MIDDLEBURY, Vt.—Town police will re-evaluate the ground conditions on Thursday before they decide whether to launch another ground search for a Middlebury College student who has been missing for more than a month, the police chief said Wednesday.
Nicholas Garza, 19, of Albuquerque, N.M., was last seen just after 11 p.m. on Feb. 5 when he left a social gathering in a campus dormitory. He was reported missing by his mother five days later.
Middlebury Police Chief Tom Hanley said that until the moment Garza disappeared investigators were able to trace his movements electronically through such things as his campus key cards and his cell phone.
"You can construct this guy's life," Hanley said. "Everything stops at 11:06 p.m."
Search teams have used dogs and poles to probe snowbanks between the spot where Garza, a Middlebury freshman, was last seen and his dormitory.
They had planned to resume the search last weekend, but postponed it because of the snow.
Hanley says that in some locations on campus there's still two feet or more of snow on the ground.
"We're not sure he's not on the campus," Hanley said.
The chief says that once ground conditions improve, it would take a day or so to assemble another search.
