PORTLAND, Maine — As several agencies continued Thursday to search by air and sea for a missing Cape Elizabeth man and the water taxi he piloted, the Maine Marine Patrol said security camera footage owned by DiMillo’s restaurant in Portland shows Adam Patterson leaving the dock in the water taxi just before 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Patterson, 30, has not been heard from since he spoke with his wife by cellphone at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to Maine Marine Patrol spokesman Jeff Nichols, who declined to release any information about the conversation.
Also on Thursday, marine patrol personnel discovered Patterson’s cellphone aboard a sailboat docked at Long Wharf in Portland, where he had been staying for about 10 days. Nichols said Patterson’s vehicle was found parked in the DiMillo’s parking lot.
The 24-foot white boat, owned by Portland Express Taxi, was reported missing at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
A co-worker of Patterson’s said he secured the missing taxi at 11 p.m. Tuesday, with an estimated 30 gallons of gasoline on board. Another employee of the water taxi company determined at 5:50 a.m. Wednesday that the boat Patterson regularly operated was missing.
Security camera footage shows Patterson leaving in the vessel at 3:25 a.m., Nichols said later Thursday in a news release.
The marine patrol on Wednesday searched the coast between Portland and Yarmouth, Phippsburg and Harpswell Sound, and South Portland and the Kennebunk River, as well as of other areas of Casco Bay. They renewed that search by boat at 6 a.m. Thursday, and another boat joined at 10 a.m.
One fixed-wing aircraft from the U.S. Coast Guard and a second fixed-wing aircraft from the marine patrol also were involved in the search Thursday.
Nichols said that because of conversations with Patterson’s family and friends, Thursday’s search would focus on the area between Portland and Seguin Island, off Popham Beach in Phippsburg, as well as between Portland and Harpswell — areas with which Patterson is familiar.
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