A group of about 12 people gathered at the Puerta Vallarta restaurant in the West Seattle Junction at 10:30 on Sunday morning to search for a friend. Jeremy Peck, 24, was last seen at approximately 1:15 am Christmas Eve near the Admiral Pub on California Ave. in West Seattle.

"A couple of people were at the pub and a couple of people were at the Yen Wor Village and then left him there and that was the last they saw of him," said his uncle John Peck. Jeremy lives with his uncle.

"He's not one to have run off," John said, "He's too hungry. He eats like a puppy."

Peck had been at the Rocksport earlier in the evening and then went to the Admiral District and the Admiral Pub and Yen Wor Village. A close friend Travis Gagner who was with Peck on Christmas Eve said,"Me and Julie left and he was still outside at the time talking to some people. That's when we left and I just figured it was a normal night like he was going to walk home."

"He's a good friend of mine. He lived with me from between the ages of 17 and 21 (...) The thing is, with J.P. he's been known to stay at a friends house unexpectedly for a night or two but never this long." Gagner suspects foul play."It has to be (...) He doesn't have enough money to just go disappear.

Jeremy was wearing a gray hoodie and a black coat over it that evening.

Fliers have been posted around the community and given to bus drivers in the area following his disappearance, but no one has recognized him or come forward to provide any information.

The plan as stated to those attending was to split into groups with some going to retrace Peck’s possible route home south on California Avenue on the night he disappeared. "He would have most likely turned left on Juneau and come down to 37th," John Peck said. More fliers were going up Sunday as well.

Others planned to walk through Schmitz Park, the lower fields near Riverview on "Boeing Hill", Lincoln Park and Me-Kwa-Mooks purposely checking trails and areas where they might possibly pick up a clue. After searching they planned on calling John with the intention of getting back together later in the day to compare notes and exchange information.

Other means of gaining more information have yet to be tapped. "You'd think there'd be just a ton of security cameras between here and there," John said, "and you'd think they would have picked him up walking. The people at the Chevron said we could access theirs but the cop hasn't really come back to me. He didn't call me back after I left a message Thursday. I figure he (Jeremy) must have walked by there and maybe further down a bank caught it (...) I just don't know how to access where they are at. If this was like an Amber Alert somebody would have been asking everybody about their access."

Jeremy also had a prepaid cell phone through Virgin Mobile. "It was out of juice," said John, but he speculated that there might be a way to determine the last known call and the tower it went through. They planned on contacting the company to seek that information.

Many in the group acknowledged that since Jeremy disappeared numerous "stories" have circulated, with some claiming to have seen him but according to his friends these rumors have proven to be untrue.

According to one friend Jeremy was involved in a violent incident October 1st. Others gathered for the search party agreed the incident took place, "Right behind the Poggie Tavern, "said Angelina Garrison. "He was standing there smoking a cigarette, innocently doing nothing. All of a sudden another drunk man who (and I know his face and I wish I knew his name) he's got white hair and he's got to be in his 50's, he's about 5 feet 9 inches tall. The guy just reached for a shovel out of a pickup truck and punched him twice and hit him twice with the shovel. Jeremy ran off down the alley. We all tried to pull the guy off of him but he chased him. The guy is insane.(...) He came up to me about a month prior and said he knew me from 10 years ago when I ran for Miss West Seattle (...) I'm just sick over this. I'm so sad about this. Nobody deserves this, especially not him. He always had people around him. I don't understand how he could have been alone that night."

A $1000 reward has been offered (graciously provided by John Peck's cousin) for information leading to Jeremy Peck's return. Anyone with any information regarding Jeremy's disappearance is urged to call John Peck at 206-371-6451.

So far no official police investigation has been launched by the Seattle Police Department however Cheryl Perry, associated with the search told the West Seattle Herald "we did learn that the SPD detective(...) has or will be reviewing the tapes from the Admiral Pub today and in the morning."

The West Seattle Herald's original story about the disappearance including a photo of Peck and more information is here.