Home News Tribune Online 12/22/06

OLD BRIDGE: Police are searching for a mentally-handicapped Filipino man who was last seen
around 3:30 p.m. yesterday.

Conrado Tomas, 21, went missing from the Deep Run shopping center on Route 9, where he
washes dishes and cuts vegetables at Tropical Hut.

Tomas, who doesn't speak English and cannot read, is described as 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds
with black hair and black eyes and a mole on his forehead. He was last seen wearing blue
jeans, a green GAP fleece pullover, a white T-shirt, white sneakers with a red stripe and
white socks.

He likes to climb trees and may be hiding in a tree somewhere, said his mother, Ana Tomas.

He's went missing once before, earlier this year, Ana Tomas said, but he returned on his
own the following morning. His white sweater was dirty and his clothing was wet, she said.

""He was very pale but he didn't tell us where he was,'' she said.

That time he went missing around 3 p.m. and returned the next day around 6 or 7 a.m.

Police are using high-resolution digital images of Middlesex County to pinpoint areas where
they can direct members of the search party, said Rob Sklans of the Middlesex County Office of
Emergency Management.

Authorities are asking residents in and out of the search area to look under sheds and in
trees.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Old Bridge Police Department at 911 or (732)
721-5600.

Home News Tribune Online 12/23/06

OLD BRIDGE — A mentally challenged township man, missing since Thursday afternoon, was found yesterday in Monroe, crying and tired but otherwise fine, after nearly 24 hours and an intensive search by 100 emergency workers.

Conrado Tomas, 21, told his mother he left the Deep Run shopping center on Route 9, where he washes dishes and cuts vegetables, to visit his grandmother on Texas Road in Monroe. He walked at least 5 miles before a Monroe police officer found him on Englishtown-Spotswood Road on the chilly, rainy afternoon.

Tomas, who is Filipino, had left work wearing a green GAP fleece pullover, a white T-shirt, blue jeans and sneakers. Overnight temperatures in the townships dipped to the low 30s.

Tomas returned home late yesterday afternoon from Raritan Bay Medical Center, Old Bridge Division, where he was taken after being found around 2:30 p.m.

"He's very tired but everything is OK," said his mother, Ana Tomas.

Employees at the retail grocery store and restaurant where Tomas worked noticed that he was gone around 3:30 p.m. yesterday. They called his parents about 90 minutes later, who reported Tomas missing at 7:30 p.m.

At least 100 public-safety personnel and volunteers, including K-9 units from nearby municipalities and New York City, joined the "intensive search," said Lt. Robert Weiss of the Old Bridge Police Department.

"Dogs didn't find him. It took a sharp cop," Weiss said of officer Joseph Vella.

Tomas, who doesn't speak English and cannot read, had gone missing once before, in February or March of this year, according to Ana Tomas and police. He returned on his own about 15 hours later the following morning.

"He was very pale but he didn't tell us where he went," said Ana Tomas, who noted her son's clothing had been wet when he returned that day.

Yesterday, police and emergency personnel used high-resolution digital images of the county to direct members of the search party, said Rob Sklans of the Middlesex County Office of Emergency Management, which, along with several other agencies, made up portions of a command center in the medical center's parking lot.

For much of the afternoon, a state police helicopter combed an expanding grid.

On the ground, teams of K-9 officers and their dogs spread out in dense woods nearby, including right behind the Deep Run shopping center. Officers on all-terrain vehicles also joined the search.

Weiss had earlier used the township's emergency-notification, or reverse-911, system to alert residents to be on the lookout for Tomas.

Township police and the South Old Bridge Volunteer Fire Department were assisted by personnel from several agencies, including from the Middlesex County Office of Emergency Management, Central Jersey Technical Rescue, and the county's Corrections and Sheriff departments.

The Red Cross provided canteen service for the search party.