Family and friends organize search party for missing man

MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. – A mother says she is not giving up on the search for her missing son. Friends and family organized a search party Sunday to find 21 year-old William Brian McKenzie who is still missing.

“It’s been over three months. I am not giving up on my son because he would not give up on me,” said Frances Gaines, McKenzie’s mother.

Jackson police say McKenzie went to a friend’s house in Madison County after getting off of work at Denny’s on Sand Pebble Drive back in September.

Members with a nonprofit organization called Tennessee’s Missing and Unsolved also assisted in the search.

“The last interview I saw that Brian’s mom did, it really tugged at me and something inside of me that I knew that I had to come out and help this lady find her son,” said Rickey Alexander, with Tennessee’s Missing and Unsolved.

“We’re looking for him and it’s going to be a nonstop process. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. I have my volunteers right here that said they are not going to stop until they find him,” Gaines said.

Volunteers searched on foot in wooded areas near where McKenzie was last seen, hoping to find any clues or items that may lead to McKenzie’s whereabouts.

“They are putting their hearts and souls into it and I am too,” Gaines said. ” We are going to do whatever we can to get him, to find him and bring him home.”

“Ever since he was born, he has been a good kid. It’s been hard,” said Mindy Gage, McKenzie’s aunt.

“I don’t want my son’s case to go cold, it’s not fair to him,” Gaines said. “He doesn’t deserve to be ignored. He doesn’t deserve to be forgotten. William Brian McKenzie is my son and he is an amazing kid and he deserves to be found.”

Gaines says she has reached out to the FBI, TBI and city mayor for assistance.

“Every day that goes by is just heartbreaking. I feel like my son is saying, “Mom, come on, find me. I am right here, find me.”

Anyone with information on McKenzie’s location can call the Jackson Police Department at (731) 425-8400 or Crime Stoppers at (731) 424-8477.