The summer of 2007 was supposed to be fun for the Johnston children. They would spend it in their hometown of Yazoo City for an overdue reunion with their old friends. Young Brittany Johnston was most excited to be staying with her grandmother, but her step-brother, Jarrod, seemed unusually quiet. Perhaps he was lost in thought about finally seeing his girlfriend Kacie again; it had been months since he and his family left Yazoo City for Kentucky. While the move separated the two by miles, they continued the relationship long distance. He’d also made arrangements to stay at a friend’s house instead of his grandmother’s. His budding independence as an 18-year-old was starting to bloom, and he wanted to spend more time on his own.
Jarrod had quite the past. His parents split when he was just a toddler and he was placed in the custody of his father, Stephen Johnston, who quickly remarried. His wife, Lisa, hadchildren from a previous relationship who became Jarrod’s stepsiblings.
Growing up, his parents always knew that he was intelligent for his age. He had learned to read and write around the same time he learned to speak. However, when his kindergarten teacher called his father, Stephen Johnston, and told him that six-year-old Jarrod was reading an Ernest Hemingway novel in the classroom, his family knew his intelligence was a gift.
However, as Jarrod grew older, things took a wrong turn. While his performance in school remained exceptional, he started to fall in with the wrong crowd. He began talking back to Stephen and Lisa, leaving the house without permission, and overall, was as angsty as anyone could imagine. However, one day Stephen and Lisa discovered it was more than angst when Jarrod, while at a party, overdosed on prescription pills and was rushed to the hospital.
His shocked parents sent him to a treatment facility. It took a huge toll on Stephen, who had always worried about Jarrod befriending the wrong people. At the facility, Jarrod was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and was prescribed medication.
Jarrod returned home in a noticeably better mood. To prevent falling victim to peer pressure, he was homeschooled his junior year. Things in the house began to run smoothly.
Now, the summer of 2007–the summer before his senior year–he had finally gotten used to being back home.
Brittany was sure that this would be a summer they’d never forget. Her prediction rang true, but for all of the wrong reasons. The absence of Jarrod by August would serve as a constant reminder.
July 7, 2007, began like every other day that summer. Brittany and her siblings spent the day playing in the summer sun outside of their grandmother’s house. However, they were interrupted once they noticed a car approaching the house. Brittany saw Jarrod in the passenger seat, in the driver’s sat the mother of the friend Jarrod had supposedly stayed with.
As they stepped out, Jarrod rushed inside the house as his shocked grandmother watched from the windows. It turns out that Jarrod’s plans of staying with a friend weren’t as flexible as he initially claimed. When his friend’s parents asked him to leave, he told them to drop him off at his grandmother’s house because he had no other place to stay.
However, his grandmother was unhappy about the whole ordeal. She never wanted Jarrod to stay with her, she had just gotten surgery and was afraid Jarrod would steal her pain medication. However, when Jarrod told her he had no other options, his grandmother said she had no choice but to call Stephen and Lisa to take him back to Kentucky. Jarrod became upset because he didn’t want to leave Yazoo City yet. Fed up with his summer plans falling through, Jarrod grabbed his belongings and stormed out the front door. Brittany called out to her brother as she angrily crossed the front lawn, but Jarrod told her he would be fine and not to worry about him.
Brittany watched in silence as Jarrod walked down the long country road and disappeared over the horizon. She could see her distressed grandmother dialing the number of her parents and informing them of what happened. However, Brittany wasn’t worried. Jarrod had a habit of taking off for a day or two whenever he was frustrated. Like all of the other times, he’d certainly be back. Unfortunately, she was wrong.
When Stephen and Lisa found out about the incident between Jarrod and his grandmother, they were frustrated, but not worried. As mentioned before, Jarrod had a habit of taking off when upset, and his girlfriend, Kacie, lived nearby. They assumed their son was planning on staying at Kacie’s for a few days.
By August, neither Jarrod’s parents nor his grandmother had heard from him. Feeling antsy, Stephen called Kacie to ask about Jarrod, and what she said shocked him. Not only did she not know where Jarrod was, she hadn’t seen him all summer and was unaware that he had been in Yazoo City for the summer.
Stephen told Lisa the terrifying news and Jarrod’s grandmother called the Yazoo City Sheriff’s Department to report him missing. Even if Jarrod still needed space, there was cause for concern. When he left his grandmother’s house, he had only taken a three-month supply of medication for his Bipolar disorder. Throughout the remainder of the year, several sightings of Jarrod were reported in and around Yazoo City, but none of them were ever confirmed.
Investigators told Stephen and Lisa that there was not much they could do. At 18, Jarrod was a legal adult and there was no evidence of foul play in his disappearance. The family decided to take matters into their own hands by posting flyers and getting Jarrod featured on several missing person sites. They hoped the more they put his name out there, the bigger the chance was of someone seeing it and knowing where he is.
In February of 2008, seven months after Jarrod’s disappearance, the family received emails from an individual who claimed they were holding Jarrod against his will. If the family did not wire them $50,000, the sender would kill Jarrod. Terrified, the family showed a local FBI agency the emails. However, investigators quickly discovered the emails were a cruel extortion attempt, and the sender had no connection to Jarrod or his disappearance.
The following month, a woman that saw Jarrod’s missing poster contacted Brittany and told her she had seen him. The woman claimed that Jarrod had walked into her workplace–a jewelry store–and tried to purchase an engagement ring. However, Jarrod’s card declined and he left the store, saying he would be back.
The family reported the sighting to the police, who were unable to verify it. The surveillance footage at the jewelry store on the day Jarrod allegedly was there had already been recorded over. The family was back to square one.
As the years passed, there were several reported sightings of Jarrod around the country. All of them were either unable to be verified or turned out to not be Jarrod. It has now been 14 years since Brittany last saw her brother walk down the long and winding road to nowhere.
To date, there have been no substantial leads or clues to indicate what happened to Jarrod, it’s as if he vaporized the second he left Brittany’s sight. While several of the unverified sightings keep hope alive, not knowing Jarrod’s whereabouts caused the Johnstons a great amount of pain. If alive today, he would be 32-years-old.
The Johnstons hope that one day, Jarrod like he always did before, will finally return home.
