Craig Feifarek ’04 killed 13 people in eight days. With a water gun.

Feifarek participated in Lawrance Hall’s game of “Assassins,” the popular campus activity in which students are assigned a target student to “kill” in designated areas. Several colleges hold their own games of Assassins each year to foster community spirit, to encourage intra-college bonding and to have fun. Ezra Stiles College started two games — one in Lawrance and one in the college — Jan. 29, while Trumbull College began its annual game Feb. 12.

Trumbull has 117 participants this year. Trumbull Assassins coordinator Sulaiman Ijaz ’01 said approximately half of his college’s assassins were still alive last night — but they could be dead by morning. But Lawrance assassins moved much more quickly: 40 percent of Lawrance players were dead after one day, according to an e-mail circulated by co-coordinator Monique Rose ’01.

While Stiles has a separate game for freshmen and upperclassmen, Ijaz said he does not see any reason to have two games because a main point of Assassins is for people to meet other members of their college, especially for freshmen to meet upperclassmen.

Several Stiles freshmen said their college may play separate games because the distance between the college and Old Campus would probably discourage people from participating.

Feifarek said he enjoyed the game because it enabled him to meet new people in Lawrance, but perhaps these people weren’t too happy about meeting him and his water gun. Feifarek took the generally innocuous game to new levels, by printing out pictures of his kills from the online facebook and posting them on his bedroom wall.

“That way I can keep track of them,” Feifarek said. “For a few of them, I had to print the pictures out so I knew who they were. Don’t worry, I’m not psycho.”

Rules vary from college to college, but generally students are not allowed to make kills in bathrooms, bedrooms, classrooms, workplaces, dining halls or varsity practices.

Many Yalies have devised elaborate schemes to lure their targets out of their bedrooms to make the kill. Feifarek killed target Virginia Flores ’04 on her birthday by bringing a birthday card to her door with the inscription, “The moose is loose on you, sucka!”

Jennifer Kowitt ’04 ended Feifarek’s killing spree by forging an alliance with his last target, David Haltom ’04.

“Dave begged Craig to wait another day to kill him because he hadn’t killed anyone yet,” Kowitt said. “So after a day, he called him and told him he could come downstairs and kill him, and he called me to come kill Craig. I was waiting behind the door when Craig came in, and I jumped around to tap him with my gun.”

The deans and masters of several colleges play Assassins, including Trumbull Dean Peter Novak. Stiles Master Paul Fry said his teenage son Spencer has played Stiles Assassins for several years and loved it, and he encourages Stilesians to participate.

“I don’t play it because I’m paranoid enough without watching my back all the time,” Fry said. “But I encourage it because I like anything that makes people think more carefully about each other and become a closer community as a result.”

[ydn-legacy-photo-inline id=”20817″ ]