Antelmo Beltran says he had never played lacrosse before he met Joshua James Hancock, but somehow Hancock motivated him into being on the Pittsburg State U. lacrosse team.
“I didn’t know Josh for very long, but it’s not how much time you spend with someone,” said Beltran, a friend and Phi Sigma Kappa brother. “It’s the moments you have in the times that you spend.”
The search for 21-year-old Hancock was ended Friday, Aug. 20, after a caller tipped Olathe police officers of a wrecked car near 151st Street and South Lone Elm Road in Olathe, about one mile from where Hancock was last seen two weeks ago.
His car had apparently left a roadway over an embankment that left his vehicle 60 feet from the road in a tree line. Hancock died in the accident and no foul play is suspected.
Hancock, a psychology major at Pittsburg State University, was last seen on Aug. 5 after going out with co-workers to JR’s Place Bar in Great Plains Mall in Olathe.
Hancock’s mother, Jennifer Harnett, last saw him on Wednesday morning after he came home from work.
“We started worrying on Saturday but thought he might have gone back to Pittsburg to see friends before leaving for the National Guard,” Harnett said. “When Monday night came, and he wasn’t here, we called the police. They told us he was probably with friends.”
Hancock had eaten at Emery’s Steakhouse in Paola around 9 p.m. that day and rode with friends to JR’s Place, where he cashed out a tab at 1:20 a.m.
The community support was widespread and a group search of the area surrounding the Great Plains Mall was to be held on Aug. 21, but was canceled by the discovery of Hancock’s body.
At PSU, Hancock was involved with the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity. Steve Chastain, senior majoring in construction management and president of the chapter, helped in the investigation. The members of Phi Sigma Kappa distributed fliers that detailed the disappearance.
“It was kind of surreal when I heard the news that he had been found,” Chastain said. “I had to pull all of the chapter members out of conferences in Kansas City to break the news.”
A candlelight vigil was held on the Phi Sigma Kappa front lawn on Monday, Aug. 22. According to Chastain, about 150 PSU students, faculty and friends came to pay their respects.
“He was just very outgoing,” Chastain said. “If he didn’t know you, you would know him for sure.”
At a fundraiser that the chapter does at the Kansas speedway to pay for dues, Chastain stated that Hancock would keep them “cracking up with the random things that he would say into the walkie-talkies we had to carry around.”
“He would be like, ‘OK guys, let’s go mini-golfing.’ Just spur of the moment things like that every day,” Chastain said.
Hancock was supposed to be leaving for boot camp for the National Guard at the end of August and according to friends and family, he was excited to go.
“He was an inspiration. He was always cheerful,” Beltran, the Phi Sigma Kappa brother, said.