Despite no new leads in the investigation, a Memphis Police Department spokesperson said yesterday that suicide is the most likely explanation for Harvard professor Don C. Wiley’s disappearance in Memphis earlier this month.

“Indications are that he parked the car on the bridge and took his own life, [but] we can’t conclude that,” said Lt. Richard True, a department spokesperson. “We’re basing this on previous experiences where people park their car and jump off the bridge and leave their keys in the ignition.”

Police have not found Wiley’s body, and have uncovered no new leads in the case that has baffled authorities since the Loeb professor of biophysics and biochemistry disappeared after a Nov. 15 meeting in Memphis.

Wiley’s empty rental car was found abandoned with a full tank of gas and the keys in the ignition on a bridge at 4 a.m. Nov. 16, with the professor last seen in a Memphis hotel four hours earlier.

In recent days, authorities have honed in on Wiley’s empty car and its location as signs of suicide, particularly because there is no evidence that supports contrary explanations for the disappearance, True said.

But Harvard Professor of Statistical Sciences Marvin Zelen, a friend and colleague of Wiley’s who also attended the Memphis meeting, said the police department’s hypothesis was “nonsense.”

“He wasn’t in any depression. I don’t believe that for a moment,” Zelen said.

Others who talked to Wiley hours before his disappearance said he discussed plans for the upcoming weekend.

William Evans, deputy director at St. Jude’s Hospital, which hosted the meeting, said Wiley planned to meet his wife and two younger children in Memphis on Nov. 16. Wiley wanted to take his children to Graceland and had asked the scientists for other sightseeing suggestions during the meeting’s banquet at the Peabody Hotel, Evans said.

“He was definitely making plans for the weekend. I think that’s important,” said Evans, who last saw Wiley at 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 15.

Several colleagues of Wiley’s in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology would not comment to The Crimson yesterday.

Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology Brian D. Dynlacht said that the department’s administration circulated an e-mail instructing professors not to speak to the press and to refer all questions to the University’s press office.

The University and St. Jude’s Hospital announced Tuesday that they have each donated $5,000 as a reward for information leading to the arrest and charge of anyone connected to Wiley’s disappearance.

Because there is no evidence of foul play and Wiley remains classified as a missing person, Captain Jesse Richardson, Crime Stoppers coordinator for the Memphis Police Department, said his non-profit group which is administering the fund has not yet contributed any of its own money to the reward.

Andrea Shen, a Faculty of Arts and Sciences spokesperson, said that Harvard’s reward offers “no implication that we have any idea what happened to Professor Wiley.”