Typhenie Johnson, 25, vanished in 2016 after her ex-boyfriend was seen driving away from her apartment complex. He was convicted of kidnapping her in 2019.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Volunteers have spent years picking through wooded lots, vacant fields and roadside brush across more than 100 square miles of North Texas. They have found piles of debris, but they have never found Typhenie Johnson.

“We’ll find a pile of stuff — nothing familiar,” said Art Sahlstein, one of the search’s most consistent volunteers. But what to look for has always been clear. “She was wearing black tights.”

Johnson was 25 years old when she disappeared from her Euless apartment complex on the night of Oct. 10, 2016. Witnesses saw her outside talking to her ex-boyfriend, Christopher Revill. Johnson’s brother went outside to check on his sister and watched Revill’s car speed away. Left behind in the parking lot were Johnson’s keys, cellphone and a single sock.

Revill was convicted of her kidnapping in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison. Johnson has never been found.

Johnson’s aunt Janelle and uncle Rick Hofeldt, who live out of state, said the years without answers have been grueling. But they have not stopped searching, and they have found a dedicated crew in North Texas to lead the effort when they cannot be there themselves.

“Words can’t describe everything they’ve done,” Janelle Hofeldt said of the volunteers.

Sahlstein, who has been with the search since near its beginning, said the cause has become deeply personal. 

“I think of Typhenie as my daughter now,” he said. “I never met her. But I’ve been with this for too long.”


Sunday’s search

On Sunday, searchers added new miles to their running total, focusing on Cooks Lane near Interstate 30 — a wooded area roughly two miles from Revill’s family home. Organizers said the location was chosen because cell tower data from Revill’s case file placed him in the area on the night Johnson vanished.

“He didn’t have a lot of time,” one searcher noted of the narrow window prosecutors believe Revill had to dispose of evidence.

Volunteer Jana Gibson, whose own cousin has gone missing, said the particular anguish of these cases is the absence of certainty. 

“There’s someone out there that knows something,” she said.

Rick Hofeldt said the family refuses to accept defeat. 

“The police write her off as dead — we’re proving she’s not out there, so she’s still alive until we know otherwise,” he said.

There is a $30,000 reward for information that leads to Johnson’s exact location. The family also started a “Bring Typhenie Johnson Home” Facebook page.


The conviction

Prosecutors described Revill as possessive and controlling throughout his relationship with Johnson. She broke up with him months before her disappearance and had begun dating someone else.

At trial, defense attorneys Lesa Pamplin and MarQuetta Clayton argued the state had not met its burden of proof, noting that none of Johnson’s DNA was found on Revill. 

“Review the evidence and you’re going to find the state has failed to prove its case,” they told the jury. 


Another disappearance

Revill has also been linked to the disappearance of a second ex-girlfriend. Taalibah Islam vanished in 2006, and relatives said Revill was the last person seen with her before she disappeared. Her case was a central focus during Revill’s sentencing phase in the Johnson trial.

Though Revill was never investigated in Islam’s disappearance, prosecutors cited it as evidence of a long pattern of violent behavior. Months before Revill reported Islam missing, a Fort Worth police sergeant investigated an assault in which Revill allegedly punched Islam — who was nine months pregnant at the time — in the stomach and head. Sgt. Chris Fearneyhough testified that Islam reported the attack directly to him.

After Judge Chris Wolfe announced Revill’s life sentence in the Johnson case, Islam’s family joined Johnson’s relatives in marking the verdict.

Johnson’s family and supporters continue to search, certain that somewhere in the brush and back roads of North Texas, the answers still exist — waiting to be found.