Dartmouth student found dead in river prompts hazing investigation

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Authorities are investigating whether hazing played a role in the death of a Dartmouth student whose body was recovered from a river in New Hampshire this weekend.

Won Jang, 20, was last seen by friends around 9.30pm on Saturday at a gathering on a dock close to the Dartmouth College boathouse on the Connecticut River, New Hampshire Fish and Game department reported.

Police were notified that he was missing at 4pm on Sunday when he failed to show up to an engagement. Items discovered near the dock indicated that Jang never left the area and investigators began to search the water.

At 7.25pm on Sunday, an underwater camera located the student’s body not far from the dock where he was last seen. The medical examiner responded to the scene but the student’s preliminary manner of death was undetermined.

Two students, Carter Anderson and Gideon Gruel, told The Dartmouth, the university’s student newspaper, that Jang attended Saturday’s dock gathering with Beta and Alpha Phi, two campus Greek organizations, and that alcohol was involved. Jang was a member of the Beta Alpha Omega fraternity.

Hanover police chief Charles Dennis told WMUR-TV that officials had received an anonymous report that hazing played a role in the student’s death. He said the department would be looking into the claim but that they do not believe that foul play was involved.

The Independent has contacted Hanover police department and Dartmouth College for comment.

Jang, an undergraduate student from Middletown, Delaware, was due to graduate in 2026 with a degree in biomedical engineering. He worked as a project manager at the DALI Lab, a design program for students to build websites and apps, and as a research assistant at the Thayer School of Engineering.

“Won wholeheartedly embraced opportunities at Dartmouth to pursue his academic and personal passions,” College Dean Scott Brown wrote in an email to students. “He enthusiastically took part in the Dartmouth community.”

Jang is the second Dartmouth student to have been found dead in the Connecticut River this year. In May, authorities found Kexin Cai, 26, dead in the river five days after she went missing.

Officials said that she was last seen in Lebanon, New Hampshire on May 15. Cai was a second-year doctoral student studying psychological and brain sciences.