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Journalism Student Found Dead in Lincoln Park Alley

By Geoff Ziezulewicz | November 19, 2012 2:07pm | Updated on November 25, 2012 1:48pm

LINCOLN PARK — A journalism student from Crystal Lake was found mysteriously dead in a Lincoln Park alley Sunday morning after spending the night with friends at a local blues club, police said.

Timothy Gallagher, 21, was found unresponsive in an alley behind the 400 block of West Fullerton Parkway around 5:15 a.m. and pronounced dead soon after at Masonic Hospital, authorities said.

Exactly what led to the man's death remained unclear, but the cause was head trauma, the medical examiner's office said.

Gallagher's father, Jim, 56, said his son had been out drinking with friends at Kingston Mines on the 2500 block of North Halsted Street on Nov. 18.

About 3:15 a.m., Gallagher said he wanted to go check out the band that was playing and never came back, according to his father, who works at digital art studio Mundocom.

His friends tried calling him as they left the bar about 15 minutes later, but his phone died before he could tell his pals where he was.

Gallagher did not know anyone in that complex, his father said, and police told him his son's cell phone records don't indicate why he would have gone there.

There was also surveillance footage showing him walking into the building lobby at 3:48 a.m., but none that showed him walking out, his dad said.

“The mystery is, what was he doing in that building?” he said.

He also said that his son was not the type of guy to put himself in risky situations when drinking.

"Tim wouldn't even drive if he had a beer," he said. "He was a good kid."

Timothy Gallagher had just started in the journalism program at Western Illinois University in Macomb, his father said.

He had an older sister, Kelly, and loved fishing, the Cubs and the band Umphrey’s McGee.

“He was a quiet guy, but he’d be the guy you would go to if you were down in the dumps and needed to be picked up,” his dad said.