They all vanished virtually without a trace.

Earlier this month it was four college-age people in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Ten years ago next month, it was a Kansas University student in Lawrence.

On Dec. 11, 1992, KU senior Alexis Dillard left Johnny’s Tavern in North Lawrence and was never seen again. Though his body was never found, police speculated he drowned in the Kansas River.

“It was really unfortunate, especially for his family,” said Lt. Kevin Harmon, one of the detectives who worked on the case.

Friends of Dillard, a 22-year-old from Wichita, told police he swam across the river on at least one earlier occasion, Harmon recalled.

Moreover, police found a footprint on the riverbank that appeared to match the type of shoes Dillard was wearing the night he disappeared, Harmon said. But police at the time also said there was some indication the person who left the footprint may have turned away from the river.

Police have no reason to think the incidents in Minnesota and Wisconsin have any connection to Dillard’s disappearance, Harmon said.

On Nov. 9, Joshua Guimond, 20, was seen leaving a party in Collegeville, Minn. Friends of Erika Marie Dalquist, 21, haven’t seen her since Oct. 30 when she left a bar in Brainerd, Minn. On Oct. 31, Christopher Jenkins, 21, left a Halloween party at a bar in Minneapolis and has not been heard from again. And on Nov. 6 Michael Noll, 22, disappeared after leaving a bar in Eau Claire, Wis.

Last week, hundreds of volunteers teamed with police in conducting air and ground searches for the missing college-aged people in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Back in December 1992, similar searches were conducted for Dillard. Friends put up signs and photos of Dillard around Lawrence, some of them saying they didn’t believe he would try to swim the river.

“He was extremely intelligent, and he had a lot of common sense,” Andy Martin, a friend of Dillard’s, told the Journal-World at the time. “He’d been in ROTC and he knows about hypothermia; he knows about the current.”

Kansas Wildlife and Parks officers searched the river by boat.

“As I recall, the search was hampered because the river was high and fast-moving, Harmon said”, noting that the Kaw several months later flooded parts of Northeast Kansas. “It was dangerous for us to be out there on it.”

In 1993 KU’s Student Union Activities office, through the Kansas University Endowment Association, established an award in Dillard’s name. The award is given annually to students who show special leadership characteristics.

No tips and no new information in the Dillard case have been given to police for several years, Harmon said. After Dillard’s disappearance, police tracked his credit card account and found no activity being conducted.

“It just boiled down to the only thing we could come up with was that he went into the river,” Harmon said. “Anytime you have the loss of a young person it’s a real tragedy for the family, especially not knowing what happened. It’s a case we’d sure like to have some conclusion to.”