Investigators travel to Minn. for Sharon case
TERESA FRALISH
Assistant News Editor
An investigator from Notre Dame Security Police met Wednesday in Minneapolis, Minn. with police from other areas in the Midwest where male college students have disappeared, said Rex Rakow, director of Notre Dame Security and Police. NDSP attended the meeting to discuss the Dec. 12 disappearance of freshman Chad Sharon with other investigators.
Shortly after the investigation into Sharon's disappearance began, NDSP contacted the FBI to investigate possible links between Sharon's case and the disappearances of three other male college students who had been drinking and disappeared in areas near a body of water, said Rakow.
"We asked the FBI to look into it," he said. "They didn't feel that there were any [connections]."
The main purpose of the meeting was not to discuss possible further links between the cases of missing male students but rather to compare notes on how the different police departments were conducting their investigations.
"We heard this meeting was going on [and] we asked if we could attend," said Rakow.
The three other cases involve missing students from the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn.
Rakow said his department came away from the meeting strongly encouraged that everything possible was being done to find Sharon.
"We think we're doing more than most of the agencies," said Rakow. "We're just uncovering every stone we can."
Along with this, Rakow said that the campus police in one of the Minnesota cases had simply listed the case in their crime file, forcing the missing student's parents to hire private investigators.
Sharon's has been unaccounted for since his disappearance on Dec. 12, where he was last seen attending an off-campus party on Corby Street. Sharon was reported missing by hall staff when he did not return to his Fisher Hall residence the next morning.
All News Stories for Monday, February 3, 2003
