The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the family of a University of Idaho graduate student murdered last August has agreed to a financial settlement with the university in a claim filed against the school. Katy Benoit’s family had filed a three million dollar tort claim against the UI in December.
REPORT: It had been just another quiet summer night in this college town readying then for the start of another fall semester. But that quiet was shattered forever when Katy Benoit was shot eleven times at her off-campus Moscow home. Police pursued a suspect and eventually revealed him to be Benoit’s former professor, Ernesto Bustamante. Bustamante, whose employment at the UI had ended just days before the murder, killed himself soon after, police said, at a local hotel.
Police said they found weapons and medications in his hotel room. Police revealed that Benoit had ended a relationship with her former professor.
University of Idaho President Duane Nellis expressed his sorrow at a press conference which followed those events:
“Words aren’t sufficient at a time like this, but as parents ourselves, we want Katy’s family to know that our hearts go out to them," Nellis said.
Nellis ordered an internal review of procedures at the UI, and the university subsequently revised its policies to more strongly discourage relationships between faculty and students.
Copyright 2012 Northwest Public Radio