Peter Salvino missing Northwestern Phd student found dead two days after leaving Chicago area party as unanswered questions remain.
The body of a Northwestern University doctoral student who went missing after leaving a party Saturday night was found Tuesday evening in Lake Michigan.
Peter Salvino, 25, had gone missing early Sunday morning after leaving a property in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
Chicago Police confirmed at around 6 p.m. Tuesday that a body was found in Diversey Harbor, which is located near where Salvino’s phone had last pinged.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office later confirmed the body as that of Salvino’s. An autopsy is pending and officials have not released a cause of death.
Salvino was last heard from at around 12:15 a.m. Sunday morning when he was on FaceTime with a friend as was walking to his apartment from the party.
Unanswered calls
A local Chicago eatery called The Wieners Circle took to Twitter to say: ‘Ok #wienersleuths, Peter Salvino is a regular at our store and is well liked, this is so sad. We believe the picture below is of him at our store, not long before he was last heard from Saturday night. Please retweet this and help his family find Peter.’
According to the missing man’s family, Salvino had been on FaceTime with a friend at 11:59 p.m. Saturday night as he was walking home. The friend called back at 12:15 a.m. to make sure he made it home safely. Salvino told the friend at the time that he was still on the way back.
The PHD student‘s phone pinged a location near Diversey Harbor at 12:31 a.m. and the friend called again at 12:37 a.m. to confirm he made it home, only for Salvino to not answer.
Multiple friends texted him between then and 9:30 a.m., according to the family spokesperson. The messages were successfully delivered to his phone, but none of the friends received a response.
All calls started going straight to voicemail at around 9:45 a.m. and all text messages went undelivered. Salvino was supposed to meet his father for the Bears game Sunday, only to never reach out.
Salvino’s family and friends had been asking for the public’s help in recent days to check nearby surveillance footage in hopes of retracing the missing student’s steps.
‘The goal is to get camera footage,’ said Scotty Gruska, Salvino’s brother-in-law. ‘We’ve not heard from him since midnight Saturday. We all miss him. I know there’s people working on it, and law enforcement is doing everything they can. But we want to keep doing more.’
This been happening for years (a friend of mine was a victim and his case was never solved)! Young males leaving bars or parties and suspiciously ending up in water. We need to figure out wtf is going on and who is at fault before this continues. #Chicago https://t.co/ALDwbUpL9Z
— Jen (@IlliniJen) December 21, 2022
Second young man found dead in Chicago’s waters
The PHD student’s death marks the second young man to be found dead in the water in Chicago this month. Earlier in December, 21-year-old Polish businessman Krzysztof Szubert was also found dead in the lake after disappearing from a holiday party at a River North bar one weekend.
While officials have still not released a cause or manner of death for Szubert, detectives have referred to the incident as a death investigation rather than a drowning.
Police have so far not said if there is any connection between the cases, but acknowledged that detectives are investigating both cases, which are ‘pending autopsy results,’ NBC Chicago reported.
The Salvino family released the following statement:
‘We are both shattered and relieved to report that, earlier today, we found Peter during the marine search of Diversey Harbor. Throughout the last three days we have been overwhelmed by the support and assistance we’ve received from friends, family and local residents and businesses in our search for Peter. We are grateful beyond measure for their diligence, without which Peter may not have been found. At this time, our family appreciates the public affording us privacy as we process our grief over this devastating loss.’
