Nine long days have passed. A bunch of professional searchers, law enforcement officers, and volunteers augmented by search dogs, planes and drones were deployed in the East Bay hills. But runner Philip Kreycik, 37, remains missing after he disappeared on July 10 in Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park.
“We truly feel we have done an enormous effort covering all possible scenarios during the past eight days,” Alameda County Sheriff’s Office’s Sgt. Ray Kelly said on Sunday through a statement. “Like the community, we are frustrated and perplexed that this massive effort has yielded no results. We feel we should have found Philip by now.”
On day 4, hope quickly peeked and vanished as “cries” were heard in a canyon. Kreycik’s friend heard the sound but authorities said it was not from the runner. Over the weekend, there was also a thrown-away T-shirt spotted but the runner’s family said it does not belong to Kreycik.
“We re-checked areas we had searched before that had limited access. We wanted to go back in to those difficult areas to be 100% sure. These areas included deep ravines with high angle rope teams traversing the steep terrain. We also searched private property areas, adjacent park land, to make sure we were exhausting every possible scenario,” Kelly added. “We followed up on 72 hours worth of tips and leads that came in from police and community reports.”
Hope still remains in the missing runner’s family who hold in the belief that Kreycik might have been disoriented and has been somewhere. Believing that the runner is taking shelter in a barn or building at someplace, the family asked help from residents to check their surroundings, SF Gate reported.
“I think the saying goes that your life can change in an instant. That’s exactly what happened to us,” Jen Yao, the runner’s wife, told NBC News. “Your life can change just like that. I want everyone to hug your families, care for each other and help us bring him home.”
The search has even reached online through a Facebook group Find Philip Kreycik with 10, 000 members.
