Slain guard’s dad wanted him to quit

Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2004 | 10:07 a.m.

The father of a Henderson security guard who was shot in the back and killed while patrolling a Las Vegas Housing Authority complex on Jan. 20 said his son contemplated quitting the job three weeks earlier.

But heavy debt built from his efforts to relocate from his native Minneapolis to Southern Nevada forced Brian Wilcox, 29, to keep the $8-an-hour job, Wayne Wilcox, a heavy equipment operator in Minneapolis, said.

"I warned him -- I tried to tell him to get out of there -- and three weeks before he was killed he told my daughter that he planned to quit and return to Minneapolis," Wayne Wilcox said today. "But he had just too much debt.

"I raised him to deal with your problems the best you can. I have mixed emotions. It was his own damn fault for staying, but I wish I could have done more to convince him to quit that dangerous job and come home."

Metro Police on Friday charged Markette Tillman, 22, with murder with use of a deadly weapon in the case. Tillman also is facing charges of being involved in an unrelated drive-by shooting that did not result in a death, police said.

Initially Tillman also was suspected in the Jan. 14 slaying of 22-year-old Brandon Crosby on North J Street, but witnesses have since come forward and cleared him of that crime, Metro Homicide Lt. Tom Monahan said.

Tillman has no prior convictions, Monahan said.

Wayne Wilcox said he believes that if Tillman is found guilty he should receive the death penalty.

"I think he should get it (death) -- we don't need him around anymore," Wilcox said. "If he shot someone before and he shot my son, he'll just do it again."

Wilcox said his son was raised in Minneapolis where he had a promising career as a disc jockey on the Minneapolis and St. Paul night club scene.

Brian Wilcox came to Southern Nevada on the urging of a friend who thought Wilcox could break into the local nightclub DJ scene and to escape the cold Minnesota weather, Wayne Wilcox said.

But things did not work out as planned and Wilcox had to take whatever he could get. That turned out to be a job for a private security firm that did not provide him with a bulletproof vest. Monahan said Nevada law does not require private security companies to provide such vests to employees.

While patrolling the Sherman Annex Apartments at 1710 H St., Wilcox and another security guard encountered several young men who had been banned from the property in the past, police said.

The group became hostile and the guards decided to leave the area until more help could arrive. As Wilcox and the other guard pedaled away on their bicycles, someone shot at them. Wilcox was hit in the back, police said.

News of the killing reverberated back to Minneapolis, shocking the area night club scene.

"Wil-E-Wil, or Brian Wilcox, was a great Minneapolis DJ who patiently walked me though crowd-interpretation techniques and beat matching skills over the turntables at (the) Tropix (nightclub)," DJ Chris Castle wrote in an tribute for the Twin Cities Nightclubs.com website.

"Always well humored and high-spirited, Wil-E-Wil showed me what my Florida-learned DJ skills have been lacking. He was not a headliner, nor a radio personality, but a good person with a deep heart."