Columbia Student Is Missing
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
A bookish Columbia University student with two final exams to go before commencement disappeared this week.
Richard Ng, 22, a senior in the university’s engineering school, was last seen Sunday night by suitemates, who reported him missing Tuesday. Surveillance cameras from his East Campus dorm show Mr. Ng leaving the building shortly after 10 p.m.His suitemates told police he left without the cell phone and laptop he usually carries.
He was spotted once more at about 10:30 p.m. on the Upper West Side, near the intersection of Broadway and West 72nd Street, according to a flier distributed by Columbia’s public safety office.
By Wednesday, university police had papered the campus with fliers and sent e-mail notifications to undergraduate students featuring Mr. Ng’s photo. His suitemates and some other students met with school guidance counselors and were interviewed by investigators, a school spokeswoman said.
Campus officers and police officers scoured the neighborhood but turned up nothing at his favorite hangouts.”He is not in any of those places,” a university spokeswoman, Sheri Whitely, said.
Yesterday, police were investigating a missing person’s report they said Mr. Ng’s parents filed Tuesday. Sources indicated that police were exploring the possibility of suicide. Those who know Mr. Ng said they were concerned because it was out of character for the quiet student to disappear in the middle of finals.
Others at Columbia corroborated the accounts that Mr. Ng was a student who took school seriously.”I remember him sitting in front,” a Ph.D. student who taught a class Mr. Ng took, Abhinav Kamra, said. “He got a good grade in my course.”
A classmate in the engineering school, Stephen Wang, 22, said, “He seems like the kind of kid who wouldn’t venture too far off campus.”
Students and school administrators said the university was on edge. A security guard stationed at Mr. Ng’s dorm said the community is worried that something bad might have happened to one of its own. “When someone is missing, you are worried about it like it’s a member of your family,” Luis Hinojosa said.
