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Search for Lathrop man reaches into Stockton
Missing-Lum-Jeremey
Jeremy Lum - photo by Photo Contributed
LATHROP – The search for Jeremy Lum, 28, of Lathrop reached into Stockton as far as Alpine Road with some 700 fliers being handed out.

A recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley,  Lum walked away from the San Joaquin County jail in French Camp Thursday morning barefoot and disoriented, according to the family’s account of his disappearance.

Family members and friends searched for him Thursday and Friday with a total search effort involving more than 50 volunteers combing areas between the man’s home in Lathrop and Stockton on Saturday.  The family also had one aircraft involved in the search.

All the parks in the vicinity were searched as the volunteers talked with the homeless they found in those parks.  No one had seen Lum, they said.

Connie Perez, an aunt, said searchers looked for Jeremy along the railroad tracks, the river  and in bushes going up to Harding Way where they found a mail carrier who thought he might have seen her nephew.  That lead did not go anywhere but the volunteers have not given up hope, she said.

“It’s amazing how many showed up to help us including retired police personnel,” she said.

Steve Seckler, retired from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, said the effort had marshaled 10 teams of five members each who were all armed with fliers.  They covered the area outward from the county jail in French Camp between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Searchers then were subsequently reassigned and they moved into south Stockton.  As of 4 p.m. Saturday there were still a couple of teams out in the field.

Perez said her nephew is on psychiatric medications for a bipolar condition as well as for seizures.  It is critical that he be found and continued on those medications since he has also been suffering from depression, she said.

Family members said Lum is somewhat shy and would not go to a stranger or even take a ride from someone he didn’t know.

Jerry Lum said the last time he saw his son was Wednesday night when he went to his home in central Lathrop and invited him to join family members for dinner.  It was 8 p.m. and he had already gone to bed, saying he didn’t want to get up.

It is believed he walked away from his home within the next two hours heading for his aunt’s home with his dog.  His aunt said she believed he became lost and was disoriented. He was later found by a homeowner on a residential front lawn.

Lathrop police deputies were called to the home, reportedly believing he was under the influence of something, and had him in jail for the night. They took his dog back to his Lathrop Road home.

“The longer this goes on, the worse I feel,” his dad Jerry Lum said Friday night.

While the younger Lum just completed his philosophy degree at Cal Berkley, he was currently enrolled at Modesto Junior College for an additional major in nursing.

Anyone with information on Lum may call his aunt Connie Perez’ cell phone at (209) 606-8198 or call his dad Jerry at (209) 915- 2371 or call 911.  Lum is 6-foot-2 inches and weighs about 160 pounds.  He needs to be found because he needs his medications.