The Atlantic Ocean was calm the day Jeffrey Mays, a 1977 graduate of Ligonier High School, disappeared along with a friend and his boat 16 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., on Nov. 13, 1980.
His mother, Shirley Mays, continues to search for her son.
"I don't think Jeffrey perished at sea," said Mays, of Camden, N.C. "I believe Jeffrey and his friend were in the wrong place at the wrong time. For some reason, my son cannot come home because he knows too much."
Jeffrey Mays grew up in Ligonier. His father, Harold Mays started a successful xerographic business in Latrobe in the early 1970s. After selling the business to Pelican, the family reinvested their money in real estate in the Kitty Hawk, N.C., area.
"We were one of a few privileged people on the East Coast to own a Coast Guard station," Mays said. "We had purchased the Kitty Hawk Coast Guard Station in 1970 and used it as a summer home. Because Jeffrey loved the area, he decided to go to college at East Carolina University in Greenville."
The family decided to move from the Ligonier area to Elizabeth City, N.C., where Shirley Mays was born and raised. In early 1980, Harold Mays purchased Nunemakers Fish Co., an established fish market and retail store on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Jeffrey attended the university for two years before deciding to join the family's new business venture. He quit school and moved back to the beach to work at the fish company.
"Jeff loved the outdoors," said Eric Krieger, a 1977 graduate of Ligonier High School and one of Jeffrey's best friends. "We started running in the same direction in seventh or eighth grade. We played basketball and had similar likes and dislikes. We just clicked as friends."
In the 1970s, the Krieger family owned the Ligonier Tavern, now owned and operated by Heidi and Peter McKay, Eric Krieger's sister and brother-in-law.
"I started spending summers together with Jeff's family at Kitty Hawk when we were about 16 or 17," said Krieger, now of Maryland. "We worked for Mann Concrete during the day and at night Jeff and I would go fishing, water skiing, or chase girls."
While Jeffrey attended East Carolina, Krieger went to Juniata College on a football grant. After two years, Krieger transferred to Penn State University.
"The summer after I made the football team at Penn State, I wanted to reconnect with Jeff so I went down to Nags Head, and we went out and had a great time," said Krieger. "We had made plans to fly out and meet Jeff's sister, Deborah, in Los Angeles later that winter. Then I got the phone call."
Krieger's father called him on Nov. 14 as he was practicing with the Penn State football team.
"My father told me that Jeff was missing. I thought maybe Jeff took off for the weekend," said Krieger. "I was told he went fishing and didn't come back. I went down after the Fiesta Bowl and went to Jeff's hangouts and asked his friends if they knew anything."
According to newspaper articles published in The Virginian-Pilot, of Norfolk, Va., Jeffrey and Ted Wall, 22, of Hatteras Inlet, were last seen about 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, 1980, about 16 miles southeast of the inlet. A commercial fisherman from Hatteras, Edgar Styron, told the Coast Guard he helped the two repair the engine of Jeffrey's 23-foot boat, the Sea Ox.
The search for the missing men and boat began about 9 p.m. that evening and continued for two weeks. Coast Guard boats, Navy, Marine, Air Force and Coast Guard helicopters were used to cover more than 211,000 miles of ocean. Wall and Jeffrey met at Nunemakers Fish Co. where Wall worked as a commercial fisherman. Jeffrey had earlier decided he wanted to do some commercial fishing for his father's business.
Jeffrey's boat, the Sea Ox, was considered unsinkable, said Dick Wehn of the Coast Guard's public affairs section in Portsmouth, Va., in 1980.
"The Sea Ox boats are filled with foam flotation that can keep them just under the surface even when swamped. The lost boat had a 280-horsepower engine," reported the Nov. 21, 1980, issue of The Virginian-Pilot.
"They just haven't found anything from the boat. That's unusual," Wehn said.
Krieger, like Mays, doesn't believe Jeffrey is dead.
"In the winter, the commercial fishermen got into selling drugs. Back then it was pretty heavy duty," said Krieger. "Jeff was hanging out with Ted Wall, and I think Ted was over his head owing some people money."
The mystery of Jeffrey Mays' disappearance continued to deepen when Krieger read the official Coast Guard report. On one of the pages was a quote from a commercial fisherman who told the Coast Guard he had seen a boat resembling the Sea Ox heading southwest at a high rate of speed.
"When I went to look at the report again, the page was missing," said Krieger.
Ensign Carrie Shaffer, the current public affairs officer with the U.S. Coast Guard Group Cape Hatteras, in Buxton, N.C., agreed to search for the official records of Jeffrey's disappearance for the Tribune-Review.
"The Coast Guard is required to keep the records of significant historical cases or if the case is not historically significant, we send those cases to the district office in Portsmouth, Va.," Shaffer said.
One day later, Shaffer called to say the Coast Guard did not have the records.
"The records are in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.," Shaffer said. "They're there because they are an official government document. In order to gain access to these records a Freedom of Information Act form must be filled out and approved."
When asked how long approval would take, Shaffer said she didn't know.
"It could be months," she added.
Six years after Jeffrey's disappearance, Krieger was visiting Shirley Mays at the family's summer home on the Outer Banks.
"I was looking out the window and watching these two guys get out of two pickup trucks. These guys had long hair, jeans, big boots, and flannel shirts and it was at the end of May," said Krieger. "They were talking and I was watching them when all of a sudden one guy whips out a pair of binoculars and looks up at the house. I thought I saw a ghost."
The man with the binoculars resembled Jeffrey, said Krieger, who began walking toward the front door.
"This guy is staring at me through the binoculars and I'm walking toward them. There's a girl in each truck and a dog in the back of each truck. The one guy drives up the beach road; the other guy who looked like Jeff, drove past me and waved. Jeff had a funny type of wave and this guy waved exactly the same way as Jeff."
In 1992, Krieger bought the Kitty Hawk summer home from Shirley Mays and moved the structure south on the beach. Three years later, the commercial fishing vessel, Mr. Big, which was suspected to have exploited a loophole in state and federal fishing regulations in Alaska, arrived in port at the Outer Banks on Nov. 15, 1995. A photographer from The Virginian-Pilot captured a picture of three men standing on the deck of the vessel as it headed into port. One of the men, said Krieger and Mays, looked like Jeffrey.
"When Mr. Big came into the Outer Banks, someone broke into the summer home, but they didn't break through the front door or the first floor. This person climbed up on the second floor and was able to unlock a specially designed lock on the second-floor door," said Krieger. "There were only several people who knew about that lock on the door, the Mays family and me."
Nothing was damaged during the break-in. Nothing was taken.
"The person that broke in just turned everything on, the lights, ceiling fans, alarm clocks. That person knew where the electrical switches were," Krieger added.
"I told Shirley that I thought Jeff was on that boat. I've come to the conclusion that Jeff is living in Alaska. But there's something that's keeping him away from his family," Krieger said. "We keep hitting a brick wall in the search for Jeff and there's a reason. I think Jeff has another life now. Jeff loved his family. There's no question. I think he got hooked up with the wrong people in the wrong environment."
Shirley Mays believes it is up to her to locate her son.
"It's hard living with the unknown. I've committed my life to finding Jeffrey, and I'm committed to do what I have to do to make a difference," said Mays, whose book, "Outer Banks Piracy, Where Is My Son Jeffrey?" details money laundering, power, greed, and drugs on the Outer Banks. She is hoping the book will open up more doors in her search for her only son.
"I'm a mother searching for answers," she said. "I'm going to keep looking for my son."
