WADESBORO — This Spring, Sharon Johnston, the mother of missing Amber Rae Johnston, looks forward to answers about her daughter coming to light along with the daffodils and tulips. From Pittsburgh, PA, the Johnston family matriarch is enduring another spring without her daughter. Another spring that will lead into a summer of memories that Amber will most likely not make with her children. A mother of five, and a grandmother now since her disappearance, Amber Rae Johnston remains among the missing.
Amber Johnston, who was 36 years old at the time of her disappearance, would now be 39.
The body of a partially clothed female, found back on May 12, 2022 in the Wadesboro woods behind the National Guard Armory, is now considered a possible match to the missing mother. The unidentified woman’s eerie image, captured on a trail camera, shows a barefoot woman wearing leggings and a bra. In the first set of images, taken around 1:33 a.m., she is moving quickly, the trail camera catching one fleeting image of her moving briskly past a nearby deer feeder.
In the next set of images, taken between 4:30 and 4:33 a.m., she is moving slowly, now cautiously maneuvering the dense underbrush with the aid of a walking stick.
Sharon Johnston confirms that the Anson County Sheriff’s Office is comparing DNA results from the unidentified female to those of her daughter, and are currently awaiting results from genetic testing.
Her mother states that prior to her disappearance, Amber did not spend much time in the dentist chair, making dental records difficult to obtain. Finally able to locate a dentist her daughter saw as a young adult, Johnston has now turned over all available dental records for her daughter to law enforcement.
The detective assigned to the case of the currently unidentified female found behind the National Guard Armory, has informed the Johnston matriarch that dental testing came back inconclusive.
“I know they told me they could not rule out Amber but they could not rule her in either,” shares Amber’s mother, desperate for answers.
“Amber had some teeth pulled after she saw our local dentist last. I think April Reed could be ruled out based on more accurate dental records.”
April Reed is another missing woman who told family and friends she was headed to Myrtle Beach from where she lives in the Lenoir area of North Carolina. Like Amber Johnston, Reed had no means of transportation and would most likely have relied on hitchhiking or a bus to carry her to Myrtle Beach.
Many similarities, including physical appearance, exist between Reed and Johnston, leading Reed’s name to come up in the case as a potential match. Several women matching the physical description of Amber and April, slim, blonde mothers with light colored eyes, have gone missing in the area. Among the missing or deceased are Eileen Michelle Lavery, and Dana Mustian. Missing from Winston Salem since March 2023, Lavery’s body was recently recovered from near a highway in Catawba County near a creek. Mustian has been missing from her home in Warrenton since November 30, 2023.
Reed’s dental records were obtained and tested several months ago, conclusively ruling her out as the unidentified female.
Sharon Johnston feels as though there may be similarities in the teeth of the unidentified female and her daughter, but with some missing, law enforcement is cautious to confirm an identity.
The elder Johnston is unable to forget the haunting images on the trail camera.
The woman in the images is wearing clothing remarkably similar to those found on the body of the unidentified woman in the woods, material potentially consistent with leggings and a black Secret Treasures bra, size 34C.
Circulating online, the haunting trail camera images have been widely viewed, with some viewers attempting to enhance the stills for sharper charity.
It is this enhancement that led some to believe that other people may have been present when the woman was wandering around lost in the woods.
According to the detective in charge of the case in Anson, the images were doctored with the usage of artificial intelligence, assuring the elder Johnston that the department has clearer images than the ones released to the public. Acknowledging that the department has the capability to view the nighttime images through a daytime filter, brightening the images of the woman and background, law enforcement has stated to Ms. Johnston they unequivocally believe the images to be fake.
Amber’s mother admits to being perplexed by this as she believes she sees others in the original images that were uploaded into the government website for the missing and unidentified, www.namus.gov.
“Why would they (law enforcement) upload artificially enhanced or altered images into Namus if they had clearer images available,” she questions.
Despite her unwavering support for the Anson County Sheriff’s Office, Johnston does question why the unidentified woman and trail camera images were not made public or uploaded to the Namus website until January 10, 2024.
According to Bill H747, signed into law on Monday, July 8, 2019, law enforcement is expected to enter into namus information on missing or unidentified persons after ninety days. The bill became effective law October 1, 2019 and partially reads, “An act to require law enforcement agencies to enter missing child, missing persons, or unidentified persons information into the national missing and unidentified persons systems (www.namus.gov) after ninety days have passed and the person has not been found or identified.”
Trail camera images were made available to law enforcement following the owner of the property seeing the footage. Images from the trail camera are time stamped and dated, showing the images to have been captured on Sunday, August 22, 2021.
In February 2022, near the location of the discovery of the remains, some kids or hunters, discovered a backpack in the woods, which they claimed to have removed money from.
The story of the hunters, or kids, as it relates to the case is very murky.
Speaking with the Anson Record in February, Detective Brian Tice claimed to be unsure why the backpack was included in the information the department uploaded to the Namus website.
Stating this is a mistake, Tice explained, “There was no large sum of money found… no wallet or identification.” While confirming that a backpack was indeed found, he adds that he is “not sure if it is related.”
The whereabouts of the backpack remain unknown.
Sharon Johnston became aware of the potential lead through information provided on Namus and now wonders why law enforcement was so quick to dispel its potential connection to her daughter’s disappearance.
“Amber carried a backpack with her when she traveled. I talked to her landlord in Arizona and she told me that Amber took all of her belongings with her when she left to come home.”
The missing woman planned to return home to Pittsburgh, instead of visiting with an ex-boyfriend she had recently broken up with, who lived in Myrtle Beach.
Traveling by greyhound bus, Amber Johnston departed the bus she took from Arizona to Winston-Salem, purchased a ticket for a bus headed to Pittsburgh, and was never heard from or seen again.
Law enforcement has confirmed her cell phone last pinged in the Charlotte area.
It is unclear how the missing woman could have gotten from Winston-Salem to Wadesboro, should the unidentified female body be that of Amber Rae Johnston.
The young mother left Bullhead City, AZ on August 17, 2021.
“The female detective in charge of Amber’s case told me that she may have walked the 92 miles to Wadesboro,” a scenario the elder Johnston does not find plausible.
“There is no way Amber got there by herself,” she insists. “On the one hand they want me to believe my daughter was drug addled and crazy but had the wherewithal to walk that far, and Amber is not a walker, through areas she is not familiar with? Half naked? Without a cell phone?”
Johnston claims the police have shared they believe one likely possibility is that her daughter may have been on a high, became paranoid, and chose to throw away her only connection to safety, and a compass, her cell phone.
After pinging in the Charlotte area, Amber Johnston’s cell phone went dark, leading detectives to assume that she may have tossed out her phone during her alleged drug induced hike from Charlotte to Wadesboro.
Law enforcement have not shared with Ms. Johnston any theories on how her daughter may have died following reaching Wadesboro, or, if her, how she could have been found alone, half-naked in unfamiliar woods. Located behind the armory, the unidentified woman was found curiously close to the middle school, taco bell, and other businesses and homes.
Another interesting element, a video believed to be taken from a greyhound bus traveling through Alabama at the time of filming, was uploaded to Amber’s Facebook page. Amber is not present, nor can she be heard, on the silent, disturbing video.
Detective Scott Sharpe, with the Bullhead City Police Department, confirmed to Sharon Johnston that the bus her daughter took to Winston -Salem never traveled through Alabama.
“I am 99.9% certain the woman in the trail camera images is my daughter. The side view alone has me convinced. I don’t know how Amber got to Wadesboro, but I know she didn’t walk there,” declares Johnston. “I am scared that even if this is not Amber, it still needs to be investigated, just identifying her is not enough. How do you know you don’t have a serial killer traveling the area, maybe following the buses, from Winston-Salem to Wadesboro… where is Amber? Where is April Reed?”
This story has been updated from its previous printed version in the Richmond Daily Journal