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ABC News Lafayette, Indiana A body found inside a dormitory's locked, high-voltage utility room has been identified as a 19-year-old Purdue University student who vanished more than two months ago, a university official said Tuesday. The Tippecanoe County coroner said the body found Monday by a college maintenance worker investigating reports of a "pinging" or "popping" sound is that of Wade Steffey, a freshman from Bloomington who disappeared Jan. 13 after leaving a fraternity party. University spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg said Steffey had been fatally shocked when he entered the utility room in an apparent attempt to enter Owen Hall to retrieve his coat. It appeared he tripped and fell onto a power transformer. "He is believed to have died instantly," she said. During the search, maintenance staff entered the utility room, but because of the risk posed by the high-voltage lines, workers did not fully inspect its interior, Norberg said. "When they searched this room they did not go deeply into this room. They did not see any evidence of Wade," she said. The entrance to the utility room is about 50 yards from the door at Owen Hall where Steffey was seen trying to enter. Around noon Monday - the day classes resumed after a weeklong spring break - Norberg said a worker investigating the noises unlocked a door leading to the utility room and found the body slumped over a piece of machinery. Power to Owen Hall - a coed residence hall that houses about 700 students - had to be shut off to retrieve the body. Steffey was reported missing after friends returned from the school's three-day break for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and could not find him. His parents were alerted to the body's discovery and arrived at Purdue on Monday. "We have the answer now, the big answer, to where our son is," said Steffey's mother, Dawn Adams, who said she and her husband had felt before the body's discovery that their son was dead. "Now everyone who was praying for us can have a measure of peace, as well as we can. This affects so many more people than us. Now there is grief."
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