SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ Family and friends continued to search Monday for a Gold River, Calif., man who has been missing for a week, after his van was found at the Sacramento State Aquatic Center on the west end of Lake Natoma.
Vijay Kumar, also known as Vijay Singh, 59, has been missing since the evening of June 10, his wife and a family friend told The Sacramento Bee by phone Monday morning.
Kumar's van was found in a parking lot at Sac State's Aquatic Center off of Hazel Avenue on June 10. Before finding the van, his family received photos taken near the bridge over the American River via a shared iCloud account.
Madhur Kumar said she last saw her husband that morning. They went to a school orientation together for one of their two sons. Everything seemed normal, she said.
"It's so unlike him to disappear and leave his family," she said.
Madhur Kumar left for work about 9:15 a.m. June 10, and within the next hour, Vijay Kumar told their teenage son he was leaving for work. The couple's other son, who is back home from college, was asleep.
That was the last time his family saw or heard from him, she said.
"He just loved his family. He was a very family-oriented person," Madhur Kumar said. "He just adored his kids. We were a very close-knit family. We're severely devastated."
Madhur Kumar said that in the past few days, law enforcement has helped with helicopter searches. She said that she also has a support group of about 100 friends and acquaintances and that dozens of volunteers have helped look for her husband _ on foot, in kayaks on the American River or with the help of dogs. So far, there are no clues to his whereabouts, she said.
Spokeswoman Sgt. Tess Deterding confirmed the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office has been coordinating with the family as dozens of loved ones continue a search for Kumar. But she said that at this point, the "factors are not there" for an official investigation to continue into Kumar's disappearance.
"At this point there's nothing that we would deem, at least from a law enforcement perspective, as foul play or suspicious," Deterding said Monday.
That determination came following an investigation starting last Tuesday, when the report was received by sheriff's detectives, and after helicopter searches in the areas surrounding the Aquatic Center found no sign of Kumar, according to Deterding.
Scores of loved ones met Sunday evening at Folsom's Lembi Park for a community event, which family friend Nandakumar Natarajan said was a "call to action" to get the word out and help find Kumar. A Facebook page titled "Search for Vijay Kumar" has also been set up with that goal.
A poster being shared throughout the community by Natarajan and others describes Kumar as being an Indian male, 5-foot-10, who wears glasses and was last seen wearing a blue collared shirt and blue jeans. The poster asks anyone who sees Kumar to email missingvijaykumar@gmail.com.
Natarajan, who said he has known Kumar and his family for about 16 years, said he had hoped that law enforcement would put out missing person alerts to the public, but as Deterding said the Sheriff's Office has not done so because Kumar is not considered to be an "at-risk" missing person.
Deterding said he is classified as a "voluntary missing adult" _ not considered to be a danger to himself or others, not depending on medication and whose circumstances of disappearance are not considered suspicious. She noted that, legally, "an adult has the right to pick up and leave, without interference," though that is not a common occurrence in the Sacramento area, she said.
Deterding said there was no evidence to suggest Kumar is suicidal.
Natarajan said Kumar, a biomedical scientist, was unemployed recently, after having worked at a start-up business in that field for a "number of years." Natarajan said he had not spoken to Kumar since the job situation arose.
Madhur Kumar said that one of the people her husband worked with at that start-up was one of his best friends and that they may have had a falling out.
Vijay Kumar visited Lake Natoma frequently, usually for trips lasting about an hour. His family lives near the lake, his wife said.
The missing scientist is outdoorsy, and he and his two sons enjoyed hiking, Madhur Kumar said. She said he would sometimes go outside to clear his head and to "think about things" during breaks from work.
But she also said he's a "very stable" person who has taken responsibility for others his whole life. Upon his mother's death when he was 14, Vijay Kumar essentially raised his three siblings as a teenager, Madhur said.
"We have wonderful kids who have always been supportive," she said. "We just can't fathom what's going on here."
