Students Receive Another Email from Account Linked to Death Threats

More than 100 Harvard undergraduates woke up Christmas morning to find another email message in their inboxes from the same address that was used to send hundreds of Harvard affiliates a racially charged death threat in early October.

The email, which students received at 8:35 a.m. Thursday, was written in broken English and appeared to apologize for sending the death threat earlier this fall. “I'm so sorry about the threats against you with death threats,” the message reads. “I would never kill someone.”

The email is the latest in a series of messages that Harvard affilliates have received from the “hotmail.de” email account since the sender or senders first threatened students, prompting a monthslong investigation into the episode this fall.

The messages have disproportionately targeted women of Asian descent and have come from two email accounts: the “hotmail.de” address that sent students the most recent message on Thursday and a Google Mail account linked to the threat that has been used to contact students since as early as this past April.

Harvard University Police Department spokesperson Steven G. Catalano said Thursday that the police are aware of Thursday’s email and confirmed that the investigation into the threat remains ongoing, but declined to comment further.

After University affiliates received the first mass email in early October, HUPD conducted a two-months long investigation into the threat and determined that the emails originated overseas and did not pose a threat to student safety. HUPD has since concluded its investigation, which German authorities were leading as of early December.

The College administration’s response to the initial threats prompted concern among undergraduates who said the official response was neither timely nor sensitive to the racially charged nature of the threats. Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana later hosted an open meeting at Phillips Brooks House for students to discuss their concerns.

—Staff writer Ivan B. K. Levingston can be reached at Ivan.Levingston@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @IvanLevingston.