Body of missing student from Long Island found

  Eyewitness NewsEVANSTON, Ill. -- The body of a Northwestern University student who was last seen leaving a weekend party has been found in a harbor near the school's suburban Chicago campus.

Authorities say the body of 18-year-old sophomore Harsha Maddula, of New Hyde Park, was pulled late Thursday from a harbor in Wilmette, a town north of Evanston.

Northwestern spokesman Alan Cubbage says Maddula's wallet with a university identification card and his cellphone was found on the body, which showed no signs of foul play. He said Wilmette police were notified shortly before 7 p.m. that a body was found by a boater. Wilmette police had no comment.

"On behalf of Northwestern University, I extend our deepest sympathies to Harsha's family and to his many friends at Northwestern. Our hearts and thoughts are with them," University President Morton Schapiro said in a statement released by the university.

Maddula was last seen after midnight Saturday. A relative says he went to the party with several friends and disappeared after he and others left for another party.

Cubbage said police began focusing their search for Maddula at the harbor after a check of activity for his cellphone determined the last signal from it was in that area.

His parents, Prasad Maddula and Dhana Lakshmi Maddula, and other relatives arrived in Evanston on Monday to join the search for the pre-med engineering student, who had been recently diagnosed with diabetes.

Maddula's parents, along with the student's uncle, Sam Maddali, on Wednesday announced a $25,000 reward for information leading to the student's whereabouts. They were standing at Wilmette Harbor, where their son's body was found, when they made the announcement.

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Northwestern student from Long Island goes missing

Web produced by Bill King, Eyewitness NewsNEW HYDE PARK, N.Y. (WABC) -- The FBI has joined the search for a college student from Long Island who disappeared over the weekend.

His desperate parents flew from their home in New Hyde Park to Chicago, where 18-year-old Harsha Maddula goes to school, to help with the search.

Maddula hasn't been seen since a party early Saturday morning.

The pre-med student is a sophomore at Northwestern University.

Police there were notified when he didn't show up for a meeting. By Monday, his parents called police themselves.

"I don't know after the party what happened to him, and nobody can find him and nobody can trace him," dad Prasad Maddula said. "I am still surprised why they cannot trace him."

Authorities say it is a frustrating search because there just isn't a lot of evidence.

There has been no activity on Maddula's cell phone, he didn't use his dorm key and he doesn't appear anywhere on surveillance video.

And even with that, his parents say there's no way he simply walked away.

"No, absolutely not, 200 percent sure," mom Dhannalakshmi Maddula said. "He just came Wednesday over here to help first year students. Classes start this Thursday, but he wants to help. He's a very helping boy and he's so good. I don't know what happened."

He was excited, his parents say, to help incoming freshman get acclimated to the campus.

He is described as studious and responsible. He is also diabetic.

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Snake bite costs exchange student $143,000

  Eyewitness NewsSAN DIEGO (WABC) -- The cost of hospital treatment for a snakebite victim in California is making headlines overseas.

A Norwegian exchange student at the University of California was recently bitten by a rattlesnake in San Diego.

He was treated overnight at a hospital.

His insurance company in Norway howled at the bill, which topped $143,000.

The biggest bites came from two doses of anti-venom. One cost $102,440, while the second rang up at $25,610.

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Student, 12, suspended after 'kill list' found

SOUTHOLD (WABC) -- A good will gesture led a Long Island student to discover he and several classmates are on a kill list. The list contained more than just names.

"It literally said at the top in big letters, 'kill list.' So it's scary," Noah Ludlow, 12, said.

Pace thought he was being nice when he invited a new classmate, who doesn't speak the best English, to sit at lunch with Noah and his friends. But then Noah saw what the student had written in his notebook.

"I look over and there's a bunch of names and one of them is my first name and I say, 'Is that me?' He goes yeah and he had illustration for each one how he was gonna kill each one," Pace said.

He says he saw 20 names in all. He told a teacher at Southold Junior Senior High School. Administrators say they quickly notified police, who removed the 12-year-old for an interview and a medical examination. Even though he's been suspended from school, investigators declined to file criminal charges.

"Usually it turns criminal when it is a direct threat from one person to another person and at this point I don't think our investigation has leaned towards any direct threats being made," police said.

In fact, school administrators say they're convinced the student who wrote the list didn't actually understand what it meant when he drew it up. Still, Superintendent David Gamberg says they haven't taken it lightly, suspending the student who may not be allowed back.

"We take all of these matters - anything that approaches anything like this is taken seriously and should be taken seriously," Gamberg said.

But not seriously enough for Noah's mom, who has chosen to home school her son until she knows for sure his classmate isn't coming back.

"The child has instilled fear in students in the place they're supposed to feel safe," she said.

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Search intensifies for missing student

By YUNJI DE NEIS | Good Morning America – 8 hours agoDozens of people gathered to ride the route presumably taken by missing Louisiana college student Michaela "Mickey" Shunick when she vanished on her bike last Saturday.

Friends and searchers took to the route at dusk Thursday, following the path on which Shunick set out in the early hours of Saturday morning. FBI, U.S. Marshals and local police are involved in the search that they are treating as a missing-person case, but have not ruled out foul play.

Shunick, 22, a senior anthropology major at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, left friend Brettly Wilson's house on her bike just before 2 a.m. Saturday after a night out, and hasn't been heard from since.

"I asked her to be safe ... I saw her get to the driveway and that was the last time I saw her," Wilson said.

Friends and family held a candle light vigil Tuesday night, and announced a reward of $20,000 for tips leading to her whereabouts. Searches by K-9 units, police and volunteers have turned up no hints of what happened, but her family remains hopeful.

"I think she's OK, I think she's alive. I think she's out there," Mickey's sister, Charlene, told ABC affiliate KATC-TV in Lafayette, La.

The FBI, state and local police, and nearly a thousand volunteers are searching this morning, but have found no trace of the young woman. Friends say she wasn't drinking, and that Shunick was an avid cyclist, so riding her bike at that hour was not unusual.

Shunick's older sister says she never would have left on her own, and that Saturday was her brother's graduation. Monday was Mickey's own 22nd birthday, and the two had big plans.

"She's my mini-me. She's one of my best friends and I just miss her and I want to know what's going on," sister Charlie Shunick said through tears.

For her father, not knowing is the hardest part.

"If she has been taken by somebody, where is she? What are they doing to her? It's better being around people like over here. It's tougher when you're alone at night," Tom Shunick told ABC News.

Her family says they can't think of any reason anybody might want to harm Shunick, and her father said although he's grateful for the search efforts, he wishes the search had started earlier.

"None of the video cameras got checked over the weekend because the managers weren't in and waited two days to check the video cameras," he told Lafayette newspaper The Advertiser. "If somebody has abducted her and taken her on the interstate [highway] or something, they got a two-day head start."

Mickey Shunick always carried mace when she rode her bike, her family says, adding that they will keep searching, no matter how long it takes.

"We're going to see her soon, we're going to get her home and this is going to be over soon," friend Wilson said.

Shunick's family is offering a $25,000 reward for any information in the case. They say that they hope everyone is on the lookout for her, including those in states that border Louisiana.

The family plans to send out a robo-call today to the entire parish -- which consists of hundreds of thousands of people in the region -- hoping that someone knows where Mickey is.

Shunick is 5-foot-1 and 115 pounds. She was last seen wearing a pastel multi-colored striped shirt, light-wash skinny jeans and gray shoes.

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Colorado student in black face sparks racial debate

  Eyewitness NewsCOLORADO SPRINGS (WABC) -- A school project in Colorado turned into a debate about racism after an 8-year-old boy in Colorado Springs dressed up like Martin Luther King, Jr.

The second grader, Sean King, went all out for the assignment to portray a historical figure and even painted his face black.

"I worked very hard," King said. "I tried my best."

The school district says a staff member at the Meridian Ranch Elementary School and some students were offended.

The student and his parents were called to the principal's office, and Sean was asked to wash the paint off.

"They thought it was inappropriate and it will be disrespectful to black people, and I say its not, I like black people," he said. "It's just a costume. I don't want to insult anybody"

His parents pulled him out of school and say they aren't sure if they will send him back, even though the school district says he can return without consequence.

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Violent night at Seton Hall: 1 student shot, 1 assaulted

  Eyewitness NewsSOUTH ORANGE (WABC) -- Police in New Jersey are searching for suspects after a Seton Hall student was shot and another assaulted.

The gunfire rang out in an off-campus apartment right next to police headquarters.

South Orange police are looking for a number of people, and they haven't been much more specific than that.

Officers received reports of shots fire just after 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Grove Terrace Apartments. Moments later, a student showed up at the station saying he'd been shot.

During the investigation, authorities discovered that another student had been assaulted.

Both students are being treated at University Hospital in Newark for non-life threatening injuries.

Police are making it clear that the attack was not random, but no arrests have yet been made.

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Female Clifton teacher accused of sex with student

  Eyewitness NewsCLIFTON (WABC) -- A high school teacher in Clifton, New Jersey, is under arrest Wedneday, accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student.

Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia Valdes and Clifton Police Chief Gary Giardina said 26-year-old Kristin Leone, a history teacher at Clifton High School, was arrested Monday following an investigation.

Clifton police detectives conducted interviews, executed a search warrant and collected evidence relating to the allegations, which demonstrated that Leone engaged in sexual conduct with the boy on two separate occasions.

Leone is charged with sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, criminal sexual contact, luring and enticing a child and official misconduct.

She was released on $100,000 bail.

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College student from VA missing in NYC

Web produced by Jennifer Matarese, Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK (WABC) -- There is a worrisome search for a missing college student from Virginia who last seen in Manhattan celebrating the holidays.

They held a candlelight vigil in Virginia Tuesday night for missing college student, Ian Burnet.

They are desperately clinging to hope that he will return home safely and soon.

"No matter what has happened, if he's out there alive we want to welcome him back," said Mark Burnet, Ian's father.

The 22-year-old engineering junior at Virginia Commonwealth University jumped on a bus the day after Christmas to spend New Year's in New York.

He was staying with friends on W. 139th Street by Riverside Drive.

The next day he texted his father.

On the 30th, he apparently told a friend he was having a horrible time and then the cold, haunting silence.

Police found his cell phone later that day.

"If you could just come home, your parents, your parents love you," said Althea Bernheim, a relative.

Althea Bernheim, a relative in Jersey City, says the family is tortured by the unknown.

They have contact with the police and set up a Facebook page, which is drawing in volunteers like Pam Andes who has helped print and post more than 1,000 fliers in the area.

"I've never met him, but I feel the love for him and I want to find him," said Pam Andes, a volunteer.

Burnet graduated valedictorian from high school and was on a full scholarship to study engineering.

It's been a week and a half now of sheer agony for his family and there's still no sighting of their bright and talkative son.

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Report: Found body is not missing IU student

  Eyewitness NewsINDIANAPOLIS (WABC) -- Police in Indianapolis say the badly decomposed body of a woman found in a local creek is NOT a 20-year-old Indiana University student who went missing in Bloomington more than a month ago.

WRTV is reporting the medical examiner says the body found on Monday is that of a black female, ruling out that it would be Lauren Spierer.

The body was spotted Sunday floating among debris in Fall Creek.

Authorities in Bloomington have been searching for Spierer, who was last seen June 3 near her Bloomington apartment after a night out drinking with her friends. Bloomington is about 50 miles south of Indianapolis.

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Once barred from prom, Conn. student gets to go

  Eyewitness NewsSHELTON, Conn. -- It was this year's best known prom in Connecticut and a student forbidden from attending finally got to go.

Shelton High School senior James Tate and his date, Sonali Rodriges, attended the prom Saturday, nearly a month after he was prohibited for posting his invitation to Rodrigues in 12-inch cardboard letters on the school wall.

School officials said his invitation was a safety risk and suspended him for a day and barred him from the prom. Headmaster Beth Smith later reversed the decision, acknowledging the international attention the case received.

Dressed in a three-piece, black tuxedo and a purple flower in his jacket pocket, Tate arrived at a pre-prom photo event followed by television cameras.

Rodrigues, dressed in a lavender prom dress, said her date was funny and "pretty cute."

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In reversal, Conn. student can go to prom

  Eyewitness NewsSHELTON, Conn. -- A Connecticut high school headmaster has reversed her decision to ban a student from the prom after he broke school rules by hanging his prospective date's invitation at the school entrance.

The girl said, "yes," but Shelton High School senior James Tate was suspended for posting the invitation on a wall in 12-inch cardboard letters. School officials said it was a safety risk.

Under school rules, because Tate was suspended after April 1, he couldn't go to the prom with date Sonali Rodrigues.

But on Saturday, headmaster Beth Smith announced a policy change. Now, the school decides prom attendance for suspended students on a "case by case" basis. In Tate's case, he can go.

Smith acknowledged the "international notoriety" the case received on social network sites had an effect. Students also staged a protest sit-in.

On Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/newsheltonprom

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Conn. mayor sides with student barred from prom

  Eyewitness NewsSHELTON, Conn. -- Officials in a Connecticut town want a high school headmaster to take a second look at the case of a senior who asked a girl to the prom by taping a message to the front of the school and then was barred from attending.

James Tate's note read in big cardboard letters, "Sonali Rodrigues, Will you go to the prom with me? HMU -Tate." HMU means hit me up, or call me.

Rodrigues said yes. But Tate was given a one-day suspension and is barred from the Shelton High School prom June 4.

Mayor Mark Lauretti on Wednesday said the case may need another look. Alderman Jack Finn says Tate did nothing wrong.

School headmaster Beth Smith hasn't commented. School Superintendent Freeman Burr says he's aware of the national attention the case is getting.

Meantime, Tate's friends are helping to organize an alternative prom location so that Tate and Rodrigues can still go together.

There has been an outpouring of support on Twitter and Facebook. Many companies have offered freebies to help make this prom happen free of charge for the students.

The Facebook group reports that Tate says that he will be appearing on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" Wednesday night.

On Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/newsheltonprom

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