NY NY - Colin Gillis, 18, Tupper Lake, 11 March 2012

Colin Gillis, 18, was last seen around the Franklin-St. Lawrence county line between Tupper Lake and Piercefield at about 2 a.m. Sunday.

He wandered away from a social gathering at a private residence on Paskungameh Road, according to state Department of Environmental Conservation spokesman David Winchell.

DEC personnel were setting up a command post at the Piercefield Town Hall this morning, said Piercefield fire Chief Mike Boylan. They got there around 7:30 this morning, he said.

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Lake Placid News Editor Rich Rosentreter reported seeing a young man in the road on state Route 3 at about 1:45 a.m. Sunday as he was heading back from Massena to Tupper Lake with his mother, who lives in Tupper Lake.

Rosentreter said the young man was walking against traffic close to the white line on the side of the road and flailing his arms. At first it looked like the man was hitchhiking, but then it looked like he wasn't.

He wasn't wearing a jacket, only a long-sleeved shirt, and the temperature was in the teens, Rosentreter said. Rosentreter said state police went to look for the man after he reported the incident to them at the Tupper Lake village police station, but to no avail.

Gillis attends SUNY Brockport, according to his Facebook page. He is the son of John and Patricia Gillis.

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Police are looking for a College at Brockport student who was reported missing in the Adirondacks.

Colin Gillis is a sophomore at the college. The 18-year-old was reported missing Sunday in Tupper Lake, which is located in Franklin County in northern New York. Colin is from Tupper Lake.

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"On March 11, 2012 at 5:30 p.m. Ray Brook Dispatch received a call from Gillis's mother reporting her son missing. He was last heard from at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, March 11, based on phone records. DEC Forest Rangers and State Police worked through the evening to gather information and organized today's search effort," Winchell said.

"A New York State Police Aviation Unit Helicopter is being used in the search today, and a DEC airboat will arrive on scene shortly."

Gillis is 6-feet-1-inch tall and weighs 170 pounds. He was wearing a white shirt with black stripes, blue jeans and red sneakers.

Ray Brook-based State Police said the search was warranted because Gillis was walking along a desolate stretch of Adirondack forest in wintertime.

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While the search is going on, state police are also conducting an investigation, talking to all the people who were at the party Gillis was at, as well as family members and other interested parties.

Gillis just got home on spring break from college. Some have said he left the party because he was upset, but Friedrich said he hasn't had that information substantiated yet.

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DEC said they plan on holding a press conference soon. The Enterprise will provide more updates as the day progresses. Anyone with information is urged to contact state police in Ray Brook at 518-897-2000.

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Late Monday afternoon, the DEC issued this update:


"All told approximately 200 people participated in the search for Mr. Gillis today including: DEC Forest Rangers; State Police Troopers, Investigators, Special Operations Response Team members, and helicopter crews; Search and Rescue of Northern Adirondacks (SARNAK) members, Tupper Lake Police and Fire Department members, Piercefield Fire Department members and more than 150 volunteers. Roads, roadways and the railroad bed were all searched.

Some personal items belonging to Mr. Gillis were located on the Setting Pole Dam Road

New York State Police is now the lead agency in this effort.

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"It's just overwhelming the response that Tupper Lake has shown to us, to help us out in this really tough time," said Patricia Gillis, Collin's mother.

Police say search crews have found two of Gillis' belongings, but they did not go into detail. They also say there's no evidence Gillis was hit by a car or tried to walk across the ice.

The search will continue Tuesday.

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The New York State Police will hold a media briefing at 3:30 p.m. this afternoon regarding the case of an 18-year-old missing for nearly three days in the Northern Adirondacks. The briefing will be held at the Command Post in Piercefield.

Police did not indicate any specifics about the briefing.

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The DEC is asking for fewer volunteers on Wednesday for a different kind of study of the terrain where Gillis may have been.

"The search tomorrow will concentrate on more technical areas along water and other hard-to-reach locations. DEC does not want to compound the concerns of the community by having someone injured while searching for Mr. Gillis," Winchell said.

"Only those with search experience and proper footwear, clothing and gear should expect to get a search assignment.

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The conditions, he said, vary from bare ground to knee-deep snow.

The focus has shifted from the woods, he said, to along the waterways.

"We've got various resources committed not only to Raquette Pond and upstream, but also on the river itself," Streiff said.

"We're looking in the water, we're looking along the banks and we're just trying to find where Colin might be."

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paris_paris said:

Party on Paskungameh Rd. Items found on Setting Pole Rd. That's west of the party location. Tupper Lake is east. He lived in Tupper Lake, so was walking in the wrong direction to go home.

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Colin Gillis, a SUNY Brockport freshman home on spring break, was last seen walking in the opposite direction of his parents’ home where he was staying.

“No one knows; that’s the million dollar question,” Lyndon Gillis replied when asked why his brother was walking in that direction. “He’s not the type to just disappear and not call anybody.”

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John told the press he and his wife last saw Colin at about 8:30 Saturday evening. They had dinner with him and watched a college basketball game.

He was excited to go out and see his friends at a party at a residence on Paskungameh Road, John said. He said Colin joked about how it was a reunion of the kids he graduated with in 2011, though it hasn't even been a year since they graduated.

"He was all pumped up about seeing his friends," John said. "We were just kind of laughing and having a good time, like usual with Colin. He was in a great mood - like I said, very excited to see his friends."

John said Colin was also joking about how all his friends in college bought a machine that works abdominal muscles so they could look like him, since he was working hard to get in good shape.

When he left, the family said he didn't say anything strange, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

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One of the first parties to go out Monday apparently found Colin’s driver’s license on the edge of the south side of the road, west of the intersection of Route 3 and Setting Pole Dam Road, where their search began.

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Teenager Austin Toohey was driving his cousin, Jordan Amell, home to Piercefield that evening when they spotted Colin leaving Paskungameh Road on foot about 1:30a.m. where he had been at a party. They stopped and asked him if he wanted a ride and he declined, noting he was waiting for a friend to pick him up. Austin stopped again on his trip back to Tupper Lake, encouraging Colin to get in the truck, but he again reportedly declined the offer. That time Colin was near the headquarters of Bruce Richards Logging, heading west.

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The 18-year-old disappeared early Sunday morning after he left an underage drinking party.

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