Jessica Fingers, a 21-year-old woman, was found dead over the weekend in a Columbia University dorm room, according to The River Reporter.
The local publication says she may have died from a drug overdose.
She was reportedly found face up and unresponsive on the floor of a room in the college’s East Campus dormitory, in Manhattan, on Sunday morning.
Fingers had been on a leave of absence from the school since last year.
Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger said in an email to students:
“It is with deep sadness and regret that I write to inform you of the untimely loss of one of our students who has been on leave from Columbia but visiting campus at the time of her passing.”
According to the Columbia Spectator, Fingers had been a runner on the university’s cross-country team before she took her leave of absence.
She had reportedly been attending Columbia on a full scholarship. Jessica Fingers had taken the year of absence to “deal with blood clots.”
Sources told the N.Y. Post that police do not suspect foul play in Fingers’ death, but it is believed that the young woman and her boyfriend “had been doing drugs.”
The city medical examiner has yet to determine the cause of death.
In an interview with the N.Y. Daily News, Fingers’ mother, Athena, said her daughter had been visiting New York frequently to visit her boyfriend.
“I never liked him,” Athena Fingers said of her daughter’s romantic interest. “He influenced the decisions she made in the last few months. He wasn’t good for her.”
“She said she was in love,” the young woman’s mother told the publication. “That’s why she wanted to go into the city all of the time, to visit him.”
Other notable deaths in the past several days:
R.I.P.