UD student death investigation: Police now say injuries caused by ‘unknown circumstances’

Victim’s late father was a Flyer basketball player for coach Jim O’Brien.

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DAYTON — Homicide detectives have joined the investigation into the death of 19-year-old Michael Currin, a first-year University of Dayton student who died Monday following an off-campus incident.

According to a Dayton police crash report posted Monday, Currin was injured in a hit-and-run crash in the area of Wayne and Pursell avenues early Sunday morning. He was found bloodied in the street with critical injuries.

The crash report has since been removed from the state’s crash report system. News Center 7 has asked Dayton Police why the report is no longer available. WHIO is waiting to hear back.

Late Monday afternoon, the Dayton Police Department said Currin’s injuries were caused by “unknown circumstances" and homicide detectives joined the investigation.

“We are very early in the investigation and detectives from the Crash Reconstruction Unit have been gathering evidence and conducting interviews since the incident occurred, they will now be joined by our homicide detectives,” a police spokesperson said in a statement.

Currin, of Montgomery, Ohio, and a graduate of Archbishop Moeller High School, was a first-year business student.

We ask for your prayers for his family, and ask for privacy to grieve. Please channel your prayers from a miracle for Michael to a miracle that we don’t yet understand,” the family said in a prepared statement.

Currin was found about 3:30 a.m. by a woman who told police she was on her way to work.

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The 911 caller said the man, later identified as Currin, appeared to be missing a shoe, dispatch records show.

“I don’t see him moving at all," the caller said.

Police are asking anyone with information about what happened to contact Detective Geiger 937-333-4616 or Crime Stoppers at 937-222-STOP (7867).

Currin was a standout point guard on Moeller’s basketball team that went 26-1 and won the 2019 state championship, according to the school’s athletic website.

Mike Currin was a legacy student at the University of Dayton.

His late father, Joe, played basketball for UD under coach Jim O’Brien in 1992-93 and 1993-94. Currin transferred to UD after a year with the University of Cincinnati Bearcats basketball team and worked his way onto the floor as a starter for the Flyers, according to his July 2010 obituary.

He was a UD Law School graduate and clerked for a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge.

The father, like the son, also played basketball for Moeller High School where he was a football and basketball standout. He graduated in 1990.

Joe Currin was corporate counsel for Caterpillar Asia when he died in 2010 of a heart attack at age 38 while on a reunion run with his family in Venice, Florida, according to the obituary.

Monday night, at a virtual prayer vigil, students said the death put a gloomy sense over campus.

“To hear another Flyer’s passed away, it’s just very saddening upon us,” said one, Noah Nietz.

Sunday afternoon, families gathered at the high school for a prayer vigil while UD held a virtual prayer gathering later in the day.

Services for Currin are pending.