In Memoriam

Bill Bertusi

Bill Bertusi
1964 graduation

Law Student's Death Is Termed Suicide

The Harvard Crimson

January 7, 1965

The death of William P. Bertusi, a first year student in the Law School, will be officially recorded as a suicide. Cambridge medical examiner David C. Dow '27 said yesterday that the death resulted from an overdose of barbiturates.

Bertusi's body was found Monday afternoon by his roommate in their Hastings Hall room. Dow said that he also discovered some sleeping pills in the room, and that these were apparently responsible for the death. He added that the autopsy and pathological tests indicated that Bertusi had swallowed a lethal dose, one too high to be taken accidentally.

Bertusi's friends said that they could think of no possible motive for suicide. They characterized him as an "easy-going, leadership-type" person, and recalled that he had been in good spirits when he returned to Harvard after the vacation.

A magna cum laude graduate of Yale and a Phi Beta Kappa scholar, Bertusi was 22 years old.

Funeral services will be held in his home town, LaSalle, Ill.