New Jersey

Crews Back on Schuylkill River to Search for Shane Montgomery

Divers enter water again in search for missing West Chester University student

A day after crews found the keys of a missing college student, dive crews returned to the Schuylkill River Monday as they searched for clues in Shane Montgomery’s disappearance.

Divers with the Philadelphia Police Department went into the river around 11 a.m. next to a Manayunk parking lot where the West Chester University student was last captured walking towards on surveillance video early Thanksgiving morning, witnesses and police tell NBC10. They conducted their search as Montgomery's parents looked on.

It was in the same area where a volunteer dive team out of New Jersey found the 21-year-old's keys during a four and a half hour search on Sunday. The keys were the first item of Shane's to be found in the water since he went missing on Nov. 27.

The divers came out of the water around 2 p.m. Monday without any new leads, witnesses said.

Under overcast skies, members of Montgomery's family, including his father Kevin, returned to the parking lot about an hour after police left to "circle the wagon" once again for new clues, they said.

Montgomery, a Roxborough native, has been missing since he left Kildare's Irish Pub along Main Street following a night out with friends. Investigators now believe he somehow ended up in the Schuylkill river.

"The prevailing theory is that he went into the river and where is he now? Tides change and there’s all kinds of debris under there," FBI Supervisory Special agent J.J. Klaver said Thursday.

It's a theory that the young man's family is now coming to terms with.

Shane’s “heartbroken” mother Karen Montgomery told the Daily News over the weekend that she wants closure.

"My son is somewhere in that river, and I need to find him and I need to bring him home," she said.

A reward for information that leads investigators and the family to Montgomery still stands at $65,000. Anyone with information should contact Philadelphia Police at 215.686.TIPS.

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