Boston University grad student reported missing in New York City
Authorities are searching for a Boston University graduate student who disappeared eight days ago during a trip to New York City.
The New York Police Department said Zachery Camhi, 25, who suffers from bipolar disorder, was reported missing on Sept. 18 after he was last seen near E. 49th Street and Lexington Avenue. Police received a report that Camhi had been spotted on Sunday somewhere in the city around 4:50 a.m., but no further details were available.
“We’re hoping and praying for a positive outcome,” said Boston University spokesman Colin Riley, who described Camhi as a brilliant musician and talented student in the university’s School of Music. A missing person flyer posted to social media reported Camhi was last seen wearing a polka-dotted maroon button up shirt and dark pants.
Camhi’s sister, Tiffany, said he has had “good and very bad moments” since he was diagnosed with acute bipolar disorder in 2013 and has previously been hospitalized. In the past, there have been episodes where he has left home in the middle of the night, but he usually returns or is picked up within a few hours, if not the next day, she said.
“He’s never been lost in a city of 8 million people before,” she said of her brother, who is originally from Indianapolis.
In a post on Facebook, she cautioned that he was not carrying any identification, a wallet, or a phone when he disappeared.
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Tiffany Camhi said that at this point, her brother has not taken his medication in eight days.
She said he had traveled to New York from Boston to pick up his double bass, which he’d left with friends a few weeks earlier, when he competed in the Doublestop Foundation’s Instrument Loan Competition. He’s an accomplished double bass player, she said.
“It was just supposed to be a quick weekend trip,” she said.
Constantine Finehouse, a friend and faculty member at New England Conservatory who drove Camhi down to pick up the bass, said the missing student was sleepy during the drive to New York on Saturday evening.
“We didn’t know that things were going to become more drastic,” Finehouse said.
Finehouse last saw Camhi outside the East Side W Hotel when he dropped him off to go park the car around 5 a.m. Finehouse saw Camhi enter the hotel, but he was not in the room when he returned.
Finehouse said he walked around looking for his friend for 45 minutes, to no avail.
“He just loves to walk even when he’s in a decent state of mind,” he said.
Anyone who sees Camhi is asked to call 911.
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