SALISBURY — The daughter of an elderly man who vanished without a trace from his Salisbury home 18 years ago has asked Connecticut State Police to appoint a new investigator to look into the case that to this day remains a mystery.
Allison Drew is haunted by the disappearance of her frail, 91-year-old father from his home on Ravine Ridge Road near the Massachusetts line after he got up from watching a movie and told his caregiver he was going for a walk. The unsolved case has weighed on Allison and her sister Bettina, Tom’s daughters, for almost two decades.
In 2020, Drew published a book about the case: “Search for My Missing Father, an American Noir” (Black Rose Writing), which examines what may have happened to her father in the time between his last conversation with a family member and the report that he was missing.
In December 2025, Drew decided to continue to press for answers, formally asking the Connecticut State Police to reopen the case.
“I would like to be able to bury my father before I die,” she said in an interview from her home in England.
At the time of his disappearance he was reportedly watching a movie. The caregiver said he got up and walked out of the room. After a few minutes when she went to look for him, he was nowhere to be found. That was July 21, 2007.
An extensive search led by State Police with K-9 dogs, a bloodhound and helicopters — joined by local firefighters and volunteers — yielded nothing. More than 500 flyers were spread around the Northwest Corner.
A national alert was issued for Tom Drew, a retired fashion designer from New York who suffered from dementia in addition to having some cardio-pulmonary issues. Press reports at the time noted that the family had alerted hospitals and homeless shelters in three states.
By mid-August, the active month-long search for the missing man was over, but State Police said they would continue to pursue information. A conclusion was drawn that if he had found his way into some kind of institutional care he would have been identified after a month had passed. If he had died, his remains would have been found because of the extensive searching, including the rugged terrain near his home known as Sage’s Ravine.
“The probability that he would not be found is astronomical,” said Allison in an interview last week. “Writing the book was helpful. But it was very stressful.”
The police investigation has not been officially closed. Drew said that once a year investigators review the case, but absent any new information it is shelved for another year.
Drew hasn’t heard back from Ronnell A. Higgins, Commissioner of the State Department of Emergency services and Public Protection, since asking him to appoint a new investigator to the case, noting what she called failures to collect certain kinds of evidence.
Tom Drew and daughter Allison Drew at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Courtesy of Allison Drew
Drew is a professor emerita at the University of York, England, and author of scholarly books on anti-apartheid and anti-colonial movements in South Africa. Her book is a review of the facts in the case that became front page news and recounts the many rumors and suppositions and talk around town that captivated the community at the time, along with all the dead ends.
Drew hopes that the book might jog someone’s memory, prompting them to think of something that they remember that didn’t seem important at the time. For her part, she believes that her father was either buried or submerged in water somehow.
Drew also wanted to write about what it is like to have a missing person in one’s life. The recent disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie,has drawn significant attention since the early days of February when investigators believe she was taken against her will.
Drew found the police investigation lacking in numerous ways and her book details those perceived shortcomings and also conjectures about a lot of little things that in her view needed a closer look. Her view is that her father’s disappearance was suspicious.
“My father vanished without a trace even though he had severe cardio-pulmonary disease and could only walk a few hundred yards without getting breathless and red in the face. He also had dementia,” Drew wrote to the commissioner.
“Based on stereotypes about dementia the State Police assumed that he left his home on foot. They followed one line of inquiry only. But, despite massive searches, the failure to find my father or even his loose slip-on shoes indicates that he was driven off. The case needs reinvestigation to follow this line of inquiry.
“So, I would like the CSP to reinvestigate the disappearance from scratch,” she concluded.
