Edward Sylvio Demers, 60, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease at age 58. Although in the early stages, Edward exhibited erratic behavior during the summer of 2003 and vanished a few months later after leaving his Illinois home for a walk. No trace of Edward was ever found.
The Disappearance of Edward Demers
At 4 p.m. on October 13, 2003, Edward left his home at 4310 Florence Drive in Johnsburg, Illinois, 60 miles northwest of downtown Chicago, for a walk. He wore a light-colored, short-sleeved shirt, brown shorts, and black shoes and headed southwest. Intending only to be gone briefly, Edward left his wallet at home.
His wife, Louise Demers, was still at work and arrived home shortly after her husband had left. She knew he liked to go on long walks, so she was not initially worried. However, Edward never returned home, and Louise called the police to report that her husband was missing.
Neighbors reportedly saw Edward walking near his home in the Sunnyside neighborhood.
Because Edward had Alzheimer’s, it made the search for Edward more critical. Additionally, cooler temperatures and rain set in at night, and Edward wore only warm weather clothes.
Johnsburg police, assisted by several other local law enforcement agencies, began an extensive air and ground search using search dogs, boats, and a private helicopter. The boats scoured along the nearby Fox River from the William G. Stratton Lock and Dam in McHenry through Johnsburg, but found no sign of Edward (Klapperich, 2003a).
Search dogs picked up Edward’s scent at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church at 2302 W. Church St. but did not find Edward.
Witnesses told authorities they saw Edward near Pistakee Golf Course on Bay Road, three miles southeast of his home. Police scoured the area on all-terrain vehicles and continued searching along roadways, fields, and a bog between Johnsburg, McHenry, Fox Lake, Spring Grove, Ingleside, and Richmond (Klapperich, 2003b) without success.
Lousie Demers and three of her children also searched for Edward but found no trace of him.
Previous Incidents
Edward had wandered away from home on two previous occasions. The first one occurred during the summer of 2003.
Dutch Creek Lane resident Toni Jessen-Zegers told the Northwest Herald two weeks after Edward vanished that the “Johnsburg police were aware that Edward posed a danger to himself and motorists.” (Klapperich, 2003c)
Jessen-Zegers encountered Edward in late July or early August as she drove along River Road with her then-teenage daughter.
“He started walking into the middle of the intersection, into my lane,” she said. “We had to swerve.” Edward was waving his arms and behaving erratically, which forced several vehicles into oncoming lanes of traffic to avoid hitting him.
Jessen-Zegers called the Johnsburg police. However, when they arrived, they spoke briefly with Edward and left.
“I called back and said, ‘Why did you guys just leave him?'” she said. “They said: ‘He walks Johnsburg all the time. We know him. Don’t worry about it.'”
Police Chief Ken Rydberg claimed to know nothing of that particular incident and practically blamed Edward’s family for it. He said that the police were in a challenging position when family members ALLOW Alzheimer’s patients the freedom Edward enjoyed. (Klapperich, 2003b).
But Rydberg needed to understand that Louise Demers had to work, and she was unaware of the distances her husband had walked when she was gone. Louise was considering hiring a daytime caretaker for Edward before he vanished.
“He obviously didn’t listen to me when I said: ‘Don’t go out for a walk. Wait for me to get home, I will go with you,'” Louise said in 2003. “Most of the time, he was waiting for me. How do you take his dignity away?”
The second incident occurred shortly before his disappearance. Dekalb police and search dogs found him a few blocks from his daughter’s apartment around 3 a.m. Dekalb is 53 miles from the Demers home. How he got there is unclear, as no further information was provided.
Another Johnsburg Disappearance
After Edward vanished, the community wondered if his disappearance was connected to that of 17-year-old Brian Carrick, who vanished ten months before in December 2002. Brian lived only a half mile from the Demers. He was last seen between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. walking across the street to Val’s Foods (now Angelo’s Fresh Market), where he worked, to ask a coworker to switch shifts, but the employee declined.
Brian reported to work as scheduled that night and was never seen again. According to The Charley Project,” an employee at Val’s Foods discovered a pool of about a half-liter of watery blood in the produce cooler” the following day. “He told his boss, who thought it was meat drippings (excess meat at Val’s Foods was occasionally stored in the produce cooler, particularly around Christmastime), and had him clean it up. Only after Brian was reported missing did anyone realize the significance of the find.” (Good)
Residents believed the two disappearances could be connected, but the police stressed that they were two different cases and there was no correlation between them. Suspects later emerged in Brian’s disappearance, and three trials followed, but ultimately, no one served any prison time for the crime. Brian remains missing.
Human Remains Found
Authorities thought they got a break in Edward’s disappearance a few months later when the remains of an older white male were discovered in nearby Boone County in April 2004.
Rydberg called the Boone County Sheriff’s Department and provided the coroner’s office with Edward’s dental records for a comparison. However, they were not a match. An autopsy later showed the man had been dead for at least a year.
Life After Edward
Louise Demers and her children spent a few years searching for Edward and refused to give up. Every year on the anniversary of his disappearance, they gathered in Louise’s home to remember the man they loved and desperately missed.
Edward and Louise have five children — Marsha Lewis, Ernie Demers, Christina Demers, Renee Fowler, and David Demers — all in their 20s and 30s when Edward disappeared.
Edward was a chemist who worked in marketing and sales before his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. When his children were small, he would bring home “special mixtures of shampoo and detangler.” He loved to “make faces in desserts with spoons and sugar packets and lit Fourth of July fireworks with a cigar.” (Compton, 2005)
“My dad was the biggest kid you’ve ever seen,” said Renee in 2005.
Louise had her husband legally declared dead in 2011, eight years after he left for a walk and never returned. She now lives in Wisconsin.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, nearly 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s today. That’s up from 4.9 million in 2005. Roughly 200,000 under age 65 have younger-onset Alzheimer’s. (CDC)
Per the Illinois Department of Public Health, in 2020, 230,000 people over 65 years of age in Illinois were living with Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia. This number is projected to increase to 260,000 by 2025. (Illinois Department of Aging)
TCD’s Thoughts
If Edward had gotten lost or succumbed to the elements, police would have found him. So, he may have met with foul play after he had been seen near the golf course. Edward must not have been exhibiting erratic behavior like he did the summer before because witnesses never reported it, as far as I can see. So that tells me he was fine at that particular moment. I have no idea what time that was, either.
From his home on Florence Drive to the golf course is a distance of 3.2 miles. How come no other witnesses saw Edward? That makes no sense. The distance from his home to the church, where the dogs picked up his scent, is about a mile. Nobody reported seeing him near the church or between the church and the golf course. The only witnesses who reported seeing him were the ones who saw him near the Pistakee Golf Course on Bay Road near Cuhlman Road. I find this strange.
There are several bodies of water in and around Johnsburg, and it is unclear whether the authorities searched all of them.
I hate that his family or the police never found Edward. But I hope they never give up because anything is possible.
Investigating Agency:
Johnsburg Police, 815-385-6024
Agency Case Number: 03-1962
NamUs Case Number: MP17837
Sources
Compton, Jillian. “Families Hit by Effects of Alzheimer’s.” Northwest Herald (Woodstock, Illinois), November 20, 2005.
Good, Meaghan. “Brian C. Carrick.” The Charley Project. https://charleyproject.org/case/brian-c-carrick
Klapperich, Cyndi. 2003a. “Police Seek Help in Search For Missing Johnsburg Man.” Northwest Herald, October 15.
—2003b. “Family Continues Searching for Johnsburg Man.” Northwest Herald, October 16.
—2003c. “Two Cases Disturb Johnsburg.” Northwest Herald, October 26.
—2004. “Remains Not Linked to Demers.” Northwest Herald, April 21.
“Search Dogs, Divers Seek Missing Johnsburg Man.” Northwest Herald, October 20, 2003.