A 20-year old Princeton University student’s cellphone pinged near a New Jersey housing complex two days after she disappeared.
Misrach Ewunetie went missing on Friday, but she was sharing her location with a family member. Then her phone pinged off campus, near Penn’s Neck early Sunday morning, before it was shut off.
Her brother describes his sister’s disappearance as a pure nightmare that he cannot wake up from.
“That’s the last place her phone pinged,” her brother Universe Equnetie, 20, said. “It’s very unlike her to turn off her phone, kids these days don’t turn off their phones, they love their phones.”
Authorities have gone to the undisclosed housing complex three times, including once with police dogs, since the phone last pinged at 3:27 a.m. Universe joined officers on the third search, but it only lasted a half hour.
“It was not enough time because the back area was wooded and full of ground vines and shrubs,” he said. “Cops couldn’t search the houses at the complex without a warrant, but they did speak with some of the residents.”
Misrach Ewunetie, a junior at the elite Ivy League college, was last seen near Scully Hall where she lived on campus at about 3 a.m. Friday.
According to her brother, the family is from Ethiopia and Misrach missed a meeting about her application the day after her disappearance and never showed up.
“Our parents, who live in Ohio, have not been able to eat or sleep since Friday,” said Universe. “She is the gem of the house, their only daughter and the youngest. She is very loved.”
6 days after last receiving a ping on Misrach’s phone, police recovered her deceased body.
The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office said, “Misrach’s body was discovered Thursday afternoon by an employee at the University. They found her outside the facilities grounds near the tennis courts.”
“There were no obvious signs of injury and her death does not appear suspicious or criminal in nature,” prosecutors said in a statement. “However, an autopsy will be performed.”
Investigators said they found her phone near her body and do not believe her body was placed where it was found.
“She was last seen alive hours after the school’s Terrace Club had a live music event at which she volunteered for housekeeping tasks,” the club’s leader Alexander Moravcsik said on Thursday. “Another student had canceled, opening up the spot which Ewunetie volunteered to cover.”
In a statement, the school’s Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun called Ewunetie’s death an “unthinkable tragedy.”
“We are heartbroken by the tragic news,” he wrote. “Our hearts go out to her family, friends and fellow students who knew and loved her.”
