Click here to read the university’s statement, at bottom.
Trevor Boehm, a Communication freshman who was last seen on Nov. 5, has died, the university confirmed Monday in a statement. He was 20.
Boehm’s body was found in Lake Michigan near Montrose Harbor in Chicago on Sunday, and medical examiners pronounced him dead on the scene. A positive identification of Boehm was made known to university officials early Monday evening. University spokesman Al Cubbage has repeatedly said that there has been no sign of foul play.
Boehm was a theater major and was involved with on campus theater production.
“I’ve never known somebody who knew him who didn’t like him,” McCormick sophomore and longtime friend Tyler Boschert said in an interview last week.
“Our hearts go out to Trevor’s family and our thoughts are with them at this time,” said Northwestern University President Henry Bienen in the statement. “The death of one of our students affects the entire Northwestern community. We join the Boehm family in mourning the loss of Trevor.”
A vigil for Boehm has been planned for Monday at Alice Millar Chapel at 8 p.m. Members of Boehm’s family and friends will read prepared statements, and “then there’ll be time for anyone who wants to to stand up and share stories of Trevor or things they want to say,” said SESP sophomore and Boehm acquaintance Amy Pooley, who is helping organize the vigil. The candlelight ceremony will follow.
Staffers of the Northwestern University Counseling and Psychological Services have been notified and are available to students, the university statement said.
Boehm, of Monument, Colo., became the subject of a campuswide search after his parents arrived for Parents’ Weekend but could not locate him. They informally notified the university on Nov. 8, and filed a missing person report with University Police the next day.
Subsequent searches yielded nothing until Thursday morning, when a University Police officer found Boehm’s jacket, keys, cell phone and university ID on the rocks by the Lakefill on North Campus. The jacket was at least partially wet, but officials were unsure whether it had been there the whole time, or had blown there. University Police and the Coast Guard searched that area using submersible cameras on Friday, to no avail.
Boehm’s body was found in Lake Michigan by the North Side of Chicago on Sunday, 11 days after he last used his WildCARD at a dining hall.
The university’s statement is below.
Body Identified As Missing Northwestern StudentStatement by Alan K. Cubbage, Vice President, University Relations, Regarding Missing Northwestern Student
November 17, 2008The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office today (Nov. 17) notified Northwestern University that the body of a man found yesterday in Lake Michigan was that of Northwestern University student Trevor J. Boehm.
Boehm, 20, a first-year student from Monument, Col., had been reported missing last Sunday (Nov. 9). On Thursday (Nov.13), his jacket, which contained Trevor’s Northwestern identification card, keys, and cell phone, was found among the rocks on the shore of Lake Michigan on Northwestern’s Evanston campus.
“Our hearts go out to Trevor’s family and our thoughts are with them at this time,” said Northwestern University President Henry S. Bienen. “The death of one of our students affects the entire Northwestern community. We join the Boehm family in mourning the loss of Trevor.”
Boehm was a student in Northwestern’s School of Communication and involved in theater productions on campus.
Members of the Northwestern University Counseling and Psychological Services staff have been notified and are available to students.
NORTHWESTERN NEWS: www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/
NOTE TO MEDIA: THE FAMILY OF TREVOR BOEHM HAS SAID THAT THEY DO NOT WANT TO SPEAK TO THE MEDIA AND ASK THAT THEIR PRIVACY BE RESPECTED. A VIGIL ON CAMPUS ON MONDAY WILL NOT BE OPEN TO THE MEDIA.