Who was Lauren Blackburn? Princeton student, 23, found dead in lake near campus week after disappearing
A Princeton University junior has been found dead a week after he mysteriously went missing. The body of Lauren Blackburn, 23, was found in Lake Carnegie on Friday morning, April 25, Princeton's Department of Safety announced on Instagram. A cause of death has yet to be revealed.
Princeton's Department of Safety wrote, 'It is with great sadness that we share that the body of Lauren Blackburn '26 was found at Lake Carnegie this morning. Our hearts are heavy and we share our deepest condolences with Lauren's family and friends.'
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Meanwhile, Dean of Undergraduate Students Regan Crotty wrote in a letter to the school, 'I am deeply saddened to share with you that the body of Lauren Blackburn '26 was found at Lake Carnegie this morning. Our hearts are heavy and we share our deepest condolences with Lauren's family and friends.'
Blackburn was reportedly majoring in English. The school said he was last seen near the college's Firestone Library at around 6 pm on April 19. On Tuesday, April 22, the school reported him as missing through a campus alert.
Blackburn was a former features writer for the Daily Princetonian, the student newspaper. He was the most recent winner of the 2024 Sam Hutton Fund for the Arts, an award given to one student in the Lewis Center for the Arts 'to support undergraduate summer study, travel, and independent research,' the New York Post reported.
Blackburn graduated from Corydon Central High School in southern Indiana before he began attending Princeton. In 2019, he made local headlines after being awarded a National Merit Scholarship and Gates Scholarship.
Princeton's Department of Safety described Blackburn as '6 feet, 2 inches tall' and as having 'brown eyes and black hair.' He weighed 170 pounds.
A water search was conducted after officials pinged his phone in the area of the man-made reservoir around midnight Tuesday. Lake Carnegie, which is located near the university's athletic complex, was a gift from steel industrialist Andrew Carnegie for a cost of $450,000, which would be approximately $9.5 million now, the school said. The lake is located about a mile from the library where Blackburn was last spotted.
When Blackburn earned the National Merit Scholarship and Gates Scholarship, teachers praised him for having an excellent memory. 'He can read a book and know everything in it,' English teacher Kate Robinson told WAVE at the time. 'I'm pretty sure he has a photographic memory.'
'He's kind,' science teacher Karen York said 'I have never, ever once heard him ever speak a bad word.'
Blackburn's death is the sixth death of an undergraduate at the school since 2021. All the five previous deaths were ruled as suicides, the Daily Princetonian revealed.
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