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 Carleton University student Nadia Kajouji was declared missing after she was last seen on March 9 outside of her residence. |
All hopes of finding missing Carleton University student Nadia Kajouji alive were shattered yesterday when a boater discovered her body along the Rideau River.
The first-year student, who was last seen March 9 leaving her dorm room, had been depressed and suicidal.
Police do not suspect foul play in the case. The body was transported to Kingston where an autopsy and toxicology tests will be carried out to try to determine the cause of death.
"To be honest, I knew that something like this was going happen," her sobbing father Mohamad Kajouji said yesterday from his Brampton home, where police showed up to break the terrible news to him and his wife Deborah Chevalier.
HIGHLY ACTIVE
Mohamad had been highly active in the search for Nadia, soliciting the media for help and pushing police to find his 18-year-old daughter.
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He said she talked about suicide with someone from the U.S. on MSN messenger all day the day she disappeared. She told a friend she was going to go skating around 11 p.m., and took her skates and university access card, leaving her wallet behind.
Her father's fears appear to have been realized yesterday when a recreational boater spotted her body around 11:14 a.m. on the river's edge behind St. Paul's University on Main St. The site is a little more than 3 km from the university campus.
Ottawa police Acting Insp. John Maxwell said the body showed no evidence of trauma.
It's likely the popular young woman drowned, Maxwell said, and her body became trapped under the ice following the massive snow storm that hit the city.
The body of the young woman was put in a beige van around 3:30 p.m. after lying under a yellow tarp for several hours.
Police cordoned off the area with yellow caution tape, but several passersby on bicycles and joggers ducked under it, oblivious to what was going on.
In the park adjacent to the water's edge where the body was found, groups of people played tennis and baseball as police conducted their investigation.
Mohamad Kajouji said there is some relief in knowing the search for his daughter is now over. However, he remains upset with Carleton University for a school doctor prescribing her anti-depressants, he says, were too strong.
"I'm really angry with Carleton University," he said.
In the weeks leading up to yesterday's discovery, police combed the banks of the Rideau River near Carleton and searched through files on Nadia's computer hoping to find clues as to where she might be.