Yale News

A $10,000 reward is now being offered to anyone who can provide information leading to Yale employee Anton Sovetov’s whereabouts, Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins announced in a Thursday evening email to the University community. 

The reward posting comes nearly two months after Sovetov was last heard from by Yale colleagues on Feb 4. Sovetov was last seen in video footage checking out at Elm City Market on Chapel Street on Feb 5. YPD has not publicly released the video footage or any other information gathered from searches both near and inside his apartment at 1012 Chapel St., just steps from Yale’s Old Campus. 

Despite telling the News earlier in March that they believe the footage of Sovetov in Elm City Market on Feb. 5 is accurate, YPD included no mention of the Feb. 5 sighting in Thursday’s announcement. 

44-year-old Sovetov has been employed as a graphic designer in the Yale Office of Public Affairs and Communications since 2017. He is from St. Petersburg and moved to New Haven to attend the Yale School of Art, where he graduated from in 2016. 

Colleagues first reached out to YPD when Sovetov stopped showing up to work and they grew concerned. YPD first alerted the Yale community that Sovetov had gone missing in an email on Feb. 17, two weeks after those colleagues alerted police.  

In a prior disappearance case, that of Annie Le, a Yale graduate student who was found murdered at Yale in 2009, YPD posted a $10,000 reward for information on her whereabouts only three days after she had been reported missing. 

In the Thursday email alert, Higgins urged those most acutely affected by Sovetov’s disappearance to make use of the counseling support services available to the University community. 
YPD is encouraging anyone with information about Sovetov’s whereabouts to contact the Yale tip line at 866-888-8644.