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Investigator: 'Desperate for clues' in college student's disappearance

Shane Montgomery was last seen at Kildare's Manayunk Thanksgiving morning. There is a $25G reward to find him.

Picture of K-9 unit officer vehicles along with New Jersey park officer parked at top of Main St. in Manayunk. Philadelphia police are searching for Shane Montgomery, who went missing after leaving Kildare's Irish Pub on Nov. 26, 2014.
Picture of K-9 unit officer vehicles along with New Jersey park officer parked at top of Main St. in Manayunk. Philadelphia police are searching for Shane Montgomery, who went missing after leaving Kildare's Irish Pub on Nov. 26, 2014.Read moreALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

THE MANAYUNK PUB where college student Shane Montgomery was last seen before he mysteriously disappeared early Thanksgiving morning added an additional $10,000 reward yesterday for any information leading to the 21-year-old Roxborough man.

Kildare's Irish Pub, on Main Street near Conarroe, brought to $25,000 the total reward offered to find Montgomery, a liberal-arts major at West Chester University who was home for the holiday at the time of his disappearance. Montgomery's family late last week posted $10,000, and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 added $5,000.

As the search for Montgomery wore into a fifth fruitless day yesterday, a police source close to the investigation said that a task force of Philadelphia police and FBI agents was looking for the missing man.

Marine Unit officers again searched the waters of the Schuylkill for any signs of Montgomery, while investigators on the ground - some with police K-9 dogs - pounded the pavement looking for clues and a police helicopter again scoured the area from the air.

"We are desperate for clues," the investigator told the Daily News. He said Montgomery's disappearance had not been ruled suspicious, adding that investigators have no idea what became of the young man after he left Kildare's about 1:45 a.m. Thursday.

The task force of federal agents and local law-enforcement officers working the Montgomery case is the same group that found and rescued Carlesha Freeland-Gaither, the woman kidnapped in Germantown last month, and reunited her with her family.

Kildare's director of operations Jim Townsend said in a statement yesterday that Montgomery's bar tab for Wednesday night was $17 - the equivalent of three craft beers - backing up his friends' and family's assertion that he was not inebriated when he left the bar. Townsend also said that early reports that Montgomery had been told to leave the bar because he was intoxicated were incorrect.

"Based on our investigation, Shane did not appear to be over-served by our staff, and at no point was there any confrontation when he was leaving the premises," Townsend said. "His relative, an employee of Kildare's, walked with him to the front-door area and his interactions with our staff were polite, courteous and reasonable."

Yesterday, dozens of volunteers gathered at Roxborough's Kendrick Recreation Center, on Ridge Avenue near Rector Street, to take fliers to distribute around the city, including at 30th Street Station and Philadelphia International Airport, Montgomery's aunt, Marianne Wittman, said last night.

Wittman said family members, friends and people who did not know Montgomery have worked around the clock in their quest to find him, and will continue today.

"It has been all consuming, but this is what we need to do to find him," Wittman said. "We can't rest until we find Shane."