Friend sheds light on missing junior

While University administrators, students, police, private investigators and family members continue both the physical search for missing student David Dantzler-Wolfe as well as investigations into possible motives behind his disappearance, members of the last community in which Dantzler-Wolfe put down roots share Penn's confusion, anxiety and disbelief. Last seen on the morning of Dec. 10, Dantzler-Wolfe has now been missing for over two months. As sources in both the University and Philadelphia police departments released information about an investigation into Dantzler-Wolfe prior to his disappearance, the mystery surrounding the case has only deepened. Ali Hasan, now a fourth-year film student at Occidental College in California, knew Dantzler-Wolfe well during their time together in high school at the Groton School in Massachusetts. "For two years, David was one of my closest friends," Hasan said. "Especially at boarding school, you just become so much more attached" to your friends and housemates, he added. When asked about the investigation into Dantzler-Wolfe allegedly entering a female student's "abode" and videotaping her, Hasan offered the following explanation. "You know when a fraternity puts you up to task to do a stupid thing?" he asked. "Somebody might have put him up to a dare. I can't confirm whether it happened or not, but he likes to live wild, he likes to play tricks." Meanwhile, Hasan said that finding Dantzler-Wolfe will be especially difficult. "David knows how to live on his own, he's also very good with money and he was in ROTC, so he picked up some tricks there," Hasan said. "You could confidently give $1,000 to him and expect him to live [on it] for some time," Hasan said. When asked to speculate on Dantzler-Wolfe's whereabouts, Hasan offered two theories. "I think he might be in the forest," Hasan said. "He really liked the isolation of it at Groton, so I could see him at a... crappy motel in a forest or a woodland area." He also liked New York City, according to Hasan. "He might be staying at a youth hostel there," Hasan said. But no matter where the Wharton junior is, those who know him are still surprised by his disappearance. "It was a shock to all of us," said Connie Brown, assistant registrar at Groton. "In the registrar's office, I'd see him all the time," she added. "He was a great kid, nice to talk to," Brown continued, saying that Dantzler-Wolfe was "a very responsible kid who'd never go off on his own." Having lived with Dantzler-Wolfe and another Groton student, Adrian Martin, in a triple his senior year, Hasan said he "just came to rely on them." "The highlight of my day was seeing David and Adrian," he said. "If they weren't around, I would have left." "We would always study together," Hasan recalled. "He was really big on mathematics, and the good friends he would make were often through studying with them. He was the top kid in all his classes, but he was very good about sharing his knowledge." A natural scholar who "genuinely enjoyed doing... his homework," Dantzler-Wolfe's disappearance may have been related to academic frustration, Hasan said. "He wasn't enjoying it," Hasan said, describing Dantzler-Wolfe's experience at the Wharton School. At Groton, "his academics would embody him," Hasan explained, describing Dantzler-Wolfe's love of philosophy and intellectual curiosity. "I don't think... business... fascinated him or grabbed his attention. He likes things that are really deep -- with business, you've got supply and demand, and you can't go much deeper." "I think he felt a little mistreated... sometimes," Hasan continued, noting that Dantzler-Wolfe had complained that his professors "would change assignments around, or they would change the syllabus." In particular, Hasan remembered "one test David studied extremely hard for, then the professor walked in the next day and changed the whole format." "It completely screwed David over," Hasan said. "That was right before he disappeared." Nevertheless, Hasan said that he believed Dantzler-Wolfe's commitment to business was a matter of "honor" for the Wharton student. "He invested so much into going to Wharton," Hasan said. "His mother is a single parent, she raised David herself. He really admires her.... His goal in life is to support his mother, to buy her a really nice house and a nice car." Announcing in the 10th grade that Wharton would be his first-choice college, the decision made sense to Dantzler-Wolfe given the obligations he took upon himself to help his family, Hasan added. "The most logical way [to make enough money to help his family] was to go into business and become an investment banker, an economist, that sort of thing," Hasan said. "It made sense because that would also allow him to make money fast, so it would leave the door open so he could do something he liked later on, like become a professor." According to Hasan, "to realize it was such a massive mistake" to attend Wharton might have been Dantzler-Wolfe's motivation to escape. Hasan urged those involved in the search to go the extra mile. "It's worth the work," he said. "He's an excellent person. He's a beautiful person, and if there's anyone who doesn't believe that, it's because they didn't get a chance to know him."

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