Marcus Rice '94, a planned computer science major who never finished his degree requirements at Dartmouth, committed suicide last month in his home in Tarrytown, N.Y., his father Berkeley Rice said yesterday. He was 23.
Berkeley Rice said his son had been suffering from depression for several years, which caused him to withdraw from Dartmouth in the spring of 1993. Rice's father said Rice committed suicide on Sept. 16.
"It had been a gradual thing," Berkeley Rice said. "I think we didn't recognize it at first. He seemed to be sick all the time."
"I think he was already having trouble his sophomore year, but we didn't recognize it," he said. "He was so bright that I should have noticed when his grades started slipping that something was wrong."
Rice's father said Rice was a Presidential Scholar his freshman year.
Rice was suffering from Lyme Disease, which his father said he thinks may have contributed to Rice's depression. The disease was in its advanced stages, his father said.
Berkeley Rice said Rice, who was a member of Bones Gate fraternity, really loved Dartmouth and wanted to return to get his degree. One of Rice's favorite lines was: "This [Dartmouth] is a really sweet place," his father said.
Rice's unexpected and tragic death has been difficult for his father to deal with.
"I probably couldn't have [talked about Rice's death] a week ago. It is getting a little easier now," he said. Senior Associate Dean of the College Dan Nelson "asked me if I wanted to write [a statement]. I think I still couldn't."
According to his father, about 250 people attended Rice's memorial service in the chapel at Hackley School in Tarrytown, where his mother, Annegret, teaches.
Rice was planning on becoming a computer science major. "I think he would still consider himself a computer science major," his father said.
During the fall of his junior year at Dartmouth, Rice went to Edinburgh, Scotland, for a philosophy Foreign Study Program.
Music was one of Rice's major interests outside of school and his father said he was a talented musician who played the piano and keyboard and was the accompanist for Dartmouth's gospel choir.
Both at home and at Dartmouth, Rice often played in bands, and also enjoyed playing tennis, biking and swimming. In high school, his father said he had been one of the best players on the tennis team and as a freshman at Dartmouth he rowed crew.
Rice is survived by his parents and his 25-year-old brother, Andy Rice.
Jonathan Zimmerman and Staff Writer Jeffrey Beyer contributed to this article.
