Virginia Commonwealth University yesterday offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the location of Jonathan S. Dorey, a foreign-exchange student who has been missing more than a week.
Also yesterday, about a dozen people gathered in the rain about 3 p.m. outside Gladding Residence Center before embarking on a search of Richmond bicycle trails around Belle Isle and elsewhere. Dorey enjoys riding on trails around Belle Isle, and authorities have searched that area at least twice in the past week or so, including with dogs.
Participants in yesterday's search left Gladding and planned to search trails on the north and south sides of the James River, areas that Dorey, an experienced mountain biker, is believed to frequent. Some searched on foot, others by bicycle.
One of the searchers, Ashley Larson, said her group stopped looking at dark. She and another searcher said afterward that as far as they know, none of the searchers found anything useful to the case.
"We didn't know what to expect, but I think a lot of people wanted to do something," Larson said.
Faisal Savaya, an international VCU student from Iraq, set off from Gladding on a mountain bike, planning to search trails on the south side of the James.
"A lot of people, including me, are having a hard time," Savaya, a 21-year-old sophomore, said earlier yesterday. "We're international students, and Jonny's part of our family."
He said he and some of Dorey's other friends met Thursday afternoon with a VCU counselor and a university police sergeant. The sergeant reassured the students that authorities were doing their best to find him, Savaya said.
Savaya said that as far as he knows, Dorey did not tell any of his friends where he was going. Police said early this week that the last sighting of Dorey was on March 2, when surveillance video captured him walking his bike away from Gladding.
"I have a strong feeling that he's over there on the trails," Savaya said.
VCU officials are releasing little information about the focus of their search, but they have said they have no evidence of foul play. A spokesman for Dorey's family said this week that the disappearance is out of character.
Larson, a VCU senior who has met Dorey, said the disappearance has been scary. "I know a lot of people that are really close to him," she said, "and nobody has any idea what happened."
The reward, she said, "makes me think they haven't found a lot of clues."
VCU spokesman Mike Porter said university investigators are working with Richmond police and have been in contact with several other agencies, including the U.S. State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the British embassy and authorities in Guernsey, a small island in the English Channel that is Dorey's home.
Porter said "every law-enforcement agency in Virginia" has been provided information on the missing 22-year-old student.
"We want to do anything we can to find him," Porter said, "and if offering the reward makes anyone come forward, then it's worth posting the reward."
Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com.
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