MONSON – Sixteen years ago, Kaye Johnson walked the short distance from her small rural home to her garage and vanished.

Her disappearance came less than four months after the reclusive 80-year-old woman had moved from New Jersey to Monson to escape family members who were suing her and a son who was reportedly “bleeding” her financially, according to police.

She is still considered a missing person, Piscataquis County Sheriff John Goggin said this week.

Goggin, who headed the 1986 search, said no clues to Johnson’s disappearance were found during an intensive ground and air search of the region conducted by residents, firefighters, wardens and police. And there was no hint that an assault had taken place in the home because no blood splatters or other evidence was found.

“It was probably one of the most intensive searches that I have been involved with in my law enforcement career,” Goggin said.

Nor was there any indication that Johnson intended to leave her home because the chain smoker left behind her cigarettes and lighter, her cane and her pocketbook.

Police now say she was likely the victim of foul play.

“I think someone came to the residence and picked her up, someone with ill feelings toward this woman,” Goggin said. “I feel very comfortable that she was not overlooked in the vicinity; if she had been there, she would have been found.”

Close relatives of the elderly woman, including a 19-year-old granddaughter who had moved with her to Monson in May 1986, said Johnson had moved to rural Maine to avoid a civil lawsuit filed by family members.

Goggin said Johnson had gone to a relative’s funeral in Florida and, claiming to be the only heir, made arrangements for the estate of the deceased to be sold when, in fact, there were five or six other relatives in line for the estate.

Johnson also moved to Maine to get away from her son, Jack Myers, then of New Jersey, who had habitually taken large sums of money from his mother for various reasons, the sheriff said.

The woman rarely left her Monson home, and if she did go outside, she would go only to the lawn or garage, Goggin said. He said Johnson suffered from periods of senility and had fallen off a patio and broken her ankle three weeks before her disappearance so she could not have gone far. She also had extremely poor eyesight, cataracts on both eyes, and was suffering from tunnel vision.

According to a police file, Johnson’s granddaughter, Jacqueline Johnson, last saw her grandmother at noon Saturday, Aug. 23, 1986, when the younger Johnson left home for an overnight stay with friends in Brewer.

When Jacqueline returned Sunday evening, she told police, she immediately became suspicious because no lights were on in the house nor was her grandmother seated in her chair by the window, as was her custom. She told police the kitchen door was ajar and her grandmother usually locked the door whenever the young woman left the house.

Police were told Jacqueline had a confrontation with her grandmother Friday before the woman disappeared. Johnson had been upset that her granddaughter had entertained male and female friends in her bedroom that night. During the argument, Jacqueline reported, her grandmother had threatened to remove her as holder of her grandmother’s power of attorney.

Not wanting to stay in the home after the confrontation, the young woman went with friends to Greenville, where she remained overnight. She returned to her Monson home around 11 a.m. Saturday, took a shower and left the home about noon to pick up friends who were accompanying her to Brewer. While she was in the shower, one of the young woman’s friends called and the elder Johnson answered the telephone.

A few minutes after the granddaughter left, a local man traveling to work saw Johnson walking slowly between her house and the exterior garage about 12:15 p.m. That was the last reported sighting of Johnson.

Goggin said two local men, who traveled by the house at about 7 p.m. Saturday, reported that the shades to Johnson’s house were drawn, which seemed unusual to them.

Another oddity in the case was that bounced checks started coming back from a local bank to area businesses on an account Johnson and her granddaughter shared the day Johnson was reported missing.

The granddaughter has since moved from the state and could not be reached for comment.

The case still puzzles Goggin. “It’s just the things that really stand out as baffling are the people who disappear and are never heard from again,” he said. “These cases have a tendency to stay with you through the years.”

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department at (800) 432-7372.