A Kellogg School of Management student’s wife was found dead of self-inflicted stab wounds Saturday in a Chicago restaurant, police reported, disappointing volunteers in a large and quickly mobilized search by students and faculty.
On Friday Kellogg student Juan Ordonez, with the help of other students and Kellogg employees, began looking for his wife, who had gone missing that morning after leaving the Noyes Street home where the couple and their one-week-old child lived. The search party placed posters around the NU campus, downtown Evanston and parts of north Chicago with copies of a missing person report filed for the woman, Andrea V. Campanari, 33.
The search party, which Kellogg spokesman Richard Honack said included “hundreds of students from Kellogg and the Northwestern community,” used a classroom at the Donald P. Jacobs Center as a base, distributing maps, fliers and food to the volunteers.
Campanari was found dead shortly before 1 p.m. Saturday in the bathroom of Great American Bagel restaurant, 1248 Belmont Ave. in Chicago, having apparently stabbed herself several times, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office. The restaurant is about 9 miles south of her home.
Restaurant managers declined to comment.
Ordonez reported Campanari missing after she went out for a walk at about 9 a.m. Friday and did not return. The EPD missing person report stated that Campanari left behind her purse, along with all her identification and money.
Ordonez is working toward a master’s degree in business administration at Kellogg. He and Campanari both are from Argentina.
Ordonez declined to comment Sunday.
Campanari had given birth to a child about a week ago and probably suffered from postpartum depression, the missing person report stated.
Evanston police located Campanari at the medical examiner’s office. Evanston Police Department issued a press release confirming that she had killed herself but could not provide more information or comment Sunday.
At about 3 p.m., members of the search party, most of them NU graduate students, gathered at Kellogg for an update meeting, where it was announced that Campanari had died. University Chaplain Timothy Stevens led the group of about 60 students — which he said later grew to about 100 — in a moment of silence for Campanari.
Stevens said the search party did not contact him until after Campanari had been found but that when he met with the group, “there was an outpouring of concern … which I thought was really remarkable.”
Abdiel Santiago, president of the Hispanic Business Students Association at Kellogg, called the search effort “a Kelloggwide event,” and said e-mails about Campanari were sent to all students and faculty of the school Saturday morning.
Ten to 20 percent of new mothers experience postpartum depression, according to the Web site of Postpartum Support International. Its symptoms, which sometimes include thoughts of suicide, usually show within the first three to six weeks after giving birth. Postpartum psychosis, a more severe illness, occurs in only one-tenth of 1 percent of women who give birth and usually develops within three to 14 days after the birth.
The causes of the various forms of postpartum illness are not completely understood but usually are a combination of changes in hormone levels and the added physical, mental and social stresses that may occur after childbirth.
