Christopher King, husband of Jonathan Clayton, interim city clerk for the City of Peabody, reported him missing on Aug. 3. His disappearance has left his family, friends, and the City of Peabody scrambling for answers. The disappearance: Clayton’s last known phone conversation was with Peabody Mayor Catherine Weems at 9:20 a.m. on Aug. 3. Clayton mentioned attending a PMSA meeting at 11:30 a.m. and that his husband, Christopher King, was unwell. Weems noted no changes in Clayton’s behavior “Even our conversation on Saturday morning seemed perfectly normal,” Weems said. However, when Clayton failed to appear at the meeting, concerns arose. “A PMSA board member contacted me when Jonathan didn’t show up. Jonathan was never late,” Weems said. Fearing an accident, she shared her earlier conversation with him. Board members couldn’t locate Clayton, and when he didn’t return home, King reported him missing. Peabody Police Chief Philip Crom said the department is actively working on the case. Clayton, 42, is 6 feet tall, around 215 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes. He was last seen driving a red Chevy Silverado with an extended cab. Clayton served as the interim City Clerk of Peabody. He was originally hired as the city’s animal control and health and safety officer. Crom said law enforcement pinged Clayton’s phone on Aug. 4, but by Aug. 5, it was off. Searches of Peabody and Newton by his husband and sister have been unsuccessful. “The last ping that hit was at the Holiday Inn Express that morning at 10:30 a.m,” King said. King said staff at the hotel said he came in, asked to use the bathroom, and left. King also said that the Kansas Highway Patrol did a search of Clayton’s grandma’s farmland in Kiowa County. “His sister, Jessica, and I have spent many hours searching this area, Newton and around Marion County, and the highway patrol has, as well. So the searches have been going on and are continuous. And now I think there are folks looking at a lot of digital and online interactions to see if that could find out where he’s at from that,” King said. Clayton and King, a city council member in Peabody, operate CK Vintage, an antiques and craft store in the city. Clayton also took a job working for the City of Peabody as the city’s animal control and health and safety officer in 2023 after leaving the Kansas Department of Commerce, where he served as the director of economic recovery. Due to vacancies of Peabody staff, Clayton was promoted by the Peabody City Council to serve as interim clerk in June. Clayton also volunteered with the Peabody Main Street Association, which aims to revitalize the City of Peabody, and had received $1.5 million in state grant funding for its work. “Jonathan could talk to anyone, and they respected him,” PMSA Board Member Morgan Marler said. King said they are working continuously to find him. “There are lots of things that will come out later that I’m not at liberty to speak about because it involves the investigation,” he said. Clayton’s past: With increased media scrutiny as well as a continuing investigation into his disappearance, Clayton’s past has surfaced. In 2016, Clayton was arrested for financial crimes in Philadelphia and later pled guilty to one count each of forgery, theft by unlawful taking and conspiracy to commit theft. He completed probation but still owes restitution of approximately $195,000. The Department of Commerce claims they were unaware of these charges, while the City of Peabody confirmed they knew but emphasized that Clayton had no access to city funds. The mayor, as well as the police chief, have reiterated multiple times that there is no criminal investigation related to Clayton in Peabody. “We do not have concerns about any criminal activity on the part of Jonathan Clayton during his city duties,” Weems said. Weems told the Wichita Eagle in an interview that he did have access to the city credit card, but no improper purchases were found. According to King, he was also arrested in association with the Philadelphia case but was not charged with the crime, which involved a plan to take funds from a ride-sharing platform Clayton worked for in Philadelphia and use them to fund a theatre company he and King were both involved in. “I was arrested initially because I owned the theater company,” King said. “He did the financial part of it. I did the creative part of it. But I was never convicted of any felonies or anything.” Peabody Main Street, where Clayton volunteered his time as a grant administrator, was also aware of Clayton’s past criminal charges. According to Marler, the PMSA board has expressed no concerns about any criminal activity on the part of Clayton. She said Clayton helped PMSA enact several policies that have allowed them to obtain documentation and show that no mismanagement of funds has occurred. According to documentation from PMSA, provided to the Department of Commerce and the Hillsboro Free Press, as grant administrator, Clayton did not have access to any PMSA funds. “Our community embraced him and his husband, even after we found out about the felony, because we truly believe that people deserve second chances,” Marler said. There are no criminal charges pending in Peabody. “Here in Peabody, all I’m working on is the missing persons case,” Crom said. “There is no criminal investigation or allegations of criminal behavior in Peabody. I know the Kansas Highway Patrol has an investigation open, but I do not have details about that.” In the Wichita Eagle article, King told the paper Clayton was under investigation for his handling of money for the State of Kansas and while serving on multiple board positions in his hometown of Mullinville. Captain Candice Breshears of the Kansas Highway Patrol issued the following statement. “The Kansas Highway Patrol is an assisting agency to the Peabody Police Department regarding the Jonathan Clayton missing person case. This is an ongoing investigation, and there is no other information available at this time,” Breshears said. “Please refer to the KBI missing person report or contact the KBI for any information regarding Mr. Clayton’s whereabouts.” The email: On Aug. 8, Clayton’s email account sent an automatically scheduled message to various officials and media, with a disclaimer noting it was to be sent upon his incapacitation or death. The email contains allegations against Department of Commerce employees, including Lieutenant Governor David Toland and others Clayton previously worked with. Clayton resigned from the Kansas Department of Commerce on Nov. 20, 2023, after serving as director of economic recovery for several years. The email alleges that Clayton was made to alter grant application scores for BASE grants in order to funnel them to certain legislative constituencies, like Butler and Johnson counties. The grant used federal COVID funds to distribute $100 million in funds in the first round of awards in 2022, according to a state press release at the time. Butler and Johnson Counties received $51.6 million in awards, according to the Kansas Department of Commerce website. Newton applied for one such $12 million grant to pay for upgrades for the Kansas Logistics Park and did not receive it. A second round of $50 million in funding was awarded, with Halstead receiving $144,000 to build a spec building at its industrial park. The Department of Commerce acknowledges receiving the allegations made in Clayton’s email. “The Kansas Department of Commerce has been made aware of allegations of misconduct against a former employee in connection to activity that occurred after they left state employment,” Patrick Lowry with the Department of Commerce said. “We are reviewing the matter to determine what, if any, impact the alleged activity may have to the agency or community partners. We are also assisting state and federal law enforcement, as appropriate. Due to the ongoing investigation, we will have no further comments at this time,” Since the email was sent five days after Clayton disappeared, some assumed this meant he had access to his email. However, Crom said that is not the case. Rather, Clayton had scheduled the email in advance. “Each week, a prompt would come up on his computer and ask if he wanted to send or delay the sending of the email,” Crom said. “He would just delay it another week. But when he wasn’t there to press the delay button, the email automatically sent on Aug. 8.” King said, at this point, he would not say anything negative about Toland. “Anything that I would say that Jonathan told me which is hearsay at this point. And to protect myself, I’m going to not say anything at all,” King said. “I’m just thankful for all the help they’ve given Peabody and everything they’re doing for Peabody.” PMSA implications: Clayton’s disappearance coincided with the Department of Commerce’s denial of the second $750,000 portion of a $1.5 million BASE grant to PMSA. He was scheduled to meet with PMSA on the day he went missing to transfer grant data from his laptop. In May 2023, the Department of Commerce awarded PMSA $1.5 million to revitalize Peabody’s historic district, with Clayton playing a key role in securing the grant as the then director of economic recovery. “He came into town like a magical unicorn,” PMSA Board Member Lindsey Hutchison said, acknowledging his significant help. However, as Clayton volunteered with PMSA after resigning from the Department of Commerce, delays in receiving the second grant installment caused growing concern. “Here is this guy that works for the Department of Commerce that wants to move to our little town and help us apply for this huge grant, a grant that could save our downtown. And he did help, he had a big heart, but we all know there are no magical unicorns. And this has hurt us,” she said. By July, PMSA had yet to receive the funds. Clayton repeatedly assured the board that all documentation was submitted and under review. On July 26, Amber Cabrera, a Department of Commerce attorney, informed PMSA they were missing documents, setting an Aug. 9 deadline. Clayton’s removal as grant administrator was requested during a meeting between PMSA, Cabrera and Department of Commerce Director Erin Starr. On July 29, PMSA received a list of needed documents. The meeting Clayton scheduled with PMSA board members the day of his disappearance was arranged so board members could begin downloading all of the pertinent BASE grant data from his laptop. Marler said the board members believed it would be a simple transfer of data from his laptop onto one of their devices. With Clayton missing and no access to his laptop, the board began attempting to contact the Department of Commerce and working with local law enforcement in an effort to locate Clayton. The Department of Commerce did not return their phone calls; rather, they sent a termination letter at the end of the business day on Aug. 6, advising PMSA their grant had been terminated and funding needed to be returned to the Department of Commerce. Instead of giving up, PMSA board members dug in and worked even harder to find the needed documents. On Aug. 12, the board accessed Clayton’s computer with help from his sister, who was able to provide passwords. They thought they would just download his hard drive and retrieve their documents. However, they found 760 accounts requiring passwords and tens of thousands of documents, all unlabeled or filed. “Our volunteer board has put in more than 650 hours, as of Aug. 16, while each of us maintained our full-time employment,” Marler said. While the work has been tedious, the board has been able to confirm critical information; all projects have been completed, contractors have been paid and there was no embezzlement by Clayton from the BASE grant account. The Hillsboro Free Press contacted the Department of Commerce on Aug. 16 to inquire about the status of the grant funding. The Department of Commerce, via Lowry, advised the Free Press an extension has been granted, and PMSA now has until Sept. 4 to submit the needed documentation. They also now have staff in Peabody working directly with PMSA, providing technical assistance and explaining the reporting requirements. While Clayton is not here in person to address the documentation concerns, his automatically sent email alluded to the situation. “Finally, the allegations by the commerce department that I did not provide sufficient documentation for two BASE grant awards is unilaterally unfounded and I believe to be a form of retaliation,” Clayton stated in his email. “These allegations have been escalating since my October 2023 departure from the commerce department.” Unanswered questions: Two weeks have passed since Clayton disappeared, leaving many questions unanswered. The most pressing: where is he, and is he safe? “We and even the people that he’s wronged at this point cared about him, and they still care about him. All of us wanna see him. If he’s done anything illegally, we want him to face the consequences, because all of us strongly believe in that. But we wanna know that he’s safe. And if there’s some kind of mental health crisis going on, we wanna make sure that he can come home and get the help that he needs at the same time,” King said. Weems asked for patience and understanding as they navigate the situation. “Peabody is resilient, and we will persevere,” Weems said. If anyone has any information about Clayton’s whereabouts, they are urged to contact the Peabody Police Department or the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
Source: Harvey County Now
