Walking out of the disco is Emily Eagen, the Ann Arbor teen-ager with the bright smile and outgoing personality. Beside her is Emily Howell, her friend from Antioch College with the fresh dragon tattoo and new blond hair. Within an hour, they are dead in a jungle ditch. The brutal slayings of Eagen and Howell in a country typically considered safe would lead to questions about the dangers of study abroad programs. About 125,000 Americans study overseas annually, with thousands more going abroad in work co-ops and volunteer programs.
Most schools go to great lengths to protect their students.
But in a field with no mandatory safety standards and no government oversight, other programs operate on good intentions and good luck. For two teens from the Midwest, luck ran out. Eric Miller was stunned. The Antioch College overseas work co-op adviser, traveling across Latin and South America on quick visits to Antioch students in the region, sat in a restaurant in Puerto Viejo as the girls told him their plan. Their friend Eagen, a former Antioch student, had come to Costa Rica to visit them.