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U-M Student Nurse Beaten In Bed; Man Held

U-M Student Nurse Beaten In Bed; Man Held image
Parent Issue
Day
7
Month
January
Year
1957
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Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
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U-M Student Nurse Beaten In Bed; Man Held

Senior Coed Attacked In Couzens Hall

Charles W. Castrop, Pre-Medical Student, Arrested In Case

A 24-year-old University student was in the County Jail today for investigation of felonious assault in connection with the beating of a coed in her dormitory room early yesterday morning.

Charles W. Castrop of Dearborn, a part-time employe of University Hospital's Neuropsychiatric Institute and a U-M pre-medical student, was arrested shortly after 6 a.m. yesterday.

Virginia L. Large Charles W. Castrop

Police detectives say he will be charged with the clubbing at 4 a.m. yesterday of Virginia L. Large, 21, of Detroit. Miss Large, a senior nursing student, was asleep in her third floor room at Couzens Hall at 1200 E. Ann St., when the attack took place, police say.

Miss Large suffered a number of "puncture-type” lacerations about her head and also had a shoulder bruise when she was admitted to University Hospital about 4:30 a.m. yesterday, hospital officials said.

Condition ‘Good’

Her condition was described as good and hospital authorities said she may be released today or tomorrow.

Miss Large told officers she was awakened suddenly by a blow on the head and saw a man standing over her bed swinging at her with a metal object he held in his hand.

She rolled over in an attempt to escape the blows but the intruder hit her four or five times, detectives were told. Light streaming through her window from the outside fell on the man beating her and she recognized Castrop, police said they were told.

Miss Large had had dates with Castrop in the past but had recently refused to continue dating him, police learned.

After hitting Miss Large several times on the head, the prowler fled out the door and down the hallway. Miss Large ran outside after him and saw him climb out a window and onto a fire escape from which he reached the ground, officers reported.

Police Called

Police were immediately summoned to the residence hall and from a description of the assailant provided by Miss Large, an all-area alarm was broadcast.

Capt. Rolland J. Gainsley led the search for the intruder.

By questioning residents of Chicago House, a men's dormitory at the West Quadrangle, where Castrop lives, officers learned Castrop had attended a party Saturday night held at 1129 E. Ann St., less than a block from Couzens Hall.

Checking that address about 6:15 a.m. officers found Castrop asleep in a bed in an apartment there. There was no one else in the apartment at the time although police said they observed visible evidence of a party which apparently had taken place there shortly before their arrival.

Confiscate Clothes

Detectives said Castrop’s clothes, which were lying on a chair beside the bed, have been confiscated, because a substance which may be blood was found on Castrop’s brown leather jacket and also on the cuffs of a striped sport shirt which he had been wearing.

A toy gun, which Detective Lt. George Stauch and Detective Sgt. Claude Damron described as a cast aluminum replica of a .45 caliber automatic pistol, was found with Castrop’s clothes. The replica is an exact reproduction of an army commando-type automatic, police said.

Black paint on the barrel of the gun had been rubbed off and a substance resembling the paint was found smeared on the waist section of one side of Castrop’s sport shirt, the detectives said.

Under interrogation by detectives yesterday, Castrop would admit only that he had been at the party at the Ann St. apartment Saturday night. He told officers he did not recall entering Couzens Hall or being in Miss Large’s room.

Lt. Stauch and Sgt. Damron were questioning him further at police headquarters at noon today.

Officers said they understood there are alarms on the windows at the residence hall and how a prowler entered the building unnoticed is still a question.

It is possible an intruder could walk through a heating tunnel which, leads into Couzens Hall, police said. A nurse at University Hospital’s emergency clinic told police yesterday a man answering Castrop’s description appeared al the clinic Saturday night to ask how he could get into the heating tunnel which leads to the East Quadrangle.

Castrop is listed as a sophomore in the Literary College at the University. He told detectives he is a pre-medical student.

His clothes which police confiscated and the toy gun are to be sent to FBI headquarters in Washington for analysis, Lt. Stauch said this morning.