Police: No foul play in death of wife of Purdue Nobel Prize winner found in Illinois

ROCKFORD, Ill. — Sumire Negishi was found dead Tuesday in northern Illinois after her Nobel Prize-winning husband, Purdue University chemistry professor Ei-ichi Negishi was found wandering a road south of Rockford, Illinois, looking for help, police said.

Sumire, 80, and Ei-ichi Negishi, 82, of West Lafayette, had been reported as missing on Monday, according to the Indiana State Police.

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Ogle County police found Ei-ichi Negishi at 5 a.m. Tuesday, after receiving a call asking officers to check on the welfare of an elderly man walking on North Route 251, a rural road south of Rockford. As police and firefighters took Ei-ichi Negishi to a Rockford hospital, investigators learned that Indiana police were looking for the couple.

Ogle County police then found Sumire Negishi dead on property of the Orchard Hills Landfill in Davis Junction, Illinois, along with the couple’s car.

Police do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Ketter of the Ogle County Sheriff’s Department. Ogle County Coroner Louis Finch said an autopsy backed that conclusion, though cause of death was not released Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the Negishi family released a statement that Ei-ichi and Sumire Negishi’s car was stuck in a ditch on a perimeter road near the landfill. They said Ei-ichi Negishi appeared to be searching for help and “was apparently suffering from an acute state of confusion and shock.”

The family said that Ei-ichi Negishi told police that he was trying to get to the Rockford International Airport for a trip. The airport is about eight miles from where the Negishis’ car was found.

“We are devastated by the loss of our beloved wife and mother, Sumire Negishi, who was near the end of her battle with Parkinson’s,” the family wrote in its statement.

“We are very proud of (our father’s) distinguished career, but more importantly know him as a beloved and loyal husband, father and grandfather,” the family wrote. “Thank you for your compassion and for respecting our privacy as we process this tragic loss.”

Ei-ichi Negishi was still being treated in a Rockford hospital Wednesday, police said. Ketter did not offer further details about Negishi’s condition.

Family members went to the Indiana State Police at 8:13 p.m. Monday to report that the Negishis were missing, said Sgt. Kim Riley.

Riley said state police were able to track that the couple was heading north of West Lafayette, based on a purchase made Monday. Riley declined to say where that purchase was made. Rockford is 210 miles northwest of West Lafayette.

Riley said the Negishis did not fit the criteria for a Silver Alert, which is a statewide notification system reserved for missing people, particularly senior citizens, thought to have dementia or other mental health issues. He said police determined that the couple had not been under a doctor’s care for those conditions.

Riley said the couple’s names were entered into a national database, which was how police in Illinois were able to tell that they had been missing.

Ketter said the case remained under investigation.

Ei-ichi Negishi was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010 for a palladium-catalyzed cross coupling technique to link carbon atoms. At least 25 percent of all chemical reactions in the pharmaceutical industry use the technique, which is called "Negishi coupling." It also has been used in fluorescent marking essential for DNA sequencing, according to Purdue.

Ei-ichi Negishi today is the Herbert C. Brown distinguished professor of organic chemistry. He also is the Teijin Limited Director of the Negishi-Brown Institute, a Purdue research institute created in 2011 to focus on organometallic chemistry.

Sumire Negishi is well known in West Lafayette and at Purdue in her own right.

The Negishis first moved to West Lafayette in 1966, when Ei-ichi Negishi came to Purdue as a postdoctoral researcher under Hubert C. Brown, a chemistry professor who would go on to win a Nobel Prize in 1979. Ei-ichi Negishi’s career took the couple and their two daughters to Syracuse University in 1972. The Negishis returned to Purdue in 1979 and have been in West Lafayette since then.

After Ei-ichi Negishi earned the Nobel Prize, he frequently told local, national and world press during ceremonies in Stockholm, Sweden, that half of the prize belonged to Sumire, his wife of more than 50 years, for the support she gave during his career.

When the plant now known as Subaru of Indiana Automotive was being built in Lafayette in 1988, Sumire Negishi became a lifeline for employees who came from Fuji Heavy Industries’ plants in Japan. Working under contract with SIA, she helped families navigate schools, doctor’s appointments and supermarkets.

Tom Easterday, senior executive vice president, said she would “truly be missed” at the Lafayette plant.

“Sumire Negishi was instrumental in helping to build the strong ties between Indiana and Japan through her extensive work both in assisting Japanese who relocated to our community and in helping to introduce the Japanese culture to Indiana residents,” Easterday said. “Her efforts were vital to SIA’s early success. She was also a close friend to many at SIA and in the community. Our thoughts are with Mr. Negishi and his family during this time.”

Purdue President Mitch Daniels hailed Sumire Negishi for “a lifetime of love and loyalty.”

“It appears that the Parkinson’s disease from which she has been suffering and the mental confusion that age can bring to the most brilliant minds combined to produce the recent tragic events,” Daniels said. "That these phenomena are so common does not make their consequences any less cruel. All Boilermakers everywhere join the Negishi family in sadness at the loss of Sumire, who made so many of her own contributions to her husband’s life work and to the vitality of our community.”

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.