Student Confesses to Gallaudet Killings

A 20-year-old freshman accused of murdering two fellow deaf students at Gallaudet University admitted in a videotaped confession that robbery was the reason he stabbed one classmate to death and fatally beat the other, prosecutors said.

Joseph M. Mesa Jr. of Guam was ordered held without bond after an appearance in District of Columbia Superior Court.

“There is substantial probability that Mr. Mesa committed these murders,” said the hearing commissioner, J. Dennis Doyle, who rejected a request by the defense that Mesa be released to a halfway house.

Mesa is charged with two counts of felony murder while armed in the deaths of two 19-year-old freshmen killed about five months apart at the nation’s only liberal arts university for the deaf.