Family and friends are still worried about a former Plainsboro man and High School North graduate who took off on a secret cross-country trip and was found after being reported missing, but still has not contacted anyone, including his mother.
The concern over Christopher Coles, 26, who now resides in New Britain, CT, began after he visited his mother, Shirley Hailstock, in her Plainsboro home, and told her he was leaving to commute back to Connecticut for work on July 27. When she received a call that he had not shown up for work the following two days, she began to worry.
Friends and family embarked on a week-long search, creating a Facebook.com page called “Where’s Chris Coles,” a website, www.whereischriscoles.com, and contacting the media in hopes of finding him. That ended when police stopped Coles in Idaho and reported to New Britain police that he had been found on August 4.
Police told Hailstock he seemed “jovial” and was on his way to Seattle, but he still has not contacted anyone, and friends and family are concerned.
“I haven’t talked to him,” said Hailstock. “He was in Idaho when the police called and said he had been found. He was on his way to Seattle. I don’t know if he knows anyone in Seattle, but he knows people all over the world because he has traveled extensively.”
Hailstock said August 11 that she did not know if he was on his way back, but said she stopped checking his phone and Facebook activity. “When he’s ready, he’ll talk.”
“I’m very relieved that he was OK, that when they found him, he was in good spirits,” she said. “I was thinking the worst, and not voicing it, but going out of my mind. This is so out-of-character for him to go off by himself and not tell anyone — not even his job, which he loves.”
“I’m sure he had a reason, but if he needed to clear his head, and this is how he chose to do it, then that’s fine,” she added. “I just wish he had chosen a different way — not that he wouldn’t drive across the country, but that he would let somebody know this is what he was doing, that he was OK.”
When asked whether she was still concerned about her son, she said she was. “I would like him to call or contact me. I’m not going to be asking a whole lot of questions as to why he did this, or reprimanding him. I just want to make sure he’s OK. If he doesn’t want to talk to me, then talk to someone else.”
On a positive note, Hailstock said her sister told her she sent him a friend request on Facebook, and he accepted — meaning he had to have signed in at a computer to do so.
Coles is a former diving champion at Rider University, earning accolades during his time there, including being named the 2004 and 2005 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Diver of the Year.
