After intensive search efforts this weekend failed to produce significant leads, ISU Police have shifted the focus from searches to investigation in the case of missing ISU student Jonathan Lacina.

ISU Department of Public Safety director Jerry Stewart said interviews are being conducted with Lacina’s family, friends and acquaintances today. This morning, Lacina’s parents met privately with President Gregory Geoffroy, said ISU News Service director Annette Hacker. Geoffroy issued this statement today: http://www.iowastatedaily.net/articles/2010/02/01/news/doc4b670ae37ab32225382782.txt.

Stewart said Lacina’s electronic equipment and records are still being examined.

Search efforts are still being conducted on and around the ISU campus. Approximately 250 ISU facility staff are “actively searching” targeted areas while investigative efforts are expanding, Stewart said. Targeted interior areas are maintenance rooms, service closets, steam tunnels and elevator shafts. Exterior locations targeted for the search include creek beds, ditches and areas where foliage is heavy, Stewart said.

Hacker added that all vacant residence hall rooms have been searched.

Lacina has not been seen since Jan. 22. He is a senior in graphic design.

“It just shakes us to our core,” said art and design department chairman Roger Baer of Lacina’s disappearance.

Art and design lecturer Dean Biechler taught Lacina in his Scientific Illustration Principles and Techniques class last fall.

“He was really talented,” Biechler said. “He could really draw. He had a nice sense of mark making in his drawings … He was always at work on his assignments.”

Anyone with information regarding Lacina’s whereabouts since Jan. 22 is asked to call the ISU Police at 515-294-4428, or 911. Readers can continue to check www.iowastatedaily.net for updates.