The cause of death of the body found in the woods behind the Skytop offices Friday was suicide, said Sgt. John D’Eredita of the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Department.

The body was identified as a 25-year-old man from Onondaga County, D’Eredita said. The man was not enrolled at Syracuse University. D’Eredita did not know if the man had ever gone to SU, he said.

Onondaga police were not releasing the name of the deceased as of Wednesday morning.

The sheriff’s office has also chosen not to release the method of suicide. But the man was not killed from jumping from the water tower, and there was no foul play involved, D’Eredita said.

“There were no suspicious circumstances,” D’Eredita said.

The man died within 24 hours of being found, D’Eredita said. His body was found Friday at around 12:30 p.m. by an SU adjunct professor who was jogging along a path in the South Campus woods, Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh told The Daily Orange on Friday.

The body was removed from the scene and transported in an unmarked ambulance to the medical examiner at around 2:50 p.m. on Friday, Walsh said. The scene was cleared and opened for public use after the body was removed.

The body was 10 to 15 feet away from the path on which the adjunct was jogging, Walsh said. It would have been obvious to anyone walking along the trail, he said.

The path is located at the end of Skytop Road, the main road through South Campus that ends at the Skytop office buildings. This is the general area where events like fall semester’s Juice Jam are held.

Published on April 21, 2010 at 12:00 pm