STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - It's been almost three months since anyone has seen or heard from Pennsylvania State University senior Cindy Song, and nobody has a clue where she is.
Song, 21, was last seen by a friend who drove her back to her off-campus apartment complex after a Halloween party that spilled into the early morning hours of Nov. 1.
Since Song was reported missing by friends three days later, local police and the FBI have conducted air searches, ground searches and dog searches of this hilly, wooded, rural portion of central Pennsylvania.
Missing-person flyers and posters describing the 5-foot-3, 110-pound Song have been widely posted and distributed. Investigators have questioned Song's friends and acquaintances and checked her phone, Internet, credit card and ATM records - and tips, including a possible sighting in Philadelphia.
The university community is offering a total of $27,000 for information. But no trace of Song has been found.
It's not unusual for college students to disappear for a day or two, Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
"They go away with a roommate or make other plans and don't tell their family and friends," he said. "A day or two. After that, you know something's wrong."
The last similar case anyone at Penn State can recall was in March 1987, when a female student was found slain in an off-campus apartment. The crime was never solved.
Hyun Jong "Cindy" Song, who is from Seoul, South Korea, came to the United States seven years ago to stay with relatives near Alexandria, Va. Song went to high school there and then went to Penn State, majoring in integrative arts. She had many friends, especially among the university's Korean community.
Since her disappearance, Song's mother has come here from Korea several times. Song's brother, Kiho Song, 26, has temporarily moved here from Korea to monitor the investigation, of which he has become critical.
In the weeks after Cindy Song's disappearance, there was much concern among fellow students - especially members of the student Black Caucus, which is especially sensitive to the experience of minority students on an overwhelmingly white campus.
But over time, the general level of awareness and interest has mostly vanished - as have most of the posters put up all over campus that urged anyone with information to call police at 800-479-0050.
"It concerns me, but I'm not especially afraid," Melissa Pothering, 20, a junior psychology major from Pottsville, Pa., said last week of Song's disappearance. With a new term, students have other pressing matters that demand their attention, Pothering said.
"It's like I've gradually put it in the back of my mind . It's just one thing that happened to happen. If it happened more than once, I would be concerned."
Kiho Song is very unhappy about that kind of attitude and about the investigation. He has complained to the South Korean Consulate in New York, several Korean TV news crews that have reported on the disappearance, and anyone else who will listen.
While they understand the family's frustration and anguish, investigators say they have done everything possible - including running down bogus tips.
On Jan. 18, an area resident reported getting a middle-of-the-night call from a young woman who gave her name as "Cindy" and said: "My place is a mess and my leg is bleeding," then hung up.
Police traced the call to two teen-age girls, who were charged Jan. 21 with disorderly conduct.
"We want people to know we're taking this very seriously," said Ferguson Township Detective Brian Sprinkle, the local police officer heading the investigation.
Sprinkle is frustrated, too. "We have no clues, no leads," he said. Investigators have even sent information on the case to America's Most Wanted in hopes that the TV show, which has helped find missing and wanted people, will do a segment on Song's disappearance.
Sprinkle is convinced that "somebody out there knows something about the disappearance." Or that somebody might have seen
something. "That's the thing," Sprinkle said. "Somebody might not realize what they saw, didn't think twice about it and still might not think about it, but publicity might jog their memory: 'Hey I did see something that was suspicious!' "
What "it" was that somebody may have seen, nobody knows. Sprinkle makes a point of saying "there are no clues or evidence suggesting that crimes were committed."
But with each passing day, it's harder not to think the worst.
Was someone waiting for Song at her apartment that night? Did someone come after she returned? Had she arranged to meet someone? Did she run out to a nearby all-night supermarket and get abducted?
Did she actually enter her apartment, which was otherwise empty because her roommate was away? Police said they believe Song did go into the apartment, where they found the backpack and cell phone she'd had with her at the party. But Song's brother theorizes that someone else could have put those items there.
Was substance use or abuse a factor? Song's brother said his sister's diary indicated she and some friends had experimented with marijuana and Ecstasy.
Police say that Song and friends had been drinking at the Halloween party and that Song had been slightly intoxicated, but that there was no indication of any drug use that night, or that Song was impaired when she returned to her apartment.
Was Song's breakup with a boyfriend about a month before her disappearance a factor? The brother believes it could have been. But police and one of Song's roommates, Youngjoo Kim, a 21-year-old sophomore from Radnor, Pa., said Song was getting over the breakup. In any case, police said there was no indication that the former boyfriend was in any way involved in Song's disappearance.
Could Song have committed suicide or just decided to run away?
Song's brother said he can't imagine either scenario. Investigators will say only that they continue to pursue all possibilities.
Kiho Song continues to worry and chafe.
"Police investigators at this point are deadlocked," he said, through a university-provided translator, during an interview last week in the university's student center.
"Like everyone else," Kiho Song said, "they need to renew their attention to this case. . I'm trying to make everyone aware, to ask anyone for help."
His mother and other members of his family have suffered greatly through this "tragedy," he said.
"What makes it even sadder," he said, "is that nobody knows exactly what that tragedy was."
Knight Ridder Tribune
