The bizarre disappearance of Keith Reinhard and death of Tom Young in the Rocky Mountains

Keith Reinhard, Disappeared August 7, 1988, Mount Pendleton, Rocky Mountains. Tom Young, disappeared September 7, 1987, Body Found July 31, 1988, Rocky Mountains.

In 1988, a 50-year-old, journalist called Keith Reinhard went off for a career break and to try and write a novel, in a town called Silver Plume, in a remote part of Colorado within the Rocky Mountains.

Keith rented a shopfront selling antiques and he quickly became obsessed with the strange disappearance and death in the mountains of the previous owner of the store, called Tom Young, who ran a bookshop. He started writing his own book featuring characters associated with Tom’s bizarre death.

Then, mysteriously, Reinhard himself vanished without a trace within days of the discovery of Tom’s body, after heading off to Pendleton Mountain in the Rockies for a hike.

Detective Dave Dauenhauer of the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Department has said of the case, “What happened to Keith Reinhard and Tom Young has been knocked around and embellished so much, it’s hard to know where the truth ends and glamorization begins.”

With investigators finding bodies in the peaks nearby, talk of a serial killer roaming the area has become more believable and conspiracy theories surfaced involving illegal dumping of radioactive materials in the old mine shafts in the area by the U.S. government.

What happened to Tom Young and Keith Reinhard in Silver Plume and the nearby Rocky Mountains?

Where is and what is Silver Plume?

Silver Plume, a town with a population of 140 people, is located close to Denver in Colorado and situated along Clear Creek in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Founded in 1864, it was originally meant to be a gold camp, but instead, silver ore was found.

When the devastating economic depression known as the Panic of 1893 hit the United States, the government switched from a silver/gold standard to an all-gold one, which sent the value of silver plummeting and ruined Silver Plume.

Silver Plume has managed to eke out an existence from tourist dollars and today it is referred to as a “semi-ghost town,” or a “living ghost town” which adds to its mystique.

Who was Keith Reinhard?

Keith lived in Algonquin, a suburb of Chicago, and had been a sportswriter for the Chicago Daily Herald for 22 years, mainly covering high school sports. But he hated big city life suffering a mid-life crisis and desperately trying to find a way out.

He was married to Carolyn with a daughter, but he was keen to try and start a new life away in the backcountry. A friend of Keith's, Ted Parker, lived in Silver Plume in Colorado and he had often heard from him of the different sort of life there, away from everything and everybody.

Reinhard made up his mind to take a three month leave of absence from the newspaper and try out living in Silver Plume for a while on his own. Even without his wife Carolyn. He explained to her that he wanted to write a book in peace and quiet and rediscover himself. His plan would be that, eventually, Carolyn would join him and she reluctantly agreed to this.

Keith relocated to Silver Plume in the summer of 1988 and rented a simple store in the old Knights of Pythias building from his friend Ted Parker on the town’s main street and set up a low-profile antique business and began writing his book. He also rented a small apartment at the back of an abandoned Catholic church.

Within a short time, Keith began to experience "writer's block" and was struggling to start his novel. To try and stir his creative juices he began taking regular hikes out in the rugged Rocky Mountains.

Knights of Pythias building Silver Plume

The Tom Young disappearance

Reinhard discovered around this time that the storefront’s previous owner, Tom Young, had mysteriously vanished in Silver Plume.

Tom Young, a former high school art teacher and a retired US Army Special Forces veteran called the south side of Pendleton Mountain his home. Tom lived alone with his beloved dog, a Black Labrador dog, named Gus.

He ran a travel bookstore on Silver Plume’s main street named the Charing Cross Station. Residents of the town called him eccentric, saying he would play catch with his dog using a baby doll head, and kept himself to himself, avoiding social contact with others. He was more than happy spending time with Gus and his books and walking in the Rockies. The residents respected his privacy.

Tom together with Gus had last been seen on September 7, 1987, walking off into the Rocky Mountains.

He had reportedly told some of his friends that he was traveling to Europe for a vacation but his family knew nothing of this excursion and when Police checked the usual boarding kennels that Gus was sent to on these types of trips, he was not there. Tom and Gus were said to be inseparable. There was also no record of a plane ticket having been bought for this apparent vacation.

Keith was intrigued about the disappearance and asked Parker and other locals about the case and then decided to abandon the subject of his original novel. He started writing detailed notes based on conversations with the townsfolk and began drafting a fictional novel on his computer using Tom Young as its basis. The book featured a character called Guy Gypsum, that was a composite of Young and Keith.

The discovery of Tom Young’s remains

On July 31, 1988, some local hunters found a skeleton, lying near a tree, out in the wilderness, about an hour’s hike from Silver Plume and with a bullet hole in the skull. Investigators identified the remains as being Tom Young.

A Smith and Wesson Model 36 and a backpack were found near Tom’s body and the dog Gus was also found dead from a gunshot wound.

Young had purchased the gun just 4 days before his disappearance and local police believed it had to be a suicide and the autopsy report stated this as the cause of death.

Locals were skeptical though as they said that he would never hurt Gus and many suspected foul play, especially as a tarpaulin was apparently pulled over the body.

On August 3, Keith attended a memorial service for Tom Young. Just before the service, he spoke to an old friend back in Chicago on the phone about his chances of becoming the new Bulls writer at his old paper, despite the promotion of a former colleague who he intensely disliked. It seems Keith was considering returning back to his old job.

Keith Reinhard’s hike to Pendleton Mountain

A few days later, on August 7, 1988, Keith closed up his shop and told friends in Silver Plume that he was going hiking up the nearby Pendleton Mountain, a 12,500-foot peak, despite having a known fear of heights.

The night before, Keith had attended a party held at the KP Building in Silver Plume hosted by a Denver Radio station and he was seen talking with an unidentified female. He spoke to other partygoers that he was convinced that Tom Young’s death was no suicide.

Keith was last seen leaving town at 4-5 pm. What made this strange the round trip to the mountain was around 6 hours, a mountain he had tried to climb before but was thwarted by its steep and rugged terrain. He also had no proper hiking gear with him, was wearing tennis shoes, and didn't have appropriate clothing for the cold temperatures up on the mountain. It was a pretty foolhardy trip, if in fact, he was really heading for Pendleton.

Ted Parker thought Keith was just messing around when he came to his café to tell him of his plans that he would be back in town by 10 pm that evening and Ted later said "He was in the café and told me he was going to make it to the top of the mountain. If I don’t come back, call on the rescue and he said that in jest, I felt. I have this picture of him pointing to the mountain and saying goodbye. That was the last time I saw him."

Keith headed off towards the mountain and was never seen again.

The search for Keith

When Keith failed to return as planned late on August 7, the next day, August 8, he was reported missing by Ted and Colorado’s Alpine Rescue Team launches a large search and rescue mission on and near Pendleton Mountain. Sherman Mountain and Republican mountain were also searched.

The operation involved ground search and rescue teams, planes, helicopters and sniffer dogs. The search went on for a week but nothing was found.

The head of the rescue team, Charley Shimanski, said at the time, "The Reinhard search was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. This haystack is 3,000 vertical feet of 60-degree slope. This was about as difficult a search terrain as we cover. We were at a real disadvantage because Keith went into the mountains wearing no more than blue jeans and a flannel shirt and tennis shoes. He had no backpack. He had no equipment. A typical subject of a search will leave lots of clues for us to trace. Keith didn’t leave many clues. He didn’t have many with him to leave behind."

The search was called off on August 12 when a Cessna Civil Air Patrol plane carrying two rescuers crashed into Pendleton Mountain on August 11, killing the pilot Terry Leadens and seriously injuring the spotter, Don Drobny.

The only clue left behind was a piece in Keith’s book that he had begun to write found by friends on his computer, concerning the main character Guy Gypsum, which said "Guy Gypsum changed into some hiking boots and donned a heavy flannel shirt. He understood it all now, and his motivation. Guy closed the door, then walked off towards the lush, shadowless, Colorado forests above."

What happened to Keith Reinhard?

In the years since Keith Reinhard’s mysterious disappearance, there have been many theories proposed as to what happened to him.

Suicide - One theory is that Keith had gone off to the mountain with suicide in mind like Tom Young. But he had not mentioned any depressive thoughts or suicidal intentions to friends or his wife.

Misadventure - Another theory was that Reinhard was trying to emulate the adventurous character of his novel, and had gone off to get a feel for it, but with every intention of coming back to write more but had gotten lost or injured in the mountains. The area is certainly dangerous for the unprepared.

Disappeared to start a new life - Perhaps the move to Silver Plume was not enough and he wanted to escape and start a completely new life away from family and friends, but this seems unlikely as he was close to his wife and daughter Tiffany.

He also might have just wanted to disappear for a short while to see how everyone reacted, either as a joke or for research for his book, and then met with some unexpected accident.

Foul play - But others believe that just like with Tom Young, foul play might have been involved. One man disappears without a trace, his body is found shot a year later, and then another man who happens to rent the same storefront and is writing a novel about the previous owner also vanishes. Seems pretty suspicious.

Was it really suicide and misadventure as the authorities believed or are there just too many weird coincidences for the case to be anything other than something more sinister? One man disappears without a trace, then just a year later another man, who happens to have the same storefront and is writing a novel based on the first disappearance, also vanishes.

Some believe it means that both Young and Reinhard found something in that shop that they were not meant to see, and were subsequently murdered for it. For others, the timing of Reinhard’s disappearance just one week after the discovery of Young’s body means that perhaps Reinhard, with all of his detailed research on Young, had found evidence that the man had met with foul play, and then Keith himself was taken out.

Author Mike Eccles wrote a book about the possibility of nuclear dumping in the Silver Plume area. “That fall, my auto mechanic Roger Holman told me that on several occasions during the early morning hours, he had seen large trucks driving up the dead-end road by his house. He said that the trucks were carrying nuclear waste from the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant 30 miles away, waste which was being dumped in the shaft of the supposedly abandoned mine. I did keep my mouth shut, except for telling two acquaintances, fellow freelance writer Sarah Lady and Silver Plume bookstore owner and political activist Tom Young.”

With rumors of illegal nuclear waste dumping, is it possible Tom would want to take action and expose the dumping?

The film crew filming “Lost in the Wild” explored some abandoned mineshafts that were believed to contain illegally dumped nuclear waste and took Geiger counters in with them. They had to leave the mine out of safety as the radiation readings rose to potentially dangerous levels, but was this spike caused by dumped waste or just naturally occurring uranium in the area?

Something sinister - Perhaps there is something much more mysterious out there in the Rockies?

Lieutenant Steven Gremillion was asked if there was a serial killer in Silver Plume, he believed it was possible. “I mean, we have found a couple of skulls up in Silver Plume in the last few years.” When pressed for more information he was unable to provide details due to it being an active investigation. He did state, however, that they tested the remains and none of the skulls were Keith’s. The area seems to have claimed multiple lives over the years.

Keith’s son, Kai Reinhard, believes his father disappeared due to foul play. In an interview with Rick Sallinger, “I think my dad stumbled across something and he just knew too much.” When asked if he thinks the mystery of his father’s disappearance will be solved, Kai replied, “Yes. If somebody that knows something comes forward.”

A plaque dedicated to Keith Reinhard in the Rocky Mountains near Silver Plume says on it, “Oh God I want to wander, I want to wander ‘till I die. With the mountains as my living room, my only roof is the sky.” Words which were written by Keith himself before he vanished.

Aftermath

In January 1990, Unsolved Mysteries aired a segment on the Reinhard story, focusing on speculation Keith may have staged his disappearance. Police receive over 270 tips, but no new clues were uncovered.

In early 2020, Filmmaker J.J. Kelley and journalist Kinga Philipps tried to figure out what happened to Reinhard on an episode of their new Travel Channel documentary series, “Lost in the Wild - Secrets to die for”.

Philipps said, “Seeing that location, hearing the depositions of the people that have something to do with the story, we sincerely hope that would trigger something for someone who maybe hiked in that area, who maybe connected with Keith, who maybe saw something, heard something that they didn’t think mattered, but if they saw the show and thought, ‘Wow, that little bit of information that I had, if I bring that to someone, that could actually further this investigation.’ That’s our hope.”

J.J. Kelley and Kinga Philipps went to Silver Plume in July, whereas Keith disappeared in August. This meant the crew had a little bit more daylight than Keith had on his hike. Despite this, they failed to reach the summit of Pendleton Mountain before sunset. They managed to climb 9,600 feet, with 2,600 feet left to climb, before the light began to fade. They decided to spend the night on the mountain and descend in the morning. They took turns being lookouts in case any wildlife came near the campsite. They had a sleepless night on the mountain and they found the experience harrowing. They described the hike as being a death trap, even for experienced climbers.

A documentary due for release in 2021 and directed by Eric Walter, called “Dark Side of the Mountain” is said to feature exclusive interviews with Reinhard’s family and friends and never-before-seen footage shot by Reinhard himself.

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Further listening and viewing

Eric Walter, Dark Side of the Mountain,The Disappearance of Keith Reinhar‪d‬

Lost in the Wild: Secrets to Die For

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