Silver Alert issued for missing Spring Hill man driving green Silverado

Authorities issued a Silver Alert for Clifford Wicks, a 79-year-old Spring Hill man believed to be driving a 2002 dark green Chevrolet Silverado with Florida tag JN393J. Anyone who spots the truck in Hernando County or elsewhere in Florida is being asked to call the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office at 352-754-6830 or dial 911 immediately.

The alert identified Wicks as a white male with gray hair and blue eyes. He is described as about 6 feet tall and about 200 pounds. The notice placed him in Spring Hill, putting the search squarely in the heart of Hernando County’s fast-growing residential corridors, where a familiar pickup can blend quickly into traffic, shopping centers and neighborhood streets.

Florida’s Silver Alert system is built for missing adults with dementia or other cognitive impairment who may be driving. The state uses the alert network to push urgent information through radio, lottery machines, dynamic message signs and 511, widening the chance that a driver, clerk or neighbor will recognize the vehicle and report it quickly.

The Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse, known as MEPIC, issues State Silver Alerts in Florida and helps coordinate the public search with local law enforcement and partner agencies. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement described the program as a way to locate missing people suffering from an irreversible deterioration of intellectual faculties, while involving the public in the search.

For Hernando County families, the alert carried a straightforward purpose: put a specific vehicle, a specific tag number and a specific description into as many eyes as possible before the trail goes cold. The vehicle being sought was a dark green Chevrolet Silverado, and the license plate number was JN393J. Anyone with information was urged to act at once and contact law enforcement without delay.