By Jordan Stone
Authorities from the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) and the Portland Fire Bureau searched the area behind Corrado Hall yesterday after a dead body was found.
City of Portland workers found the body at approximately 11 a.m. when they were clearing some brush on the road that continues from North Portsmouth Avenue to wind behind Corrado, according to PPB Detective Michael Weinstein of the Missing Persons Unit.
Weinstein said that no significant information could be disclosed since the investigation is ongoing.
PPB told UP Public Safety that the body does not appear to be a student and that it could have been covered for some time.
Throughout the day, PPB investigators scanned the scene in order to find clues about the body and how it came to be in its current location.
Nearby dorm residents were startled when they read an e-mail from Public Safety Director Harold Burke-Sivers that alerted them of the discovery.
"Our window faces the bushes," freshman Stephanie Stevens, a Corrado resident, said. "I cannot believe that I have been looking out that way."
Stevens said that she has never seen any "suspicious activity" around the area.
Freshman Leslie Fummerton said that people from her dorm often walk around the area behind Corrado.
"You always get ideas in your head that something could be down there, but I wouldn't believe it's true," Fummerton said. "It's really, really creepy."
Junior Noel Peterson, a Corrado RA, said that, due to her dorm's proximity to The Bluff, she sometimes sees people outside who make her feel uncomfortable.
"I just call [Public Safety] on them and they take care of it," Peterson said.
Junior John Hirano said the incident shows that students should not venture below The Bluff.
"It kind of reinforces the statements that [Public Safety] makes about not going behind there, which is a very dangerous place," Hirano said. Freshman Isaac Otto, a resident of Villa Hall, saw the police using equipment to transport the body.
"They brought a basket to bring [the body] out," Otto said.
Otto said that he plays basketball near where the body was found and is now freaked out by the thought that the ball could have accidentally rolled near the body.
Otto calls the incident "slightly unhinging," but has heard that there was no foul play involved in the death and feels more comfortable knowing that.
Otto watched the activity at the scene throughout the day, beginning when the City workers were weed whacking in the brush and ending with the arrival of the authorities and the ensuing investigation.
"It's all kind of goofy," Otto said.
