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May 6, 2009

Police get new tip on missing ISU student

Search party heads to industrial area; nothing found

By Arthur E. Foulkes

TERRE HAUTE — The steady morning rainfall and gray sky reflected the mood Wednesday inside the Indiana State University College of Business where concern was mounting over the disappearance last week of business student Gerald Smith.

But the dreary weather didn’t stop more than a dozen people from the ISU community from yet another search, this one of the grimy and muddy industrial area between First and Second streets west of the ISU campus.

University police reported earlier Wednesday that someone saw a person matching Smith’s description talking for several minutes to a man and woman in a gold Toyota Camry or similar vehicle around 1:30 a.m. Friday morning near Second and Canal streets.

But Wednesday’s search, which lasted about an hour, turned up nothing.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said David Robinson, a professor of management at ISU and one of the teachers in Smith’s final project class. Smith, a graduating senior with a major in insurance and risk management, was “a very good student” and “very reliable,” Robinson said.

Robinson has been on four different searches for Smith since Saturday. Now he is working with College of Business students, faculty and staff to distribute hundreds of fliers around town featuring Smith’s picture and description. The fliers already have been placed throughout downtown. Now they are being posted outside the city, Robinson said.

“We’ll just keep going until we run out of places to go,” he said.

Smith is not at all the sort of person you would expect to turn up missing, said Maria Greninger, director of external relations for the College of Business and someone who knew Smith for more than two years.

“He doesn’t fit the profile,” Greninger said. Smith is sociable, kind, had several friends including a steady girlfriend, is well-liked, and a leader among his classmates, she said.

Robinson echoed Greninger’s comments. “He was really, really happy,” he said.

Smith was last seen about 12:40 a.m. Friday when private security officers asked him to leave the Ballyhoo Tavern, a college bar at Ninth and Chestnut streets on the east edge of the ISU campus. Smith was asked to leave because he appeared “a little bit intoxicated,” said Ty-Waun Burks, who had been tending bar at the Ballyhoo earlier that evening and was still there when security asked Smith to leave.

Smith and other College of Business students and faculty had been at the tavern since early that evening celebrating the successful completion of a capstone business project. People from that celebration were still at the bar when Smith was asked to leave, Burks said.

It’s not unusual for security officers to ask patrons to leave the Ballyhoo if they appear to have had too much to drink, Burks said. Security officers probably asked four or five patrons to leave the bar late Thursday and early Friday, he said.

“He was very polite,” said Denzil Lewis, a detective with the Vigo County Drug Task Force, who was working as an off-duty security officer that night at the Ballyhoo. When asked whether he needed help getting home, Smith indicated he would take a cab, Lewis said.

But Smith did not take a cab home to his dorm on the ISU campus that night. Burks said several people stated Smith was last seen walking south down Ninth Street from the bar toward downtown. A professor in the College of Business had apparently offered to pay for a cab for Smith, but Smith declined the gesture, Burks said.

At 1:14 am., about 30 minutes after he left the Ballyhoo, investigators found that Smith used his iPhone to access the Internet, according to ISU police.

Smith’s disappearance has put a damper on the final week of school, especially at the College of Business where Smith, by all accounts, was a leader, an excellent student and someone with a promising future. He even had a job lined up after graduation, Robinson noted.

“It doesn’t add up,” Greninger said. “He wasn’t a background player. … It’s really been a shock to the whole college.”



Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

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