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StrangeOutdoors.com 6/18/24 StrangeOutdoors.com 6/18/24

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.

Revised June 2024

In 1988, 50-year-old journalist Keith Reinhard took a career break to write a novel in Silver Plume, a remote town in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. He rented a shopfront selling antiques but quickly became fixated on the eerie disappearance and subsequent death of the store's previous owner, Tom Young, who ran a bookshop. Reinhard's novel soon intertwined with the enigmatic circumstances surrounding Tom’s demise.

Then, chillingly, Reinhard himself vanished without a trace just days after Tom's body was discovered, disappearing during a hike on Pendleton Mountain in the Rockies.

Detective Dave Dauenhauer of the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Department commented, “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 bodies turning up in the surrounding peaks, whispers of a serial killer prowling the area have gained unsettling credibility. Conspiracy theories about the illegal dumping of radioactive materials in old mine shafts by the U.S. government have only added to the macabre mystique.

What truly happened to Tom Young and Keith Reinhard in the shadowy depths of Silver Plume and the surrounding Rocky Mountains remains an enigma, a tale as chilling and cryptic as the mountains themselves.

Where is and what is Silver Plume?

Silver Plume, a town with a population of 140, 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 initially meant to be a gold camp, but silver ore was found instead.

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.

Keith Reinhard and Silver Plume

Keith Reinhard lived in Algonquin, a Chicago suburb, and had spent 22 years as a sportswriter for the Chicago Daily Herald, primarily covering high school sports. Dissatisfied with big city life and enduring a mid-life crisis, he was desperate for a change. Keith, married to Carolyn with a daughter, yearned for a new life in the backcountry.

His friend, Ted Parker, often spoke of the different, isolated lifestyle in Silver Plume, Colorado. Intrigued by the idea, Keith decided to take a three-month leave of absence from the newspaper to experience Silver Plume himself, leaving his family behind temporarily. He explained to Carolyn that he needed solitude to write a book and rediscover himself, hoping she would join him later. Reluctantly, she agreed.

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

However, Keith soon encountered severe writer's block and struggled to make progress on his novel. To inspire his creativity, he began taking regular hikes into the rugged Rocky Mountains. The serene yet treacherous landscape offered a stark contrast to his previous life, but it also harbored secrets that would soon entangle him in a mystery deeper than he could have imagined.

Knights of Pythias building Silver Plume

The Tom Young disappearance

Around this time, Keith Reinhard discovered that the storefront's previous owner, Tom Young, had mysteriously vanished from Silver Plume. Tom, a former high school art teacher and retired US Army Special Forces veteran, had called the south side of Pendleton Mountain his home. He lived alone with his beloved Black Labrador, Gus.

Tom ran a travel bookstore on Silver Plume’s main street, The “Charing Cross Station”. The townspeople considered him eccentric, recounting how he would play catch with Gus using a baby doll head. He kept to himself, content with his dog, books, and solitary walks in the Rockies. The residents respected his privacy.

Tom and Gus were last seen on September 7, 1987, walking off into the Rocky Mountains. Tom had reportedly told some friends he was planning a European vacation, but his family knew nothing about this trip. When the police checked the usual boarding kennels where Gus was kept during such trips, he wasn't there. Tom and Gus were inseparable, and there was no record of a plane ticket for the supposed vacation.

Keith became intrigued by the disappearance. He questioned Parker and other locals about the case and abandoned his original novel idea. He began writing detailed notes based on conversations with the townsfolk and started drafting a fictional novel on his computer, with Tom Young as its basis. The book featured a character named Guy Gypsum, a composite of Young and Keith himself.

Little did Keith know that his obsession with Tom's disappearance would soon lead him down a dark and treacherous path.

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, 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 four 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 tarp 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 whom he intensely disliked. It seems Keith was considering returning to his old job.

Keith Reinhard’s hike to Pendleton Mountain

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

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

Keith was last seen leaving town around 4-5 pm. What made this strange was that the round trip to the mountain was around six hours, a mountain he had previously attempted to climb but had been thwarted by its steep and rugged terrain. He had no proper hiking gear with him, wore only tennis shoes, and lacked appropriate clothing for the cold temperatures on the mountain. It seemed a foolhardy trip, if he was indeed heading for Pendleton.

Ted Parker initially thought Keith was just joking when he mentioned his plans at the café, stating he would be back by 10 pm that evening. Ted later recalled, "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, 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

Search for Keith Reinhard — The search for Keith Reinhard

When Keith failed to return as planned late on August 7, the next day, August 8, Ted reported him missing. Colorado’s Alpine Rescue Team launched 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. At the time, the search was the largest search and rescue mission in Colorado's history.

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 on a 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, 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. It 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, many theories have been proposed about what happened to him.

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

Misadventure: Was Reinhard trying to emulate the adventurous character of his novel? Had he gone off to get a feel for it, intending to come back to write more, but gotten lost or injured in the mountains? The area is undoubtedly 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 new life away from family and friends. Again, this seemed 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: Some believe foul play, just like Tom Young, might have been involved.

Was it suicide or misadventure, as the authorities believed, or were there just too many weird coincidences for the case to be anything other than something more sinister? One man disappears without a trace, and 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.

Did Young and Reinhard find something in that shop that they were not meant to see and were subsequently murdered for it?

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, would Tom want to take action and expose the dumping?

The film crew filming “Lost in the Wild” explored some abandoned mineshafts 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?

Perhaps there is something much more mysterious or sinister in the Rockies?

Lieutenant Steven Gremillion was asked if there was a serial killer in Silver Plume. He believed it was possible. The area seems to have claimed multiple lives over the years, “I mean, we have found a couple of skulls up in Silver Plume in the last few years.” When pressed for more information, he could not 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.

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, “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.” These words were written by Keith himself before he vanished.

Aftermath

On January 31, 1990, Unsolved Mysteries, the American mystery documentary television series created by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer, aired a segment on the Reinhard story. It focused on speculation that Keith may have staged his disappearance. Police received over 270 tips, but no new evidence was found.

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 climbed 9,600 feet, with 2,600 feet left before the light faded. 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 found the experience harrowing. They described the hike as a death trap, even for experienced climbers.

A documentary called “Dark Side of the Mountain,” directed by Eric Walter, is currently in post-production. It features exclusive interviews with Reinhard’s family and friends and never-before-seen footage shot by Keith himself.