"Argument over iPod preceded stabbing" Associated Press / September 17, 2011
BOWIE, Md. - A 19-year-old Maryland college student was charged yesterday in the fatal stabbing of her roommate inside their dormitory-style apartment after the two women argued about music playing from an iPod, police said.
The death of Dominique Frazier, 18, rattled the campus of Bowie State University, a small, historically black school in the Washington suburbs. Classes were canceled as students, who had been preparing to mark a week of homecoming festivities, gathered somberly inside a gymnasium.
Grief counselors were on hand, and some students huddled outside for an impromptu prayer service.
Fellow students described growing friction and fights between Frazier and her roommate, Alexis Simpson, who was charged with murder yesterday and was being held without bond pending a court hearing Monday. The latest confrontation occurred Thursday night after Simpson shut off an iPod belonging to Frazier as the women and other students were preparing for a school-sponsored comedy show, according to charging documents. The iPod had been playing music from a speaker system from inside the women’s shared bathroom.
Police said Frazier emerged from her bedroom, and the two began arguing in the hallway. Simpson produced what other students said appeared to be a knife and began making swinging motions at Frazier, who clutched at her bleeding throat, staggered into the hallway and collapsed, police said. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Simpson, of District Heights, Md., fled the campus after the stabbing, which was reported shortly after 8 p.m. She turned herself in to police around midnight. Her attorney did not immediately return a call seeking comment, and no one answered at a home phone number listed on the charging documents.
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