COLUMBUS, Ohio, 20 May 2006 — His nickname was ‘hero’... but Ohio State University (OSU) student Hiroshi Hayashi, proved to be quite the opposite. Within a five-day period he went from being missing, abducted to found and arrested!

Hayashi, a Japanese-American student of computer science was reported missing by his family last Thursday. It seemed he had gone to meet a professor at Ohio State University early in the morning then he never returned home, although he had told his family that he would see them at dinnertime.His Toyota Camry was still parked in the student parking. There was no evidence of foul play.

Emotional appeals were made by his sobbing father and angry brother, asking for any information on Hiroshi, “I am sure he is alive.” His brother told reporters.

True to his brother’s words, Hayashi reappeared on Tuesday at a police station in Athens, Tennessee, distraught but talking. He said that he had been abducted by a person he was not able to see or identify. He said a man had approached him asking for directions in the parking lot at the OSU campus. Then the man struck Hayashi on the back of his head which caused him to lose consciousness.

When he came to, Hayashi said, he found himself tied, blindfolded and in the back of a truck. He said he had managed to escape his abductor.

Hayashi also sported a wound on his neck (which police determined to be self inflicted) and said that his abductor had broken his eyeglasses.

Several hours of interrogation by detectives at the police station, and the truth unraveled. Hayashi was lying about the abduction. In reality, he had parked his car at the OSU campus, and called a cab. Then he had breakfast at a restaurant and took a Greyhound bus from the downtown bus depot to Tennessee using an alias.

Hayashi has been charged with filing a false report with the police. He probably will get away with community service because he has no prior criminal record. Hayashi refuses to say why he did something so drastic.

Some people in Columbus where relieved to know that Hayashi was not abducted. A spate of crime in the campus area has everybody nervous. Also several persons have gone missing and their whereabouts is still a mystery.

A few months ago, OSU medical student Brian Schaffer disappeared and in spite of reward money put up by the family, there’s still no word on him.