Search Is On for Cheltenham High Grad Who May Be Armed

Two campuses remain on high alert due to fears that the missing student may wreak violence.

Jacob Marberger. Photos | Facebook

Jacob Marberger. Photos | Facebook

Everyone is looking for Jacob Marberger, but this is no ordinary missing persons case. Two campuses — that of his high school and college — have been on alert since November 16th, when Marberger allegedly took a gun from his parents’ home in Cheltenham and disappeared. His university, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, has cancelled classes and shut the campus down until November 29th. Cheltenham High was locked out on Monday. A warrant is out for his arrest, and he is said to be “despondent.”

It’s unclear when trouble started for the 19-year-old but the difficulties certainly reached their peak last month, when he was suspended from college for allegedly getting drunk and brandishing an antique gun at his fraternity house. The action resulted in his being kicked out of Phi Delta Theta, and he resigned from his student government position. Though the suspension only lasted a week and a half, he still faced the possibility that he’d be expelled.

It was an unexpected turn of events for a student who’d been speaker of the student senate and an actor in college theater productions. His Facebook page shows him at the center of a happy pile of college students crammed onto a sofa together. In one comment, a high school teacher tells him she misses him in homeroom. He replies: “Thanks, Ms. Cohen! I miss you too. I’m having an excellent time in college.”

At the same time, the New York Times reported, he did tell Chestertown Police Chief G. Adrian Baker after the gun incident that he was being bullied by fellow students, including a time when students put a bucket of water at the top of his door so it spilled on him when he opened it.

Friends and relatives are obviously worried about him and don’t seem to think he’s dangerous. Twitter is filled with messages to him:

https://twitter.com/_Perridise/status/666518459971469312

So far, nothing but silence.

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