It’s a sad case but not unthinkable. These sorts of cases — undiscovered deaths — pop up regularly. According to the original article he was known to go “off the grid for several weeks at a time.” There was a bit of a smell, but that’s not unheard-of in college dorms. It was only after the two-week vacation that it became quite noticeable. And one of the commenters mentioned that he was a foreign student. If he was, say, Asian, the Kiwis may have assumed he was simply a quiet, serious student, perhaps a bit shy, and preferred to keep to himself. I wonder what the cause of death was?
Stinky? French.