Police Searching for Missing College Student

Oct. 23, 2010— -- The disappearance of an 18-year-old freshman nine days ago has the Northern Illinois University campus on edge, and the county's major case squad has taken over direction of the search.

Antinette "Toni" Keller, an art student at the school, was last seen around non on Oct. 14, at her residence hall. She told fellow students she was going to Prairie Park to get ideas for an art project.

Keller was last seen going into the woods with an art portfolio and a camera.

"She just told the people she was going into the forest, which she did all the time to do her artwork because that's a nice way to relax and have your art feel going, and she always came back before dark," Jamie Feather, one of Keller's friends, told ABC Chicago station WLS-TV. "She was supposed to meet someone the next day and never showed up."

Police said they have ruled out a theory, previously reported on the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children website, that Keller went to California, where a close friend of hers recently moved.

According to Keller's cousin and family spokeswoman, Mary Tarling, Keller had made arrangements to see family and friends last weekend, and the family realized she was missing when she did not turn up at home Oct. 15.

NIU police immediately began a search once a fellow resident at Neptune North residence hall reported her missing on the evening of Oct. 15, DeKalb Police Department Chief Bill Feithen said.

The Prarie Woods sit just south of the school's campus in DeKalb. Large portions of the park were closed to the public today as investigators searched the area.

"We're continuing to search the river, continuing to search bodies of water, not so much looking for Toni Keller herself, but any clue [that] would come up," DeKalb Fire Chief Bruce Harrison said.

"At different parts of the area which is approximately 150 acres, it's very dense in areas. It also has the river flowing through it," Feithen said.

A flyer has been posted on the Dekalb Police Department's website with a photo of Keller, describing what she was wearing last and where she was last seen.