Free Republic

Nurtured from an early age by her activist parents, 19-year-old Emily Silverstein was acutely aware of the troubles of the world and worked to find solutions to issues such as homelessness and women's rights. A sophomore honors student at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, she was poised to take the world by storm, her family said. But on Thursday morning, Silverstein was found dead in an off-campus apartment. She had been strangled and stabbed to death, allegedly by a former boyfriend, authorities said. ... From her upbringing, Silverstein was destined to become an activist, Kelly said. Her relatives were anti-war protesters...

UPDATED: 10:13 pm EDT April 13, 2009 GETTYSBURG, Pa. -- Police documents revealed new details about the death of a Gettysburg College student. More information regarding the circumstances of Emily Silverstein's killing are revealed in court documents released Monday. Court records show the 19-year-old sophomore was found in the bathtub partially covered by a shower curtain inside ex-boyfriend Kevin Schaeffer's home. Just before 7 a.m. on April 9, another woman in the house, Kelsey Simpson, called 911 and told dispatchers she needed an ambulance and police officers. Minutes after authorities arrived, records state that Schaeffer emerged from his second floor...

Gathered in a circle of campus benches, seven friends spent the first afternoon of Gettysburg College's spring break searching for the right words to describe the two who were missing. He is an honor-roll student whose witty sense of humor and eclectic taste in music drove him to head the campus radio station this year, the friends said. She was an eternal optimist with a passion for activism who helped to establish a campus chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society. At times, they still spoke of their friend Emily Silverstein in the present tense, as if her lifeless...