A 20-year-old University student who disappeared in New Orleans early Sunday was found Wednesday afternoon.
Leslie Buford, pre-veterinary junior, went missing after leaving the Tequila Room on Bourbon Street around 4 a.m.
Kendi Murungi, communication studies junior and creator of the “Have you seen Leslie Buford????” Facebook event, said she and five of Buford’s friends went to New Orleans on Wednesday afternoon to look for Buford and post fliers with his information.
They found Buford after five and a half hours of searching, Murungi said.
“Leslie Buford has been located. He was found back on Bourbon St. in good health,” Officer Hilal B. Williams of the New Orleans Police Department Public Affairs Division said in an e-mail Wednesday.
Murungi said Buford appeared fine physically but not mentally.
“I think something happened to him that got to his head,” Murungi said.
Murungi said Buford would not make eye contact with them when he was found, but she said Buford had been sleeping on the street since his disappearance.
Buford told his friends he couldn’t talk about what happened, but he had tried to contact people and was unsuccessful, Murungi said.
Buford went to the NOPD 8th District office to report being found, Murungi said.
Murungi said she and Buford were on Bourbon Street celebrating a friend’s birthday with a group of friends.
Murungi said the footage from the Tequila Room showed the group walking with Buford at 3:50 a.m. Buford walked out of the footage frame at 3:53 a.m.
“Two minutes later we noticed he was missing,” Murungi said.
Murungi said a man resembling Buford appeared on the video footage walking in the other direction a few minutes later, but he could not be positively identified as Buford.
No one in the group knew what happened to Buford, and he didn’t appear to be incoherently intoxicated on the night he went missing, Murungi said.
“We were all drunk, but he didn’t seem too drunk,” Murungi said.
Murungi said the group looked for Buford before going to the NOPD 1st District office.
NOPD told Murungi that people have to be missing for 24 hours for them to take action, so she reported him missing the next day, she said.
Upon reporting Buford missing, NOPD checked jails and police reports looking for him, Murungi said.
Murungi said she created a Facebook event Tuesday around 9 p.m., and it rapidly grew, with 2,583 people attending the event as of Wednesday night.
 
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Contact Celeste Ansley at [email protected]