Graduate student Kexin Cai found dead
Cai was reported missing to the Lebanon Police Department on May 17.
May 21, 2024

Kexin Cai GR died at age 26, Dean of the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies Jon Kull wrote in an email to campus. The Lebanon Police Department and New Hampshire Fish and Game found Cai — who was reported missing on May 17 — dead Monday afternoon “after an extensive search,” according to Kull.

Cai was a Chinese native and second-year doctoral student in the psychological and brain sciences department, Kull wrote. Her research focused on communication challenges for people with autism, and she enjoyed hiking, skiing and road trips, according to Kull’s email.

“Kexin was an exceptionally gifted and humble researcher with a genuinely sweet personality,” Kull wrote. “She loved cats so much that she would sneak images of them into every poster or presentation. Kexin loved the Upper Valley.”

According to Cai’s partner, psychological and brain sciences research assistant Kristian Droste, Cai admitted herself to Dick’s House on May 13 due to a “mental health crisis.” Dick’s House transferred Cai to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, where she was released on May 15. Cai said he believed Cai left her home on the evening of May 15 with her electric bike.

The Lebanon Police Department used drones and tracked Cai’s cell phone data and credit card transactions during their search, Kull and Safety and Security director Keiselim Montás wrote in a campus-wide email on May 19. Montás and Kull wrote that the police did not “suspect foul play at this time.”

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center declined to comment on Cai’s release. Health service director Mark Reed did not respond to multiple requests for comment by time of publication.

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Dartmouth College graduate student found dead in Connecticut River
May 21, 2024

LEBANON, N.H. — A Dartmouth College graduate student was found dead in the Connecticut River, Lebanon police announced late Monday.

There had been an active search for Kexin Cai, 26, who disappeared last Wednesday.

Investigators were able to locate video from two different businesses that showed Cai on her e-bike, heading toward West Lebanon on NH Route 10 at around 6 p.m. last Wednesday.

A driver spotted what they believed was Cai’s bike in the Boston Lot Conservation Area on Thursday or Friday morning, concentrating the search to that area, investigators said.

Around 4 p.m. Monday, a fisherman reported seeing something along the Connecticut River in Windsor, Vermont.

First responders were able to locate the body. She was brought to shore around 5:36 p.m. and investigators later identified as Cai.

Prior to the discovery of Cai’s body, her partner, Kristian Droste, told WMUR-TV that she was a loving and kind person.

“Some of the qualities that continue to deepen my love and commitment to Kexin are her uninhibited laugh, the way she sings to me (often in a language I don’t speak but that she’s teaching me), her loyalty to her family and the ones she loves, and her love for the light that passes through the trees intermingling with shadow,” Droste wrote in a statement to WMUR.

A friend of Cai said there was a group of about 30 members of the Dartmouth College community who searched the woods near the conservation area on Monday.

Police said they used drones and helicopters during the search, too.

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Missing Dartmouth student’s body found in Connecticut River
05-21-2024

WEST LEBANON — Police retrieved a body they identified as that of a missing Dartmouth College graduate student from the Connecticut River in Windsor on Monday evening.

Authorities found the body of Kexin Cai, 26, of West Lebanon, a graduate student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, after a fisherman alerted them to a sighting along the river, according to a police news release.

Cai had been last seen near Drake Lane in West Lebanon on Wednesday, May 15, according to police. Initially it was unclear in which direction she traveled on her e-bike, but video footage from local businesses in the area showed she traveled south on Route 10.

Police also got a report on Monday that her bike had been seen on Thursday or Friday at the Boston Lot, according to the news release. As a result of that information, the search focused on the area of the Boston Lot and adjoining Wilder Dam.

The woman’s friends and colleagues also organized a volunteer search effort.

On Monday evening, Jon Kull, dean of the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies, sent out an email alerting the community to the discovery of Cai’s body. He said that she was a Chinese national who was in her second year in a doctoral program. She had a special interest in communication challenges in autism.

“According to her advisor, Kexin was an exceptionally gifted and humble researcher with a genuinely sweet personality,” Kull wrote. “She loved cats so much she would sneak images of them into every poster or presentation. Kexin loved the Upper Valley. Here, she discovered the joys of hiking, skiing and road trips.”

Kull said a remembrance gathering would be scheduled at a later date.

On Monday, Lebanon Police Chief Phil Roberts said that the search efforts included ground searches, boats on the Connecticut River near the Wilder Dam and airborne searches by a DHART helicopter that was pressed into service.

Lebanon Police also deployed drones, but as of Monday evening, there still had been no evidence of Cai’s whereabouts, Roberts said. Police do not have any indication that Cai’s disappearance is the result of foul play.

In an interview on Monday evening, her friend and coworker Kristian Droste said that Cai had been experiencing a “mental health crisis” and had sought care earlier last week. She was admitted to Dick’s House, Dartmouth’s on-campus medical facility, where she spent at least one night before being transferred to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, Droste said.

The last time he saw Cai was when he visited her at Dick’s House on May 13, Droste said.

“It was clear she was still in a crisis and needed time and space to heal,” he said.

Soon thereafter Droste said Cai stopped replying to texts and as well as those from other mutual acquaintances.

Droste said he later learned that Cai, who friends said is from China, had been transferred to DHMC, but when he went to the medical center on Friday to check on her, he was informed that Cai had been discharged “a couple days earlier.”

Droste said Monday that when he later went to Cai’s apartment at Sachem Village in West Lebanon police were already there. He said it appeared police had been notified by Cai’s health care providers, who became worried when Cai was not responding to their messages.

A Slack channel that has been set up to share information and updates about Cai’s disappearance for Dartmouth community members had reached about 100 people, according to Droste.

On Monday, colleagues and friends of Cai’s gathered on campus to organize a search, according to Sixtine Fleury, a graduate student in the Psychology and Brain Science Department who joined the effort.

Fleury said 30 to 40 volunteers divided themselves into four groups with each group entering at one four “access points” into the 436-acre Boston Lot Conservation Area, which is near Cai’s apartment Sachem Village. Fleury’s group met in the parking area across from the Wilder Dam on Route 10.

She said search efforts were being focused on the Boston Lot because the last pings from Cai’s cellphone were last registered within a radius that covers the conservation area but also extended across the Connecticut River to Hartford.

As Fleury spoke, search teams in boats were observed on the river both above and below Wilder Dam, including one of which was equipped with sonar equipment.

If you or someone you know might be at risk for suicide, contact The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24/7 at 988 or 1-800-273-8255. The New Hampshire Rapid Response Access Point, the local mobile crisis response clinician teams for people in sis in the state, can be reached by phone at 833-710-6477 or online at NH988.com. YouthLine can be reached by call ing 877-968-8491 or by texting teen2teen to 839863. A crisis text line can be reached by texting HELLO to 741741.

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(之前报道)

Graduate student reported missing
Kexin Cai, a graduate student in the psychological and brain sciences department, was last seen on May 15.
May 18, 2024

Kexin Cai GR, a graduate student in the psychological and brain sciences department, was reported missing to the Lebanon Police Department on May 17, Safety and Security director Keiselim Montás wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth. Cai was last seen on the afternoon of May 15.

Safety and Security and the Lebanon Police Department are currently “seeking assistance in locating” Cai, according to a campus-wide DartAlert sent Saturday morning.

According to the department website, Cai is a member of the Mutual Understanding Lab and is “interested in emergent dynamics between interacting brains during real-time reciprocal social communication.”

The Lebanon Police Department was not available for comment by time of publication.

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(抖音)
美国常春藤大学达特茅斯学院(Dartmouth College)的中国女博士生蔡可欣(Kexin Cai，音译)5月15日失联，至今已经五天，仍然下落不明。
校方已于5月17日向所在地新罕布夏州Lebanon市警方报案，中国留学生团体也已自发展开搜寻。
蔡可欣是中国留学生，今年26岁，身高5呎7吋(约170公分)，体重115磅；当地多家媒体误写为5呎3吋和105磅。
她在5月15日下午最近一次被看到时位于West Lebanon的Drake Lane，当时骑着一辆Biktrix牌银白色电动山地自行车，这辆车有加粗轮胎、厚实车架、以及前后端黑色重型金属架。警方相信她当时正骑单车离开住所。
志愿者通过find my iPhone确认了一块蔡可欣可能走失的区域，并展开搜救，但由于附近有大片原始森林，搜索工作非常困难，而且进展有限。
蔡可欣就读于达特茅斯学院心理与大脑科学系的交互理解实验室，研究方向为实时交互社交沟通过程中大脑之间的新兴动态。
知情人可致电Lebanon市警方提供线索。