Speaker 1: Welcome back to the path went Chili.
Speaker 2: I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley. Let's dive right
Speaker 2: into this week's case.
Speaker 3: October eighth, two thousand and nine, Latimer County, Oklahoma, forty
Speaker 3: four year old Bobby Jamison, his forty year old wife
Speaker 3: Sherylyn Jamison, and their six year old daughter, Madison Jamison
Speaker 3: leave their house to look at land in a remote
Speaker 3: mountainous area, but never return. Eight days later, their abandoned
Speaker 3: pickup truck is discovered on a road, but even though
Speaker 3: the family's dog is locked inside and a bag containing
Speaker 3: thirty two thousand dollars is hidden under the driver's seat,
Speaker 3: the Jamisons are missing. In twenty thirteen, the skeletal remains
Speaker 3: of Bobby, Sheryland, and Madison are discovered less than three
Speaker 3: miles from where their truck had been part but since
Speaker 3: the authorities are unable to determine an exact cause of death,
Speaker 3: no one knows what actually happened to them After that.
Speaker 1: The Path went chilly, So today recovering a highly requested
Speaker 1: case involving a couple and their young daughter. The two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine disappearances and subsequent deaths of the Jamison family.
Speaker 1: This is a case which is technically considered to be
Speaker 1: a half solved mystery because even though the Jamisons were
Speaker 1: found after being missing four years, we still don't have
Speaker 1: any idea how they died. In case you're not familiar
Speaker 1: with it, this is the baffling story of Bobby and
Speaker 1: Cheryl and Jamison, a married couple who decided to travel
Speaker 1: out to a remote mountainous area with their six year
Speaker 1: old daughter, Madison. They never returned, and their abandoned truck
Speaker 1: would be discovered over one week later. The Jamisons had
Speaker 1: apparently traveled to this location to see about purchasing a
Speaker 1: plot of land, but their dog and most of the
Speaker 1: personal items were found locked inside the truck, including a
Speaker 1: bank bag containing thirty two thousand dollars in cash. The
Speaker 1: Jamisons have remained missing for the next four years until
Speaker 1: the remains were discovered in the same area less than
Speaker 1: three miles away, but enough time had passed that no
Speaker 1: one could determine the exact cause of death for any
Speaker 1: of the three victims. It's possible the entire family was
Speaker 1: killed by an unknown party, but since Bobby and sheryln
Speaker 1: had been displaying a lot of erratic behavior prior to
Speaker 1: their disappearances. It's also possible that some sort of murder
Speaker 1: suicide took place. This is one of those missing persons
Speaker 1: cases in which the discovery of the victims remains only
Speaker 1: raised more questions than answers. So we're going to explore
Speaker 1: all the different scenarios about what happened on today's episode.
Speaker 2: This is already one of the more horrific crimes we've
Speaker 2: talked about, or cases we've talked about. When we look
Speaker 2: at this. You have a family of three that goes
Speaker 2: missing and it's not till four years later they're discovered deceased. Now,
Speaker 2: what strikes me is really odd or two things at
Speaker 2: the scene. The thirty two thousand dollars that's under the
Speaker 2: seat in a money bag and the family dog logged
Speaker 2: in the car. For two reasons, if you were going
Speaker 2: to go on the run, why not get the dog
Speaker 2: set aside in a boarding kennel or having a family
Speaker 2: friend take care of them with the promise of returning,
Speaker 2: and they just don't return because the dog would be
Speaker 2: taken care of. And two, if you got that kind
Speaker 2: of money out or you were hoarding that kind of
Speaker 2: money to go on the run. Then why, all of
Speaker 2: a sudden is everyone deceased? So do you guys are
Speaker 2: will you be telling me more about the money and
Speaker 2: why that cash could have been there?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, definitely. And it is most certainly one of
Speaker 1: the most baffling details of this case because regardless of
Speaker 1: whether it was suicide or homicide buy an outside party,
Speaker 1: we really don't know why they had all that money
Speaker 1: there and why he was left behind in the vehicle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his career would have to be something where he's
Speaker 2: dealing in cash on large scales for it to make
Speaker 2: any kind of sense, because that's a lot of money.
Speaker 2: And to say that it's just sitting in the car
Speaker 2: while all of a sudden they go missing, it's almost
Speaker 2: like there was a plan to leave. But then when
Speaker 2: they're deceased, if they were already planning to be deceased
Speaker 2: or like to do a murder suicide, why take the
Speaker 2: money out. It's just very very confusing.
Speaker 3: Our story begins in Oklahoma in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3: Our central figures our forty four year old Bobby Jamison
Speaker 3: and his forty year old wife, Sherilyn Jamison, who have
Speaker 3: been together for seven years and live in a lakeside
Speaker 3: house in the small town of Ufaulla with her six
Speaker 3: year old daughter, Madison Jamison. Shrilyn also has a twelve
Speaker 3: year old son from a previous marriage named Coulton what
Speaker 3: her ex husband, who lives in Oklahoma City, took full
Speaker 3: custody of him in July this year. On the morning
Speaker 3: of October eighth, the Jamisons left their residents in their
Speaker 3: four door pickup truck and took their puppy dog, Maizie
Speaker 3: along with them. They were planning to travel to a
Speaker 3: rural area located in Latimer County next to the Sans
Speaker 3: Bois Mountains. In fact, the family already took a trip
Speaker 3: to this area the previous day, as Bobby had expressed
Speaker 3: interest in selling their house and purchasing a forty acre
Speaker 3: plot of land he read about on the internet. However,
Speaker 3: the Jamisons never returned home this time, but this did
Speaker 3: not immediately raise any alarm bells, since they were known
Speaker 3: for being a very private family who would sometimes disappear
Speaker 3: off the radar and not contact people they knew for
Speaker 3: long periods of time. Bobby and Sherilyn had also recently
Speaker 3: pulled Madison at a school to prepare her for homeschooling,
Speaker 3: so her absence wasn't noticed and the family was never
Speaker 3: officially reported missing. However, on October sixteenth, eight days after
Speaker 3: they were last seen, hunters discovered the jamisons abandoned pickup
Speaker 3: truck on a remote one way dirt road in Latimer County.
Speaker 3: The truck was parked near the top of Panola Mountain
Speaker 3: in a densely wooded area, which was a short distance
Speaker 3: south of the town of Kinta and about thirty miles
Speaker 3: away from the Jamison residence in Ufaula. Bobby's Schrylyn and
Speaker 3: Madison were nowhere to be found, but their dog, Maizie,
Speaker 3: was locked inside the truck. Maisie was so mild nourished
Speaker 3: that she was dying of starvation and had been eating
Speaker 3: her own feces to stay alive. Thankfully, when the Latimer
Speaker 3: County Sheriff's Office was summoned to the scene, they broke
Speaker 3: the glass and rescued Maizie, and she wound up making
Speaker 3: a full recovery before she went to live with Bobby's mother,
Speaker 3: Starlet Jamison. Even though the Jamisons were missing and the
Speaker 3: vehicle was in perfect working order, most of the family's
Speaker 3: personal possessions including their identification wallets, Shreland's purse, cell phones, coats, maps,
Speaker 3: empty prescription pill bottles, and a GPS unit were left
Speaker 3: behind inside the truck while the truck was locked. The
Speaker 3: keys himself could not be found, and there were no
Speaker 3: signs of any struggle led a broken glass. However, the
Speaker 3: most surprising discovery was a bank bag containing thirty two
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in cash, which is found hidden underneath the
Speaker 3: driver's seat and had been concealed by some of Bobby's tools.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me ask you guys this, are we
Speaker 2: going to go more into the careers or the backgrounds
Speaker 2: of mom and dad.
Speaker 1: We are, and spoiler alert, but it turns out they
Speaker 1: don't have the careers that they were both living on
Speaker 1: disabilities at this point.
Speaker 2: Okay, fantastic, because I was going to ask two things.
Speaker 2: When you talk about the fact that Sherilyn has a
Speaker 2: twelve year old son from that previous marriage who now
Speaker 2: lives with dad, that's not completely abnormal, but it takes
Speaker 2: a lot to assign full custody to the dad, and
Speaker 2: that part kind of raised a red flag for me.
Speaker 2: A twelve year old in some states has the right
Speaker 2: to say which parent they would prefer to live with.
Speaker 2: But that's just one part of the equation. And to
Speaker 2: say a parent loses complete access in any kind of
Speaker 2: to their child, it's not like ninety ten or you know,
Speaker 2: mom can visit on holidays or something like that. He
Speaker 2: gets full custody of the sun. That's unique when you
Speaker 2: talk about moms losing full custody. Also, when you talk
Speaker 2: about homeschooling, that is a big undertaking that requires mom
Speaker 2: and dad to feel pretty confident that they can homeschool
Speaker 2: and educate their child just as well, if not better
Speaker 2: than the schools that they'd be going to. And so
Speaker 2: my question was, like, you know, is mom have a
Speaker 2: background in education? Do mom and dad have like a
Speaker 2: kind of lifestyle where they want to expose her to
Speaker 2: traveling or those kinds of things. But I have a
Speaker 2: feeling I'm going to find out that may not be
Speaker 2: the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll get into more detail about this later, but
Speaker 1: you're going to learn that Bobby and Sherylyn do not
Speaker 1: seem to be in the best place mental health wise
Speaker 1: during this time period. And this is one reason why
Speaker 1: they have not discounted the possibility of a murder suicide.
Speaker 1: Most families, you would probably never even think that, but
Speaker 1: because they were acting very strangely around time period, it
Speaker 1: hasn't been ruled out.
Speaker 3: Did you ever see anything about the financials, Robin, because
Speaker 3: I've always thought it was really strange with this case,
Speaker 3: how they were living in like this beautiful lakeside house
Speaker 3: and they somehow had the money to be able to
Speaker 3: go and purchase this plot of land. I know they
Speaker 3: were both on disability, but it seemed like they living
Speaker 3: inside a house like they were living and then having
Speaker 3: a good chunk of money like they would have been
Speaker 3: living outside whatever would have been coming in, do you
Speaker 3: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talk about this a bit later. But they
Speaker 1: did get a bit of money during a settlement because
Speaker 1: Bobby had been in an accident, so I think that
Speaker 1: does account for at least the cash they were carrying.
Speaker 1: But it is true that it is odd that they
Speaker 1: were living in kind of a nice house and that
Speaker 1: because obviously they weren't making much money income because they
Speaker 1: were on disability and they were not employed. So I
Speaker 1: don't know if maybe one or both of their families
Speaker 1: were providing some financial support that allowed them to live
Speaker 1: on their own. But yeah, it does seem like they
Speaker 1: were living above their means.
Speaker 3: Because I don't know what houses go for and you follow,
Speaker 3: but pretty much anywhere you are, if your lakeside is
Speaker 3: going to be expensive.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, waterfront property would definitely be much more ssve
Speaker 2: than a regular property.
Speaker 1: There was a local resident who had cross paths with
Speaker 1: the Jamisons on a winding dirt road on October the seventh,
Speaker 1: the day before they went missing. Since they had got lost,
Speaker 1: Bobby stopped to ask the resident for directions. He also
Speaker 1: asked a number of questions about what it was like
Speaker 1: to live in the area and build a home there,
Speaker 1: and the witness thought the family appeared to be in
Speaker 1: good spirits. Another local resident, who lived about a quarter
Speaker 1: mile away from the spot where the pickup was found,
Speaker 1: would report having seen the Jamisons driving in that direction
Speaker 1: on October the eighth, but never saw them leave or
Speaker 1: were called seeing anyone else head towards that area. Over
Speaker 1: the course of the next eight days, other witnesses remembered
Speaker 1: having seen the pickup truck parked at that spot, but
Speaker 1: since it was near an oil well, they figured the
Speaker 1: truck probably belonged to a work crew. Curiously, a search
Speaker 1: of Bobby's phone record showed that his cell phone had
Speaker 1: made an outgoing call to its voicemail on October the twelfth.
Speaker 1: Investigators also checked GPS coordinates on the phone, which led
Speaker 1: them up a hill which was close to the truck,
Speaker 1: and they noticed footprints on the ground, some of which
Speaker 1: obviously belonged to Madison since they were child size. The
Speaker 1: footprints and the GPS coordinates eventually led to a large
Speaker 1: rock near the top of the hill. A search of
Speaker 1: Bobby's cell phone would uncover a photograph of Madison standing
Speaker 1: in front of this rock, with her mouth open and
Speaker 1: her arms crossed over each other in an odd position.
Speaker 1: Since Madison appeared to be looking away from the camera,
Speaker 1: some of the family's friends and relatives believed that she
Speaker 1: looked frightened and uncomfortable, possibly because the photo was being
Speaker 1: taken by someone else besides their parents, whom she did
Speaker 1: not know. In spite of this, the police did think
Speaker 1: that the Jamisons managed to walk back down the hill
Speaker 1: and climb into their truck, and may have attempted to
Speaker 1: drive away before something happened. Even though Latimer County Sheriff
Speaker 1: Israel Beecham would launch a massive search operation in the area,
Speaker 1: surrounding the truck. It failed to turn up any trace
Speaker 1: of Bobby, Cherylyn or Madison.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I just google this picture of little miss Madison,
Speaker 2: and when I look at it, I have several questions.
Speaker 2: I think it depends on which lends you're looking at
Speaker 2: this from and what Madison's other pictures look like. When
Speaker 2: you see her little face, she does have an unusual
Speaker 2: an unusual facial reaction to the picture.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: She's not having her traditional little smile or things like that.
Speaker 2: But also children at that age smile weird like sometimes.
Speaker 2: I remember I tell Reagan, like, just a normal smile, honey,
Speaker 2: don't be weird, just smile right like this, and I'd
Speaker 2: have to show her because she just had an odd.
Speaker 1: Look on her face when she took pictures.
Speaker 2: So they're learning how to express themselves and to make,
Speaker 2: you know, a cute little smile on camera. I'm wondering
Speaker 2: if there were any other photos found where she looks
Speaker 2: normal and she's smiling a cute little smile. The arms
Speaker 2: crossed look very unnatural to me, and the fact that
Speaker 2: her little shirt isn't fitting her well, it almost looks
Speaker 2: like a child who's neglected, who's not being cared for.
Speaker 2: So again it makes me wonder was that a byproduct
Speaker 2: of mom and dad and their mental condition or financial
Speaker 2: condition at the time that they couldn't get her little
Speaker 2: clothes that'd fit. Also possible her little arms cross her
Speaker 2: pulling her shirt up, but it looks like the shirt's
Speaker 2: too small on her, and that maybe her little pants
Speaker 2: are too small too. If someone had her, it's possible
Speaker 2: that they would have had her for four days, because
Speaker 2: you guys said October eighth, we have somebody saying they
Speaker 2: saw them, and that phone calls made October twelfth to
Speaker 2: the voicemail. So I could see it being a very
Speaker 2: scary situation if maybe mom and dad had been deceased
Speaker 2: and somebody else had her for those four days, keeping
Speaker 2: her alive and taking that picture of her. But then
Speaker 2: you say something to the effect of the police believed
Speaker 2: that they might have walked back down the hill and
Speaker 2: climbed into their truck to try to drive away. Yet
Speaker 2: when they find the truck again, it doesn't look like
Speaker 2: there's any struggle, and all of their personal belongings are
Speaker 2: sitting right there, So it's confusing if they got stopped
Speaker 2: and there's a struggle to get them out of the car,
Speaker 2: that's one thing, But the way the car was left,
Speaker 2: it seemed like everything was almost buttoned up, and then
Speaker 2: the family walks away, it never comes back. What made
Speaker 2: them think maybe they came back down.
Speaker 1: I guess it was the fact that maybe they saw footprints,
Speaker 1: or maybe they thought that there were like tire tracks
Speaker 1: to indicate that they tried to drive a short distance
Speaker 1: after they made it back to the truck and then
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, stopped again and got out. Perhaps if
Speaker 1: they were being confronted by an unknown party who decided
Speaker 1: to kill them or lead them away from the scene.
Speaker 1: When you look at all the evidence, there really isn't
Speaker 1: a scenario that makes a lot of sense. Because obviously,
Speaker 1: because Madison's photograph was taken, hear that rock, But the
Speaker 1: cell phone was found inside the truck at some point
Speaker 1: somebody had to come back down there and put the
Speaker 1: truck put the cell phone in there. But you have
Speaker 1: to wonder, why would an unknown third party do this,
Speaker 1: take this one photograph and then not even keep the phone.
Speaker 1: But that photograph has been the subject of so much
Speaker 1: interpretation from so many different people, and I think if
Speaker 1: Madison had not gone missing, no one would find anything
Speaker 1: unusual about it. But because it's the last known photo
Speaker 1: of her, people have just looked at it in so
Speaker 1: many different ways.
Speaker 2: And do you guys think the family the family's alluding
Speaker 2: to the fact that this looks bizarre, Like it's not
Speaker 2: just she's in that awkward state.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it would depend. Like you said,
Speaker 1: I have seen some other photographs of Madison online and
Speaker 1: none of them look like particularly unusual or that much
Speaker 1: different from this one. But I should notice that you
Speaker 1: are probably the first person I've seen point out that
Speaker 1: her shirt is too small for I've seen so much summary,
Speaker 1: but you're the first person who's brought that up. But
Speaker 1: that could be a sign that she was being neglected,
Speaker 1: because the Bobby and Cheril and at this point did
Speaker 1: not sound like people who are keeping track of their
Speaker 1: child's clothing and going out to buy her new stuff
Speaker 1: to make sure it fitter.
Speaker 2: That's just as that's the mom and me. When I
Speaker 2: see little ones that like going to school and their
Speaker 2: little pants are too short or their little shirts too
Speaker 2: short or too tight, I think, bless their hearts, because
Speaker 2: it's a possible mom and dad just can't afford to
Speaker 2: or aren't in the middle state to provide what that
Speaker 2: baby needs. But it's one of the first signs you
Speaker 2: can see outwardly that a baby's not being cared for
Speaker 2: the way they you would want them to be, right,
Speaker 2: to feel confident and safe and things like that.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be very confident that people that can't take
Speaker 3: care of their children in that capacity would have the
Speaker 3: ability or like the fortitude to be able to home
Speaker 3: school them in the way that would prepare them for
Speaker 3: the education that they may want to have later.
Speaker 2: Right, unless you were telling me that maybe there's like
Speaker 2: this religious angle where they're highly religious and they don't
Speaker 2: want her in public school, or there's some kind of
Speaker 2: like we're doomsday preppers and we're trying to keep her
Speaker 2: away from mainstream things like I've seen people's mental health
Speaker 2: struggles play into that decision too. But then do they
Speaker 2: truly provide the care and the need and the education
Speaker 2: that that child needs. Oftentimes not right, like the motivations
Speaker 2: they are un understandable. But then you start to look at, well,
Speaker 2: what can you provide for that baby, and it's not
Speaker 2: the safe learning environment that they need.
Speaker 3: Since the Jamison's had security cameras, installed outside of their residence,
Speaker 3: which pointed directly at the driveway. Sheriff Beacham watched the
Speaker 3: footage of them preparing to leave on October eighth. It
Speaker 3: showed Bobby and Sharlyn making at least twenty trips back
Speaker 3: and forth between the house and their pickup truck in
Speaker 3: order to load it with items, and oddly, they would
Speaker 3: sometimes move the same items multiple times. The couple did
Speaker 3: not seem to speak or acknowledge each other while this
Speaker 3: was going on, and Sheriff Beaucham described them as appearing
Speaker 3: to be in a trance like state, as they would
Speaker 3: sometimes just stop and stare with vacant looks on their faces.
Speaker 3: One of the most curious details about the footage is
Speaker 3: that it showed Sharlyn loading a brown briefcase into the truck,
Speaker 3: as his case was not present when the truck was
Speaker 3: discovered and has never been accounted for. In addition, Charlyn
Speaker 3: owned a twenty two caliber pistol and may have been
Speaker 3: carrying it when she left, but it could not be
Speaker 3: found in the truck or the house. When Sheriff Beecham
Speaker 3: had a psychologist examine the surveillance footage to analyze the
Speaker 3: Jameson's behavior. He seemed to believe that Bobby and Schrilyn
Speaker 3: were under the influence of drugs, possibly methamphetamine, which was
Speaker 3: very prevalent in Oklahoma during that time period. However, no
Speaker 3: traces of meth or any other drugs or drug related
Speaker 3: paraphernalia could be found in the truck or the Jamison residence,
Speaker 3: and it's never been conclusively proven if they were involved
Speaker 3: in illegal drugs in any way.
Speaker 2: Well, it's difficult to say that they were when you
Speaker 2: don't have any kinds of signs of a pipe or
Speaker 2: a spoon or anything found in the truck. If they
Speaker 2: were going away and they were drug addicts, I feel
Speaker 2: like you would find something in that truck that alluded.
Speaker 1: To the use of drugs.
Speaker 2: I also think you have to step back and look
Speaker 2: at the side effects of mental health episodes when people
Speaker 2: are manic or they're in, you know, extremely depressive episodes
Speaker 2: or things like that. They can also function in a
Speaker 2: trance like state. But when you look at the kiddo's pictures,
Speaker 2: it almost seems like if drugs were an issue, it's
Speaker 2: possible that the child was exposed to that as well.
Speaker 2: That could explain the oddness of the photo. But I
Speaker 2: looking at this don't see drug use at that moment,
Speaker 2: because again, you would have found something in that truck.
Speaker 2: If these are addicts on the run, if these are
Speaker 2: people about to escape, If these are people who are
Speaker 2: planning to be away for four days and they use drugs,
Speaker 2: likelihood is they'll need their drugs before they get home
Speaker 2: and they found nothing, So to me, I'd be leaning
Speaker 2: more towards could this be something of a middle health
Speaker 2: break instead of a drug addiction or kind of a
Speaker 2: drug induced state that could be causing that fixed trance
Speaker 2: like stare.
Speaker 1: I've run into.
Speaker 2: People who are in the middle of a mental health
Speaker 2: breakdown and they'd look through you, they don't make eye
Speaker 2: contact with you. There's very little ability to get their
Speaker 2: attention back to what you're talking about. So I think
Speaker 2: that's a possibility as well.
Speaker 3: I one hundred percent agree with that. I think that
Speaker 3: it is far more likely that it's a mental health
Speaker 3: episode rather than drugs, because I just don't think that
Speaker 3: you know, regardless of which drug the person is using,
Speaker 3: that they are going to actually care enough if they're
Speaker 3: using meth on a regular basis to scrub every little
Speaker 3: trace of meth from their home and also their vehicle.
Speaker 3: If you're not finding any evidence of that drug, I
Speaker 3: would say that meth would cause a pretty chaotic state
Speaker 3: that you wouldn't be thinking, Oh, let me clean up
Speaker 3: every little thing. You'd find something. I just think that
Speaker 3: Robin's going to talk more about Sharlyn's mental health in
Speaker 3: a minute, but I am just much more inclined to
Speaker 3: think exactly what she said ash that this is a
Speaker 3: mental health break, and it seems so unfortunate because they're
Speaker 3: both going through something at the same time, and poor
Speaker 3: little Madison is just along for the ride.
Speaker 1: As you recall, some empty prescription pill bottles were found
Speaker 1: in the truck, as Bobby and Shriylyn were on medication
Speaker 1: and had lost a lot of weight in the months
Speaker 1: prior to the disappearances. In two thousand and three, Bobby
Speaker 1: was involved in a serious vehicular accident with two other
Speaker 1: motorists which seriously injured his back and caused him to
Speaker 1: suffer from chronic pain, so he was legally classified as
Speaker 1: disabled and unable to work. Bobby filed a lawsuit against
Speaker 1: the defendants who were responsible for his accident, and according
Speaker 1: to his mother, Starlett, the suit was settled out of
Speaker 1: court for sixty four thousand dollars, and Bobby proceeded to
Speaker 1: split the money with his wife. Sharylyn was also legally
Speaker 1: classified as disabled and unable to work to chronic pain
Speaker 1: in her neck and shoulder, and she also suffered from
Speaker 1: bipolar disorder and depression. Even though Cherlyn had been prescribed
Speaker 1: medication to control her condition, she did not always take
Speaker 1: it when she was supposed to. Charln's depression hit her
Speaker 1: particularly hard when she lost her younger sister, Marla in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, as Marla suffered a failed beasting
Speaker 1: on her tongue, which caused her throat to swell. As
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, Charlyn also lost custody of her son, Colton,
Speaker 1: to her ex husband after a hearing in which Colton
Speaker 1: stated that he would prefer to live with his mother
Speaker 1: because his mother was often depressed and acted strangely. Only
Speaker 1: one month before she vanished, Shrilyn was hospitalized after a
Speaker 1: failed suicide attempt. She also spoke to Colton weeks later,
Speaker 1: and he claimed his mother never mentioned anything to him
Speaker 1: about the family's plans to move away and purchase land
Speaker 1: in Latimer County.
Speaker 2: Yeah her mental health had to be pretty severe because
Speaker 2: Colton is at the point where, at twelve years old,
Speaker 2: he can recognize how unstable and unhealthy she is. And
Speaker 2: not just does the judge say, Okay, your preference is
Speaker 2: to live with dad, but he says Mom gets zero
Speaker 2: access to him, zero custody rights to her son. So again,
Speaker 2: like I said, it's not like she was granted Christmas
Speaker 2: in summer break or anything. She lost custody of him.
Speaker 2: So it had to be pretty significant that this twelve
Speaker 2: year old signals I need to get out dad's able,
Speaker 2: to get him away from that situation, and the judge
Speaker 2: agrees Mom should have no access or no legal rights
Speaker 2: to him. So that speaks volumes. You also had the
Speaker 2: idea that she had also lost a sister and they're
Speaker 2: going through these difficult situations where Bobby loses his job
Speaker 2: and their own disability. They settle out of court for
Speaker 2: sixty four thousand. That's not a large amount of money
Speaker 2: in two thousand and three, and you've got to think
Speaker 2: some of that had to go to his attorney. So
Speaker 2: when you're looking at this case, how long would that
Speaker 2: money stress and provide the lifestyle that they have. You
Speaker 2: guys mentioned they had a really nice house in the
Speaker 2: lake that they seem to have, you know, things at
Speaker 2: their disposal. So sixty four thousand dollars is not going
Speaker 2: to stretch that far. She is dealing with a lot.
Speaker 2: She's has suicidal ideologies and actually acts on them, loses
Speaker 2: her son, loses her sister struggles with her mental health.
Speaker 2: Her husband is at home also struggling with disability. It's
Speaker 2: a recipe for disaster on multiple levels. With Bobby, is
Speaker 2: he experiencing the same kind of mental health or is
Speaker 2: it the chronic pain? And do we not does he
Speaker 2: have a problem with pain, medication or anything like that
Speaker 2: that would cause him to be in that same similar state.
Speaker 1: Possibly, well, he was never diagnosed with anything like he
Speaker 1: doesn't have the bipolar disorder and depression, but I do
Speaker 1: think he might be suffering some issues, maybe because of
Speaker 1: the chronic pain and the medication. Because we'll go into
Speaker 1: more detail about this momentarily, but both him and Sherilyn
Speaker 1: would start exhibiting like very bizarre behavior before they went missing.
Speaker 1: When and when you hear about your kind of will
Speaker 1: kind of cringe a little bit, saying, ooh, if this
Speaker 1: does not sound like a good situation. These two very
Speaker 1: troubled people looking after an innocent young child. That must
Speaker 1: be Tougher Madison. But yeah, it sounded like Bobby had
Speaker 1: his own problems as well.
Speaker 2: They also had empty prescription bottles in the car, so
Speaker 2: they didn't find full prescription bottles, which makes me wonder
Speaker 2: do they overdose on them or do they not take
Speaker 2: their medication the way they're supposed to, which would be
Speaker 2: a massive problem when you talk about mental health as well.
Speaker 3: Bobby also had his own familial problems, as Five months
Speaker 3: before he went missing, Bobby filed a lawsuit against his
Speaker 3: estrange father, Bob Dean Jamison, Sr. Alleging that Bob had
Speaker 3: once enticed him to work for free at a gas
Speaker 3: station he owned in Oklahoma City. According to Bobby, his
Speaker 3: father had promised he would inherit a half interest in
Speaker 3: the business in exchange for his lady, but instead Bob
Speaker 3: sold the gas station without giving any of the proceeds
Speaker 3: to his son. Bobby's relationship with his father had deteriorated
Speaker 3: so much that following the lawsuit, he also filed a
Speaker 3: petition for a protective order against him, claiming that Bob
Speaker 3: had threatened to kill his family and tried to run
Speaker 3: him over with a car. Bobby described his father as
Speaker 3: a quote very dangerous man who thinks he's above the
Speaker 3: law end quote, and claimed he used meth and was
Speaker 3: involved with gangs, prostitution, and the Mexican mafia. After over
Speaker 3: forty years of marriage, Bob's wife, Starlett had ended their
Speaker 3: marriage by divorcing him, and she was the one who
Speaker 3: suggested that Bobby installed security cameras outside his home in
Speaker 3: order to protect himself from his father. In December two
Speaker 3: thousand and nine, only two months after his son went missing,
Speaker 3: Bob passed away at the age of sixty seven. It
Speaker 3: would turn out the one year earlier, Bob had made
Speaker 3: his brother, Jack Jamieson executor of his estate and cut
Speaker 3: Bobby and Starlet out of his will. Instead, Bob left
Speaker 3: the entire estate to his granddaughter, though of course, by
Speaker 3: the time he died, Madison was no longer around to
Speaker 3: inherit it. In spite of the heated relationship between Bobby
Speaker 3: and his father, investigators concluded that Bob had a solid
Speaker 3: alibi during the time period is somewhat missing, and was
Speaker 3: likely not involved in the family's disappearance well. Jack Jamison
Speaker 3: did acknowledge that his brother was a disturbed man. He
Speaker 3: said that Bob spent the majority of his final months
Speaker 3: in either a hospital or a rest home and did
Speaker 3: not believe he was physically capable of traveling to a rugged,
Speaker 3: mountainous area to commit murder.
Speaker 2: When you started describing this, I thought, well, here we go.
Speaker 2: Dad had a reason and to you know, come after him.
Speaker 2: They were in this feud. But then you described that
Speaker 2: he passed away two months later, and his brother's even saying, yes, look,
Speaker 2: my brother's not a perfect man. He's got his own problems,
Speaker 2: but he's been so sick there's just no way for
Speaker 2: him to have traveled like that. It really does take
Speaker 2: him out of the situation. What's interesting is that even
Speaker 2: Mom divorces Dad and says, hey, you need to put
Speaker 2: some security cameras up because this man's unhinged. So it shows,
Speaker 2: even just within the family, that there's an issue with
Speaker 2: mental health, behavioral issues, abusive tendencies. That's scary. Everyone including Bobby,
Speaker 2: is confirming this behavior. If it was just Bobby saying
Speaker 2: my dad's crazy or my dad's a bad guy, I
Speaker 2: might not actually believe it. But when Mom and Bob's
Speaker 2: own brother says, look, there were some problems. We know
Speaker 2: that there's a family issue, but could he have killed them?
Speaker 2: I don't think so, Nor would he have left things
Speaker 2: to Madison if he knew he was going to go
Speaker 2: and actually take Madison's life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does seem like just an unfortunate coincidence that
Speaker 1: the family's experiencing so many problems. But yet, in addition,
Speaker 1: Bobby was in a situation where he felt his own
Speaker 1: father was trying to kill him. And this only brings
Speaker 1: up more questions about the family's financial situation, because it
Speaker 1: does not sound like Bobby was getting much financial support
Speaker 1: from his dad, since he cut him out of the
Speaker 1: business when they sold the gas station. So obviously Bob
Speaker 1: Senior was not paying for his Lakeside house or providing
Speaker 1: any financial support. So maybe it was being offered by
Speaker 1: Bobby's mother, Starlet, or something. Maybe she was financially well off.
Speaker 1: But it really says a lot that they could be
Speaker 1: together for forty years and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Starlett says, I'm divorcing him. I want nothing to do
Speaker 1: with him. He's completely unhinged.
Speaker 3: I wonder if when she left coincided with when he
Speaker 3: started to get sick. And while he was in that state,
Speaker 3: maybe he wasn't so threatening, so Starlett was like, I'm
Speaker 3: out of here.
Speaker 1: That would make sense. Yeah, maybe in the past she
Speaker 1: was too terrified to leave him before, but now she
Speaker 1: realizes he's pretty helpless, so it's safe for me to
Speaker 1: get away. Another person who was looked at as a
Speaker 1: potential suspect was a family friend named Kenneth Bellows, who
Speaker 1: had spent a couple months living at the Jamison residence
Speaker 1: as a boarder in exchange for helping them out and
Speaker 1: doing handywork around them house. However, in July of two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, Bellows revealed himself to be a white supremacist,
Speaker 1: and since Cherylyn had Native American heritage, he told her
Speaker 1: that anyone who did not have pure white blood deserved
Speaker 1: to die. This led to a heated argument in which
Speaker 1: Cherlyn grabbed a gun and pointed it at Bellow's head
Speaker 1: and demanded to get out of their house, and she
Speaker 1: also fired a shot into the ground beneath Bellows's feet
Speaker 1: to convince him to leave. Even though Bellows had an
Speaker 1: extensive criminal record, investigators cleared him of having any involvement
Speaker 1: in the Jamison's disappearance, since it turned out he was
Speaker 1: in jail during the time period they went missing. But
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, Shrilyn's closest friend, Nicki Shennold, claimed she once
Speaker 1: got an anonymous phone call from a woman who said
Speaker 1: she had belonged to a white supremacy group. The woman
Speaker 1: claimed that she saw the Jamison's names in a book
Speaker 1: which contained a list of people whom the leader of
Speaker 1: this group supposedly had a problem with, and she also
Speaker 1: said she overheard conversations about how they had been taken
Speaker 1: care of. The caller was never identified. One reason Nikki
Speaker 1: believed she might have been telling the truth was because
Speaker 1: she accurately described the insignia on Bobby's wedding ring, a
Speaker 1: piece of information that very few people knew.
Speaker 2: Well, this is a horrifying development. When you look at this.
Speaker 2: You have Bellows who says, listen, I'm this white supremacist
Speaker 2: and anyone who doesn't have pure Caucasian blood needs to die.
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, he's telling this to a
Speaker 2: Native American family. So obviously, Cheryl Lynn says, like, hold
Speaker 2: up a second, you can exit here, and she goes
Speaker 2: to great extent to let him know you're no longer
Speaker 2: welcome here by firing this gun underneath the floorboard at
Speaker 2: him and things like that. It is possible that Bellows
Speaker 2: goes back to his white supremacist leader and says, these
Speaker 2: people threatened me. These people attacked me and came at me.
Speaker 2: Now we have to take them out like they're dangerous.
Speaker 2: It reinforces their messed up ideology anyway, right, reinforce is
Speaker 2: that these are now quote problems. And then this phone call,
Speaker 2: she's identifying an insignia on Bobby's wedding ring that very
Speaker 2: few people knew about. That's horrifying because that's a very
Speaker 2: specific little detail that unless you had close access to him,
Speaker 2: you might not know was his wedding ring on his
Speaker 2: finger or in the grave when he was found.
Speaker 1: Uh, they never really revealed that information about whether they
Speaker 1: had any jewelry with them, because at that point they
Speaker 1: would be nothing but bones. But if they did still
Speaker 1: have the wedding ring at the scene, that information has
Speaker 1: never been released publicly. I know that there had been
Speaker 1: like flash floods in the area, and like they've been
Speaker 1: out in the elements for full years, four years, so
Speaker 1: anything could have happened in the ring in that time period.
Speaker 1: But it's true though, that if it was missing and
Speaker 1: they couldnot find it, you could take that as a
Speaker 1: sign that maybe, if foul play took place, that someone
Speaker 1: took the ring as some sort of souvenir.
Speaker 3: It almost sounds like such a ridiculous theory until you
Speaker 3: hear about the insigne, and then you're going to pause,
Speaker 3: because how the heck would this woman have that type
Speaker 3: of information. It sounds like it's something that only people
Speaker 3: who were close to Bobby would know, so you can't
Speaker 3: just pull that out of thin air. No one ever
Speaker 3: emerged as a solid suspect in the Jamison's disappearances, but
Speaker 3: Bobby and Shrilyn had both displayed troubling and erratic behavior
Speaker 3: before they went missing. At separate times, the couple told
Speaker 3: their local pastor that they believed their home was haunted
Speaker 3: and they had supposedly seen spirits inside the residence and
Speaker 3: on the roof. In fact, Bobby asked the pastor for
Speaker 3: advice on how to get rid of them, and inquired
Speaker 3: if there was a special bullet he could buy which
Speaker 3: was made to kill spirits. Charlyn also said that Madison
Speaker 3: had been speaking with the spirit of a deceased child
Speaker 3: named Emily, but Chrilyn feared that it was a malevolent entity.
Speaker 3: She seemed to believe that she had the power to
Speaker 3: exercise these demons from the home and had been assaulting
Speaker 3: Satanic bibles for information about how to deal with the problem.
Speaker 3: The Jamisons also had a large storage container on their
Speaker 3: property and they were apparently planning to live in it
Speaker 3: if they purchased a plot of land in Latimer County.
Speaker 3: At one point, Cherylyn wrote graffiti on the container which
Speaker 3: read quote three cats killed to date by people in
Speaker 3: this area. Witches don't like their black cats being killed.
Speaker 3: End quote. The story goes that Sharlyn's cat had passed
Speaker 3: away and she believed that her neighbors had poisoned it,
Speaker 3: and since they were reportedly rumors circulating throughout the community
Speaker 3: that Shrilyn was a witch, she decided to write this
Speaker 3: message in order to scare everyone off. A number of
Speaker 3: letters were found inside the Jamison residence which seemed to
Speaker 3: indicate that Bobby and Cherylyn were obsessed with death, but
Speaker 3: one of the most troubling pieces of evidence was an angry,
Speaker 3: eleven page letter and Charlyn had written to Bobby that
Speaker 3: was found inside their pickup truck. The whole thing was
Speaker 3: described as a hate letter. Charlyn expressed her desire for divorce,
Speaker 3: referring to her husband is a loner and a hermit
Speaker 3: and accusing him of not caring about their daughter. One
Speaker 3: troubling line she wrote read quote, I would not wish
Speaker 3: my daughter to be raised in foster care because of you,
Speaker 3: you being in prison for attempted murder and her mother dead.
Speaker 3: Some of Scherlyn's friends confirmed but she'd spoken of divorcing
Speaker 3: Bobby and said that the writing in her letter represented
Speaker 3: the type of moods wing Cherylyne experienced whenever her bipolar
Speaker 3: disorder took over.
Speaker 2: There is a lot to unpack in what you just said, Jules.
Speaker 2: So okay, I have a problem with the fact that
Speaker 2: we're going to Satanic Bibles to start looking at exercising
Speaker 2: the home. We're talking to the pastor about are there
Speaker 2: bullets that I can use to kill these spirits, and
Speaker 2: that they think their little one is being influenced by
Speaker 2: a demonic force in that realm, if mom and dad
Speaker 2: are both starting to engage in this idea of needing
Speaker 2: to exercise the family and needing to the home, and
Speaker 2: these kinds of things. Could it have gone as far
Speaker 2: as we have to kill those of us who have
Speaker 2: been infiltrated by these demons, right, like that's the only
Speaker 2: way to get them out of us or to get
Speaker 2: away from this. So that could be something where mom
Speaker 2: and dad are both on that similar playing field, right.
Speaker 2: But you also have this letter that to me could
Speaker 2: go two ways. It could have enraged Bobby to the
Speaker 2: point like you're not taking my daughter and leaving where
Speaker 2: he says murder suicide for the whole family to prevent that.
Speaker 2: And also it could indicate that shary Lynn's at her
Speaker 2: wits end and she says, I'm not going to leave
Speaker 2: this baby in foster care so and I'm scared of
Speaker 2: you or I don't love you anymore, and she's the
Speaker 2: one who initiates a murder suicide of the whole family
Speaker 2: to get out of the life that they currently lead.
Speaker 2: So to me, there's like the satanic or paranormal angle
Speaker 2: where they're trying to see how they get this demon
Speaker 2: possessed entity away from their daughter and or their home
Speaker 2: or themselves. She's a witch. Could they have thought death
Speaker 2: was a way to rid their family of these spirits?
Speaker 2: We have the husband could have turned because of this
Speaker 2: angry letter, or we have the wife could have turned
Speaker 2: because of this angry letter. So to me, there's three
Speaker 2: internal issues that would say it's not an external person
Speaker 2: coming in and hurting the family, it's generated from mom
Speaker 2: and dad. From one of those three angles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty disturbing. And we were talking about their
Speaker 1: financial situation and how because they weren't making much income,
Speaker 1: how lucky they were to have this house near the lake.
Speaker 1: But as far as I can tell, they never actually
Speaker 1: sold their house, like they were going to try to
Speaker 1: purchase a plot of land, but it's unclear what kind
Speaker 1: of arrangements they had where they're actually going to live
Speaker 1: inside the storage container on the land. And when you
Speaker 1: hear this, you get the impression that the only reason
Speaker 1: they're doing this is because they believe their house is haunted,
Speaker 1: and that even though they haven't been able to sell
Speaker 1: it and they're probably going to lose a lot of
Speaker 1: money if they do, so that they're kind of desperate
Speaker 1: to get out of there and possibly go off and
Speaker 1: live in this remote place. And when you see all
Speaker 1: this stuff, that get to really really concern for Madison
Speaker 1: because she is clearly like living in a house with
Speaker 1: two very mentally unwell parents, and you start fearing that
Speaker 1: the worst could have happen to her.
Speaker 3: It's scary too because of the mental health angle. You
Speaker 3: see these two people who are not only withdrawing Madison
Speaker 3: from school, they're both withdrawing from it seems like friendships
Speaker 3: and relationships. And they're going to be moving to this
Speaker 3: rural place. And this isn't a converted storage unit. This
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like a very suitable place to be living
Speaker 3: for a child, Like there's not running water, there doesn't
Speaker 3: seem to be toilets. And I'm not trying to judge
Speaker 3: a situation. I just don't think that these two people
Speaker 3: are in a state of mind at this point be
Speaker 3: able to care for her. You just see hallmarks of
Speaker 3: bipolar mania in that Cherylyn believe that she's got these
Speaker 3: special powers. And I'm not don't want to get into
Speaker 3: any arguments about psychics or anything. I believe certain people
Speaker 3: have abilities, but the belief in supernatural and believing one
Speaker 3: episode of certain abilities are as special in that type
Speaker 3: of a way can definitely indicate that somebody is experiencing mania.
Speaker 1: The family would remain missing for over four years and
Speaker 1: received national exposure when the case was featured on an
Speaker 1: episode of Disappeared, which aired in December of twenty ten. However,
Speaker 1: on November sixteenth, twenty thirteen, a family was on a
Speaker 1: deer hunting trip in Smokestack Hollow, a valley located just
Speaker 1: northwest of the Sans Boas Mountains in Latimer County, when
Speaker 1: they discovered three human skulls which appeared to belong to
Speaker 1: two adults and a child. A further search of the
Speaker 1: area would soon turn up additional skull to remains, as
Speaker 1: well as bits of clothing and shoes. Since this location
Speaker 1: was less than three miles away from the spot where
Speaker 1: the Jamison's pickup truck had been abandoned, it was immediately
Speaker 1: assumed that the remains belonged to the family, but it
Speaker 1: would not be until July of twenty fourteen when it
Speaker 1: was officially announced that the victims have been positively identified
Speaker 1: as Bobby, Cherylyn, and Madison. Unfortunately, since having decomposition and
Speaker 1: animal predation had taken place, the medical examiner cannot determine
Speaker 1: an exact cause of death for any of them. Due
Speaker 1: to Bobby and Sherlyn's erratic behavior prior to their disappearances.
Speaker 1: One possible theory which was pushed forward is that either
Speaker 1: or both of them could have orchestrated a murder suicide
Speaker 1: which involved killing their daughter before they killed themselves, but
Speaker 1: no murder weapon could be found at the scene, since
Speaker 1: the weather had been cold on the day of the
Speaker 1: family disappeared, and they left their coats behind in the truck.
Speaker 1: There was also speculation that they could have wandered off
Speaker 1: and gotten lost before they died of exposure, but this
Speaker 1: could not be conclusively proven either. The victim's friends and
Speaker 1: relatives still seemed to believe they were murdered, and one
Speaker 1: of the wildest theories was presented by Charland's mother, Connie Cockaton,
Speaker 1: who believed that a religious cult operating in southwest Oklahoma
Speaker 1: have put the family on their hit list. While Connie
Speaker 1: did not name this cult, she refused to believe that
Speaker 1: either of Madison's parents would have done anything to harmor
Speaker 1: and mentioned a discussion that Bobby once had with Sherilyn
Speaker 1: about the family's financial troubles, where he standed, quote, I
Speaker 1: know where I can get the money, but I won't
Speaker 1: involve you end quote. Unfortunately, since the Jamison's remains were
Speaker 1: discovered eleven years ago. There don't appear to have been
Speaker 1: any new major developments in the investigation, so the exact
Speaker 1: circumstances of how they died continues to remain a bizarre
Speaker 1: unsolved mystery. So I guess you could say the path
Speaker 1: went Chiley.
Speaker 2: What's so difficult is that the bones when you discovered
Speaker 2: those remains, and because there's so much animal predation and
Speaker 2: things like that out there, if there were marks on
Speaker 2: the bones, it would be difficult to say is it
Speaker 2: animal induced or was it weapon induced? But you know,
Speaker 2: it's sad because you think about what could you do
Speaker 2: for a murder. Suicide wouldn't leave incredible marks on the bones,
Speaker 2: like a gunshop wound to the head would have obviously
Speaker 2: a defined wound to the skull. So if they don't
Speaker 2: see things like that, I started thinking, Okay, well, what
Speaker 2: could have happened. There are empty prescription bottles, so it's
Speaker 2: possible that the parents could have overdosed but and strangled
Speaker 2: I or suffocated the baby. But other than that, it
Speaker 2: is possible there were injuries on the bones, and they
Speaker 2: just can't distinguish if it's you know, stab marks or
Speaker 2: things like that, or if it's from an animal's teeth
Speaker 2: or claws. So it's kind of confusing when we sit
Speaker 2: back and we say there's no way for them to
Speaker 2: determine cause of death? Is it because the bones were
Speaker 2: so damaged and they don't know from what or were
Speaker 2: there zero signs of any kind of weapon being used
Speaker 2: against their bodies?
Speaker 1: Well, their bones were quite scattered because they found the
Speaker 1: skulls and then they found other remains nearby. But I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that they could not find any gunshot holes on
Speaker 1: any of the skulls or in any of the bones,
Speaker 1: And of course they did not find any gun nearby
Speaker 1: at the scene, so they don't have any conclusive evidence
Speaker 1: that any of them were shot. And if there was
Speaker 1: damage to the moones, like, how do you determine if
Speaker 1: it's caused by a weapon or if it was caused
Speaker 1: by say the elements or animal predation. Because the remains
Speaker 1: had been there for four years.
Speaker 3: Did they ever account for Charln's twenty two caliber.
Speaker 1: No, they never did find it to it, and the
Speaker 1: briefcase that she was seen loading in the truck were
Speaker 1: never found anywhere.
Speaker 2: That's super odd too. The briefcases really disturbing, like was
Speaker 2: there money in it? Was there something in that they
Speaker 2: were trying to go meet up with someone in trade
Speaker 2: for money or very bizarre.
Speaker 1: Anyway, this case is something of a milestone for yours truly,
Speaker 1: because it happened to be the subject of the very
Speaker 1: first episode of Disappeared I ever watched, and since I
Speaker 1: believe this was a very baffling mystery, I immediately became
Speaker 1: hooked on the show and became convinced it was the
Speaker 1: second coming of unsolved mysteries. Now, another case involving a
Speaker 1: missing family which got featured on Disappeared and took place
Speaker 1: only four months after this one, was the disappearance of
Speaker 1: a couple named Joseph and Summer Micstay and their two boys,
Speaker 1: four year old Gianni and three year old Joseph Junior,
Speaker 1: who all vanished from their home in Barbaro, California, on
Speaker 1: February the fourth, twenty ten. At the time, I found
Speaker 1: both of these cases to be absolutely perplexing, because how
Speaker 1: often does an entire family just disappear off the face
Speaker 1: of the earth. But in a truly astonishing coincidence, Even
Speaker 1: though these two cases were not connected at all and
Speaker 1: took place in different states. The micsdays and Jamison's would
Speaker 1: be discovered within the exact same week. On November eleventh,
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, the skeleton remains of Joseph summer Gianni and
Speaker 1: Joseph Junior were found buried in a pair of shallow
Speaker 1: graves in a remote desert area of s of San
Speaker 1: Bernardino County, and of course it would only be five
Speaker 1: days later when the jamisons remains refound. The key difference
Speaker 1: between the two cases is that the Micstays were clearly
Speaker 1: the victims of foul play, and a suspect named Charles
Speaker 1: Chase Merritt would eventually be charged, tried, and convicted of
Speaker 1: their murders. But we still don't have the faintest idea
Speaker 1: of what actually happened to the Jamisons, as the cause
Speaker 1: of death for Bobby, Sherylan and Madison has never been determined.
Speaker 1: If foul play did take place here, it's still up
Speaker 1: for debate whether the deaths were the result of an
Speaker 1: unknown third party or a murder suicide from someone within
Speaker 1: the family. In most cases, the latter scenario might not
Speaker 1: seem likely, but because Bobby and Cherylyn have been acting
Speaker 1: so strangely just prior to their disappearances, you cannot rule
Speaker 1: anything out. While he isn't heading the investigation anymore. Former
Speaker 1: Latimer County Sheriff Israel Beecham stated during the Disappeared episode,
Speaker 1: quote most investigators would love to have the amount of
Speaker 1: evidence that we have the problem is that it leads
Speaker 1: us in every which direction end quote. Indeed, Beacham stated
Speaker 1: that he could not eliminate any of the potential scenarios
Speaker 1: in this case, yet he acknowledged that there was no
Speaker 1: strong evidence that specifically pointed to any one of them.
Speaker 1: Of course, at the time Beacham said this, the Jamisons
Speaker 1: were still missing persons. So I guess we can now
Speaker 1: technically eliminate a couple of potential scenarios which have been
Speaker 1: put forward, which had been put forward, such as the
Speaker 1: family going into witness protection or disappearing involuntarily to live
Speaker 1: off the grid somewhere.
Speaker 2: What's really interesting is he's right, there's almost too many
Speaker 2: scenarios of what could have happened. We have a lot
Speaker 2: of cases where we say, who would want to hurt
Speaker 2: this person? They were just the normal all American girl
Speaker 2: going missing, right, But here you have two parents that
Speaker 2: seem to have some mental health issues going on, some
Speaker 2: more extreme than others. You might have financial issues. There's
Speaker 2: also this discussion with the occult and witchcraft and the
Speaker 2: Satanic worship trying to free their home of demon a
Speaker 2: strained marriage, at least when mental health is aring up right,
Speaker 2: there seems to be an expression of not wanting to
Speaker 2: be married anymore and frustrations there. But then you also
Speaker 2: have a tie to white supremacy, you have a tie
Speaker 2: to the witchcraft community, and so it's just interesting when
Speaker 2: you start looking at this case. It has so many
Speaker 2: legs to the spider right that the web is almost
Speaker 2: impossible to interpret. So it is one of those cases
Speaker 2: where it's the opposite of what you see. Sometimes there's
Speaker 2: a ton of possible scenarios, and it also could have
Speaker 2: been some random opportunistic predator who wanted to hurt them,
Speaker 2: or someone in a business deal gone bad. But overall,
Speaker 2: none of them have any depth to the cause of
Speaker 2: death right or to who could have hurt the Jamisons.
Speaker 2: It's all just saying here are some possible scenarios.
Speaker 3: One more layer that I find interesting that might you know,
Speaker 3: contribute to state of mind. The state of mind of
Speaker 3: Bobby is that he did have that injury. And I've
Speaker 3: heard over all the different coverage of this case, and
Speaker 3: probably on the original Disappeared episode because I remember it too, Robin.
Speaker 3: It was one that I was obsessed with that when
Speaker 3: that came out and the McStay family, I was hooked
Speaker 3: on Disappeared, and I remember thinking, like, this is a
Speaker 3: man who has an injury, and I just don't see
Speaker 3: that he would have this ability to hike out there.
Speaker 3: But also, chronic pain can really impact somebody's mental health
Speaker 3: and their state of mind. So there's just like so
Speaker 3: many pieces here, like so many layers to this onion
Speaker 3: that when you continue to peel them back, it's just
Speaker 3: there's a million different avenues to pursue. So I can
Speaker 3: understand why law enforcement looked at it and was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: most investigations would be happy to have this amount of information,
Speaker 3: but it can almost feel fractured at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that point you brought up about Bobby's chronic pain,
Speaker 1: like if the remains had found it relatively close proximity
Speaker 1: to the vehicle, I could to the truck, I could think, Okay,
Speaker 1: they walked into the woods and they orchestrated and murdered suicide.
Speaker 1: But when you find out that it was nearly three
Speaker 1: miles and you're thinking, could Bobby have been capable of
Speaker 1: walking that far and also taking a small child along
Speaker 1: with them? And you wonder, like, even regardless of whether
Speaker 1: it was murder suicide, or murdered by an unknown party,
Speaker 1: you still wonder, how did the Jamisons get that far out?
Speaker 2: Isn't it also possible, though, that Bobby's exaggerating the injury.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying he is, but remember they're in financial distress,
Speaker 2: They've had multiple issues. Neither of them seem very stable.
Speaker 2: If you look at someone who says like I got
Speaker 2: cut out of my dad's business, you know, if you
Speaker 2: claim to be disabled and you play that up you
Speaker 2: have access to your pain medicine, that could be a
Speaker 2: sign of addiction as well. You might be able to
Speaker 2: treat your own mental health issues with that pain medicine
Speaker 2: by dulling your emotions. I think it's possible that he
Speaker 2: was very injured and that was just a blessing that
Speaker 2: he was able to get disability. But you also have
Speaker 2: to step back and say, given that his wife is
Speaker 2: already on disability and struggling with mental health and everything
Speaker 2: else in their life, doesn't seem stable either. Could disability
Speaker 2: have been a way to collect money and not have
Speaker 2: to go to work? Like, could that be a possibility
Speaker 2: in the scenario. I think it's possible, because again, it
Speaker 2: gives him access to care and prescriptions that he wouldn't
Speaker 2: have if he wasn't claiming the chronic pain.
Speaker 3: Correct me if I'm wrong, Robin, But didn't people who
Speaker 3: are close to them say that they didn't think that
Speaker 3: Bobby would be able to hike that distance exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it does seem very believable because this so
Speaker 1: called accident took place like six years before this, and
Speaker 1: I think he underwent like a major examination, like the determined, yes,
Speaker 1: you have a serious injury, you cannot work, and that's
Speaker 1: how he got the disability payments. So I don't think
Speaker 1: that he was exaggerating it in any way. I think he
Speaker 1: was in bad shape. And the fact that his family
Speaker 1: members and friends have said the same thing that we
Speaker 1: find it unlikely he could have hiked nearly three miles
Speaker 1: adds just a whole other layer of mystery to the
Speaker 1: whole situation.
Speaker 3: And why would they want to, like just if they
Speaker 3: were if it was a murder suicide and either Shrilyn
Speaker 3: or Bobby was responsible. If Bobby was responsible, why would
Speaker 3: he choose to go so far that it would be
Speaker 3: so painful for him to do so? And if Shrilyn
Speaker 3: was responsible for it, why would she push everybody to
Speaker 3: go that far? Wouldn't you just go like half a
Speaker 3: mile or something and just go somewhere where it's very concealed.
Speaker 3: It just seems like such a great distance to travel
Speaker 3: when you just don't need to exactly.
Speaker 2: But if I was going to take my family and
Speaker 2: say I'm trying to, you know, get the demon out
Speaker 2: or I'm trying to spare them from hurt, wouldn't you
Speaker 2: want to be discovered? Like wouldn't you want the baby's
Speaker 2: body to be laid to rest at some point?
Speaker 1: So I think this would be a good time to
Speaker 1: bring in into part one. But join us next week
Speaker 1: as we present part two of our series about the
Speaker 1: unexplained deaths of the Jamison family.
Speaker 3: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
Speaker 1: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
Speaker 1: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
Speaker 1: Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier three,
Speaker 1: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
Speaker 1: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoid. It's
Speaker 1: about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the
Speaker 1: very first episode that I did a commentary track over
Speaker 1: was the episode featuring this case. So if you want
Speaker 1: to download a commentary track in which I make more
Speaker 1: smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to
Speaker 1: join Tier three.
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Jeweles and Nashty Patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 4: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
Speaker 4: Pathwent chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
Speaker 4: they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
Speaker 4: turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
Speaker 4: so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
Speaker 3: We'll link them in the show notes.
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Speaker 3: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy