ATLANTA (CNN) -
The missing-person case of former Sara Lee executive James Cockman is being treated as a possible abduction, Greenville, S.C., authorities said Monday.
Cockman has been missing since last Tuesday morning, Sept. 14, when he did not show up for a scheduled meeting. No ransom demands have been made.
According to Michael Hildebrand, master deputy with the Greenville County Sheriff's Office, Cockman was attempting to sell a used SUV and met on Monday, Sept. 13, with two people interested in purchasing the vehicle. He collected $100 from them and arranged to meet them the following morning to collect the balance and hand over the title.
He left Tuesday morning to meet with the couple.
Later that morning, he missed an appointment at a bank, and the bank called his wife. She then went to the spot where her husband was supposed to have met the couple. Instead, she found his car with the door open and his cell phone, briefcase and the title to the SUV inside. The SUV was missing.
On Saturday, after a sketch of the couple Cockman met with was released, people who had witnessed the Monday-night meeting reported that the couple was driving an older model white sedan with at least two children in the back seat.
Friends of Cockman, including chef Paul Prudhomme, are offering a $50,000 award for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for his disappearance.
Prudhomme and Cockman have been friends for more than a decade. They met while serving together on the board of directors at the California Culinary Academy of San Francisco, according to Shawn McBride, an employee of Prudhomme's company, Magic Seasoning Blends.
Cockman, once chairman and chief executive of Sara Lee's PYA/Monarch division, was chairman of Sara Lee (SLE: Research, Estimates) Foodservice before he retired in 1992. He is known for hosting charitable events in Greenville and for being a leader in the city's economic revitalization.
The FBI has set up a toll-free tip line -- 866-839-6241.
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