A body was found Thursday during an ongoing search for missing Middlebury College student Lia Smith, Vermont state police said.
Members of the Vermont State Police Search and Rescue Team located the body around 1:30 p.m. in a field west of the campus, near the school’s organic farm The Knoll.
Authorities did not confirm whether the body was Smith.
The body will be taken to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington for an autopsy to confirm identity and determine the cause and manner of death. The autopsy is expected to be conducted on Friday.
State police said initial findings do not indicate the death is suspicious. A press conference providing updates on the search was scheduled for Thursday afternoon but canceled after the body was found.
The Middlebury Police Department and Vermont Attorney General’s Office are assisting the investigation. The FBI and New York State Police have offered additional assistance and joined the search on Wednesday.
Smith, a 21-year-old Woodside, California native, was last seen at a building on the private liberal arts college’s campus last Friday around 9 p.m. She was reported missing on Sunday after her father was unable to contact her by phone and her friends told him they had not seen her all weekend.
The Vermont State Police Victim Services Unit stated it is working closely with Lia’s family,
Police said Smith is 5’11” and weighs 160 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes.
According to The Middlebury Campus, she’s a double computer science and statistics major, a member of the chess and women in computer science clubs, and competed on the school’s swimming and diving team.
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