The body of Denison University senior David Hallman III was found nearly 24-hours after he was last seen at an off-campus bar in Granville, Ohio, earlier this month, which Ohio University officials say personifies the importance of mobilizing quickly in the case of a missing person.
It also serves as a reminder of a similarly tragic death that happened in Athens almost 16 years ago.
Keith Noble Jr., a Worthington native and OU freshman in April 1998, was last seen alive at a party on West Washington Street — one of three he visited that night. A pair of students walking the Hocking River bank found his body in the river near White’s Mill dam almost two weeks later, effectively ending a missing person search that Dave Williams, the Athens Police Department officer in charge of the investigative unit at the time, said was the most chilling of his tenure.
“Sixteen years later, it still sticks in my mind,” he said.
When an OU student goes missing, it’s not just a university concern. Depending on where a student lives and was last seen missing, APD can get involved.
The Athens and Ohio University police departments often team up when it comes to missing persons cases — their first call being across Athens to the other department, said Williams, who is now a reserve officer for APD.
For example, if a student living in a residence hall is reported missing and was last seen anywhere off campus, it triggers a joint investigation by APD and OUPD. Generally speaking, if a student was last seen on campus and lives on campus, only OU Police would be involved. But there is some wiggle room for some situation-based decision making when determining jurisdiction, officials said.
Williams said that, though missing persons cases are rare — nine in Athens County last year and two so far this year — local law enforcement officials make a point to act quickly, surpassing state obligations.
There’s extensive protocol when it comes to reporting and searching for missing people, but before all else, officials say their actions boil down to one thing: common sense.
“You can’t just have fixed guidelines that say they have to be gone for 24 hours or they have to be gone for 48 hours — anything arbitrary,” said OU Police Chief Andrew Powers. “You have to consider the total circumstances.”
In some instances, that means helping parents get in touch with a student who hasn’t phoned home in a while. In others, where the situation is more dire, officials spring into action and start looking for a missing person right away.
“If they say their son walked out the front door this morning at 6:45 a.m. to get the mail and we haven’t seen him in two hours, and we can’t reach him, and there is a small patch of blood on the driveway by the mailbox, we would take a report and initiate a case immediately,” said Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle. “So it’s really all circumstance.”
Those on the university side say that identifying students as missing is especially tough because their schedules are often erratic and they might not always think to let others know their whereabouts.
“The challenge with college students is that it’s not uncommon for students to be over at a friend’s room playing Xbox or something and decide they don’t feel like walking home and they just crash on their friend’s couch,” Powers said. “We’re going to be looking at the totality of the circumstances.”
University officials also get their fair share of calls about missing persons, mostly from concerned parents who haven’t heard from their children in a couple days.
Those inquiries come about once a week and typically are not too serious, OU Dean of Students Jenny Hall-Jones said. She’ll dispatch residence hall personnel to check in with the student in question, “stalk” their social media accounts, and — if necessary — look up when a student last used his or her OU ID to swipe into a hall or reserve a book at Alden Library.
In one instance this month, a student’s mother called OU President Roderick McDavis’ office because her student wasn’t picking up the phone. She was transferred to Hall-Jones, who found out the student’s phone was broken.
No big deal.
“If Chief Powers calls me, it’s going to be more serious because somebody’s called him and he’s already done an investigation, and he’s saying, ‘Jenny, seriously, we might have a missing student,’” said Hall-Jones. “I try not to panic when mom calls.”
Students’ off-campus addresses aren’t required information for the university, so its best course of action in dealing with a student who doesn’t live in the dorms is to contact APD, Hall-Jones said.
Sometimes students move in, enroll in classes and leave town under their own power, Hall-Jones said, begging the question: “What’s somebody who’s actually missing and who is somebody who’s taken off on their own as an adult?”
Students can, however, list an emergency contact that university officials can notify in such situations.
Proactive measures such as that one are helpful, officials said, though Williams said boots on the ground can save situations like Noble’s from ever developing.
“Had a cruiser been driving by Washington Street that night and saw Keith Noble stumbling around, and we had got out and arrested him, he would have been alive today,” Williams said.
— Allan Smith and Joshua Lim contributed to this report
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