Overview

Last known alive: Approximately 1980
Recorded date of last contact: January 1, 1980
Location: Amherst Junction, Portage County, Wisconsin
Age: 42
Born: November 15, 1937
NamUs: MP18227
Doe Network: 4761DMWI
Status: Missing; case remains unsolved.

Main circumstances: Theodore disappeared without a contemporary missing-person report. His absence came to law enforcement’s attention more than 30 years later during an investigation concerning his mother, Marie. Family members claimed Theodore and Marie had been traveling around the country, but investigators found no evidence establishing that account. Theodore never applied for Social Security benefits despite becoming eligible, and investigators reported no indication that he had used Social Security, Medicare or veterans’ benefits.

Detailed Case Breakdown

Theodore J. Jost Disappearance: The Unsolved 1980 Wisconsin Case

Theodore J. “Teddy” Jost was a 42-year-old U.S. Army veteran who disappeared from the Amherst Junction area of Portage County, Wisconsin, around 1980. More than four decades later, no confirmed trace of Theodore has been found, and his disappearance remains intertwined with the equally mysterious disappearance of his mother, Marie D. Jost. NamUs lists Theodore under case MP18227, with January 1, 1980 as his date of last contact.

Very Brief Case Summary

Last known alive: Approximately 1980
Recorded date of last contact: January 1, 1980
Location: Amherst Junction, Portage County, Wisconsin
Age: 42
Born: November 15, 1937
NamUs: MP18227
Doe Network: 4761DMWI
Status: Missing; case remains unsolved.

Main circumstances: Theodore disappeared without a contemporary missing-person report. His absence came to law enforcement’s attention more than 30 years later during an investigation concerning his mother, Marie. Family members claimed Theodore and Marie had been traveling around the country, but investigators found no evidence establishing that account. Theodore never applied for Social Security benefits despite becoming eligible, and investigators reported no indication that he had used Social Security, Medicare or veterans’ benefits.

Theodore Jost Vanishes in Wisconsin

Theodore was living in the Amherst Junction area and was associated with his mother’s rural property on Alm Road. Public records provide comparatively little information about his life. Investigators described him as an Army veteran, and NamUs information identifies him as a white male, six feet tall and approximately 170 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.

What makes Theodore’s case especially difficult is that nobody reported him missing when he vanished. The official NamUs date of last contact is January 1, 1980, although later reporting has sometimes described him as last seen during the early 1980s. Investigators have cautioned that the listed date does not necessarily establish the precise day he disappeared.

A Welfare Check Exposes a Decades-Old Mystery

The investigation that eventually uncovered Theodore’s disappearance actually began with his mother.

On August 30, 2012, the Social Security Administration contacted the Portage County Sheriff’s Office after unsuccessful attempts to verify that Marie Jost was alive. Marie would have been about 100 years old, and her Social Security checks were continuing to be cashed.

Authorities went to the family’s property at 3658 Alm Road. Marie’s son Charles T. “Butch” Jost reportedly told authorities that Marie was alive and traveling with Theodore. According to accounts of the investigation, however, he could not provide useful information about the vehicle they were supposedly using. Investigators also learned neither Theodore nor Charles had a valid driver’s license.

As detectives interviewed relatives and neighbors, another question emerged: where was Theodore?

Investigators learned that nobody they contacted could establish a recent, verified sighting of him. What began as an effort to locate Marie had become an investigation into two long-term missing people.

The Story That Marie and Theodore Were Traveling

Charles and Marie’s daughter Delores Disher gave investigators versions of a story in which Marie and Theodore had spent decades traveling around the country in a motorhome. Lt. Wayne Kropidlowski later summarized what investigators had been told as a roughly 30-year cross-country trip.

Authorities found significant problems with that explanation. Theodore had no valid driver’s license, and investigators were unable to establish the decades of travel described by relatives. Theodore had also reached the age at which he qualified for Social Security but never applied for benefits.

There was another complication: relatives’ accounts of when they had last seen Marie changed during questioning. These inconsistencies increased investigators’ concerns about what had happened on the family’s property.

Searching the Jost Property

The investigation of the approximately three-acre property became an enormous undertaking. Authorities encountered sheds, abandoned items, vehicles and extraordinary amounts of accumulated garbage. Lt. Kropidlowski later described the investigation as the most expensive in Portage County history because of the manpower and cleanup involved.

During the first week, investigators noticed a white cross marking an area that resembled a burial site and excavated it. Nothing was found there. Cadaver dogs and investigators subsequently located animal bones, including a buried cat skeleton, but the search did not produce confirmed human remains.

Other reporting states that suspected bone fragments were submitted for analysis, but testing was inconclusive. The property’s condition made an already decades-old investigation exceptionally difficult.

The Social Security Fraud Investigation

Investigators discovered another disturbing element surrounding Marie’s disappearance. Prosecutors alleged that approximately $175,000 in Marie’s Social Security benefits had been collected over decades.

Charles Jost, Delores Disher and Ronald Disher were charged in connection with the alleged financial scheme. Charles was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, while charges against Delores were dismissed because of medical problems. Ronald’s 2014 fraud trial initially ended without a verdict on the theft charge.

Ronald subsequently pleaded to one felony count of theft/false representation. He was also convicted of misdemeanors connected to an incident in which he threatened an investigator, and in April 2014 he received a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence, with credit for nearly 20 months already spent in custody.

The financial case provided evidence of deception concerning Marie’s benefits, but it did not establish what happened to Theodore.

A Person of Interest and an Unverified Jailhouse Account

In WSAW’s 2023 examination of the cold case, Lt. Kropidlowski identified Ronald Disher as investigators’ principal person of interest. That interest stemmed partly from statements inmates said Disher made while incarcerated. Kropidlowski also emphasized that there were credibility problems with the inmate sources.

Those allegations therefore should not be treated as proof of what happened to either Marie or Theodore.

Both Ronald and Delores subsequently died, according to the 2023 WSAW report.

Could Theodore Have Left Wisconsin?

Theodore’s case differs in an important respect from his mother’s. Investigators have considered the possibility that he may have left voluntarily.

Kropidlowski told WSAW there were indications that Theodore and Charles may have traveled to California sometime in the 1990s. Investigators apparently never obtained evidence strong enough to establish that as a confirmed later sighting; Theodore’s official last-contact date remained unchanged.

Another possibility investigators discussed was that Theodore left his family and lived under another identity. But the absence of any known Social Security, Medicare or veterans’ benefit activity under his identity has made his disappearance particularly difficult to explain.

There is currently no publicly established evidence showing that Theodore was murdered, died on the family property, traveled for decades with Marie, or successfully began a new life elsewhere.

Latest Investigation Information

The most substantial recent law-enforcement-based public examination I located remains WSAW NewsChannel 7’s September 2023 Forgotten Wisconsin Cold Cases investigation. Lt. Kropidlowski said authorities were still without an answer after hundreds of investigative hours, extensive searches, numerous interviews and boxes of records. He indicated that renewed attention to the case had prompted him to consider approaching Charles again to determine whether he would provide additional information.

The Doe Network recorded an update to Theodore’s case information on November 3, 2023. A Websleuths discussion was still documenting the case in October 2024, including references to NamUs exclusions, but that forum activity should not be confused with an official investigative development.

Wisconsin Missing Persons Advocacy continues to include Theodore among Wisconsin’s missing people, and current public-facing case material continues to identify the disappearance as unresolved.

I found no credible public announcement through September 17, 2026 identifying Theodore’s remains, confirming a later sighting, announcing an arrest for causing his disappearance, or declaring the case solved.

What Happened to Theodore J. Jost?

The central problem is the enormous gap between Theodore’s disappearance and the beginning of a serious investigation. If he disappeared around 1980, approximately 32 years passed before authorities learned in 2012 that he was missing.

Potential witnesses died, memories faded, the property changed, physical evidence deteriorated or disappeared, and there was no immediate missing-person investigation from which detectives could reconstruct Theodore’s final known movements.

What remains is an unusual Wisconsin cold case involving two missing members of the same family, questionable accounts of decades of travel, a major Social Security fraud investigation, an exhaustive property search and unanswered questions about whether Theodore ever left Wisconsin alive.

Anyone with information concerning Theodore J. Jost or Marie Jost can contact the Portage County Sheriff’s Office at 715-346-1400. The Sheriff’s Office confirms that number remains its current 24-hour contact number.