Family of Nick Wilcox Insists He was Murdered

Milwaukee's police insist Nick Wilcox "slipped" into the river and "accidentally drowned" after bouncers dragged him from a bar on New Year's day and he went missing for three months.

 

They've told his family he walked over there to "relieve himself" and "fell" in.

But "I don't believe that," Wilcox's father says. "I knew him. He would not do that...What was he doing over there? None of this makes any sense."

 

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

"While the rate of police officers officially charged with murder is only 1.06% higher than the current general population's murder rate, if excessive force complaints involving fatalities were prosecuted as murder the murder rate for law enforcement officers would exceed the general population murder rate by 472%." -  Cato Institute, which ranks Milwaukee's police force among the top twenty most violent and criminal in the nation.

 

 

The Ides of March - a Deadly Time of Year for Young Men

The Ides of March have arrived at last, and in particular Saint Patrick day festivities, so Milwaukee's notorious police force plans to be out in "full force" this year, they've already begun warning.

 

Considering their reputation for brutality, this could be interpreted as a serious threat or seen as a genuine promise to protect, but, whichever, it's mostly being done in the name of two prominent missing person cases--that of Tom Hecht and Nick Wilcox.

Both young men were only in their middle twenties when each mysteriously vanished while painting the town with their friends.

 

In Hecht's case he was found floating in the river a few days after he vanished during St. Patrick celebrations in 2012. But Wilcox, who was last seen on New Year's day 2013 being hauled out by security personnel from the ill-famed and defunct Irish Rec Room, still remains unaccounted for.

This, despite the Wilcox family recently posting a $10,000 reward for information that will lead to his return, dead or alive.

To prevent more such casualties the MPD will be beefing up their presence and patrolling the downtown section, in the hopes of making it "safer" for revelers this holiday. Especially for young male bar-patrons who seem to have a penchant in that city for being dragged out of pubs and clubs by bouncers and disappearing shortly thereafter.

 

As to what exactly the cops will be doing to prevent similar incidents this time around, "I'm not going to get specific as to what our deployment strategy is, but there will be a heightened presence out here," Milwaukee police Officer Jose Alba vaguely reiterated.

Well, that's cool then. Extra security for a 'Smiley Face Killer' hot zone like the city of Milwaukee can't be a bad idea.

Just one more question, though: Who'll be policing the police...?

 

Milwaukee's Missing Men

BREAKING NEWS 1/11/13: Body recovered by divers from the partially frozen waters of Cedar Creek in the Milwaukee area is that of 24-year-old Robert Steinbrecker, officials are now saying. Steinbrecker ran away from his two friends sometime in the early morning hours of December 27th 2012 and has not been seen nor heard from since.

Police state they received a tip sometime this morning from a citizen who allegedly spotted the young man's green and gold cap as well as other identifying items in the creek near where they happened to be walking. (Read the original report below or go here for this case update and any others currently pending.)


In addition to 24-year-old Nick Wilcox vanishing from downtown Milwaukee after being ejected by bar bouncers on New Year's eve, people are also desperately searching for a young man in nearby Ozaukee County's town of Cedarburg.

 

Robert Steinbrecker, 24, disappeared on December 27th.

Undersheriff Jim Johnson says on that day Steinbrecker and friends left a local pub named Maxwell’s at approximately 2:00 AM and were headed north from there along Cedar Creek Road when Steinbrecker decided to run up ahead and vanished from view.

However, his friends were able to make cell phone contact with him about a half-hour later at around 2:40 AM and at that point they all agreed to meet up again on Sheboygan Road. But Steinbrecker never made it.

“He wasn’t exactly sure where he was," the undersheriff explains. "They were trying to meet on Sheboygan Road, but they never met up.”

That was the last anyone heard from Steinbrecker. Since then several agencies have been searching the Cedar Creek locale for him, but say they've found nothing. They are now asking residents in this region to check their property for any signs of the young man, if only a piece of clothing or footprints.

Some locals familar with this stretch of terrain suspect that Steinbrecker probably lost his bearings in the dark and overshot Sheboygan Road, ending up on Highway 60 instead.

What happened to him after he reached that spot though still remains a mystery.

Robert Steinbrecker is described as a white male, about six feet tall and 170 pounds, with red, shoulder-length hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a dark-green, heavy parka, a Packers knit hat, black tennis shoes, an off-white button-up shirt with a black t-shirt underneath, and brown pants.

Anyone with information about Steinbrecker’s whereabouts is urged to call the Ozaukee County Sheriff's office at 262-284-7172. Callers are also asked to reference incident #12-35179.

_____ 

*NOTICE January 10th: Problem cited below has been resolved--I can once again reply to your comments -- WOOT!

NOTICE dated January 8, 2013: Google Blogspot is having technical difficulties with the Admin reply feature for certain browser systems this week, and is "working to correct this issue". This glitch does not deter visitors from posting here, however. Below is the answer to the reader comments posted prior to the disruption:

@ Anonymous websleuth

Great site--thank you for the invitation and for the compliments too. Maybe the admins over there are taking down your excerpts from Killing Killers because they think my content is too grisly...? There is usually a lot of forensic data attached to my work and writings.

If it's fear of infringement, that's unfortunate because I want the info I post on this blog to be public. The more knowledge that is shared here the greater the heat on the 'Smiley' crew.

(NOTE: Aside from my books, of course, the articles I do for Crime Magazine are the only ones where cutting and pasting into forum threads may be prohibited--I'm a paid contributor on CM and in return they have exclusive rights to online publication. I just retain the print copy rights to that content. Which is fair, I think.)

Hey, if you (and anyone else) downloaded THE CASE OF THE DROWNING MEN from Amazon, please consider writing a review of the book at that webstore so others interested in this case can more readily find my overview and analysis of it. The comments you posted above are perfect, by the way, and, once again, I thank you for them!

Also, there are important updates to the Matt Ward 'drowning' which occurred in Indianapolis October 2012. That info was compiled in an editorial piece titled 'BLOOD ALCOHOL' and has just gone live on Crime Magazine's front page yesterday. Think you'll be interested in the new revelations; click HERE and it should take you right to it.

@ Anonymous January 6 - Yes, it is indeed "evil", for sure, but if we all stay focused and unrelentingly give chase, we can put an end to these disappearances and drownings soon. And get all the smartass 'Smiley' killers behind bars as well.

Thank you, everyone, for your posts-- E.R.
 

MISSING PERSON ALERT: Nick Wilcox, 24, from Milwaukee

Another bar, another bouncer, another missing man:

UPDATE January 28, 2013: A fund has been created by family and friends of Nick Wilcox so they might continue their search efforts. Wilcox has been missing now for nearly a month without a trace, but his loved ones haven't given up the hunt for him.

A nonstop search is not only costly to conduct but can interfer with work schedules as well, quickly draining valuable resources. Yet, whether someone being sought is dead or alive, bringing them home is still vital for finding closure in all missing person cases.

Those who would like to contribute to the Nick Wilcox search fund may do so at any Associated Bank, or by mailing a donation to the Associate Bank branch located at 1456 Summit Avenue Oconomowoc, Wisconsin 53066.  

UPDATE January 23, 2013: Irish Rec Room's license revoked: It's rare and never an arbitrary or capricious move for a licensing authority to suspend a bar's right to operate. But that's what happens to those establishments who repeatedly fail to live up to reasonable expectations and who, instead, accumulate too many complaints and violations. 

Revocation doesn't come as any big surprise to Irish Rec's owner and management however, because well before their unfortunate patron, Nick Wilcox, disappeared within just minutes of being manhandled by Irish Rec's overzealous bouncers, its operators fully anticipated being ordered to shutter the establishment this month. They were merely limping along until that inevitable day, hoping to scrounge up a few extra bucks over the holiday season. It's too bad though that Wilcox and his friends didn't know about all this in advance of paying upwards of 60 bucks a piece to celebrate New Year's eve at the troubled nightspot...Nick Wilcox still remains missing. 

UPDATE January 10, 2013: Body retrieved from Milwaukee River "is NOT Nick Wilcox" police say: In a declaration reminiscent of the Marion County coroner's recent gaff in misidentifying drown victim Joshua Swalls this past November, Milwaukee police just announced that the body they pulled from the river today "is not that of Nick Wilcox." The corpse, which they say appears to be "that of a fifty-year-old man," was spied early this morning in the vicinity of the area Wilcox had disappeared from ten days ago. The original story is below. 


Nick Wilcox, 24, was celebrating this New Year's eve with his girlfriend Kelly McGonagil and about a dozen other friends at the Irish Rec Room in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

Sometime between one and two in the morning of January 1, 2013 the young man ran afoul of the river pub's security team, was physically ejected by them, and then vanished without a trace. 

"I watched him get carried out by the bouncers," McGonagil said. "That was the last I saw of him. I tried calling him shortly after and his phone was dead." 

Nick Vetta, a close friend of Wilcox who also had the opportunity to witness the event, substantiates McGonagil's version: “Nick was kicked out of the bar by the bouncers,” Vetta confirmed. “I’m not sure why. And we haven’t seen him since then.”

Security personnel for Irish Rec insist that, once he was outdoors, Nick Wilcox wandered off accompanied by "a man wearing a red shirt," and, as this individual resembled someone from Wilcox's group, it was initially presumed he was with that person and safe.

However, when the 'red-shirted' man in question was interviewed, he said he didn't remember being outside the pub with Wilcox even once during the entire evening.

Bouncers further claim that an image showing Wilcox alive and well and walking away from Irish Rec was captured on the bar's surveillance video.

But the missing man's sister, Andrea Wilcox, says that isn't so either--a closer inspection of the videofeed did indeed reveal a male patron heading down a nearby alleyway at that approximate hour, but it wasn't her brother.

“It was New Year's Eve. Everybody was drinking having a good time,” Andrea said in dismay, “and things went south.”

Other revelers at the Irish Rec Room report that, in addition to a security presence inside of the bar-and-grill, a few uniformed police officers had also been stationed outside throughout the New Year festivities. Nevertheless, the Milwaukee police are now asking for the public's help in locating the missing man.

In the meantime, police also searched in the vicinity of the Milwaukee River. They know to do this now because several other young men matching Wilcox's description have disappeared from this same district over the past few years, only to be found days or weeks later drowned in the river.

Last March 26-year-old Tom Hecht vanished without a trace. He and his friends had been celebrating Saint Patrick Day events in the downtown Milwaukee area near the waterfront neighborhood where Hecht both worked and lived.

Hecht's friends said one moment he was standing there with them and the next "he was gone." They eventually found his corpse floating in the river in a locale that had already been searched before.

Investigators then closed his case, ruling the young man "was drunk and accidentally drowned."

Nick Wilcox is six-foot-two, weighs between 180 and 200 pounds, has blond hair and blue eyes, and was last seen wearing a grey shirt, dark pants and black shoes. He majored in political science at Waukesha County Technical College and, after graduating from there, was attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison in order to pursue a teaching degree.

Wilcox was last seen on tape standing just outside the Irish Rec Room near State and Old World Third streets between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. on the first of January. Anyone with information concerning that night and his current whereabouts is asked to call the Milwaukee police at 414-933-4444, or their Sensitive Crimes Division at 414-935-7403.

 Eponymous Rox