Investigators have ruled the death of Syracuse University student Andrew McClune an accident and have closed the case.

McClune, the Lockerbie Scholar who died after a fall from a seventh-story Sadler Residence Hall window, had a blood alcohol level of .17, but his toxicology report was negative for the presence of any other drugs, said Syracuse Police Department spokesman Sgt. Tom Connellan.

“We don’t believe he meant to do it,” Connellan said. “We think he was just intoxicated.”

Officers have not been able to learn anything new about exactly how McClune fell out of the window or any of the events that happened once McClune was alone in the room, Connellan said.

Students who were with McClune that night said they were all drinking on the third floor of Sadler when McClune began speaking gibberish and went to the bathroom. Friends who followed McClune said that he was visibly agitated and then went to the seventh floor, where he entered another friend’s room.

The resident of the seventh-floor room then struggled with McClune, leaving the resident seeking medical attention for his shoulder. McClune was next found outside of Sadler after falling from the window. Medical personnel pronounced him dead two hours later at University Hospital.

Officers also ruled out the possibility of suicide.

“I don’t know how to feel. What it means is that no one knows what happened, and no one will ever know,” said Lawrence Mason Jr., a professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. “It is just sad that we lost him.”

Mason, who met McClune last spring in Lockerbie and developed a relationship with him, said the police’s decision that McClune’s death was an accident will help to dispel rumors that surfaced as the investigation continued for more than two months.

Melissa Chessher, a Newhouse professor who spent last spring in Lockerbie and came to know McClune and his family, said the police’s ruling brings closure on some level, but it is disappointing that all the facts will not be known.

“I think everyone wants the comfort of having such a sad story reach a conclusion because the human mind and heart want to put things in a tiny box and put them away,” Chessher said. “But think if that were a son or best friend that having an official ruling that the case is closed does not mean that the story has reached its conclusion because there are so many factors that will be unknown and not make sense.”

Mike Illig, a freshman State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry student who was with McClune the night of his death, said he would not focus on McClune’s death but more on the good times he and McClune shared.

‘I think from the beginning, for me, I tried to think about the good times we had,” Illig said. “I want to learn from him and how he always took life in a positive way.

“It’s nice to know the case is closed and there is no criminal intent.”

While it is dissatisfying that the whole truth will never be known, even those details would not change things, Mason said.

“Even with complete details, it would not bring Andrew back,” Mason said.

Published on February 26, 2003 at 12:00 pm