By Scott Buttram
TRUSSVILLE –About 100 volunteers showed up at the Trussville Civic Center to search for Pei Yen Sung who was reported missing from her Longmeadow home on Friday evening. Despite their efforts, the searches found nothing that would shed any light on her disappearance.
Sung, 61, was last seen when she took a co-worker home from work on Thursday night from the Palace restaurant. Police have said there are indications that she may have gone for her usual morning walk on Friday.
John Grissom of the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) led the search along with volunteers from Trussville Fire and Rescue and Argo Fire and Rescue. The emergency personnel divided citizens into four search groups and fanned out across the area.
Grissom gave the group guidelines before turning them over to group leaders to conduct the search.
Trussville police captain Jeff Bridges said he hoped the search would turn up new leads.
“We have aggressively investigated the case since the report was filed Friday evening,” Bridges said. “We have received several tips and we’ve pursued them all, but they haven’t led anywhere.”
Bridges said several calls have come in from people who thought they may have seen Sung. Officers investigated each call, which included watching surveillance footage, but the none of the tips panned out.
“Someone thought they had seen her in a local business, but we check their security camera footage and it wasn’t her. We’re going to continue to chase down every lead and every tip,” Bridges said. “She is well known and well thought of. We want to find this lady.”
According to Terry Wang, who works with Sung at The Palace, nothing seemed off about Sung in the days leading up to her disappearance.
“Everything was the same,” said Wang. “She showed up for her shift and everything was the same. It was just unexpected. She was off Friday morning and was suppose to work Friday afternoon.”
That’s when Sung’s coworkers discovered she was missing.
The 61-year-old’s neighbor, who also works at The Palace, called the restaurant to see if Sung had reported for her Friday shift, as she had not returned from her daily walk through the neighborhood. Sung’s shift ended at 9 p.m. on Thursday.
Police and fire personnel began searching on Friday evening immediately following receiving the missing person report.
The search continued on Saturday morning when the St. Clair County sheriff’s office brought in search dogs and covered a wide area in and out of the Longmeadow subdivision.