Freshman Activist 'On Her Way To Becoming The Next Generation Of Leaders' Found Dead On Michigan College Campus

The body of a teenage student was found on her Michigan college campus under “suspicious" circumstances over the weekend, police said.

Taylor DeRosa, 18, was found dead on Saturday by a runner on the Allendale campus of Grand Valley State University near the school’s athletic fields, the Grand Valley State University Police Department said in a statement.

Police added that DeRosa's death is considered to be "suspicious." Her cause of death has not yet been determined.

Authorities are cautioning the public not to rush to conclusions or spread misinformation, and investigators said that despite the suspicious nature of her death. they do not think that the general public nor anyone at the school is in danger. 

Michigan State Police and the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office are assisting in the investigation, WDIV-TV reports.

The college freshman is being remembered as an activist who took a stand on social and political issues and was good at organizing others. 

"It's devastating; it's shocking," her friend Larry Lipton, a 74-year-old activist who met her at a protest in Detroit, told the Detroit Free Press. "She was on her way to becoming the next generation of leaders." 

Grand Valley State University President Philomena Mantella told students on Tuesday through a note that the school community is in mourning. The note, obtained by the Detroit Free Press, states that “thoughts and prayers” are with the DeRosa family.

DeRosa had enrolled at Grand Valley State to pursue a degree in international business with a minor in French. She had only recently graduated from high school in Royal Oak, Michigan, where she played for the Girls Varsity Lacrosse team, according to the Oakland Press. She was on the high school's homecoming court in 2019.

Anyone with information on the case is urged to contact the Grand Valley State University Police Department at 616-331-3255.