Officials fear missing runner could be ‘incapacitated’ or not in Pleasanton search area at all

By J.R. Stone, Amy Hollyfield and Leslie Brinkley

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    PLEASANTON, California (KGO) — The Alameda County Sheriff’s Department concluded late Tuesday there are only two possibilities in the search for missing jogger Phil Kreycik.

After four days of intense search efforts, officials say he is either “incapacitated or unresponsive,” or he just isn’t up in the Pleasanton hills.

The search for the 37-year-old man has been concentrated on 50 square miles of wilderness.

One hundred-twenty search and rescue personnel, some from as far away as Placer and Solano counties, scouted the rugged terrain on Tuesday, along with more than 200 volunteers organized by Kreycik’s family.

“His mom and sister and their friends have been walking up there as well, both yesterday and today,” Sandy Schneider, a family spokesperson, said. “They are in very good shape. The dad is staying around here,” she said.

“This is a very bright man who went to Harvard and MIT, a man that’s analytical in his thinking, a guy that runs ultramarathons,” explained Sergeant Ray Kelly with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department.

Wednesday morning, a “cry for help” was reported in a canyon near Sunol. Volunteer searchers overnight were working to put together a group to follow up on that report.

Kreycik went missing as he parked his car and left his cell phone in it, before embarking on an 8-mile jog at 10:45 a.m. on Saturday in Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park. It was 106 degrees outside at the time.

We spoke with a neighbor who saw Kreycik’s vehicle parked in the lot off of Moller Ranch Drive shortly after he is believed to have gone for a run on Saturday.

“I did see a dark SUV. I told the police that, and I did see another SUV not parked next to each other or side to side, but I didn’t see him,” said the man.

Days of extensive searching, even using infrared drones and airplanes have failed to find him.

Seven canine teams were deployed in the brush, and there were hopes that cooler weather would be more conducive for them to track any scents.

Volunteers who say they have biked and ran these trails for decades had their own theories. Several mentioned animal attacks.

“We’ve had a lot of different information coming in,” Sgt. Kelly said. “For instance, we found a rock that had blood on it. We immediately took it over to our crime lab and had it analyzed, and it was not human blood. So, we’re going to that level of detail. Our search and rescue members did spot a mountain lion.”

Searchers also found sheep and deer that had been killed by coyotes or mountain lions, but an attack on a human is extremely rare, they said.

Justin Fisher is a volunteer who has spent the last three days searching the hillsides on his electric bike with a friend. He came across a mountain lion during his Sunday search, but not Kreycik.

“There’s no signs of anything,” said Fisher who went on to say, “In terms of somebody missing it kind of seems like he’s just vanished out there.”

Drones and aircraft with infrared technology will be deployed again Tuesday night, but the official search effort is expected to scale back on Wednesday.

“We should have seen him by now, we should have encountered, there should have been something that led us to him, some type of something and that’s what is hard to digest here. That’s why we’re all here tonight it’s hard to leave knowing that we haven’t exhausted all those questions in our minds,” said Sgt. Kelly.

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