Misrach Ewunetie: Princeton student, 20, found dead 6 days after she went missing from campus
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY: Six days after going missing, Princeton University student Misrach Ewunetie's body was discovered at around 1 pm on Thursday, October 20, according to local authorities. She was last seen at her university accommodation in Scully Hall.
According to the Mercer County Prosecutor's office, a facilities worker discovered the 20-year-old's body behind the tennis court close to the perimeter of the Ivy League campus. Despite the fact that there were no evident signs of an injury and that it does not seem suspicious or criminal in character, authorities said they do not know the exact cause of death for the woman, reported New York Post. Police do not suspect that Ewunetie's death was the result of foul play, the Ivy League school added in a statement. “Misrach’s death is an unthinkable tragedy. Our hearts go out to her family, her friends and the many others who knew and loved her,” Princeton VP W Rochelle Calhoun said in a statement. “Princeton is a close-knit community, and we mourn Misrach together.” Although the specifics of the event have not yet been made public, Calhoun said the school intends to host an event in Ewunetie's honor. The accomplished student vanished on October 14 and her disappearance ignited a ferocious search operation in New Jersey.
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Misrach’s death is an unthinkable tragedy. Our hearts go out to Misrach’s family, her friends and the many others who knew and loved her.
— Princeton University (@Princeton) October 20, 2022
Princeton is a close-knit community and we mourn Misrach together.
The student newspaper, The Daily Princetonian, reported that the night before she went missing, Misrach had been working as a volunteer at one of Princeton's upscale dining establishments. “On Thursday night, one of our members who was initially signed up for duty was unable to attend our event, and Misrach volunteered to cover their shift. After the club had closed and all of the duty responsibilities had been fulfilled, Misrach—as well as the other members on duty—left for the night,” the dining club said in a statement as per New York Post. The expansive grounds of the school were being searched by authorities using watercraft and drones. The student at the prestigious institution, Ewunetie, was last seen in the early hours of the morning cleaning her teeth in Scully Hall. After roughly a 30-minute walk from her room, according to her brother, her phone pinged close to an off-campus housing complex before going silent.
School administrators had issued numerous notifications imploring anyone with information on her disappearance to come forward. The police searched the housing complex three times without any success. After learning that Ewunetie had skipped a scheduled session for her US citizenship application, her family—who hail from Ethiopia but now reside in Ohio—notified the authorities on October 15. Misrach’s distraught brother, Universe, appeared on ABC's Good Morning America just hours before authorities discovered her dead and pleaded for her to come back. “We just want the law to be faster because time is of the essence,” he said. “We can take any help we can find.” He had referred to the verdant Ivy-League grounds as being "very insular" and had questioned why his sister's phone had rung when she was off-campus. “So it’s very odd that her phone would be off campus. Like everything is on campus,” he said.
Misrach, a top student, worked as a summer business analyst intern at the Ohio office of McKinsey & Company for the last two summers. She started at Princeton in the fall of 2020 and was supposed to graduate from the university in 2024. She participated in several student organizations on campus, including the Pre-College Research Institute, the Princeton Ethiopian and Eritrean Student Association, and Matriculate, which, according to its website, pairs students with "low-income, high-achieving high schoolers to serve as virtual advisers for them through the college application process."