The letter was signed by the school's college counselor and the director of Dalton's high school. A copy reviewed by The Crimson says that "Billy has had peer relationship difficulties" but adds that he "is striving to ameliorate his social" skills.

"I guess you might say he was the big man on campus--the big negative man on campus," says the then-chair of Dalton's student-faculty discipline committee, Margot L. Gumport.

Some teachers at the school share similarly unflattering memories of the student, who graduated in 1980. He was fierce and prone to troublemaking, but at the same time inspired such loyalty and fear that few students in the school ever dared to tell faculty what he was up to.

Still, after an incident during his senior year, Cole flirted seriously with expulsion, a punishment so rare at image-conscious Dalton that Gumport recalls only "two or three" cases during her 35-year career at the school.

As a senior, Cole led a group of Dalton students who traveled to Harvard's Model United Nations conference at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston. Once there, Dalton students burned a rug in one room. Sheraton personnel were "furious," according to Gumport.

So top off the weekend, two Dalton students constructed a flaming device from toilet paper, paper bags and matches. Then they hrew the concoction out of one of the Sheraton's 23rd floor windows, according to the student newspaper.

"It should sort of shoot out over Boylston St.," recalls one of the two students, Michael A. Waxenberg '85. "It was some thermodynamic thing."

Dalton officials identified Cole and Waxenberg as being primarily responsible for the fire bells. While a dozen boys appear to have been involved in, the mayhem, Cole and Waxenberg were the only ones sent home early after the incident.

Dalton officials say they seriously considered expelling Cole, even though Waxenberg says he himself organised the destructive activity on the 23rd floor.

Cole was punished because he "showed little remorse, he wasn't cooperative," Waxenberg says. "I was definite more responsible for what went on."

"[Cole] was rude, insolent, uncooperative," says James Stewart, who taught history at Dalton and chaperoned the Boston trip.

Waxenberg was punished, out Cole, who had what Gumport refers to only as "a reputation," came in for sterner discipline.

"Billy was counting on being bright to excuse everything," Gumport says. "He said we infracted (sic) on his civil liberties."

Ultimately, Cole was suspended for more than a month and was placed on probation so strict that he would have been automatically expelled for any further violations of school rules. Dalton officials also required Cole to work in a burn treatment center for six hours each week.

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