The family of a Broadway dancer who has been missing for nearly two weeks has hired a private investigator to help in their desperate search to find him and bring him home.

Zelig Williams was last seen Oct. 3 at his home in Columbia, South Carolina, according to a release from the Richland County Sheriff’s Department. The family filed a missing person’s report the next day after the 28-year-old man failed to contact them, the department said.

As the search for the Broadway performer — whose credits include “Hamilton” and “MJ The Musical” — entered its second week, family and friends paused for a moment of silence at 9:52 a.m. Monday, to mark the last time he was seen. .

“We had a moment just of prayer, just to let him know that we’re still here, that we want him to come home,” Williams’ cousin Mieoki Corbett-Jacobs told CNN on Monday.

Chandra Cleveland, the private investigator hired by the family to help find Williams, said she believed his case was an example of “missing while black syndrome,” where the disappearances of men and women Blacks receive little or no attention.

“I like to tell everyone that even you can go an hour without talking to someone, but when you know that it is not their habit, something must be done, and you must immediately call the police. order and report it,” she said. . “That’s what this family did.”

“He didn’t get lost,” family says

Williams’ mother saw him leave the house just before 10 a.m. on Oct. 3, according to a Sheriff’s Department incident report. Minutes later, Williams’ friends in New York received a disturbing message from his iPhone, Corbett-Jacobs said.

“At 10:10 a.m., three of his friends received an SOS from his cell phone, which is shortly after he left the house,” Corbett-Jacobs said. These friends contacted Williams’ mother to express their concerns.

An iPhone can be programmed to contact emergency services or an emergency contact list if an emergency SOS is triggered. The device can also alert emergency contacts if it detects a hard fall or car accident, according to Apple.

Williams was “seen driving in the Congaree State Park area,” the Richland County Sheriff’s Department said in its news release. A sheriff’s deputy later located the vehicle Williams was driving more than 20 miles from his home in a parking lot on the Palmetto Trail, a hiking route that bisects the state.

“(The lot) where the car was parked had only been there for a little over a year, we didn’t even know about the space,” Corbett-Jacobs said.

Since Williams had only been in Columbia for a few months, Corbett-Jacobs said the family believes it is unlikely he knew the location of the land or the trailhead.

Corbett-Jacobs said the car officers located showed no signs of an accident that would trigger the SOS message, adding to the family’s suspicions.

“He didn’t walk away. This is definitely a missing persons case with suspicion of foul play.”

CNN has reached out to the Sheriff’s Department for further comment on the investigation.

A “remarkable” talent

On Monday, Williams’ family piled into a car with Cleveland to begin tracing Zelig’s last known movements.

“We’re getting all the camera footage that probably caused him to come in that direction to confirm his direction,” Cleveland told CNN.

As a private investigator, Cleveland said she specializes in cases involving missing black women and men. News of Williams’ disappearance gained traction after her Broadway colleagues began sharing her story, Cleveland said. Actor Hugh Jackman, who previously worked with Williams, also posted a plea for her safe return on his Instagram Story.

Williams’ dance coach, Caroline Lewis-Jones, said the dance community had been in shock since her passing.

“He is the very example of the student you are looking for,” she said. “I knew right away that the natural talent in his body was simply remarkable.”

Lewis-Jones credits Williams for helping her restart her dance company, Unbound Dance Company, after the pandemic, she said.

“When he walks into a space, you want to be better because of him,” she said.

Williams’ mother, Kathy, described her son as a very happy person with a lifelong passion for dancing and performing.

“I just want my child to come home,” she told CNN.

CNN’s Rebecca Wright and Alli Rosenbloom contributed to this report.