Do you recognize his outfit? Dark green coveralls that zip up the front over, possibly with an orange or red lining. Were they part of a work uniform?

Do you know his town? He likely lived near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in Exeter or Stratham.

He was white, about 6-feet tall and lean. He had chestnut brown hair, about chin-length, and a full beard.

If we find him, we may find the answer to this question: Where is Reeves Johnson?

Call to Action

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• Have information? Call the Kittery Police Dept. at (207) 439-1638 or Brian Cummer at bcummer@kitterypolice.com.

• Wish to remain anonymous? Submit a tip to Seacoast Crime Stoppers

Complete access

This case is special. We have never before had complete access to any case like we do this one. Thanks to the transparency and support of the local detective working on this case, we have been brought into the fold of the investigating team that is searching for answers to a decades-old mystery.

You could be the one to break this case wide open.

Early life in Broad Axe

Sally was the oldest. She arrived in the world in the fall of 1949, and her mother, Barbara, gave birth to a son – Sally’s younger brother Reeves, just one year and 10 months later on the final day of September of 1951. One year later, in 1952, the family unit would be complete with the arrival of Hugh Johnson, the youngest of the trio of siblings.

Their parents, Kemp and Barbara, lived in a sparsely populated exurb of Philadelphia (called Broad Axe), constituted chiefly of large farms, unique single-family homes and some well-to-do neighborhoods. They were boxed in by agriculture: corn fields behind them and dairy cows next door; an idyllic countryside backdrop to their historic Pennsylvania fieldstone farm house, built 200 years prior to the Johnsons taking up residence.

Kemp loved Philadelphia and turned down job offers in England, California, and Japan to stay put.

The family would often drive into Chestnut Hill (in Philly) for activities at their country club, “The Philadelphia Cricket Club.” It didn’t have cricket, but it had a pool, squash courts, tennis courts, bowling, and of course, golf.

The family was looking for a larger home so the kids would have more space as they got older, and Sally discovered what would become their new home. She was playing with some friends on Germantown Ave in Chestnut Hill and noticed that there was a large stone house for sale, and told her parents.

They moved into the neighborhood, just 2 miles from their hub of activity.

Kemp was the breadwinner of the family, working in technology, as a marketing executive. He sold adding machines which later became computers to major US government clients.

Their new home was on a large lot (over an acre) whose backyard went right down to Wissahickon Creek.

Reeves and Hugh both went to Germantown Academy, one of the nation’s oldest private day schools, founded in 1759, just a few miles up the Wissahickon back toward Broad Axe.

Sally, too, went to private schools and eventually boarding school.

Reeves, deep thinker and bookworm

As the boys got older, the differences in their personality started to send them in different directions.

Reeves was drawn to the fantastical worlds contained in the pages of A Wrinkle in Time and Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics; breathtakingly beautiful centaurs, flowers that produce oxygen for interstellar travel, and ladders to the moon.

Reeves was a deep thinker and found companionship with these authors and others that pondered these difficult questions. He was drawn to philosophical books and even philosophical comics. Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, was one of his heroes. Perhaps he identified with Charlie Brown and his feelings of not quite fitting in. At one moment precociously wise, and the next a naïve little boy. There was something deeply human about the Peanuts gang.

The dinner table

The focal point of the Johnson family and their friends was the dinner table. After often brief meals, the family would linger and talk. And no matter what position the kids would take, Kemp would play devil’s advocate and debate them. Not only the children, but also their friends were always invited. The Johnsons’ home was warm and welcoming and it allowed Kemp and Barbara to stay connected with their children and their compatriots.

Sally and Hugh both remembered Reeves’ quiet zingers, his ‘wicked dry sense of humor,’ his deep thinking, and on occasion, his stubbornness.

Trio of siblings head to college

Reeves had his eyes set on a small New England liberal arts school situated in the downtown of Hartford, Connecticut, called Trinity College. He applied early decision and was one of the roughly 500 freshman that were admitted in the spring of 1970.

The Johnson siblings were separating: Sally was off to school at Centenary University in New Jersey and Hugh was destined for Webster College in Missouri. They were off to scattered states, leaving the safety and guidance of their parents in Philly.

Before beginning his fall term at college, Reeves got a stern letter from Trinity. Apparently, they had gotten a copy of his grades from the spring semester of his senior year and they didn’t measure up to his previous academic success. They asked him for an explanation and spoke to his high school counselor. After some letters and phone calls, they decided to keep a spot for him in their entering freshman class and left him with some words of wisdom, “this is one of the few opportunities in your life where you’ll be able to wipe the slate clean and truly be a fresh man; I hope you take advantage of it.”

Reeves moved all his things to the dorms at Hartford and became part of the class of ’74.

A life-changing medical diagnosis: hypoglycemia

His academic performance in college was mixed. He had some A’s and B’s, but C’s and D’s as well.

In his junior year he studied abroad in Italy, and when he returned from that trip, he was a changed man.

Reeves dropped out of school and returned home to Philadelphia to live with his parents. He was chronically sick. He couldn’t concentrate. His skin suffered from a pallor that hung around him like a shroud. He could sleep 20 hours in a day. He would have uncontrollable shakes. There was something physically wrong with him. His parents took him to numerous doctors and psychiatrists around Philly looking for answers. They couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Doctors would sometimes take one look at his long hair and his facial hair and tell him to stop the recreational drugs.

He was eventually diagnosed with a blood sugar disorder called hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). It was a novel diagnosis, and there wasn’t much known about it.

Reeves strikes out on his own and finds work in manufacturing

When he was 26 years old, after five years of living with his parents, he decided to move to Kittery, Maine. Sally and Dave lived close-by in Cape Neddick in York, Maine. Reeves lived with a girlfriend for awhile with her young son (whose name we are seeking), but he eventually settled into a rental cabin, right off the main traffic circle in Kittery, on Jewett Court, a street that no longer exists. It was small, dark, affordable, and just a single room. He had a parking spot out front for his red Volkswagen Beetle.

At first Reeves worked as a general laborer for Donnelly, but at the suggestion of his boss, he undertook welding classes. He went through a welding program and graduated. His family all remembered his pride at his accomplishment: it was the first educational program he had succeeded at since leaving Trinity. He got a modest boost in his wages, but based on some of the information we’ve learned about his employer, it looked like the average wage paid to a welder was only $4.75/hr, which, without overtime, would yield about $10,000/year in 1980 dollars or $26,000/yr in today’s dollars: not much to be able to live on your own.

Hitchhiker, Christmas 1982

In December of 1982, Reeves went home to Philly for Christmas, driving down in his little red bug. It was a short trip, and Reeves left the day after Christmas, on Sunday the 26th, to return home.

As he passed through New York City, he picked up a hitchhiker named Richard, who said that he was on the way to either Detroit, Michigan, or Ontario, Canada. Kittery would be on the way to neither city, but he accepted a ride from Reeves nonetheless. Hours later, when Reeves crossed into Maine on I-95 and got off on his exit for Kittery, the hitchhiker gave him no further instructions on where to drop him off, so Reeves invited him in.

Everyone who knew Reeves described him as generous. He could never pass a hitchhiker without giving him a lift.

Reeves gave him a place to stay and helped him with meals, hooked him up with cigarette money, and took him where he needed to go. When Reeves was at work, Richard stayed at the cabin by himself. Kemp and Barbara remembered Reeves telling them that he washed his clothes in the shower, was kinda quiet, and hummed a lot. Richard stayed with Reeves from Sunday the 26th until Friday, January 7th—almost 2 weeks. Someone came up from Boston to retrieve him, and according to the police files, he left while Reeves was at work with a key to Reeves’ cabin.

Reeves suddenly “quits” his job? A detailed timeline of his disappearance.

It was his fifth winter in Kittery. He recalled the “therapy parties” that his sister and brother-in-law would have in Cape Neddick to bring some much-needed warmth and joy to the cold dark winter, but they were a thousand miles away in Georgia wrapped up in their busy lives.

On Sunday, January 30th, Reeves had his last weekly call with his family, and later that week, on Thursday, February 3rd, 1983 Reeves worked his last day at Donnelly Manufacturing.

Reeves was helping his coworker, Curtis Cook, with rides to work. He would pick him up each morning in his red bug and drop him off after each shift even though it was out of Reeves’ way. Curtis lived close to their shop – in either the town of Exeter or Stratham, New Hampshire.

On Thursday morning, he picked up Curtis, and after their work that day, he dropped him off on his way home. On Friday the 4th, he didn’t show up to Donnelly. He had not shared anything with his family about any plans to quit – quite the contrary, he was proud of his welding work. Though it is not entirely clear from the case records whether he quit or not, what is clear is that he didn’t work another day at Donnelly Manufacturing.

What’s more, Thursday the 3rd was the last day that Reeves Johnson was reliably identified as alive and well by anyone in his life.

That same Thursday he deposited a $70 check, withdrew $30 in cash, and purchased a set of guitar strings.

Reeves’ checkbook makes many purchases, makes a number of ‘appearances’

This is where the timeline gets a little complicated, but the details are extremely important.

On Friday, February 4th, Reeves’ checkbook was used to spend $80.06 (equivalent of $208 today) at Shaw’s in Stratham, NH, just southwest of Portsmouth. It’s just on the edge of Exeter, close to where Donnelly was located on Portsmouth Ave and Route 101, but even though it was close to work, this wasn’t where Reeves usually shopped for groceries.

Sometime between Thursday and Saturday, his neighbor in Cabin 4, Chris Schroeder, saw a young man with black hair and a moustache, wearing a black leather jacket and dark pants, knock on Reeves’ door. He was let in, and a short time later he left on foot.

Reeves misses his weekly call with his family

Reeves had a weekly scheduled call on Sunday morning with his parents, something he never missed. On February 6th, however, Barbara and Kemp were overseas on a trip away, so Sally called Reeves instead that Sunday, hoping to talk with her brother. She tried twice. He didn’t pick up.

During this same period of time, Thursday through Sunday, all of Reeves’ valuable belongings were removed from his cabin before a big snowfall on Sunday evening.

Strange purchases in Portland, Exeter, Stratham, Kittery…

On Wednesday, February 9th, 6 days after his final day at Donnelly, a purchase was made from a specialty store in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with Reeves’ Ocean National Bank checkbook. Damart was a winter thermal wear undergarment retailer, and it was at the height of its popularity after having been publicly endorsed by the 1980 Winter Olympic Games.

The purchase included 2 different pieces of clothing. One was a heavyweight material, size small, and cost $31.25 (or $87 today), and the other was a regular weight extra-large and cost $26.95 (or about $75 today). They had both men’s and women’s sizing and styles and it’s still unknown exactly what was purchased.

That Damart store location no longer exists, though their products can still be ordered online. The former 1811 Woodbury Ave Portsmouth store is now a BJ’s Wholesale Club.

The following day, Thursday, February 10th, a week after his final day at Donnelly, someone withdrew $30 from his checking account and $50 from his savings at Ocean National Bank, leaving only a few dollars left in both accounts. Detective Avery later visited the bank and spoke with the branch manager, J. Clinton Dickerson. The bank tellers identified the person withdrawing the money as Reeves.

On Saturday, February 12th, a $100 purchase at Radio Shack in the Maine Mall in South Portland was made with one of Reeves’ checks: $260 in today’s money: it was a pair of Radio Shack brand speakers for $49.95 each. We found this model listed under the name “Realistic Minimus-7” in a 1983 catalogue from Radio Shack. They were small, passive bookshelf speakers that required an amp to power them.

A $30 deposit was also made on a Pioneer brand car radio and cassette player. The full cost of it was $280 (or $738 today). A pricy upgrade to your car.

The following day, Sunday February 13th, a check for the $250 balance to take home the car radio was written out to Radio Shack in South Portland, bringing the total spent at Radio Shack to about $380, or close to $1,000 today.

Family still can’t reach Reeves, missing person report & wellness check

That entire week Sally had tried reaching Reeves by phone to no avail. By the time Friday and Saturday rolled around, she tried calling just about every hour without answer. When her parents returned home to Philly from their vacation on Saturday, she told them what was going on and her attempts to reach Reeves.

The next day, Barbara and Kemp, after trying to reach Reeves again by phone unsuccessfully, contacted the Kittery Police Department and reported their son missing.

On Tuesday, February 15th, a week and a half after his final day, Officer Bromfield of the Kittery police department met with Charlie Bold—the landlord at 3 Jewett Court—for a wellness check on Reeves’ cabin. The door was unlocked and the pipes were frozen. Snow sat, undisturbed. It was clear nobody had been there since the snowfall on Sunday the 6th, more than a week earlier.

Reeves’ cabin cleared out

There were things missing from the cabin… items of value:

A black and white television set, a nice acoustic guitar, a Pioneer record player and amplifier, and all of Reeves’ vinyl records were gone. A Huffy-brand bicycle was gone, all of his expensive welding equipment, and strangest of all, every single piece of Reeves’ clothing was missing.

All that was left behind were the guitar strings purchased on Thursday the 3rd, a pair of slightly torn stereo speakers, the box for the record player and amp that was kept for a future move, and his contact lenses.

Reeves’ car towed to a shop, more purchases

That same day, Reeves’ red 1972 Volkswagen Beetle with Maine license plates was towed to the Exxon mechanic in Elwyn Park (in the southern part of Portsmouth) for repairs, from some unknown location.

The mechanic on duty later identified the man who dropped off the vehicle as Reeves based on a photograph shown by police. He said that Reeves mentioned he wanted “quick” repairs because he was planning to “head south.”

Reeves was also spotted by Mr. Newsom of Newsom’s Market, a local Kittery grocery store where he did most of his shopping. He remembered Reeves coming in sometime around the 16th or 17th. Unless Reeves paid with cash, there is no bank record of a check being used for purchases here.

However, his checkbook was again used to buy groceries at the same Shaw’s in Stratham, NH, the town right next door to Exeter, where Donnelly was located. A purchase was made for $66.61 on February 19th. That is the equivalent of $185 worth of groceries today.

Two days later on Monday, February 21st, the mechanic who was working on the repairs to Reeves red Beetle said that somebody claiming to be Reeves came to the shop and attempted to pay for the repairs with a check. When the mechanic refused the payment, he left the building on foot, heading North.

Kemp and Barbara come up from Philly

The following day, Tuesday, February 22nd, Barbara and Kemp came up to Kittery for the first time to speak with detectives in person and to try to find their son. It was two and a half weeks after his final shift.

Kittery PD had previously called up Donnelly Manufacturing and asked them to hold onto Reeves’ final paycheck and to ask anyone looking for it to come in person to pick it up. But when Barbara called Donnelly on February 22nd to ask about it, they said that Reeves had called and requested that they mail the check to his post office box in Kittery instead, and despite the request of law enforcement, the check was in the mail. Evidently “Reeves” had told Donnelly that he had found a new job, and he had told his parents of his whereabouts, and with those assurances they had decided to mail his check.

The following day, Exxon in Elwyn park received a call from a man who said he was Reeves Johnson. He tried to sell his car to them to cover the cost of the repair bill. He mentioned he’d originally bought it for $1,200, but in reality, the car had been a gift to Reeves from his father, Kemp.

Kemp and Barbara stake out the Kittery Post Office

The Kittery Post office, where Reeves rented a PO box, had estimated that he last came in to collect his mail on the 16th or 17th… before Donnelly released the last check.

Barbara asked if the Kittery Police Department could keep an eye out at post office, and they unfortunately didn’t have the resources to do so, but a lack of manpower didn’t stop Barbara and Kemp Johnson. They instead asked if they could step in and assist, and were granted permission to stake out the Kittery Post Office themselves, hoping to encounter their son.

Barbara and Kemp spent two days waiting... rotating shifts from the lobby to the car, pretending to be tourists... in the winter... inside the post office of an empty seasonal summer town. Their story might have been a little thin. They showed up as soon as they unlocked the front doors—and stayed all day—waiting for somebody to show up and get the check from Donnelly Manufacturing that sat amongst junk mail inside Post Office Box 451.

Would it be Reeves? Barbara prepared herself, practicing inside her head for the moment she would confront her son over the worried pit that took up residence in her stomach: “where have you been the past two weeks?”

A mystery man takes Reeves’ mail

On the afternoon of Thursday, February 24th, 1983, somebody did show up to open box 451. Somebody who had a key. Only it wasn’t Reeves. The man was young—maybe 20’s or early 30’s—white, about 5’10 with longer reddish blonde hair, and a beard. He wore dark green coveralls over an orange tee shirt, a short-brimmed red baseball cap with a white logo, and had the key to Reeves’ mailbox.

The man pulled out the mail, opening, reading, and tossing out everything except for the check from Donnelly.

Barbara snapped a photo of the man on her “tourist” camera. This was it. This was the moment she would finally have the answers as to where her son was.

Petite Barbara confronted the man, demanding to know where Reeves was and why he had his mailbox key. The man replied, “He’s with me in an apartment in Portsmouth. I’ll take you to him if you have a car.”

She followed him out of the post office... but the man took off running on foot. Barbara and Kemp never caught up with him. 

Barbara developed the film right away. Everyone will see this photo and know your face. Somebody will know who you are. When she flipped to the photos in the post office, her heart sank.

The photo of the man.... the only photo she had taken of the man stealing her son’s mail at the post office... was a photo of his hand covering the exact spot where his face should be. He had foiled her attempt and successfully eluded being captured on film. 

Reeves’ final check was never cashed, and it was eventually cancelled by Donnelly.

That chance encounter—Barbara’s face-to-face meeting with the man who could possibly have killed Reeves, or at the very least know what happened—was the only encounter she would ever have.

Reeves’ car found, no sign of Reeves

Sometime around Friday February 25th, Reeves’ landlord, Charlie Bold, and his daughter spotted Reeves red Beetle at the Exxon in Elwyn Park. Up until this point, no one knew where Reeves’ car was at. All they knew was that it was no longer parked in front of his red cabin on Jewett Court.

Kemp went to the Exxon shop, paid the bill, and took the car to the Kittery PD, turning it over to them and giving them permission to give it to Reeves if he appeared and presented proper identification. He also let Exxon know where to direct anyone looking for the car.

Inside the car he found brochures for Canon and Minolta cameras, and for Radio Shack.

That same day, Ocean National Bank closed Reeves account. It was overdrawn by $81.55 (or $226.46 today) and the checks from the purchases made at Damart, Radio Shack, and the second round of groceries at Shaw’s had bounced.

And that was it. 3 weeks after his final shift at Donnelly, Reeves was gone.

As the months rolled on, Sunday after Sunday without weekly calls with Reeves, it started to settle in that maybe this was it. The possibility that Reeves was gone forever started to turn into their grim reality... and Barbara and Kemp, after finally feeling like Reeves was on a forward track with his health and career goals realized they might never see their son again.

Modern Investigation

Again, years passed until there was a little glimmer of hope in 2009. Detective Avery called Barbara into the Kittery Police Department to submit DNA to test against unidentified remains that were found in North Carolina. They also wanted DNA on file for the future. After that lead proved to not be a match, contact between the family and the police tapered off again. It sat quietly in the police files, waiting to be dusted off and given new life.

Detective Brian Cummer of the Kittery PD, before he was a detective, would occasionally flip through old cases like this one, and this case intrigued him. Once he was promoted to detective, Brian decided to break the ice and reach out to the family. He wanted to re-invigorate the case and get Reeves’ name out in the public again.

Brian and Police Chief Richter agreed to let us see everything they had on file for Reeves’ case. So, we spent two days at the Kittery Police department looking through handwritten notes from Detective Avery in 1983, personal letters written to and from Reeves, photos, school documents, dental records, an FBI booklet of potential perpetrators... everything the police had and everything Sally had brought from her mother’s files, so that we could tell the unabridged and unredacted story of Reeves’ life and disappearance.

You can make a difference

I want to help the family get answers, and this is where you come in.

Because of Brian Cummer, this case, previously unknown to the modern public, is being covered in the way that it deserves for the first time in 38 years, and you can add to its momentum.

Reeves’ family spent an entire day with us at the Kittery Police Department opening up their hearts, reliving old trauma, and sharing their stories with us. We can help them find the truth.

Share. This. Case. Something as simple as putting it on your Facebook wall and saying, “I care about this case, and you should, too,” would make a small but meaningful impact. Mention it to your friends. Join the “Find Reeves Johnson” Facebook Page. If you have any connection to media outlets, chat them up or drop them a line. Let them know that this case matters to you, and should matter to the public.

If you know anyone that lived in the Kittery or Portsmouth areas back in the late 70’s and early 80’s, ask them about this case. Ask them to listen the episode. Maybe some detail I’ve mentioned will jog their memory and give us a new clue.

Specific questions, help us answer them!

The Kittery Police Department is actively investigating this case, and wants tips and background information. They can be anonymous, too, if you’d prefer to remain so.

Here’s some things you might know:

1.) Do you know anyone who worked at Donnelly Manufacturing? Any name that worked there from 1975 to 1985 would help. Did they have a dress code or uniform? Did they become a union shop?

2.) Do you have a connection to Brockhouse, the English-based company that owned Donnelly at the time and still exists today, or to Ocean National Bank?

3.) Do you know the name of Reeves’ girlfriend, whom he was dating when he first moved to Kittery? Do you know the names of any of Reeves’ friends from that time?

4.) Do you have photos of Jewett Court in Kittery and the rental cabins that used to be there? Or a connection to historical societies that may have them?

5.) Most importantly of all, do you recognize the red hat worn by the mystery man in the photo? Could you find out? Maybe you know someone who is a into 80’s fashion that might recognize the style of the hat or the logo.

That photo is on this page, at the top of the blog, and down below, with the rest of the images for this case. Study it. Share it. Find the things that we missed.

That photo was never shared in 1983. Let’s make up for lost time.

No piece of information is too small. You have the power to make a difference in this case.

Let’s find Reeves Johnson.

Links

Connect on instagram @MurderSheToldPodcast

Click here to support Murder, She Told.

Contact Kittery PD: bcummer@kitterypolice.com or (207) 439-1638

Follow the Reeves Johnson Facebook page

Sources For This Episode

Online written sources

'Where is Reeves Johnson III. Family, police seek clues…' (Seacoast Online), 10/19/2021, by Ian Lenahan

Official documents and correspondence

Letters, various authors and recipients, primarily to or from Reeves or his parents, 1983 - 1985

Missing person report, 2/15/83

NCIC database report, 2/15/83

Detective’s case narrative/summary, Feb/Mar 1983

Detective’s original notes, Feb/Mar 1983

Photo Sources

Kittery police file images by Byron Willis & Kristen Seavey

Images of Reeves primarily from Johnson family

Some images from Seacoast Online.

Catalogue images from Ebay and from Radio Shack’s archives

Interviews

Brian Cummer, Detective, Kittery Police Department

Hugh Johnson, brother

Sally (Johnson) Swartz, sister

Dave Swartz, brother-in-law

Credits

Created, researched, written, told, and edited by Kristen Seavey

Research, writing, photo editing support by Byron Willis