The Pittsburgh Press (April 6, 1944)
Co-ed’s mysterious return expected by Indian friend
Valsa Matthai hunted in Gotham coal pile
Valsa Matthai
New York (UP) –
A friend of Valsa Anna Matthai, who disappeared at dawn 16 days ago, said today that she had “sort of a feeling” that the 21-year-old student from Bombay, India, will return as mysteriously as she left.
Pritha Kurmappa, a student living at International House with Miss Matthai, said:
She was very happy the night before she vanished. I can’t believe that she would kill herself – or that anyone would want to kill her.
No confidential type
Miss Kurmappa, from near Calcutta, India, said he had known Miss Matthai since she came here to study business administration last September. She described her as a slight, pretty girl, rather aloof but popular, with Indian nationalist sympathies politically.
Miss Kurmappa said:
She was not the kind of girl who confides in anyone, but she was friendly and like any girl, liked a good time.
Police, who have searched the 534-bed dormitory, a 150-ton coal pile, the Hudson River and the neighborhood of Columbia University for the girl, said that she had a large acquaintance in New York, among both Indians and Americans, but no “special friends.”
Left money behind
She was last seen by an elevator man at the house at 4:50 a.m. Monday ET, March 20, when he took her to the main floor. It was a snowy, blustery morning, but she was clad in slacks, sandals, polo coat and silken scarf. Behind her, police said, she left her pocketbook with $17 in it, and her $1,400 bank account has been untouched.
The daughter of a wealthy Indian industrialist, John Matthai, general manager of Tata Chemical Company, Miss Matthai spent the Sunday before her disappearance having tea with a U.S. Army officer, and, after dancing at an Indian festival at International House, visited Miss Kurmappa and an Egyptian girl in her room.
At the House, there was speculation that she might have been attacked in the nearby park since on March 17, all girl students were warned not to venture into the parks alone after several had been molested.