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The announcement was written in bold letters across the front page of the Burlington Free Press. Warrant issued in 1978 mystery. It was the feature story on June 23rd, 2006 and years in the making. For Juliana Woodworth, it was another layer of hope.
Hope that the burning question, the one that kept her up most nights, the one that kept her checking in with state police month after month, the one that kept her detailing and recording every new development, it was hope that this question would finally be answered. But for a devoted sister desperately waiting for closure...
The closer she seemed to get, the more unanswered questions there were. And nearly 40 years later, she was still asking the same thing. What happened to Grace and little Gracie Reap? I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. Grace Reap was born to be a mother. The Burlington Free Press writes in their 2006 story,
And with three children between her and husband Michael Reap, Grace was plenty busy. The two married in Connecticut in 1965 when she was just 19. Michael was 20. Not long after their wedding, they moved out to Oklahoma where they had their first son, Brian. By 1970, they moved back to Connecticut where Patrick, their second son, was born. And just three years later, Gracie Noel.
In 1975, the Young family was living in Jericho, Vermont, where Michael was hired as an air traffic controller by the Burlington International Airport. The Green Mountain State made the perfect playground for Grace, the boys, and little Gracie. She enjoyed caring for the children, Juliana Woodworth, Grace's older sister, told the Burlington Free Press, quote,
But while Vermont living seemed like a fairy tale from the outside,
Juliana knew that, inside the Reap home, a different story was playing out. Michael was unstable and temperamental, and Grace bore the brunt of his anger and abuse. In the fall of 1977, according to a timeline Juliana compiled, Michael disappeared, leaving a note for Grace stating that he was going to work undercover for the CIA.
But not more than a week later, Michael called Grace crying and begging to return home. Grace agreed. The airport offered Michael his job as a traffic controller back under the condition that he receive counseling.
Based on Juliana's timeline, which was once posted on Juliana's website, that winter passed without much significance for the Reeps. Michael was once again working for the airport, and Grace managed the home and children. The coming summer, on the other hand, would change the lives of everyone involved forever. June 6th, 1978 started out like any other day for the Reeps.
Michael left for work and the boys, by then 11 and 7, left for school. And Grace stayed home with Gracie as usual. But that evening, according to Michael, he returned home to find both his wife and daughter gone and only a note that stated, "...she was sorry it had to be this way, that she had to think about happiness, and that the car could be found at the airport."
When the boys asked where their mother and sister were, Michael told them, quote, they went on a vacation for a little while. They had to get away, end quote. Five whole days passed before Michael alerted authorities of his wife's disappearance. Perhaps he was spurred by a call from Juliana asking to talk to Grace. Michael told Juliana that her sister wasn't there and she hadn't been for nearly a week.
Michael mentioned the note he'd found, apparently written by Grace before she left. Juliana found it hard to believe. Grace would have never left the boys behind, no matter where she was going. If she were to take Michael's word for it, it had been at least five days since her sister and niece were at home. But was that the truth? Was any of it true? Juliana doubted Michael's story from the very first word.
And so, Juliana began what would become a decades-long search for Grace and little Gracie. According to the Burlington Free Press, Juliana hung missing persons posters around Vermont and surrounding states, even going as far as the Canadian border. She followed up with newspaper ads, one reading, "'Grace, call your sister Julie,' but the phone never rang."
Look at your cup holder. It's empty and you're feeling thirsty. Head to a nearby convenience store and fill it with a Pepsi Zero Sugar Mountain Dew or Starry. Grab a delicious, refreshing Pepsi for the road. Grace's close friends offered insight into the Reap household during numerous police interviews.
According to Judy Tybalt, Grace could be a domineering woman much like her mother and that sometimes rubbed Michael the wrong way, especially when that characteristic would show in his daughter. Judy noted that the marriage was rocky, recalling a time that Grace had left Michael and stayed at a local inn, but assured police that Grace was never having an affair. Grace wanted to save the marriage.
Judy also told police she was one of the last people to see Grace, having visited the house the Saturday before she disappeared. She described Grace as zombie-like. During this visit, Michael and the boys were out in the backyard digging a hole.
a hole large enough that Judy even asked Michael if he was quote, digging a grave, end quote. He said he was landscaping. The visit left Judy unsettled, but knowing the relationship, she wasn't concerned. It was the last time she'd ever see Grace again. Just 10 days after his wife and daughter went missing without a trace, Michael made a move that shocked the entire family.
Citing desertion, Michael filed for divorce on June 16th, 1978. Not long after, a woman named Donna Rusin moved into the house. She would be the boys' new live-in babysitter, they were told. But the Rusin fooled few. Donna and Michael had been together for some time, even before the disappearance of Grace.
She was a car rental clerk at the airport where he worked, and they had an ongoing romantic relationship. But as she told police, Donna was unaware that Michael was married until about six months into their dating. Sometime before Grace and Gracie's disappearance, Donna got pregnant with Michael's child. She ultimately terminated the pregnancy, but their relationship continued, and Donna wanted more of Michael.
For months, Donna asked him to leave Grace, even giving him an ultimatum. As their investigation into Grace and Gracie's disappearance progressed, investigators learned that Donna was one of the first people to hear from Michael after Grace disappeared.
She was somewhat taken aback when Michael called her, to use her words, blubbering. Quote, he said that his wife Grace has left him and that she has also taken their daughter Gracie. When Donna asked why he was so upset, as this was seemingly what they had both hoped for, Michael responded that he couldn't talk anymore and for Donna to just, quote, hang in there for me, end quote.
When police initially interviewed Michael, they didn't sidestep their doubts. In their interview with him, it was acknowledged that they weren't looking at this as a simple case of a wife leaving her disgruntled husband. According to police, Michael was advised that they believed the circumstances of Grace and Gracie's disappearances were suspicious, that they believed the mother and daughter were the victims of foul play and are dead.
Michael was also advised that he was a suspect. He had a motive, he was seeing someone at the time, and there was no love lost between Michael and his wife. When police told him this, Michael replied, "I wasn't seeing Donna. I mean, I wasn't seeing, I was just screwing around a lot." Michael's story was not adding up.
Not only had he backtracked when asked about his relationship with Jonna, but the investigation also revealed that Michael had lied about being at work the day of the disappearance. He was off June 6th and didn't return until the following Tuesday, June 13th.
Police interviewed one of Michael's co-workers, Thomas Brown, and he said that during the period of time when Michael's wife and daughter were missing, quote, it was very clear that Michael was in no state of mourning. He was not distracted or distraught, end quote. August 1978, two months later, and still no word from Grace.
Yet state police weren't publicly calling the disappearances suspicious. Grace's sister, Juliana, hoping to trace Grace through employment records, contacted the Social Security Administration, but came up short. There was nothing new to report. That fall, Michael wrote in a letter to his sister-in-law, quote,
"Some days I really hurt, and other days I am just damn mad. I have to tell myself that Grace and little Gracie are happy and getting along, but I would give anything I own to just talk to them, even on the phone for two minutes." The following autumn, after his divorce from Grace was finalized, Michael and Donna were married. As the years passed and memories faded,
Juliana remained committed to finding out exactly what happened to her sister and niece. From interviewing neighbors and contacting U.S. representatives to taking a job as a police dispatcher to check bulletins in her spare time, Juliana would not give up on Grace and Gracie. Meanwhile, police were connecting the dots on their own. Though it would be nearly nine years before they would contact Juliana,
giving her some validation on what she'd expected all along. In the summer of 1987, almost 10 years after the disappearance of her 32-year-old sister and 5-year-old niece, Vermont State Police contacted Juliana asking for permission to reopen the missing persons case of Grace and Gracie Reap.
The following year, authorities conducted an exterior search of the former Reap home. Michael and Donna, along with Michael and Grace's sons, Patrick and Brian, were no longer living at the property. They had since moved to Florida in the spring of 1983, according to Giuliana's timeline. But that marriage between Michael and Donna would end just a year later. As reported by the Burlington Free Press,
Donna told police that her marriage to Michael was rocky. She'd said Michael beat her, end quote, might have killed her had relatives not stepped in and stopped him. Donna said that during one incident, Michael allegedly told her that she, quote, did not fight back like Grace, end quote.
The 1988 property search of the former Reap home in Vermont turned up no solid evidence for police to make an arrest. But police continued to hone in on one person. Unfortunately for Juliana, Brian, and Patrick, it would be another few years before investigators were able to definitively pursue Michael Reap.
In October of 1996, state police made a trip to Florida to interview Michael Reap one last time. During the interview, according to the affidavit, they confronted Michael with the many inconsistencies and lies he'd told to investigators over the years, including telling officers he'd waited at least a year after the disappearance before filing for divorce.
They reminded him it was, in fact, within 10 days. When asked, Michael agreed to take a polygraph test, but contacted police a few hours later stating that he changed his mind and would not be taking the polygraph.
Meanwhile, back in Jericho, Vermont, police were conducting an extensive search of the Reap's former home. Using ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs, along with FBI and state police assistance, they tore up flooring and scoured nearly 10 acres of the property. When a local Florida reporter called Michael Reap to question him about the search of his former home,
Michael was completely caught off guard. Michael's then wife, also named Donna, later told police that Michael was upset and sick after the call with the reporter and left home without saying where he was headed. He wasn't just out getting some air. Several weeks passed with no sign of Michael Reap. Brian Reap, Michael's son with Grace, filed a missing persons report.
Police eventually tracked down Michael in New Orleans, where he was last seen carrying a bag and approaching an ATM. He traveled almost 800 miles from his home in Florida to Louisiana in just 15 hours. It seemed Michael was on the run.
Back in New England, as Grace's sister came to terms with all that had happened and hadn't happened in her sister and niece's cases, Juliana filed a petition to issue death certificates for Grace and Gracie in November 1996. A month later, she officially signed the two orders for the presumption of death certificates, just as investigators received a warrant for Michael Reap's arrest.
I've waited 28 years for this, Juliana told the Burlington Free Press in that June 23, 2006 story. Nearly another decade had passed since Grace Reap and her daughter Gracie had gone missing from their Jericho, Vermont home in the spring of 1978, and Juliana never once gave up hope that she'd find answers.
Quote, I've been praying for years we'd get a warrant for his arrest so we could find him. Then we can find them. I just want him to tell me where they are. End quote. When police made the announcement that they were issuing a warrant for Michael Reap's arrest, it was because, quote, there were no plausible alternative conclusions. End quote.
Detective Sergeant Gerald Charbonneau told the media, "The evidence, though circumstantial, is very compelling." Charbonneau gave a sworn affidavit to Vermont's Chittenden County State Attorney Robert Simpson on the 28th anniversary of Grace and Gracie Reap's disappearance. And only one thing got in the way of arresting Michael Reap that day. He hadn't been seen in 10 years.
Michael Reap was still missing since that day he left his Florida home after receiving word that Vermont police were digging the property where he once lived with Grace and Gracie. He was last spotted in New Orleans, where footage showed him at an ATM. His truck was found abandoned at the New Orleans airport a month later.
It had been a roller coaster of hope for Juliana and Ben, Grace's only surviving son. Patrick had passed away in 1996. Juliana and Brian had reconnected in the years since his mother and sister's disappearance and, based on Juliana's notes, became quite close, leaning on one another during the ups and downs of the case.
In fact, Juliana relocated to Florida with her husband to be closer to Brian and his kids after Brian's wife passed away in 2003. So in 2010, on the 32nd anniversary of Grace and Gracie's disappearance, you can imagine the two together when they received the news from police. They'd found Michael. You'd be right to assume this news brought some relief
and even real hope for a final answer. But then police gave them the second half of that news. Michael was dead. He'd been dead for 13 years.
The Burlington Free Press wrote on June 23, 2010, quote, the identity of the man in Yuma, Arizona was unknown for years until the FBI recently matched fingerprints taken from the body with those of Michael Reap, unquote. Michael had apparently killed himself during a police chase in Arizona in 1997, not long after he fled Florida.
At first, it was hard for Juliana to believe. How does someone's death, a murder suspect for that matter, go unnoticed for 13 years? Police said it was simply human error. Information on the fingerprint card had been mislabeled. Michael had been involved in an armed carjacking in Arizona. Shots were fired and Michael took off.
Police weren't far behind, and when they got close enough, Michael shot himself. He was listed as a John Doe for years, until an FBI agent was able to confirm the fingerprints. Brian and Juliana were shown photos of the deceased and ultimately confirmed the identity. It was Michael Reap. It's now been over 40 years since Grace and Gracie Reap were murdered.
But their bodies have yet to be found despite multiple searches of the old REAP property. It's now considered a cold case and Giuliana was told budget cuts and time have prevented investigators from returning for further searches. Her timeline on the now defunct website ends on June 6, 2015, the 37-year anniversary of the disappearance.
And though she's never been able to answer that burning question, it seems Juliana has found some peace over the years. She wrote, In September 2013,
Florida papers flashed similar headlines: "Husband Suspected of Killing Wife Dies Before Standing Trial." It was a big story and a seemingly unfair conclusion to a long, cold-case murder. It happened in 1988. A man told police he and his wife were victims of a kidnapping and that the kidnappers had forced him to drive to a rural area where they restrained him and murdered his wife.
The case went unsolved for years, until it was reopened by the Cold Case Unit in 2010. And just like that, newly discovered evidence pointed to the man himself as the killer. His name was Benjamin Reap, Michael Reap's father.
Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. This episode was researched and written by Olivia Gunn, with additional writing and production by me, Kylie Lowe. Source material, including original affidavits and more sources, is listed at darkdowneast.com.
Be sure to tap follow on Apple Podcasts if you love listening to Dark Down East. And if you're there, leave a review or a star rating. It's the easiest way to support this show and the cases I cover. Follow along on Instagram at Dark Down East and on Twitter at Main True Crime.
Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.
