Iowa City Police: Carbon monoxide killed professor

IOWA CITY -- Jamie Schneider couldn't believe it. The former University of Iowa student who lives in Washington, D.C., and teaches music had read the stories about her former oboe professor, Mark Weiger, being sued for sexual harassment. She had e-mailed him earlier this week. She believed in her heart that he was not guilty.

She did not expect the call from a friend telling her he was dead.

"To be honest, I didn't really feel anything -- I was just sort of like, 'What?'" Schneider said of her reaction, breaking into tears at the memory. "He was the person who I always thought he would be there."

Weiger was found dead at 3:41 p.m. Wednesday inside a car in his closed garage at 6 Phyllis Place in Iowa City. Iowa City police Sgt. Troy Kelsay said the emergency call was placed by a male friend who found Weiger in the vehicle.

"To the officers and medical personnel that responded, it was readily apparent that it was a suicide," Kelsay said.

Kelsay said an autopsy performed Thursday afternoon by the Johnson County medical examiner confirmed that suspicion, revealing that Weiger died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Kelsay also confirmed there was a suicide note, but he did not reveal its contents.

Weiger's death comes on the heels of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed last Friday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa by former UI doctoral student and teaching assistant Melissa Rose Walding Milligan. She contended she was the object of Weiger's repeated unwanted verbal and physical conduct of a sexual nature while in the music arts program in 2006-07.

It was the second such charge against Weiger, who in 1994 was named in a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit by a former graduate student.

UI spokesman Steve Parrott said the university will not comment on either accusation.

The music professor's death comes fewer than three months after the death of Arthur Miller, another UI professor who killed himself after being accused of sexual misconduct.

University of Iowa President Sally Mason issued a statement Thursday asking that students and faculty pull together in the wake of another campus tragedy.

"We extend our condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Mark Weiger," she said. "This is a difficult time for our community, and it is essential that we reach out to our students and colleagues in the School of Music to offer our sympathy and whatever other assistance they may need."

By Stephen Schmidt, The Gazette