Body of missing Northern Kentucky University student found in Wilder, police say

Murry Alexis Foust, a 22-year-old Northern Kentucky University fine-arts student, was found dead in Wilder, Kentucky, nearly a month after he was reported missing, and it was an independently organized search party that made the grim discovery.

Covington police said Foust’s body was found at 1 Steel Plant Road, the site of an old steel plant, after he was last seen alive on April 27 in Latonia, the Covington neighborhood about nine miles south of Cincinnati. Police asked the public for help three days later, on April 30, and urged residents and businesses to review security-camera footage from April 27 between 5:45 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. Friends told reporters that Foust’s phone was found at home and his backpack was recovered on NKU’s campus.

The search widened as the days passed. Boone County Water Rescue assisted, and EquuSearch Midwest brought in dogs, drones and thermal technology as teams worked through multiple leads. Covington police later thanked community members who shared information and helped in the search, while Wilder police and the Campbell County Coroner’s Office also became part of the investigation once the body was located.

For now, police said there were no indications of foul play, but the Campbell County Coroner’s Office was still determining the official cause and manner of death and planned a full autopsy. That distinction matters in a case that began as a missing-person search and now rests on unanswered questions about Foust’s final movements, what happened after he was seen in Latonia, and whether the evidence at 1 Steel Plant Road points anywhere beyond a tragic death.

Northern Kentucky University said Foust had completed his degree from the School of the Arts and should have been among the graduates crossing the stage in May. Corey Best, the university’s chief communications officer, said the school was heartbroken and said Foust had “just completed his degree.” President Cady Short-Thompson said the university hoped to plan a campus gathering to remember him, and the family requested privacy. Foust’s art was also on display in one of the galleries in NKU’s School of the Arts, giving the loss an especially painful edge for the campus community.

What started with a missing student in Latonia ended in Wilder at a steel plant site, but the final answers now depend on the autopsy, the scene work and the timeline that led searchers there.