Family of missing Wichita man offers $5,000 reward for information
The family of John Wilson, the 64-year-old dementia patient who has been missing for three weeks, is offering a $5,000 reward for any information that leads to his location.
“We’ve kind of run out of places to search, and we have no leads,” said his brother James Wilson.
John Wilson was last seen on surveillance footage at the Kwik Shop at 2750 S. Oliver around 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 16.
In the footage, he is wearing white and blue Nike shoes, and he appears to be wearing sunglasses.
After leaving the Kwik Shop, John Wilson apparently visited the Meritrust Credit Union at 2900 S. Oliver, where he knocked on a back door.
When maintenance workers answered his knock, Wilson asked to come inside “because he was cold,” James Wilson said.
The workers refused, and one saw John Wilson climbing over a fence to the east, James Wilson said.
“Why none of them called 911 is beyond me,” he said. “It’s late at night at a bank; a guy is trying to get in because he’s cold. It was just another failed chance we had at finding him.”
Search crews have not been physically looking for John Wilson every day recently, but they have been soliciting new volunteers through social media, said Kimberly Sims, a family friend who organizes the search parties.
They have searched in the area around the Kwik Shop multiple times.
“We had 30 volunteers searching in that area,” she said. “We re-searched the Cessna Activities Center with 30 volunteers, and I mean we combed every area ... and we found nothing.”
Sims said Wednesday she had taken sick for the first time in three years, probably because of the stress of the search.
But John Wilson’s family is still determined to find him.
“He’s out there somewhere,” James Wilson said.
If anyone has information that could lead to John Wilson’s location, call the Wichita Police Department at 316-268-4111 or the Wilson family at 316-880-9816.
Matt Riedl: 316-268-6660, @RiedlMatt
This story was originally published January 6, 2016 at 4:34 PM with the headline "Family of missing Wichita man offers $5,000 reward for information."