Department of Public Safety officials are following up a very strong lead in connection with the numerous amount of sexually harassing calls received by Iowa State students last week.

Jerry Stewart, DPS associate director, said DPS investigators applied for a subpoena Monday for phone records from a New York state telephone company.

Stewart said preliminary investigation has discovered the calls received by ISU students were all coming from the same number in New York. Investigators have not yet been able to match a name with the number.

“I think we will be clearing this one,” Stewart said. “We were able to trap some records, showing the number of the caller.”

Other universities all across the nation apparently reported nearly identical cases of harassing telephone calls during the same time period, including the University of Kansas and Bowling Green University.

Twelve female students at ISU reported receiving sexually harassing and threatening phone calls on Wednesday and Thursday, and over the weekend DPS received several more reports of harassing calls that occurred during those days.

DPS officers met with officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Monday to discuss the case, Stewart said, and FBI officials believe the calls are linked.

Although calls to the other universities did not come from the same number as did the calls to ISU, they did all share a common area code and three-number prefix, indicating they originated from the same area.

Because of possible problems with jurisdiction, Stewart said the case will probably be pursued at the federal level.

Stewart said it also was a comfort to find out the calls did not originate from anywhere near the university.

“The big thing is that we know the individual responsible does not live in Ames and does not have ready access to ISU,” he said.