Body of missing Wichita man found in field, family says

The body of a man who has been missing since December 2015 has been found.

Family members confirmed that the body of John Wilson was found late Monday afternoon in a field on Spirit AeroSystems property.

Wilson, 64, who suffered from dementia, disappeared on Dec. 16, 2015. He boarded a city bus and rode to the Mount Vernon and Oliver area. He walked to a Kwik Shop on South Oliver and to a credit union before walking away into the night, never to be seen again.

Wilson’s disappearance inspired weeks of searching in the area.

“True, yes, it is true,” said James Wilson, a brother of John Wilson’s. A police lieutenant called the family on Monday and gave them the news that his body had been found.

“We’ve been in torment every day thinking we’ll maybe never know what happened to him,” James Wilson said. “I’m just glad we found him – that’s the important thing.”

When John Wilson first went missing, the family offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to Wilson’s return in an attempt to keep him in the news.

According to James Wilson, his brother’s body was “in some back area where maybe they were putting in a fence and they found him.”

The body was found with identification, including a credit card, James Wilson said.

Neither Wichita police nor representatives with Spirit AeroSystems were immediately available for comment.

Family members and those who helped search for John Wilson expressed their frustration Monday night – in part, they said, because where Wilson’s body was found was in an area they did not have access to.

Kimberly Sims, who helped organize search parties immediately after Wilson went missing, said the news has left her shaken.

“I’m sick to my stomach,” she said. “If they would have let us search on the property, we would have found him a freaking year ago. I guess it is what it is and God is in control, but it’s still aggravating.”

James Wilson said: “We worked all that area around there all that we could.”

The story of how John Wilson went missing and remained missing is heartbreaking.

The last John Wilson was seen was on surveillance footage at the Kwik Shop at 2750 S. Oliver around 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 16, 2015.

He was wearing white and blue Nike shoes and may have been wearing sunglasses.

After leaving the Kwik Shop, he 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 was quoted as saying in a Jan. 7, 2016, Wichita Eagle article.

The workers refused, and one saw John Wilson climbing over a fence to the east.

“Why none of them called 911 is beyond me,” James Wilson said of his brother in the 2016 article. “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.”

This story was originally published March 27, 2017 at 7:46 PM with the headline "Body of missing Wichita man found in field, family says."