The former head of Suffield Academy, a selective Connecticut boarding school now embroiled in an IRS investigation, went missing the day before the school announced his leave of absence last month, according to local police.
School officials had not seen or heard from Charles Cahn III — Suffield’s longtime, celebrated headmaster — for 24 hours. So they called the local police department and asked for help finding him.
The police opened a missing person case and searched school property for Cahn, but could not find him.
Eventually, on the afternoon of Oct. 22, Cahn was located in Maine, according to the police. A few hours later, Suffield announced that Cahn was on a leave of absence, effective immediately, as he was facing an IRS investigation.
Cahn’s short-lived disappearance adds to the mounting questions facing Suffield Academy, a selective Connecticut boarding school situated on a 350-acre campus between Hartford and Springfield. After announcing Cahn’s leave of absence, the school said virtually nothing about the IRS investigation for two weeks. Behind the scenes, it assured board members that the investigation concerned only Cahn’s personal finances, not the school’s.
But on Thursday, the Globe reported that a Suffield board member, Lillian Chen, whose business had ties to Cahn, had resigned without explanation. Chen’s company, which worked with “high net worth households” in China, promised it could “ensure admission” to selective American boarding schools, including Suffield, while touting Chen’s status as a Suffield board member and her company’s access to Cahn.
On Thursday night, the president of Suffield’s board said the school had hired outside legal counsel “to conduct a thorough investigation of matters involving school leadership and finances.”
The announcement of Cahn’s leave of absence shocked parents, teachers, and alumni. Cahn had become head of school at age 34 in 2004 and was widely regarded as a transformational leader. He known for his fund-raising prowess; during his tenure the school invested $120 million in construction, transforming the campus. Along the way, he had become one of New England’s highest paid boarding school heads, earning more than $1 million per year in recent years.
“Everyone loved Charlie,” one parent of recent students said.
Cahn announced early last year that he planned to retire in the summer of 2027. Just weeks before the announcement of the IRS investigation, the school was still publicly celebrating him, including during an event at parents’ weekend last month.
According to the Suffield, Conn., police, a family member of Cahn’s asked the school to contact the police because he was missing.
“Officers responded to the area and conducted a search of the property and did not locate the party,” according to the police statement, which is labeled as a “press release,” but had not previously been made public.
“Additional discussion with the family member lead to the formal filing of a missing person report for Charlie Cahn,” the statement said.
The police kept searching until almost 5 p.m. when “the party was located in Maine and the family was notified.”
Cahn and his wife, Hillary Rockwell Cahn, were previously listed as the owners of a house in Harrison, Maine. More recent records from 2022 to 2025 list the owner of the house as a limited liability company called Islands East LLC.
Cahn was missing for two days, according to the police statement.
A Suffield spokesperson declined to comment and referred questions to Cahn’s attorney who did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday night.
Cahn has not spoken publicly or issued any kind of statement since the announcement of his leave of absence more than two weeks ago.
The school had also gone quiet until the Thursday night statement from board president Frederic B. Powers III. During the two weeks of silence, parents and alumni had grown frustrated, and wild rumors filled the void.
In his Thursday statement, Powers said, “We recognize ... that our limited communication in recent weeks could contribute to the uncertainty many may be feeling. ... The reality is that, to our own deep frustration, we have had very little information to share.”
“We are doing all we can to cooperate with the [IRS] investigation,” he added.
Mike Damiano can be reached at mike.damiano@globe.com.