A former student died of an apparent drug overdose in a Columbia University dorm room yesterday, law- enforcement sources said.
Jessica Fingers, 21, from the Catskills community of Monticello, had been staying with a female friend and visiting her boyfriend, who are both current Columbia students, according to the sources.
The two students discovered Fingers unconscious in the dorm room at 70 Morningside Drive at 11:48 a.m., police said.
Fingers had been a student and cross-country runner at Columbia, but took a leave of absence last year, according to the school.
Cops don’t suspect foul play and believe Fingers and her boyfriend had been doing drugs, the sources said.
“It is with deep sadness and regret that I write to inform you of the untimely loss of one of our students, who has been on leave from Columbia but visiting campus at the time of her passing,” Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger wrote in a campus e-mail.
Fingers won numerous athletic and academic awards throughout her high- school career.
Monticello Mayor Gordon Jenkins said he still remembers giving her The Mayor’s Trophy in 2009 for her athletic performance as a cross-country runner at Monticello HS
When Jenkins saw Fingers last summer, “I told her it was an honor to give her that trophy,” the mayor recalled last night.