‘Never going to quit,' the search for Typhenie Johnson continues after 2016 disappearance

Efforts to find a North Texas woman last seen nearly seven years ago were re-energized this weekend.

For more than six years, Art Sahlstein has been helping the family of Typhenie Johnson find clues into her Oct. 2016 disappearance when Johnson was 25 years old. She was last seen outside the Post Oak East Apartments on Tristan Lane in east Fort Worth on Oct. 10, 2016.

Sahlstein led a group of people searching for Johnson on Saturday after police announced this week human remains found in March by railroad tracks along South Hughes Avenue, near East Rosedale Street, have been positively identified as Taalibah Fatin Bint Islam. She was reported missing in 2006 when she was 20 years old.

In 2019, Islam’s ex-boyfriend Christopher Revill was sent to prison for the disappearance of Johnson. However, neither authorities nor Johnson’s family have been informed of exactly what happened to Johnson or where she is.

“We’ve always believed that Typhenie would be found close to Taabilah and vice versa,” Salstein said Saturday.

He estimates about 80 to 100 square miles have been searched over the last six years. On Saturday morning, a group of volunteers came out once again to look for anything that might lead them to Johnson.

Anissa Camp knows Sahlstein through their shared hobby of fossil finding.

“I look for everything. I’m very good at spotting bone, because of the fossil stuff. A lot of fossilized stuff looks like fresh bone. If you can spot bone, you can spot anything, but there’s clothing that we have been told that she might have been wearing,” Camp said. “Of course unfortunately in an area like this, there’s so many dump sites that it’s hard to know what is out of place.”

Janelle Hofeldt, Johnson’s aunt, lives in Minnesota and has provided updates on the search for her niece throughout the years through a Facebook group.

“Typhenie’s favorite quote, what I always go by, is ‘never going to quit’,” Hofeldt said Saturday. “In my heart, Typhenie is still with us. In my heart and my soul, she’s still here.”

Since her niece’s disappearance, Hofeldt said people like Sahlstein, search party volunteers, and Islam’s family have grown close with her family.

“What our family would probably want is everyone…just on praying for Talibah’s family, what they’re going through and for Typhenie,” she said. “Just keep that prayer going. It helps us. It makes us even stronger that we have multiple people out there helping us.”

Sahlstein said his group will not give up on the search for Johnson.

“They look at it in the way I do. These missing ladies out here could be my daughter. That’s where it hits home to you. That’s what keeps you going,” he said. “Perseverance is the main thing. Determination to get this done. These people don’t waver that come to me.”

A GoFundMe was recently started by Islam’s family to lay her to rest.