Search for missing U of R student takes to the skies
Student’s father arrives from Nigeria as police decide to add to aerial efforts
Regina police are adding aerial efforts to the search for missing university student Promise (Max) Chukwudum, who has not been seen since Nov. 17.
Police have already started an aerial search of Regina and surrounding rural areas, according to a news release sent Monday morning. The aerial search is being conducted in addition to and in support of continued ground searches.
Investigators are treating Chukwudum’s disappearance as a missing person case and “must consider” the possibility that after the 19-year-old left a residence on Marshall Crescent in the early hours of Nov. 17 on foot, he may have entered a building or some other structure to seek shelter from the cold. Temperatures dropped to lower than -20 C that night.
Police are continuing their request to home and property owners to carry out visual inspection of their properties before further snowfall covers any potential evidence and hampers search efforts.
Police said it is also possible someone may have offered Chukwudum a ride. He is on a student visa and would have limited familiarity with Regina, police said.
According to the RPS, Chukwudum was last seen near Marshall Crescent in the Normanview area in the early morning hours of Nov. 17. Police have searched several parts of the city, including the landfill outside Regina.
Going by his posts on the social-media app Snapchat, friends of Chukwudum know he was at O’hanlon’s Irish Pub on the night of Nov. 16. Nathan Sgrazzutti, one of Chukwudum’s rugby teammates, said Chukwudum appeared to be hanging out with people he didn’t recognize. Chukwudum’s next Snapchat update after he left the bar showed him in someone’s car. His last post was at 12:33 a.m.
After Chukwudum finished secondary school in Nigeria, he told his father he wanted to follow his older sister’s footsteps and come to Canada to study. Chukwudum was in his second year of computer science at the U of R and also played for the rugby team.
“He was pretty excited about coming here because he loved sports like football and he joined the rugby team here. So, yeah, he really liked it here from my perspective,” said Chukwudum’s sister Chinaza.
Chukwudum’s sister and father are in Regina helping with the search efforts.
“It’s strange to me that my son is missing. I couldn’t believe it in Nigeria, but coming here I see it’s reality,” Chukwudum’s father David said during an interview at the U of R’s campus Thursday.
Anyone with information who could assist police in locating Chukwudum is asked to contact the Regina Police Service at 306-777-6500, your local law enforcement agency or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.