The World - News from Jan. 26, 1988

Chinese police are investigating the death of an American woman on the campus of a university in northeastern China where she taught English, the U.S. Embassy said. An official at Northeast University of Technology in Shenyang said Erin Elizabeth Johnston, 18, was found dead on her bed. He declined to give further details but said when asked if the young woman had been murdered: “So far, no one can say for certain why she died.” An autopsy is planned. Johnston had gone to China last summer with her mother and stepfather, Allen and Mary Jo Kindt of Boone, N.C., and all three taught at the university, an embassy spokeswoman said.