New video said to show Montgomery walking toward canal

A newly surfaced surveillance video shows missing college student Shane Montgomery leaving the area of a Manayunk pub, walking toward a bridge over the Manayunk Canal - and vanishing, according to law enforcement sources.

A spokeswoman for the FBI task force investigating the disappearance with Philadelphia police would not confirm or deny the existence of the video.

Sources said the video shows Montgomery heading across Main Street shortly after 1:50 a.m., when he left Kildare's Irish Pub, walking toward a footpath over the canal. That footpath opens onto an isolated parking lot on a thin wedge of land that sits between the canal and a steep, unguarded bluff over the Schuylkill.

The video - surveillance from Christie's Nail Salon on Main Street nearby - does not show Montgomery emerging later from the footpath area.

Christie Tran, who owns Christie's, said investigators first came to her store on Nov. 28, the day after Montgomery disappeared, looking for surveillance footage from the store's 12 cameras.

Tran said investigators first took footage from her two cameras that face Kildare's, which is just across the street.

Then, last week, investigators asked for footage from another camera, behind the store, that shows the towpath and a bridge crossing the canal, she said. Over the last several days, investigators came back for more footage from that camera, returning as recently as Wednesday morning.

"Hopefully they find Shane," Tran said.

On Main Street, green ribbons were affixed to trees and posts along the towpath, next to laminated fliers with Montgomery's photo and a plea for tips. Snow flurries fell as the day wore on.

A small bridge spans the canal just behind Christie's, leading to a parking lot on the bank of the Schuylkill. The lot is fenced and remains open at night, according to an attendant. There are no security cameras in the lot, the attendant added.

Police marine units renewed their search Wednesday on the Schuylkill for Montgomery, the 21-year-old West Chester University student who disappeared early on Thanksgiving.

The searchers went in boats to the area beneath the Belmont Avenue Bridge. A police spokesman said the units have returned every day since Montgomery vanished.

Montgomery, of Roxborough, was last seen partying with friends at Kildare's, crowded with college students gathered for a traditional Thanksgiving Eve homecoming.

He had been escorted from the bar by a bouncer after stumbling into a DJ's table. Bar employees and Montgomery's friends said he was not intoxicated when he left.

Wednesday's search focused on an area about a block from Kildare's.

Authorities traced his cellphone to a tower in Lower Merion that indicated he was within 4,500 feet of a CVS store on Main - less than a mile from Kildare's - at 2:38 a.m.

The reward for information about Montgomery has grown to $65,000.

Kevin Verbrugghe, Montgomery's uncle, said Wednesday that he had not known of the video. He said Karen Montgomery, mother of the missing man, told him earlier in the day that investigators were going to conduct a concentrated search in one area of the river.

"I continue to have faith in the task force," Verbrugghe said.