A Harvard professor, who investigators initially thought took his own life, has been reclassified as a missing person after family members convinced police to follow other leads in the scientist's Nov. 15 disappearance.
Don Wiley, Harvard's Loeb professor of Biophysics and Biochemistry and leading expert on the Ebola virus, has been missing since midnight on Nov. 15. Wiley was last seen while attending a science-related conference in Memphis, Tenn.
Investigators found Wiley's rental car -- keys in the ignition and the tank full of gas -- abandoned on a bridge over the Mississippi River early on the 15th, but failed to investigate the case as anything other than a suicide for four more days, possibly losing crucial evidence in the interim.
"Right now the investigation is still ongoing and our hearts go out to the family. It is a very unfortunate thing," said Officer Latanya Able of the Memphis Police Department's Homicide Bureau. "It is still being investigated as a missing persons case, but there is nothing leading our investigators to believe [that] any foul play occurred."
Wiley was not teaching any courses at Harvard this semester, but was scheduled to teach "Structure, Function, and Physical Chemistry of Macromolecules" with Biochemistry and Molecular Biology professor Stephen Harrison in the spring.
Harvard administrators are waiting for confirmation of Wiley's death from the investigation team in Memphis before addressing his academic commitments.
"His classes are scheduled to continue," said Andrea Shen, a spokeswoman for Harvard College. "But if we hear news in the near future the appropriate decisions will be made."
Bill Wiley, the professor's father, said the family was still considering what course of action to take next, but that hiring a private investigator may be a possibility.
Friends and colleagues who saw Wiley only hours before his disappearance said that he was in excellent spirits, fully engaged in his advisory role at the conference.
The day following the disappearance, Susan Wiley, the professor's sister-in-law, was told by police that suicide was the only option they were investigating.
According to Susan Wiley and a police officer familiar with the case, the preliminary investigation conducted on Nov. 15 by the police department's Missing Person's Bureau did not include forensic tests.
The tests were conducted only after the Homicide Bureau took over the case days later, because there were no signs of foul play when officers originally found the abandoned car.
In discussions with Harvard and the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis -- the sponsor of the conference where Wiley was last seen -- police were asked to shift the investigation's focus and consider other options besides suicide.
Though they still contend suicide is the most logical conclusion, the MPD has since been treating the investigation as a missing persons case.
Lt. Richard True, MPD spokesperson for the Wiley case, said last week that, based on prior experience with similar cases, indications are that Wiley left his car on the bridge before taking his own life.
Wiley's expertise in biochemistry has attracted some national attention to the case, especially during this time of war and in light of recent anthrax attacks when fears about bioterrorism are running high.
Another Harvard professor, Dr. Jack Strominger, had been working with Wiley at the time of his disappearance. The two won honors for their work on the human immune system several years ago, both winning the Lasker and the Japan prizes for their joint work.
Despite public speculation, Strominger cannot imagine a bioterrorism angle in this investigation.
"Don never worked with live viruses, and I doubt he even knows how to produce them," Strominger said. "More explicitly, our department doesn't have facilities in which dangerous viruses could be produced. I cannot think of any possible link between Don's work or expertise and bioterrorism."
The Harvard Crimson contributed to this article.
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