{"id":211398,"date":"2026-06-05T09:33:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/211398\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:33:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:33:24","slug":"missing-reading-pa-man-javien-perch-found-dead-case-being-investigated-as-a-homicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/211398\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing Reading, Pa. man Javien Perch found dead; case being investigated as a homicide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">READING, Pennsylvania (WPVI) &#8212; From the moment police in Reading, Pennsylvania received the report of a missing man, they felt like something could be wrong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;There was something significant about the information provided to us that made us believe it was suspicious,&#8221; said Chief Richard Tornielli of the Reading Police Department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The family of 19-year-old Javien Perch came to police last Thursday to report that he&#8217;d been missing for two days. He was last seen on Tuesday, March 28.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In the two days between his disappearance and the report to police, his family collected evidence that helped police investigate the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">But, on Wednesday night, police made a discovery that the family was hoping wouldn&#8217;t happen. Police found Perch&#8217;s body in a wooded area along Oak Lane just near the Reading and Alsace Township Line.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Javien Perch\" class=\"hsDdd NDJZt sJeUN IJwXl vBqtr KrDt itslR zFTjo hakZw HlUVI \" data-testid=\"prism-image\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/13094715_040623-wpvi-javien-perch-img.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;It is very unusual,&#8221; Tornielli said of the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Perch&#8217;s family described him as funny and caring. They said it wasn&#8217;t like him to just disappear.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;My son always comes home. He always checked in,&#8221; said Javien Perch&#8217;s mother Nafisa Azeem, speaking during the time that her son was still missing. Azeem was too distraught to speak with Action News this afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Family members surrounded her as she cried in grief.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Perch&#8217;s body was discovered a few miles from where doorbell video shows a man believed to be him walking down the sidewalk. Family members say he&#8217;d planned to walk to a friend&#8217;s house last Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">He never made it there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The family says the last known ping on his cell phone was in the area of Moss Street in Reading. That&#8217;s where family members found one of his earbuds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Adding to the mystery: Perch&#8217;s iCloud password has been changed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;We have treated it as a homicide case at this point. And we&#8217;ve assigned more investigators to it than we initially had which is a pretty significant amount of resources,&#8221; said Tornielli.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Police won&#8217;t say how Perch died or what evidence leads them to believe it&#8217;s a homicide. But they do say so many things about this case are suspicious.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;To have someone missing for a significant number of days and then turns out that they are deceased somewhere is an unusual occurrence that we see,&#8221; said Tornielli.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Investigators continue to work the case. Anyone with information is asked to call Reading Police at 610-655-6116. There is also the option of leaving an anonymous tip by calling Crime Alert Berks County&#8217;s anonymous tip line at 877-373-9913.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pennsylvania (WPVI) &#8212; From the moment police in Reading, Pennsylvania received the report of a missing man,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[92700,92694,92695,92698,92696,92697,128,130,129,92699,1306],"class_list":["post-211398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-92700","tag-javien-perch-missing","tag-javien-perch-search","tag-missing-man-found-dead","tag-missing-reading-man","tag-oak-lane-boy-found","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-homicide","tag-reading-police-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}