Lauren Blackburn missing Princeton student’s body found at campus lake, near to where he was last seen alive. No cause of death given amid unanswered questions, including whether the Corydon, Indiana native committed suicide?
The body of a Princeton junior student who went missing, after last seen on campus last weekend has been found in a lake close to campus.
Lauren Blackburn, 23, was found deceased in Lake Carnegie on Friday morning, according to Princeton’s Department of Safety. The notice stated the missing man’s body being recovered from a lake bordering the New Jersey campus.
A cause of death was not immediately revealed.
What led to Princeton student ending up at campus lake?
‘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,’ Dean of Undergraduate Students Regan Crotty wrote in a letter to the school.
Blackburn, who hailed from Indiana and who was majoring in English, was last seen near the college’s Firestone Library at around 6 p.m. on April 19 before he vanished, the school said. The missing student’s body was recovered just a few short miles from where he was last seen alive. How and when Blackburn came to end up at the campus lake remained unclear.
School officials reported Blackburn as missing on Tuesday through a campus alert.
Officials pinged the missing student’s phone in the area of the man-made reservoir around midnight Tuesday, prompting a water search.
Lake Carnegie sits just south of campus — near the university’s athletic complex — but about a mile from the library where Blackburn was last seen.
The lake was a gift from steel industrialist Andrew Carnegie for a cost of $450,000, which is approximately $9.5 million today, the school said.
The reservoir sits on 263 acres with a uniform depth of nine feet at a 35-foot distance from the shoreline.
A former features writer for the Daily Princetonian, the student newspaper, Blackburn was the most recent winner of the 2024 Sam Hutton Fund for the Arts.
The award is given to one student in the Lewis Center for the Arts ‘to support undergraduate summer study, travel, and independent research.’
Prior to attending Princeton, Blackburn graduated from Corydon Central High School in southern Indiana.
Before beginning college at Princeton, Blackburn who graduated from Corydon Central High School in southern Indiana, was recognized as a National Merit Scholar in 2019. He had scored 1550 on his first SAT test and a 1580 out of 1600 on his second attempt.
Did Indiana native succumb to the pressures of Ivy League university?
Blackburn went on to make local headlines in 2019 as a high school senior when he was of 300 people in the country to be awarded a National Merit Scholarship and Gates Scholarship afforded to low income households.
The scholarship covers tuition, room, board and books – all to attend one of the world’s most elite schools according to the site.
Blackburn toured several Ivy League universities before landing on Princeton.
‘Princeton was my favorite because of the focus they put on their undergraduates,’ Blackburn told WAVE at the time.
‘I’m just very grateful that I don’t have to worry about that and it’s given me the opportunity to go to Princeton and receive a world-class education. I’m very grateful and feel very blessed,‘ he added.
Ivy league school offered world class education and opportunities
‘Princeton will allow me to study anything and get a world class education in anything.’
Teachers at Blackburn’s high school praised the then-teenager as a kind student with an excellent memory.
‘He can read a book and know everything in it,’ English teacher Kate Robinson previously told WAVE. ‘I’m pretty sure he has a photographic memory.’
‘He’s kind,’ science teacher Karen York added. ‘I have never, ever once heard him ever speak a bad word.’
Princeton University held a gathering on Friday evening in the New College West Head of College House, where dozens of counselors were made available to heartbroken students and staff, The Daily Princetonian reported.
Blackburn’s death marks the sixth of an undergraduate at the school since 2021, with all five previously being ruled as suicides. It remained unclear if the burden of performance and gruelling academic standards students were expected to maintain factored to students taking their own lives.
As of Friday evening, no further information – including the cause of Blackburn’s death and details about what led up to his disappearance – has been confirmed.
