ORONO – State police on Wednesday ruled out foul play in the shooting death of a 21-year-old University of Maine student, but stopped short of calling the woman’s death a suicide. Hannah M. Corbeil, a senior majoring in forestry, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head early Monday morning.

Orono police found the coed, a resident of East Haddam, Conn., dead in her bedroom at 14 Water St. about 3:30 a.m. Monday. Her boyfriend, who was not identified by police, was in the room with Corbeil when she died, according to Lt. Darrell Ouellette of the Maine State Police. Corbeil’s roommates, two fellow UM students, also were in the apartment at the time of her death, he said.

“Whether it was suicide or an accident, we have no answer for that, ” said Ouellette, “and we probably never will.”

Corbeil owned the .357-caliber revolver that caused her death. Police recovered the weapon at the scene. Corbeil did not leave a suicide note but, according to witnesses, had suffered from bouts of depression, Ouellette said Wednesday afternoon. He said that because she was not alone at the time of her death and there were other people in the apartment, it took investigators several days to rule out foul play.

“Hannah was a student who showed great promise,” David Field, a professor of forestry resources who knew Corbeil, said Monday afternoon. “She will be deeply missed by the faculty, staff and students in our department.”

As an ROTC cadet, she was a member of the color guard at the May 9, 1998, commencement, according to the Perspective, a UM weekly internal publication.

Corbeil was the third UM student to apparently take her own life in the last 13 months. Andrea Amdall of Menomonie, Wis., plunged to her death from her fourth-floor dorm room on Nov. 17, 1999. Amdall, 20, was a junior participating in an exchange program with the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

The body of Richard P. Fournier Jr. of Windsor was found Oct. 23 this year by two students walking along a path that leads from Hilltop Road to school wildlife pens and the university forest. The 18-year-old freshman died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

Amdall’s and Fournier’s deaths were ruled suicides by police.

Before Amdall’s death, the most recent suicide on campus was in October 1993, according to Joe Carr, spokesman for the university. Carr said Wednesday afternoon that it was too early to determine if suicide prevention efforts would be stepped up on campus because of the recent deaths.

“Any suicide in this age group is a shock and a tragedy beyond description,” said Robert Dana, associate dean of students and community Life. “People who attempt or commit suicide see it as the final option or only option in an optionless experience. Often it is a desperate attempt to eliminate pain or massive confusion or horrible self-doubt.”

Statistics specific to college student suicide are difficult to find. National and state statistics are kept by age and method. Yet, for people between the ages of 15 and 24, suicide is the third-leading cause of death after accidents and homicide, according to the National Institutes of Mental Health. The 1997 suicide rate among adolescents ages 15 to 19 was 9.5 per 100,000 and among young people 20 to 24 years of age, the rate was 13.6 per 100,000.

Douglas Johnson, staff psychologist at the Cutler Health Center at UM, cited a recent national survey of 311 four-year colleges. He said that 28 percent of the institutions reported that at least one student had committed suicide in the 1998-99 academic year. Only 25 percent of the students who killed themselves had sought counseling during the previous year, he said.

In 1998, the most recent year for which statistics have been compiled, 195 Maine residents committed suicide. That made the statewide suicide rate of 14.4 deaths per 100,000 significantly higher than the national rate of 11.2, according to the Office of Data, Research and Vital Statistics at the Maine Bureau of Health.

That was the greatest increase in suicide deaths in Maine since 1978. It also moved suicide from the 10th-leading cause of death in 1997 to eighth in 1998. Nationally, the suicide rate increased 0.5 percent between 1997 and 1998.

While statistics show that fewer women than men in Maine commit suicide using a firearm, 14 of the 36 women whose deaths were listed as suicides in 1998 died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Ninety-one of the 159 men in Maine who killed themselves that year used a firearm. Twelve women died of drug overdoses compared to eight men. During that same time period, 35 men hanged themselves compared to four women who used that method.

Nationally, 58 percent of all suicides in 1997 involved firearms. In Maine, firearms accounted for 54 percent of all suicides in 1998.

The strongest risk factors for attempted suicide in youth are depression, alcohol or other drug use disorder, and aggressive or disruptive behaviors, according to the NIMH.

Corbiel died on the first day of final exam week. She worked part time at Pat’s Pizza in Orono.