Previously on the Frozen Truth podcast. A mother and her son went missing in
November nineteen ninety six, seeming to have vanished into thin air. Sandra Jacobson's
abandoned car was found on the banks of the Missouri River at Bismarck, leading
Detective Tim Turnbull to conclude that Sandra and her five year old son, John
Jacobson had somehow entered the cold water on their own that night and drowned.
No trace of their bodies or belongings have been found in the twenty five years
since, save one single gold child sized shoe that was uncovered from the area
of the river the following day. The shoe is believed to be John's,
but that has never been confirmed. This episode is part two of our conversation
with Detective Tim Turnbull, who's now retired. Not only did he serve as
lead investigator on the case, but he is one of the very few remaining
first personal witnesses to the scene of the abandoned car following Sandra and John's disappearance
on November sixteenth, nineteen ninety six, and this case was not the first
or the last missing person's case he worked during his time in Bismarck. I
did a couple of letter cases like that. One of them, guy disappeared,
was the last seen in death Better, California. But the report was
taken up here because this is where it was from. But that guy was
actually camping, living on the beach and Californane and it turned out his father
have done the same thing twenty years or older. And then there was another
a woman that was had disappeared that she whist falling also, So I think
this particular case that so you're dealing with now with Sandys as if I'm not
mistake. The Bismarck Police Department alerted the public about Sandra and John's disappearance,
hoping maybe somebody in the area had seen them, since Detective Turnbull's recollection now
is that the two were never seen by anybody again, but I had seen
a press account of at least one occasion when Sandra and John might have been
seen together alive and well, I never had any any sightings or her anywhere,
any sightings in John anywhere, you know, were asking for people.
They picked them up to let us know. I don't think maybe she left
her carling. I walked up on the road that's something right somewhere. Yeah,
we didn't never hear that. I read about one of the articles a
reported sighting of them at a local kymart. Do you recall that, you
know? I really don't, But if there was, it didn't at all.
Were there any tips that you followed that you were initially interested in?
No, not really nothing to do anything about it. The question we asked
in episode one why the lead detective on this case thought the most likely explanation
for what happened to Sandre and John is that they drowned. Well, the
answer to that question has started to become more clear to me as I've spoken
with him. That conclusion seems to be based on the lack of any other
explanation. There is no indication that the two were abducted or that any other
crime was committed against them, at least not at that site where the car
was found. Based on the lack of public response following. There was no
indication also that they had run off for whatever reason, or even that they
were still alive anywhere, especially as the years wore on and nobody heard from
or saw either of them. So Sandra and John drowned in the river,
Assuming that for a moment, my struggle becomes why their bodies or remains haven't
been found in the twenty five years since then, And I wondered what Detective
turn Bowl made of that. Yeah, never remembers. It's pretty treacherous.
It's more treacherous than people realize at times. If I remember correctly. He
was writing pretty fast at this time too. I don't know why, but
I think the core might have been letting extra water out, because sometimes they
do that in anticipation of the heavy snow, ice jams and flutting and all
kinds of stuff. So and that's not to say that that someday they want
clime bones now they might really, I really highly doubt they'll find closing that
kind of stuff over a lot of years, but they might. You never
know. And and I'm sure what he remains that, I'm all they all
still, because I'm sure they're all people posed and the fisher got to and
taking their everything. So Sandra's parents gave no indication to Detective Turnball that she
had consumed any alcohol or narcotics on that day that she was last seen,
at least not to their knowledge, nor did they indicate that she was taking
any prescription medication for anything that they knew about. Because Sandra's parents were expecting
her to return home within moments after getting gas, police got much more of
a head start on this missing person's case than normal. Even so, the
car was not found at the boat launch of the Missouri River until the following
day. We don't know for certain how long Sandra's car had been there.
Of course, we don't know for certain how Sandra's car got there, but
we can assume that Sandra's car had been where it was found for at least
several hours, if not all, of the twelve hours or so before it
was found right along with the road, which is on the left side of
good of marketing of it goes along the Missouri River. Our people that live
on riveral manufact there's quite a few more so novel than it was in eighteen
ninety six. But there were still people that were driving by and the card
was shooting them. I suspect you just anything. Yeah, it's probably shooting
there. I don't I don't know that or anything. I'm looking for that
cardcation within the police department. You might recall from episode two, the detective
Turnbull described the car as being parked with the keys still in the ignition but
turned off. I couldn't remember if the headlights were on or off. But
one notable recollection of Detective Turnbulls from the previous episode that you might remember one
of the car doors was found open. I was the first I'd heard of
that Sandra's car doubtless would have been seen by who knows how many bystanders night
she went missing. The car was probably parked there for at least a few
hours, and it would have appeared all the more conspicuous if the car was
just sitting there with one of the doors open, you would think. Still,
apparently nobody took enough notice of the car to call police. What does
the man who spent the most time investigating this case, Detective Tim Turnbull,
what does he think happened? You've already heard his theory in a manner of
speaking, that mother and son drown in a raging river that night. But
how well I'm talking him carrying him right? Was one of him right hand?
I would, I would think carrying him because she ran a boxing line.
I had not wanted to go that far. I'm sure it was cold
aver That audio was a bit difficult to understand. So here is Detective Turnbull's
quote. I think she either walked in, carrying him or was leading him
by the hand. But I would think she carried him in because he might
have balked at not wanting to go that far. I'm sure it was cold,
it was novembery him would I would think carrying him because she ran a
boxing line had not want to go that far. I'm sure it was told.
How do we begin to understand this theory of what happened to Sandra and
John Jacobson. I mean, rational theories need to make sense to a rational
mind. And I'll forgive you if you can't begin to understand how that scenario
of Detective turnbulls is possible, because I can't really either, not the rational
part of me anyway. I can understand technically how such a thing might happen,
but I have no better comprehension of a mother walking into the river,
leading her five year old son into the November waters, into the cold waters
that night. Then I would have any common apprehension of like an alien civilization
or some high level mathematical concept decades beyond my abilities. What I mean to
say is I am not equipped to begin to process the proposition that a mother
carried her presumably conscious child into a river at night in November and drowned him
and then drowned herself. And that second part there, that's also important.
If the name Andrea Yates has not entered your mind to this point in the
story, she was the mother in Texas who confessed to drowning her five children
in the bathtub in two thousand and one. And if you're a parent,
as i am, I have a seven year old son and a four year
old daughter, I'd submit it's impossible to forget that story once you've heard it.
But that is not what happened here, is it. Sandra also drowned
herself, at least in this theory, assuming for a moment that Sandra's intention
was to kill herself at some point. It is just statistics and human nature
of that. Drowning is a very rare form of suicide. It's about five
percent of all suicides, depending on geography. If you don't have ready access
to significant water, that number drops to one percent or two percent of all
suicides being drowning. Consider also that suicide by drowning is much more common in
lakes, sometimes even the ocean, far less common in rivers. Everything under
the sun has happened a thousand times before. I'm not saying, of course,
that just because the situation that Detective Turnbull describes is exceptionally rare doesn't mean
it didn't happen that way. But I am struck by the massive illogic of
that probability, if I'm expressing myself correctly. But Detective Turnbull, the man
who can be said to be I think the standing expert on this case to
date, has been convinced of that theory for twenty five years. Now.
What I, as a parent have the hardest time wrapping my mind around is
taking your kid, apparently and drowning them in a river. Well, my
thought on that is she maybe paranoid and didn't want to leave them behind,
keep fall in the hands of the cult. That's That's about the only thing
I can to go. Where did you leave this investigation? Do you do?
You see this as you basically got it pegged, but you can't close
it until there's some resolution. Yeah, there has. In fact, I'm
sure it's still in one of the detective desks out there. You just every
once a while you do it check of course, now it's getting hard to
check because their parents are gone. You know, every case has to come
to some sort of a conclusion, and there's really no conclusion to this case
because we don't really know what happened to them. I mean, they were
they were, was it was it accidental? When intentional? And are the
part of these actually dead? And my guests would be after twenty five years,
yes, because I just can't see her not contacting her other son.
And I'm pretty sure I know that John's been with the National Edition as Asians
and question. An age progressed photo of John was created by the National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children. He would be twenty nine years old today.
At some point I thought that we'd do a Q and a Tips Theories kind
of an episode, but we're not going to do that yet anyway for this
season. Having said that, if you're listening to these two episodes with Detective
Turnbull and something strikes you or you have a thought or a theory or just
an idea substantiated unsubstantiated, you know, speculation or whatever, I'd love to
hear that, because I'm sort of compiling a list of things that we eventually
need to try to tackle in this case because we are doing a lot of
the bushwhacking, the trailblazing. By we, I mean you and I,
because it hasn't been covered or talked about this case very much in the last
twenty five years. So please send me any thoughts or ideas that you have
via email and we can correspond about those. It is never a bad thing
to get different perspectives on cases like this. And one of the things on
my oddities list is her driver's license. Sandra's driver's license, so it's missing
apparently the only thing missing from her purse that's on the passenger seat in her
car when it's found, And I'm trying to come up with yet some good
explanations for where that driver's license might be, regardless of what happens to Sandra
and John for the moment. Is that something that when obviously you go pay
for gas, you have to get some money out of your wallet wallet.
I assume it's going to be in her purse because it's not missing, But
you know why, is the license free from the wallet? Is that something
you carry around in your pockets for one reason or another. Is that something
that has gone missing, lost of the last two or three weeks, and
maybe she's driving around operating without a license driver's license. To me, I'm
not sure that it's important, but it certainly sticks out that what has separated
her license from her wallet? Did she even keep the license in her wallet?
Some people have different habits when it comes to where they keep credit cards,
cash, all that. So that's something on my list. There's also
something I want to mention that hasn't been mentioned so far, now that you
know sort of the story about that Sat. Day night where she has called
the Bismarck police. We believe before she arrived at her parents' house talking about
this cult, she was supposed to be at her parents' house at five pm,
and by media reports, seven thirty is when she eventually arrived. So
we do need to keep in mind that she was late to her parents' house,
possibly, if not, probably having something to do with the things that
she was talking about to the Bismarck Police Department on the phone. And I
also should make clear that and this I guess is not fully clear to me,
but Sandra, if you were wondering, was married previously I think twice.
I'm not sure about that. I should say but I know she was
married at least twice previously. Her first husband that I know about anyway,
was the victim of a homicide himself in two thousand and five, so this
is long after Sandra disappeared. But her first husband later was run over by
his own car in Tuttle, I believe North Dakota, and they ruled that
homicide, but they never saw that case. So that is Sandra's older son's
father. The second marriage John's father had only recently ended prior to her disappearance,
or I'm not sure that they were even divorced. Frankly, I think
the separation was still in progress, so she was in the process of leaving
her husband or vice versa. The marriage was ending at that time. That
is a factor that was looked into by police as well, and sang percentage
of life, but I atention it is my opinion Sandra had only recently three
months before she disappeared, separated from John Jacobson's father, and so obviously her
ex husband was questioned following the disappearance, but Detective Turnbull told me that John's
dad had a solid alibi. But Sandra's family never believed that she and John
drowned that night, not very much. I did call Noll and to what
happens. I had the case on my desk until I was transferred to the
division to somebody else, and that's you know. And we did have meant
in contact with the family for a while. And then the case, even
cold, deserves nothing else to do nothing nor the leads to fallow. Of
course, the river sometimes to mus dead. In twenty sixteen, an adults
human jaw bone was found in the Missouri River nearby. Its origins remain unknown,
but a professor at North Dakota State University put the jaw bone at about
one hundred years old and so very likely not belonging to Sandra. So far
and frozen truth. We've already checked to one box and speaking with some law
enforcement in this case, but there are plenty more people that we need to
speak to this season, so I'll be doing that over the next few weeks,
and eventually of course traveling to Bismarck myself. But justa heads up now,
the next episode in our schedule, episode four, will not be released
until Sunday, April eighteenth, so it's going to be a little while.
Just giving you some fair warning but in the meantime, if you're able to
support the show on Patreon, you can join us there. I'll be posting
exclusive audio and content to the five dollar level as it comes in, so
you'll be able to track our progress up there. You can find the Patreon
link as well as my email address in the show notes. I also want
to thank Detective Turnbull for his time. He's also agreed to show me the
side of the car in person while I'm in Bismarck, and he's been exceptionally
helpful and I can see that he'd love to have some kind of final resolution
of this case as much as anyone would at this point. And along those
lines, just a moment of reflection before we close. These are two people,
regardless of what happens to them, Sandra and of course a five year
old John Jacobson, and they now have precious few people remaining who would still
remember their loss. And that is the one thing that has reassured me in
this season so far that we're on the right path. I don't know what
we're going to find, I don't know what we're not going to find on
this season of Frozen Truth, but we are caring and we are trying,
and by listening through you will become another person who somewhere out there is still
thinking about those two people and asking the question of what happened to Sandra and
John? And I think at the very least that is a bit of good
that we can do as we go forward here together. So we'll talk to
you in about a month Patreon, sooner than that. I'm Scott Fullard.
Thank you all for listening. Jody Loomis, Jessica Baggin, Kelly Anne Prosser,
Michelle Martinko, Christie Merak, Carolyne Rose. Do these names mean anything
to you all? These people are murder victims whose cases were called for decades
until recently they were solved by investigative genetic genealogy. This new crime solving tool
is rapidly providing us with the names of elusive killers, but each one of
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headline. Who was the victim, who was their killer, and why did
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