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foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] garage wherever you are whatever you are
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doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that
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would like to remind you that there are a lot of wimps out there yeah I might break your nose with my shoulder blade
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it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend
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[Music] today we are drinking guayabera by the great Cigar City Brewing Company this is
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an American Citra Pale Ale ABV 5.5 garage grade 4 and 3 4 bottle caps out of five this week's fridge is full
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because of you captain no we know that's not true but the captain is thankful that the fridge is full because of you
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guys out there first up a big cheers to all of our friends and Parts Unknown we got so many of them first we have
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Courtney we have Pamela B David R and Brian B all hailing and pu a big shout out to Kristen which wanted me to call
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Crime garage and that is enough of the beers yes all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's
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talk some true crime [Music] foreign [Music] neighborhood of Sarasota Still Remains
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missing tonight the best span was last seen back on Labor Day along 23rd Street in Sarasota ABC 7's Rick Adams joins us
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live tonight from Sarasota Police Headquarters with more on the story Rick its apparents worst nightmare having her
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child vanish off the face of the Earth to one a span's 14 year old son Jabez has been missing now since September 4th
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span her boyfriend and other family members are pleading for information to find him and hopefully a safe return
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home if there's anybody that know anything like don't just lay him it was something that don't just let him just
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be out there like that chabez was last seen playing near his grandmother's house in the 1500 Block of 23rd Street
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in Sarasota the Sarasota Police Department are following All Leads and asking the community for their
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assistance we have done searches grid searches we have tried pinging his phone we have followed up leads at this point
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we know and believe that there are people within our community that has information about this young man in his
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whereabouts in fact the Ping to jabez's cell phone attracted to an undisclosed wooded area near Sarasota but police
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weren't able to find the phone or any evidence of him being there and one of the ways the community is trying to help
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is they're going door to door and store to store with Flyers like this groups are now going out daily handing out
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hundreds of these flyers with the hopes they get in the hands of somebody who knows something this is an additional
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another opportunity for the community to come together and to support one another
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to show love to collaborate you know to do what's right Jabez span is described as a bright teen who is very athletic he
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is between five feet seven inches and five feet nine inches tall weighing 120 to 130 pounds with black hair and brown
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eyes he was last seen wearing a turquoise shirt somebody gotta know [Music] something he has to contact authorities
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immediately reporting live from downtown Sarasota this evening I'm Rick Adam Scott back to you all right Rick thanks
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so much for that update foreign [Music] this week we are discussing the case of Jabez Eugene Spann who in 2017 was a 14
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year old boy living in the Newtown area of Sarasota Florida Sarasota's population was about 56 000 people
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Newtown is majority African-American in fact a historic plaque posted by the Sarasota County historic commission
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dedicates the area as the quote first black community in the city Newtown is near downtown Sarasota chabez
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was a great kid according to everyone who knew him he was full of jokes and humor
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his mother Tawana span whom True Crime garage spoke with at length had various troubles throughout her life
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Jabez was actually born in prison and as a newborn he was handed over to a foster
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family but his grandmother Lucille Tillery tracked him down and put up a fight to
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raise him herself she got legal guardianship of Jabez when he was just two months old
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she kept the Biblical name Jabez that Tawana gave him which means bearer of pain swanna felt that this name would
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make him strong and bring him God's protection throughout his life Jabez adored his grandmother Lucille although
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they sometimes butted heads because she was old school and her child rearing ways
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and he would Rebel a little and give her a hard time but everyone loved each other and
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generally Jabez towed the lines drawn by Lucille Jabez also had a good relationship with his mom who was
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released after serving her four-year sentence she moved to Tampa Bay Florida not far
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away Jabez was thriving in his grandparents home so his mom made the decision to let him
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continue to live with them chabez's mother Tawana was very involved with Jabez even though they did not live
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together or share a home jabez's father however lived in Jacksonville Florida and was not much a part of the boy's
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life now on the other hand it's pretty clear that Jabez had some poor role models in his life an older brother was
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serving 15 years in prison another brother was in rehab and his uncle Cornelius was in and out of prison
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multiple times for some pretty serious crimes Tawana Spann told Dateline that Jabez had seen these family members
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making serious mistakes throughout their life and he was determined not to go down these same paths he did have one
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incident involving the police but generally he was a good kid with his head screwed on properly he got good
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grades in school and in fact he was a teacher's assistant and was a football star according to his mother Jabez was
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always carrying a football around his family had hopes of him playing football in college and maybe even making it to
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the NFL one of his friends described Jabez as fun energetic and very athletic he was
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great at basketball football and he was also known to do these flips at a moment's notice you see these people
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sometimes you see a football star on on TV who will just do one of these flips randomly just standing there and all of
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a sudden they're in midair and then they're back on their feet again crazy stuff yeah that's how I get out of bed
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one flip at a time Chavez was usually found somewhere in the neighborhood often playing ball or hanging out at the
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park with his friends Jabez was not tiny I mean he was 14 years old he was five foot nine inches tall 120 pounds and we
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talked about Jabez being full of humor and just really a fun kid almost every picture I've seen
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you can see how happy he is in these pictures he was a kid with a great smile a broad and warm smile just a good
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looking All-American kid yeah they say when you smile that big you also smile with your eyes let's talk about
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the knight in question the evening in question the night that Jabez vanished this is on the night of September 4th
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2017. Labor Day it's a Monday Jabez attended a Labor Day party this was held by his family
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family members said Jabez did not appear to be having fun at the party this is probably because there weren't many kids
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there he's 14 years old he's probably bored at a shindig that's just full of adults
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he did hold his uncle's baby for some time but around 5 30 p.m he left to go hang out with some buddies
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his grandmother reports that she saw him around 6 PM near a memorial recently erected for a shooting victim from the
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neighborhood this man that was killed his name was Travis Combs there was a vigil held for Travis and
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Jabez attended this one of Travis's female cousins had a relationship with Tawana spann's brother
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so he was sort of family to Jabez this vigil was in the 1500 Block of 23rd Street at Paul Medallia Avenue right
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near Lucille's house where Jabez lived Chavez returned to Lucille's house with his buddy whom we are just going to
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refer to here as T because he is a minor the two were there sometime in the 8 to
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10 pm range they left after that Jabez was supposed to spend the night at a friend's house that night as he often
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did but he always would come home to go to school and the next morning you know this is a Tuesday morning there is
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school that day when he did not show up at school well this is unheard of for Jabez he had
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good attendance records and his grandmother is now quite concerned about where could this young boy be
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where could this young man be and so she tries calling Jabez and gets no answer on his phone
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Lucille says she knew something was wrong immediately she was calling around looking for him to no avail
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finally she called Tawana 's mother who immediately jumped in her vehicle and sped off to Sarasota now
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she's actually thinking while she's making her way there how much trouble Jabez was going to be
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in once she locates him because she's upset that hey you worried your grandmother you didn't go to school
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you're going to be in trouble when I find you yeah it could be something simple like
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he spent the night at his friend's house supposed to wake up in the morning to go
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home to get ready for school but they overslept or something the other thing too I mean even though it was unheard of
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for him to miss school he had great attendance records kids get older they do things maybe you stay the night at
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your buddy's house but he doesn't want to go to school you find something stupid to go off and do
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instead and then you go that way the problem here we have is now we're talking about
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getting close to the 24-hour Mark of when the last time he was seen he doesn't go to school and he's not
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responding to phone calls going to his phone so his mother yeah while a good kid in the family thinks he's a good kid
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but you also have all these people in his family that started making wrong turns at some point in their life and so
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you got to be concerned with that as a parent as this an action of him going down the wrong path
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correct and with any neighborhood be it I don't care where it's located I don't care the class of people there are ways
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for teenagers to slip into the wrong crowd very easily now his mother arrived in this new town area after dark again
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this is right around the 24 hour mark after she last saw him so Lucille then calls police this is to
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report Jabez missing this is on the evening of September 5th after some persuading the Sarasota
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Police Department did Issue a missing person's report but of course initially treating this case as a possible runaway
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situation this was based off of past Behavior as Jabez was known to stay with friends sometimes for multiple days at a
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time and occasionally you know he's going to get into it with Grandma from time to
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time you know as teenagers we don't always agree with those with our parents or those who are raising us and
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sometimes you get in an argument and you stomp away and police I think we're kind
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of thinking Jabez is 14 years old that's a possibility here we don't have any reports of that from jabez's family on
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September 8th with Jabez missing now for four days and no activity on his phone or social media the Sarasota Police
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Department upgraded the case to a missing child case the department issued a media blast
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about Jabez being missing and this blast said it's unclear what the circumstances
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were leading up to his disappearance detectives are asking anyone who knows the whereabouts of Jabez who call
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detective Megan buck and gave a phone number but then six days later this is I'm sorry six days after Jabez
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vanished the area was hit by a hurricane this is Hurricane Irma this knocked out
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the power to much of the area for quite some time it wasn't until after the storm was over that police began to take
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jabez's disappearance much more seriously they reissued the missing child alert and the request for
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information this on September 18th well police were probably thinking well the whole city is under attack by weather
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if this kid was just mad at his family he'd probably come back for safety correct and we're getting up there in
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the number of days now that he's been missing at this point Sarasota police chief Bernadette depino updated
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reporters on the investigation and affirmed that it was officially a missing person's investigation while the
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police had issued a Florida missing child alert she said the case did not meet the criteria for an amber alert
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because there was simply no evidence to suggest that Jabez was abducted and this
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is something that we've talked about in other cases Captain this one is a little
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trickier this one's a little more difficult and I just based this off of one victimology and two kind of the
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movements and behaviors of everything involved right we we've discussed plenty of cases where
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somebody sees somebody go missing off of the streets or somebody sees somebody actually grabbed or snatched and grabbed
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we don't have any reports of anybody claiming that Jabez was was spotted being attacked or being pursued by
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someone and then on top of that when we look at victimology just the just the nature of his age his gender
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and his size makes him a less likely Target for you know the more traditional that's a
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terrible word to use but some of the more trash that we've discussed on this show
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in regards to child abduction cases in in the Predators and the perpetrators of those crimes only you said he's five
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nine one twenty highly athletic so he would be a lot harder to kidnap him yeah and I think I don't know that I can
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emphasize the athletic part enough I mean given what I've been told by several people
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this is the kind of kid that if he wanted to get away from somebody he could I mean he he was fast and he was
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very athletic doesn't rule out the possibility of of several people right and also the scariest thing is one the
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days are really starting to add up here and there's zero absolutely zero activity on his phone
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Chief depino also stated that police had pinged jabez's cell phone she would not
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say anything further other than to state that it did not lead to anything but it came out later that the phone had
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pinged in a wooded area near an industrial park and nothing was found when this area was searched
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apparently this area is mostly water and woods okay now for the general timeline
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this takes us to about the two weeks mark jabez's family had been searching for him now for two weeks at this point
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credit to his family they were doing all the right things they were vocal and outspoken about demanding action on
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jabez's case they pushed for searches they handed out flyers and they spread the word about their missing boy
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chabez's Aunt set up a Facebook page for missing Jabez span which publicized the
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boy's disappearance and posted about volunteer searches and flyer distribution Tawana had been able to determine
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jabez's movements on the night that he was last seen she figured out that he had gone to the
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park this was to play basketball but he didn't say very long he he left before too long because he was not really
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dressed appropriately for sports activities right we all know the situation Captain you like to play a
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little ball in the neighborhood you want your t-shirt on you want to be in some shorts in your basketball shoes and
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given that he was just coming from the party he was on you know wearing a nicer shirt wearing a pair of slacks wasn't
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really dressed for any sports activities yeah I like to do my hooping and penny loafers and Jorts from the park
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she was able to figure out that he did in fact go back to his grandmother's where he lived this is in the 8 to 10 pm
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time frame that we discussed he was at his grandma's until he left with a friend this kid that we're
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calling t after that the trail went cold jabez's mother Tawana and grandmother Lucille
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knew that the boy would not have just run away their mother's intuition was telling them that something was very
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wrong and Tawana told ABC Action News at the time that she believed someone knew
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where her son was saying quote I don't know if they are holding him or if something has happened to him I feel as
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though if there was nothing wrong with him he would have contacted someone by now there has to be information out
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there there is somebody that knows something Tawana told True Crime garage that she
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had a sinking feeling very early on and she didn't really want to communicate that with anybody but it's Mother's
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intuition so he misses school the grandma is trying to make contact with him the mom is rushing back
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like you said initially thinking that he was just doing something wrong misbehaving then they do another step by
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starting to retrace his steps which is is something that everybody should do if somebody goes missing right and this is
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also you know when they're doing all of this and trying to put the puzzle pieces
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together to really fill out this timeline and follow it to the end or to the last known point
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they're also talking to people in the neighborhood and she's talking to other kids in the
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neighborhood especially kids that are jabez's age right just simply you know have you seen him
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have you heard anything is there somewhere that I should be looking that we're not
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and during the conversations amongst these different kids and and whatnot at some point one of these kids tells her
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frankly just blurts it out says quote you know he witnessed a murder so she begins to hear rumors about
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jabez's disappearance Tawana told the ABC reporter that she had heard from various people
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that Jabez was in danger she said quote Jabez was supposed to have witnessed something of a violent
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crime whether or not that's true or not a 14 year old does not fall off the face
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of the Earth no social media no nothing you're going to contact your friends or somebody
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Sarasota police had clearly heard these rumors as well Chief depino said that they were
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following up on every lead but the rumors in the gossip surrounding jabez's disappearance had not been verified as
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credible she made the following statement alluding to the word on the street the
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Jabez had been victimized by someone quote we have done grid searches and we tried pinging his phone we have followed
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up on leads at this point we know and believe that there are people within our community that has information about
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this young man and his whereabouts as she's asking around in the community she also knows that some of these kids
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are more likely to talk to her than they would be to law enforcement but but now she is getting these rumors
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but she's not able to connect some of the dots on September 26 2017 Tawana Spann and Lucille Tillery made a public
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plea for the return of their beloved Son and Grandson Lucille was pouring tears as she said quote I just want to say I
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know somebody out there knows what happened to Jabez we love Jabez all we want is for anyone who knows anything
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just give him back to us we just want him back this could be anybody's child I'm begging pleading just bring him back
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she went on to say quote the house is so empty without him in it that's my baby somebody please please help us Lucille
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emphasized that she was no stranger to emotional pain she had already lost a husband who dropped dead in their yard
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she lost a brother a sister who was killed by a lightning strike and she had lost her parents as well but she said
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this is a feeling I've never felt before in my life Chief depino also spoke addressing the
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frustration that her Department felt at not finding anything she said quote we're doing everything we can but it's
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very frustrating we are not getting information from our community so we are asking again and reaching out
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to the citizens in our community to please consider coming forward she was appealing directly to people in
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the neighborhood Who police clearly felt knew something specific about what had happened to Jabez she stated that Foul
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Play was not being ruled out but reiterated that there was no information either way under pressure from the
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family Sarasota police announced a reward in jabez's case on September 30th this reward offered jointly by Sarasota
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Police Department the Florida Department of Law Enforcement this was for six thousand dollars in addition a digital
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billboard had been donated this was to be used to ask for information in jabez's case
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by October 3rd the FBI got involved they had joined in the case helping in the search for Jabez
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volunteer Searchers organized by the family continued to spend their days looking for Clues throughout the
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neighborhood and surrounding areas the family put together prayer vigils and marches down Martin Luther King Jr way
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to where Jabez was last seen this near his grandmother's house keeping the case in the public eye the reward for
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information leading to jabez's whereabouts grew all the way up to twenty five thousand dollars 19 was
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contributed by the FBI five thousand by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and one thousand by the
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Sarasota Police Department all right so but now we have the family doing their due diligence talking to the
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community getting answers relaying that to law enforcement now law enforcement is making public statements and also
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adding a reward so it seems like everybody's doing as much as they can everybody's on the same page everybody's
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working together they all have the same goal in mind let's find this 14 year old
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boy the family did report to the media that they were receiving daily calls from Sarasota police with updates on the
00:26:52
case it seemed that the police department was actively investigating the case in a
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legitimately interested in solving it this should not sound like information that we need to report but sometimes
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we've seen that police do not give their full attention as much to Inner City victims at least publicly that does not
00:27:13
seem to be the case here I want to really underline this and reiterate this very strongly
00:27:19
True Crime garage spoke with jabez's family and with people very close to the case every single one of them said that
00:27:29
they firmly believe and have seen so much evidence of such that the Sarasota Police Department was fully vested in
00:27:38
this investigation that they were they were being driven emotionally and by the community and by their just their own
00:27:46
wants and needs to find Jabez themselves they were fully all in on this case nobody on the inside be it the family or
00:27:55
otherwise has questioned that now I think one thing that we see here Captain when a child goes missing and has been
00:28:03
missing for weeks this is a crime or this is this is something that truly affects the community it's a crime
00:28:12
against the community and when that takes place we want the community want something physical to point at and to
00:28:19
blame you know why did this happen why would this happen here and unfortunately in this case we had kind of two
00:28:28
different approaches to it where we had some people were saying look if you had been a better mother
00:28:34
your kid would have never gone missing and I I one I I won't stand for that at all I can't cannot stand that I
00:28:42
understand that his mother has made mistakes but she is a good person and I believe that she is a good person she
00:28:50
made mistakes just like anybody is capable of especially when we're younger well here's the thing you gotta love
00:28:56
though is he was basically being put into the system right Foster family mm-hmm his grandma steps up to the plate
00:29:04
and says oh no he's going to stay in our family I'm going to raise this boy and then the Mom starts getting her life
00:29:11
together and she has the love for her child enough to say you know what maybe he's in a better situation
00:29:19
because I made these mistakes and I don't want him to go down the same path I want to give my child the best
00:29:26
opportunity and maybe the best opportunity is with my mother and with me uh being as much of a cheerleader as
00:29:34
I can from the sideline and being as much of his mother from the sideline yeah and I think that's exactly right
00:29:40
and the thing here too is she is up front jabez's mother Tawana she's up front about her mistakes that she made
00:29:48
and she says look I didn't make these mistakes because I had a bad upbringing she says I had a very good upbringing
00:29:54
the problem was that once I got to a certain age I started making bad choices I started hanging out with the wrong
00:30:01
people going to the wrong areas doing the wrong things and that's what ended her up in prison for that four-year
00:30:08
sentence and as you said she gets out she finds that her son is in a very good situation thriving in that situation and
00:30:16
she allowed him to continue to thrive in that situation the other thing too that
00:30:21
the family pointed out especially jabez's mother was that the people that were friends with them and you know
00:30:29
Community co-workers whatnot they also wanted somebody to blame they wanted something physical to point at
00:30:36
and to blame and it was a whole different blame game they wanted to blame the police and say that the police
00:30:43
were not doing enough that maybe they didn't care that they weren't trying as hard as they could and the family has
00:30:50
said straight up anybody that was wasting our time with that we we had no time for that that is not
00:30:58
helping this case along and that in fact was just not what was going on at all Sarasota Police Department was all in
00:31:07
[Music] foreign cheers mates from very cold Parts Unknown I'm in the garage and normally I like to
00:31:41
say cheers to you through the glass Captain because we're we're separated by glass like a couple of wild animals but
00:31:48
uh today we are separated by several state lines so cheers to everybody out there I am in beautiful sunny
00:31:56
Florida and that's a lie I'm actually I'm joining you from a bunker at the bottom
00:32:02
of the ocean yeah and it smells a lot better in the garage this week all right well cheers to everybody out
00:32:10
there back to our case Captain by the end of October law enforcement officials were stepping up efforts to find Jabez
00:32:18
Agents from the FBI the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Sarasota Police Department we're
00:32:26
re-camvassing certain areas of Newtown and the surrounding areas they're knocking on doors and talking to people
00:32:33
trying to uncover new leads in this missing person's case this is because by this time there was some information
00:32:42
about what likely happened to Jabez and this comes in the form of a probable cause affidavit as you recall
00:32:52
we said earlier that jabez's mother Tawana stated that she had heard rumors that Jabez had witnessed something he
00:33:01
should not have a violent crime of some sort yeah while Jabez had not told his family about
00:33:07
witnessing anything Tawana had learned through her inquiries that Jabez had talked to others about what he had seen
00:33:15
and then something happened on October 29th it would confirm for the family that these rumors were true all of this
00:33:24
information is from a probable cause affidavit filed in the Sarasota County Clerk's Office on November 8
00:33:32
2017. bear with us here because this gets a little complicated here's what the probable cause affidavit says
00:33:41
on October 29 2017 when Jabez had been missing for nearly two months a man named Reginald
00:33:50
Parker came to the home of Lucille Tillery on 23rd Street in Newtown he said he had information
00:33:59
that might help the family in their quest to find out what happened to Jabez he told her that he had witnessed the
00:34:07
murder of Travis Combs you might recall that Jabez and his friends had been seen
00:34:13
near a memorial for Combs and this is the guy that was connected to his family yes and he was murdered on August 28
00:34:22
2017 and that Combs as you stated was connected well known to jabez's family well known to Jabez and and kind of
00:34:32
considered a member of the extended extended family yeah and you would think this would put him in a situation that
00:34:39
he felt like he could talk to his family about what he saw but obviously we had reports kids
00:34:46
stating this other people in the community and now eyewitness claiming that that Jabez was a witness to this
00:34:54
murder okay so let's step aside for a minute and discuss this other case here that we have referenced several times
00:35:00
but let's take this opportunity to go through the murder of Travis combs in some detail Travis Combs was a pretty
00:35:07
regular dude he was a working man a proud father with a son that loved him very much but the one thing that would
00:35:16
make him different from other working regular dude fathers Travis was a weed dealer now many of the papers report him
00:35:24
to be a drug dealer of course marijuana is a narcotic but nowadays when we have several States in this country where
00:35:32
it's declared legal to dispense sell marijuana and cannabis THC products I think the term drug dealer Probably
00:35:40
sounds a little too sinister for a man who is selling a product that is well frankly legal in other states yeah it's
00:35:51
very confusing in this country because we've talked about this before in one state he would be looked at as an
00:35:58
entrepreneur and in other states he's a criminal yeah and then we have our state
00:36:03
like Ohio that is now allowing medical use of marijuana and down here in Florida they've just recently made use
00:36:12
of medical marijuana as well so it seems like a lot of the states are going that
00:36:16
way whatever side of the fence you fall on I think it's a fair assessment to say
00:36:22
that a weed dealer is different and to me anyway it's different to me than than somebody that would be labeled a drug
00:36:30
dealer or a pusher of hardcore drugs another interesting fact about Ohio is once a medical marijuana was legalized
00:36:39
glaucoma has gone up five thousand percent I well the thing here is I think often
00:36:45
too people hear someone is a drug dealer and they say silly things just really nonsense things like oh well he got what
00:36:53
he deserved right I want to point out Travis overall was a pretty good dude he was selling
00:36:58
marijuana simply for two reasons one this was a good amount of extra income and two he was a smoker or user himself
00:37:06
I want to be clear I'm not condoning illegal behavior and frankly in my opinion he probably should have got out
00:37:15
of this the moment he became a father but that's a a whole nother conversation and from everyone I spoke to and
00:37:22
everything I could find he was in fact a good father now Travis's Mo was he sold
00:37:29
weed out of his vehicle this is much more common than I think most people would truly know in fact it's happening
00:37:36
on several streets in your neighborhood or town as we speak you have a basic system of
00:37:43
you park your car or vehicle in a certain location on certain days of the week and you're open for business
00:37:51
on the day that he was killed Travis pulled his car into a vacant grassy lot on 22nd Street this is a spot where he
00:38:00
was known to deal and customers would approach him there to conduct business yeah he called his weed dispensary the
00:38:07
grassy knoll this lot is located according to reporters and others who have written about this case
00:38:14
453 feet from jabez's grandmother's house just 453 feet from jabez's Grandmother's
00:38:22
house we should point out on this night August 28th this Reginald Parker the man
00:38:29
mentioned in the affidavit happened to be nearby at a rooming house this is right down 22nd Street
00:38:37
Parker said that he saw three men surround Travis Combs and his vehicle in the empty lot he heard the three men
00:38:45
yelling something like give it up and he said he heard Combs yell back I ain't got it
00:38:51
Travis tried to flee on foot and then Parker heard a gunshot Parker saw two of the men run north on palmadelia Avenue
00:39:00
and saw the third guy get into Travis Combs car and then drive off Combs lie on the ground in the vacant lot having
00:39:09
been chased and then shot once in the upper torso someone called the cops or emergency
00:39:15
medical techs it's unclear who exactly called for First Responders that has not been
00:39:23
released to the public the rumor is that this call came from a woman either way poor Travis was dead when
00:39:31
First Responders arrived on the scene the neighborhood together mourned the death of one of their own Travis Combs
00:39:39
was just 31 years old he was found dead at about 9 20 p.m near 22nd Street and palmadelia Avenue well this is the
00:39:48
problem when when something is illegal then they're selling like you said he's just parking out in
00:39:57
the open and so people know that he's also profiting from this so he's gonna either
00:40:05
have product to steal or he'll have money to steal yes this is very problematic for for Travis Okay so and
00:40:14
these are other people's words not my own but I got the same Vibe as well when I was going through this
00:40:20
Travis even though he was selling weed and he was doing this on the side let's keep in mind this was a guy with a with
00:40:28
a family with a growing family and with a job okay he was not what these other guys might refer to as Street or Thug he
00:40:39
he was not that kind of guy and this as you pointed out captain might be the icing on the cake right
00:40:47
because if it's known throughout the neighborhood and it totally was that Travis was a man that was able to
00:40:55
move a decent amount of marijuana well that means one of two things or both that on any given day especially when
00:41:03
you know he's parked and open up for business he very likely could be in possession of large sums of cash or
00:41:12
large sums of marijuana or both and this makes him a desirable Target and then if we factor in on top of that
00:41:21
that he's not considered Thug or Street or whatever he might be considered a soft target someone that would be easy
00:41:30
to Rob and at the time at 2017 and actually a little before this you can back it up about a year or so and even a
00:41:39
little bit after all of this was taking place there was a few groups around town
00:41:44
that were known for committing armed robberies for robbing a drug dealer like uh like Travis or holding somebody up
00:41:54
just really taking advantage of the situation and bullying other people and robbing them the police said that this
00:42:02
was an isolated incident and that there was no indication that the public was at
00:42:08
risk early on detectives were not releasing information to the public they were asking that anyone with information
00:42:16
on the case that they called detective Kim Laster at 941-364-7327 from what I could find Travis was shot
00:42:28
in the upper torso police would not release what kind of gun was used in this homicide but the rumors are it was
00:42:35
a single shot to the back and either a shotgun or a larger caliber gun was used yeah which is very cowardly I do want to
00:42:45
point out to all of our listeners that the murder of Travis Combs is still unsolved and the investigation is still
00:42:53
very much ongoing the purpose of these episodes of True Crime garage that we are doing this week are not only to get
00:43:01
Justice for Jabez span who was just 14 years old when he went missing but also to get Justice for Travis Combs and
00:43:10
anyone with information regarding the senseless murder of Travis Combs I beg you please call or email the
00:43:18
Sarasota Police Department or call the detective we just mentioned at 941-364-7327 yeah but also is a sign of
00:43:29
the community and also a sign of the the cards that are stacked up against Jasmine when these three individuals
00:43:37
feel that they can go into to a public spot right in the open rob somebody murder them steal their car
00:43:48
and almost like they're not even afraid that enough people will turn them in yeah this whole thing is difficult
00:43:55
because these these guys and we're going to get into some suspects as we go along
00:44:00
in our case an investigation of Jabez span but the issue here in one of the problems is again we have these several
00:44:11
groups that are out in the community and they're committing robberies the thought that in the vibe that I got
00:44:18
from people close to the case and I feel like maybe law enforcement shares this opinion too that in Travis
00:44:27
combs's case they may not have intended to murder Travis Combs it may be something went sideways during the
00:44:35
commission of that robbery and it led to murder regardless of whatever their MO was or or their motivation was
00:44:44
it ended in murder and this is a crime against the community as much as it is against Travis Combs and his family and
00:44:53
really the police are asking for the community's help in that case so what does all of this have to do with The
00:45:00
Disappearance of Jabez well it is because of what Reginald Parker the man who came forward the man named in the
00:45:08
affidavit it is what he told jabez's grandmother Lucille Tillery that changed everything for the family
00:45:16
and for their search not only did Reginald Parker say that he witnessed the shooting of Travis Combs
00:45:24
but he also saw Jabez span and two of jabez's buddies emerged from a home on the 1600 block of 22nd Street this
00:45:33
during the incident according to Parker they too saw everything and the three men involved in the
00:45:41
shooting of Travis Combs they may have seen the three kids or at least they saw Jabez now they may have only seen Jabez
00:45:51
because Jabez did yell something out when he saw this and witnessed this he yelled out oh my God you all shot him
00:46:01
Travis Combs his vehicle was found sometime later about 15 or 16 miles away and it had been set on fire normally
00:46:09
there's two guys in the garage this week there's only one guy another guy is soaking up the Sun
00:46:15
but if there was a third wheel I mean come on crispy Colonel the captain and Reginald
00:46:24
you like that name what a great name Reggie well we don't want this Regional in the garage and
00:46:32
we'll get into that a little bit later but I thought we were trying to hire Carlos he is he not returning and
00:46:40
Reginald yeah well it's important to our understanding of the story to note that
00:46:46
the gunman did not know that Reginald Parker witnessed this murder the shooting this robbery of Travis
00:46:52
Combs furthermore it is unlikely that they knew that there was another witness in addition to Jabez and his friends
00:47:01
on October 13th detectives interviewed a witness who stated that on August 28th between the hours of 8 30 and 9 pm this
00:47:11
witness was walking on Orange Avenue approaching 23rd Street this witness heard a single gunshot unfortunately
00:47:20
after hearing The Gunshot as the witness was crossing Orange Avenue heading toward 23rd Street they observed two
00:47:28
black male subjects running Northbound on palmadelia Avenue the witness immediately recognized one of the men
00:47:35
and later revealed his name to the detectives again it seems unlikely that the gunman knew that they were observed
00:47:43
by this witness from across the street at night but they did know for certain that one
00:47:50
person had seen them that one person was 14 year old Jabez spam what's even more
00:47:57
important is that both these adult Witnesses Reginald Parker who saw the whole thing go down and the unnamed
00:48:04
witness later reported to be a woman on the street who saw the men running from the scene could identify at least one of
00:48:13
the gunmen by name the unnamed witness told detectives the name of the man that she recognized this was a man named
00:48:23
Curtis whose last name we are withholding so we know that police received information from a witness as to the
00:48:33
identity of one of the killers of Travis Combs although this witness saw the men
00:48:39
running away not the actual murder itself as for Reginald Parker who did witness
00:48:45
the shooting he did not go to police as we said he spoke to Lucille Tillery jabez's
00:48:53
grandmother and Reginald told her the name of two of the men he saw and one of them was
00:49:00
Curtis so we have two different eyewitnesses both naming one of the suspects of the three and naming the
00:49:08
same person Reginald also met with LaToya Jakes this is jabez's Aunt he told her the same
00:49:17
story about Travis Combs shooting and Jabez witnessing the whole thing he also told the story to a third person
00:49:25
and this was a private investigator who was working with chabez's family pro bono on jabez's case and Reginald told
00:49:35
this private investigator J.R the names of two of the men he saw shoot Travis Combs one was Curtis and the other was a
00:49:46
guy named a Wheelock Sarasota Police Department almost certainly heard about Reginald statements to the family
00:49:53
because they arrested him on November 7th he was arrested on a warrant for failure to appear in court as it turns
00:50:02
out old Reggie he's 55 years of age he was a sex offender and he had earlier failed to give a notice of change of
00:50:12
address per the requirements and he had been arrested and given a court date and
00:50:17
then released he then failed to appear so police had a reason to arrest him this took place on the seventh and to
00:50:26
hold him as well what they want to do Captain is they are going to put pressure on him they want him to name
00:50:33
the guys that he saw shoot Travis Combs because the story he was telling seemed to pretty clearly implicate the men who
00:50:44
killed Travis probably they were involved in The Disappearance of Jabez as well so
00:50:51
Reginald is Reginald touchy touchy flicky flicky so what the cops end up doing Captain is they obtained sworn
00:50:59
statements this from Lucille Latoya and Jr regarding what Reginald had told them
00:51:06
about Jabez witnessing Travis Combs shooting and the shooters seeing Jabez why did they need these sworn statements
00:51:15
to the story told by Reginald Parker because Reggie clammed up once the police had him in custody he denied
00:51:23
having witnessed Combs murder he denied telling the story of the event to Jr or either of jabez's relatives
00:51:31
police even marched the three people he talked to Lucille Latoya and J.R down to
00:51:38
the jail and had them confront him in person and say Hey you told us a story confront him in person about the story
00:51:46
they he had told them Parker continued to deny deny deny that he had told them any such thing maybe
00:51:54
Reginald is just protecting himself and he's afraid that the murder that he took
00:51:59
the murder that he saw take place those guys could then be after him but on some
00:52:05
level you go they're responsible for The Disappearance of Jabez if you're not telling the cops then
00:52:12
maybe you're a piece of [ __ ] this is one of those difficult things because I think he was
00:52:16
I do think he was truly trying to help in some way I think the problem is what we have
00:52:23
is a man that's afraid afraid to tell the authorities now some people in Newtown
00:52:31
not just Reginald they may be afraid to come forward to tell what they know because they are afraid of Retribution
00:52:39
and who would retaliate against these snitches well if in fact these suspicions that what
00:52:49
happened to Travis Combs then led to what could have happened to Jabez if that's true if those suspicions are true
00:52:58
then it turns out that we probably have some pretty aggressive well-known thugs in this area
00:53:06
the witness who told police the identity of one of the men that she recognized running away from the crime scene
00:53:14
probably felt comfortable doing so only because she was not named in the affidavit and she was not seen by The
00:53:22
Killers it seems pretty clear that Reginald Parker he wanted to give the jabez's family
00:53:30
some information about Jabez to help them figure out what had happened to him but he would not go so far as to sell
00:53:39
this information to police yeah and but the problem is if you don't take a stand
00:53:43
that these people are going to keep attacking the community and that more people are in danger and then you might
00:53:53
also be in danger and you don't even know it yet so why not have law enforcement go after these guys to get
00:54:00
them off the streets the probable cause affidavit that we mentioned to you is a statement that probable cause actually
00:54:09
exists to charge Reginald Parker with accessory after the fact to the murder of Travis Combs this is because he
00:54:19
impeded the investigation of armed robbery and murder knowing the identity of the men who committed the crimes and
00:54:28
then refusing to reveal their names thereby helping them avoid detection arrest trial and of course punishment so
00:54:37
prosecutors charged Reginald Parker with accessory after the fact and he continued to refuse to talk while
00:54:44
sitting in jail meanwhile Jabez still had not been found the family members stated publicly that they believed that
00:54:51
Jabez witness a murder and someone associated with the murder did something to him
00:54:59
foreign [Music] make sure you check out our old episodes on the Stitcher app and our bonus show
00:55:13
off the Record join me tomorrow in the garage Nick will be in Florida getting all well you know crispy Colonel until
00:55:22
tomorrow be good be kind and don't live [Music] there [Applause] thank you [Music]