RUMFORD — Police and a mother are seeking help from the public to find a 17-year-old Rumford boy who’s been missing since last week.

Jake Allen Ricci was last seen at 4:30 p.m. Aug. 3 when the boy told his mother he was going to a friend’s house to spend the night, Cpl. Doug Maifeld said Friday morning.

He did, Cecilia Ricci said early Friday afternoon in Auburn. But when she called the next day to ask her son something, she learned he wasn’t there.

“They said he was gone before anyone got up that morning,” she said of Jake, who will be a junior this year at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford.

After trying in vain to find him, she reported him missing three days later, Maifeld said.

“He was wearing black pants, a black shirt, and white sneakers and had a dark blue L.L. Bean duffel bag-type backpack, with his iPod and games inside,” Maifeld said. “There was no fight or anything with his mom, and he made no threats to harm himself.”

Ricci is 6 feet tall, weighs 140 pounds, has brown hair and hazel eyes, and a scar on the left side of his chest.

“If he doesn’t want to go home, he should at least call and tell his mother he’s all right so she doesn’t have to worry he’s in a ditch somewhere and hurt,” Maifeld said.

On Monday, Cecilia Ricci listed Jake with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and his picture and information went nationwide on their website, Maifeld said.

He is listed as an endangered runaway who “may be with an adult female,” and they may travel to Berlin, N. H., the website listing stated.

Cecilia said early Friday afternoon in Auburn that she doesn’t believe her son is in New Hampshire.

She went to Auburn to buy a new computer printer so she could print off missing person fliers to put up. She’s even tried contacting online social networking sites MySpace and Facebook.

“I got a hold of MySpace, and they contacted Rumford PD, but I’m trying to find [a number for Facebook], and this is where I’m having a problem,” Cecilia Ricci said. “MySpace was great. They had a number I could call, but Facebook, I’m trying to get a hold of them and trying to find a number and it’s just, they make it impossible.”

Police have searched the River Valley area and known hangouts to no avail.

“No one’s seen him,” Maifeld said.

“We can’t find anybody who knows where he’s at. We even suspected that he went to an on-again, off-again girlfriend’s house in New Hampshire and called her, but she said he wasn’t there.”

To confirm it, Cecilia Ricci called Berlin, N.H., police and asked them to check the girlfriend’s house, but she believes they only checked one residence of the girlfriend and not a second, as her family was in the process of moving, Ricci said. Berlin police are also looking for the boy, Maifeld said.

“I have people checking in because the girl went to court on July 6, and I don’t know if she got probation or not for terrorizing a minor,” Cecilia Ricci said.

She said this is the first time he’s gone missing for so long.

“He’s never been gone this long, I mean he went missing and we found him right away down at his dad’s house, and I’ve already spoken with his father,” she said. “He said he hasn’t seen or heard from him. The last time [his father had] seen him, he was at Mexico One-Stop, and that was like two months ago.”

Maifeld said that most of the time, missing children in Rumford return within a day or two, which makes Ricci’s disappearance unusual.

Maifeld said Jake Ricci was missing in September 2008, but soon located. The second time was on May 28, 2009, but in that instance he was found at his dad’s house in Dixfield.

To help, she urged people with information about her son or possible sightings, to contact local police, because they will then call Rumford police at 364-4551. Maifeld said he is also putting Jake’s photo and information on the department’s website.

“At this point, I don’t know where he is, I really don’t,” Cecilia Ricci said. “I mean, there’s no evidence or signs for him in New Hampshire at all, because I’ve been keeping in contact with the Berlin PD and they haven’t seen nothing.

“So, at this point, I don’t know whether my son’s alive or dead,” she said. “But if I can do what I can do and learn things, maybe I can help other parents.”

tkarkos@sunjournal.com