Hundreds join search for missing Liberty runner
Hundreds of people came out to search for a runner who disappeared Monday in the Liberty area.
Chad Rogers, 30, went out for run Monday at 8:30 p.m. and never made it back home. A missing person’s report was made at 11 p.m.
Rogers’ father, Greg, told KMBC 9 News that his son just moved from Jefferson City back to Kansas City after his wife took a new job. The couple has a 13-month-old son. He said it’s not like his son to just disappear.
Liberty police said Rogers is a marathon runner and frequently runs between 3 and 15 miles along several different routes.
“It’s just what he does,” Greg Rogers said. “He runs four or five times a week, so he could be anywhere from a couple miles to 15 miles, just depending on what his plan is for the evening.”
He was last seen wearing a bright orange visor with Newton Running printed on it, black running shorts, red running shoes and was not wearing a shirt. His family provided photos of Rogers’ distinctive tattoos, including tattoos of characters from the animated TV series “Futurama,”
Friends and relatives came to the Liberty Christian Fellowship Tuesday to help with the search.
“(It’s) just amazing. Just amazing. One of the gentlemen that’s heading up the search up there at LCF is my son’s old cross country coach, so that says a lot,” Greg Rogers said.
“A lot of people care for him,” said fellow runner Tim Fritson. “I think that speaks to why so many people are here.”
The search was delayed after a police K-9 picked up Chad Rogers’ scent along a narrow shoulderless road where he frequently runs. Police said having extra people in the area might make him harder to track.
“We don’t want to hinder that at all, which is why we’re going to hold, but yeah, it’s frustrating to know that we’ve got all these people here that are anxious and want to start to help, and the first thing we had to tell them to do was hold tight,” Fritson said.
Later in the evening, the group was given to go-ahead to start searching.
Investigators said anyone who may have seen Rogers Monday evening is urged to give police a call at 816-439-4701.
