WAUKEGAN, Ill. (WLS) — The search for Sailor Seamus Gray expanded Friday to include U.S. Naval investigators.
The search area was expanded to North Chicago, toward the naval base, where they suspect Gray might’ve been heading.
“He had his phone out,” Waukegan Police Commander Scott Chastain said. “We can see him in a video with his phone out. Maybe he was following a map trying to get back to the base. So this would be the route, he would generally take.”
Commander Chastain said the last time 21-year-old Florida native and Navy sailor Seamus Gray was spotted on camera is at 2 a.m., walking very close to the lake shoreline.
Police give update on search for missing sailor
After searching that area, and no sign of him, they’ve expanded their search Friday from the lakefront and Sheridan in Waukegan to the Naval Station, Great Lakes in North Chicago, where he was assigned.
“We are going to go in and search the area by foot,” Chastain said. “We also have our own drones that we will be putting up in the air and we also have the north Chicago fire department here ready to go into the water if need be.”
‘He is my life’: Mother asks for help to find Navy sailor
One hundred US Navy personnel are helping in Friday’s search. Most of the land they’re covering is privately owned, so they said they had to get access from property owners.
Surveillance video around 1:30 a.m. Saturday shows Gray, dressed in red, standing outside the Ibiza Bar on Genessee Street with friends, after managers sai he appeared drunk and was asked to leave.
Minutes later, another camera showed him walking alone through an alley behind the bar, heading east toward the lake.
Waukegan police and naval investigators are working desperately to find him, as Gray’s mother Kerry struggles to maintain hope.
“I’m here, I’m going through dumpsters, looking for my son,” she said. “That’s my boy. That’s my guy. His little brother is 14, and he’s my son’s role model. He’s my, he’s my life. So please help find Seamus.”
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Police plan to provide us another update, once their search is complete Friday. They continue to ask anyone with any information to call police immediately.
Among those volunteering to help with the search Thursday was Ibiza’s manager.
“We sat with his mom yesterday for over three hours at our business with the detectives. Went over all the footage,” said Ibiza Bar manager, Adrian Hernandez.
Although Hernandez said he doesn’t know for sure, he believes those pictured along with him were also sailors from Great Lakes.
From the sound on the video, they were talking about going back to the base,” Hernandez said.
Naval Station Great Lakes released a statement saying: “The Navy is aware that the Waukegan Police Department is conducting an investigation in an attempt to locate Fireman Recruit Seamus Gray, an active-duty service member assigned to Surface Warfare Engineering School Command Great Lakes. He was reported missing on March 21, 2023. The Great Lakes Naval Criminal Investigative Service office is assisting with the investigation.. Please direct all additional questions to the Waukegan Police Department. The Navy will continue to work with all law enforcement agencies involved in the case. Our thoughts are with Fireman Recruit Gray’s family during this difficult time.”
Waukegan Police now working with Naval investigators NCIS.
Police ask anyone with any information to call police immediately.
“I would like for anyone who has any information about my son Seamus to please come forward and please help me,” Kerry said.
As for why the missing person’s report was only filed on Tuesday when Seamus has been missing since early Saturday, Waukegan police said it was simply because it was not until then that authorities at the Naval Base received information that this is where he was last seen.
