No charges to be filed in Magill Hall fight

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle will not file charges in a fight that happened Monday morning on the Southeast Missouri State University campus that ended with one student being treated at a hospital.

Swingle said in a news release Friday afternoon that there was no clear picture who was the aggressor in the fight, which occurred at Magill Hall. One student, freshman Richard Samuel, required surgery on his arm to treat cuts to the bone, his mother, Christa Samuel, told the Southeast Missourian.

"The fight was a mutual fight between two adult males," Swingle said in the news release. "The two men gave drastically different versions as to who started the fight, It would be impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt which one was the initial aggressor. As a result, self-defense cannot be ruled out as to either fighter."

Samuel admitted to police that he went to the bathroom where the fight happened expecting a fight, while the other student, only identified as a 19-year-old, said Samuel was the aggressor.

Look for more details on this story in Saturday's edition of the Southeast Missourian.