Ames police are seeking out any kind of information they can find on a missing Iowa State University student from China. Commander Geoff Huff says 20-year-old Tong Shao is a junior at ISU. “Really no one that we can find has seen her since September 8th — so we are about two weeks ago now. We are still looking at some information, but that seems to be the date we are at right now,” Huff says. “At that time she has sent a text message to some of her friends saying she was in Iowa City and that she was going to be going up to Minnesota to visit some friends up there.”
Huff says they tried to follow that information. “We can’t verify for sure she was actually in Iowa City, we haven’t located anybody in Iowa City who saw her there. We contacted some of the friends she has in Minnesota, and they never saw her either,” Huff says.
Huff says they are looking at any information available that might give them a clue to her whereabouts. “We are talking to a lot of her friends and associates, we’ve been in contact with here family who are in China. We are working with some of our federal partners to see if there is anything that we are missing. It’s pretty difficult right now, we don’t have a lot of information right now. So we are really asking for the public’s help in anything that they can provide,” according to Huff.
He says they are concerned because of the amount of time she has been gone. “We don’t know if she is missing because she wants to be missing, or if foul play might be involved,” Huff says. “We haven’t found anything yet that leads us to believe that she is in any danger — then yet again — when you haven’t been seen in two weeks by anybody that knows you, that’s pretty concerning and we’re pretty concerned.”
Huff asks anyone with any information to call the Ames Police Department.