Remains of Seton Hall University student who went missing in 2015 found on NJ bike trail

Human remains found along a bike trail in New Jersey were positively linked to a college student who went missing near his home in 2015.

John Paul Fernandez, a 22-year-old senior at Seton Hall University, vanished near his home in Madison on Dec. 13, 2015. He was last seen along Natco Lake on Route 36 South in Hazlet, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System .

On Nov. 4, 2024, officers with the Middletown Police Department and, later, investigators with the prosecutor’s office’s Major Crimes Bureau investigated reports of human remains found in the area of Willow Street in Middletown. The dead-end residential street runs parallel to the Henry Hudson Bike Trail, the Asbury Park Press reported.

It took nearly a year, but last week, Ninia Fernandez, John Paul’s