Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 26, 1995 TAG: 9501260087
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
David Gerald Whited, 38, was last seen after he wrecked his car on Prices Fork Road near the Stroubles Creek sewage treatment plant at about 1:30 a.m. Dec. 31. A passer-by offered help, but Whited ran away. Police searched for him that night but didn't find him.
Whited's parents reported him missing Jan. 12 after he didn't come home to pick up his school books for the new semester at Radford University. Radford police and Montgomery County deputies discovered he had not been back to his Willow Woods apartment, had not used his bank accounts and had not claimed his car that was towed from the wreck scene.
Search teams conducted an extensive search the weekend after Whited's parents made a report and a state police helicopter flew over the area but found nothing.
"We're almost out of anything else to do except wait," said Lt. O.P. Ramsey of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.
Ramsey said investigators can't be sure how far Whited roamed from his car, or whether he sustained serious injuries in the wreck.
"We know he left the road. Why, we don't know," Ramsey said.
If Whited made it to the New River at the Peppers Ferry bridge and tried to cross it in an attempt to elude police investigating the wreck, he could have fallen in and been swept away, Ramsey said.
An investigation is ongoing, but little new information has been found.
"This high water and flooding has not helped us at all," Ramsey said.
Whited is described as 5 feet 8 inches tall, 165 pounds, with blue eyes and thinning brown hair. He walks with a limp. "We know that he was at the Hokie House prior to the wreck," Ramsey said.
He asks that anyone who saw Whited at that Blacksburg establishment the night of Dec. 30 to call Investigator Barbara Bibb at 382-6913.
by CNB