Search Dog Tracks Missing Student To Lakefront
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Volunteers, friends and family were out in force Tuesday morning, resuming the search for a missing University of Chicago student.
CBS 2's Susanna Song reports Austin Hudson-Lapore was last seen on Wednesday.
Early Tuesday, his father was walking up and down the lakefront, looking for any signs of his son as the search continued.
Searchers said they were very hopeful, which is why they continued to put up flyers with Austin's photo.
K-9 trainer Rob Larson brought his dog Captain Dexter to Austin's apartment in Hyde Park on Tuesday, to take a whiff of the young man's clothes.
The team walked toward Lake Michigan, and it wasn't long before Captain Dexter picked up a scent at Promontory Point.
Half a mile down the lake, the dog picked up another scent, just east of the Museum of Science and Industry.
"This is just my opinion; I'm 95 percent sure Austin made it this far right here," Larson said.
Austin – a third year biochemistry student at the University of Chicago – has been missing for nearly a week.
His friends and family believe he came to the lake to check out the storms after taking his final exams on Wednesday.
"He's loved weather since he was a child," said Austin's father, Gregg Lapore. "When he was 3, he would rather watch the Weather Channel than cartoons on TV."
Gregg Lapore came to Chicago from New Mexico after his son went missing, and he desperately wants to find Austin.
"It's the not knowing. If something happened to Austin, and he'd been crossing the street and been hit by a car, you'd know, but right now we don't know," he said.
On Saturday night, searchers got a tip that someone who looked like Austin was seen walking on Lake Shore Drive near Roosevelt Road. Could he still be alive?
"Whether it was foul play or nature; all we want to know is where is he, so we can take him home," his father said.
Larson and his dog were the ones who found the body of the missing Maywood boy, Bryeon Hunter, in the Des Plaines River last month.
Divers haven't been able to go into Lake Michigan on Tuesday, because of choppy water, but they'll go in as soon as conditions are safe.
If you have any information on the case, you can leave a tip at findaustinhudson.com
