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Welcome to Postmortem. I'm your [music] host Anne-Marie Green and today we're discussing the case of 14-year-old Jade
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Colvin. She was reported missing in June of 2016 after she ran away from a local
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shelter in Iowa for troubled youth. But then her case went unsolved for years until a new team of investigators set
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out to find answers following leads all the way to a remote farm in Decorah, Iowa.
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So joining me today is 48 Hours correspondent Natalie Morales who reported on Jade's case. And once again,
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Natalie, it's always good to have you here. >> Thanks again for having me, Anne-Marie.
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Now, I should point out this is a case about the passion and the persistence of so many investigators who really worked
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together to try to solve this years-long mystery of what happened to this missing
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young girl. >> Absolutely. I want to give everyone the quick reminder as per usual. If you have not
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watched or listened to this episode, it's called Jade Colvin is missing. Go check it out and then come back for this
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conversation. All right, Natalie, we learned very early on in the hour Jade Colvin's had a
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tough tough childhood. Both her mother LaDonna and her father Kevin, they struggled with substance abuse. Jade is
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only 13 when she's placed in foster care, but she's in and out of different facilities and she runs away a lot. So
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when she ran away in 2016, in a way this was part of a pattern. So I'm wondering
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why for Jade's family and for her friends, why they thought this was different. >> Well, I mean she literally just fell off
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the map. You know, as you mentioned, she did frequently run away. She ran away from a shelter. She was hiding from the
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foster care system. Her mother LaDonna also tried to hide her from the system as well. She didn't want her daughter to
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be in foster care. She wanted her daughter to be with her, but as you mentioned Ladonna and Jade's father both
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had a history of substance abuse. Kevin, the father, also had lost contact with Jade. She was officially reported
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missing in 2016 by the shelter when when she ran away. Her reaching out to friends and family, that all stopped in
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March of 2017. And that's when friends and family started to think, "Okay, this is
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unusual." But it was when she would have turned 18, she would have aged out of the foster care system and some of her
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family and friends, that's when they started to fear something had happened to her.
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>> So, I mean, I hate to to say this, but you know, I mean, plenty of young women
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go missing. They disappear into the night and often those cases are not followed up on. What encouraged
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authorities to keep looking for Jade after so many years? >> Well, the investigation into her
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disappearance really picked up in 2020 and it was with the US Marshals. They had this statewide operation called
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Operation Homecoming. It was an effort to find missing children. Now, Jade's case was one of 24 young adults that
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they were looking into and the incredible thing is they were able to solve and find all but two of them.
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Unfortunately, Jade was one of them and another person who is still missing. In 2022, this team of various agencies is
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called in as well and I want to give credit to the people involved. Detective Nablo is with the Des Moines PD. She
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joined forces with the Deputy US Marshal Justin Wallace, who then called in Detective Chris Webker in Decorah, the
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Sheriff's office there and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation brought in Special Agent John Turbett
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all in the search of Jade Colvin. Detective Nablo, she was the one who went to Instagram and Facebook and and
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she subpoenaed them and and said, I need to get access to Jade Corbin's social media account. And that's when she
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discovered that Jade completely stopped communicating with anyone in March of 2017. And as you know, you have
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teenagers, I have teenagers. So for them not to have any kind of social media presence, very unusual. So this team,
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once they saw that, they said, "Something here is wrong." As Special Agent John Turbett said, "If we can't
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find her, we want to get justice for Jade." >> In fact, mentioning Special Agent John Turbett, I
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want to play a clip. He explains why Jade's case was so important to his team. >> We have kids, some of us have daughters,
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and you see your your own loved ones in some of these situations. Jade's picture was
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hung up on my, you know, whiteboard, and I I looked at it every day for a couple
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years. And and she was smiling, and that's how I always wanted to remember. I'm like, that's why I'm
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you know, trying to find her. >> So you hear that passion right there with the special agent talking about how
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this case resonated. It really hit home to him. >> Yeah, you know, I I totally get that.
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And when I think about the pictures that were in the hour, I kept on thinking, she looks like any kid, you know, in my
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own daughter's high school. So I totally get what what investigators felt. I also thought it was really interesting
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that she was still, despite all of this dysfunction, really close to her mother.
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And this is something that the detectives kind of pick up as well. Investigators, they find new evidence.
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And what they find is that after Jade ran away from the shelter in 2016, they're discussing a plan Ladonna had
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hatched for Ladonna to bring Jade to this farm in Decorah, Iowa. It's owned by a man that she's been dating not for
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a very long time. His name is James Buckmerski. And this is the plan that Jade would stay there until she's 18. At
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that point, she'd be free of the foster care system. Ladonna will continue to live 3 hours away because she's dealing
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with some legal issues. It is quite an elaborate plan. >> Yeah, I mean, Ladonna had, as you
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mentioned, was dating Buckmerski for all of 4 months. Buckmerski was virtually a
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stranger to Jade as well when Jade got dropped off there. But the idea was, you know, Ladonna
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really wanted her to be with her eventually. She didn't want her daughter in the
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foster care system. She didn't trust the foster care system. And everyone, I should point out, who we spoke to, they
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all said that they believe Ladonna did this from a place of love. You know, they she wasn't putting her daughter
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there, certainly not to endanger her. She was a mother who thought she was doing her best at the time despite all
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of her demons. Unfortunately, Ladonna died 3 years after Jade went missing. So, investigators, as they started their
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search, they didn't have the ability to go talk to Ladonna. >> Did anybody in the family call police
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when she went missing from the farm? >> Not initially because after she disappeared from Buckmerski's farm, they
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believed that Jade was running away again from a situation that she didn't want to be
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placed in. So, Ladonna goes back to Buckmerski's farm at one point and she went to investigate. She asked James
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Buckmerski, you know, "Where's my daughter? What happened to her?" And he also told her, "Well, I she ran away."
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So, you know, then again, going back to the fact that Ladonna really did not trust
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the system, she's not going to be the one who who goes to the police and and raises alarm bells.
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>> Now, we did hear from Jade's aunt in the hour, her name is Tandra. She clearly
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cared very deeply for her niece. >> I wondered about whether or not, you know, family could have intervened
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before she ended up in foster care. >> And and Tandra did. She actually took Jade in and her two younger sisters for
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for a little over a year. I believe it was when Jade was 9 or 10 years old. According to Jade's aunt in that year
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that Jade was there, she really blossomed. And at that time Tandra had her three three own her husband had just
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died. She was also putting herself through school. She even apparently moved a couple of times to be in a house
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that so that each of the girls could have their own room. She bought them beds. She bought them
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new clothes. She even took them to, you know, Build-A-Bear for birthday parties.
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It seemed like this was the only time in her life that she had a semblance of normalcy in in all those years growing
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up. At one point Tandra told us that Kevin, Jade's father, did get clean. He regained custody. So she would have
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liked to have done more for them, but at that time she felt, well, Kevin, her brother, seemed to have gotten his act
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together. And to this day, though, Tandra says she regrets she couldn't do more and that she couldn't keep them.
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>> Mhm. That is tough. I mean, it sounds like she did an awful lot. All right. So then fast forward to 2022.
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The U.S. Marshals reach out to local law enforcement near Bachmayer's farm for help talking to the family. And that is
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when Detective Chris Webker from the Winneshiek County Sheriff's Office officially joins the team. James
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Bachmayer is no longer living there. The house has been gutted. It's been renovated. There are new owners. They
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allow law enforcement to look around. Natalie, in reporting for this hour, you also went to Decorah to to see what this
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location looked like. Um I thought it was really interesting cuz there's this kind of really wide
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drone shot and immediately as I saw that shot, I thought there's no way she ran away. Where's she going to run away to?
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It really gave me a sense of how remote at least it felt and goodness knows you looked cold.
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>> It was freezing. Yes, we went there in the middle of January, I should point out.
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>> And I've done shoots in this type of weather where it is just it's so cold. I
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know sometimes it gets so cold you can't I can't even say my own name cuz there's
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too many syllables in my name but you can't move your mouth properly and it looked that cold there.
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>> Oh, yeah, your eyes are tearing up. You know, it was minus 14°. If it had been I
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believe 3° colder, the drone that we used would not have been able to fly. It would have been frozen in the air.
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Um, our crew wore speaking of my eyeballs freezing, they were wearing ski goggles and ski gear so that they
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wouldn't freeze and you know, I really should highlight the importance of going to these locations and seeing them in
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person because when you stand in the middle of nowhere like that in that farm, it is beautiful but you also
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know the situation that this young girl was placed in. She was completely isolated on this remote farm. It's kind
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of hilly and as you saw by that shot, it was over 200 acres. Um, there's really nowhere to go if you're
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running away because the town, downtown Decorah, which is really cute and quaint, it's about 8 miles from the farm
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and as we were driving with Detective Webker, he said, "Look where we are. I mean, these are all they're all farms,
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farming people here. These are good salt of the earth kind of people and if somebody saw a teenager walking alone on
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the side of the road there, they would certainly stop and ask if if she needed help. So,
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right away he knew this is not a case of Jade running away." >> Welcome back. Before the investigators
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track down James Buckmerski cuz he's moved out of state, they find one of his sons. His name is Brian. He'd been
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living in Decorah at the time of Jade's disappearance. According to Detective Webker, Brian confirmed that Jade had
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been at the farm and he said that the last time that he heard from her was just a few days after she arrived when
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they were texting during his night shift at Walmart and she suddenly stopped responding.
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Why didn't Brian report Jade missing back then? >> Well, Brian says he did eventually
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follow up with his father about what happened to Jade. Uh Buckmerski at the time gave him a lot of excuses, said
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that she might even be a cam girl somewhere. However, there's some evidence as well that Brian didn't
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believe his dad. I mean, Buckmerski did have a criminal record. As you see in the hour and 2013, we report that he
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spent nearly a year behind bars after being charged with child endangerment against his own children. He pleaded
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guilty to the lesser offense of assault, but he did serve some time. >> In the hour, we learn details of this
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child endangerment case from uh court documents. Buckmerski used a metal chair hooked to a battery to shock his sons
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when they misbehaved. I mean, we saw your facial expression. >> Yeah, I mean, it was pure horror because
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if he's able to do that to his own kids, what is he capable of doing to a young girl who's not even his own kid?
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>> Absolutely. In 2023, investigators tracked down Buckmerski at his new home in Georgia. He spoke with Special Agent
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John Turbett for several hours and he indeed confirmed that he had been in a relationship with La Dawn and Jade had
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stayed with him at his farm back in 2017. Now, Buckmerski said that the last time he saw Jade, she was getting ready
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to do laundry. He said he ran out to a local store and then when he came back, she had vanished. Different story than
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what he told his son, by the way. But then about a year and a half after Jade went missing, he sold that farm,
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and he moved to Georgia. >> Right. And it was interesting because according to Special Agent John Turbett,
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his decision to relocate and the timing of the move uh not long after Jade disappeared, that all added to their
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suspicions. You know, when he moved to Georgia, he also started using an alias. He was going by the name Bob Sage. So,
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he, the agents told us, seemed to be like a guy who was trying to hide. Now, he also had some other criminal charges
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from Iowa, including a probation violation from 2018. So, there was some indication there was extra heat on him
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from law enforcement. Special Agent John Turbett, when he got there, he saw you know, this guy clearly seems to be
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like he's hiding out in this new location. >> It certainly seemed like he left uh
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Decorah in a hurry. He pretty much abandoned a lot of his belongings at a neighbor's barn. And when the neighbor
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lets investigators know, "Hey, I still got all this stuff here," they really strike gold. Uh
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they find Buckmister's old cell phone, and there's some shocking new evidence. >> Right. That phone really became the key
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to their investigation because on that phone, they found deleted text messages from Jade's family trying to find her,
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including from LaDonna, you know, desperately trying to get a hold of her daughter. They also found photos of Jade
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at the farm, the last photos of Jade alive, which also suggested to investigators he took a lot of photos of
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Jade. So, they thought perhaps this showed some attraction that Buckmister had to Jade. Now, the phone also
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contained, as you saw in the hour, these photos, which really became key evidence. One photo shows his very clean
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kitchen, which was very unusual out of the norm according to those who knew and saw the condition of that home. And also
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a bedroom photo that was taken two days after Jade disappeared. And then contrast that to a photo of the bedroom
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taken a couple of months later. The first photo showed a bed with a headboard. The second photo showed there
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was no more headboard. It looked like that mattress was new according to investigators. So, it appeared to the
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investigators that it looked like if there was a scene there, it might have been cleaned. Now, we should mention
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that the cell phone um also helped investigators clear Brian, the son, because they found those text messages
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that Jade was was having with Brian as he worked that night shift at Walmart. So, it checked out with his story.
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>> Something that I kept on thinking of was, "Okay, if she's been killed, she's got to be somewhere on this farm."
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But, it's huge. Were investigators able to search the farm? How do you go about searching a property that large?
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>> Well, as Detective Chris Webker from the Winneshiek County Sheriff's Office, you
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know, said, it was really like looking for a needle in a haystack. They searched the 200-plus acres. They used
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cadaver dogs. They didn't find any human bones or DNA, but I will say they did find a pile of bones. They were animal,
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I should say, not human. Um the dog did not signal on any human scent there. Um Buck Mersky, though, we should point
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out uh according to to Chris Webker, he was a skilled hunter. Um I asked Webker what struck him about
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those animal bones since it's not unusual to hunt in Iowa. >> She was an avid outdoorsman that knew
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how to handle himself and how to harvest animals and then discard them. >> And being able to handle and kill
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animals like that. >> Yeah. >> And you think the same could be said for for humans? And just being able to
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discard people? >> He definitely had the knowledge of of where he lived and and how to do
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things that way, yes. >> That gives you the creeps just hearing that and and knowing the possibilities
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when you see a property of that size, what he might have been able to do. >> Mhm.
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>> So, even though investigators have not found Jade's body, they do have some damning new evidence from Buck Mersky's
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phone. Special Agent John Turbitt went back down to Georgia to interview Buck Mersky
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again, but this time Buck Mersky's demeanor is completely different. He claimed to be drunk and that he couldn't
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remember any details, but Special Agent Turbitt pressed him about Jade. I want you to listen to a clip of what Buck
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Mersky said to him. >> I'd go to the grave before I tell the truth about this. >> Yes.
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>> I'd rather go to the grave than tell what happened here in this case. Yeah, Turbitt said,
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uh, this was as close to a confession as you could get because Buck Mersky is saying there is so much here you are
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never going to know and I'm never going to tell you. Yeah. Well, clearly investigators and prosecutors believe
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they have enough by August of 2024. James Buck Mersky is charged with Jade Colvin's murder. His trial began about a
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year later. And I I have to say, it seemed to me like the prosecution had a real challenge. I didn't think this case
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was particularly strong, even though there's a lot of evidence. There's no blood, there's no what murder weapon,
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there's no body. >> Yeah, and the no body being the big part of that. This case was purely
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circumstantial. Um, you know, but Buck Mersky, by his own words, admitting Jade was at his residence under his care
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right before she disappears. That cell phone evidence that they had was key. I mean, those deleted messages along with
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those photos that seemed to show the before and after Jade disappeared. He replaced that bed. He cleaned that
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kitchen. He took pictures of it. Buck Mursky, however, explained he was cleaning and doing all of this because
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he was planning to sell the farm which he eventually did. But, most incriminating were those words you just
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heard, you know, his own words. I'd go to the grave before I'd tell the truth. >> But, here's the thing. If I was the
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defense, I would just say, "Well, you don't even have any proof that she's dead."
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>> And that was that was a big part of the defense's argument. They tried to say
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there's no evidence she's dead. They said she had a history of running away. You know, in fact, they even hired their
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own investigator who said there were unconfirmed sightings of her. It is hard to combat the the fact though that Jade
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was at Buck Mursky's residence under his care and then poof, she just disappears.
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Nobody ever heard from her again. >> Well, the prosecution did their job. Uh the jury found Buck Mursky guilty of
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murder in in the second degree. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison. So, he's 67 years old. Uh so, that's
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essentially a life sentence for him at the time. In the hour, Jade's aunt Tandra said
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that the sentence was a relief. Do we know how the rest of Jade's family felt about this?
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>> Well, Tandra and and I think you could see that in the in the interview. She she struggles. I mean, she really wants
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to be able to find Jade's body, give her a proper funeral. The whole family hopes
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that someone watching the show or listening to this who has any information will come forward. You know,
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I think that's what they're all looking for is some sense of closure if there is
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such a thing. Yeah. >> All of the investigators that we spoke with those said, "This is still not done
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for them. It is still an open missing person's case with the Des Moines PD until they find Jade's body."
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>> I totally get that. Still so many loose ends. You really do want to know what
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happened to her um before you could really have peace. I can get it. So listen, Natalie, I want
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to ask you about something that you had actually mentioned at the top of the podcast.
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In addition to Jade, there was another missing child that US Marshals were not able to locate. This is part of this
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Operation Homecoming. What do we know about that last case? >> Yeah. Yeah, really important because
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again, we use this as an opportunity to call out anybody who may know something.
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Uh Frederick Workman is the name of of the young man. Um he was reported missing from Des Moines in August of
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2013 when he was about 15 years old. A lot of work has been done on his case. However, that case remained open as
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well. So again, if anybody has any information, they can contact the US Marshals office at 515-400-8140
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or they can submit a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
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>> I know there's going to be all kinds of people as soon as they hear this podcast
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they're going to be getting online and looking this case up and hopefully hopefully it'll make a difference.
00:22:29
Um Natalie, once again, another really really fascinating hour and at least you know Jade's family got some closure. It
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would be really really nice if they could find out the rest of the story about what happened to this this young
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woman who had I mean so much potential, so many possibilities. >> Right. And it's just so tragic that she
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really never got to find out who she was in life. >> [music] >> Yeah, so true. Thanks again, Natalie.
00:22:55
>> Thank you, Anne Marie. >> And to all of you out there, if you like this episode, please rate and review on
00:23:01
Apple Podcasts or Spotify.