Theodore Frederick Kampf, a 46-year-old man from Oaklyn, New Jersey, disappeared while on a road trip that began July 6, 1981. He last contacted family by phone on July 13 from Mount Vernon, Washington, and a July 11 letter mentioned a camping stove and hemmed pants. Kampf carried about $5,000 in travelers checks and a recently purchased 1980 Chevrolet pickup truck for a route through western Canada toward Dawson City.

Within weeks of his last confirmed contact, forged travelers checks in his name were cashed in British Columbia and later in the northern United States. On July 27 a person posing as Kampf drove the pickup in Boise, Idaho; the truck later was found in a ravine near Philipsburg, Montana, but handling before investigators were informed degraded potential evidence. In May 1983 human remains and personal effects including a camping stove and hemmed jeans were found near the Dempster Highway outside Dawson City and treated as a suspected homicide.

Advanced DNA work beginning in 2019 ultimately identified those remains as Kampf in 2021, linking his disappearance and the grave near Dawson City, but the killer has not been identified. The forged checks, the unidentified driver of the truck, and the persons involved in the burial have not been definitively connected. Does anyone have information about Kampf’s travels in July 1981 or the pickup’s movements after mid-July?