STOCKTON SPRINGS, Maine — Despite an intense search that is entering its fourth week, a Maine Maritime Academy student who went missing late last month in Orono had yet to be located as of Sunday night.
Search and rescue volunteers from Orono-based Down East Emergency Medicine Institute and members of 21-year-old David “DJ” Breunig’s family converged on Stockton Springs on Saturday and Sunday after an “object of interest” was found near Gondola Cove Saturday.
Although members of the Maine Marine Patrol searched the area by boat that evening, they did not locate the missing student.
The search resumed about 1 p.m. Sunday when low tide was occurring and more of the shoreline could be seen.
Among those who turned out on Sunday were nine members of Breunig’s family, namely aunts and uncles and cousins. While two uncles searched the river by canoe, the rest of the family conducted ground searches.
“He was one of those kids that when he walked into a room, the room lit up,” his aunt Nicole Walker said Sunday after searching a four-mile stretch of shoreline.
“He got everybody’s attention. He was funny, he was smart. Very respectful. He was very family-oriented. His brother and him were besties,” she said.
Several family members gathered at Sandy Point Beach State Park on Sunday and vowed to keep looking until Breunig was found.
“His family meant everything to him. We are a close-knit family … and our family needs closure,” Walker said. “We need to find him. We need to get him home one way or another.”
On Monday, the focus will shift slightly to the span of the Penobscot running from roughly Fort Point State Park and Devereaux Cove, both in Stockton Springs, where two more objects of interest have been spotted, said Richard Bowie, director of operations for DEEMI.
The snowstorm expected to hit Maine overnight into Monday likely will hinder ground searchers’ abilities and will eliminate the possibility of an aerial search.
Breunig last was seen leaving a party on Crosby Street in Orono around 11:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 26. His phone last pinged a local cellphone tower at 12:05 a.m. Feb. 27, officials have said. He was last seen walking toward the train tracks near a railroad bridge that crosses the Stillwater River.
Earlier this month, divers searched the Penobscot River near where it connects with the Stillwater based on the possibility Breunig fell from the railroad bridge. He was last seen in that area. Previous ground and aerial searches have focused along stretches of both rivers with no sign of him.