Georgetown 1L is slain; friend is charged
A first-year Georgetown law student was found fatally stabbed early Sunday, and a friend has been charged with second-degree murder in the case.
Mark Edward Waugh, 23, died after a night of drinking with the suspect, Rahul Gupta, 24, and two others, report the Washington Post and Gazette.net. Gupta and Waugh had been friends at Langley High School in McLean, Va. The group, which include Gupta’s girlfriend, was celebrating Gupta’s birthday.
Police found the body when they responded to a report of trouble at an apartment in Silver Spring, the Post says. The apartment belonged to Gupta’s girlfriend, the Gazette.net says.
According to arrest records, police heard yelling inside the apartment when they arrived, and when they opened an unlocked door, a woman ran toward the officers, saying she didn’t know what had happened. Waugh was lying on the floor, covered in blood, and was unresponsive. Gupta was also on the floor and bloody, police say, but he was unhurt.
According to the charging papers, Gupta told police he walked in and saw his friend and girlfriend were cheating on him. “I walked in on them cheating and I killed my buddy,” Gupta allegedly said. An anonymous law enforcement official told the Post it’s unclear if the account of cheating was true.
Later, Gupta allegedly told the police he had made a mistake and his friend had tried to kill him, according to the Post account. The woman told investigators that the three had gone to the apartment after the night out, and she had continued drinking there. She said she did not remember anything after the drinking until she heard Gupta yelling at her to call 911.
Gupta has an undergrad degree in biomedical engineering and a master’s degree in physiology, his lawyer told the Post.
Georgetown issued a statement saying that Waugh was “a bright young man” who was full of potential.
