It’s nerve-racking enough to be a freshman at Yale without rumors of death threats and ransacked dormitory rooms. But that has been the anxious reality this semester, as the campus police investigate the case of a freshman who returned to his dorm last week to find his room vandalized, with death threats scrawled on the walls, the Yale Daily News reported today.

“Nobody really knows what’s going on,” one student told the newspaper. An administrator warned students in the victim’s residential college to look out for their safety, a police officer began to guard the entrance to the dorm where the incident occurred, and another official urged students to be “a force for good.” The Yale police said they were investigating, but declined to comment on the case, according to the paper.

Meanwhile, a note supposedly left at the scene has spurred rumors that the vandalism was jealous revenge for a role the victim had won in a university play. Other students suspect the incident was sparked by an a cappella rivalry.

In another twist, the victim’s roommate has withdrawn from Yale for medical reasons, the newspaper reported. —Sara Lipka