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Former Child Star Matthew Mindler, 19, Found Dead After Missing

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A former child actor’s freshman year at Millersville University ended in a three-day search and a body found in a rural township.

Matthew Mindler, the 19-year-old who once played River opposite Paul Rudd in the 2011 comedy Our Idiot Brother, was found dead on the morning of Saturday, August 28, 2021, in Manor Township, Pennsylvania, not far from the Millersville University campus where he’d just begun his freshman year. He had been missing since Tuesday night. Campus officials and local police spent three days searching before his body was located in a rural area of the township.

• Mindler attended classes Monday and Tuesday, August 23 and 24, but never showed up Wednesday or Thursday morning.
• Surveillance footage showed him leaving his West Village dorm around 8:11 p.m. Tuesday, walking toward a parking lot in a white Millersville hoodie, black jeans, and sneakers, carrying a black backpack.
• A missing person report was filed Wednesday evening, August 25, after he stopped answering family calls and never returned to his room.

The Last Sighting on Campus

According to campus surveillance video reviewed by investigators, Mindler was last seen leaving his residence hall at West Village at 8:11 p.m. on Tuesday, August 24. He was walking toward a parking lot, dressed in a white Millersville University hooded sweatshirt, black jeans and sneakers, with a black backpack over his shoulder. He had attended classes normally the two days prior, then simply didn’t appear again.

By Wednesday evening, family members hadn’t been able to reach him by phone, and he never returned to his dorm room. That’s when a missing person report was filed, triggering a search effort involving local police and Millersville University’s campus authorities.

The Search and Discovery

The search stretched across three days before concluding Saturday morning, August 28, when Mindler’s body was discovered in a rural area of Manor Township, near the university grounds. His body was transported to the Lancaster County Forensic Center for examination. As of August 31, no official cause or manner of death has been publicly released.

Millersville University President Daniel A. Wubah addressed the campus in a message confirming the death and asking the community to lean on one another.

“This is a time of grief for the family, our campus and the community. I ask that the campus community come together to support each other, and our students, during this difficult time.”

A Career That Started in Childhood

Mindler’s screen career began well before Our Idiot Brother put him alongside Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks and Zooey Deschanel in 2011. He also appeared on the soap opera As the World Turns, in the 2016 TV pilot Chad, and turned up in a Last Week Tonight with John Oliver segment. His mother has said he stepped away from acting several years ago to focus on school, a path that led him to Millersville as an incoming freshman this fall.

The news of his death has spread quickly among people who remembered him as a child performer, the kind of gut-punch that circulates fast because so many celebrities have died young and left fans grasping for answers that don’t come right away.

Right now the only confirmed facts are the timeline: classes Monday and Tuesday, gone by Wednesday, found Saturday. The Lancaster County Forensic Center’s findings on cause of death haven’t been released, and until they are, that’s where the story sits — a campus mourning a freshman three days into knowing him, and a family waiting on an answer only the coroner can give.