Fall or hit-run could have killed UB student, investigators say
The University at Buffalo student who died Thursday may have fallen from a window or ledge onto pavement.
He may have been struck by a vehicle.
Or he may have succumbed to both.
Those were the scenarios outlined by UB police Thursday as they pieced together the tragic death of Jonah M. Dreskin, 19, a freshman from Ardsley who was found early Thursday morning on an access road next to his dormitory on the North Campus in Amherst.
“We don’t know if it was a hit-and- run accident, or if he fell,” said UB Police Chief Gerald Schoenle. “I think it’s probably one of those two things, or it could have been both. It seems like there’s possibly three different scenarios.”
Dreskin lived on the fourth floor of the 10-story Spaulding Residence Hall.
UB officials gave no indication Thursday whether drugs or alcohol was involved.
“We’ll have to wait for toxicology results from the medical examiner’s office,” Schoenle said.
Meanwhile, reports of Dreskin’s death rippled throughout the campus Thursday.
And word spread all the way downstate to Dreskin’s hometown.
At Woodlands Community Temple in White Plains, where the freshman’s father, Billy Dreskin, serves as rabbi, the news was like a bombshell.
“Our community is devastated, absolutely devastated. We’re walking around in shock,” said Harriet Levine, the temple’s director of education.
Rabbi Dreskin studied music at Brandeis University and twice received the Reiner Prize in Music Competition. Jonah’s mother, Ellen Dreskin, serves as a cantor at a temple downstate.
Like his parents, Jonah was described as musically gifted. He played the guitar and sang. When he graduated from the temple’s religious school last May, he put on a performance for the congregation, Levine recalled.
“The worst thing is the loss of a child,” Levine said, “and we have all watched Jonah grow up.”
This is the second student from an area college to die this week.
A 19-year-old sophomore from Geneseo State College, Arman Partamian of Flushing, Queens, died over the weekend following a drinking party at a privately owned house near the campus.
Three students called UB police just before midnight Wednesday to report a man down along Core Road, an access road that runs beneath campus dormitories on the Ellicott Complex.
Dreskin was found in a portion of the road that’s not covered up by buildings, but exposed and in clear view from the windows of a dormitory that rises high above, as well as a terrace about 30 feet up.
“Our officer responded and found the victim in serious distress,” Schoenle said. “His vital signs were very weak. He was not conscious.”
Dreskin was taken to Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital, Amherst, where he was pronounced dead.
“It appeared he suffered serious internal injuries,” Schoenle said.
Jonathan Gordon, cantor at Woodlands Community, said that until Thursday the news from Buffalo had all been positive on Jonah’s progress at UB.
“He was extremely creative and a bright kid. He’d done everything from music to being active in Jewish youth groups,” Gordon said. “As far as we knew, he was having a great time in school.”
Jonah was the middle child of three siblings. His sister, Katie, is a UB junior majoring in art, and his younger brother, Aiden, is a freshman at Ardsley High School.
Levine added, “Jonah was a little of everything. He was a typical teenage kid, and I loved him.”
On waiting to get answers on Jonah’s cause of his death, Levine said, “We’ll know when we know. All that matters is that he’s gone, and our lives will change.”
UB police still are looking for witnesses to what happened. They’ve narrowed the incident to between 11:30 p. m., when someone last talked to Dreskin, and 11:59 p. m., when the call came into university police.
“We haven’t had a fatal accident on the university campus for many years,” Schoenle said. “It’s a very unusual occurrence for us — and very tragic.”
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