Missing in New York City: Hannah Upp
Posted at 9:12 AM Sep 05, 2008
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.
Now there is a Facebook group dedicated to finding Hannah, as well as several blog posts and news articles.
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."
While a member of the Bryn Mawr and Haverford Chamber Singers, Hannah wrote about a choir trip to Ghana for Bryn Mawr Now. Her article revealed a great deal of insight and a compelling way with words. Hannah wrote:
Returning to Bryn Mawr also meant that I was faced with the challenge of explaining how I spent my winter break, and I have surprised myself with my descriptions of the trip. Instead of the details that would excite a thrill-seeking traveler [...] I find myself describing the emotion I felt while we sang a spiritual at the banks of the river where slaves were bathed for the last time before being sent off on the Middle Passage. I recall the power of the hospitality of the family that welcomed me into their home, where I would share a small bed with three others in what turned into a very cozy night. I refer to the instant connection developed with the members of other choirs when we were able to engage through a song that we had specifically learned to sing together. As corny as it sounds, music did become the instant bridge. Even though I had never met this person singing next to me and any objective comparison of our lives would indicate a complete lack of common ground, we were able to interact and share something that needs no explanation...
A fellow Bryn Mawr student, writing in her tumblelog about Hannah's disappearance, called the young teacher "one of the kindest people I’ve ever met." The size of the Facebook group devoted to finding Hannah is further testament to the number of people who know her and now find themselves worried about the teacher with the easy, winning smile. In a comment on the group page, a friend named Danika Hunt wrote, "I am completely distraught right now, actively keeping my mind aside whenever I can, because I can't imagine my Hannah in this situation. Please return home safely. You're in mine and my family's prayers. I miss you."
Corey Godbey wrote that he was "Hannah's cousin Corey from KS." Godbey continued, "I want to thank each one of you that has joined this group... and also ask you to join me... As we continue to pray for Hannah's safety and ask God to reveal her whereabouts to us... we also need to pray (believing) for the person(s) that DO know where she is. Someone does. Somewhere. Pray with me that that person(s) will reveal what they know in the opportune moment..."
Not all disappearances are the result of a criminal act. They can come from depression, from misadventure, from someone simply wanting to just get the hell away from it all. It seems clear that in this case, Hannah Upp's disappearance was completely unexpected and to those who know and love her, cause for great suspicion and worry.
Dropping into the subjective blogger's voice now -- I couldn't help but notice that Hannah Upp disappeared just two days before the murder of Pace University honors student Kevin Pravia. Pravia was apparently murdered by a homeless man, Jeromie Cancel, whom Pravia met early in the morning on August 31. Cancel accompanied Pravia to his apartment. After Pravia fell asleep, Cancel took a number of electronic items and left -- only to return and strangle Kevin Pravia as an afterthought.
Freegans with jobs and residences like Hannah Upp would surely come into quite a bit of contact with the homeless, who sometimes have no choice but to Dumpster-dive.
Let's hope Hannah didn't encounter Jeromie Cancel or someone like him. Since it seems as though Cancel has been more than willing to confess to what he's done, it is unlikely she ran into him, or he might have already said so. Still, there had to be a certain danger factor in pursuing the freegan lifestyle, since among the homeless, there will always be a small number of people like Jeromie Cancel, who have profound and potentially dangerous emotional and mental problems.
If you think you have information that might help in the search for Hannah Emily Upp, please call (800) 577-TIPS or get in touch with Detective Perez at the 30th Precinct Detective Squad, by calling either 212-690-8842, or 212-690-8843.
[Facebook and New York Daily News. See also: Neil Gaiman's Journal.]
Comments
It's not just the mentally disturbed that the freegans have to worry about (though I wouldn't think there's any greater risk of encountering mentally disturbed among the homeless than among the regular population).
It's that those freegans are taking away stuff that the homeless NEED to survive. When you're living on the streets, your options are limited; you NEED that food that those educated rebels are taking from the dumpster. I can only imagine the resentment that a homeless person would feel when they find their survival threatened and their food stolen by some person who could easily get their stuff ELSEWHERE.
The freegans have other options to follow, including shopping at second-hand stores, making their own clothes, growing gardens. The homeless don't (or at least don't see themselves as having those options). I feel sorry that this young woman disappeared, but I'm not sympathetic towards the freegan movement at all.
Posted 09/05/2008 at 10:55:42 AMTo Chris: I'm not sure that this particular entry is a launching pad for discussing sentiments about the "freegan" movement. I'm sure there is a forum for these thoughts, but this particular string isn't it. I feel inclined to remind everyone posting on the many many blogs (thanks to everyone for making such an effort) who don't know Hannah that her friends and family are frequenting these sites and reading everything you say. Hannah, we hope you're out there.
Posted 09/05/2008 at 01:21:47 PM"It's that those freegans are taking away stuff that the homeless NEED to survive. When you're living on the streets, your options are limited; you NEED that food that those educated rebels are taking from the dumpster."
Look, I've been working in food service for going on six years. Some places gave the day-olds to food banks; most didn't. (Actually, only one of them, and I've worked at 8 places that served food). And at the place that did donate, there was a limit to what the food bank could accept from one place, in terms of what the food was, how much of it there was, how old it was, etc.
The name "freegan" might suggest a naive & vaguely mock-worthy anarchist leaning to the group, but they are no more taking food from the homeless than you are when you purchase it. Also, if you read up on freegans, they DO give it away to the homeless. They couldn't physically eat all of what they salvage. And there is more than enough disposed-of-but-edible to go around. You know what I mean if you've ever worked at a food store, convenience store, cafeteria, pizza place, cafe and even a movie theater, or volunteered at a food bank.
Your sentiments are understandable, but they make more emotional sense than actual sense. Root through a dumpster behind even the littlest food place and you'll get it.
I'm not asking you to agree with the beliefs behind freegans' dumpster-diving, but look into the facts of it before you write it off as a bunch of leftists engaging in recreational scrounging. They're not just smug kids fresh off of reading Marx; and Hannah isn't like that at all.
Posted 09/05/2008 at 01:23:22 PMFor some perspective, please read the post I just put up here:
http://www.truecrimereport.com/2008/09/more_about_missing_nyc_teacher.php
Being a freegan wasn't really that big a part of Hannah's life. The person I talked to was very clear: Hannah wasn't someone who'd made being a freegan a true "lifestyle."
Posted 09/05/2008 at 01:29:35 PMWas Hannah a runner? Remember the murder of Sarah Fox in Inwood (upper Manhattan). She went out for a jog and someone killed her. It is still unsolved.
Posted 09/05/2008 at 02:11:23 PMTo all those whose wishes and thoughts are with Hannah and her family, thank you. I only ask that people stop using the past tense to describe her and stop speculating about horrendous things happening when there is no evidence to show this and it only causes distress to her family and friends. Again, any actual information whatsoever on her whereabouts would be greatly appreciated but let's not use this as a gossip column.
P.S. Steve, as I post this I notice that I'm required to type the word 'homicide' into the box to make sure it gets put up. Please consider changing this.
Posted 09/06/2008 at 02:47:47 PMDavid, I appreciate what you're saying, but I don't dink around with the design of this blog, as I only write for it. I don't own truecrimereport.com, just run it. Village Voice Media owns this site (please note the "media" part -- I'm not referring to the paper, the Voice, but to the company that owns the Voice, LA Weekly, and 16 other alt-weeklies nationwide).
I didn't set up the challenge word or anything. Additionally, I think your sensitivity towards the word chosen to make sure posters aren't just spambots (homicide) is understandable, but it makes me think that you've assumed this whole blog and not just the last three entries are about Hannah's disappearance. This is a true crime site, and there are more than 100 posts so far about a wide variety of crime stories in the news.
While there is no reason at the moment to think that Hannah's disappearance came about because of a criminal act, missing persons cases are of great interest to people who also follow crime stories, so that's why I decided to do some posts about Hannah -- at the least, this is one more site helping to spread the word.
I really hope I can eventually put up an entry saying that Hannah's name never needed to be mentioned in a true crime blog at all. That would be the best outcome.
Posted 09/06/2008 at 02:55:42 PMSteve,
I know from posting on your forum that you do not believe a mental break caused by Subliminal Distraction is possible. But this case mirrors the disappearance of Tara Grinstead in Ocilla Ga. Both were high school teachers and college students working on an advanced degree.
Upp might be a crime victim but why did she leave everything behind. Going for a run is a possibility but so is SD. Is her running outfit missing?
If she is a victim there will be full or partial amnesia of who she is. There may be delusional beliefs of persecution or guilt.
If she is alive and a Dissociative Fugue victim beginning to look places she would find help free is of prime importance.
Interviewing roommates looking for behaviors that would allow SD would determine if SD is a possibility.
Posted 09/07/2008 at 01:12:36 PMLK, I have either not stated my case well or you are reading selectively. My problem with your theories about subliminal distraction is that it has become quite clear over the course of the nearly 4 years I've been blogging about crime that you attempt to use the theory to explain far too many cases like this. I don't know about the realities of subliminal distraction, but I do know that even if it is real, there is no way it can explain all the missing persons and true crime stories you have attempted to attach it to.
Posted 09/07/2008 at 01:37:04 PMHow is it she paid for a movie with her debit card if it was still in her apartment?
Anyway, my guess is that she is schizophrenic. Although she is a bit younger than the average age of sudden onset, it seems to fit the classic signs. Also, I had a roommate whose brother did the exact same thing and the police eventually found him sleeping in a car that he had broken into. They got him treatment, but as soon as he went off his meds, he was missing again and living on the street.
I'm sure now that she's been found, she will get properly evaluated and treated. Staying in treatment and being sure to make herself available for a doctor's monitoring is something that she will have to be committed to if she does not want this to happen again. I hope she will see how many people came out to show their support for her and that will help make her feel better.
Posted 09/18/2008 at 07:15:13 PM