Officers who responded to a report of an unattended death at McDavis Hall on the Athens campus Monday, September 14, 2026, found first-year student Mason Bohm dead in his room, and Ohio University police are now investigating.
The Ohio University Police Department (OUPD) said Bohm was pronounced dead at the scene and that his next of kin has been notified. Based on preliminary information, the department said, police have no reason to believe the death represents a threat to the safety of the university community.
Bohm, a freshman in the university’s Russ College of Engineering and Technology, lived in McDavis Hall, a residence hall in the South Green area of the Athens campus.
What Police Have Said
The investigation is continuing, OUPD said, and the department is withholding additional details about Bohm’s death for now. Police use the phrase “unattended death” for a death with no medical professional or other authorized person present; the term, on its own, says nothing about how a person died.
Police Ask for Information
Investigators are seeking information from anyone who recently interacted with Bohm, or who has details relevant to the investigation, and have asked them to call Ohio University Police Department Lt. D.J. McCollister at 740-593-1911 or email police@ohio.edu.
University Statement to the Campus
Ohio University sent a statement to the campus community on September 15 that identified Bohm as a freshman in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology and relayed OUPD’s belief that the death does not threaten campus safety.
Ohio University Interim Dean of Students Scott Bye said in the statement: “We recognize that this can be a difficult time; our top priority is supporting the health and well-being of our students, and we want you to know that there are University resources that stand ready to support them.” That same message directed students and employees to campus counseling and support services and urged people on campus to look out for one another.
The sequence police and the university have laid out is a narrow one. The report of an unattended death came in on the afternoon of September 14. The university’s message to the campus community followed on September 15, the same day the first local news reports appeared, with further coverage published September 16.
Mason Lee Bohm was born on October 13, 2006, the only boy among triplets born to Cynthia and Brian Bohm. He was a fighter from the start: he spent a month on a ventilator in the neonatal intensive care unit before he could go home. His triplet sister Paige died at 27 days old.
In 2025, Bohm graduated from Beavercreek High School and from the Greene County Career Center, where he earned a certificate in criminal justice. He belonged to the National Honor Society at Beavercreek High School and at Sinclair Community College. After Sinclair, he earned a scholarship to Ohio University and started there this fall as a mechanical engineering major in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology. His family said he excelled in math and loved to tinker, whether he was building Legos, cooking and baking, or putting things together.
He also worked steadily. His jobs included McDonald’s, Noodles & Co. and DoorDash, and most recently the meat department at the Kroger in Beavercreek. He umpired games for Beavercreek Little League.
His obituary remembered him as the class clown who lived to make people laugh, with a big heart and a strong sense of empathy. He would not stand by while a friend, or even a stranger, was bullied. His family joked that he was a “Grammy winner” for his shower singing, and said he was particular about his hair and his choice of cologne. “Mason was a wonderful son, brother and friend,” the obituary said.
Along with his parents, Bohm is survived by his triplet sister, Grace, and his brother, Gavin McCurley.
