The holidays took a Pennsylvanian family on a dramatic and horrific journey.
As students returned from Thanksgiving break a few pounds heavier from mounds of warm turkey and apple pie, they encountered a plethora of flyers plastered around campus with the face of Shane Montgomery, a West Chester University student.
“If you would be so kind as to print and post some flyers in the library, cafeterias, student centers, gyms, dorms or simply around campus and on your social media sites my family would much appreciate it,” Maureen Wittman said in an e-mail sent to President Don Taylor. “Many students from the area go to Manayunk for food and drinks.”
These flyers contained the photo, description of Montgomery and contact information for the FBI and Philadelphia Police Northwest Detectives looking for the 21-year-old who went missing on the Eve of Thanksgiving after a night out with friends.
Montgomery was asked to leave Kildare’s bar in Manayunk, Pennsylvania around 1:45 a.m. after bumping into a DJ table. He had paid a $17 tab and friends claimed he did not seem intoxicated when he left.
When Shane Montgomery’s mother, Karen Montgomery, did not awake to her son squeezing her foot after a night out, as was their routine, and discovered no one had heard from her son since he left the bar, the family reported him missing.
Social media posts led hundreds of volunteers to join in the search in through the Sunday after Thanksgiving when Montgomery’s parents called off the search.
Throughout the holiday season contributions from the family, police and Kildare’s pulled together a $65,000 reward for anyone who had information.
Dec. 21 brought about the discovery of Montgomery’s keys by the Garden State volunteer diving unit.
On Jan. 3, 2015 a body was found 800 yards away from where Montgomery’s keys were found in the Schuylkill River behind the Manayunk Street Brewery at Mainstreet and Shurs Lane at 12:15 p.m.
It was later confirmed that this was the body of the missing student.
The long and heartbreaking search for Shane Montgomery came to a sad ending as a young life was officially lost. Medical examiners ruled the death accidental, but further tests are expected to help explain what happened the night Shane Montgomery first disappeared.
“Today we have done what we promised,” Karen Montgomery said in a Facebook post about an hour after Shane Montgomery’s body was found. “We found and brought Shane home.”
