Another Southeast fraternity house vandalized with paint

~ The crime included many vulgarities, including a reference to rape.

Police said Wednesday they have no suspects in the spray-painting vandalism of a Southeast Missouri State University fraternity's off-campus house.

Obscenities aimed at the Sigma Tau Gamma fraternity were spray-painted in green and black on the red-brick house at 333 N. Pacific St. in Cape Girardeau. The words were left on the sides of the home, inside a rear garage and on the front porch's floor.

Fraternity members used a 5-by-4-foot board to cover up one vulgar statement referring to rape on the front of the home.

Two cars parked behind the home were also targeted but with slices of baloney, not paint. Discolored circles from where the processed meat had lain could be seen on the hood of one of the vehicles behind the house Wednesday.

"Obviously somebody is mad at us," said fraternity president and Southeast senior Derrick Stewart, 22. "This is just straight up vandalism."

Around 5 a.m. Tuesday, a fraternity member heard people outside the house. When he and others went outside to investigate, they smelled fresh paint but no one was around, Stewart said.

He and a housemate ran around the block in opposite directions but did not find any vandals.

Searches around the house and in nearby garbage bins for spray paint cans also were fruitless.

Stewart said he did not know who may have pulled the prank but speculated the vandals were either not in a fraternity or did not like Greek life.

"I just can't see another frat saying something like that," Stewart said, referring to the rape graffiti.

The fraternity planned to bring in a pressure washer and paint remover today to clean up the house, Stewart said.

In a separate incident involving fraternities in October, nine men were charged with trespassing and property damage for sneaking into the Pi Kappa Alpha Lodge and spray-painting the walls of a room. Most charged in the incident were members of the Sigma Chi fraternity. The vandalism allegedly was in retaliation for Pi Kappa Alpha members stealing a Sigma Chi goat.

kmorrison@semissourian.com

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