Have you ever looked around your neighborhood at your friends, your co-workers, or the family next door and wondered what secrets are they hiding behind closed doors? Most of the time, everything seems perfectly normal. Morning coffee, weekend plans, family vacations. But the truth is, everyone has their struggles, and sometimes those struggles can run deeper than anyone can imagine.
An ordinary family moves into their dream home. It’s practically paradise. a big home on a beautiful shining lake. A cute dog playing with their six-year-old in the big front yard. But then they go dark. At first, everyone’s too busy with their own lives to notice that they’re gone. But soon, someone stumbles upon a clue that turns this modern American family into a modern-day nightmare.
[Music] Hi everyone, welcome to episode 52 of the Dark Liberty podcast. I’m your host Kimberlya and I am here with my co-host, the merch maker extraordinaire, John. Hi, Dark Liberty is the dark downward slope into the degradation of the human mind and the consequences that such darkness brings to light.
With every case, we take you on a new journey. And speaking of journeys, have you ever stepped into the world of June Parker? The sharp-wed detective with a knack for uncovering the truth in June’s Journey, a captivating free to download hidden object mystery game set in the backdrop of the 1920s.
June’s Journey is kindly supporting our channel and sponsoring today’s video. It’s the perfect blend of murder mystery and hidden object puzzle solving. I’ve been playing June’s Journey for a while now, and it’s becoming my go-to way to unwind, especially after researching very heavy topics. In the story, tragedy strikes and June is catapulted into a thrilling investigation to solve her sister Claire’s murder as she uncovers long buried secrets within her own family.
If you like solving crimes, you’re going to love being part of this adventure. With each new scene, the mystery only deepens, and then you get further and further to solving the case. And with new chapters being released every week, there’s always a fresh mystery to solve and new layers to uncover.
Or you can do what I do and decorate your own property on an island. and mine is coming along rather nicely, if I do say so myself. I even have a couple cute beagles and a picnic set as well in my front yard. There are many in-game rewards, and you can play with others, too, by joining a club or taking part in special competitions.
I try to compete with John all the time. Sometimes I do win, but I’ll admit he’s better. At least I’m playing a game as June Parker and I feel good about myself because she’s smart and she’s independent and she’s not someone with a badge. She doesn’t have all the fancy crime lab equipment. She just uses her intuition and her intelligence to solve the case cuz she’s a lot like us.
She listens to people’s stories and she encourages them not to give up and to fight for the truth. We’re really excited for you to download June’s Journey for free by clicking the link below in the description or scanning the QR code on the screen. And thanks again to June’s Journey for sponsoring today’s video and making it possible.
Now, let’s get into the case for today. Last time, somebody actually thought I was saying my codependent husband who was co-defendant in life. Like codependent, like we’re doing this together. I don’t think my jokes go over well with everyone, but I like them. And I like you and your new merch. And that’s what I was going to talk about.
I Baby, I’m sitting on the merch. I should be wearing it, but I’m not. Shame on me. But we have new merch and this has been a really popular design and it’s all because of Jonathan. It’s the Trust No One Club. We have a bunch of different designs and styles, I should say. And on the back there’s the little cub.
There it is. I think it’s adorable. I think it’s cute. I wanted one. I got one. And like I said, there are many different styles to choose from. And I’m wearing soup. Oh, yes. That’s the other one. And I like that one as well. So definitely go get some before the summer styles come and these are replaced.
And that’s a big thank you to him to show support for our channel as well. And then please don’t forget to come and see us live in person at CrimeCon. We are getting closer and closer and we have a special code for you for money off below. So get your tickets while they last and come hang out. Now let’s get into the case.
First, we’re going to take you to October 16th of 2009 in Pola Mountain, Oklahoma. The woods were quiet. It was hunting season. A few friends were scouting the dense forest near the Sandboy Mountains, trying to find the perfect spot to set up. But as they navigated the twisting, uneven roads, something got their attention.
A white pickup truck sitting awkwardly on a steep incline. It looked like somebody just hopped out quickly, except no one was around. The Tux tires were caked with mud, and the entire vehicle was just oddly positioned. This wasn’t a place where you would casually leave your car. Curious but cautious, they approached the truck and they noticed something immediately unsettling.
A small dog barely moving inside the locked vehicle. The animal seemed weak and confused and as if it had been trapped for days. Their anxiety spiked. Whoever owned this truck clearly hadn’t planned to leave for long, so they circled the vehicle, noting the cluttered interior. soda cans, scattered papers, prescription pill bottles, and then bizarrely, a life-sized Barbie doll propped stiffly in the back seat.
But the strangest thing of all were the items you would expect the owners to carry with them if they plan on leaving the car behind, their wallets were still there, their jackets neatly piled, and two abandoned cell phones. Something wasn’t right. The Latimer County Sheriff’s Office was called and arrived shortly and with urgency.
They shattered the window to rescue the dog and then the dog curled weakly into his lap. It was then that they ran the plates, finally putting a name to the eerie scene before them. It was troubling. The Jameson family, Bobby Dale Jameson, who was 44, Cherylyn Leanne Duncan Jameson, who was 40, and their daughter, Madison Stormmy Star Jameson, only 6 years old.
A quick search reviewed the Jamesons hadn’t been reported missing, but they’d been unreachable for over a week. Where had the Jamesons gone? What or who had chased them from their vehicle, forcing them to abandon their dog, their phones, and their money? This wasn’t just a missing person’s case. This was a chilling mystery.
And the haunting question was, what really happened to the Jameson family? The Jameson seemed like the kind of family you might pass on the street without giving a second glance. ordinary, quiet, just living their lives. But beneath the surface, their story was complicated. It was layered and it was tinged with darkness that most of us could hardly fathom.
So, let’s rewind way before their mysterious disappearance in the mountains of Oklahoma to truly understand who the Jamesons were. First, we’ll introduce you to Cherylyn Leanne Duncan Jameson. She was born November 5th of 1968 in Oklahoma. And Cherylyn’s life started out tough. Her mom, Connie Cakotin, was a single parent.
And from a young age, Cherylyn found herself shouldering responsibilities well beyond her years. With the birth of her younger sister, Mara, Cherylyn became more than just a sister. She was practically a second parent. She cooked, cleaned, took pride in caring for Mara, and the two sisters became inseparable. Their faces were almost identical as well, but their lives were destined to be dramatically different.
At 16, desperate for independence and escape, Cherylyn married young. And although that early marriage didn’t last, Cherylyn pushed forward fiercely. She attended hair school and she found a passion as a butician. She then threw herself into her work, diving into cosmetology and sharing this interest deeply with her sister Mara, who was also a cosmetologist.
Cherylyn’s style was unapologetically bold. She had dark hair, a pierced eyebrow, a belly button ring, and she was always marching to the beat of her own drum. People who knew her said she was authentic to her core, a fierce advocate for the underdog, and someone who wasn’t afraid to stand out, even if it meant she walked alone.
And Cherylyn was deeply spiritual. She was fascinated by energies and auras and the law of attraction. Everything in her life had meaning to her. Every coincidence was a sign. Every small event could hold profound significance. And while her beliefs might have been kind of unconventional, Cherylyn didn’t care what other people thought.
But life wasn’t always smooth sailing. Her 20s were marked by a string of marriages, four in total, including relationships with Jeffrey Walling and Billy Mangum, who she had a son with. His name was Colton. Her personal life often mirrored her turbulent childhood. But she kept seeking stability, meaning, and even happiness wherever she could find it.
And eventually, she found it with Bobby Jameson. So, let me tell you about Bobby Dale Jameson. He was born on August 4th, 1965. And Bobby was a quieter soul, growing up in rural Oklahoma as the only child of starlet Jean Vader and Bob Dean Jameson, whom we’ll call Bob Senior. Bobby found solace in the outdoors.
Unlike his father, a tough army vet and businessman who prized traditional masculinity, Bobby was gentle, sensitive, and introspective. He’d spend his days swimming in creeks, studying plants, and hunting for rocks. He was patient and great with his hands, and he loved to fix things, especially old houses.
To him, nature was comfort, a sanctuary far from his father’s shadow. Despite Bobby’s shyness, his childhood wasn’t lonely. He cherished close relationships, especially with his cousin Dana, who spent summers helping at his father’s gas station. But Bobby’s relationship with Bob Senior was complicated. Though they worked together, whether it was pumping gas, towing cars, or wiring telephone lines, Bobby often felt he wasn’t enough for his father’s standards.
And Bob Senior promised Bobby he’d inherit the family business, the gas station, and the land. But promises and reality didn’t always line up neatly. As Bobby grew older, he remained mostly trouble-free, apart from a DUI in 1991. He overcame adversity, too, beating testicular cancer twice. Doctors told him he’d never have children, which broke his heart, but little did Bobby know, life had a surprise waiting for him.
Then Cherylyn and Bobby meet. So, let’s fast forward to the summer of 2002. Cherylyn was already in her 30s and was out with her best friend, Nikki Chenold, at an Oklahoma City bar. So, a little backstory on Nikki. Cherylyn had known Nikki since 1998 when she was still with her husband, Billy. And one night while Cherylyn was at Nikki’s bar, she saw her reading a book on Funue and she thought that’s really interesting.
So they got to talking and they ended up getting a few drinks together after Nikki’s shift and they have been best friends ever since. They were part of the same bowling league which Cherylyn actually invited Nikki to and they love to shop together, do tarot card readings and they were both curious about a lot of things especially spirituality.
Nikki was there for Cherylyn when she went through her divorce from Billy. So, now it’s 2002 and they’re out together again. And when across the room, Cherylyn spots Bobby, a tall, handsome man whose quiet charisma immediately drew her in. The attraction was instant. Cherylyn and Bobby clicked deeply and quickly and became inseparable.
Chylline told friends, “He’s the one.” And this is something that she’d never felt in previous relationships. He would stop by Cherylyn’s work to bring her flowers, and she was really into him. She felt like they shared a lot of common interests, specifically renovating homes and being in nature.
And imagine Bobby’s shock and joy when Cherylyn soon announced she was pregnant. This was a miracle because he thought that it was medically impossible for him to have children. Remember, he thought he was sterile after his surgeries with cancer. So, they were both pretty surprised. Bobby always wanted a family, so he felt like his dreams were finally coming true.
And now let’s talk about the arrival of Madison. Madison Stormmy Star Jameson was born on August 1st of 2003 in Yukon, Oklahoma. Bobby and Cherylyn were instantly devoted parents. They were both into spirituality and called Madison their indigo child, believing that she’d possessed deep emotional intelligence and special perceptions beyond the ordinary.
Madison was adorable and curious, and she’d peer up at people with her big brown eyes, instantly melting hearts. Bobby’s mom, Scarlet, remembers vividly how Madison always managed to charm everyone around her. Her grandparents spoiled her endlessly. Bob Senior, even promised her cars that she’d inherit when she was older.
Their family seemed pretty perfect for a moment, boating, fishing, and hunting together, creating memories along Oklahoma’s beautiful lakes. Cherylyn, a skilled cook, nurtured her family lovingly. Bobby embraced fatherhood with open arms, treating Cherylyn’s son Colton as his own, forging a bond so strong that Colton even called Bobby dad.
In July of 2004, Bobby and Cherylyn married in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and they were hopeful for a fresh chapter. And that same year, they secured a mortgage on what they considered their dream home in Eupfalla. It was picturesque. It was on a lake, and it was on a property at Sandy Bass Bay, nestled along the quiet shores of Lake Eupfala.
From the outside looking in, it seemed perfect. A private dock, serene waters, and plenty of room for their family to grow. Bobby and Cherylyn dreamed of fixing up this house and making it a sanctuary because it definitely needed some work. It was a fixer upper, but they had a plan. Got the entire place, which is exactly what we just did with our old fixer upper.
And that is a big project. Meanwhile, it was still a great location. They would invite friends over to hang out on the back porch and they would go out to their private dock and you could look out the window and you would be looking at that sparkling water on the lake. The house was pretty. It was two stories.
It had a nice wide driveway, lots of space in the front of backyards and it was like they lived on their own little island paradise. But beneath youall scenic surface was a troubled community. A place known for tourism but riddled with poverty, drug abuse, and isolation. There were lots of Airbnbs and rental properties, so it wasn’t really a place where families really settled down.
Bobby and Cherylyn, both private and introverted, seemed increasingly withdrawn from friends and family. Often, they’d leave without notice for days at a time, escaping to vacation time shares that they owned across the US and even too in Cancun. Family and friends grew accustomed to their reclusiveness.
And Cherylyn’s mother, Connie, described them as introverted, wanting nothing more than to retreat from society’s noise. Their quiet isolation had grown darker following Bobby’s horrific accident that actually happened back in 2003. The accident happened right in front of Cherylyn’s workplace. Apparently, he was t-boned and the accident involved three other people.
He was driving around a blind curve in his truck when two different cars driven by women came from both sides and hit him. It wasn’t his fault and he waited and waited to settle in court because his injuries were very severe. Bobby was physically disabled. He was diagnosed with spinal stenosis which was a devastating spinal injury causing constant pain.
In 2005 they finally settled for $64,000 and it was split evenly between him and Cherylyn because she was part of the claim in civil court. So they both got 32,000 but that barely covered the money that they owed in medical care. It was certainly not enough to alleviate all their struggles. Soon, Bobby couldn’t work.
He couldn’t help around the house, and he could barely function. Chronic pain is ruthless, often dragging mental health down with it. Bobby spiraled into depression, and the prescription pain meds piled up. Using opioids meant to ease physical agony inadvertently opened doors to even deeper problems. It seemed like a domino effect had begun because it was one tragedy after another for this family.
In 2006, part of their home burned down. The good news was that no one was injured, but it did burn part of the home that they just spent a lot of money to renovate and this was devastating. It was like they were starting all over. Buyer destroyed everything. And then there was the cleanup and being able to make the home livable again.
So that was very hard. Not to mention the familial issues. Cherylyn and her younger sister Mara got into a verbal altercation. Mara was now a stay-at-home mom and who knows what the argument was about, but it was enough to make them not speak to one another for months. And by September of 2007, tragedy struck again in a freak accident. Cherylyn’s sister Mara died.
Yes, sadly, she was at a friend’s house out in Ohio. She was outside hanging out when a bee stung her in the mouth. It actually stung her on her tongue, which is just frightening. I’ve only been stung once in my life and I’ve been terrified of like bees and wasps ever since that. Well, poor Mara went into anaphylactic shock and she was allergic and was on life support for 9 days until she passed away.
And Cherylyn was inconsolable. She plunged into profound grief. She was barely eating. She locked herself away in her bedroom and she was consumed with regret over what was now a seemingly petty argument that they’d had months earlier. Her physical and mental health were deteriorating rapidly, eventually leading doctors to diagnose her as disabled, suffering from chronic pain in her neck and her shoulders, alongside deep psychological pain that manifested physically.
Financial and emotional pressures mounted. Both Cherylyn and Bobby now relied on disability checks supplemented by child support payments from Colton’s biological father. And the bills were piling up. The stress was escalating. and Colton is now a teenager feeling the tension deeply. He was often overhearing heated arguments about money and intimacy.
Bobby was unable to have intercourse due to his injuries and this put a strain on their relationship. By now they were 44 and 40 with Cherylyn being 5’7 and only 105 lb. Anyone who saw them noticed that they were struggling. Eventually, Colton decided to move out and returning to live with his biological father. And this devastated Cherylyn, but Bobby understood.
He let Colton know he respected his decision to leave and gave him a big hug goodbye that day he left, telling him how much he loved him. But Cherylyn was already grieving her sister, and now it felt like she was losing her son, too. Their financial situation was worsening as well. Child support payments were now going to stop once Colton moved out, intensifying their struggles.
Money disputes became frequent and heated, as John said, and at times Cherylyn confided in her friends, especially Nikki, that she was considering a divorce from Bobby. But Bobby was determined to make things work. And as Bobby and Cherylyn battled their personal demons, their bright spot, perhaps their only really true beacon in their life now, was their little girl Madison.
From birth, she had been their light and their joy and that tiny miracle that Bobby never imagined he would get to experience. As Madison got older, she blossomed into a vibrant, expressive child. She adored animals, any stray cat or puppy, any kitten. It instantly captured her heart. And eventually, the family welcomed a black and white little puppy named Maisie.
And Madison was over the moon. She showered this little puppy with endless affection. And by 2009, Madison had turned six. She was a lively first grader with an infectious energy about her. Her grandma Starlet recalled how much Madison loved being in front of the camera, posing with her wide eyes, and her big smiles, and her cheerful personality always shining through.
She wore bright colors, floral patterns, butterfly motifs, and because it was 2009, those stretchy colorful bracelets called silly bands stacked high on her wrists. She was playful, imaginative, and seemed to hold a charm that instantly endeared her to everyone that met her. But even with her sunny personality, Madison couldn’t completely avoid the heaviness that was starting to settle over their home.
By then, Colton had already moved out, and losing her brother from the house had to have hit her hard. As a kid, she couldn’t really understand everything that was going on, but it was definitely affecting her. Cherylyn started getting really protective, maybe even a little paranoid. So, she decided the local school wasn’t right for Madison anymore.
And out of nowhere, they pulled her out and said that they were going to homeschool her. Friends were confused, especially when Cherylyn vaguely talked about suing the school district, but never really explained why. There were even rumors floating around about something weird with Madison’s baby teeth.
like a bunch of them went missing at once, but no one really knew what was going on or why they were making such a big move. By autumn of 2009, Madison’s golden curls had been highlighted, meaning her mom had started putting platinum blonde highlights in her hair, and it would get blonder and blonder over time. Now, to those around them, this seemed really strange for a child her age, and friends were later wondering if it was simply Cherylyn’s eccentric style, or if there was something more concerning going on, something meant to maybe disguise or
protect Madison from maybe an unknown threat of some kind. But hold on to that info and those suspicions. I don’t know. Cherylyn was a cosmetologist. I was kicked out of Catholic school in second grade because my mom, who was also a cosmetologist, decided to dye my hair red by my request, cuz I wanted it.
And she pierced my ears twice. Two sets. Only one was allowed. And you were not allowed to dye your hair. So, the nuns kept taking out my earrings and even hitting me. They were allowed to do that back then. So, I had to be pulled out of school when my mom found out. And she also threatened to sue the school.
I’ll never forget that. Good old Catholic discipline. Exactly. So, I mean, is it weird for her to put highlights in her daughter’s hair? I don’t know. My mom used to dye mine, lighten mine when I was a kid. So, I don’t personally see it as that big of a deal, but I don’t know. Some people might look at it a little bit differently.
It was just peculiar to her friends. By 2009, the Jameson’s life had drifted into a realm of paranoia, fear, and suspicion. shadows that blurred reality and illusion. Their quiet, secluded lifestyle had began taking a strange turn. On the outside, the lakeside property seemed peaceful. Calming waters, trees rustling softly, boats occasionally humming by.
But inside the Jameson’s household, things had become unsettling. They’ve become intense and at times deeply disturbing. Was it their isolation, their financial desperation, or maybe Cherylyn’s possible untreated mental health issues? Or could there have been genuine threats lurking in their quiet lakeside neighborhood? Cherylyn had always held unconventional spiritual beliefs.
Interested in Wikah energy and mysticism. But now this spirituality began to morph into something darker and more urgent. Cherylyn became convinced their lakeside home was haunted. She confided in friends and family that she saw spirits regularly, including apparitions of angels, even her deceased sister Mara.
Bobby was initially skeptical about all the ghosts and the hauntings, but he gradually became convinced that there were paranormal experiences going on and that they were real. And at one point, he confided in a church elder named Gary Brandon that he had seen several spirits on top of their roof.
And he was terrified that they had set the house on fire. Remember that devastating fire in 2006? Well, it was initially blamed on squirrels in the attic. Now, he was asking Gary if there were special bullets that existed to shoot these spirits and get rid of them. Bobby even confessed to purchasing a satanic Bible, not because he was satanic, but he was hoping to learn how to get rid of these demons in their lives.
Their daughter, Madison, was also drawn into these beliefs. Cherylyn described her, as John said, as their indigo child. She was supposedly blessed with psychic gifts, and Madison reportedly had two spirit friends named Emily and Michael. And Cherylyn welcomed this, believing in her daughter’s special sensitivity. But Bobby did not like this at all.
He was deeply concerned about this. He feared that these entities were actually evil. And he mentioned wanting to do an exorcism. He was convinced that their family was under attack from unseen evil forces. Now, it’s not that uncommon for kids to have imaginary friends. I did for sure. I don’t know if that’s weird, but I used to talk to them and play with them.
And it’s she was only a child. Madison at this point was also taken out of school. She wasn’t socializing with other kids her age as much. And there were a lot of things happening in her life. And it turns out Gary was actually part of the 7th Day Adventist Church, a group often associated with intense evangelical beliefs, including fears about the apocalypse, demonic possessions, spiritual warfare, and supernatural gifts.
beliefs the Jamesons reportedly shared by this time. Their paranoia didn’t end at supernatural concerns. It spilled over into their interactions with neighbors and strangers. Cherylyn began spray painting bizarre and confrontational messages around their property and even throughout their neighborhood. Messages like only God can judge and witches don’t like it when their black cats are killed.
The messages appeared everywhere. They were startling the neighbors who became increasingly avoidant of the family. They concluded that they must be on drugs and they must be avoided at all costs. Isn’t that always the story though? Like, oh, those people are weird. They must be on drugs. Sure. And even my dad at one point he got a brand new car and it was like an expensive car and the neighbors were like, “Oh, he’s a drug dealer.
” Everyone just goes to that immediately when you see somebody like eccentric or weird. But Cherylyn had reasons because she thought her neighbors had poisoned one of their beloved cats. So that was what was fueling her fears and her resentment. So with that, she’s calling herself a witch. Well, she’s doing that cuz she’s wanting to scare people away.
She wanted her neighbors to avoid them, right? So that was what was interesting. Instead of reporting her suspicions to the authorities, Cherylyn retaliated. She made these cryptic messages and her close friend Nikki understood what Cherylyn’s intent was because they talked about it. She was trying to, like I said, scare people away.
She was hoping to protect herself by appearing unhinged. And Nikki even recalled Cherylyn clearly saying, “If you have a problem with someone, make them think that you’re crazy.” It was Cherylyn’s way of warding off trouble, especially in a small town where their unconventional lifestyle and their beliefs made them like outsiders.
Let’s fast forward to October 16th of 2009. It was an autumn afternoon, the kind where Oklahoma’s woods turned amber and red beneath a cool breeze. A small group of local hunters carefully navigated their way through winding trails near the remote and rugged Polanola Mountain, searching for a suitable spot for deer hunting.
These hunters knew the terrain well, and they understood the mountain’s steep inclines, sharp drop offs, and isolated wilderness. But as they rounded a narrow turn, they stopped suddenly. Something immediately felt out of place. Ahead of them, oddly positioned on a dangerous slope of the narrow dirt road, sat a white GMC pickup truck.
The truck seemed abandoned, parked in such a way that the wheels nearly touch steep drop offs on either side. The vehicle was stre with dry mud, appearing as though it had been left there for days, maybe even longer. The hunters approached slowly. One of the guys thought it looked like someone had parked it there, maybe to check the oil or gas.
It was just weird. The car was pointed downhill in this sketchy spot with 3ft drops on both sides. Why would anyone leave it like that? Did it stall or something? And they had no choice. They decided to get a closer look. And as they got to the truck, something really unsettling caught their eye.
Through the dusty windows, there on the front seat was a little black and white dog. She looked so weak and sick and barely moving. It was clear that she had been stuck in there for a while. They started panicking, trying to yank the doors open, but they were locked. Wow, that’s scary. I would feel so bad and I would do the same thing.
Realizing the urgency, the hunters quickly contacted the Vladimir County Sheriff’s Office. Deputy Ferguson was dispatched promptly. Arriving at the scene, he wasted no time. He broke the truck’s window carefully, rescuing the frail and frightened animal. The little dog just curled gratefully into the deputy’s arms, visibly distressed and dehydrated.
A poor thing. And while Deputy Ferguson comforted the dog, the other deputies arrived to carefully inspect this truck. They were hoping to find some answers. And the hunters went to the nearest neighbor, which was about under a mile away, to see if this was their truck or if they knew anything about it.
They told the hunter it wasn’t theirs. But they did recall seeing a family, a mother, a father, and a child together inside that white truck about a week prior. By this time, Sheriff Israel Boamp had joined Deputy Ferguson, and they were looking inside the interior of the truck, and what they discovered only deepened their confusion.
The vehicle’s interior was cluttered, and it was chaotic. There was empty Coca-Cola cans, a Sky Dancer brand cigarette box, journals, reading glasses, scattered prescription pill bottles labeled with someone’s initials KB, and a life-sized Barbie doll oddly positioned in the back seat. An even stranger, valuable items were carelessly abandoned.
Two cell phones, a purse, a wallet full of cash, three jackets left piled neatly on the seats. It was very odd. Six deputies quickly arrived at the scene and began inspecting the vehicle. They noted the VIN number and conducted a thorough inventory. Inside the glove box, they found a Manila folder clearly labeled with Bobby Jameson’s name and the address RR4, Box 2390, Eupfala, Oklahoma 74432.
As they continued the search, one deputy reached beneath the driver’s seat and his hand encountered a hidden bank bag. Opening it carefully, he froze. Inside was a staggering amount of cash, 32,000 in bills. This would be close to 50,000 nowadays. The deputies exchanged tense glances. Why would anyone leave so much money behind? If this had been a robbery, surely the cash would have been stolen.
But yet, there it was, untouched. They quickly ran the plates, identifying the truck’s registered owners, Bobby Dale Jameson, age 44, and Cherylyn Leanne Duncan Jameson, age 40. It was becoming increasingly clear to deputies that they were dealing with a missing person’s case. However, their initial handling of the scene wasn’t ideal.
They didn’t immediately dust for fingerprints or preserve the evidence following standard forensic procedures. No, they did not. Though, there was nothing that screamed foul play. There was no blood, no broken windows, no clothes thrown around, not even messed up footprints and the mud nearby. The truck seemed totally fine, too. It still had gas in the tank.
It was like the Jamesons had just parked it, got out, and disappeared into thin air. Rain water had gathered in the truck bed along with leaves, twigs, and even small rocks, it definitely looked like it had been sitting there for over a week, maybe eight or nine days. But when they checked for any missing person’s reports for the Jamesons, there weren’t any.
But remember, they were reclusive and they went on a lot of trips to their time shares. Plus, little Madison wasn’t even attending public school, so maybe there was no way to know that they were gone or how long they were gone. Deputies figured it was worth talking to residents nearby. And when Sheriff Bo knocked on the door to one of the homes, a man answered, “We’re going to be calling him Dylan for privacy reasons, but Dylan was asked if he’d seen a family anywhere around the area, and he said he did, and he was very comfortable
with the sheriff as though he had known the deputy for a while. But Dylan explained he had seen a mother and a father and their young blond-haired daughter heading up the mountain back on October 8th. Now, it was the 16th, over a week later, and he said he hadn’t seen them since, nor did he see anyone else go up or come down.
The deputies wanted to know what he meant by he saw them go up the mountain. Was it by foot? Was it by car? And for what purpose did it seem they had they were traveling over there? Dylan went into a little more detail. He said they were clearly lost. Dylan explained that they drove up near his house on October 7th, so the day before he saw them for the second time.
So now he’s going into more details and that matters. They called out to him for help and they wanted to find a specific plot of land, 40 acres to be exact. The area they were looking for was in the middle of the forest with overlooks and deep ravines. And they had the GPS coordinates and they showed them to Dylan.
They mentioned they were interested in buying this land and they were out there just to take a look at it. Dylan told them how to get there and then they just had some small talk. Bobby seemed friendly during the encounter, casually asking Dylan questions about the area, specifically about how to set up a septic tank. According to Dylan, they spent about an hour talking until he warned Bobby that it was getting dark and suggested that they probably returned the next day.
The Sandbo Mountains had a questionable reputation locally. Those who live there might be simple homesteaders looking for solitude or possibly fugitives hiding from trouble. In fact, residents around Euphala had a chilling motto about the area. Don’t go alone, don’t go unarmed, and don’t go at all.
But they did turn back. And he knew that because on the next day, October 8th, he saw them coming back down the mountain and passed his house again. And that’s all he knew. In addition to Bo Camp and Dylan appearing friendly with one another, the deputy also noticed an unusual chemical odor that was coming from Dylan’s property. This was the other deputy.
He’s noticing they’re pretty casual like their friends. Like maybe he’s not questioning him enough. And on top of that, this other deputy smelled something weird and he thought it could possibly be a meth lab. And when questioned about his activities, Dylan was asked specifically to account for his whereabouts over the past 24 hours.
And this would be the first, but certainly not the last time, that Dylan came under police scrutiny. He was a bit of a sketchy character, and they wondered if they could even trust his account. Initially, investigators wondered if perhaps Bobby had driven the family out there for a hike and then encountered trouble.
Maybe they got bit by a snake or they were injured or they were attacked by wildlife, leaving them unable to call for help. Another theory was that one or more of the family members had gotten lost in the dense woods and couldn’t find their way back to the truck. But even then, wouldn’t they have managed to reach out to authorities, especially considering they left their dog behind? The scenario didn’t quite make sense.
And why leave your cell phones behind? That was weird, too. You just wouldn’t do that if you were going on a hike to an unknown place, and you would bring them with you. But just in case, deputies began a thorough search of the nearby woods, calling out the Jameson’s names into the stillness.
But Polanola Mountains dense forest gave no reply. Only silence returned their yells. It quickly became clear the family was nowhere nearby. The terrain was treacherous with sharp cliffs, dense underbrush, and rocky trails. Where could they have gone? Maybe they wandered way farther out than anyone thought to search. It’s possible they were deep in the woods, really lost or hurt, and no matter how loudly people were calling their names, they just couldn’t hear them.
The deputies couldn’t stop thinking about the cash. There was a surprising amount of cash sitting in the Jameson’s truck. Why would anyone walk away and leave that kind of money behind? They also locked up their dog with a bunch of important looking personal stuff as well. To Sheriff Bo, it felt like a major clue. That kind of money screamed motive and it started looking more and more like something violent could have happened to them.
But the money was still there, wasn’t it? Right. And that’s adding to the mystery. The strange position of the vehicle itself parked oddly on a narrow one-way road facing away from Polola. To investigators, this raised troubling possibilities. Had the Jameson encountered another vehicle or someone who blocked their path.
So maybe someone was meeting them or tricked them and told them like come to this spot and then they like blocked them in maybe. Interesting. And then they got out of the car. Maybe they locked it and they locked their money inside and then the people couldn’t get it. Sheriff Boam thought that it didn’t look like they got out and started walking somewhere.
He said it seemed like they got out and that was it. Like they were interrupted or confronted by someone. So the working theory at that moment was that the family had gotten back into their truck and they were headed home when someone stopped them and cut them off along that narrow road.
Given the fact that the doors trucks were locked, investigators thought that the family had stopped willingly and stepped out to speak to someone and then something dangerous or unexpected happened to them. And initially, Sheriff Boamp strongly suspected that they were dealing with a kidnapping scenario. With this really creepy possibility hanging over them, Boam and his team kept searching the woods all night, hoping they’d find anything about the Jamesons.
But when nothing turned up and they were out of leads, they focused on the abandoned phones instead, thinking that maybe they’d offer some kind of clue. They powered up Bobby Jameson’s Blackberry, started scrolling through the recent photos, and then they just froze. What they saw seriously freaked them out. The last photo was taken on October 8th at 2:47 p.m.
And the image, even though it looked ordinary at first, it became kind of unsettling. It was 6-year-old Madison. She was sitting on a rocky ledge. Her small arms were tightly crossed in front of her chest, and her recently bleached platinum blonde curls stood out. Her expression looked strained, like she was anxious and uncomfortable, not looking at the camera, but off in the distance, as if she were looking at something or someone, just out of frame.
This was not a cheerful family snapshot. It felt tense, forced, and oddly disturbing. Who had taken this unsettling photo, and where was the Jameson family now? As the sun began to dip behind the dense trees of Polola Mountain, deputies escalated their search efforts, calling in volunteers, search dogs, helicopters, and additional law enforcement.
But as darkness quickly blanketed the rugged landscape, the gravity of the situation became clear. A family of three had vanished without a trace, leaving behind only disturbing questions, an abandoned vehicle, and an unsettling last photo. I looked at this photo so many times. cuz I was really examining it and it looks really deep into the woods.
It looks like she’s sitting on some rocks with a bunch of trees around it and brush in the background and she does look upset to me. It’s almost like she’s saying with her arms crossed like she was told to do something and she doesn’t want to. You know when kids are like no and they like put their arms like that.
That’s what it looked like to me as a parent. And her mouth kind of looks to me like she’s in the middle of speaking like she’s saying something to someone off camera, someone to her right, not the person taking the photo. So, we’re going to put this on the screen so you can see it if you’re watching, but it would appear to me that there was at least two people with her.
Was it her mom and dad? Her clothes look clean enough. She doesn’t look like she’s been in them that long. She doesn’t have a sunburn or dirt on her face or her body. And we can only see up to her waist, just below her belly button. Her underwear are kind of peeking out from her jeans waistband. and the bottom of her belly is showing almost like her shirt’s a little too small, like it’s bunching up when she’s crossing her arms.
I zoomed in on her face, and I do see the missing teeth in front that people mentioned, how they thought that a lot of them had been like knocked or pulled out all at once at school. I’m not sure. I think for that age, you do lose your front teeth that way. However, I had my baby teeth knocked out as a kid, and it did look exactly the same. So, we don’t know.
Also, to me, her hair didn’t really look newly highlighted. Not that it really matters, but some reports said that. But to me, she has regrowth, like she has roots in her hair. I see the highlights, though, and it looked like her mom had been doing that for a while. There are pictures of her with foils in her hair that I found.
So, interestingly, there’s another photo of her in the woods with her front teeth still in, and she’s hugging her little dog, Maisie. So, it just shows, you know, they normally went on outings in the woods. They took photos like this. I’m just comparing and contrasting because I wanted to kind of get to the bottom of it like everybody else.
And she really doesn’t look that much younger in those photos. So, maybe it was the same year or perhaps the year prior. And there are highlights in her hair at that time as well. They do look a little chunkier, as though there aren’t as many because as you put more in, the whole overall hair starts to get blonder.
So, it looks like more had been added at the time the last picture was taken. Yeah. You’ve been looking at this photo for a while, and you do notice those things. I do, and I noticed that her hair definitely started out much darker, like a golden brown before Cherylyn began highlighting it. There’s a school photo, and it looked like she just started adding the streaks in.
And you can see, you can tell how dark it was before. But none of this is a red flag to me. But none of this was a red flag to you because you’re talking about her looks. But that photo in the woods was chilling. the more recent one. Yeah, she clearly looks distressed. She does. So, it wasn’t her looks alone that made me think anything weird.
It was just the the whole scenario put together. Like her looking off camera, her crossing her arms, looking like she’s in the middle of talking like her mouth is kind of like in a weird position. And maybe some parents, they’re like, “We’re going to take a picture of you doing a tantrum.” Right. So, we don’t know. Right.
You could just be cold, tired, and hungry. Exactly. But to the deputies, the phones were the biggest clue that they had. So, they used Bobby’s to begin carefully retracing the family’s steps. Deputies retrieved GPS data from Bobby’s Blackberry, quickly piecing together a timeline of their last movements. Records showed that the family had made two separate trips up to Pola Mountain.
First on October 7th, and then again on the morning of October 8th, the day they seemingly vanished. So, they did heed those warnings from Dylan then, and they went home. It appeared that way. Interesting. So, they drove there, then they went home, and then they came back. Yes.
Apparently, it was about an hour and a half away. Well, if they went out there to take a look at the property, they probably went to Sandboy Mountain because that photo of Madison has the same rocks are identical to photos that I found on Google Maps in that same location. Look at the screen to compare. It’s almost like she could have been sitting right there where I’m showing you. And this is a beautiful location.
There’s lots of wildlife, little waterfalls and streams, pretty sunsets and hiking trails. So, I could see them going out there to enjoy it. It’s the same rocks. I looked them up. They’re called moss rocks. And the GPS coordinates were for a property in Pola, which is a small community near Red Oak. The Sandboy Mountains are only about another 40-minute drive.
And the truck was found between those two points, but closer to the Sandboy Mountains. So, let’s go over Bobby’s phone records. It’s the day after they found the truck. And they started with the call log from October 7th, 2009. There’s this one number that keeps showing up before the 7th.
So they call it and a woman picks up and says her name is Peggy. Turns out she’s a realtor who was helping the Jamesons check out the land in Polola. Bobby had actually reached out to her about a 40 acre plot he found online, which was apparently near some abandoned oil well. Polola is a tiny isolated community near Red Oak, Oklahoma. And back in the 1850s, it was a bustling camp for railroad workers.
But now it’s mostly quiet back country, remote, rugged, and sparsely populated. Residents there typically rely on generators for electricity. And not every property even has a proper septic system. It’s truly off-rid. They talked to Peggy about visiting the property on their own, and she gave them the exact GPS location.
But she also explained to them that you could get lost very easily out there. There was a lot of dirt roads and dead ends and rugged terrain. And Peggy also gave Bobby the number to the outofstate land owners in case he had any questions about the property once he took a look. Peggy said the last time she spoke to Bobby was on October 8th around 8:00 a.m.
They talked for about an hour and a half about him making the trip out to the property later that day and that was it. There was nothing out of the ordinary according to her. She had no idea where they could be. So, now let’s go over Bobby’s call log. I hope this isn’t confusing. I’m going to go from each call that he made or he received that day.
Call number one at 8:55 a.m. Bobby makes a call to the outofstate landowner. Call number two was made at 9:18 a.m. Bobby checked his voicemail and proceeds to do that seven more times throughout this day. Call number three was a minute later at 9:19 a.m. Bobby called an unidentified Eupfala number back where they lived near Sandy Bass Bay and they talked for 37 minutes.
The fourth call was at 9:26 a.m. Bobby received a call waiting while he was on the phone and this was from a different unidentified you fallen number and they talked for a few minutes and then clicked back over to the other call. Number five was at 9:57 a.m. Bobby made two consecutive calls to a Muscogee County cell phone number, which is 40 mi north of where they live in Sandy Bass Bay.
Some time went on before he made this next call, which is call number 6 at 12:42 p.m. This time, Bobby called the church and he spoke to someone for 11 minutes. Then about an hour later at 1:38 p.m., Bobby places two 2-minute calls to the outofstate landowners again. His eighth call was just 20 minutes later at 1:58 p.m. Bobby placed two 1-minute calls this time to an unidentified eupfala number again.
And then at 2:06 p.m., Bobby called the outofstate landowners again. And it was a one minute call. And then 1 minute later, the out of state landowner called Bobby back at 2:07 p.m. and they talked for 3 minutes. I wondered if maybe the one minute call was like a voicemail and then the landowner called back. Exactly.
I was thinking that cuz it was like a lot of back and forth between the landowners and Bobby and like tiny phone calls. I don’t think you’d be like, “Hey.” And like hanging up your phone. You could be like, “Hey, I’m getting lost out here. Can you help me out?” That’s true. Could be something like that.
And then minutes later at 2:15 p.m. the out ofstate landowners called Bobby again and that call was 2 minutes. And finally, right after hanging up within 1 minute at 2:18 p.m. Bobby called the out of state property owners again and that was another one minute call. So if it’s not him doing a voice message, I do think that’s kind of weird.
And there was no calls in or out after that. And Dylan, the man who saw them on October 7th and 8th, said that it was around 6 p.m. that day on the 7th that they pulled up outside of his land that he was working on outside and spoke for at least an hour and asking all kinds of questions like what it was like living out there, how to build on the land, how to get electricity and a septic tank.
They seemed in good spirits to him. And recall Dylan mentioned it was sketchy after dark and it was already 6 p.m. So Bobby did decide to go back home with his family and then returned the next day. So it does show that they’re cautious. Sure. Cuz he could have just been like, “No, you know, we are always out in land and stuff like that.
We’re just going to go check.” And Bobby checked his voicemail like I said seven times that day. So I think you you might be right. He’s getting a voicemail and then he’s checking it cuz there was a lot of short calls. They’re probably leaving messages back and forth and I can’t imagine that you’d have great sale reception out there. It was probably spotty.
So on October 8th, the Jamesons head back to the mountain for a second trip. That morning at 8:09 a.m., they called Peggy the realtor and talked to her for over an hour and a half. Then at 12:53 p.m., Bobby’s Blackberry shows photos of two signs from well sites, which seemed to be near the property he was interested in.
Dylan, the guy who had seen them before, says he saw them again between 1 and 2 p.m. that day, and they stopped the chat with him. Then at 1:50 p.m., Bobby called his voicemail, but weirdly, his number showed up as Bristo, that’s B R I S T O in the call log. Investigators had to dig into that to make more sense because they thought this was like an unidentified number every time he called it.
So then they backtracked and they realized that unidentified number was just him calling his voicemail. So all those times I was like unidentified number and you follow that was actually him cuz that’s where his phone was registered. But in the beginning they were confused. So he was either calling his voicemail or talking to land owners or talking to Peggy and that was basically what he was doing that day.
At 2:47 p.m. that photo of Madison was taken on Bobby’s Blackberry. So they’re now tracing the GPS location for where that photo was taken. But meanwhile the rest of Bobby’s call log was from October 12th. Yes, the 12th. So, this was odd because of how long those phones had been locked inside the truck and all those outgoing calls to his voicemail.
There were incoming calls, just random people trying to get a hold of him. Nothing suspicious, but the only outgoing calls were the ones to voicemail. So, I know this can be confusing. So, you’re saying all the calls were made on the 7th and 8th, and he only received calls through the 12th. Exactly.
Except there were calls to his voicemail. Like someone was checking his voicemail from his phone after the 8th. Exactly. On the 12th. I don’t know. This may be farfetched, but I thought, just hear me out. Could the dog have pushed the phone and called back the same number? You know how your last number on a Blackberry back then? You could redial the last number by just doing the call button and like all the other buttons probably wouldn’t do anything, but maybe the dog was frantic and running back and forth over the phones. I don’t know how
long the phone would be charged, but it was just a theory. Police were confused. It was a really odd detail. Somehow, Bobby’s phone had made outgoing calls on October 12th, even though it had been locked inside the abandoned truck at that time. So, it didn’t make sense. How could his phone dial itself days after the family disappeared? The dog theory makes kind of sense. I thought so.
Now, let’s look at the GPS data. They saw that on October 7th, the Jameson family left their house around 10:00 a.m. They drove up to Pola Mountain and then came back home later that same day. Then on October 8th, they traveled back up the mountain, stopping for about 15 to 20 minutes on a rocky plateau about several hundred feet from where the truck had been found.
After that, they only drove the truck a little further, just a minute or two down to where they later found it abandoned. Based on that timeline, it looked like that they were just out sightseeing or checking out the property. Nothing in the GPS data pointed to anything weird or dangerous, at least not at that point. Then there was this photo of Madison.
To me, it looked like she was hungry and tired, maybe just wanting to go home. Maybe she was frowning or complaining, or maybe there was something darker going on. Was she scared of something? Could this have been the moment that they were forced out of the truck and maybe somebody else took a picture? But if so, why? Considering there were no calls after this except days later, I would assume this was just an innocent picture.
But I don’t know. It really does make me get like goosebumps knowing that that was the last picture of her. And by this time, deputies had made contact with Bobby’s mother, Starlet. And of course, she hadn’t heard from her son and his family, but didn’t think too much of it. She wasn’t really concerned.
According to Starlet, the family had recently sat down together and discussed their ongoing struggles. They agreed it was time for a fresh start. They had always dreamed of being independent, living off-rid, homesteading, completely self-sufficient. Even though their finances were tight, they loved looking at properties, imagining a better future for their family.
As deputies spoke to more people that knew them, their friend Chrissy confirmed this, noting how Bobby and Cherylyn, especially Bobby, had always dreamed of owning land of their own, somewhere rural, somewhere off the grid. The Jamesons had shared plans with friends and family about turning a large storage container they had on their lakefront property into a tiny self-sufficient home.
You know the ones that you see on ships or even even on trains, right? They hook to trains. So, they’re inner modal containers and they’re big industry shipping containers. People do transform them into tiny homes. They’re available in various sizes, 10, 20, and 40 ft. And they can be used individually or they can be combined.
And I saw this online and it’s pretty cool. They can be pretty big. Oh yeah. I want to say that theirs was a 40ft container. The Jamesons also told people close to them that their whole plan for a new lifestyle was the reason they pulled Madison out of first grade. They wanted the homeschoolers so they could live wherever they wanted, even move around if they felt like it.
And about those containers, those ones with spray painted messages on them, this ties back to that whole cat situation we mentioned earlier. Cherylyn painted those messages specifically so their neighbors could see them since the container was sitting right there on their property. If people are not watching, they’re not going to know that the containers we showed that was on her property had spray paint on them.
But that’s where she spray painted all those weird things so that people could see it right away and they wouldn’t come on their property and do anything. And I looked, it did look unhinged. And then on the back of the container, it said, “We know who you are. May God bless your soul and only God can judge.
As well as gossip is a sin. But I mean, look at this container. It’s theirs. If they want to spray paint it with whatever they want, they can do so. They’re free to do whatever they please with their own container. But I could see how to other people living around them, it’s almost like an eyesore. You would be like, “What is wrong with my neighbor?” I mean, that’s what Cherylyn said.
Make people think you’re crazy and they’ll stay away from you. Exactly. When the police found out Sherlin had an older son named Colton, they got in touch with him right away, hoping he might have heard something. At the time, he was still in high school, and just imagine being a teenager and getting a call from the sheriff’s office saying that your family is missing.
Colton gave investigators his phone, and they got phone records and kept trying to call his mom and stepdad himself, but no one ever picked up. Then investigators showed that unsettling photo of Madison to the rest of the Jameson family. A lot of them, including Cherylyn’s close friend Nikki, got a really bad feeling from it.
They didn’t think Bobby or Cherylyn had taken it. They were convinced it had to be someone else. Right. And that’s what I mentioned that she was like looking off camera, so maybe she was looking at her parents. Somebody else was taking the picture. To Connie and Starlight, Madison’s grandmothers, this strongly suggested that either Bobby wasn’t the one taking the picture, or that if he was, something frightening was happening nearby, capturing Madison’s full attention.
They became convinced that something sinister had happened. Maybe the family was kidnapped. They were forced out of their truck at gunpoint or even murdered. They couldn’t imagine that the Jamesons would willingly abandon Maisie in the back of that truck. After all, Madison adored her little dog and she would never just leave it behind.
Colton himself felt certain that something was terribly wrong. When he heard about the phones and jackets being left behind the truck, he said with certainty they wouldn’t have left things like that. Bobby’s wallet would have either been in his hand or in the center console. His phone would have been in the door pocket or on him, and the keys would have stayed in the ignition or been in his pocket.
To Colton and those close to the Jamesons, these small details spoke volumes, suggesting someone had forced them out of the truck abruptly and involuntarily. When investigators began talking to the family members, they uncovered deeper issues within Bobby and Cherylyn’s marriage, and they learned some about their financial pressures that the couple had been under.
Starlet, Bobby’s mom, and Connie, Cherylyn’s mom, both told police that Bobby and Cherylyn, had been talking about moving away to start fresh and hopefully make things better. They were even considering selling their house. But underneath all of that, there had been a lot of tension building in the family for a while.
Cherylyn’s friend Nikki backed that up, too. She told investigators that Cherylyn often talked about wanting a divorce because Cherylyn and Bobby were always arguing and yelling, even though she talked about it a lot, she never actually filed for one. Nikki also mentioned that her own friendship with Cherylyn had recently become strained.
During their last interaction, Cherylyn was holding on to her half of the settlement money, that $32,000, from Bobby’s accident, and she was openly discussing divorce plans right in front of young Madison, who appeared visibly upset by the conversation. And Nikki didn’t like that. She didn’t think it was okay. Recall that Cherylyn had also done something similar with Colton around, and that’s why he eventually wanted to leave.
So, Colton later backed this account up. He recalled clearly that his mother and Bobby had intentionally split their settlement money, we told you that, into separate chairs. And that Bobby had purposely kept his portion inside the truck. So, this is important. And it was just in case Cherylyn decided to suddenly kick him out.
Now, we know why there was $32,000 in cash underneath the seat in his truck. It wasn’t because they were meeting someone to pay for something or going to put down a payment on land. So, these were two things that were assumed up to this point. During the interviews with the family, investigators also learned a troubling detail.
Cherylyn owned a 22 caliber pistol, which she regularly kept in the truck. Connie specifically asked investigators if they found it, and they hadn’t. The gun was now missing, introducing an even more disturbing possibility into this already confusing investigation because now they’re thinking what? That they might have hurt each other.
well, that maybe one of them had wanted to go out into the middle of nowhere and harm one another, maybe flee and never be found. And as you can imagine, with now the detectives thinking that one of them might have harmed the other one, the tensions between Bobby’s family and Cherylyn’s family were growing. But there was something else that was uncovered that made this even worse.
A 14-page letter tucked inside the side of the door and the abandoned truck. It was on the passenger side. Cherylyn had written it directly to Bobby, pouring out all of her frustrations about their marriage in a very hostile way and expressing how desperately she wanted a divorce. She accused Bobby of being distant, not truly wanting to be with her, and labeled him as a hermit, someone who purposely isolated both her and her daughter Madison.
Cherylyn’s words were raw and painful. In one particularly troubling message, she wrote, “You are a very toxic person. You need to find happiness. You contaminate everything you’re around and it breaks my heart. It saddens my soul that you have turned into the monster you are. I would not wish my daughter raised in a foster care because her father is in prison and her mother murdered. Wow. Yeah.
So, reading this letter, investigators felt their stomachs drop. The chilling words opened up a disturbing theory that this disappearance could be the result of a murder or even a murder and then a self-inflicted death afterward. With the missing gun and the confirmation of heated arguments within the marriage and this letter, investigators now had to seriously consider if the Jameson strained relationship had escalated tragically.
I mean, that is a long letter. It’s 14 pages. It looked like a book to me in the pictures that I saw. And it looked like it was probably typed, but all in all, it was a lot of complaints that she had gone through throughout their marriage. And at the core of it, it just seemed like she felt insignificant.
She felt like Bobby just wanted to be alone and do his own thing and that he really didn’t need them around and that could feel really painful. It seemed like she was just venting, but I wondered did he actually receive the letter and read it because it was in the truck. Yeah, they couldn’t say that for sure though. But from the investigator’s point of view, there was so much hatred in those letters.
It raised a lot of red flags. And then there was a statistic that I found. It was about owning a gun. Sadly, it increases the odds of using it to kill someone or yourself. And it makes sense if you have one, the chances of you using it is higher. And even though that does make sense, it was still terrifying for Bobby and Cherylyn’s loved ones.
However, Bobby’s mom let authorities know that even if she did vent in those letters, Chylline loved Bobby and Bobby loved her and she didn’t think either one of them would harm the other. Using all the phone records and GPS data they gathered, investigators returned to Pola Mountain and headed directly to the last location indicated by the Jameson cell phones, a spot further up the hillside.
And when they arrived, investigators discovered a single haunting set of footprints clearly belonging to a small child, likely six-year-old Madison. Then they see two more sets, so they follow them, and then they stop at a rock, the one where the picture of Madison was taken.
This area was about a 20inut walk from where their truck was parked. So they saw the three footprints. So now it was probably them, right? Cuz it’s like two bigger footprints than the child’s footprints. And now the temperatures are plummeting rapidly, making this October one of the coldest in recent history. The situation was now critical.
Sheriff Boamp knew there wasn’t a moment to lose, especially since the family had left their jackets behind in the abandoned truck. So they launched a massive search and rescue operation involving more than 300 volunteers and dozens of law enforcement officers. Vladimir County Emergency Management coordinated local fire departments, forestry officials, EMS, and even ordinary residents who showed up on ATVs. They were determined to help.
Private investigator Heather Holland joined the effort, bringing specialized tracking dogs to assist, and together they brought in six additional canine units, including both tracking and cadaavver dogs. They deployed thermal imaging equipment, helicopters, drones, horses, mules, and small aircraft scouring the rugged rocky terrain.
Volunteers were risking their own safety in this difficult wilderness, and they were searching relentlessly on foot and four-wheelers, desperate to find any sign of the missing family. But as the search intensified, the confusion only deepened. Had the Jamesons been kidnapped or had they gotten lost somewhere in these thick woods and risk of exposure to the increasingly harsh elements? The dogs actually gave investigators a bit of hope.
They picked up scents from stuff found in the truck and started focusing around the area at that rocky plateau above it. At first, it seemed promising the dogs made it look like the Jamesons hadn’t gone far. One of the dogs, Hazel, was even given Madison’s clothing, and it led straight to the footprints they found.
But then things got weird. Hazel suddenly stopped and seemed totally confused, like she didn’t know where to go next. It was as if the family scent was everywhere and nowhere, which left everyone feeling frustrated and totally thrown off. Yeah. The dog just kind of stopped. Then it was like looking around like it just got confused.
And this this was interesting because when a track stops like that, it usually means that they got into a car or another vehicle and they were just like plucked from that location. I’ve done cases like that. But investigators began to wonder if the tracking difficulties were due to heavy rainfall because the mountain had been drenched since the family disappeared.
Hazel, along with several other tracking dogs, eventually led searchers deeper into the woods, stopping abruptly at a large 10-ft tall white water tank tuck amongst the trees. It had steps leading up one side and immediately police realized that this would be the ideal place to hide something or someone.
They were fearing the worst. These officers approached cautiously and when they peered inside, their stomachs dropped. It was filled with water. They actually drained it and inspected the tank fully expecting that this family might be found at the bottom. But after painstakingly examining every inch, nothing was discovered.
It was just another dead end, leaving investigators frustrated and concerned. And I just could not help but think about that poor girl at the Cecil Hotel that they found in that water tank. That was terrifying. It just it it does make my heart drop thinking about it. And it’s also sad whenever I hear of like an oil well, I think of CeCe and Bella Watts.
That always like creeps into my mind when I hear something like that. The temperatures kept dropping and even the search teams were starting to face real danger from the cold. Hypothermia was a serious risk. Sheriff Boam knew just how bad it must be for little Madison out there.
And he basically didn’t leave the mountain for the next two weeks. He was totally committed, refusing to give up until they found the family. 2 weeks and still nothing. And as their extensive search yielded no answers, the investigators began reconsidering their theories. A murder and then a self-inflicted death seemed less likely now.
Surely the bodies would have been located nearby and in plain sight. Instead, investigators started leaning towards other possibilities. Maybe the family had been kidnapped or really went so far into the wilderness, too far into the dense forest to even find their way back and too far for them to even find them. Cuz you have to look at this area.
It’s so vast. And ultimately and heartbreakingly, maybe they just died out there. But the idea that they just got lost didn’t really add up. Bobby had lived his whole life in rural Oklahoma and was known for having an amazing sense of direction. His family said it was super unlikely that he’d get turned around, especially with their truck parked just off a clear, visible road.
Colton even backed this up, saying, “Even on the lake, dad could have driven you all around without lights or navigation.” That is interesting. And another thing that didn’t add up was Bobby’s chronic back pain. Remember, he’s injured severe enough. He struggled with like simple tasks like climbing stairs at his house.
So, it was almost impossible to imagine him willingly hiking for miles in rough terrain, especially as the daylight was fading. Bobby had medications, but he consistently said they barely helped him with his pain. And while exposure to the elements seemed like a plausible theory at first, their circumstances surrounding the abandoned dog left lock inside the truck suggested something far more troubling had happened to them.
And by the way, in case anyone was wondering, the dog did survive and it was taken to the emergency vet. And then Bobby’s mom took the dog in. By now, everyone in their small town knew that the family was missing. There were tons of missing person’s flyers everywhere, and they were on every business in town and beyond.
People were passing them out everywhere. They had all the family’s photos on them, and even the photo of Madison from Bobby’s Blackberry, that last eerie photo of her. They were hoping that somebody with information would come forward. But now the investigation turned toward the Jameson family home because at this point they knew that it was critical to do a search of their house to find out if there were any clues to where they might have gone or what happened to them.
When investigators arrived at the Jameson’s house on Sandy Bass Bay, they noticed something unsettling. The doors were unlocked and all the lights had been left on. Colton found this detail especially troubling, explaining that his parents would never leave the house in that condition unless they’d left suddenly or in a hurry.
Inside, deputies described the home as being in disarray. Connie Cherylyn’s mother had already arrived and was anxiously tidying up and numerous bags of trash piled around the rooms. That fact to me is interesting and I want to just hold on to that fact that Cherylyn’s mom was already there was already at the house and she was rushing to kind of clean it up.
Now, this could mean that she was a little bit embarrassed about the condition of her daughter’s home. Totally reasonable. I mean, I know my mom would do the same thing. She would start cleaning right when she got there, probably anticipating them going to return, but it could also mean something else. So, just keep it in mind.
Authorities then conducted a thorough search of the residence, quickly noticing one alarming detail. Cherylyn’s pistol wasn’t there either, so it truly appeared to be missing, which is not a good sign. Investigators confiscated one of the family computers along with Cherylyn’s personal notebook. These items were carefully scrutinized, revealing clear notes that the Jamesons had indeed planned to visit Pola Mountain specifically to inspect and potentially buy land there.
During the search, investigators found no drugs other than Bobby’s prescribed opioids. However, they did discover more writings by Cherylyn, letters, and notes filled with references to death and what seemed to be a growing fascination with darker themes. I didn’t get to see any of these, but it was said that it pointed to her being obsessed with dark stuff.
So, I mean, we already know Wikah. We already know she’s very spiritual and ghosts and stuff like that. So, I guess you can just conclude what you will. And there were also notes that said things like, “Satan, go away.” And others had messages with little reminders about God.
And when investigators went down the rabbit hole, they started asking all their friends and family about these messages. And they explained that Cherylyn and Bobby were going to a lot of prayer meetings with a local preacher leading up to their disappearance. Now, recall we told you that Bobby thought their home was haunted. The investigators kind of lost interest in that lead, but the supernatural didn’t seem like a valuable clue to follow at first, but now they’re hearing that they were talking to this preacher before they disappeared. The Oklahoma State
Bureau of Investigation and the FBI quickly stepped in, assisting with manpower and helping conduct interviews. Mintosh County even offered a $1,000 reward, hoping someone would provide crucial information that could lead to the finding of the Jameson family. Interestingly, the extended family chose not to contribute additional reward money, but tips began pouring in nonetheless.
One unsettling detail came out early on. Witnesses remember Bobby telling total strangers about their plans to buy land near Red Oak and up on that mountain. It made people wonder, could Bobby’s friendliness have accidentally made them targets? Investigators initially focused their attention on two potential suspects. the man that we’ve been calling Dylan, who was the local resident that had spoken to them on the mountain, and Peggy, the real estate broker that was familiar with the area.
Peggy had cooperated immediately. She had already told the authorities about those long phone calls with Bobby and that he was friendly on the phone on October 7th, the day before the Jimsons disappeared. And she explained to the investigators he was upbeat and friendly. We talked for a long time, which was normal for us. Usually I would meet in person, she said, but Bobby just wanted the GPS coordinates to find the land himself.
He told me he had a Blackberry phone with GPS and mentioned the family was feeling adventurous. It was a bit unusual because typically I would show clients properties myself, but in this case, the property owner was private and Bobby didn’t want to trouble me. Those were her words. Peggy appeared credible and helpful.
She also mentioned that she had spoken briefly to Dylan, who claimed that on October 8th, he had noticed anyone following the Jameson’s vehicle or anyone interacted with them after that day. Still, something about Dylan raised suspicion. Investigators found it peculiar that he was in the process of building a log cabin and had recently poured wet foundation.
A troubling coincidence since fresh cement could easily hide evidence or even cover up a crime. But Peggy and Dylan were questioned over and over for weeks while investigators now with the help of the FBI tried to piece together the Jameson’s final hours. But then things got even more confusing. Locals started pushing back on the whole story, saying that there was never any property for sale on Polola Mountain.
According to them, the place that the Jamesons had actually gone wasn’t Pola at all. It was Kinta Mountain. They said Kinta sat at the intersection of four counties and it had a kind of wild reputation where people would hang out and sometimes get into some pretty shady things. And if you’re a local, you know these things and they’re like, “Wait a minute, there was no land for sale over there.
” Like they were starting to question everything. Which is normal when something like this happens, especially in a small town where, you know, maybe the biggest thing isn’t something like this. But there was a lot of drug activity over there, but we’ll get to that. Investigators were left confused. Was Peggy genuinely trying to sell land, or was there some kind of misunderstanding about which location the Jamesons had visited? Some suspected that Peggy wasn’t even authorized to sell land, claiming the property was
owned by an oil company. So, they wondered if Dylan, Peggy, and the residents familiar with the area were talking about completely different properties or if there was something weird going on, something sketchy. And this only deepened. It left authorities with more questions than answers. They wanted to know what could have truly happened.
It was getting crazier, right? Cuz it’s like the theories are kind of stacking up and they’re looking for answers and by now they would probably found a clue, but every time they get a clue, it’s like deeper confusion. And that’s why we wanted to dive even deeper into this mysterious case. So, we’re going to be back in just a few days with part two.
And once again, we’re excited for you to download June’s Journey for free by clicking the link below in the description or scanning the QR code on the screen. And thanks again to June’s Journey for making this video possible. [Music]
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
