Listener Don sent this to me. Lets hope they find this gentleman alive and well. Don writes “This is a good friend of mine, I’ve known Tommy since I was 14.
This area, where he disappeared Friday, is the area where I heard my first 2 Bigfoot encounters, by friends of mine.. 1977, 1978 .. It should also be mentioned, this is part of the Hockomock swamp. Tommy is no stranger to swamp, spent many days fishing with him there hoping for Tommy’s safe return, and praying its just something stupid. One interesting item i read was “Stopped the search Monday, because they needed to clear the area of scents” I’m taking that as, dogs won’t track!”
Thomas K. Stone’s last known phone call occurred thirty minutes after his vehicle was spotted at West Meadows Pond, where authorities launched a massive search on Sunday. Authorities will allow the area to clear of scents Monday while they search the West Bridgewater man’s bank records, web information and cell phone data.
WEST BRIDGEWATER – Thirty minutes before someone heard from Thomas Stone for the last time on Friday morning, a West Bridgewater police officer noticed his car parked near the West Meadows Pond.
It’s one of the details emerging in the strange disappearance of the West Bridgewater resident, but as of Monday afternoon, authorities still had not located the 53-year-old man.
A full-scale search and rescue effort coordinated by South Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council that began early Sunday morning was suspended temporarily Monday, as police citing a need to clear the wooded area of scents to make the tracking dogs more effective.
West Bridgewater Det. Sgt. Tim Nixon, the search’s lead investigator, did not respond to an email and phone messages left Monday as of 8 p.m.
While the traditional search and rescue operation was suspended Monday, authorities planned to search through bank records, IP addresses and cell phone data to uncover more information before an expected resumption of the SEMLEC search on Tuesday.
A nine-hour search Sunday covered 1.5 square miles but didn’t bring investigators any strong leads, Nixon said Sunday evening.
“(The situation) is void of any information that gave us a direction,” said Nixon. “We kind of just have this guy that’s not around.”
According to a West Bridgewater police report, one of the people who reported him missing on Saturday spoke to Stone over the telephone at 11:45 a.m. on Friday. Thirty minutes earlier — and more than 12 hours before Stone would be reported missing — West Bridgewater Police Officer Daniel Sullivan noticed Stone’s red Ford Expedition parked in a dirt lot near the pond, the report said.
Just after midnight on Saturday morning, two people came to the station to report Stone’s disappearance at 12:16 a.m. on Saturday morning. The reporting parties had checked Stone’s home and called his cell phone, but the calls were sent directly to voicemail.
Police then attempted to locate him via cell phone tower. His cell phone pinged a tower near 394 Spring St. in East Bridgewater, more than four miles away from where Stone’s vehicle had been parked, locked and abandoned.
The first K-9 unit on scene Saturday tracked a scent from the vehicle into the West Meadows area, according to the report.
Police also searched Stone’s West Bridgewater apartment on Saturday after the landlord granted access to the residence, according to the report. Authorities did not disclose if anything useful was found in the apartment.
As news of Stone’s disappearance spread, a group of local residents gathered in the parking lot but were told by police not to enter the tree line until the K-9 unit had been notified. Those gathered were also cautioned by police to stay in groups of two and make sure their cell phones were fully charged so they did not get stranded in the woods after dark.
The West Meadows Pond is 128 acres of wetlands located inside the West Bridgewater State Forest, an area that Nixon called “unfortunately…huge.”
“We are exploring all avenues,” Nixon said after 5 p.m. Sunday evening. “We will be searching again.”
Source: enterprisenews.com