate, reasonable and appropriate for our setting and our situation. You can't prevent everything from happening." Nonetheless, the Clery family believed that campus crime statistics had been significantly underreported, and led to Clery's parents founding the nonprofit organization Security On Campus, Inc. Today the foundation is called the Clery Center for Security On Campus.
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