Two Rowan students beaten, robbed 10 minutes apart

Two Rowan University students were assaulted and robbed about 10 minutes apart early yesterday, and university authorities said the same three men may have been responsible for both crimes.

No arrests had been made.

Two of the assailants were armed, and all three wore hooded sweatshirts or hooded jackets with dark pants, and escaped in a tan sedan. In both cases, cell phones and wallets were stolen.

"It would be remarkable if it was two different groups," said Tim Michener, head of public safety for the Glassboro school.

About 12:45 a.m., three men approached a male student, 19, at a gazebo at Magnolia Hall, a coed dormitory for up to 800 students near Carpenter Street and Normal Boulevard.

The men robbed the student, punched him, and kicked him in the mouth, Michener said. The student declined to go to a hospital.

The second victim, a 25-year-old male student, was assaulted at the Crossings Apartments west of campus on Mullica Hill Road. He was treated for facial and other head wounds at Kennedy Memorial Hospitals-University Medical Center/Washington Township.

"His wounds were significant but not life-threatening," Michener said.

The Crossings Apartments are about two blocks from where Rowan student Donald Farrell was beaten to death in October 2007.

Farrell, 19, of Boonton, N.J., was in a convenience-store parking lot on Route 322 when two men knocked him to the ground, beat and kicked him, and stole his wallet. He died of severe head and stomach injuries the next day.

Despite a $100,000 reward, no suspects have been arrested.

Rowan's crime rate has declined in recent years, said Joe Cardona, a spokesman for the 10,000-student school. Rowan put additional security measures in place after the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007, he said, and reevaluated security after Farrell's death.

"That's the disheartening part," Cardona said. "We have a laundry list of all the initiatives we've put in place, and this still happens."

On Monday night, he said, 18 people were on security patrol.

Anyone with information is asked to call Glassboro police at 856-881-1501, Ext. 88209, or campus police at 856-256-4922.