CAMBRIDGE—Cabot House senior Allen Woods was sitting by himself enjoying some frozen yogurt from a plastic cup on Tuesday when the house’s eco-rep, Jenna Newman, charged him and with a wild, whooping battle-cry, tackled him to the ground. She then seized the cup of frozen yogurt and, after dumping its remaining contents on his face, crushed it to pieces and stabbed him in the chest with one of the plastic shards, screaming “NOW YOU KNOW WHAT THE EARTH FEELS LIKE!”
It all started when Newman saw Woods use a paper cup for his coffee at breakfast that morning. When she asked him why he wasn’t using a mug, the only explanation her housemate could provide was that the paper cups were closer to the coffee. Witnesses say that Newman was upset by this remark but seemed to shake it off. By lunch, however, the eco-rep’s patience had apparently worn thin. Students nearby claim that she was eyeing Woods throughout the meal.
“The more napkins Allen used, the redder her face got,” says Christine Wan, a senior in Cabot. “When he got his forth paper cup of water, her eye started to twitch. It was kind of scary.”
It seems that the plastic cup of froyo was the last straw. Newman’s lunch companions say that they heard her mutter something about thirty-two napkins, six paper cups, and a plastic one. Then her hands began to shake as she whispered, “Look at him eating that froyo; he’s just toying with me!” It was at that moment that she stood up and charged across the dining hall, seizing and pile driving, Francisco Martinez, ‘13, who attempted to stand in her way. Nothing could stop her from getting to Woods.
The attack did not come as a great surprise to many Cabot House residents, who say that Newman had grown increasingly antagonistic in her environmental protection efforts over the course of the semester. “One time she smacked my plate so that all the leftover food fell on the ground while I was walking to the dish-return. When I looked at her she just glared and said ‘If you’re not gonna clean your plate, then you better clean the floor,’” recalls one student.
As authorities pulled her off of the victim, whom she believed to be dead, Newman demanded that his body be composted rather than buried, repeatedly screaming, “Woods belongs in the woods!”
The so-called ‘terra-rist’ was later taken to a local psychiatric institution, where she has agreed to remain until her trial, on the condition that she is to be medicated only with recycled needles. Woods, who was actually only unconscious at the end of the incident, was taken to Mount Auburn Hospital where he and Francisco Martinez are being treated for their injuries. Both men are in stable condition. Martinez, a Lowell House resident, swears that he will never eat inter-house again.
