A 23-year-old Wharton Ph.D. student was found strangled in her Center City apartment last month, and police were still trying to identify her killer at press-time. The victim was Shannon J. Schieber, a first-year student from Maryland who worked as a fellow at Wharton’s S.S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education. Her body was discovered on the afternoon of May 7 in her second-floor apartment, on 23rd Street near Spruce.
According to the Philadelphia Daily News, investigators believe that Schieber knew her murderer, but they had not settled on any one suspect. Philadelphia police did question another Wharton graduate student who had briefly dated Schieber and against whom she had filed a harassment complaint with Penn police in February, but stated that they did not consider him a suspect, the Daily News reported.
Penn officials would not discuss the details of the murder case other than to say they were cooperating with the Philadelphia Police Department in every respect. While a statement provided by University Relations confirmed that Schieber had filed a complaint against the other student with the Special Services Unit of Penn’s Division of Public Safety on February 26, regarding an incident that occurred the day before, it said that “University Police provided the appropriate services and she expressed her satisfaction.”
“We are deeply saddened by this loss,” said Dr. Judith Rodin, CW’66, president of the University. “That a young woman with enormous potential and such a promising future is taken from her family and friends so suddenly and under these tragic circumstances is difficult to accept. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family.”
