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Home » Stories, True and Otherwise

Hannah Upp

Submitted by on September 4, 2008 – 10:47 PM38 Comments

Many of the locals may have seen this alert elsewhere in their daily online rounds, but just in case, I’ll post it again here:

Hannah Emily Upp, 23, has been missing since Friday, August 29, from her residence in the vicinity of Hamilton Terrace, Harlem. Hannah is a New York City Public School teacher; she teaches middle school Spanish at Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change, at W. 135th and 7th Ave. A recent graduate of Bryn Mawr College, Class of 2007, majoring in Spanish and Comparative Literature, she is a New York City Teaching Fellow, working on her Master’s degree at Pace University and teaching full time. She completed her first year of teaching 2007-08, and was about to start her second year of teaching when she went missing.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Detective Perez, 30th Precinct Detective Squad, at 212-690-8842, or 212-690-8843.

Thanks to readers Leigh M. and Sarah R. for the heads-up.

Friends of Upp’s have started a dedicated Facebook page where you can read more details of her disappearance.

…I wonder whether she showed up to work on Friday. It’s a little unclear from the more detailed Facebook post, but it sounds like she didn’t, and that people had been calling her since Thursday…but the last sighting of her is Friday at 2 PM. Who saw her, exactly? Where? Where did she go Thursday night? She left everything in her apartment — keys, cell, credit cards, the lot. So it seems like whatever happened probably happened in the 12-24 hours before she was last seen. And…where exactly was she going for the weekend? Did her hosts try to call her?

I don’t mean to get nosy, but the point of this post is to help jog some information loose from someone, somewhere. So if you know her, or you know anything, or you suspect anything or saw anything, call Detective Perez.

And look out for each other out there.

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38 Comments »

  • JennB says:

    It sounds like she was supposed to go to school, then go out of town, but she didn’t even make it to school. I think her roommates were the people who saw her on Friday. Very scary.

  • JennB says:

    Okay, the NYDN has some better details: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/09/04/2008-09-04_teacher_23_disappears_into_thin_air-2.html

    She was supposed to go to a school function Friday afternoon, and a friend saw her as she was getting ready to leave for it. She was then supposed to go to Philly to spend the weekend with her mother. However, she left her keys, wallet, and phone in her apartment. Her passport was there, too.

  • Jaybird says:

    I don’t understand why the police couldn’t classify her as missing on Monday, when it was clear something had gone wrong on the previous Friday, if not before. Is there such a hard-and-fast rule that a certain length of time has to elapse, even if there’s obvious evidence that something is off? (I’m referring to her keys, subway card, etc., that were left behind.)

    My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family. Too far away to be of much other help, but I can do that much.

  • Margaret in CO says:

    @Jaybird: “Is there such a hard-and-fast rule that a certain length of time has to elapse, even if there’s obvious evidence that something is off?” Yes, and that should be changed…it’s usually 48 hours. Ever seen the TV show “48 Hours?” – they solve just absolute shitloads of crimes in that first 48 hours! I don’t get this law at all…it’s counterintuitive and seems to purposely let the trail go cold.

    Jumping off my soapbox now, (and seconding your thoughts & prayers…)

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    So she’s getting ready to leave, and…what. Someone hits the buzzer claiming to be UPS or something, so she runs downstairs to sign for a package (she thinks)…it’s the only credible explanation for her going out of the apartment without anything on her. That’s fine as far as it goes, but…then whoever’s at the door abducts her? In broad daylight?

    It’s not impossible — people sometimes choose not to see things in this city, and the eve of a holiday weekend, I guess nobody could have been around — but it seems like an awfully long shot to take at someone in broad daylight if you’re someone she doesn’t really know. Unless she did know the guy. But even then, eventually there’s going to be a scuffle, it seems to me; someone must have seen that.

    I apologize for presuming with my comments that she didn’t just go on walkabout, but…she didn’t. Not with empty pockets. I hope the CSU went over her whole building with a sieve because I have to think based on the info in the Daily News piece that whatever happened, started in the building.

  • Nik says:

    I agree, search the building first, in every space that could fit a human being. I hope she’s found okay, and not trapped somewhere.

  • Jen S says:

    Even if I was just running down to get a package or let a friend in, I’d take my keys–my front door closes on a dime and you’re locked out. Was her apartment door unlocked? I would presume so, since her keys were found inside–if not, who else had a key to her place? If this was a crime of opportunity as opposed to a planned abduction, what the hell happened at the front door? You’d think forcing a grown, struggling woman into an alley or car would involve a lot more struggle than could go unnoticed on a busy street in the middle of the day.

  • Shotrock says:

    I’ve noticed that the police will be pushed to not wait in these situations by those who have intimate daily knowledge of her habits and schedule — in other words, people who live with the missing person (be that a roomie, boyfriend, family member/s). If the missing person lives alone, the cops will say, “Well, how do you know she just didn’t decide to do X?” It’s not like you live with her, do you?”

    I mean, if I take a day off, the office knows, much as her employer knew where she’d be. The idea that my assistant could be all BB’ing me asking “Are you OK?” and the cops dismiss it because we’re not BFFs sharing toothpaste in a 2-bed 1-bath, ticks me off. Being a woman living alone, such as.

  • La BellaDonna says:

    Jen S – unfortunately, a grown woman held at knifepoint or gunpoint, either of which is easily concealed, probably isn’t going to be doing much in the way of visible struggling. It would be all too easy, I’m afraid, to force her to come along – especially if she didn’t go outside the building. There are a lot of scary places in an apartment building – starting with other people’s apartments.

    I hope she’s found safe.

  • Carraway says:

    This reminds me so much of what happened to my friend Manny in the mid-90’s. He was a recent college graduate, and was working for Teach For America in Harlem. He was roommates with another classmate in Queens. He was supposed to go to a going away party for himself and some other TFA teachers, on their last day of the school term.

    He didn’t show up, and his wallet, keys, etc were in his apartment. So weird, everyone wondered if he’d been abducted or something. A week later he was found at the morgue. He had gone running, which is why all his ID was at home, and he had had a heart attack brought on by a previously undiagnosed congenital heart defect. With no ID on him, it took that long for the morgue to match him to a missing persons report…

    Sorry to be morbid. I hope this case has a much happier outcome.

  • e says:

    Helplessness makes me frustrated, so please don’t judge me too harshly when I ask:

    Why is the announcement written in the style of a social pages announcement (or, God forbid, obituary) instead of a missing person announcement? Knowing the address of her employer, her majors, and her alma mater does not make me very likely to recognize her if I see her, or remember seeing something that might be useful to investigators. Why did they not put things like height, features, build, clothing…?

    Surely her family is distraught and not thinking all that clearly, but with all the attention to detail that went into this announcement, why wouldn’t they include even a one- or two-line physical description?

    I will be focusing all the positive energies I can on a happy, safe outcome, but I can’t help but shudder a little at the fact that whoever wrote this seemed to be going for more of an “in memoriam” vibe than a “this is what you’re looking for, find her now” one.

  • e says:

    And I guess the POINT of that comment was to say, if anyone DOES have her physical description, perhaps that could be added to the blurb and distributed to the many places that are running the story.

    ABC news has a story on her that describes her as a “friendly vegetarian who constantly experimented with new dishes.” FFS, that’s not going to help anyone recognize her! They have headshots, but no body type info, no indication of what she might be wearing, nothing.

  • Friartuck says:

    From other reports, I hear she was not happy with her job. Could it be that she just decided to up and leave? Was she afraid of someone and felt she had to flee? Was there someone in her life that her family might not approve of? Was she seeing someone??? Would she on a lark just take off and try to start a new life somewhere?? I checked out someother sites on the internet. She went to Ghana on a trip in college as part of a choir or chorus. Has she been in contact with any of the people she went with to Ghana ??? What was her mental attitude a few days before she went missing?? Have they checked the bus stations? The taxi cabs? or maybe she would hitch a ride.
    Maybe she has amnesia and is living another life???

  • Jaybird says:

    @Shotrock: There are many, many great things about being single and living alone. What you described (the assumption on everyone’s part that you’re given to wandering around aimlessly, even for days on end) is not one of them. There surely are a lot of single women and men who do sort of ramble about, but the assumption shouldn’t be that their safety isn’t that important just because they live alone.

  • Kathryn T. says:

    @FriarTuck: Without her keys, her cell phone, her wallet? I find it hard to believe that there’s a lark larky enough to go off without your keys or any money at all.

  • There’s a photo at the Facebook page, and there was one posted at the other site where I heard about this (Neil Gaiman’s site; his daughter knows Hannah).

    I would think a photo would help people recognize her better than a description.

  • Libby says:

    I’ve been reading a number of articles about this case, and there are so many contradictions in the news stories that it’s hard to get any idea of what could have happened or to figure out the timeline. I’ve even seen her described as both 5′ even and 5’5″.

    Someone over on web-sleuths posted a link to an article about “freegans” with her photo on it. I had never heard that term before, but apparently freegans are vegans who go dumpster diving for edible food that restaurants and grocery stores throw out at night. The keys left behind are a mystery, but it’s plausible she would leave behind her wallet and cell phone if she were going out to do something as dangerous as dumpster diving in NYC at night.

    I have no idea about the particulars of her apartment building, but when I lived in an apartment buildings in L.A., I often used to run downstairs to do laundry, get the mail, or take out trash without taking my wallet, phone, etc., although I did need my keys to check the mail. In some buildings, I was able to reenter the building with a security code (no keys needed) after taking out the trash, and some buildings had an unlocked laundry room in the basement, others did not. It was imprudent, but I did not always lock the door of my apartment to run quick errands within the building.

    It was the end of the month; maybe she went to drop off her rent check with an on-site building manager and didn’t bother to take her wallet, phone, etc.?

  • S.K. says:

    What an awful story. I heard about it firsthand because a few of my best friends live together in the building next door to the one where this girl lives. I’ve spent a lot of time there and this is very unnerving.

    I cannot imagine why this girl would have left her apartment without keys…the doors in her building (which is owned by the same management company as my friends’ building and is basically identical) lock automatically once you leave. I can’t see why she would walk out without keys unless her roommates were home to let her back in (which it seems as if hers were not?) I can only imagine that she opened her door to someone and was lured or forced out. As to the question of whether somebody would have seen/heard…honestly, these are fairly rundown buildings. My friends have had to call the cops a few times on people loitering and fighting in the front hall.

    I’m so sorry to hear about this. We’re all terribly concerned and hoping that it turns out that she’s fine and that she went somewhere of her own accord or even decided to run away herself; as bizarre as that might be, it would at least be good to know that no foul play was involved. I feel like begging my friends to add a padlock to their door for the time being…

  • Meagan says:

    I understand that all of you are concerned; however, theorizing possibilities will not help now. Go out and look for her.

    She is 5’5”/5’6”, probably 130 lbs, with brownish hair. She always has a smile on her face and has a wonderfully boisterous laugh.

    Hannah was not a true ‘freegan’ and from the reports of her roommates, she was not going to dumpster dive.

    We all love you Hannah, I want to be able to say “welcome home” to you one more time…

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    If people are to go out and look for her, it would help to know specifics like the ones we’re discussing. To those who know her and love her, she’s easy to spot; she’s one in a million, as we all are.

    To strangers, though, she’s a mid-height, average weight Caucasian woman with brown hair who doesn’t eat meat, which in this particular zip code at least is…one *of* a million.

    I’m really not trying to be insensitive, and I don’t think she’s in the western Slope anyway, but I think e has a point. If I went missing, “she’s a Yankee fan who hates raisins” isn’t going to get me spotted by strangers. “Tall with short hair, tomato tattoo on right bicep, last seen in red t-shirt and black skirt” is. Knowing whether I tend to run out for an errand without my keys (I don’t) or how vigilant I am about locking the fire-escape egress (not very) would also help.

    If there’s any information on what she was wearing when last seen, how her hair was styled, her jewelry, whether she has tats or visible scars — those of us who don’t know her personally need as many visual/physical cues as possible. I don’t doubt she’s a warm, vibrant personality, but while that might motivate strangers to look for her, it’s not going to help them *identify* her.

  • Ashleigh says:

    I hate to say it, but I really hope the authorities have taken a good look at her current and former students. If she worked at a middle school with an underserved population, that could put some of her 8th-graders at 14 or 15 years old. Let’s say one of her former students was emotionally unstable but did not grow up in an environment with adequate social services to help him. It would be very easy for a kid like that to get fixated on the pretty, vivacious, caring new teacher at his school, and for the well-meaning-but-in-over-her-head young teacher to not know how to handle such a situation. It would also make sense that if such a student showed up at her apartment one day, a compassionate teacher, wanting to be a source of support for her troubled kids, might let him into her apartment.

    I feel terrible speculating like this, and I want to be clear that I am most definitely not judging Hannah or implying that this situation occurred. I will keep an eye out for her and hope for her safe return. I would also like to be quite clear that I am not suggesting that all students in sketchy areas are dangerous thugs; having worked at just such a school, I can attest to the fact that a lot of the students are wonderful people. But the great tragedy is that for those kids who do need help, help is oftentimes simply not available. It is not hard to imagine a troubled kid snapping, and his teacher being the random brunt of a lifetime of accumulated rage.

  • La BellaDonna says:

    @Kristi: I think as full a physical description as possible would be helpful; not everyone has access to Facebook – not even everyone who comes here. From her NY Daily News photo, Hannah has a heart-shaped face with a widowĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s peak, and sheĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s a fair-skinned Caucasian with pink tones to her skin, but no tan. Is her hair still dark brown, parted on the right, and shoulder length? Her eyes appear to be hazel in the photograph, and she has a silver ring in the right side of her nose, so there’s a piercing there, even if the ring is gone. Her eyebrows are arched and dark, and fairly full, about the same width throughout. When she smiles, her gums are visible above her top teeth. Does she have pierced ears or any other outstanding physical characteristics? – all of those would be helpful for those of us who want to help. Philly will keep an eye out for her, too.

    @Ashleigh: yeah, itĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s a horrible speculation, but I know someone who was attacked by two of her students. So: horrible, but possible.

    @Sars: I was looking at your self-description, and I thought: Well, tall, yeah, but is she blonde or brunette, these days? Fortunately, we donĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t have to search for you, and you have close family and friends who can describe you, but IĂ¢â‚¬â„¢m a single woman, living alone, like a gazillion others. Ugh. IĂ¢â‚¬â„¢m going to write out a self-description. I figure if I do that, it probably wonĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t be needed. Maybe some other folks living alone would want to do that, too.

  • John A says:

    Apparently there’s been a hopeful break in the case:

    News reports indicate that the family of the missing girl has confirmed her appearance in recent video surveillance of the 5th Ave Apple Store, where she apparently was checking her email.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/09/08/2008-09-08_friends_of_missing_teacher_hannah_upp_tu.html

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

  • Jaybird says:

    As happy as I am to know she’s apparently alive and functioning well enough to check her e-mail (in a public place, no less), I have to wonder: Won’t the cops use this as an excuse for not pursuing missing-persons cases more aggressively in the future? As in, “Well, it’s probably just another one of those people who flaked out and dropped out of sight”. I hope Hannah gets home safe and sound, and maybe I have an unfairly low opinion of law enforcement personnel, but it just seems that this kind of case gets dragged out as justification for NOT doing everything they can as soon as they can.

    That said, knowing she’s alive is infinitely better than the alternative.

  • jill (tx) says:

    I really hope she’s alive and well. Truly I do. However, if she’s been leading police on a wild goose chase, and wasting public resources on a missing person search, I do think she should be called to the carpet for that if and when she resurfaces. No matter how bad things get, there are resources. As a graduate student, surely she has access to free mental health and career counseling services. It’s not okay to do this to loved ones and public servants. But again, I do hope for the best outcome possible.

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    Evidently she’s visited that Apple Store twice now: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/09/09/ 2008-09-09_missing_teacher_seen_checking_email_at_s.html

    It seems that a classmate approached her the second time; detectives now believe that she’s bipolar and went off her meds, although her family is denying that.

    If it’s her, I have to think she’s close to getting picked up — and I hope she is, because this behavior does not indicate to me that she’s compos mentis.

  • Mary says:

    I have worked in the school that she worked at and none of the students there have anything to do with this.

  • K. says:

    “I really hope she’s alive and well. Truly I do. However, if she’s been leading police on a wild goose chase, and wasting public resources on a missing person search, I do think she should be called to the carpet for that if and when she resurfaces.”
    I agree. She’s cost the city time and money and worried her friends and family half to death, and if she is well and in her right mind and just flitted off to take a time-out, she needs to see some kind of consequences. If she’s unwell, she needs to get some help. I was sure something bad had happened – it was the fact that she didn’t take her keys that convinced me. I might just grab a few bucks when I realize at 11 PM that I’m out of toothpaste and run up the block to Duane Reade and not bother with wallet, phone, purse, etc., but there is not one second that I am out of my apartment that I don’t have my keys. This was true when I lived in a doorman building with roommates; it’s true in my walk-up now. So the fact that she left without her keys screamed “foul play” to me. If there was none (and it appears there wasn’t), that’s great, but her friends and family and the law enforcers of New York deserve better than to be strung along by her.

  • Leda422 says:

    I was looking at my coffee table today and realized that I have a spare set of keys that are out in plain sight- anyone checking my apartment if I went missing after I went out to buy milk would find a set of keys, cell phone, and wallet. It’s just a thought, but maybe it’s smart for women living alone to add a tag that says “spare set” to their extra keys, so that it is clear that they went out with the intention of coming back.

  • La BellaDonna says:

    @Jill and K, if what Sars heard is correct, and she’s bi-polar, I totally believe that she could leave her keys and everything else behind. My sister, when she was off her meds, has done that – including just up and walking away from her car. If that’s what Hannah’s done, there’s no calling on the carpet – just being happy that she was found safe, and then getting her back on her meds. There’s no carpet even if she stopped taking her meds herself; it’s been my experience that a lot of people who are bi-polar, when they’ve been stable for a while, sometimes stop taking their meds because they believe and hope that now they’re okay, and they’re normal like everybody else.* I know my sister hates being bi-polar; she would rather have had anything else wrong – diabetes, cancer, anything. Her family isn’t doing her any favors if Hannah is bi-polar and needs medication; it’s just a body part that needs to be helped, like any other body part that’s not working right. The fact that she may be checking her email during this period doesn’t mean she’s not bi-polar; all her behaviour indicates that she is.

    *Of course, sometimes their employers screw up their health benefits, so they can’t afford their meds, but that’s a different story. And sadly, there are not always resources for the people who need them.

  • K. says:

    @ La BellaDonna,

    I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic, which is why I stated that if she is in fact bipolar, she needs to get some help: a recalibration of her meds, talk therapy, a combination of the two, whatever it takes. I am not unaware of the difficulties that folks with bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses face. (And I currently have no health insurance, so you don’t have to tell me about that.) But if she is NOT bipolar or otherwise ill (I haven’t read any definitive statements either way from anyone who knows her intimately; since I don’t know her, I don’t feel comfortable diagnosing her) and just decided she wanted a break from her routine for a few days … OK, life is tough sometimes (and having known many NYC Teaching Fellows, that is not an easy career path she’s chosen) but tell someone. My best friend (who is in no way ill) did that in college; she was going through a tough time and emailed me to tell me she was taking some time to clear out the cobwebs and she’d call me when she was ready, and she did. If she had just stopped returning my calls and I no longer saw her in the class we had together, and I got her RA to open her door and saw all her stuff intact, I would respond precisely the way Hannah Upp’s friends and family did. If she came back a week later all “Oh, it’s cool, just took a little time off,” I’d be relieved that she was OK but also annoyed that she’d put me through such angst for no reason.

    Her family and friends were clearly and movingly worried. If there is no medical reason for her disappearance – bipolar disorder, dissociative identity disorder, dissociative fugue disorder, or the like, I maintain that minimum, someone in her life needs to say, “Look, we were really worried, next time tell someone you’re taking a few days away.” If she IS sick, best of luck to her and her family as they do what it takes to make her well.

  • JR says:

    I completely agree with what K. said, but I would argue that this behavior is evidence of a mental disorder in and of itself. Vanishing without a trace, wandering aimlessly around the city, without any clue that your family and friends would be concerned, with no ID, sleeping where?… I mean, I’m not a mental health professional, but I just don’t think that stable, healthy people behave this way.

  • L K Tucker says:

    L and JR are basically correct but there is a problem that would produce a fugue state with no previous mental health problems. It was discovered by designers in the 1960’s when it caused mental breaks for office workers. The cubicle was created in 1968 to deal with the vision startle reflex to control this problem. It never occurs to anyone that the office situation can be replicated in homes, dorms, and apartments with several residents.

    Victims may have full or partial amnesia but retain functioning ability. There is a long list of missing college students and one other high school teacher, Tara Grinstead, with evidence of Subliminal Distraction exposure in their stories. Brian Shaffer, Maura Murray, Michael Negrete, and Grinstead are all still missing. Ahmad Arain, UCLA, recovered after six weeks and emailed home. He had walked to Mexico from LA in an altered mental state.

    Although designers and engineers believe this phenomenon can only cause a harmless temporary episode, there is no research about it. So little is thought of Subliminal Distraction that it does not appear in design text books, but only communicated in lectures. It is explained in first semester college psychology under psychophysics.

    I began a website about it when my wife had a psychotic break in the payroll office of the University of Alabama in 2002. There are four significant places this phenomenon appears. Hospital intensive care units, Qi Gong, Kundalini Yoga, and Landmark Education’s seminar called The Forum.

    Simple precautions prevent exposure.

  • Jen says:

    http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/ferry-workers-rescue-missing-teacher/?hp

    It looks like Hannah is alive, although who knows about well. I’m just glad that this story didn’t end with a shallow grave someplace. I hope she is feeling better soon.

  • Carraway says:

    She’s been found:

    http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/ferry-workers-rescue-missing-teacher/?hp

    She jumped from a pier in Staten Island into the harbor, was rescued by a passing ferry.

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    I’m glad she’s okay. Well, physically.

  • RJ says:

    It might not be the happiest of happy endings, but it’s sure better than the alternative. Poor thing. I hope she gets whatever she needs to be well again.

  • Jenn says:

    The NY Times has an article about what really happened to Hannah: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/nyregion/thecity/01miss.html?_r=3&src=SkimCI

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