Local searchers found the body of missing automotive journalist Davey Johnson in the Mokelumne River in California on Thursday, his family said.
Police found Johnson’s belongings near the river on June 7, two days after he was last heard from. A multi-agency search of the river was begun on June 8 and ended unsuccessfully on June 17.
Calaveras County sheriffs and a Marine Safety unit continued to search until the body was found on Thursday. The body was found near the inlet at Lake Pardee, according to a press release.
Investigators are still working to definitively identify the body as Johnson’s but believe that it is. The death is believed to be accidental drowning and foul play is not suspected.
It absolutely breaks my heart to be the bearer of this news. The Calaveras County authorities have let us know that they have recovered Davey’s body. He was found in the river. Jaclyn has asked me to share the news. (1 of 3)
— Abigail Bassett (@AbigailBassett) June 21, 2019
Johnson’s Career and Life
Johnson got his start writing for Jalopnik, then an offbeat automotive site in the heyday of the internet wilderness. Later, he wrote for Car and Driver and Autoweek. His writing was eclectic and deep, incorporating rock music and other cultural references.
Several friends in the industry wrote glowing memorials to Johnson. “The loss to his family and his family in the automotive community is indescribable,” Jalopnik founding editor Mike Spinelli wrote.
According to Spinelli, Jalopnik may not have lasted through an intense period when Spinelli was writing 15 posts a day and trying to figure out how to keep going.
Roadshow’s Steven Ewing said that Johnson “published some of the best stories I’ve ever read. I always wanted to hire him someday,” he added.
Friends and Family in Mourning
Johnson, 43, leaves behind his girlfriend, fellow automotive journalist Jaclyn Trop. “He was going to propose with a ring in Sloane Square today or tomorrow,” she told Ewing in a text.
“This is so wrong,” said Roadshow executive editor Chris Paukert, lamenting that Johnson appeared to go out “cold and alone in a river.”
Features editor Kyle Hyatt said, “Davey casts an impossible shadow and while I’ll never be half the writer he was, I will spend the rest of my life trying to live up to the kind of man he was: Kind, generous, open, weird, funny, fearless and free. We all should.”
Johnson’s family has said that more information will be forthcoming. A memorial service date hasn’t been set.
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