Medical examiner releases cause of death for Lauren Blackburn ’26

Content Warning: The following article includes mention of student death and suicide.

University Counseling services are available at 609-258-3141, and the Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 988 or +1 (800) 273-TALK (8255). A Crisis Text Line is also available in the United States; text HOME to 741741. Students can contact residential college staff and the Office of Religious Life for other support and resources.

The Office of the Medical Examiner for Mercer County has ruled the death of Lauren Blackburn ’26 a suicide, according to a medical examination shared with The Daily Princetonian. Blackburn was found at Lake Carnegie on April 25 after first being reported missing four days earlier.

Blackburn’s is the sixth undergraduate death that has been ruled a suicide or related to mental health in the past three years. His autopsy report noted a history of suicidal ideation.

A family obituary stated that he had died after a “courageous battle with bipolar disorder.”

Blackburn, who was 23 years old at the time of his death, is remembered by friends and family for his gentle character and his love of literature. He was born in Corvallis, Ore., and he attended high school in Indiana. Blackburn’s other interests included K-pop and Tottenham Hotspur F.C., but he enjoyed writing above all else.

“Lauren was a brilliant writer and scholar. He had so much greatness inside of him, and I really think he could have been the next great contemporary author,” Julia Shin ’26, one of his close friends, wrote to the ‘Prince’ for his obituary. “He wanted to write a book that would turn love into form, one that would write a novel both in and out of time, that would be a transcript of thought onto the page.”

Maria DiBattista, a professor of English and comparative literature and Lauren’s junior paper advisor, wrote that they were “co-conspirators” via their mutual love of Virginia Woolf.

“[Blackburn] was both shy and forthcoming, reluctant to assert himself and at the same time unguarded about confiding the ideas, intuitions, and feelings that intrigued but could also baffle him,” she wrote.

Blackburn is survived by his parents Soonhee and Martin Blackburn, and his siblings Elisabeth, Colin, Cardon, and Quincy Blackburn.

Christopher Bao is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Princeton, N.J. and typically covers town politics and life.

Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.

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Medical examiner releases cause of death for Lauren Blackburn ’26

Mark Dodici / The Daily Princetonian

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