Verizon determines where missing student's cell phone might be located

A blanket search for Wade Steffey, 19, a freshman at Purdue University, will be conducted Saturday. Verizon Wireless was able to determine to the Purdue University Police Department the vicinity of the missing student's cellular telephone, said Steffey's father, Dale Steffey.\n"With Verizon's cooperation, they've been able to get an area where his cell phone is likely to be," Dale Steffey said. "It's about a half-square mile on Purdue's campus."\nHe was optimistic about the possible finding of the phone.\n"We spent a lot of time with the police the past few days," he said. "The lack of evidence has been difficult to deal with and that would be a really good thing to find it (the cell phone). ... That's a positive development."\nThe search is to be conducted after a prayer vigil Saturday at the bell tower on Purdue's main campus at 1:30 p.m., Steffey said.\n"The more eyes we have looking, the better it will be," he said. "While the focus is in the West Lafayette area, it's been a week since anyone has laid eyes on him. He could be anywhere in the country, too."\nWade Steffey went missing after attending a Phi Kappa Theta fraternity party early Saturday morning.\nMegan Priest, a freshman at Purdue and a friend of Steffey's, went with him to the party.\n"We were hanging out in one of our friends' rooms. We were playing some video games and talking, trying to figure out the plans for the evening," Priest said. "One of our guy friends planned on going to this party and he (Steffey) had an opportunity to play poker somewhere else, but he chose not to go.\n"He definitely was not impaired. None of our friends saw him drinking at the party at all. He definitely was not impaired when he left."\nPriest said Wade Steffey did not tell any of his friends when he was leaving, and no one has reported if Steffey told him when he was leaving.\nHe recently broke up with his girlfriend of one week, his roommate and longtime friend Ben Buckner said, but he and two other friends did not feel the breakup had to do with his disappearance.\n"He wasn't very optimistic of how long it would last," Buckner said. "They actually broke up in the middle of the week. He wasn't upset about it or anything," he said.\nDale Steffey is encouraging people to go to Purdue's Web site (www.purdue.edu) to download his photo to print and hang the flier that is also posted on the Web site.\n"We're urging people all over the country to do that and get these pictures out in rest areas on interstates, truck stops, restaurants and motels, malls and any places where there are a lot of people who can see them," Steffey said.\nDale Steffey and his wife, Dawn Adams, will be interviewed on Greta Van Susteren's show on the Fox News Channel today at 10:30 p.m. for about six minutes, he said.\n"Although his cell phone may be here, we don't know where he is," Steffey said. "He may be with the phone but he may not be."\nSteffey, when last seen, was wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt with light blue stripes and light-colored jeans, according to his missing-person flier. Steffey is Caucasian with short brown hair and brown eyes. He is 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs about 150 pounds.\nSteffey's parents have set up a reward fund that is being administered by Fifth Third Bank in Central Indiana.\n"The reward would be substantial if anyone can provide information that could lead us to our son, I can guarantee you that," Steffey said.\nAnyone with information about his disappearance is encouraged to call the Purdue University Police Department at (765) 494-8221. Anonymous callers can call (765) 496-3784.