Virginia Tech student Johnny Roop, 20, was supposed to take an exam. Then he went missing.
Investigators believe Johnny Roop, a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student reported missing Friday, left the region on his own, the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office said on Tuesday.
Interviews with friends and family and surveillance video led deputies to believe that "Mr. Roop’s behavior on Friday was not consistent with his normal patterns of behavior," the sheriff's office said in a missing person update. Officials believe he left the Montgomery County area unaccompanied.
Investigators now believe he likely traveled alone toward southwest Virginia or Tennessee.
Deputies "have received no information leading us to believe that he is in immediate danger," but they will continue to follow leads and attempt to make contact with Roop to confirm he is safe, the office said.
Roop was last seen at his apartment complex in Merrimac, in Montgomery County, Virginia, according to a news release from Virginia Tech. His apartment complex is on Canyon Ridge Road, 4.5 miles from the university's campus in Blacksburg, a college town about 200 miles west of Richmond.
Roop's phone pinged at a shopping mall about 2 miles south of his apartment at 4:26 p.m., just over half an hour before he was scheduled to begin the exam at his parent's home in Abingdon, about 100 miles west of the mall.
The sheriff's office said on Tuesday that surveillance video captured Roop in Christiansburg, a town around 3 miles south of the shopping mall, until around an hour before his phone pinged.
"We are asking the entire VT community to aid in locating Johnny and share any information they may know," Mark Owczarski, associate vice president of communications and marketing at Virginia Tech, told USA TODAY in an email.
"Any questions on the case itself have to go to Montgomery County Sherriff’s department. They are the lead agency, but we are helping in any way we can," Owczarski said.
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Roop was driving a black 2018 Toyota Camry with the Virginia license plate number TXW6643 and a Virginia Tech flag sticker on the rear window when he went missing, the university said.
The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office is asking anyone with information or who has seen the car to contact them at 540-382-4343.
Capt. Brian Wright of the sheriff's office said in an email to USA TODAY on Tuesday morning that deputies are actively working and following up on leads but declined to comment further.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Missing Virginia Tech student Johnny Roop disappeared before exam
