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Family, friends hold vigil for missing Hamilton man

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By Richard O Jones, Staff Writer Updated 10:07 PM Tuesday, February 7, 2012

HAMILTON — Although Billy DiSilvestro has been missing for a year without a trace, a group of about 75 friends, family and neighbors gathered Tuesday evening in the parking lot of Columbia Lanes to honor the anniversary and pray that he will find a way home.

The event was organized by Hamilton resident Marquetta Shannon, who said she didn’t know DiSilvestro when he went missing after the Super Bowl last year, but was concerned because he was last seen two blocks from her house. So she started helping in the effort to find him and hasn’t stopped.

“You don’t have a choice but to keep going, stay focused and not let him slip through the cracks,” she said. “He’s still missing and we’re still looking. Almost every weekend we have search teams going to the woods and remote areas all over trying to find him.”

Gary Dietz, also of Hamilton, goes diving in area ponds, weather permitting, and participates in the land searches when it’s too cold.”

“I just want to find him,” said DiSilvestro’s mother Debbie Estes. “I’ve got all these people to help me: old friends, new friends and friends I haven’t met yet. But I can’t not know where my kid is.

“It’s hard to believe that someone could just vanish off the face of the earth,” she said.

The vigil ended with the lighting of 53 airborne lanterns, a blue one to represent DiSilvestro and one white one for each week he’s been missing.

Butler County Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Craft said in the past year detectives have investigated more than 100 tips without finding DiSilvestro. The last tip received was through CrimeStoppers about a month ago and turned out to be information already investigated.

Craft said detectives “hang on to some hope (of finding Billy alive) but as time goes on that hope is less and less.”

Anyone with information about DiSilvestro is asked to call Detective Jason Rosser at (513) 785-1248 or dispatch at (513) 785-1300.

There will be a Bowling For Billy fundraiser, 3:30 to 7 p.m. Saturday at Columbia Lanes. Cost is $20 per person and includes pizza, soft drinks and open bowling. The proceeds will go toward advertising and other search efforts, Estes said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

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