By Derek Hawkins
Four days after seeking the public’s assistance, Boston Police Department (BPD) detectives said they located Nicholas Sova, a former Northeastern student who left his Roxbury apartment Feb. 4 and was not seen or heard from until yesterday.
Detectives said they used several leads, including a credit card purchase, to track down Sova in Paris, where local police found him unharmed.
Sova contacted his parents, who live in Monroe, Conn., to tell them he was safe, police said. Sova’s parents could not be reached for comment by The News and it was not clear why Sova had gone to Paris. Sova’s friends said they were relieved to learn he was alive and well, but were confused about his decision to leave the country.
“It’s good news to know he’s OK,” said Sova’s roommate Dan Taylor, a senior political science major. “We’ve figured for a while now that he was, but it’s good to know for sure. Unfortunately, that’s all we know. It’s a matter of time before we know more.”
Gerry Arena, a senior international business major who said he’s a friend of Sova, said he wasn’t surprised to hear that Sova left on his own accord.
“It sounds weird that he was in Paris, but it’s almost something he would do,” Arena said. “I have no idea what he was thinking. From what it sounds like, thankfully he wasn’t hurt or in any danger.”
Friends and family reported the 22-year-old missing Feb. 8. Sova’s roommates said he disappeared the morning after a Superbowl gathering they held at their apartment on Hillside Street. They said they began to worry when Sova hadn’t returned numerous phone calls, e-mails and Facebook messages for four days straight.
BPD spent more than two weeks investigating Sova’s disappearance before seeking media attention and help from the public. News of Sova’s case came in a BPD website announcement Saturday, Feb. 23.
BPD, along with several New England media outlets, reported Sova was a business major at Northeastern and was slated to graduate in May. However, Northeastern spokesperson Fred McGrail said in an e-mail that Sova had not registered for classes since Fall 2007 and therefore was not a student at the university. Sova’s parents and roommates said they believed he had been attending classes both semesters.
In similar but unrelated incidents this semester, the parents of two Northeastern students reported their children missing to the Northeastern University Division of Public Safety (NUPD).
On Jan. 12, a 20-year-old student’s father told NUPD he had not seen or heard from his son in the past week. An investigation showed the student had withdrawn from Northeastern and was residing in Anchorage, Alaska. Police said the two later spoke on the phone.
On Jan. 10, the father of a 20-year-old student reported his daughter missing to NUPD and BPD. NUPD determined she was no longer a student at Northeastern. NUPD said the father and daughter reconnected in a telephone call shortly after.
