A day after the apparent suicide of Winthrop House student Anthony Fonseca ’04-’05, friends and family remembered him warmly as his House continued to cope with the death.

Fonseca, who was 21 when he died Sunday morning, will be buried Friday in Oklahoma after his funeral, according to Felix G. Solis Jr., Fonseca’s first cousin.

A ruling on the cause of death is pending the results of an examination by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

A Cambridge Police Department spokesperson said Sunday that Fonseca’s death appears to be a suicide. If the medical examiner rules Fonseca’s death a suicide, it will be the 14th student suicide at Harvard since 1990, according to University spokesperson Joe Wrinn.

It is the 20th sudden student death at the University since 1990.

Fonseca’s death came as a major shock to his family, though there are indications that some elements of the junior’s life had gone awry.

Solis said the family is hesitant to believe Fonseca intentionally took his own life.

“We don’t think it was a suicide,” Solis said. “It must have been accidental. It was just not the nature of his personality.”

Solis, who said he has been in frequent contact with Fonseca’s parents, added that the family had received little information about the circumstances of Fonseca’s death.

“We have struggled to obtain details regarding his death, and sadly, very little was given to the immediate family,” Solis wrote in an e-mail.

Fonseca’s parents and stepfather could not be reached yesterday.

Solis said Fonseca often spent New Year’s with family in Louisiana, and seemed happy over the holidays.

Fonseca was a “military kid,” Solis said, growing up on bases in such disparate places as Germany and Hawaii before settling in Oklahoma, where his father was stationed as a U.S. servicemember.

He was the middle son of Daisy Christian and Roberto Fonseca and had two brothers, ages 18 and 23, who both attend Oklahoma State University, Solis said.

Fonseca’s mother is Honduran and his father is Cuban, Solis added.