A professor at a Baptist university who disappeared during a conference in Florida was discovered deceased in a gay sauna. Authorities are looking into the matter but have stated that the death does not seem suspicious.
David Hanbury, a 37-year-old psychology professor at Averett University, a private Baptist institution in Danville, Virginia, was reported missing late last Friday night while attending the Southeastern Psychological Association Conference in Orlando.
He was found deceased at Club Orlando, a gay sauna, on Saturday. The police have not disclosed the cause of death publicly, but have mentioned that the death does not seem suspicious at present. according to USA Today.
“It is with a heavy heart that we share the heartbreaking update of the passing of Dr. David Hanbury,” Averett President Tiffany Franks wrote in a statement posted on Facebook on Sunday. “On behalf of the entire Averett community, we send our condolences and prayers of support to Dr. Hanbury’s family, friends, and all others upon whom he had a lasting impact.”
Hanbury joined the Averett faculty over eight years ago. On Monday, the university held an evening moment for prayer and grieving on its student center lawn.
“We’re all struggling and this is so hard. I’ve never seen through anything like this,” Hanbury’s brother JJ wrote in response to the death, according to The Advocate. “I don’t know what I am going to do without my youngest brother that drove me insane all the time, but my world will never be the same without him. He was only 37 and supposed to be with me for life.”
Despite the university’s Baptist denomination, its student handbook forbids “harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or questioning students,” two of its upper-level sociology classes have included a study of “homosexuals” as a minority group and the modern-day LGBTQ+ civil rights movement.
