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