00:58:00
♪♪ -We're looking for
this missing girl. Her name is Jade Colvin. -She was a sweet
little ray of sunshine.
00:58:14
Just an angel, a doll. -This is a cold case
that could just sit there and no one let it.
00:58:23
-Jade went missing
June 10th of 2016. -At the time,
she was 14-years-old. -But she comes off
as much older.
00:58:34
She's super cool, super smart. So interesting. -This one tugged
at my heartstrings.
00:58:41
We have families. We have kids.
Some of us have daughters. You don't get to go home
and turn off Jade Colvin.
00:58:48
-There were so many people
that were involved in this. -Lead detective.
-Special Agent.
00:58:53
-Deputy U.S. Marshal. -I'm a detective. Everybody came together to figure out
what happened to Jade.
00:59:03
-I first met her through
one of my best friends, and we were inseparable
from that moment.
00:59:08
We just always
had a dumb good time wherever we were. She loved doing her hair.
She was really great at colors.
00:59:17
She was very artsy,
had great style. -They were just like sisters. -I don't think
Jade had an easy life.
00:59:25
-Her mom would disappear
for periods of time. she was put in foster care. Jade just really hated it.
00:59:32
She ran away. -She kind of went from state
to state, place to place. -It was just hard to keep up
with where she was.
00:59:39
-But she always, always,
always just would check in. And then one random day, just...
00:59:47
...nothing ever again. -Weeks went by,
then it's months, then it's years. -Once I was assigned
this case,
00:59:57
every trace of her was gone. -When we initially
adopted the case, she had been listed
as a runaway.
01:00:04
-How do you know at this point, is this a runaway
or is this somebody took her? -We didn't know.
01:00:12
-Jade's digital footprint
last landed in Decorah, Iowa. -Really remote area
that she did not know.
01:00:19
She was there for several days
and was never seen again. -The last place
Jade was living was here?
01:00:27
-Absolutely. The house was
straight on this driveway. -There's a lot of places
to look for a young girl here.
01:00:35
I mean,
where did you even begin? -"It's a needle in a haystack,"
I said. -Who are the last people
that were around her?
01:00:43
Who lived in the same house
or who was at the same place? We don't know where loyalties
and alliances lie at this point.
01:00:51
-We got a lot of tips. -From Massachusetts to
Oklahoma to Texas to Minnesota. -My goal was always like, "Oh,
we're gonna find this girl."
01:01:00
-That was the hope every day. -We never forgot about her... ...and just always wondered
where she was.
01:01:08
I was afraid something bad
had happened. I would have never
in a million years thought it would come to this.
01:01:14
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Why is that not going on? -I myself have thought
of Jade several times...
01:02:07
There we go. ...when not at work... You get to do the eggs. ...I think of my own children.
01:02:12
Whoa! [ Laughs ] If you went a day not knowing where one of
your kids was at...
01:02:17
Very careful. ...you'd go crazy. -Cheryl Nablo, mother of three,
is a detective with the Des Moines,
Iowa Police Department.
01:02:26
She specializes
in finding missing kids. -Nobody wants to be
living in a world where they don't know
where their kid is
01:02:33
or if their kid's safe. -In 2022,
Detective Nablo joined forces with deputy U.S.
Marshal Justin Wallace,
01:02:43
Detective Chris Wuebker, and Special Agent Jon Turbett in the search for Jade Colvin.
01:02:49
Jade was 14 when she was
reported missing in June 2016, after she ran away
from a local shelter
01:02:56
for troubled youth. -We are here to locate kids
who run away. -The U.S. Marshals Service
had adopted Jade's case
01:03:06
as part of a statewide effort
to find missing children called "Operation Homecoming."
01:03:12
What are the challenges
in finding missing children? -When somebody goes missing,
they want to be missing.
01:03:18
They don't want you
to know where they are. It's hard to track them down. -At that point,
Jade had been missing
01:03:25
for more than five years. Where do you begin? -You got to start
at the beginning.
01:03:30
You got to know who
the person is, their friends, their family,
their whole background.
01:03:35
-And they soon discovered
Jade had a troubled childhood. -Jade had a rough
go of it growing up.
01:03:43
-Things weren't the easiest
for her. -Detective Nablo learned
Jade's mother, LaDawn,
01:03:50
had died three years
after Jade went missing. -So I couldn't just
reach out to her
01:03:56
and talk to her about everything
that she knew about Jade. -Jade's father, Kevin, had
lost contact with his daughter.
01:04:03
Both parents had struggled
with substance abuse, something Special Agent
John Turbett explains
01:04:08
had an impact on Jade. -Jade Colvin grew up with,
I think, a pretty dysfunctional
family situation.
01:04:16
It was difficult. -She didn't hold any of it. She just accepted it for, like,
what it was and dealt with it
01:04:24
and didn't let it
get to her negatively. Loved her to death.
Spent every day together.
01:04:31
[ Sighs ] -Despite everything, friend
Dainlynn Greer and her mother, Jamee Koopman describe Jade
as easygoing and upbeat.
01:04:41
-There was reasons she could
have been angry and she wasn't. -Like, she was very light --
-Yeah.
01:04:47
-Light and bubbly. I met her mom. Her mom was very unreliable,
but she kept telling me, oh,
01:04:55
how much she loves Jade
and all that, you know, and I believe she did,
don't get me wrong.
01:05:00
But she just couldn't... ...make the choice
for stability. She couldn't overcome
her own demons.
01:05:09
-Her mom definitely
cared about her. -I think her mother loved her. The state determined
at some point
01:05:15
that she was not able
to care for her. -In September 2015,
when Jade was 13, the Iowa Department
of Human Services stepped in
01:05:25
and Deputy Justin Wallace
says LaDawn lost custody. -That's when they took Jade
into foster care.
01:05:32
-For the next nine months,
Jade was in and out of different facilities
and foster care,
01:05:37
and she often ran away. -Run away, been found, run away,
been found several times.
01:05:44
-Jade is doing what
some other kids do. She's running away
from the system. She's not wanting to be placed
in a stranger's home.
01:05:50
-When Jade was placed
in foster care, LaDawn would have limited access
to her and she wanted more.
01:05:57
-She wanted Jade
to live with her. -But without legal custody, Jamee Koopman says
LaDawn resorted
01:06:03
to trying to hide her daughter
from authorities. -I think she was
just trying to hide out,
01:06:09
to stay with her mom or to stay
where her mom could visit. -Her mom tried to keep her
out of the police spotlight,
01:06:16
just trying to hide her
out different places. -And according to her aunt,
Tandra Brus,
01:06:22
Jade became good at hiding. -She would change her hair. She would change her appearance.
01:06:30
-So she really knew
how to run away and hide. -She did. She really did. -At that point,
Jade was caught in the middle
01:06:39
of a mother trying
to do her best, who arranged stays
with friends and family, and being placed in foster care,
01:06:46
but often living as a runaway. -I felt so bad.
I felt horrible. -Did you tell her
"You can come here anytime"?
01:06:54
-I did.
-"Call me, whatever you need." -I did. "Call me
and I'll be here for you."
01:06:59
-She was jumping all over
for a while, so it was hard to track her. -The Iowa Department
of Human Services
01:07:06
lost track of Jade
after she ran away from that shelter in June 2016. -I had hope that she
was out there somewhere
01:07:15
and she would get ahold
of somebody eventually. -And then there was nothing. -Investigators learned
Jade's family and friends
01:07:25
spent years searching
for her online. -We saw in
the social media accounts that friends and family
were trying to reach out to her
01:07:35
and continued to look for her. -Everybody's reaching out to her
at her birthday saying,
01:07:38
"We love you, we miss you.
We just want you back home." -Every year I'd go on Facebook,
01:07:44
"Happy birthday Jade.
Please call me." We still love her. You know, anytime
she wants to come home...
01:07:50
"It doesn't matter what kind of
trouble you got yourself into." I thought she'd pop back up.
01:07:56
We just wanted her to know,
like, we were there for her. -According to
Deputy Justin Wallace,
01:08:01
Jade's mother, LaDawn,
also posted. -She misses her
and wants her to come back. -Posts like this one
from September 2018.
01:08:10
♪♪ -There was no response
to any of those. -And when Jade's mother
died a year later,
01:08:24
there was still no response. -LaDawn passed away. She never came to the funeral.
01:08:30
She never showed up
at the funeral. She would have been there. -Jade's family and friends
still held hope
01:08:36
Jade would surface
when she turned 18 and would be free
of foster care. -I had hoped that she had
run away and was laying low,
01:08:45
and we thought
when she turned 18, when it was safe,
she would get ahold of us again.
01:08:50
And when her 18th birthday
came around and she didn't get ahold of us,
we knew. We knew something
was very wrong.
01:09:00
-As Detective Nablo
and Deputy Wallace worked to find Jade, they got help from state
and national organizations
01:09:08
that shared these
missing posters on social media. -That was huge. That's when a lot of tips
started coming in.
01:09:14
-And there would be a potential
break in the investigation. A tip from a hospital worker
in Minnesota.
01:09:22
-"We're not too far away
from Iowa. There's this girl. We think maybe that's Jade."
01:09:28
♪♪ ♪♪ -We wanted to chase
every single lead, every single tip,
as far as we could.
01:09:51
-And when Des Moines P.D.
Detective Cheryl Nablo got a tip Jade Colvin
might have been in a hospital
01:09:58
in Red wing, Minnesota,
she was hopeful. -A staff member had observed
a female come into the hospital.
01:10:06
And the person that
she was with was kind of controlling
the conversation. It drew suspicion.
01:10:13
They thought it maybe
looked like Jade. So there was follow up done
to get the video footage
01:10:19
to try to figure out
who that person was. When you have a lead,
you work your lead
01:10:25
until you either prove it's Jade
or prove it's false. And ultimately, I was able
to identify who that person was
01:10:32
and it was not Jade. -Additional tips poured
in from all over the country. -You know,
ranging from Massachusetts
01:10:40
to Oklahoma to Texas. People were definitely
paying attention. -Look at that. Are those all the leads
that you explored
01:10:48
and the different ways you went
about the investigation? -Yeah, it's a lot of leads.
01:10:54
It felt like each tip
was hope, right? Because like,
she could have been out there.
01:11:01
-The first big break in the case came when Detective Nablo
was able to figure out
01:11:05
where Jade had gone
after she ran away from that shelter in June 2016. Detective Nablo
had obtained search warrants
01:11:13
and got access to
Jade's social media Instagram messages from March
2017, caught her attention.
01:11:21
-You can see where her mom
is coming to get her in Arizona. -"I just talked to mom," Jade
wrote to her friend Dainlynn.
01:11:29
♪♪ Jade wrote to another friend, ♪♪ Detective Nablo learned
Jade had been staying in Arizona
01:11:42
for several months,
and it seemed LaDawn was going to bring her
back to Iowa. Detective Nablo also
got access to LaDawn's accounts,
01:11:50
and on her Facebook
there was a message mentioning the town of Decorah. -Decorah is just a small,
rural Midwest Iowa town.
01:12:03
-As Detective Nablo combed
through LaDawn's Facebook, she saw messages
LaDawn had sent to Jade
01:12:10
and uncovered a clue. A mention of someone
named "James." Investigators learned
James was James Bachmurski,
01:12:20
a man LaDawn had been dating
for several months. -LaDawn and him met online. They began
a romantic relationship.
01:12:29
LaDawn would go
and stay with him occasionally. I think one point
was living with him.
01:12:34
-Deputy Justin Wallace found out James Bachmurski owned a farm in
Decorah, Iowa, and had two sons,
01:12:41
Bryan -- age 19,
and James Jr. -- age 21. Investigators gained access
to voice messages
01:12:49
LaDawn had sent Jade
detailing a plan for her daughter
to stay at the farm while she lived
three hours away,
01:12:57
dealing with some legal issues. -It was just a temporary, "I'm going to get right
with the court
01:13:16
and then Jade
can come live with me." -How big a lead is that? Are you thinking
we've got a break in this case?
01:13:21
-Yeah, it was huge. I remember going over to
the U.S. Marshal's office and -- and they were excited.
01:13:28
-The marshals reached out
to local law enforcement near the Bachmurski farm
for help talking to the family.
01:13:35
And that's when
Detective Chris Wuebker from the Winneshiek County
Sheriff's Office
01:13:39
officially joined the team. First of all, Decorah.
I mean, where -- where are we?
01:13:46
What is this town known for? -God's country.
-It is God's country. -It's in northeast Iowa, kind of
way up in the top corner.
01:13:57
-So tell me about
getting the call to first, you know,
start the investigation into this young missing girl,
Jade Colvin.
01:14:05
Who called you? -So we, uh -- we received
a call from the U.S. marshals, and they reached out to us
and said, "Hey,
01:14:12
do you guys know
the Bachmurskis? Can you guys help us
go and talk to them?" And so that's ultimately
what we -- where we started,
01:14:19
the goal was to
talk to them and say, "Hey, look, we're looking
for this missing girl.
01:14:22
Her name is Jade Colvin. And your names were
brought up in social media. What can you tell us about her?"
01:14:30
-They found
Bryan Bachmurski first. According to Detective Wuebker, Bryan confirmed Jade
had been at the farm.
01:14:38
Her mother
dropped her off and left. A few days after she arrived, Bryan and Jade had lunch
at this Pizza Ranch
01:14:46
and took
several photos together. ♪♪ -So right here, this booth.
-Yep. I mean, you look at this
photo and you see, you know,
01:15:01
she has a genuine smile. -And it seems like they're,
you know, sort of goofy face,
01:15:08
like having fun with each other. They got along. -Teenage kids and --
and everything.
01:15:13
And, yeah, absolutely. -Bryan told investigators he didn't know
what happened to Jade.
01:15:19
He said the last time
he saw her was two days after their lunch
at Pizza Ranch around 10 p.m.,
01:15:26
before, he said, he worked
the night shift at Walmart. Bryan claimed he texted with
Jade until just after midnight,
01:15:35
when she suddenly
stopped responding. Deputy Wallace wasn't convinced
by Bryan's story.
01:15:41
-There were several of us
thought that... ...we probably weren't getting
all the information out of him.
01:15:47
-That included
Detective Wuebker. -There's something that
doesn't feel right about this
01:15:51
as to what's going on. -And there was something else
that troubled Detective Wuebker.
01:15:56
-That was the last time
that she ever had any -- from Facebook,
from Instagram, from Snapchat.
01:16:03
She never had another
digital footprint again. -And for a teenage girl,
how unusual is that?
01:16:08
-[ Chuckles ] Extremely unusual. -How could Jade seemingly
disappear without a trace?
01:16:16
According to Deputy Wallace, LaDawn thought
it was unusual, too, and she went to the farm
to confront James.
01:16:23
-We were able to interview
one of the friends who said she drove LaDawn
out to the farm in Decorah.
01:16:29
The friend stayed in the car while LaDawn went
inside the house to talk to James Bachmurski.
01:16:35
-LaDawn's friend
told the marshals James claimed Jade ran away. Suspecting there was more
to the story,
01:16:43
Chris Wuebker called
Special Agent Jon Turbett from the Iowa Division
of Criminal Investigation
01:16:49
and asked him for help. -Chris laid out what we knew, what the marshals
had been able to unearth.
01:16:57
And as I'm sitting
there listening, I said... ..."It's very likely that Jade
is no longer alive
01:17:03
and we actually need to
start treating this as a homicide investigation." ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
01:17:26
-So this here is the farm?
-Yep. So this is the --
where Bachmurskis lived. -Having established
Jade was at this farm
01:17:36
in Decorah, Iowa,
in March of 2017, Detective Chris Wuebker hoped
new leads could be developed
01:17:43
to solve the mystery
of what happened to her. -This farm really is
at the end of the road here.
01:17:51
-It is the house
at the end of the road. -House at the end of the road. -You can see how secluded it is.
01:17:59
-This is a young girl who has
a history of running away. When you get out here,
is it possible she --
01:18:05
do you think she
could have run away? -Our evidence showed
that she didn't. -And if you were
to run away from here,
01:18:10
I mean, there is just
farmland and empty space. -I mean, direction, uh -- you're not from here,
I bet you --
01:18:19
which way were we
facing right now? I mean, she's not going to
know where she's at.
01:18:24
-When investigators
first visited the farm in 2022, James Bachmurski
no longer lived here,
01:18:31
and the house had been
gutted and renovated. But the new owners
let them look around.
01:18:37
-We tried to find anything
we could in the area and ultimately we didn't. -You have this farm where
we know Jade is last seen,
01:18:44
so we draw a box
around the farm and we say, "Who's living in the farm? Who are the guests at the farm?"
01:18:50
Certainly the owner
of the property, the one who's having contact
with LaDawn and Jade
01:18:55
is James Bachmurski Senior. And then you have these
two sons, James Jr. and Bryan.
01:19:00
-Having already talked to Bryan, Detectives were eager
to reach James Jr. Turns out he had an alibi.
01:19:08
He wasn't living
in the area at the time and was never
at the farm with Jade, so that left
James Bachmurski Senior
01:19:16
to be interviewed. -We had known from that
initial contact with the kids that Bachmurski had moved away
and he was in Georgia.
01:19:27
-Special Agent
Jon Turbett made the trip. -We located the house and it was out
in the middle of nowhere.
01:19:36
-What's the mindset
going into an interview and first interaction
with somebody like him?
01:19:42
-I think despite
what a lot of people think, I am really trying to take off
the -- the police hat
01:19:47
and a lot of the --
the things that come with that. And I need to
sit down with James
01:19:52
and I need to be Jon
and he needs to be James. And can we have
a good conversation
01:19:56
about this young lady that he clearly had out on his property
and has never been seen?
01:20:00
-When Jon Turbett
knocked on the door, James Bachmurski agreed to talk. These are excerpts
of the audio interview.
01:20:08
-I think one of the first things out of his mouth,
if not the first, was... I've knocked on doors
a lot in my career,
01:20:20
and that would be
on the you know -- that would be an outlier
for -- for opening remarks.
01:20:25
You're like, okay,
is he thinking of something that, you know, I'm not? I'm making it clear,
I'm talking about Jade,
01:20:30
and he continues. -Okay, I have that clip.
I'm going to play for you. It's interesting, he said,
01:20:50
"I don't want to
implicate my kids." -Yes. -But in so doing,
is he implicating his kids?
01:20:56
-Well, it -- it seemed like it. So he immediately is talking
about someone being implicated,
01:21:00
which says in my mind
he thinks a crime was committed. Now it's a question of,
"Was it me? Was it my boys?"
01:21:07
-James Bachmurski confirmed he was in a relationship
with LaDawn, and that she brought
Jade to his farm
01:21:14
to hide her and keep her
from being put in foster care. -He admits that there's a plan
to bring Jade back,
01:21:25
you know, to Iowa. He's saying this woman
was trying to reunite with her daughter
and get to a new life.
01:21:31
-Did he say, when, in that
interview he last saw Jade? -Yeah. Norby's, which is, like,
a Farm and Fleet store.
01:21:45
And the next thing I know,
she'd vanished out of thin air. -James Bachmurski talked
for several hours that day,
01:21:53
but after the interview,
Jon Turbett and Chris Wuebker were still no closer to finding
out what happened to Jade.
01:22:01
They wondered if there were
any additional clues to be discovered
back at the farm.
01:22:08
-When he got back,
we came up with the plan of, what else can we find? And that's when we came across
a neighbor that said,
01:22:16
"Hey, by the way,
I have this barn, uh, that James Bachmurski
property is left in.
01:22:21
In 2018 he was --
left in a real hurry and left all his stuff behind." And so we're like, "Oh, really?"
01:22:28
And so we went there and found
this dusty old phone in a box. ♪♪ -It was James Bachmurski's
cell phone.
01:22:40
This was a real find. -I mean, if you're looking
for a smoking gun, you're getting
a cell phone instead.
01:22:45
-This was something that... ...was unbelievable
to come across. -On the phone, they found these
photos of Jade at the farm.
01:22:54
There's this one with
her mother, LaDawn, when she dropped her off
and left. And this one, from the day
after Bryan and Jade
01:23:01
had lunch at Pizza Ranch,
of them at a bonfire. -There was a number of photos
with them at that bonfire,
01:23:08
roasting hot dogs
and stuff like that. ♪♪ -They're the last known
photos of Jade.
01:23:18
On Bachmurski's phone, there were also
text messages Jade had sent, including the ones
Bryan had mentioned
01:23:24
when he said he worked
the night shift at Walmart. The same night Jade
was last heard from.
01:23:31
-Those last text conversations
were monumental in my opinion. -So let's go through
these a little bit.
01:23:38
Here it is,
Jade reaching out to him around after --
a little after midnight. -It says,
"Hey Bryan, it's Jade."
01:23:44
And I always love this because,
uh, you know, the typical teenager saying,
"Jadeee" you know.
01:23:49
-She's just
checking in with him. "Is it going okay?
Tired yet?" -Yeah. Just, you know,
just the typical conversation.
01:23:58
-And she's like, "If you want to
call on your hour break we still can if you want."
01:24:02
So they're planning for
his break, like, within -- -Yep. Ultimately planning to talk
again that night on March 30th.
01:24:08
-And then he's like, "Well, I guess just text me
when you can." This is 2:00 already, 2:03.
01:24:15
He's on his break. -Yep. And fully expecting
that Jade's going to be texting and doesn't get anything.
01:24:22
-Those text messages, along with Bryan's time sheets
from Walmart, helped confirm his story
and cleared him.
01:24:29
-We're able to corroborate
things he's telling us. We kind of took him
off of the table.
01:24:37
-As Chris Wuebker
and Jon Turbett continued to search through information
from Bachmurski's phone,
01:24:42
they say they made
an important discovery... ...several deleted messages. -Those were mostly family
01:24:51
that was reaching out
to find Jade to talk to Jade. -Including messages from LaDawn,
01:24:57
who sounds desperate
to reach her daughter. -He's selectively removing
what we would consider evidence
01:25:08
or -- or helpful information. -Suspicious behavior then? -I would think so. -But it would be
two seemingly random photos
01:25:17
found on Bachmurski's cell phone that changed the course
of the investigation. One of his kitchen
and one of his bedroom,
01:25:26
taken just two days after Jade had that last
text exchange with Bryan. -Describe for me
what you see here.
01:25:37
This is from the time frame
of April 1st, 2017. -So this is a -- a picture
of the Bachmurski kitchen.
01:25:46
This is a very unique picture
where everything is cleaned up. Everything is organized.
01:25:51
There's no garbage
laying around, it's clean. -Was it a crime scene? -And as we talk to people,
Bryan included,
01:25:58
he talks about
the condition of this house when he had lived there
and been there.
01:26:04
He does not say that
they were good housekeepers. I mean, it was --
it was not good.
01:26:08
So to see pictures like this, this is way out of
what law enforcement knew. This is way out of description.
01:26:14
-And in another photo
on the phone taken two months later
on June 5th, 2017, of Bryan and James Jr.
in that same bedroom.
01:26:23
Investigators say it
appeared the bed was new, that the bed
in the earlier photo
01:26:29
had been removed and replaced. -The mattress is smaller,
there's no headboard anymore,
01:26:37
and you can see the condition
of the room is back to messy. -You're thinking, you know,
"Evidence has been cleaned up."
01:26:47
We are now looking at
all of these pieces. ♪♪ And it seems undeniable. It is time to tell him
that case facts show us
01:27:00
that you were involved
in the death of Jade Colvin. ♪♪ ♪♪ -The more time we spend
in this investigation,
01:27:20
the case facts just
continued to all point in one direction
and at one person. -And that one person
was James Bachmurski.
01:27:26
-James Bachmurski Senior. -More than two years
into the investigation to find Jade Colvin.
01:27:32
Special Agent Jon Turbett
believes he knows what happened to her. -I thought
James Bachmurski had killed
01:27:39
and disposed of Jade's body. -Now he needed
to prove his theory. Armed with the photos
from the cell phone,
01:27:48
he went back to Georgia. -The second interview is going
to be different than the first.
01:27:53
I actually open with "Hi James, I'm Jon from Iowa.
Do you remember me?" And he's like, "No."
And I'm like, Okay."
01:28:10
So that would -- obviously
something would be really wrong if a human being
could not remember that.
01:28:19
-He tells you that he's drunk. He can't seem
to remember things. Did you believe him?
01:28:23
-I didn't, if you recall
in that first interview, his level of detail
was fantastic.
01:28:28
And then we get back
and it's like he doesn't know me
for starters, he can't place LaDawn or Jade.
01:28:33
And that all seems
remarkably unbelievable. -Turbett pressed on
and he asked Bachmurski
01:28:41
about those photos
from his phone. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -"Guarantee you there isn't." What are you thinking
when you hear that?
01:29:12
-Well, I mean,
as you listen to that clip, he says, "Well,
you must think I've, you know, "hidden evidence
or destroyed evidence."
01:29:17
And I'm like, well,
it's getting hard for me to reach any other
conclusion at that point.
01:29:24
-According to Turbett,
Bachmurski had an explanation for why he took those photos.
01:29:29
-He floats the idea of, "Hey, I was going to sell
or lease the property," but I don't think that
was ever proven to be the case.
01:29:36
♪♪ ♪♪ -I'm pleading with him
to just talk about the truth, and he's admitting
the truth is good,
01:29:58
but we're not quite having
a truthful conversation. At that point,
it is time to tell him
01:30:04
that based on everything,
the case facts show us that you were involved in
the death of Jade Colvin.
01:30:10
And it's a very
important moment. -All right, let's listen to --
you're saying that to him.
01:30:15
♪♪ ♪♪ -I think James Bachmurski
just wanted to know, had we somehow pieced
this all together.
01:30:37
♪♪ ♪♪ -"I'd go to the grave
before I'd talk about this." -Yes. -Did you take that
as a confession?
01:31:01
-That's about as close
as you could probably get. At the end of that interview,
any doubt I had,
01:31:07
if there was any,
had been removed. -You've got the right guy?
-We've got the right guy.
01:31:13
-In August 2024,
James Bachmurski was charged with
murder in the second degree. -My heart just dropped.
01:31:24
-Eight years after Jade
was reported missing, her friends and family,
including her aunt Tandra Brus,
01:31:31
finally learned the teenager
they cared so much about was never coming back. -You just
don't want to believe it.
01:31:40
It hurt me so bad. -That she's gone? -Yeah. That she's gone. -Assistant Iowa Attorney
General Scott Brown
01:31:50
felt the evidence against
James Bachmurski was strong. -Jade was at
James Bachmurski's residence.
01:31:58
He was the last person
to have seen Jade alive. -He had those
cell phone photos of James Bachmurski's
clean kitchen and bedroom,
01:32:06
and the deleted messages
from Jade's family. -Communications like where
LaDawn is looking for Jade.
01:32:15
-And he had
James Bachmurski's own words. -Why would you
make that statement if you had nothing to do
with Jade Colvin's death?
01:32:29
-But what Scott didn't have
was Jade's body. -Jade Colvin has
never been recovered.
01:32:35
Her body was never found.
Usually there is a body. So a jury would look
at that and say, "Okay,
01:32:41
obviously a crime
has been committed, but here we have to prove
that a crime was committed,
01:32:48
that Jade is missing and that
she didn't leave on her own." -And with the case about
to go on trial,
01:32:54
would it be enough to convince
a jury of Bachmurski's guilt? -How do we make that
not only make sense,
01:33:01
but make sense
beyond a reasonable doubt? Is it enough? Certainly that was
a concern here.
01:33:06
♪♪ ♪♪ -For more than three years, Deputy U.S. Marshal
Justin Wallace says a dedicated
and passionate group
01:33:23
worked tirelessly
to try and find out what happened to Jade. -There were so many people
that were involved in this.
01:33:33
All of us put in a lot of work,
a lot of time, a lot of effort. -That team included
Detective Cheryl Nablo,
01:33:41
Detective Chris Wuebker, and Special Agent Jon Turbett. -There was never a doubt
that we had the right person.
01:33:51
-The murder trial
against James Bachmurski, now grey-haired,
began in August 2025.
01:33:58
Prosecutor Scott Brown explains
how Bachmurski's actions after he claimed
Jade had run away
01:34:04
pointed to his guilt. -Why isn't he calling
law enforcement? "Hey, there was this girl
that was staying at my place
01:34:14
and now people can't find her." Why wouldn't he do that? -The defense argued
there was no evidence
01:34:22
Jade Colvin was dead or that
James Bachmurski had killed her. "There was no DNA," they said.
01:34:29
"No murder weapon
and no damning Google searches." But there was
Jade's history of running away.
01:34:37
Brown says that's irrelevant. -She did have a history
of running away, but she always resurfaced.
01:34:46
She always stayed
on her cell phone. Why would she
stop using her cell phone? That was a big hurdle for them.
01:34:52
-Special Agent Jon Turbett
and Detective Chris Wuebker say throughout
the week long trial,
01:34:57
Bachmurski, who did not testify, showed little emotion. -He seemed emotionally detached.
01:35:05
-He just tried to stay stoic. -And there was information
the jury wouldn't hear.
01:35:11
James Bachmurski had
a criminal history, including a prior charge
for harassment,
01:35:17
and in 2013, Bachmurski spent
nearly a year behind bars after being charged
with child endangerment
01:35:25
against his own children. And took a plea
to a lesser offense of assault. Deputy Justin Wallace
described some of the violence
01:35:35
as alleged in court documents. -He had a metal chair with
a battery hooked up to it,
01:35:43
and when the boys misbehaved,
he put him in the chair, which essentially shocked them.
01:35:48
-Oh, my gosh.
I mean, when you hear that, are you already
thinking the worst of what he could have
done to Jade?
01:35:55
-It definitely does creep
to the forefront of your mind. -Deputy Wallace believes
LaDawn didn't know about
01:36:01
his history of violence. -She probably did not have
any idea of who he truly was.
01:36:07
-That's something
Jamee Koopman believes as well. -I know LaDawn would not
have taken Jade somewhere
01:36:12
that she thought this
of all things would happen. -As for a motive
for why Bachmurski
01:36:18
would kill Jade Colvin? -There was some evidence
that we had that he was attracted to Jade.
01:36:26
He took all those photos of her. -When the jury began
deliberations, Scott Brown was confident
in the case he presented.
01:36:36
-Within several hours. We, the jury,
find the defendant guilty of murder in the second degree.
01:36:43
-James Bachmurski was sentenced
to 50 years in prison. Considering he's 67 years old,
01:36:52
it is essentially
a life sentence. Jade's aunt, Tandra Brus,
was relieved. -And when you heard the verdict,
what did you think?
01:37:03
-I thought finally
justice is being done. -I was super grateful
that the family was able
01:37:09
to get that outcome in the case. It makes it all worth it. This was about justice for Jade.
01:37:14
-Looking back on it,
it kind of seems pretty amazing how it came together. -Everybody just kept
their head down and kept going.
01:37:21
-I think it gives a lot
of people hope that there are people who are
as passionate and committed
01:37:27
as the team that went into
trying to find out what happened to Jade Colvin. -Yeah,
this was very special for us.
01:37:34
But -- but there are a lot
of police officers out there doing
the exact same thing.
01:37:41
-But everyone involved believes the case
is not over yet. -My hope is to get
Jade someday.
01:37:50
This isn't one that's gonna
stop for for me. We all agree that
we're going to continue to see
01:37:56
if we can find out where she is
and bring her home to them. -Just because James
was charged and convicted
01:38:04
doesn't mean that she still
doesn't deserve to be found. -I want to bring her home.
01:38:12
I want to have
a proper burial for her. I want somebody out there, they know something
to please come forward.
01:38:20
-Until then,
those who loved Jade continue to struggle
with their grief. -I have pictures,
and you know,
01:38:28
I just want to think of her
as when she was happy. -I talk about her. I don't let people
forget about her.
01:38:36
She didn't... ...deserve any of this. And I never want
anybody to think that she did anything wrong,
01:38:43
or that it was
in any way her fault. -I... [ Sniffles ] ...I just wanted more people
to know about her,
01:38:53
that she existed
and she was a person. She got everything
she didn't deserve in life.
01:38:58
She deserved the entire world. And... ...she would have made the world
a better place every day
01:39:04
that she would have been here. ♪♪ ♪♪