Yeah, I had. I had an uncle that disappears from our family for
about thirty thirty five years. We kind of had an idea where he was
Alston when the heat packed up. I don't have that. You know,
he'd been living in Colorado, but he never made over. Everybody know about.
Nobody knew for sure. Hey, it happens. It's just changed me
as that's not the peace and listen. Welcome to Frozen Truth, Season four,
Episode two. I'm Scott Fuller. Last time on Frozen Truth, A
thirty six year old woman, Sandra Jacobson, was last seen with her son
on the night of November sixteenth, nineteen ninety six. Her abandoned car was
found along the banks of the Missouri River at Bismarck the next day. Also
missing was her five year old son, John. What could have happened to
Sandra and John during those short few hours between when they were last seen and
when the car was found the following morning, and why? Did the lead
on the case for the Bismarck Police Department, Detective Tim Turnbull, feel that
the most likely explanation was that Sandra and John entered the water on that dark,
cold night and drown. Who better to ask than the man himself that's
coming up next. The voice you heard at the beginning of the episode was
Detective Tim Turnbull, who's been retired from Bismarck PD since two thousand and six.
He still lives in the area and has never forgotten what he believes to
be the only unresolved missing person's case in the city's history, and what to
do with that case now twenty five years later. There's different terms that they
use, and one of them is exceptionally cleared. Again, the reason we
used as renew a plan had been committed. That's the prosecuting attorney to planning
in your prosecutionally, so that's exceptionally maybe an active because there's normal leads to
follow, but you know, they kind of tend to believe those us.
The situation is this November sixteenth was a Saturday in nineteen ninety six, and
that night, Sandra Jacobson had traveled forty five minutes or so from her home
in Center North Dakota to Bismarck, where her parents lived. Sandra left behind
at home an older teenage son who she had a good relationship with, and
brought along only five year old John for the visit to his grandparents, but
something happened along the way, or before she left, or possibly after she'd
arrived in Bismarck. We can't be sure. What happened almost certainly wasn't real,
but Sandra thought it was. Before Sandra Jacobson disappeared with her five year
old boy, she called the Bismarck Police Department to sound a warning about what
was happening back in Center. She had some idea about that. I'm going
on up the Shuna, North Dakota. That's right, SoC coults with a
C. Or then again, Sandra might have been talking about the occults with
an OH. Detective Turnbull isn't sure about the specific contents of the call these
many years later, or even when the call was placed before I thinking,
but it was reported in the local newspaper at the time that Sandra was trying
to alert the authorities about some sort of devil worship occurring in Center, and
she was calling the Bismarck police about this because the Center North Dakota Police Department
couldn't be trusted for reasons known only to her. It is not known to
me anyway, when this call to Bismarck PD was placed, whether it was
before or after her arrival at her parents house, maybe later in the night
that she went missing. Detective Turnbull believes that the call was placed before she
arrived at her parents home, and unfortunately, Sandra's parents had both passed away.
But Detective Turnbull says that when Sandra and Jacob arrived at that house that
night, her parents were concerned about her. In fact, they implored her
to go see a doctor that very night. Her mother wanted to take her
to see the doctor, and she was willing to go, but she wanted
to go and put the ass car first, and for some reason and brother
just let her goal and she took time with her. They never came back.
After Sandra hadn't returned within a few hours, Sandra's parents became alarmed,
especially so since she'd taken her five year old with her. This is why
Sandra was reported missing so quickly, much sooner than in a typical missing person's
case. It's probably why her car was found so quickly the very next day.
So I think it was the next days when we found her vehicles in
a part down there and said the area where we found it was a boat
launching area. Uh, you know where the people would back their boats into
the water, and at that time of year it wasn't used real a lot
because it was colder, you know. And uh uh, you know,
in the summertime that had a lot of the real jampas as people are all
the time, but the time ye were talking about here, it was not
like that. But her car was found the next day and her I believe,
the wall and everything was in the car, and there was a receipt
where she had gone to pick up her field with gas, you know,
in the night before. And then if I remember correcting, one of the
doors was standing open on the car and it was right on the edge of
where they watched the boat. So it was assumed that she had and her
son had walked into the water at that point. From that point, with
no signs of a struggle, with Sandra's purse sitting untouched in the car,
and with no sign of any other crime having occurred, Detective Turnbull arrived then
and there at that conclusion that both Sandra and John Jacobson had somehow entered the
water on their own that night, and that they had both drowned. Instead
of returning to her parents' house for dinner. After getting gas, Sandra seemed
to have gone a different way and was never seen again about the car.
Can you confirm these facts that the keys were in the ignition? Would the
ignition have been turned off as or any way to tell if the headlights and
and left on or if the game? Yeah, I don't remember, but
I think the car was off FU no mistake. I think it was turned
off in the ignition, but turned off, you think. And the purse
was on the passenger seat, yeah, I always somewhere, and it was
reported the only thing missing from the purse was her driver's license. Yes,
And you recall seeing the receipt from the gas station where she supposedly was going
before where she said he do you recall if the time stamp on the receipt
makes sense for her to have traveled directly from her parents to the gas station.
I don't know if I can tell you that it's been quite a few
years ago. Sure, sure, Um the interior of the car is at
messy or clean? I think it was pretty clean. Actually, you know,
there was not a lot of some people, some kids to keep it
clean cars and that bad. It was pretty clean actually, so not a
whole lot of cl fast food rappers stuff like that. Was there anything in
the car that stood out as maybe being a little odd that was inside the
car? No? Um, was the car ever processed for fingerprints or anything?
Okay, yeah, it was. It was. It was totally processed.
And I don't recall if we find anything other than her and her son,
well, we wouldn't have. We wouldn't probably have had prints on her
son because he was all about sitter d So we may not up have any
here her prints here. Do you say you had her fingerprints? No,
I don't think we did. I mean, oh, we didn't have everybodyer
prints. I mean there had to be a reason for you to be fingerprint
Yeah, and one of the reasons, of course, is being rested.
Another one would be a fine person jobs the uh yeah finger prints, you
know, yeah, for your fingerprints, like for gaming relations? Is that
the thing? In the first episode of season four, I speculated that there
may have been ice on the Missouri River in November when Sandra and John disappeared.
There are precious few people who were there that day that we can speak
to who can confirm or correct that assumption for us. But fortunately one of
them is Detective Turnbull, I don't think the water. Let me ask you
something, and I mean this is a rhetorical question, but to you directly,
to you listening right now, when you hear about that call that Sandra
made in about the devil worship, and you picture all this happening in your
mind, what do you think? What are your emotions telling you? I
want you to be aware of those as we go from now on, because
here in episode two is where this case begins to bump up against our own
preconceived prejudices about mental illness. We have all different experiences with it, some
of us probably far too much. Some of us will, I might say,
come at this from a perspective of ignorance, having not enough experience with
mental illness. And some of you actually will be literal experts, I'm sure
in this area. I, on the other hand, many, probably most
others, will approach these events here in this season is laypeople. But it's
out there now, it's on the table for this season, for this case.
But this I do know, and I can tell you with some authority.
It would be a disservice to Sandra and of course to John for us
just to assume the obvious and stop looking there. Sandra seems to be having
some sort of dissociative episode around this time, just from my perspective, but
that doesn't go far enough for me. I want not just to cause,
but I want an explanation. So one good thing that has come out of
our conversation with Detective Tim Turnbull is we know a valuable piece of clarifying information.
There was no ice on the river at that time, almost certainly.
And why does that matter. Well, now we know that if it was
drowning, it was not an ice accident. So Sandra or John or both,
we're not out there on the ice for some reason that night, and
for example, mother went to save her son, or son tried to come
to the aid of his mother and drown in the process. Open water in
this case leads to darkness. So that's Sunday the next day. How well
was that area searched then and since then? For Sandra and John, I
think the interest that was primarily around right around an area not too far down.
This is confirmation of what I was a little afraid of after reading the
press reports. The local paper reports that on the very day that the car
was found, the Missouri river was searched from the beach area or that boat
launch area where the car was found, down to the railroad bridge. Let
me try and paint the picture for you so you'll we're calling episode one.
I mentioned three bridges over the Missouri at Bismarck, and how there's one right
after another after another. Detective Turnbull has confirmed for us that the area is
searched for Sandra and John was very small. It was a very small portion
of the area of one area between those two bridges, So the area searched
for Sandra and John is about the size of a football field the area of
the river. Detective Turnbull is also confirmed for us that there were no other
searches conducted following the car being found on that Sunday and that first day's search.
Turnbull is referenced in the newspaper the next spring asking fishermen and boaters to
keep an eye out for anything unusual as the ice melted and people began using
the water more again. But when he was asked about another search specifically for
Sandra and John, Detective Turnbull told the paper that he asked County Search and
Rescue about another search and he was told they wouldn't even know where to start
looking. And let's not to say that that someday they won't find balls.
Now they might, I really highly thought find closing that pin of stuff over
about the years. But they might. The case file on Sandra and John
Jacobson may technically still be open. Actually I'm not even certain of that at
this point. But as far as Detective Tim Turnbull, Bismarck Police Department,
Retired is concerned, the case is solved, and of course he could be
right. But we're not done. Coming up next time. I read about
one of the articles a reported sighting of them at a local keymart. Do
you recall that episode three of Frozen Truth is scheduled to be released yet this
week, so you're going to be receiving back to back episodes pretty much.
No waiting too long for part two of our conversation with Detective Tim Turnbull.
Before then, though, I want to share a promo with you for a
new podcast project produced by one of the good guys in the business in the
true crime podcasting world, Mike Morpford. His new show is called Zodiac Speaking,
and Mike's work on the Zodiac case for his podcast called Criminology is frankly
the best coverage I've ever encountered of Zodiac, So if you have an interest
in that case, you need to check out his new offering, and I
hope you do. Thank you for listening and subscribing to Frozen Truth, and
thanks to our new Patreon supporter, Dusty. Dusty is all so a supporter
of my other projects Status Pending and Dead and Gone in Wyoming. Dusty,
I do appreciate it, And if you'd like to support the show and get
exclusive content early contents, you'll find the Patreon link in the show notes.
I am at Fuller on air on Twitter and you'll see my email address posted
along with the episode two. Feel free and reach out just to say hi,
or of course, if you have a connection to Sandra and John's case,
I'd love to hear from you as well. Finally, if you have
any information about the disappearance of Sandra and John Jacobson, please contact the North
Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation at seven oh one three two eight five five zero
zero or the Bismarck Police Department at seven oh one two two three one two.
I'm Mike Morford and I've been researching the Zodiac case for years. Zodiac
just the name, It's sounds sinister, It inspires fear. The fact that
a serial killer would give himself this monikers disturb it. He would go on
to taunt police by sending letters and codes to newspapers for years. Any attacks,
they were something else altogether. If you were a young couple in a
secluded area, you could easily be a target. And it wasn't just shootings
on dark lovers leans. Zodiac would even attack with a knife in broad daylight
while wearing an executioner's style hood. After a while, Zodiac changed tactics and
even loan cab drivers weren't safe. The Zodiac killer terrorized the San Francisco Bay
area and then vanished, but he left a lot of clues behind along the
way, clues that were going examined closely on the new podcast Zodiac Speaking.
New episodes of Zodiac Speaking come out of every other Saturday starting March thirteenth,
twenty twenty one. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcast so you don't miss
a single episode.