Timothy Ginocchetti, arrested Thursday for allegedly stabbing his mother to death, is otherwise the textbook definition of an honor student, acquaintances say. Quiet and studious, Ginocchetti commuted to class every day from home as he worked toward earning a degree in the grueling civil engineering program.

‘He was a very quiet, very serious student,’ said Samuel Clemence, a professor of civil engineering and Ginocchetti’s academic advisor. ‘Worked hard, always came to class on time, just a very fine student.’

Tragedy is unfortunately not new to the Ginocchetti family; Timothy’s father, John, died fighting a fire in Pompey, N.Y., four years ago.

Few Syracuse University students in Ginocchetti’s major knew him very well. Michael Finizio, senior civil engineering student, said Ginocchetti was in almost all of his major classes, but Finizio never got a chance to talk to him or get to know him well.

‘Quiet is the one word I’d use to describe the kid,’ Finizio said.

Civil engineering majors are often required to work in groups for their classes, said senior civil engineering major Don Varley. Often, groups were the only contact Ginocchetti’s peers had with him outside the classroom, but even then Ginocchetti seemed to reach out more to the instructors than to fellow students, Varley said.

‘From what I understand, he talked to professors a lot,’ Varley said. ‘He didn’t get into the group work.’

Adam Tashjian, another senior civil engineering major, worked with Ginocchetti in a group project in 2004, their freshman year. Because Ginocchetti commuted to SU, setting up times for group work was difficult, Tashjian said.

Published on August 24, 2006 at 12:00 pm