Hopes that a 21-year-old man would be pulled alive from the chilly waters of Lake Michigan -- more than 36 hours after a boating trip went terribly wrong -- began to fade Saturday as friends and family waited for good news that failed to come.
Chicago Police are still searching for Christopher Gary, a one-time Columbia College student who has been missing since a boating excursion with three friends Thursday night.
The body of Gary's friend and Lincoln Park High School classmate James Shepherd, 21, a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was pulled from the water Friday.
Two young women who were with the men on Lake Michigan, Irene Rogers and Kristin Masterson, were rescued by fishermen after treading water for about five hours. Rogers remains hospitalized in good condition.
Masterson, who was released from the hospital Saturday, said thoughts of her family kept her going.
"I think what I kept saying was really just like this isn't how I die," Masterson, 19, told WBBM-Channel 2 on Saturday.
Gary's encouragement also helped.
Masterson said the last words he said to her were: "Float on your back, girl. You can make it."
Late Saturday, police said they would continue a surface search for Gary overnight, while divers and a police helicopter will take up the search again after sunrise today.
"We're trying to bring this tragedy to a closure with the recovery of the second body," Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis said.
"I would urge everyone, if you're out on the water and you don't swim well, wear a life jacket. If you do swim well, wear a life jacket. We can't have any more of these tragedies," Weis said.
Police had still not gotten a blow-by-blow account of why all four college kids went in the water without life preservers while the boat, which to Shepherd's grandfather, drifted away near Randolph Street, Weis said.
As late as 6 p.m. Saturday, Gary's father, Randolph Gary, remained hopeful his son would be found alive.
"We taught him to swim early on," Gary, 60, told the Sun-Times.
Friends of Christopher Gary stopped by his family's South Shore home throughout the day, bringing food and comfort to his parents and younger sister.
Gathered inside the home were Gary's closest friends, those he went to school with at the UIC Lab School and fellow graduates of Lincoln Park High School.
Speaking of their friend in the past tense, they described Gary as a talented young man who lived for his art.
"He was a muralist, a painter. He worked with found objects and made them beautiful art," said Raphaelle Cuenod, 19, a friend of Gary's since the eighth grade.
She and others pointed to Gary's plan to go to San Francisco to study art as an undergraduate at the Academy of Art University.
It was a lifelong dream for him to go to the prestigious school.
Gary's mother was set to take him there in two weeks.
"We had everything planned already," Gary's mother, Ning Gary, tearfully told WGN-Channel 9.
Friends who had spoken to Rogers and Masterson said Shepherd, an experienced sailor, was to have remained on the boat while his three friends went swimming.
When Rogers had trouble staying afloat, Gary went to help her, Ning Gary said.
"She said that was the last time that she saw Chris," Gary said.
Photo: ABC7 / Christopher Gary
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