Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

Search continues for missing Roxborough student

A Philadelphia police marine unit combed the banks of the Schuylkill on Monday morning as the search for a missing Roxborough college student continued into a fifth day.

A police helicopter flies in Manayunk as police continue to search for missing Roxborough man Shane Montgomery, who was last seen leaving Kildare's Irish Pub located on Main Street. (Chanda Jones / Staff Photographer)
A police helicopter flies in Manayunk as police continue to search for missing Roxborough man Shane Montgomery, who was last seen leaving Kildare's Irish Pub located on Main Street. (Chanda Jones / Staff Photographer)Read more

A Philadelphia police marine unit combed the banks of the Schuylkill on Monday morning as the search for a missing Roxborough college student continued into a fifth day.

And at the bar where Shane Montgomery was last seen, the owners announced a $10,000 reward for information about his disappearance - bringing the total reward to $26,000. The student government association at West Chester University, where Montgomery was a student, is contributing $1,000 to the fund, association president John C. Carol said Monday night.

Montgomery, 21, disappeared after leaving Kildare's Irish Pub on Main Street in Manayunk early on Thanksgiving, police said.

This weekend, an FBI task force - the same that helped find Germantown kidnapping victim Carlesha Freeland-Gaither - joined the search efforts for Montgomery.

On Sunday, the marine unit searched the Manayunk Canal, but found no sign of Montgomery. The unit conducted another search Monday, with the same result, said Lt. John Stanford, a police spokesman.

"We know something happened, it's just - what?" he said. He said investigators were still conducting interviews and "working every angle."

Montgomery's uncle Kevin Verbrugghe said the family reprinted fliers that relatives had posted throughout the neighborhood over the weekend. After five days of fruitless searching, he said, the family's fear and frustration were mounting.

"It's almost like God reached down and plucked Shane from the street," he said. "There's nothing here."

He said police had trawled Main Street for security footage from area businesses. Many did not have cameras, Verbrugghe said, but the family is holding out hope that witnesses may yet come forward.

"On Main Street on the busiest drinking night of the year, somebody had to see something," he said.

A police helicopter joined the search Monday but found nothing, Verbrugghe said.

Montgomery was partying with friends at Kildare's the night he disappeared, police have said. A bouncer there asked him to leave after he accidentally tripped into a DJ booth, police said.

He texted a cousin at 1:15 a.m. and called a friend at 1:28 before leaving the bar, his mother said, and officials traced his cellphone to a tower in Lower Merion that indicated he was within 4,500 feet of a CVS store on Main - less than a mile from the bar - at 2:38 a.m.

In a statement, the Kildare's management said Montgomery's disappearance was "extremely upsetting to our staff and management," and that one of Montgomery's relatives worked at the bar. Staff at the bar are working with the FBI task force and Philadelphia police, they said.

The statement called Montgomery a "well-liked, friendly customer known to our staff and the establishment next door."

At a news conference outside the pub, Kildare's director of operations, Jim Townsend, said Montgomery left the bar willingly at 1:50 a.m. without any disruption.

Townsend said management conducted its own investigation, interviewed several staff members and witnesses, and concluded that Montgomery had not been served an excessive amount of alcohol. Computer records showed that he had run up a $17 tab.

"Some reports suggest that Shane was thrown out of Kildaire's in an intoxicated condition, needing a cab or other assistance," Townsend said, adding that bar management believed that was not the case.

"Shane left the building politely with no altercations," he said.

Montgomery was last seen by staff walking south on Main, Townsend said.

Anyone with information on Montgomery's disappearance is asked to call the FBI at 215-418-4000 or Northwest Detectives at 215-686-3353.