Kenji Ohmi

was a Japanese student who arrived in the United States to attend the Wisconsin English as a Second Language Institute in Madison, Wisconsin.

Ohmi went missing on the morning of January 28, 2006. Ohmi's body was found on June 19, 2006 in Lake Mendota.

Ohmi was last seen on a videorecording leaving his apartment complex at 202 N. Hamilton St. (about 4 city blocks from Lake Mendota) at 6:45 a.m. on January 28, 2006. He did not take his wallet with him or, despite the cold rain coming down outside, his umbrella.

The case was widely reported in Japan. While his disappearance garnered moderate local media attention, it did not received the level of coverage that the Audrey Seiler disappearance did. Seiler was a University of Wisconsin-Madison student who faked her own disappearance; media coverage she received during her disappearance is often used as an example of "Missing White Women Syndrome". Refusal of the Ohmi family to be interviewed for TV is cited as a contributing factor in the difference in levels of media coverage.

Police allocated two officers to the case and stated that, unlike the Audrey Seiler case, there was no evidence of foul play involved.

A body found in Lake Mendota near Tenney Park (about a mile from Ohmi's residence at 202 N. Hamilton St.) on June 19th, 2006 was identified as Ohmi. [ [http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2006/06/20/0606200668.php "Sad Journey From Japan"] madison.com archives] The body was found by a local windsurfer. The local coroner stated that Ohmi appears to have drowned, but further tests were needed. The police initially stated that were investigating the case as either a suicide or accidental death. On June 21 police announced that they did not believe it was a case of suicide and did not believe that foul play was involved. The Dane County coroner confirmed that the cause of death was drowning and that Ohmi's body had been in the lake since January. [ [http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/wsj/2006/06/21/0606210047.php "No Sign Of Foul Play In Student's Death"] madison.com archives]

Notes and references