Hannah Upp, 23 [FOUND SAFE] teacher MSG 8/29/08 from New York

[nanabillie]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=5735316&page=1
Teacher's Disappearance Baffles Friends, Family


Friends, Family Take Search to the Web


By ASHLEY PHILLIPS
Sept. 5, 2008
http://a.abcnews.com/images/Site/byline_abcnews.gif
12 comments (http://abcnews.go.com/US/comments?type=story&id=5735316)


The disappearance of a young New York City school teacher just days before classes began has launched a massive search by her army of friends.

A young New York woman disappeared days before the new school year began.


Hannah Upp, 23, a second-year Spanish teacher at Thurgood Marshall Academy who lives in Harlem, was last seen Friday afternoon, Aug. 29, in her apartment by a friend, according to police.
Upp's distraught mother, Barbara Bellus, is keeping a vigil in her daughter's apartment.
"She is a bright, beautiful young woman and a dedicated teacher, who has so much to offer the world and an overwhelming desire to contribute to its betterment in any possible way," Bellus said in an e-mailed statement. "We cannot imagine what has taken her away, but we want her back, whatever the circumstances."
Upp's two roommates, a man and a woman, became worried about her Sunday night when they hadn't heard from her, roommate Samantha Gallardo, 25, told ABCNews.com.
According to Gallardo, Upp's other roommate, fellow teacher Manny Ramirez, searched her room and saw that her purse, wallet, cell phone, ATM card and subway card were all there.
"My roommate woke me up and we went down to the police station. They didn't seem too concerned about it at first, but at 4 a.m. that night there were already detectives in our apartment," Gallardo said.

[nanabillie]

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/on/hannah_upp_nyc_school_teacher_missing_since_829_93 678.asp?c=rss
Hannah Upp, NYC School Teacher, Missing Since 8/29

http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/original/HelpFindHannahUpp.jpgThe AgencySpy blog posted a message this morning about the disappearance of Hannah Upp (http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/news/please_help_find_missing_woman_hannah_upp_93633.as p), a 23-year-old school teacher who left her apartment in Hamilton Terrace last Friday and has not been seen since. The NYPD's 30th Precinct is investigating Upp's disappearance; if you have any information, you should contact Detective Perez at 212-690-8842 or 212-690-8843.

[nanabillie]

http://www.truecrimereport.com/2008/09/missing_in_new_york_city_hanna.php

[nanabillie]

in New York City: Hannah Upp
Posted at 9:12 AM Sep 05, 2008

http://www.truecrimereport.com/hannahupp.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lhalvorsen/2829352401/sizes/o/)No one has seen 23-year-old New York City school teacher Hannah Emily Upp since Friday, August 29, 2008.
Her roommates say Hannah was planning a weekend getaway. She was going to spend some time with her mom in Philadelphia and probably return to NYC on Saturday, no later than Sunday. They last saw her around 2 that afternoon.
Some time that day she used her debit card to go to a movie by herself at a Times Square movie theater.
When Hannah didn't come home on Sunday, her roommates began to worry. Phone calls went straight to voice mail.
When they entered her bedroom Monday evening, frantic with worry, they found Hannah's handbag. Everything she might need was there -- an ATM card, her cell, her passport and her subway card.
Hannah was supposed to go back to work on Tuesday, Sept. 2, at the Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change, where she taught middle school Spanish. The first day of her second year as a teacher passed, still no Hannah.

No one knows where she is.
Hannah Upp graduated from Bryn Mawr in 2007. Following graduation she moved to New York, where she secured her job at Thurgood Marshall and began doing volunteer work for AIDS organizations. The Daily News reported that she had also begun working on a master's in education at Pace University.
Hannah had wide-ranging, unusual interests. An article published in the Daily News on July 19, 2008 featured a photo of Hannah with a couple of friends holding bags of bagels. According to the piece, Hannah and her friends were "freegans."
Freegans are a subculture of people, usually vegans, who only eat food that is free. Freegans find what they need by scavenging on the street; the practice is called Dumpster diving. To be a freegan is to reject capitalist values and the wastefulness of society at large. It's an act of defiance, a turning away from crass, consumer culture. Since May 8 this year, Hannah Upp had even been a member of a Meetup group for people interested in "NYC Dumpster Diving (http://dumpsterdiving.meetup.com/4/members/7172823/)."
http://www.truecrimereport.com/2008/09/missing_in_new_york_city_hanna.php

[Faith]

http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=_5mO8p2Ew8gJ&imgurl=gothamist.com/attachments/arts_jen/hannahuppmissing.jpg (http://gothamist.com/2008/09/04/nyc_school_teacher_missing.php)NYC School Teacher Missing (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/0-0&fp=48c28a360c7771d2&ei=JL_CSNvpBpeY-QHr0NW9Aw&url=http%3A//gothamist.com/2008/09/04/nyc_school_teacher_missing.php&cid=1242443922&sig2=p7dARlH-9e5jUhkSlFEjOQ&usg=AFQjCNEtF4jjHdKd54sRUvqJN32lkkuQPw)
Gothamist, NY - Sep 4, 2008
Hanna Upp (pictured) is a 23-year-old Spanish teacher in the NYC school system, and was last seen on August 29th near her home in Hamilton Terrace. ...

[Faith]

I just saw this on Fox, her purse, money, everything was left at the apt.

I hope she is safe and home soon. :1222423:

[packy]

There were two of her friends on Fox and one said that she was always ready to help someone and put herself last.

[Breezy]

Snipped from above post:
leaving behind her purse, wallet, keys, cell phone, passport and credit card

Snipped from above:
When they entered her bedroom Monday evening, frantic with worry, they found Hannah's handbag. Everything she might need was there -- an ATM card, her cell, her passport and her subway card.

Snip:
Some time that day she used her debit card to go to a movie by herself at a Times Square movie theater.


She went to the movies alone with only her debit card and never returned home...That's kind of odd. Isn't the ATM card the same as the debit card....I know mine works that way (visa debit anyways)?

I'm sure there is video surveillance inside/outside the theater.

[nanabillie]

Mine is the same Breezy. I wonder if they did have video or someone identify her as the one that went to the movie. It sure doens't pay to be alone like that in a big city. Sounds like she wasn't afraid. Praying for her safe return.

[Grande]

Reward Offered for Missing Teacher
Friends, Family Take Search to the Web
By ASHLEY PHILLIPS
Sept. 8, 2008

A teachers' union and the New York Police Department are offering a reward for help in finding a missing 23-year-old New York teacher whose sudden disappearance has left friends and family baffled.

A young New York woman disappeared days before the new school year began. The United Federation of Teachers announced that it is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to Hannah Upp, a second-year Spanish teacher at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Harlem. The Portland, Ore., native was last seen Friday afternoon, Aug. 29, in her apartment by a friend, according to police.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Hannah and her family during this trying time," UFT president Randi Weingarten said in a statement. "We have reached out to her family, and the NYPD offering to help in any way we can."

The NYPD is offering its own $2,000 reward.

Upp's disappearance just days before classes began has sparked a massive search by her army of friends.

Upp's distraught mother, Barbara Bellus, is keeping a vigil in her daughter's apartment.

"She is a bright, beautiful young woman and a dedicated teacher, who has so much to offer the world and an overwhelming desire to contribute to its betterment in any possible way," Bellus said in an e-mailed statement. "We cannot imagine what has taken her away, but we want her back, whatever the circumstances."

Upp's two roommates, a man and a woman, became worried about her last Sunday night when they hadn't heard from her, roommate Samantha Gallardo, 25, told ABCNews.com.

According to Gallardo, Upp's other roommate, fellow teacher Manny Ramirez, searched her room and saw that her purse, wallet, cell phone, ATM card and subway card were all there.

"My roommate woke me up and we went down to the police station. They didn't seem too concerned about it at first, but at 4 a.m. there were already detectives in our apartment," Gallardo said. "There's been police in our apartment since."

Upp is a friendly vegetarian who constantly experimented with new dishes, Gallardo said.

"[She's] quirky in a really endearing and wonderful way, and she has so many friends. She is always going to visit friends or having friends come to visit her," she said.

Upp's 28-year-old brother, Dan Upp, who is in the Navy and stationed in Japan, said leaving town without notifying anyone would be very out of character for his sister.

"She isn't some naive, small-town girl off to the glorious big city thinking the world is made of cotton candy and gumdrops. She's a very smart, very sensible young woman who is always aware of where she is and what's going on around her, and who is conscious of the fact that not everyone she may meet has good intentions," he wrote in an e-mail from Japan. "We just want her to know that we love her very much, no matter what, that we're praying for her, and we just want her home safe."

When they found out she was missing, Upp's network of friends from around the city and from her alma mater, Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, sprang into action. Several flew in from out of town and plastered the city with fliers.

"It's really heartening to see this many people supporting us," Gallardo said.

Hannah Wood, 22, who describes herself as one of Upp's closest friends in New York, started a Facebook page devoted to finding Upp. The group already has more than 1,200 members.

"We called the hospitals, and on Tuesday evening we sent out a bulletin we had been e-mailing among her most intimate friends," Wood said. "I decided I would make a Facebook group, and I took out an ad on Facebook asking if anyone had seen her. ... That has proven a phenomenal way of getting the word out."

Sarah Caldwell, a 22-year-old publicist for a book publisher, used her contacts to get additional help in the search. By Thursday night, New York magazine had posted information about the missing Upp, and the New York Daily News and New York Post have both written stories about the "Teacher Vanish Mystery."

"Her very close friend called me in a panic and let me know what was happening. We were waiting to hear that the police were officially launching an investigation, so I sent the e-mail yesterday," said Caldwell, who attended college with Upp. "She was always supersweet and superwelcoming. She was pretty much the nicest person you'd ever want to know."

Upp's outgoing nature makes her disappearance even more confusing to her friends and family.

"I refuse to believe that she would run away without taking [her purse or clothes] with her. There's not clothing missing that would suggest she had packed for a trip," Wood said. "None of it makes any sense, which is so weird."

"What we're trying to do is get the word out to as many people as possible to see if anyone can provide a missing piece," Wood said.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=5751805&page=2

[Grande]

AMW Missing DATA FILE FOR Hannah Upp

NYC Spanish Teacher Hannah Upp Goes Missing At the Start Of Classes
Police in New York City -- as well as an army of concerned family members and friends -- are searching for missing 23-year-old Spanish teacher Hannah Upp.

Hannah was last seen in her Manhattan apartment at 2 p.m. on Friday, August 29, 2008.

According to her roommates, Manny and Sam, she was planning a weekend getaway to Pennsylvania and intended to come back on Saturday. When Hannah didn't return to her apartment that Sunday afternoon, her roommates say they tried calling her cell phone, only to get her voicemail.

By Monday evening, Manny and Sam were frantic and searched her room. That's where they say they found Hannah's purse containing her cell phone, wallet, keys, and passport. Panicked, they called the police.

Through their own investigation, they learned that Hannah had last used her debit card at a movie theater near Times Square that Friday.

Friends And Family Desperate for Clues

Authorities filed a missing person's report for Hannah the next Tuesday when, for the second time, Hannah failed to show up for work at the Thurgood Marshall Academy.

When the news spread that she was missing, a network of friends and family -- including volunteers from her alma mater, Bryn Mawr College -- converged on the area to distribute flyers and search for their missing friend.

Hannah's parents also joined in the search to find their daughter. Through their own investigation, they learned that Hannah had last used her debit card at a movie theater near Times Square that Friday, but the card was later found in her purse.

Authorities are also looking for more clues on Hannah's computer to try to determine if she left on her own or if a crime was committed.

The United Federation of Teachers has announced that it is offering a $10,000 reward for information regarding Hannah's whereabouts.

http://www.amw.com/missing_persons/case.cfm?id=58862

[Grande]

'Freegans' salvage food from the city's bountiful garbage
BY ELIZABETH GIEGERICH
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Saturday, July 19th 2008, 11:45 AM

http://i34.tinypic.com/24pw47s.jpg
Hannah Upp (l.) and freegan advocate Janet Kalish find bags of discarded bagels and baked goods in front of a supermarket on Third Ave. in Manhattan.

With his bare hands, Adam Weissman vigilantly digs through a trash bag filled with rotten fruits and vegetables, old cleaning products, and a few salvageable pieces of produce.

Weissman tosses aside a rotten orange, but quickly grabs an edible apple and some radishes. In about five minutes, he's taken more items from the trash than he's left behind.

He and others like him give true meaning to the phrase one man's trash is another's treasure.

Weissman, 30, is a freegan, a member of a subculture that only eat food that is free and vegan (vegetarians whose diets consist of plant products exclusively), which requires frequent trips to the trash for weekly groceries.

Freegans have been scavenging the streets for over a decade to find the best garbage sites to find good food.

One New York City group has mastered the practice commonly known as Dumpster diving so well that they now hold trash tours to teach others how and where to find the best stuff available.

"I became actively involved because it made sense to me that if there is food in the trash, like anything else that people throw out that is perfectly good, it makes sense to take from there than to keep on consuming more," said Janet Kalish, 45, a volunteer for freegan.info, a Web site dedicated to information for and on freegans.

Freegans say that between 9 p.m. and midnight, almost everything that can be found on the shelves of a supermarket can be found in a supermarket's trash and in Dumpsters - and in edible form.

They reject capitalism and globalization on ethical grounds, and believe that these systems are the cause of almost everything harmful in the world, from global warming to starving children in Third World countries. They profess to be disgusted by society's excessive wastefulness, and Dumpster diving is one way they "non-participate" in consumer culture.

They salvage everything from sealed protein drinks, to Oreo cookies, to jarred garlic, to bagels. Few report knowing of anyone getting sick from eating out of the trash.

"We take common-sense precautions," when it comes to choosing safe food, said Weissman. With produce, "we take the same food precautions you'd take with things in your refrigerator, wash things appropriately, throw away things that look spoiled."

On one recent trash tour held by Kalish, about 12 people followed her lead to the trash placed in front of D'Agostinos, Dunkin' Donuts, Gristedes, and several other food stores along Third Ave. in Manhattan.

In front of a D'Agostinos, Kalish squeezed a salvaged loaf of bread to show it was still moist and fresh.

"It is easy and clean," she said. "Because it has been double-wrapped and its expiration date is just today."

Divers placed dozens of those loaves into reusable grocery bags and continued to sift through the trash. They made quick decisions about what looked best to take and what was better left.

Most nights, freegans run into homeless persons hungrily digging through the trash. Because the trash is usually abundant and free, it's something everyone is willing to share. On the tour, Kalish first offered the others her best finds before bagging them, and when two people reached for the same piece of fruit, they were both quick to ask if the other if he or she wanted it.

"I have a goal every time to take more than I can eat and share it," said Kalish, "and on the way home and I often fulfill that goal."

http://74.125.95.104/search?q=cache:23Gsl7zTmUwJ:www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/07/19/2008-07-19_freegans_salvage_food_from_the_citys_bou.html+f reegan+%22hannah%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

[Claycat]

It doesn't make sense to me that this young woman would leave her apartment without her purse or any of her belongings. They need to search the roof and the basements and the crawl spaces!

[Nut44x4]

Missing New York City School Teacher Spotted in Apple Store
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
NEW YORK — A New York school teacher missing since Aug. 29 was spotted in a midtown Manhattan computer store, FOX News confirmed.

Members of Hannah Upp's family told police Monday that the woman seen checking her e-mail in an Apple store on Fifth Avenue near Central Park was the missing 23-year-old. Cops are still seeking the public's help in locating her.

"We do definitely feel much more hopeful and more encouraged," Upp's brother Dan told the New York Post. "We just want Hannah to come back home safe. We're waiting with open arms and open hearts."

Upp's friends and roommate told FOX News on Sunday that Upp left her personal belongings behind in her apartment — including her purse, wallet and cell phone — and did not indicate that she planned to leave town.

They said Upp was excited to begin her second year of teaching at Thurgood Marshall Academy in East Harlem, N.Y., and it's unlikely that she left willingly. Her ATM card was used at a Times Square movie theater two weeks ago, the Post reported.

Cops, however, doubted that she was the victim of foul play, saying she had also dropped out of sight briefly last semester and may have been dissatisfied with her job.

Authorities and a teachers' union are offering rewards for help finding Upp, who disappeared just days before classes began.

The United Federation of Teachers announced a $10,000 reward Friday, adding to a $2,000 reward offered by the New York Police Department's Crime Stoppers unit.

Upp was last seen about 2:30 p.m. Aug. 29 as she left her apartment in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood, police said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,419249,00.html

[nanabillie]

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=5761232&page=1
Did Missing Teacher Voluntarily 'Drop Out'?
Reward Offered for Missing Woman
By ASHLEY PHILLIPS
Sept. 9, 2008

A missing 23-year-old teacher, who has sparked a 10-day search by authorities, friends and family, was seen alive recently in New York, the woman's brother told ABCNews.com.

http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/ap_hannah_upp_02_080908_mn.jpg

This undated photo provided by the New York Police Department shows New York City school teacher Hannah Upp, 23, who has gone missing just days before classes began. Upp was last seen about 2:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 29, 2008, as she left her apartment in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.

Dan "Wally" Upp said that his sister Hannah Upp, who went missing Aug. 29, according to police, was recently spotted in midtown New York City. Upp declined to comment on media reports that his sister was spotted checking her e-mail in an Apple store.

"It has been a huge sign of hope and encouragement to her friends and family, and our deepest wish is that she is found as soon as possible," he wrote in an e-mail from Japan, where he is stationed with the Navy. "We still have no idea what brought all this about or what the rest of the story is, and there is no point in speculating right now."

The sighting of Upp in Manhattan raises the possibility that she is not a victim of a crime and has voluntarily dropped out of sight.

"We just want her back safe, and we are waiting to welcome her home with open arms and open hearts with no judgment, no matter what," her brother said.

[Jute]

This is strange, but good news. I found another article that quotes something her brother wrote on FaceBook:

http://uptownflavor.com/2008/09/09/missing-harlem-teacher-spotted-in-midtown/

[helpfindher]

I saw this on comcast.net. If she was checking her email why can't the police "break" into her email and see what has been sent or received.

Here is the link to the video

http://www.comcast.net/data/fan/html/popup.html?v=849507035

[Grande]

I saw this on comcast.net. If she was checking her email why can't the police "break" into her email and see what has been sent or received.

Here is the link to the video

http://www.comcast.net/data/fan/html/popup.html?v=849507035

Nice to see you helpfindher!

They will likely either request the carrier to provide that information or subpoena it.

I'm glad to hear she's is in good health at this point.

[delilah]

I received the following on Facebook from the Group........

Hannah Wood sent a message to the members of We're Not Giving Upp (on Hannah).

--------------------
Subject: Please Read, from Hannah HQ

Hello all –

The past few days have been incredibly complicated. On the one hand they have provided some desperately-desired answers and thus a sense of immense relief – we know our beloved Hannah is alive – but they have also raised a whole new set of questions.

As you may be aware, the media has been having a field day since the NYPD officially confirmed the sighting of Hannah. There are some truths to be discerned within the maelstrom of newspaper and internet coverage – she was seen and identified in midtown – but there is also a great deal of misinformation. When an article cites an unnamed “source,” we should begin to question its veracity: anyone who knows Hannah well, and who has her best interests uppermost in their mind, would and SHOULD be willing to go on the record.

We do not claim to know everything about Hannah; after all, she is an adult and her own person, and we do not own her. Everyone is entitled to keep things private if they so choose. However, between her friends and her family, we can confirm that, as far as WE know, the following statements are incorrect:

“Upp has been a "freegan," a member of a subculture that eats only food that is free and vegan, and has been known to root for meals in trash bins”:
- Yes, Hannah was featured in a NY Daily News article about freegans. The media has leapt upon this, implying that “freeganism” is a dangerous alternative lifestyle automatically involving itinerant behavior. Hannah is environmentally-conscious and sensitive to the enormous amount of food wasted every day, which is why she decided to explore the concept of and ideals behind the movement, but as far as we know, she is not devoted to some kind of solely freegan existence. And even if she was, plenty of responsible people (including Bryn Mawr professors) practice “freeganism,” and therefore it shouldn’t be linked with this much importance to the events of the past two weeks or used to imply that she completely ditched her life to devote herself to its full-time practice.

“Investigators wonder if the teacher - who detectives believe is bipolar - stopped taking her medication and ran off, a police source said”:
- We don’t know what the police surmise, but we do know that – at least to our knowledge – Hannah had not been diagnosed with a mental illness, nor was she on medication. And we would also like to stress that there is absolutely no shame in mental illness, or in its management through medication. It takes great courage to accept and commit to coping with something like this, and we applaud all those who struggle with it. If something like this does turn out to be a factor in these events, we will love Hannah just as much if not more.

Reports that Hannah missed three days of school last year:
- Again, not as far as we know. There WAS a mix-up last year, when she was still getting to grips with the bureaucracy of the school system and failed to follow the correct procedure when reporting an absence. But to our knowledge she did not mysteriously or wantonly just skip three days of teaching.

“We think family members might know where she is and they're just trying to talk her off whatever ledge she's on," the source said”:
- Believe us, we WISH we knew where she is and that we could talk to her. If we did, we wouldn’t still be sitting here gripped to the news and tearing out our hair.

We want you to know how much we appreciate your continued concern. Lots of internet comments have been incredibly vituperative, which seems strange to us. She is not yet home; her safety and well-being has not yet been established. None of us are in a position to speculate or to judge, nor at this stage to demand explanations or point the finger of blame.

Please trust that we will continue to be honest with you. Any suggestion that we have deliberately manipulated or misled the greater community is completely unfounded. We are eternally grateful for everything that you have done and still continue to do, and we know just how much you share our concern.

We just want her back, to hug her and tell her that it will all be OK.

Love,

(The Other) Hannah, on behalf of Hannah HQ
--------------------

To reply to this message, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?inbox/readmessage.php&t=1041344029818

[Grande]

Missing teacher from Portland found after leap off NYC pier
12:05 PM PDT on Tuesday, September 16, 2008
By kgw.com Staff

NEW YORK -- A Portland woman who was teaching in New York City and disappeared days before classes were to start was rescued from the chilly waters off Staten Island.

According to the New York Daily News, ferry workers pulled 23-year-old Hannah Upp to safety Tuesday after she jumped off of a pier in a failed suicide attempt.

Police said she was taken to a hospital where she was listed in stable condition.

Family and friends offered a $10,000 reward in the search for Upp, who was last seen August 29 as she left her apartment in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood.

Upp was spotted in early September checking her email at a Manhattan computer store.

She was about to start her second year there teaching Spanish at the Thurgood Marshall Academy.

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_091608_news_upp_teacher_missing.8136916f.html

[nicky]

Missing teacher from Portland found after leap off NYC pier
12:05 PM PDT on Tuesday, September 16, 2008
By kgw.com Staff

NEW YORK -- A Portland woman who was teaching in New York City and disappeared days before classes were to start was rescued from the chilly waters off Staten Island.

According to the New York Daily News, ferry workers pulled 23-year-old Hannah Upp to safety Tuesday after she jumped off of a pier in a failed suicide attempt.

Police said she was taken to a hospital where she was listed in stable condition.

Family and friends offered a $10,000 reward in the search for Upp, who was last seen August 29 as she left her apartment in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood.

Upp was spotted in early September checking her email at a Manhattan computer store.

She was about to start her second year there teaching Spanish at the Thurgood Marshall Academy.

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_091608_news_upp_teacher_missing.8136916f.html

Thank goodness she is ok. I hope she gets the help she needs and the right medication! Thanks Grande!

[Grande]

YW Nicky!

[packy]

Glad she is safe and I hope she can get much needed help. Thanks for the good news, Grande.

[Claycat]

I'm so glad she is safe. For the ferry captain to see her was amazing. Obviously, it wasn't her time yet.

Nicky, she may not need medication. She may just need a job change. When I was teaching school, there were times I was depressed when I had to go back.

Then again, it might be her dietary habits. She may need to start eating different food. If she was indeed digging through trash cans, she may have picked up a parasite.

Anyway, another strange case! Why is it that so many of the current missing person cases are so strange?

[nanabillie]

I was so happy to see Grande's post! I just saw it! I hope what ever she needs she gets so this doesn't happen again.

[emmeblu]

:1222423:Great that she was spotted and her life saved. I too hope that she will receive medial care so she can go forward with her life in peace. So sad to be that young and want to die.

:1222423:

[Nut44x4]

Staten Island Advance (New York)

September 26, 2008 Friday

Woman, 23, pulled from Harbor is on leave of absence from teaching

Hannah Upp, the public school teacher pulled from the New York Bay by Staten Island Ferry crewmen last week, is taking a leave from teaching until further notice.

Ms. Upp - who went missing Aug. 29, then resurfaced briefly to check her e-mail at a Manhattan Apple Store and shower several times at her gym chain - is on a "leave of absence," according to city Department of Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg.

Ms. Upp was taken to Richmond University Medical Center after her Sept. 16 rescue.

Sources say she is no longer being treated at the West Brighton hospital. Attempts to reach her family this week were unsuccessful.

The 23-year-old vanished days before classes started at the Thurgood Marshall Academy in Harlem, where she teaches Spanish.

The day of her rescue, she told police she had no memory of going into the water, but investigators were skeptical about her amnesia claim, police sources said.

Her disappearance sparked a massive search by her family and friends and attracted attention from national media outlets and several Web sites, including Gawker.com and the blog of author Neil Gaiman.

That search came to an end shortly after 11:30 a.m., when Capt. Christopher Covella spotted a head bobbing in the water during his run from Whitehall to St. George on the ferryboat John J. Marchi.

He pulled out a pair of binoculars to double-check, then altered course to move the ferry closer to the woman. Deckhands Michael Sabatino, 28, and Ephriam Washington, 31, were lowered from the ferry in a small motorboat and approached Ms. Upp, who was face down and not moving.

The deckhands strapped her into a life vest and drove the rescue boat directly to a slip at St. George, where an ambulance was waiting.
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100020825&docId=l:858616675&start=2

[Claycat]

I thought you all would like a little update. I have a friend on another forum who was talking about Hannah, when she went missing, because her daughter is a friend of Hannah. I asked her if she knew anything about her status.

She said she has had some kind of mental break down, and her family is seeing to it that she receives the help she needs. My friend's daughter only knows the basics, as Hannah's friends are trying to give her family some peace and time to recoup.

[sarahhod]

A life, interrupted


By Rebecca Flint Marx and Vytenis Didziulis (http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=By%20Rebecca%20Flint%20Marx%20and %20Vytenis%20Didziulis&sort=publicationdate&submit=Search)
Published: March 2, 2009
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The young woman was floating face down in the water, about a mile southwest of the southern tip of New York. Wearing only red running shorts and a black sports bra, she was barely visible to the naked eye of the captain of the Staten Island Ferry: When he caught sight of her bobbing head, it was like glimpsing the tip of a ballpoint pen across a busy city street. Less than four minutes later, a skiff piloted by two of the ferry's deckhands pulled up alongside the woman. One man took hold of her ankles while the other grabbed her shoulders. As she was lifted from the water, she gasped.
"I went from going for a run to being in the ambulance," the woman said several months later in describing her ordeal. "It was like 10 minutes had passed. But it was almost three weeks."
On Aug. 28, a Thursday, a 23-year-old schoolteacher from Hamilton Heights named Hannah Emily Upp went for a jog along Riverside Drive. That jog is the last thing that Upp says she remembers before the deckhands rescued her from the waters of New York Harbor on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 16.
Rumors and speculation abounded about what befell Upp. She disappeared the day before the start of a new school year at Thurgood Marshall Academy, a Harlem school, where she taught Spanish. She left behind her wallet, her cellphone, her ID and a host of troubling questions.
It was as if the city had simply opened wide and swallowed her whole — until she was seen on a security camera at the Midtown Apple store checking her e-mail. Then she vanished again. And then reappeared, not only at the Apple store but also at a Starbucks and several New York Sports Clubs, where news reports said she went to shower.
Was she suffering from bipolar disorder? Running away from an overly demanding job? Escaping from a city that can overwhelm even the most resilient?
Other questions lingered. Did she forage for food? Where did she sleep? Most baffling of all, how did she survive for so long without money or any identification in one of the world's busiest and most complex cities?
That she was rescued, alive and well, is in itself amazing; most such stories do not have happy endings. But the explanation for what had happened raised even more questions than Upp's disappearance had — for her more than for anybody.
After her rescue, while she was recovering from hypothermia and dehydration at Richmond University Medical Center in Staten Island, she was told that she was suffering from dissociative fugue, a rare form of amnesia that causes people to forget their identity, suddenly and without warning, and can last from a few hours to years.
"It's weird," Upp said a few weeks ago over a cup of tea in a Hell's Kitchen café, the first time in the five months since her rescue that she had talked publicly about her experience. "How do you feel guilty for something you didn't even know you did? It's not your fault, but it's still somehow you. So it's definitely made me reconsider everything. Who was I before? Who was I then — is that part of me? Who am I now?"
An Appetite for Travel
The answer to that last question, at least on the surface, is a bright, introspective young woman with an easy laugh and an expansive smile. Dressed this day for a job interview, she wore a black blazer and a knee-length skirt that contrasted with the slim silver hoop piercing her right nostril and the bright red metal wristwatch peeking out from beneath her sleeve.
She looked like any other recent college graduate negotiating the rapidly narrowing space between youth and adulthood. Her questions about her identity are, to some degree, no different from those of her peers who haven't had to deal with highly publicized memory loss.
"When you're just starting out, you have one job to your name: There's your professional identity and then there's who you are," she said. She may be questioning who she is after her experience, she added, "but everybody is." She laughed and added, "This is just extra."
Before she jogged out of her life that August day, Upp had a demanding schedule. The previous fall, after graduating from Bryn Mawr, she began teaching Spanish to more than 200 seventh and eighth graders at Thurgood Marshall Academy while studying for a master's degree in education at Pace University. It was a challenging job, but one she loved.
Upp also loved to travel. She grew up in a small town in Oregon, the daughter of two pastors (her mother, who lives in Philadelphia, and her father, who is in India, are divorced). While at college, Upp spent a semester in Buenos Aires, visited Ghana, Poland and Puerto Rico with the school's choir, and traveled with friends through Europe.
Last summer, she went to Japan to visit her brother, who is in the Navy, and to New Delhi to visit Piyali Bhattacharya, a close friend and former Bryn Mawr classmate.
"I asked her if she would be O.K. while I was at work, since she doesn't speak any Hindi and being a white woman in Delhi can be a bit daunting," Bhattacharya said in an e-mail message. "But as always, Hannah proved me wrong. She hopped off by herself, took a full tour of the Old City, admittedly the most difficult part of the city to navigate, and met me for coffee afterwards!"
The 'Jason Bourne' Affliction
The medical condition diagnosed in Upp is so uncommon that few psychiatrists ever see it. Characterized in part by sudden and unexpected travel combined with an inability to recall one's past, dissociative fugue demonstrates the glasslike fragility of memory and identity.
Its most famous sufferer is the fictional Jason Bourne, the secret agent made flesh on film by Matt Damon. The Bourne character takes his name from Ansel Bourne, a Rhode Island preacher who suffered the earliest recorded case of the condition when he was en route to Providence in 1887. The preacher continued to Norristown, Pennsylvania, where he opened a store and lived with another family, until one day he "woke up."
The memory of how to perform mundane tasks like hailing a cab or even using the Internet remains intact. Victims lose only the memories tied to their identity.
"It's as if a whole set of information about one's self, our autobiography, goes off line," said Richard Loewenstein, one of the nation's few experts on dissociative fugue.
"We tend to experience our identity as a thing, as if it's a constant," added Loewenstein, who is medical director of the trauma program at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Baltimore, and has treated five patients with dissociative fugue. "But it's a lot less stable and has less unity than we want to believe."
Travel is a defining characteristic.
"People have been known to not only travel across cities or countries, but also across continents," said Philip Coons, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at Indiana University and the author of a book on the subject. "The explanation behind the fugue is that the person is running away from a bad situation, from a bad marriage or a bad financial situation."
The Missing Chapter
When Upp failed to return to her apartment after four days, her roommates contacted the police. After a week with no word, and fearing that she had been a victim of a kidnapping or another violent crime, her friends and family posted messages on blogs and started a Facebook page called "We're Not Giving Upp (on Hannah)," which was dedicated to tracking her down. Accompanying many postings was a photograph of a smiling young woman with warm hazel eyes, glossy brown hair and a white rose tucked behind one ear.
Despite the optimistic tone of the postings, her family was frantic.
"At first, you try to come up with any kind of possible theory that could provide a simple, harmless explanation of where she might be," her brother, Dan Upp, said from Japan. "But considering the circumstances, you really can't convince yourself that any of them are feasible, and you're left with the unavoidable conclusion that something is very wrong."
Upp credits the police with helping her piece together what happened during the missing weeks. Though details like where she ate and slept remain elusive to her, security camera footage and conversations with police detectives have provided some clues to the where if not the why.
According to police reports, Upp spent a lot of time in places like Riverside Drive, "where if you're in running gear, no one's going to look at you twice," she said. When she revisited Riverside Drive after leaving the hospital, Upp said, "it seemed to make sense to me. Not only is it one of my favorite places, but there's something soothing about the sound of water and just not feeling trapped in the concrete jungle."
Upp's doctors have helped her make sense of other clues, like her stops at the Apple store, where she was seen both checking her e-mail and speaking with a fellow Pace student.
"I was on a computer, but there's no evidence in my Gmail account of any e-mails being sent or read," Upp said. She did log in, something her doctors attributed to a muscle memory: How many times in our lives have we typed in our name and password without even thinking? "So their theory," Upp said, "is that I thought, hey, this is a computer, this is what I do with a computer." But once she opened her e-mail, she couldn't figure out who Hannah was and why everyone was looking for her. "So I logged out and left."
Her conversation with the Pace student had a similarly surreal quality. While Upp says she does not recall the meeting, a store security camera showed her speaking with the young man, who had asked her if she was the missing student everyone was trying to find. She said she wasn't.
News reports of her appearances at various New York Sports Club locations suggest that she was careful to keep moving, though Upp believes that the number of sightings was exaggerated. For one thing, she pointed out, she did not have her gym ID with her; for another, the gym knew she was missing and surely would have contacted the police had she appeared.
The one tangible clue to the extent of her travels was the large blister on her heel. In addition to the hypothermia, dehydration and a sunburn, the blister was the only physical record of her three weeks spent on the move, and it suggests why she eventually left the city's streets for its waterways: Her feet hurt.
"They think that just as I was wandering on land, I wandered in the water," Upp said. "I don't think I had a purpose. But I had that really big blister, so maybe I just didn't want my shoes on anymore."
The Rescue
Captain Christopher Covella, a mariner with 32 years of experience and more than 17,000 trips aboard Staten Island ferries to his credit, was in the pilot house of the John Marchi on Sept. 16, heading to Staten Island from Manhattan, when he saw something out of place.
"At 11:50 a.m. I noticed something in the water that didn't belong there," Captain Covella said. "All it was, was a head and it was slightly more than a quarter-mile away."
Slowing down the boat, he instructed two of his deckhands to prepare to enter the water near Robbins Reef, a tiny outcropping of land topped by a lighthouse just off the north shore of Staten Island. The two deckhands, Michael Sabatino, 28, and Ephriam Washington, 31, hung over the edge of the ferry in a 12-foot aluminum skiff as the captain edged his craft toward the island.
About 200 feet away from Upp, who was floating face down, the men were lowered into the water. When they reached her, Washington put his hands under Upp's arms, turned her face up, and, with the help of Sabatino, lifted her into the skiff.
"We realized that she was breathing and had no major cuts or bruises, so we decided to bring her back to St. George," Washington said. Three minutes later, they were at the Staten Island Ferry terminal.
After Upp's rescue, newspapers reported that she had jumped off a Staten Island pier in a suicide attempt. The reality, Upp said, was far less sensational, if almost as dramatic. Together with Captain Covella, she determined that it would have been impossible for her to jump off the pier and swim against the current to the spot where she was rescued. Instead, she believes that she left Manhattan from the Chelsea pier and kayak dock where she once attended a 9/11 memorial.
"From what I can piece together, I left Manhattan late at night," she said. "I've gone back over lunar records to figure out if there was a full moon then, which sounds right. At that point in the tidal records, the current would have been in my favor, so whether I was Olympic swimming or doggy paddling, I could have made it."
Made it, that is, to Robbins Reef, where she pulled herself ashore after swimming for several hours. She believes that she spent the next day sitting on the rocks around the lighthouse, a theory supported by the fresh sunburn she sported when she was rescued. She remained on the island until she returned to the water around 11 the following morning.
Then she was in an ambulance speeding toward the hospital. When her family and friends arrived, Upp said, "it was, wow, I'm happy to see you, but why are you so happy to see me?"
The day she was discharged, Ms. Upp posted a statement on the Facebook page her friends had created.
"I needed to publicly acknowledge my gratitude for everything, from search parties to people just caring," she said. "I did feel that I owed people at least some explanation," one that would put all the speculation to rest.
The Next Steps
Although Upp was quickly courted by television talk shows, she decided to start rebuilding her life away from the spotlight. "Maybe people I've never met and never will meet will think I'm crazy," she acknowledged, "but maybe it's better than going on Oprah, you know?"
Initially, Upp said she believed that once she returned to her apartment, she would leave her ordeal in the past. But in some ways, it was just beginning. Never mind the reporter who showed up on her doorstep two hours after she arrived home; the larger question was whether she could resume her daily life without worrying about stumbling into another fugue. And would she forever be known as "that missing teacher"?
Upp considered leaving New York altogether, perhaps going to Japan to live with her brother. But, ultimately, she decided to stay.
"I didn't want my life to change in such a way that the things I enjoy I couldn't enjoy anymore," she said. "It was just, I can't let New York win."
Recovery has been slow. Simple social routines like seeing friends and taking a dance class have helped her re-establish her personal identity. Figuring out her professional identity has been harder. Upp is on leave from her teaching job, and though the post is still open to her, she is uncertain about returning. Was it significant, she wonders, that she disappeared the day before school started?
"There's a lot of room for self-doubt and confusion there," she said. "And, well, I don't know. I certainly would never have intended to do that, but it makes you wonder."
She wonders, too, about what caused the fugue state. So far, a possible catalyst has yet to emerge.
"That's the hardest thing," Upp acknowledged. "If I don't feel confident about the trigger, how do you start with prevention?"
She has learned, however, that fugues are usually isolated events.
"If you work through it, you can usually go on to live a normal life," she said. "Obviously, the hardest part is the period right after. It's textbook that you feel shame, you feel embarrassed, you feel guilt — all things I've definitely felt."
She has also experienced something rarely afforded to anyone in this city: the chance to slow down.
"If anything," she said, "I've gotten a time to really appreciate what normal life is like. I've never had a moment in my life where I've just stopped and said, hold on, let's re-evaluate everything."
Upp's friends have no doubt about her ability to move on.
"If Hannah doesn't want to let this incident eat away at the rest of her life, then it won't be an issue any more than the common cold is an issue to you or me," Bhattacharya said. "She's an incredibly strong woman who knows how to deal with a ghost and then release it."
And day by day, she works to put the "missing teacher" label behind her.
"My roommates and I have a code word to show that I'm not going to fugue again," Upp said. "My roommate had done this long interview with ABC, and the only thing they ended up printing was that I was a friendly vegetarian who likes to try new dishes. So if I don't get home one night, they'll text me, like, 'friendly vegetarian.' And I'll say, 'who likes to try new dishes.' And we know we're on the same page."
Perhaps the most moving public coda to Upp's experience occurred a month after her rescue, when she attended a community board meeting in Willowbrook, Staten Island, honoring the three men who had saved her life.
"Everyone kept saying, 'We're so glad you're alive; these things don't end this way,' " Upp remembered. "Just to see how happy and proud they were, it was a huge honor."
And Captain Covella said: "It makes you feel real good being a hero. I mean, another minute or so, and we would have lost her."


http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/02/america/01miss.php?page=1