The Disappearance of Elaine Johnson

When Jodi Malcolm came looking for her 41-year-old mother, Elaine Johnson, on December 3rd, 1990, she encountered a bizarre scene—cryptic notes in Elaine’s apartment and her clothes in the building’s washer and dryer. It looked as if her mother had been interrupted in the middle of doing laundry.

Security camera footage last showed Elaine in the elevator three days before. Yet, oddly, she doesn’t appear on video leaving the building.

Where did she go? And how far would she have gotten without her coat and shoes or her car (which was still in the parking lot)? Decades have passed since Elaine’s mysterious disappearance, but answers remain elusive.

What happened to Elaine Johnson?

Elaine Benich Johnson

Elaine Benich Johnson was born on February 14th, 1949. Little information about her early life and family is available online, but we do know that in 1990, Elaine was divorced with two grown children and living alone at the Kimberly Park Apartments in Parma, Ohio. She worked at the Tri-C Unified Technology Center.

Elaine was an artistic and organized person.

“She was beautiful,” said her daughter Jodi. “She liked to go out and have fun and go dancing. She was very smart and talented.”

Sadly, Elaine was going through a period of darkness in her life, as she struggled with alcoholism and depression. In the weeks before she went missing, she had begun dating a man named Brian Sachs. As with Elaine, few details about Brian are available.

Jodi last saw her mother on Thanksgiving Day, November 22nd, 1990. The two reportedly argued, perhaps because Elaine had been drinking again. However, they spoke on the phone later that night and, according to Jodi, Elaine wasn’t making sense.

Elaine made the shocking announcement that she planned to marry Brian in February, despite the fact that they had only been seeing each other for a short time.

She also confessed to her daughter that she was reluctant to have her meet Brian, believing that Jodi wouldn’t like him, without elaborating on her reasons for feeling this way.

Elaine Disappears

On November 29th, Elaine stopped in at her workplace to pick up her paycheck. While there, she allegedly told a coworker that if no one heard from her within the next few days, it would be because she was dead. She didn’t explain this troubling statement. Her coworker was concerned and unsure what to make of this.

Jodi received an alarming phone call on December 3rd—her 21st birthday—from one of Elaine’s coworkers, informing her that Elaine hadn’t been seen or heard from in days. Jodi rushed over to her mother’s apartment, hoping to find her there.

Though her car was still in the parking lot, Elaine was nowhere to be found. What Jodi did find was a scene that immediately set off alarm bells.

“My mom was very meticulous,” Jodi said. “So when I went into her apartment, that’s when I kind of knew something was askew. She wouldn’t leave her lights on during the day and leave. The dishtowel was laying there, her glasses were laying on the counter. It literally looked like she just walked out into the hall and was coming back.”

Elaine’s coat, shoes, purse, identification, credit cards, and money were all still there. In fact, the only thing that appeared to be missing, aside from Elaine herself, was the set of keys for her apartment. Her car was still parked outside. Her storage locker was open as well.

Elaine’s clothes were in the washer and dryer in the building’s laundry room. She had seemingly been interrupted in the middle of doing laundry—but by whom? Or what?

Jodi reported her mother missing that day.

Cryptic Notes Are Discovered

Police initially believed that Elaine had run off willingly, perhaps to start a new life. Investigators did not enter her apartment for two weeks.

“I know she didn’t just walk away from her life. She paid her rent a couple days before she went missing,” said Jodi.

The last footage of Elaine showed her in the building’s elevator, wearing a jacket and shoes, three days before she was reported missing. She is never seen leaving the apartment building after this.

Somewhat alarmingly, Jodi found a series of cryptic notes in her mother’s handwriting in the apartment. The meaning behind these notes remains a mystery.

Here are excerpts from some of them, as transcribed by Elaine’s sister-in-law:

“I have much to say in private to the one who ordained this miasma. He loves me. He loves me not, but I’m that ambivilant [sic], too.
So I don’t blame circumstances. I ordinarily blame me.”

“What of Brian…get fri? a good life? God God God yes? Explain.”

“I love you never drink Elaine never stop drinking”

“My want ? Brian? But I love my thinking
Sorry open door the light .. [illegible] too fast?”

“? are am I good ? no I forgive you you too what ? I care Bob”

“What do you need
I love you please help I will not drink I will not drink
I love you show me how please”

The “Bob” mentioned by Elaine is believed to be a man who passed away in 1989, the year before she vanished.

Clues Point to Possible Health Issues

In a similarly unsettling development, Jodi found several books about chemotherapy at her mother’s place, causing her to wonder if Elaine had been sick—or at least believed she was.

“I’ve often wondered if my mom got sick with something and didn’t want to put her family through that,” Jodi said.

Among Elaine’s notes was the number for a local mental health and substance abuse service. She reportedly phoned Southwest General Health Center four or five times in the hours before she disappeared, but what motivated these calls is unknown.

Elaine’s neighbors found her behavior occasionally erratic, offering as an example the time that she attempted to disconnect the elevator’s speakers because she didn’t like the music that was playing.

The Boyfriend Changes His Story

Jodi reached out to Brian early on, hoping that he could shed some light on what had happened to Elaine, and was met with an air of indifference.

“I didn’t feel like he was concerned, number one,” Jodi said. “Number two, genuine with me, and it did bother me that my mom told me I wouldn’t like him.”

Brian explained that he’d spoken to Elaine earlier in the week, but not since.

When interviewed by police, however, Brian showed more concern for his missing girlfriend. He told law enforcement that he spent roughly 40 minutes at her apartment on November 30th, departing at 8:30 p.m.

Then, inexplicably, Brian changed his story. He claimed to have spent the night on the 30th and to have left the following morning. He said that before exiting the apartment building that morning, he spotted a note for Elaine on the intercom, quickly ran upstairs to give it to her, and found her in the laundry room.

Interestingly, this note has never been found and its contents are unknown. Brian stated that Elaine was behaving strangely, but it’s unclear exactly what he meant by this.

According to his account, he left, but he was still concerned about Elaine’s mental state, so when he couldn’t reach her by phone later that day, he started to panic and called the police. There is no record of this call taking place.

However, there is a record of Brian contacting police days later—after Elaine had already been reported missing—and suggesting that they search under a nearby bridge, implying that, in a suicidal state, she had perhaps jumped from it. The area was searched, but no sign of the missing 41-year-old was discovered.

Brian passed a polygraph test. No charges were filed against him.

Elaine’s ex-husband, Roger, who resided in Texas at the time, was quickly ruled out as a suspect in her disappearance.Subscribe

The Laundry Room: A Crime Scene?

Search dogs were unable to pick up Elaine’s scent in the immediate vicinity of the apartment complex or in the wooded area nearby.

“I followed the leads wherever they took me, but nothing came up,” said Parma Detective William Hennessey.

Captain Robert DeSimone of the Parma Police Department speculated that the laundry room could be the key to understanding Elaine’s disappearance.

“There’s only one way out of that laundry room,” DeSimone said. “So somehow, mysteriously, Elaine left. The only avenue out of the room without anybody being carried out of the apartment or anything would be the rubbish chute, which then goes to the trash compactor.”

Jodi had a similar thought.

Had an altercation taken place in the laundry room, after which Elaine’s body was disposed of in the garbage chute?

But because the laundry room and garbage chute were never treated as a crime scene, along with the fact that Elaine had been missing for days before a report was filed, crucial evidence might have been lost forever.

Led Astray by Psychics

Elaine’s sister asked Hennessey to work with two people claiming to have psychic powers. The detective searched areas in Ohio where the psychics told him Elaine’s body could be found, but these leads proved to be dead ends.

One psychic described a car that looked like a vehicle one of Elaine’s ex-boyfriends used to own. Hennessey tracked down the car’s new owner, but this lead also fizzled out.

An Enduring Mystery

With a lack of evidence and solid leads, Elaine’s case went cold, but investigators took a fresh look at it in 2011.

Brian Sachs is referred to as a 56-year-old in the 2011 report, but it’s unclear whether he was 56 that year or in 1990 when Elaine Johnson vanished. Brian remained a person of interest but stopped talking to police.

“He refused to sign a statement and then he refused to cooperate with this investigation,” DeSimone said.

Brian has since passed away and was never officially named a suspect.

Elaine’s mother, Irene Stephans, put up a $10,000 reward for information.

“Somebody has to know what happened to her,” said Irene. “Maybe someone will come forward now.”

DNA from family members and Elaine’s dental records have been submitted to national databases. If a body is ever found, the databases can be used to check for a potential match.

The disappearance of Elaine Johnson, a woman who seemingly vanished into thin air in her own apartment building, remains unsolved.

Her family is still committed to finding answers and her daughter runs a Facebook page dedicated to Elaine’s case.

Jodi spoke of the pain that comes with a lack of closure:

“I consider myself a strong person, but the not knowing is devastating. It’s hard to go on and live a normal life when you have that feeling of horrible anxiety.”