When Yale graduate Tyler Carlisle knifed his friend Alexander Michaud and jumped from a campus window to his death in late May, no one could comprehend it.
Now it appears that Carlisle flew into a jealous rage at his campus apartment during an alcohol-fueled threesome with his old friend.
He and Michaud, both 21, were members of the most conservative arm of the university’s debating society, and had grown up together in Manchester, New Hampshire.
As they romped with a female undergraduate, things went very wrong, according to a disturbing report obtained by Gawker.
Officers approaching the apartment about 5:30 a.m. said they heard a woman’s voice screaming “In here!” and entered to find Michaud sitting in a chair naked in the living room “covered in blood.”
The woman, also naked, was holding a white T-shirt to his neck to stem the flow of blood from a single puncture wound. The female undergraduate was “too distraught at the time of the incident to give a statement,” the report said.
Michaud was taken to hospital, where he was treated and stabilized, before giving a statement to police, which Officer Tiffany Ortiz outlined in the report: “Michaud, [name redacted] and Carlisle had all been drinking. The three of them were having sex in the bedroom, and Carlisle started to get jealous of Michaud and [redacted]. Carlisle grabbed a knife that was on the night stand next to the bed. Carlisle stabbed Michaud in the neck area. Michaud does not remember how he got to the living room. Michaud sat on the chair in the living room and told [redacted] to call 911. [Redacted] grabbed a white T-shirt and held it to Michaud’s neck to stop the bleeding. Carlisle then went to the living room and started pacing back and forth, saying ‘I’m sorry.’ Carlisle sat on the window sill and said he was going to jump. Michaud did not see Carlisle jump out of the window.”
Carlisle, a philosophy major with a background in math and computer science, was a highly intelligent, motivated and politically active member of the student community. A poignant comment posted under a photo of his graduation, just days before his death, reads: “I just know your grandmother is so proud of you.”
His LinkedIn page lists reams of achievements from Eagle Scout to working as a member of presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s campaign team.
“I’ve been blessed with a close group of friends that have stimulated and challenged me for these four years,” Carlisle wrote on the professional networking site. “Getting to know, and work with, members from every political background has been one of the best challenges I could have asked for.”
Carlisle had planned to hand over the keys to his apartment to Michaud to take over the lease, a friend told Yale Daily News, adding that both were members of the Party of the Right, the most conservative of seven parties within the prestigious university’s political union.
Shell-shocked friends told a local paper he “had a lot to live for” and that they had expected him to be a senator one day.
The pastor at his church said Carlisle had “a bright and promising future ahead of him” and had been a “friendly, caring young man, who was known for his gentle soul.”
The graduate, who was voted “most likely to succeed” at high school and had just enlisted in the US Army, played the harp and “served as a strong role model to many younger members in the church.”