Roscoe senior disappeared one year ago today

One year ago, on Aug. 12, 2024, Roscoe resident Gil Wierschke, 76, walked down the driveway from his home, south of Roscoe Road. Police have not been able to locate him since.

More about Gil and the search

• Six months gone: Gil Wierschke
• Search continues for missing Roscoe man
• Roscoe man still missing: one month later
• Gil Wierschke still missing: "The wondering is hard to deal with"

In the 1960s, as a teenager, Gil Wierschke had joined the Army and proudly served in Vietnam. He had worked for years at the Chrysler plan in Belvidere. But in the previous year, his Alzheimer's disease had become more severe. His daughter April says, "He knew who he was, who his family was, where they lived, etc." But without help, he could no longer do what he had always done well: dress himself, use a phone, or navigate somewhere. Still, he was proud of being able to walk long distances. In his younger days, if he had car trouble, he could walk home from the Chrysler plant after work - a distance of almost 20 miles.

The night he disappeared, Gil was organizing the garage with his brother-in-law at his home in the 10000 block of Marblewing Lane. His brother-in-law had warned Gil not to trip over the boxes. According to Gil's wife, Cindy, Gil replied, 'Watch me,' "hopped over the boxes and walked out into the driveway." A neighbor's security camera caught him walking south. If he had gone north, someone might have seen him walking along busy Roscoe Road. But south of Clearwing, there are only cornfields.

Cindy says, "By the time I realized he was gone, it was 8:30 and starting to get dark. I looked for him for about a half hour and then called the police. I think that because it was so dark out it hampered search efforts."

Roscoe police immediately began looking for Gil by car, on foot, and by air, eventually using heat-sensing drones, trained dogs, divers, and sonar. They had the help of Winnebago County Sheriff's Office, Boone County Sheriff's Office and the Illinois Search and Rescue Council (ISARC). Police searched the river from the bridge to Ventura Blvd in Machesney Park. A plane flew over the whole area using thermal imaging capable of detecting a human body anywhere on land, but found nothing.

On Sunday, Aug. 24, 2024, more than 40 people met at Roscoe Middle School to form search parties. One group walked down the Stone Bridge Trail, calling “Gil!” and looking under trees. During the search, Cindy and her daughter bravely helped at the command center with extra water and a sign-in book for the searchers. But they couldn't bear to join the search themselves. They couldn't know what they might find.

To complicate things, Cindy says, Gil didn't carry a phone - he could no longer use one. She had bought him a smart watch, which sent out GPS location signals. But he had temporarily taken the watch off. He had even left his wallet in his nice pants after they had returned from Windsor Baptist Church the day before. 

One reader recalls, "I spent hours one day combing through footage on my Ring cam hoping to see him maybe walking across the railroad tracks on E Main St. in Rockton. But no such luck. His face is etched in my memory, as I’m sure much of the communities."

Roscoe's Deputy Chief Thomas Farone told us this week, "We have been in regular contact with Gil's family since he has gone missing," adding, "We encourage anyone who may have additional information to report it to the Roscoe Police Department at 815-623-7338 or the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department non-emergency number at 815-282-2600."

On August 14, 2024, the Illinois Search and Rescue Council (ISARC), using his favorite Vietnam Veterans hat and a bloodhound, tracked his scent to the railroad tracks in the Gleasman Road area. But the scent disappeared there, more than 3/4 miles southwest of his home - a pretty good walk for many 76-year-olds. His daughter April was told that the oils on the metal railroad tracks may have overpowered any other scent.

One of Cindy's fears was that Gil might have fallen into the Rock River, one place where heat-sensing drones might have had trouble detecting him.

By August 27, 2024, Gil was added to NAMUS, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, the only unified missing persons database in the country. Seven people from Winnebago County are on the list, with Gil being the oldest by far and the only one from the northern Stateline. Only nine people from Illinois over age 75 are listed as missing. But nationwide, it isn’t unheard of for seniors to be missing under similar circumstances for more than a decade.

Beloit private investigator Shawn Markley told us, "I think the police are always the best bet." Roscoe Police Officer Phil Harris is responsible for the ongoing effort to locate Gil, in what is listed as Case Number RS24-002423. In 2019 Harris was honored for helping to save the life of a suicidal individual who drove her car into the freezing Rock River. After retiring as an investigator from a 20-year career with the Rockford Police Department, Harris served as a police officer with the Rockford Park District before joining the Roscoe Police in 2021.

Before Alzheimer's, Gil used to bowl at Viking Lanes and elsewhere - he sometimes splurged and bowled in seven leagues at a time. Everyone in the Greater Beloit USBC knew him. But eventually, he couldn't do it anymore. With his brother, he had been a partner in a golf pro shop and with his wife, sold items online for several years. But that too had ended.

"The first few months I cried a lot," Gil's wife Cindy said in November 2024. "No answers. No one can figure out what happened. I speculate, but even those theories aren't any comfort... No closure."

Gil had previously told his wife that he wouldn't wander away again, because he had done it before. At the time, she warned him that people might put him in a nursing home, that they might think she couldn't take care of him. He replied, "They'll have to catch me first."

Anyone with additional information about Gil Wierschke can report it to the Roscoe Police Department at 815-623-7338 or the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department non-emergency number at 815-282-2600.