A Real-Life Whodunit: Mystery Gifts Spur Media Frenzy

By KATHRYN MASTERSON

In college fund raising, $5-million or $10-million donations don't typically attract much attention. That has changed in the past few weeks, after a series of unsolicited $6-million and $7-million checks started arriving at colleges around the country, with instructions not to investigate who had given them.

Now colleges that couldn't get more than a brief mention of a gift in the local press are fielding calls from ABC News, the BBC, and The New York Times.

The story has