21-Year-Old Columbia Student On Leave Found Dead Inside A Dorm Room Of What Authorities Say Was An Overdose
A 21-year-old, former track star at Columbia University was found dead Sunday inside a dorm room at the said campus.
Jessica Fingers was lying unconscious and face up on the floor of her friend's room in East Campus Residence Hall on Morningside Drive at about 11:45 a.m., sources told the New York Daily News.
"I woke up and the love of my life was dead next to me," Peter Russell, a self-described freelance tattoo artist and boyfriend of Fingers wrote on his Facebook page. "My life is over . . . Shes gone so i have nothing to live for . . . "
Russell reportedly slept next to Fingers and when he woke up, she was already dead from what authorities believe to be an overdose.
Fingers was a track star at Monticello High School in the Catskills, the Daily News reported. She received a full scholarship to Columbia University.
The alleged brother of Fingers took to Facebook to make an alleged threat to Russell.
"F--k u peter im coming for ur life," The Facebook account of who is believed to be Tyrell Fingers wrote the Facebook poster using the name Flacko Ty.
An autopsy will be done, which can help finalize the cause of her death, but authorities believe there was no other foul play, besides an overdose. What she overdosed on is unsure.
Fingers was recruited to run track and field for Columbia University, but left the school in what the Daily News said could be attributed to blood clots and a stroke she suffered last year.
"My beautiful, strong daughter, Jessica is making a speedy recovery after her stroke," wrote Athena Fingers-Bellamy, the mother of Jessica Fingers wrote on her Facebook account on Feb. 6, 2012.
Fingers then took to her own Facebook account to express her recovery.
"My brain blood clots dissolved!!!" she wrote May 10, 2012. "I care about my body so much and yet I was treating it so bad."
Her stepfather, Robert Bellamy, told the Daily News that Fingers had recovered from the stroke and was cleared to return to school. "She loved Columbia. It was her dream school."