UW will mourn David Zaharchuk, killed in Engineering I
     building in the small hours of New Year's Day, at a memorial
     service this Friday.
 
          The service, organized by the office of the dean of
     engineering, will begin at 2:30 p.m. in the Theatre of the
     Arts, Modern Languages building. It honours the memory of a
     graduate student -- days away from finishing his PhD thesis
     -- who is described by a long-time friend as "a very serious
     student . . . very, very conscientious . . .
     methodical . . .  a very nice fellow".
 
          He was so hard-working that he was in his workplace,
     the chemical metallurgy lab on the first floor of
     Engineering I, between 2 and 3 a.m. on Friday, January 1. He
     died in a hallway outside his lab, overlooking the
     engineering quadrangle, beaten to death with a weapon that
     police later found outside the building.
 
          The first murder ever to take place at UW, the event
     horrified the campus like a bad dream at the end of the
     sleepy Christmas and New Year's holiday. Returning students,
     staff and faculty saw the University Avenue flags at half-
     staff Monday morning, and a few police vehicles still parked
     near Engineering I and Carl Pollock Hall. Both buildings
     suffered vandalism that apparently was related to the
     killing.
 
          Police are seeking a man who was in the engineering
     buildings earlier that night, but are not calling him a
     "suspect".
 
          They suggest that Zaharchuk wasn't the original target
     of whoever wielded the weapon, but that he got in the way of
     "a break and enter and vandalism" that turned deadly.
 
          Nothing apparently was stolen during the break-in, but
     several doors and windows were smashed -- likely with a
     heavy instrument -- and one computer screen was destroyed,
     while nearby research equipment was left untouched. Objects
     in one office were thrown around. The damage extends around
     the first and second floors of Engineering I, in both the
     old and new wings. Minor damage in a second-floor lab in
     Carl Pollock Hall is thought to be related, although that
     lab is some distance away from Engineering I.
 
          UW police chief Al MacKenzie said officers think the
     vandal -- who is presumably also the killer -- got into the
     engineering complex by smashing the glass in a door of E1
     that faces onto the quadrangle.  The building was locked for
     the holidays, he pointed out.
 
          Exactly what happened after that is "speculation",
     MacKenzie said.  "The route really is not significant."
 
          UW police were called to the engineering complex about
     2:20 a.m. on New Year's Day when a student at work in a
     computer lab called in a report of a broken window in CPH.
     Police who went to investigate were joined by student
     security officers doing the building patrols that are
     routine at night when UW buildings are locked up.
 
          At about 2:45 the student team found Zaharchuk's
     bloodied body outside his lab, E1 room 1535.
 
          The investigation is being headed by the homicide
     division of Waterloo Regional Police, with UW police also
     involved.  University officials were called soon after the
     police arrived, with provost (and acting president) Dr. Alan
     George getting the call about 5 a.m. New Year's Day.
 
          Dr. Garry Rempel, chair of the chemical engineering
     department, and Dr. David Burns, dean of engineering, took
     charge of checking damage to the building and equipment,
     while a colleague who knew Zaharchuk got in touch with his
     family.
 
          Police sealed off the whole engineering complex, and
     later narrowed their investigation to E1, where they pored
     over floors looking for footprints and dusted doors for
     fingerprints.
 
          The building was kept sealed by police until Sunday
     evening, allowing a cleanup just in time for faculty,
     students and staff to return for the first day of winter
     classes Monday.
 
          Although Thursday night was New Year's Eve (with a
     major party taking place at Federation Hall), some students
     besides Zaharchuk were at work in academic areas.  Among
     them were a group in a computer lab in Engineering 2, who
     saw a man in a light-coloured trench coat around 1:30 a.m.
     He asked for their help in logging on to a computer so he
     could play games, and left when they refused.
 
          That man -- now being sought by police -- is described
     as "Male White, 5'10" - 5'11",  medium weight and at the time
     was wearing a light coloured  trench coat. . . .  It is not
     known if this person was involved, but Police would like to
     speak to him."
 
          Police were earlier looking for another man who took a
     taxi from the engineering area to Westmount Road in
     Kitchener in the early hours. Monday evening they said he
     had been found and interviewed, and "has not been able
     to add anything to the investigation".
 
          Police are asking that anyone who had a vehicle parked
     anywhere near the campus during the early morning hours on
     New Year's, and residents in the immediate area, check their
     vehicles for pieces of discarded clothing that does not
     belong to them.
 
          Anyone with information that could help police is being
     asked to call Waterloo Regional Police, 653-7700, or UW
     Police, 888-4911.  Investigators are expected to interview
     dozens of people on campus to get the background on
     movements in the engineering buildings, on people who might
     have been there, and on related questions.
 
          MacKenzie would not comment on whether the vandal, and
     presumed killer, appears to be someone who knew the
     engineering buildings.  "We are at a very preliminary stage
     of the investigation," said Staff-Sergeant Al Hunter of the
     regional police on Sunday evening.
 
          MacKenzie said it would be wise for people on campus to
     take care, particularly at night, over the coming days, and
     noted that extra security patrols will be in operation on
     the night shift. He said four more guards -- a combination
     of police officers and student watchers -- will be
     patrolling at any given time.
 
          "Caution and prudence" were also recommended in a memo
     from George, distributed across campus on Monday morning.
     "As always, personal safety depends to some degree on
     individual actions," he wrote.
 
          Zaharchuk was simply "at the wrong place at the wrong
     time", said Sergeant Dennis Butcher of the regional police,
     one of the detectives handling the case.
 
          He frequently kept late hours, colleagues say, as he
     worked on the last stages of his doctoral thesis.
 
          His wife, Susan Wake, whom he met at UW, moved to
     Montreal last year and is now teaching philosophy at
     Concordia University. Zaharchuk was eager to finish his
     research work and rejoin her. In the meantime, he made his
     home with his parents in the Weston area of Toronto,
     commuting to Waterloo several days a week and frequently
     napping on a couch on campus between bouts of lab work and
     writing.
 
          "Roughly in mid-December, he mentioned to me that it
     was a matter of a few appendices and a few graphs," said Dr.
     Tom Duever, now a faculty member in UW's chemical
     engineering department, who has known Zaharchuk since they
     were classmates in chem eng together.
 
          Both graduated in 1982; Duever, whose research was more
     theoretical, finished his PhD work sooner than Zaharchuk,
     who was doing laboratory work related to the processing of
     iron ore pellets.
 
          His supervisor was Dr. John Wynnyckyj, who returned
     just after the murder from a sabbatical term spent in
     Ukraine. Duever suggested that Zaharchuk may have been keen
     to complete some of his work to show Wynnyckyj as soon as he
     got back to Waterloo.
 
          The thesis was so nearly finished that it may be
     possible to submit it and have Zaharchuk's doctorate awarded
     posthumously, Rempel said on Monday.
 
          "It's particularly tragic because of the type of person
     he was," Duever said about his friend's death.
 
          Although Zaharchuk was certainly serious about his
     work, he had many other interests, Duever noted -- as befits
     one of the first UW engineering students to graduate with a
     minor in an unrelated field (English).
 
          "He was very, very interested in politics, in
     philosophy, in international events." He was a member of a
     campus group exploring the political philosophy of
     Objectivism, Duever noted.
 
          "He was a very soft-spoken, just a very nice fellow."
 
          Plans are being launched for a bursary or scholarship
     in Zaharchuk's memory, said Wynnyckyj, suggesting that
     colleagues and others should think about making donations as
     soon as details of the fund are announced.  Darren Meister,
     president of the Graduate Student Association, said Monday
     that cash contributions to a memorial fund will be accepted
     at the GSA's office in the Graduate House.
 
          The funeral service was held yesterday at a funeral
     home in west-end Toronto associated with the Ukrainian-
     Canadian community, an ethnic background shared by Zaharchuk
     and Wynnyckyj.  UW officials, including Burns and vice-
     president (university relations) Dr. Roger Downer, were
     there along with many people from chemical engineering.