At the conclusion of the popular television series Mad Men the show’s central character, advertising mastermind Don Draper, abandons the glitzy, but stressful, lifestyle of New York City and embarks on a cross-country quest seeking spiritual enlightenment. Draper, the big city advertising hustler, becomes content living a nomadic existence as he moves into a compound and takes up yoga. In the show’s final scene, he is seen meditating, cross-legged in the lotus position with a smile on his face. His ultimate fate is left for viewers to ponder.
Don Draper is a character developed by Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, but a real New York City advertising executive named Don embarked on a similar excursion which, over forty years later, his family and investigators are still pondering.
Thirty-five-year-old Don Kemp had been a successful Big Apple ad-man before he was involved in a severe traffic accident in 1979. Afterwards, he returned to his native Maryland where his mom, Mary, helped in his recovery.
After three years of therapy, Don recovered from his physical injuries, but the accident seemed to have emotionally changed him. Though he was pronounced physically fit enough to resume working in 1982, Don had no interest in returning to the big city and the cutthroat business world. After taking a sabbatical from his advertising job and terminating his engagement, Don seemed to reject all things materialistic as he sold nearly all of his possessions, loaded what he had left in his car, and heeded fellow New Yorker Horace Greeley’s advice of “Go West, Young Man”.
Beginning on September 6, 1982, Don Kemp began an over two-thousand mile journey to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a place about as opposite of New York City as one could ask.
The fictional Don Draper and the actual Don Kemp partook in similar odysseys across America. Don Draper’s journey ended in apparent enlightenment; Don Kemp’s, however, ended in death . . . and mystery.
Don Kemp
Don was a history buff who planned to take his time, as opposed to making good time, on his trip. After visiting the Bull Run (Manassas) battlefield in Virginia, he planned to travel much of his journey along the historic Lincoln Heritage Trail, a series of United States Highways running through Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, linking communities with historical ties to Abraham Lincoln before he became President.
After the Lincoln Heritage portion of his trip was completed, Don planned to take in additional historical sites. He phoned several friends and sent several postcards to his mom and others, telling them of the venues he had visited. These included author Mark Twain’s birthplace in Florida, Missouri, and the Jesse James Museum in Saint Joseph, Missouri.
Don is believed to have arrived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at the edge of Grand Teton National Park, in mid-to-late September, and set up at a cabin in the mountains. He felt the sparsely populated area was the perfect place to work on his pet project: writing a book on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Don Posing by a Cannon at Abraham Lincoln’s Springfield, Illinois, Home
For nearly two months, Don toured Wyoming’s historical sites and gathered research for his book.
On November 15, he was seen at the Old West Museum in Cheyenne. He wandered through the small galleries for two hours, reading everything displayed several times and speaking to no one.
When Don left the museum, he forgot his briefcase. It is not known at what time he departed, but he left his glasses, which he needed to drive, in the briefcase, along with his traveler’s checks and other pertinent belongings.
Don called the museum and inquired about the briefcase. It had been found, and he said he would be there soon to retrieve it, but he never returned to the museum.
Old West Museum
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Later that day, Don was seen at the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Monument along Interstate 80 in Laramie, fifty miles northwest of Cheyenne.
He also phoned several friends and his mother. Mary said her son sounded strange, as if he were pre-occupied with something.
The Abraham Lincoln Memorial Monument in Laramie, Wyoming
At 10:00 a.m. the following day, November 16, the Wyoming Highway Patrol found Don’s abandoned Chevy Blazer along an off ramp of a remote highway off Interstate 80, forty-five miles west of Laramie and forty miles south of Cheyenne near the Wagonhound Rest Area. A motorist had recalled seeing the vehicle there as early as 7:30 a.m.
The car’s engine was idling but still running, the doors were open, and the radio was playing. Oddly, the car key was bent, a passenger side mirror was broken, and a gasket around the passenger door was ripped off. Don’s vehicle was packed to near capacity with camping gear, papers, briefcases, and suitcases. In addition, numerous personal items were strewn in and around the car. A single set of footprints in the snow led from the roadside into the prairie land.
Aerial and ground searches for Don were undertaken on the premise that he had left his car of his own volition. From helicopters, searchers could see for miles over the open terrain, but they found no trace of Don nor any signs of foul play. After two hours, inclement weather forced the searches to be stopped.
Searchers believe if Don were in the area and in trouble, he would have heard the aircraft and waved his arms or gone up a ridge to get their attention. If he were walking through the prairie on that frigid day, authorities concluded he was either delusional or had intentionally disappeared for personal reasons.
Don’s Deserted Car
The weather was better the following day, November 17, and the search for Don resumed. One mile from the highway, deputies found another single set of tracks. Lying beside them were a duffel bag which Mary identified as belonging to her son. Inside were laundry soap, clothes, and a teapot which she also recognized as Don’s. She believed an unknown party had put the items at the locale to make it appear as though her son had been there.
The tracks in the snow led searchers to a barn six miles from the highway. Inside the barn were a pile of sticks, appearing to be arranged in preparation of starting a fire. They also found three socks, which Mary also believed belonged to her son and had been planted there by someone other than Don.
Snowdrifts surrounded the barn and no tracks were initially found leading away from it. Upon closer examination, deputies found that someone had walked backwards, stepping in the same tracks to apparently hide the trail coming into the barn. Deputy Rod Johnson said he believed the tracks were made by a man wearing Colorado hiking boots: Mary Kemp was certain her son did not have any hiking boots, but he could have purchased them during his cross-county trek.
Investigators did not dust the car for fingerprints, nor did they take casts of the footprints as they did not believe any foul play was involved.
Three days later, Mother Nature turned against searchers again. A prolonged blizzard made it impossible to continue the search and obliterated any additional potential physical evidence.
Don’s Trail
Map from Caspar-Star Tribune
In April 1983, five months after Don Kemp was last seen in Cheyenne, two people believed they saw him in Casper, one-hundred-seventy-five miles to the northwest. One sighting was at a local tavern. The bartender was certain he had served Don, but it could not be confirmed that he was the patron.
Although the second sighting could also not be confirmed, it was deemed credible as a tourist reported he had seen Don at a traveling exhibit of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia, a site he would have been certain to visit.
Reported Sightings of Don
That same month, Judy Aiello, one of Don’s former co-workers and closest friends, returned to her New York City home following two months in Europe. Because she had been out of the country for so long, Judy was unaware of Don’s disappearance.
On Judy’s answering machine were five different telephone messages from the same person; two were left on February 27, two on April 5, and one on April 10, 1983. The caller never identified himself. Although some of the messages were garbled, Judy says she knows Don’s voice and was certain it was he who was leaving the messages, all of which were brief. The caller sounded frightened, saying he needed to speak to Judy and asked her to call him at a particular number.
Judy, whose phone number was unlisted, called the number. She says the man who answered first said that Don was there but then quickly said he was not. Judy felt it was as if the man was hiding something and had realized he was not supposed to have said that Don was there. When Judy asked the caller if she could leave a message and have Don call him back, the man replied “yeah” but hung up without taking the message.
Telephone records show the calls were made from a trailer in Casper, Wyoming, rented by a man named Mark Dennis. He lived alone and denied making any of the phone calls, suggesting that either the phone company made a mistake or that, as he had frequent visitors, someone had used his phone to make the calls unbeknownst to him. Dennis also said he paid his phone bills without looking at them and never noticed the long distance calls to New York City.
The Natrona County Sheriff’s Department interviewed Dennis on three occasions. He was shown a picture of Don Kemp but said he had never seen him and knew nothing of his whereabouts. Investigators say Dennis cooperated with them on each occasion and that he passed a polygraph test. They do not believe he had anything to do with Don Kemp’s disappearance but have no explanation for the phone calls traced to his trailer.
Three weeks after he was last questioned, Mark Dennis left Casper. He then hired a lawyer and refused to answer any more questions from either the police or Mary Kemp.
Mary said that phone records also showed several calls were made from Dennis’s trailer to known sex predators across the United States, but I could find no other source corroborating those claims.
Mark Dennis
In March 1984, another female friend of Don’s who lived in Clinton, Maryland, received a call inquiring about the reward money of $2,000 offered by Mary Kemp for information about her son.
Before Don’s friend could get any information from the caller, he hung up.
Mary Kemp
Don’s Mother
On October 4, 1985, nearly three years after Don Kemp’s disappearance, three hunters discovered his remains near Willow Springs Dam, forty miles south of Cheyenne and only about four miles from where his car had been found. His wallet, containing his driver’s license and social security card, was found with his remains. An autopsy showed no signs of a struggle or foul play. Police believed he died of exposure to the harsh weather conditions.
In several diary entries, Don claimed to have taken several “mental journeys to the spirit world” and had also written, “The Truth will come through me . . . I am attuned to a high spiritual plane . . . I am a messenger of God.”
Don liked to meditate by walking. Police believe in his quest to achieve enlightenment, he lost touch with reality and the ability to think rationally and that he, in not using sound judgment, succumbed to the harsh weather conditions on either the second or third day after he disappeared on November 16, 1982. The area where he was found, however, was open terrain that had been thoroughly been searched in the days after he was reported missing. It remains a mystery as to how his body was not found during the initial searches.
The finding of his remains led investigators to conclude the reported sightings of Don Kemp in Casper in April 1983, six months after they believed he died, were cases of mistaken identity.
The phone calls made to Judy Aiello were recorded several months after police believe Don was dead. It has been surmised that someone found Don’s address book that he had left at the museum in Cheyenne, which contained Judy’s unlisted phone number, and phoned her as a prank. Judy, however, still believes the voice was Don’s.
Don’s Remains Are Found
Mary Kemp died in 2014, still convinced her son was murdered.
Mary Was Convinced Foul Play Was involved in Her Son’s Death
Don’s research into the Lincoln assassination appeared to have become an obsession. He had told several friends that he had wanted to “gather the masses” and start a cult of Lincoln assassination enthusiasts in upper Wyoming. Conspiracy buffs have offered that his demise is related to his research, proffering he discovered something about America’s most revered President or his assassination that would have caused history to be rewritten.
Some of the research notes Don had compiled for his book on Lincoln’s assassination were alleged to have been stolen several years after his remains were found, and several of the people who came into possession of these notes are said to have died in suspicious circumstances.
Obsessed with Abe
Here is the link to my write-up on the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Mary Surratt, one of the co-conspirators convicted of involvement in the Lincoln assassination, became the first woman executed by the United States federal government.
Don’s research led him to conclude that she was innocent, and he had even claimed he had contacted her from the “spirit world.”
Mary Surratt
Here is the link to my write-up on the execution of Mary Surratt.
The disappearance and death of Don Kemp was the first story profiled on the television special Unsolved Mysteries, broadcast on January 20, 1987. Raymond Burr was the host who narrated Don’s case.
Unsolved Mysteries became a popular weekly series and helped solve many cases during its run. Although Don Kemp’s death is ruled as death by exposure and the case is officially closed, UM’s inaugural case still lives up to the show’s title as many questions remain unanswered.
The Unsolved Inaugural
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/146981328/paul-donald-kemp
SOURCES:
- Casper-Star Tribune
- New York Times
- Observer-Review
- Sarasota-Herald Tribune
- Unsolved Mysteries
Very interesting writ up. I really enjoyed it.
Thank you, Sarah.