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[Music] [Applause] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:46
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always as a man that would like to remind you that there are a lot
00:01:52
of wimps out there yeah I might break your nose with my shoulder blade it's good to be seen and it's good to see you
00:01:59
thanks for for listening thanks for telling a [Music] FR today we are drinking guaba by the
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great Cigar City Brewing Company this is an American citr Pale Ale ABV 5.5% garage grade 4 and 3/4 bottle caps
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out of five this week's fridge is full because of you captain no we know that's not true but the captain is thankful
00:02:27
that the fridge is full because of you guys out there first up a big cheers to all of our friends in Parts Unknown we
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got so many of them first we have Courtney we have Pamela B David R and Brian B all hailing and pu and a big
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shout out to Kristen which wanted me to call Rick James a POS but yeah get funky
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with a little Rick James next up we have Michael in Long Beach New York and a big
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shout out to Terry in Harbor City California and last but certainly not least we have a cheers to Lady D to
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beats to Gite and Adrien thanks to everybody for filling up the fridge for this week's shows if you want to help us
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out with next week's shows go to True Crim garage.com and click on the Donate button and for everything true crime
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garage check out true Crim garage.com and check us out on Facebook Instagram Twitter all that stuff @
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truecrimegarage and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
00:03:30
talk some true [Music] crime a 14-year-old from the New Town neighborhood of Sarasota Still Remains
00:04:09
missing tonight Jaz span was last seen back on Labor Day along 23rd Street in Sarasota ABC 7's Rick Adams joins us
00:04:18
live tonight from Sarasota Police Headquarters with more on the story Rick it's A parents worst nightmare
00:04:25
having her child vanish off the face of the Earth toana spans 14 y- old son jabz
00:04:30
has been missing now since September 4th span her boyfriend and other family members are pleading for information to
00:04:36
find him and hopefully a safe return home if there's anybody that know anything like don't just let him if
00:04:44
something Happ don't just let him just be out there like that jabz was last seing playing near his grandmother's
00:04:51
house in the 1500 Block of 23rd Street in Sarasota the Sarasota Police Department are following All Leads and
00:04:57
asking the community for their assistance we have done searches grid searches we have tried pinging his phone
00:05:05
we have followed up leads at this point we know and believe that there are people within our community that has
00:05:11
information about this young man and his whereabouts in fact the Ping to jazza's
00:05:15
cell phone tracked to an undisclosed wooded area near Sarasota but police weren't able to find the phone or any
00:05:22
evidence of him being there and one of the ways the community is trying to help is they're going door too and store to
00:05:28
store with Flyers like this groups are now going out daily handing out hundreds of these flyers with the hopes they get
00:05:35
in the hands of somebody who knows something this is an additional another opportunity for the community to come
00:05:41
together and to support one another to show love to collaborate you know what to do was right jabz span is described
00:05:47
as a bright teen who is very athletic he is between 5' 7 in and 5'9 in tall weighing 120 to 130 lb with black hair
00:05:57
and brown eyes he was last seen wearing a turquoise shirt somebody got to know something somebody has to know something
00:06:04
where this boy is and if you know more information on jaz's whereabouts you're being asked to contact authorities
00:06:12
immediately reporting a live from downtown Sarasota this evening I'm Rick Adams Scott back to you all right Rick
00:06:17
thanks so much for that [Music] update this week we are discussing the case of jabz Eugene span who in 2017 was a
00:06:39
14-year-old boy living in the new town area of Sarasota Florida Sarasota's population was about 56,000 people new
00:06:48
town is majority African-American in fact a historic plaque posted by the Sarasota County historic commission
00:06:55
dedicates the area as the quote first black community community in the city new town is near downtown Sarasota jabz
00:07:05
was a great kid according to everyone who knew him he was full of jokes and humor his mother toana span whom True
00:07:13
Crime garage spoke with at length had various troubles throughout her life jabz was actually born in prison and as
00:07:22
a newborn he was handed over to a foster family but his grandmother Lucille Tillery tracked him down
00:07:29
and put up a fight to raise him herself she got legal guardianship of jabz when he was just 2 months old she kept the
00:07:38
Biblical name jabz that toana gave him which means bearer of pain toana felt that this name would make him strong and
00:07:47
bring him God's protection throughout his life jabz adored his grandmother Lucille although they sometimes buted
00:07:55
heads because she was old school in her child rearing ways and he would Rebel a little and give her
00:08:02
a hard time but everyone loved each other and generally jabz towed the lines drawn by Lucille jabz also had a good
00:08:11
relationship with his mom who was released after serving her four year sentence she moved to Tampa Bay Florida
00:08:19
not far away jabz was thriving in his grandparents home so his mom made the decision to let him continue to live
00:08:28
with them ja's mother toana was very involved with jabz even though they did not live together or share a home jaz's
00:08:36
father however lived in Jacksonville Florida and was not much a part of the boy's life now on the other hand it's
00:08:43
pretty clear that jabz had some poor role models in his life an older brother was serving 15 years in prison another
00:08:51
brother was in rehab and his uncle Cornelius was in and out of prison multiple times for some pretty serious
00:08:58
crimes toana span told dat line that jabz had seen these family members making serious mistakes throughout their
00:09:05
life and he was determin not to go down these same paths he did have one incident involving the police but
00:09:13
generally he was a good kid with his head screwed on properly he got good grades in school and in fact he was a
00:09:20
teacher's assistant and was a football star according to his mother jabz was always carrying a football around his
00:09:29
family had hopes of him playing football in college and maybe even making it to the
00:09:34
NFL one of his friends described jabz as fun energetic and very athletic he was great at basketball football and he was
00:09:42
also known to do these flips at a moment's notice you see these people sometimes you see a football star on on
00:09:49
TV who will just do one of these flips randomly just standing there and all of a sudden they're in midair and then
00:09:54
they're back on their feet again crazy stuff yeah that's how I get out of bed one flip at a time Jaz was usually found
00:10:01
somewhere in the neighborhood often playing ball or hanging out at the park with his friends jabz was not tiny I
00:10:09
mean he was 14 years old he was 5' n inch tall 120 pounds and we talked about Jaz being full of humor and just really
00:10:17
a fun kid almost every picture I've seen you can see how happy he is in these pictures he was a kid with a great smile
00:10:27
a broad and warm smile just a goodlooking All-American kid yeah they say when you smile that big you also
00:10:34
smile with your eyes let's talk about the night in question the evening in question that the night that jabz
00:10:42
vanished this is on the night of September 4th 2017 Labor Day it's a Monday jabz
00:10:50
attended a Labor Day party this was held by his family family members said jabz did not appear to be having fun at the
00:10:58
party this is probably because there weren't many kids there he's 14 years old he's probably bored at a shindig
00:11:06
that's just full of adults he did hold his uncle's baby for some time but around 5:30 p.m. he left
00:11:15
to go hang out with some buddies his grandmother reports that she saw him around 6:00 p.m. near a memorial
00:11:22
recently erected for a shooting victim from the neighborhood this man that was killed his name was Travis Colmes there
00:11:31
was a vigil held for Travis and jabz attended this one of Travis's female cousins had a relationship with tuana
00:11:39
span's brother so he was sort of family to jabz this vigil was in the 1500 Block
00:11:47
of 23rd Street at Paul Medallia Avenue right near Lucille's house where jabz lived jabz returned to Lil's house with
00:11:56
his buddy whom we are just going to refer to here as T because he is a minor MH the two were there sometime in the 8:
00:12:06
to 10: p.m. range they left after that jabz was supposed to spend the night at a friend's house that night as he often
00:12:13
did but he always would come home to go to school and the next morning you know this is a Tuesday morning there is
00:12:21
school that day when he did not show up at school well this is unheard of for jabz he had good attendance records
00:12:33
and his grandmother is now quite concerned about where could this young boy be where could this young man be and
00:12:41
so she tries calling jabz and gets no answer on his phone Lucille says she knew something was wrong immediately she
00:12:50
was calling around looking for him to know Avail finally she called toana jaz's mother who immediately jumped in
00:12:58
her vehicle and sped off to Sarasota now she's actually thinking while she's making her way there how much trouble
00:13:07
jabz was going to be in once she locates him because she's upset that hey you worried your grandmother you didn't go
00:13:14
to school you're going to be in trouble when I find you yeah and it could be something simple like he spent the night
00:13:21
at his friend's house supposed to wake up in the morning to go home to get ready for school but they overslept or
00:13:27
something the other thing too I mean even though it was unheard of for him to miss school he had great attendance
00:13:33
records kids get older they do things maybe you stay the night at your buddy's house buddy doesn't want to go to school
00:13:40
you find something stupid to go off and do instead and then you go that way the problem here we have is now we're
00:13:47
talking about getting close to the 24-hour Mark of when the last time he was seen he
00:13:53
doesn't go to school and he's not responding to phone calls going to his phone so
00:13:59
good kid yeah well a good kid in the family thinks he's a good kid but you also have all these people in his family
00:14:06
that started making wrong turns at some point in their life and so you got to be
00:14:11
concerned with that as a parent is this an action of him going down the wrong path correct and with any neighborhood
00:14:21
be it's I don't care where it's located I don't care the class of people there are ways for teenagers to slip into the
00:14:29
wrong crowd very easily now his mother arrived in this new town area after dark again this is right around the 24-hour
00:14:38
Mark after she last saw him so Lucille then calls police this is to report jabz missing this is on the evening of
00:14:49
September 5th after some persuading the Sarasota Police Department did Issue a missing person's report but of course
00:14:57
initially treating this case as a possible runaway situation this was based off of past Behavior as jabz was
00:15:06
known to stay with friends sometimes for multiple days at a time and occasionally
00:15:11
you know he's going to get into it with Grandma from time to time you know as teenagers we don't always agree with
00:15:18
those with our parents or those who are raising us and sometimes you get in an argument and you stomp away and police I
00:15:25
think were kind of thinking jabz is 14 years old that's a possibility here we don't have any reports of that from
00:15:32
jaz's family on September 8th with jabz missing now for 4 days and no activity on his phone or social media the
00:15:40
Sarasota Police Department upgraded the case to a missing child case the department issued a media blast about
00:15:48
jabz being missing and this blast said it's unclear what the circumstances were leading up to his disappearance
00:15:57
detectives are asking asking anyone who knows the whereabouts of jabz to call detective Megan buck and gave a phone
00:16:05
number but then six days later this is I'm sorry six days after jabz vanished the area was hit by a hurricane this is
00:16:15
Hurricane Irma this knocked out the power to much of the area for quite some time it wasn't until after the storm was
00:16:23
over that police began to take jaz's disappearance much more seriously they reissued the missing child alert
00:16:32
and the request for information this on September 18th well police were probably
00:16:37
thinking well the whole city is under attack by weather if this kid was just mad at his family he'd probably come
00:16:45
back for safety correct and we're getting up there in the number of days now that he's been missing at this point
00:16:51
Sarasota police chief bernardet depino updated reporters on the investigation and affirmed that it was officially a
00:17:00
missing person's investigation while the police had issued a Florida missing child alert she said the case did not
00:17:07
meet the criteria for an amber alert because there was simply no evidence to suggest that jabz was abducted and this
00:17:15
is something that we've talked about in other cases Captain th this one is is a little trickier this one's a little more
00:17:22
difficult and I just base this off of one victimology and two kind of the movements and behaviors of everything
00:17:31
involved right we we've discussed plenty of cases where somebody sees somebody go
00:17:38
missing off of the streets or somebody sees somebody actually grabbed or snatched and grabbed we don't have any
00:17:45
reports of anybody claiming that jabz was was spotted being attacked or being pursued by someone and then on top of
00:17:54
that when we look at victimology just the just the nature of his age his gender and his size makes him a less
00:18:03
likely Target for you know the more traditional that that's a terrible word to use but some of the more trash that
00:18:12
we've discussed on this show in regards to child abduction cases in in the Predators and the perpetrators of those
00:18:19
crimes well like you said he's 5'9 120 highly athletic so he would be a lot harder to
00:18:29
kidnap yeah and I think I don't know that I can emphasize the athletic part enough I mean given what I've been told
00:18:39
by several people this is the kind of kid that if he wanted to get away from somebody he
00:18:45
could I mean he he was fast and he was very athletic doesn't roll out the possibility of of of several people
00:18:52
right and also the scariest thing is one the days are really starting to add up here
00:18:59
and there's zero absolutely zero activity on his phone Chief depino also stated that police had pinged jaz's cell
00:19:08
phone she would not say anything further other than to state that it did not lead
00:19:13
to anything but it came out later that the phone had pinged in a wooded area near an industrial park and nothing was
00:19:21
found when this area was searched apparently this area is mostly water in woods okay now for the general timeline
00:19:32
this takes us to about the two weeks Mark jaz's family had been searching for him now for two weeks at this point
00:19:40
credit to his family they were doing all the right things they were vocal and outspoken about demanding action on
00:19:48
jaz's case they pushed for searches they handed out flyers and they spread the word about their missing boy jaz's aunt
00:19:58
said set up a Facebook page for missing jabz span which publicized the boy's disappearance and posted about volunteer
00:20:06
searches and flyer distribution toana had been able to determine jaz's movements on the night
00:20:14
that he was last seen she figured out that he had gone to the park this was to play basketball but he didn't say very
00:20:22
long he he left before too long because he was not really dressed appropriately for sports activ ities right we all know
00:20:29
the situation Captain you like to play a little ball in the neighborhood you want
00:20:33
your t-shirt on you want to be in some shorts in your basketball shoes and given that he was just coming from the
00:20:39
party he was on you know wearing a nicer shirt wearing a pair of slacks wasn't really dressed for any sports activities
00:20:48
yeah I like to do my hooping and penny loafers and Jorts from the park she was able to figure out that he did in fact
00:20:56
go back to his grandmother's where he lived this is in the 88 to 10: p.m. time frame that we discussed he was at his
00:21:04
grandma's until he left with a friend this kid that we're calling te after that the trail went cold jaz's mother
00:21:12
toana and grandmother Lucille knew that the boy would not have just run away their mother's intuition was telling
00:21:20
them that something was very wrong and toana told ABC Action News at the time that she believed someone knew knew
00:21:28
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
00:21:36
though if there was nothing wrong with him he would have contacted someone by now there has to be information out
00:21:44
there there is somebody that knows Something toana Told True Crime garage that she had a sinking feeling very
00:21:52
early on and she didn't really want to communicate that with anybody but it's Mother's intuition so he misses School
00:21:58
the grandma is trying to make contact with him the mom is rushing back like you said initially thinking that he was
00:22:06
just doing something wrong misbehaving then they do another step by starting to retrace his steps which is is something
00:22:15
that everybody should do if somebody goes missing right and this is also you know when they're doing all of this and
00:22:22
trying to put the puzzle pieces together to really fill out this timeline and follow it to the end or to the last
00:22:31
known point they're also talking to people in the neighborhood and she's talking to other
00:22:37
kids in the neighborhood especially kids that are jaz's age right just simply you
00:22:43
know have you seen him have you heard anything is there somewhere that I should be looking that we're not and
00:22:50
during the conversations amongst these different kids and and whatnot at some point one of these kids tells her
00:22:58
frankly just blurts it out says quote you know he witnessed a murder so she begins to hear rumors
00:23:06
about jaz's disappearance toana told the ABC reporter that she had heard from various people that jabz was in danger
00:23:16
she said quote jabz was supposed to have witnessed something of a violent crime whether or not that's true or not a
00:23:23
14-year-old does not fall off the face of the Earth no social media no nothing you're going to contact your friends or
00:23:31
somebody Sarasota police had clearly heard these rumors as well Chief deino said that they were following up on
00:23:39
every lead but the rumors and the gossip surrounding jaz's disappearance had not
00:23:45
been verified as credible she made the following statement alluding to the word on the
00:23:51
street that jabz had been victimized by someone quote we have done grid searches
00:23:57
and we tried pinging his phone we have followed up on leads at this point we know and believe that there are people
00:24:05
within our community that has information about this young man and his whereabouts as she's asking around in
00:24:12
the community she also knows that some of these kids are more likely to talk to her than they would be to law
00:24:20
enforcement uh but but now she is getting these rumors but she's not able to connect some of the dots on September
00:24:27
20 6 2017 toana span and Lucille Tillery made a public plea for the return of their
00:24:35
beloved Son and Grandson Lucille was pouring tears as she said quote I just want to say I know somebody out there
00:24:43
knows what happened to jabz we love jabz all we want is for anyone who knows anything just give him back to us we
00:24:52
just want him back this could be anybody's child I'm begging pleading just bring him back she went on to say
00:25:01
quote the house is so empty without him in it that's my baby somebody please please help us Lucille emphasized that
00:25:09
she was no stranger to emotional pain she had already lost a husband who dropped dead in their yard she lost a
00:25:16
brother a sister who was killed by a lightning strike and she had lost her parents as well but she said this is a
00:25:25
feeling I've never felt before in my life Chief depino also spoke addressing the
00:25:31
frustration that her Department felt at not finding anything she said quote we're doing everything we can but it's
00:25:38
very frustrating we are not getting information from our community so we are asking again and reaching out to the
00:25:46
citizens in our community to please consider coming forward she was appealing directly to people in the
00:25:53
neighborhood Who police clearly felt knew something specific about what had happened to jabz she stated that Foul
00:26:01
Play was not being ruled out but reiterated that there was no information either way under pressure from the
00:26:08
family Sarasota police announced a reward in jaz's case on September 30th this reward offered jointly by Sarasota
00:26:18
Police Department the Florida Department of Law Enforcement this was for $6,000 yeah in addition a digital
00:26:25
billboard had been donated this was to be used to ask for information in jaz's case by October 3rd the FBI got involved
00:26:34
they had joined in the case helping in the search for jabz volunteer Searchers organized by the family continued to
00:26:43
spend their days looking for Clues throughout the neighborhood and surrounding areas the family put
00:26:49
together prayer vigils and marches down Martin Luther King Jr way to where jabz was last seen this near his
00:26:56
grandmother's house keeping the case in the public eye the reward for information leading to jaz's
00:27:03
whereabouts grew all the way up to $25,000 19 was contributed by the FBI 5,000 by the Florida Department of Law
00:27:13
Enforcement and 1,000 by the Sarasota Police Department all right so but now we have the family doing their due
00:27:21
diligence talking to the community getting answers relaying that to law enforcement now law enforcement is
00:27:29
making public statements and also adding a a reward so it seems like everybody's
00:27:36
doing as much as they can everybody's on the same page everybody's working together they all have the same goal in
00:27:42
mind let's find this 14-year-old boy the family did report to the media that they
00:27:49
were receiving daily calls from Sarasota police with updates on the case it seemed that the police department was
00:27:56
actively investing tigating the case and legitimately interested in solving it this should not sound like information
00:28:04
that we need to report but sometimes we've seen that police do not give their full attention as much to Inner City
00:28:11
victims at least publicly that does not seem to be the case here I want to really underline this and reiterate this
00:28:19
very strongly True Crime garage spoke with jaz's family and with people very close to the case
00:28:28
every single one of them said that they firmly believe and have seen so much evidence of such that the Sarasota
00:28:36
Police Department was fully vested in this investigation that they were they were being driven emotionally and by the
00:28:45
community and by their just their own wants and needs to find jabz themsel they were fully all in on this case
00:28:54
nobody on the inside be it the family or otherwise wise has questioned that now I
00:28:59
think one thing that we see here Captain when a child goes missing and has been missing for weeks this is a crime or
00:29:08
this is this is something that truly affects the community it's a crime against the community and when that
00:29:15
takes place we want the community wants something physical to point at and to blame you know why did this happen why
00:29:23
would this happen here and unfortunately in this case we had kind of two different approaches to it where we had
00:29:31
some people were saying look if you had been a better mother your kid would have
00:29:37
never gone missing and I I one I I won't stand for that at all I can't cannot stand that I understand that his mother
00:29:45
has made mistakes but she is a good person and I believe that she is a good person she made mistakes just like
00:29:52
anybody is capable of especially when we're younger well here's the thing you got of Love though is he was basically
00:29:59
being put into the system right Foster Family mhm his grandma steps up to the plate and says oh no he's going to stay
00:30:07
in our family I'm going to raise this boy and then the Mom starts getting her life together and she has the love for
00:30:16
her child enough to say you know what maybe he's in a better situation because I made these mistakes and I don't want
00:30:24
him to go down the same path I want to give my child the best best opportunity and maybe the best opportunity is with
00:30:31
my mother and with me uh being as much of a cheerleader as I can from the sideline and being as much of his mother
00:30:39
from the sideline yeah and I think that's exactly right and the thing here too is she is upfront jaz's mother toana
00:30:47
she's upfront about her mistakes that she made and she says look I didn't make these mistakes because I had a bad
00:30:53
upbringing she says I had a very good upbringing the problem was was that once I got to a certain age I started making
00:31:00
bad choices I started hanging out with the wrong people going to the wrong areas doing the wrong things and that's
00:31:06
what ended her up in prison for that four-year sentence and as you said she gets out she finds that her son is in a
00:31:14
very good situation thriving in that situation and she allowed him to continue to thrive in that situation the
00:31:21
other thing too that the family pointed out especially jaz's mother was that the people that were friends with them
00:31:30
and you know Community co-workers whatnot they also wanted somebody to blame they wanted something physical to
00:31:37
point at and to blame and it was a whole different blame game they wanted to blame the police and say that the police
00:31:45
were not doing enough that maybe they didn't care that they weren't trying as hard as they could and the family has
00:31:51
said straight up anybody that was wasting our time with that we we had no time for that that is not
00:31:59
helping this case along and that in fact was just not what was going on at all Sarasota Police Department was all
00:32:07
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around not because we force you to with contracts and fees but because you love our phone plans like ardently love our
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phone plans monogamously Consumer Cellular when Freedom calls we're here to answer call us at 1888
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[Music] freedom [Music] all right cheers mates from very cold Parts Unknown I'm in the garage and normally I
00:34:40
like to say cheers to you through the glass Captain because we're we're separated by glass like a couple of wild
00:34:47
animals but uh today we are separated by several state line so cheers to everybody out there I am in beautiful
00:34:55
sunny FL Florida uh-huh and that's a lie I'm actually I'm joining you from a bunker at the bottom of the ocean yeah
00:35:03
and it smells a lot better in the garage this week all right well cheers to everybody
00:35:09
out there back to our case Captain by the end of October law enforcement officials were stepping up efforts to
00:35:17
find jabz Agents from the FBI the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Sarasota Police Department were
00:35:26
Rec ing certain areas of new town and the surrounding areas they're knocking on doors and talking to people trying to
00:35:34
uncover new leads in this missing person's case this is because by this time there was some information about
00:35:43
what likely happened to jabz and this comes in the form of a probable cause affidavit as you recall we said earlier
00:35:54
that jaz's mother toana stated that she had heard rumors that jabz had witnessed
00:36:00
something he should not have a violent crime of some sort yeah while jabz had not told his family about witnessing
00:36:08
anything toana had learned through her inquiries that jabz had talk to others about what he had seen and then
00:36:16
something happened on October 29th that would confirm for the family that these rumors were true all of this information
00:36:25
is from a probable cause affid David filed in the Sarasota County Clerk's Office on November 8th
00:36:32
2017 bear with us here because this gets a little complicated here's what the probable cause affidavit says on October
00:36:42
29th 2017 when jabz had been missing for nearly two months a man named Reginal Parker came to the home of Lucille
00:36:52
Tillery on 23rd Street in Newtown he said he had information that might help the family
00:37:01
in their quest to find out what happened to jabz he told her that he had witnessed the murder of Travis Colmes
00:37:09
you might recall that jabz and his friends had been seen near a memorial for Colmes and this is the guy that was
00:37:16
connected to his family yes and he was murdered on August 28th 2017 and that Colmes as you stated was connect well
00:37:27
known to jaz's family well known to jabz and kind of considered a member of the extended extended family yeah and you
00:37:35
would think this would put him in a situation that he felt like he could talk to his family about what he saw but
00:37:43
obviously we had reports kids stating this other people in the community and now eyewitness claiming that that jabz
00:37:52
was a witness to this murder okay so let's step aside from for a minute and discuss this other case here that we
00:37:59
have referenced several times but let's take this opportunity to go through the murder of Travis Colmes in some detail
00:38:06
Travis Colmes was a pretty regular dude he was a working man a proud father with
00:38:11
a son that loved him very much but the one thing that would make him different from other working regular dude fathers
00:38:19
Travis was a weed dealer now many of the papers report him to be a drug dealer of
00:38:26
course marijuana is a narcotic but nowadays when we have several States in this country where it's declared legal
00:38:34
to dispense sell marijuana and cannabis THC products I think the term drug dealer Probably sounds a little too
00:38:42
sinister for a man who is selling a product that is well frankly legal in other states yeah it's very confusing in
00:38:52
this country because we've talked about this before and one state State he would
00:38:57
be looked at as an entrepreneur and in other states he's a criminal yeah and then we have our state like Ohio that is
00:39:04
now allowing medical use of marijuana and down here in Florida they've just recently made use of medical marijuana
00:39:13
as well so it seems like a lot of the states are going that way whatever side of the fence you fall on I think it's a
00:39:20
fair assessment to say that a weed dealer is different and to me anyway it's different to me than than somebody
00:39:29
that would be labeled a drug dealer or a pusher of hardcore drugs another interesting fact about Ohio is once
00:39:36
medical marijuana was legalized glaucoma has gone up 5,000% I well the thing here is I think
00:39:45
often two people hear someone is a drug dealer and they say silly things just really nonsense things like oh well he
00:39:52
got what he deserved right I want to point out Travis overall was a pretty good dude he was selling marijuana
00:39:58
simply for two reasons one this was a good amount of extra income and two he was a smoker or user himself I want to
00:40:07
be clear I'm not condoning illegal behavior and frankly in my opinion he probably should have got out of this the
00:40:15
moment he became a father but that's a a whole another conversation and from everyone I spoke to and everything I
00:40:22
could find he was in fact a good father now Travis's Mo was he sold weed out of his vehicle this is much more common
00:40:32
than I think most people would truly know in fact it's happening on several streets in your neighborhood or town as
00:40:39
we speak you have a basic system of you park your car or vehicle in a certain location on certain days of the week and
00:40:49
you're open for business on the day that he was killed Travis pulled his car into
00:40:55
a vacant grassy lot on 22nd Street this is a spot where he was known to deal and
00:41:01
customers would approach him there to conduct business yeah he called his weed dispensary the grassy null this lot is
00:41:09
located according to reporters and others who have written about this case 453 ft from jaz's grandmother's house
00:41:18
just 453 ft from jaz's Grandmother's house we should point out on this night August
00:41:25
28th this Reginal Parker the man mentioned in the affidavit happened to be nearby at a
00:41:33
rooming house this is right down 22nd Street Parker said that he saw three men surround Travis Colmes and his vehicle
00:41:42
in the empty lot he heard the three men yelling something like give it up and he
00:41:47
said he heard Colmes yell back I ain't got it Travis tried to flee on foot and then Parker heard a gunshot
00:41:56
Parker saw two of the men run north on palmadelia Avenue and saw the third guy get into Travis Colmes car and then
00:42:04
drive off Colmes lie on the ground in the vacant lot having been chased and then shot once in the upper torso
00:42:12
someone called the cops or emergency medical text it's unclear who exactly called for First Responders that has not
00:42:23
been released to the public the rumor is that this call came from a woman either
00:42:28
way poor Travis was dead when First Responders arrived on the scene the neighborhood together mourned the death
00:42:36
of one of their own Travis Colmes was just 31 years old he was found dead at about 9:20 p.m. near 22nd Street in
00:42:45
palmadelia Avenue well this is the problem when when something is illegal then they're
00:42:53
selling like you said he's just parking out in the open and so people know that he's also profiting from this so he's
00:43:04
going to either have product to steal or he'll have money to steal yes this is very problematic for for Travis okay so
00:43:14
and these are other people's words not my own but I got the same Vibe as well when I was going through this Travis
00:43:21
even though he was selling weed and he was doing this on the side let's keep in mind this was a a guy with a with a
00:43:29
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
00:43:39
he was not that kind of guy and this as you pointed out Captain might be the icing on the cake right because if it's
00:43:48
known throughout the neighborhood and it totally was that Travis was a man that was able to move a decent amount of
00:43:56
marijuana well that means one of two things or both that on any given day especially when you know he's parked and
00:44:04
open up for business he very likely could be in possession of large sums of cash or large sums of marijuana or
00:44:14
both and this makes him a desirable Target and then if we factor in on top of that that he's not considered Thug or
00:44:24
Street or whatever he might be considered a soft target someone that would be easy to Rob and at the time at
00:44:32
2017 and actually a little before this you can back it up about a year or so and even a little bit after all of this
00:44:40
was taking place there was a few groups around town that were known for committing armed robberies for robbing a
00:44:49
drug dealer like uh like Travis or holding somebody up just really taking advantage of the situation and bullying
00:44:58
other people and robbing them the police said that this was an isolated incident
00:45:04
and that there was no indication that the public was at risk early on detectives were not releasing
00:45:11
information to the public they were asking that anyone with information on the case that they called detective Kim
00:45:19
lter at 941 364 7327 from what I could find Travis was shot in the upper torso police would not
00:45:30
release what kind of gun was used in this homicide but the rumors are it was a single shot to the back and either a
00:45:38
shotgun or a larger caliber gun was used yeah which is very cowardly I do want to
00:45:44
point out to all of our listeners that the murder of Travis Colmes is still unsolved and the investigation is still
00:45:53
very much ongoing the purpose of these episodes of True Crime garage that we are doing this week are not only to get
00:46:01
Justice for jabz span who was just 14 years old when he went missing but also to get Justice for Travis Colmes and
00:46:09
anyone with information regarding the senseless murder of Travis Colmes I beg you please call or email
00:46:18
the Sarasota Police Department or call the detective we just mentioned at 941 36473 327 yeah but also is a sign of the
00:46:29
community and also a sign of the the cards that are stacked up against jesmine when these three individuals
00:46:37
feel that they can go into to a public spot right in the open rob somebody murder them steal their car and almost
00:46:48
like they're not even afraid that enough people will turn them in yeah this whole
00:46:54
thing is difficult because these these guys and we're going to get into some suspects as we go along in our case and
00:47:03
investigation of jabz span but the issue here and one of the problems is again we
00:47:09
have these several groups that are out in the community and they're committing robberies the thought that and the vibe
00:47:17
that I got from people close to the case and I feel like maybe law enforcement shares this opinion too that
00:47:26
in Travis coles's case they may not have intended to murder Travis Colmes it maybe something went sideways during the
00:47:35
commission of that robbery and it led to murder regardless of whatever their MO was or or their motivation was it ended
00:47:45
in murder and this is a crime against the community as much as it is against Travis Colmes and his family and really
00:47:53
the police are asking for the community help in that case so what does all of this have to do with The Disappearance
00:48:00
of jabz well it is because of what Reginal Parker the man who came forward the man named in the
00:48:08
affidavit it is what he told jaz's grandmother Lucille Tillery that changed everything for the family and for their
00:48:17
search not only did Regal Parker say that he witnessed the shooting of Travis Colmes but he also saw jabz span and two
00:48:27
of jaz's buddies emerged from a home on the 1600 block of 22nd Street this during the incident according to Parker
00:48:37
they too saw everything and the three men involved in the shooting of Travis Colmes they may have seen the three kids
00:48:45
or at least they saw jabz now they may have only seen jabz because jabz did yell something out when he saw this and
00:48:56
witnessed this he yelled out oh my God you all shot him Travis Colmes his vehicle was found sometime later about
00:49:05
15 or 16 miles away and it had been set on fire normally there's two guys in the
00:49:10
garage this week there's only one guy other guy is soaking up the Sun but if there was a third wheel I mean come on
00:49:19
crispy Colonel the captain and Reginal you like that that's a trio what a great name Reginal well we don't want
00:49:30
this Reginal in the garage and we we'll get into that a little bit later but I thought we were trying to hire Carlos he
00:49:38
is he not returning and Reginal yeah well it's important to our understanding of the story to note that
00:49:45
the gunmen did not know that Reginal Parker witnessed this murder this shooting this robbery of Travis Colmes
00:49:53
furthermore it is unlikely that they knew that there was another witness in addition to jabz and his
00:50:00
friends on October 13th detectives interviewed a witness who stated that on August 28th between the hours of 8:30
00:50:09
and 900 p.m. this witness was walking on Orange Avenue approaching 23rd Street this witness heard a single gunshot
00:50:19
unfortunately after hearing The Gunshot as the witness was crossing Orange Avenue heading toward 23rd Street they
00:50:26
observed two black male subjects running Northbound on palmadelia Avenue the witness immediately recognized one of
00:50:35
the men and later revealed his name to the detectives again it seems unlikely that the gunman knew that they were
00:50:42
observed by this witness from across the street at night but they did know for certain that one person had seen them
00:50:51
that one person was 14-year-old jabz span what's even more important is that both these adult Witnesses Reginal
00:51:01
Parker who saw the whole thing go down and the unnamed witness later reported to be a woman on the street who saw the
00:51:08
men running from the scene could identify at least one of the gunmen by name the unnamed witness told detectives
00:51:18
the name of the man that she recognized this was a man named Curtis whose last name we are
00:51:26
withholding so we know that police received information from a witness as to the identity of one of the killers of
00:51:35
Travis Colmes although this witness saw the men running away not the actual murder itself as for Reginal Parker who
00:51:44
did witness the shooting he did not go to police as we said he spoke to Lil Tillery jaz's grandmother and reg told
00:51:55
her the name of two of the men he saw and one of them was Curtis so we have two different eyewitnesses both naming
00:52:05
one of the suspects of the three and naming the same person Reginal also met with LaToya Jake
00:52:13
this is jaz's Aunt he told her the same story about Travis col's shooting and jabz witnessing the whole thing he also
00:52:23
told the story to a third person and this was a private investigator who was working with jaz's family pro bono on
00:52:32
jaz's case and Reginal told this private investigator Jr the names of two of the
00:52:39
men he saw shoot Travis Colmes one was Curtis and the other was a guy named Wheelock Sarasota Police Department
00:52:48
almost certainly heard about Reginal statements to the family because they arrested him on November 7th he was
00:52:57
arrested on a warrant for a failure to appear in court as it turns out old Reggie he's 55 years of age he was a sex
00:53:07
offender and he had earlier failed to give a notice of change of address per the requirements and he had been
00:53:14
arrested and given a court date and then released he then failed to appear so police had a reason to arrest him this
00:53:23
took place on the 7th and to hold him as well what they want to do Captain is they are going to put
00:53:30
pressure on him they want him to name the guys that he saw shoot Travis Colmes because the story he was telling seemed
00:53:40
to pretty clearly implicate the men who killed Travis probably they were involved in
00:53:48
The Disappearance of jabz as well so Reginal is Reginal touchy touchy flicky flicky so what the cops end up doing
00:53:56
Captain is they obtained sworn statements this from Lucille Latoya and Jr regarding what Reginal had told them
00:54:06
about jabz witnessing Travis colm's shooting and the shooters seeing jabz why did they need these sworn
00:54:14
statements to the story told by Reginal Parker because Reggie clammed up once the police had him in custody he denied
00:54:22
having witnessed col's murder he telling the story of the event to Jr or either of jaz's relatives police even marched
00:54:32
the three people he talked to Lucille Latoya and Jr down to the jail and had them confront him in person and say Hey
00:54:42
you told us his story confront him in person about the story they he had told them Parker continue to deny deny deny
00:54:51
that he had told them any such thing maybe Reginal is this protect protecting himself and he's afraid that the murder
00:54:57
that he took the murder that he saw take place those guys could then be after him
00:55:04
but on some level you go they're responsible for The Disappearance of jabed if you're not telling the cops
00:55:11
then maybe you're a piece of [ __ ] this is one of those difficult things because
00:55:15
I think he was I do think he was truly trying to help in some way I think the problem is what we
00:55:22
have is a man that's a afraid afraid to tell the authorities now some people in New
00:55:30
Town not just Reginal they may be afraid to come forward to tell what they know because they are afraid of Retribution
00:55:39
and who would retaliate against these snitches well if in fact these suspicions that
00:55:48
what happened to Travis Colmes then led to what could have happened to jabed say
00:55:55
if that's true if those suspicions are true then it turns out that we probably have some pretty aggressive well-known
00:56:03
thugs in this area the witness who told police the identity of one of the men that she recognized running away from
00:56:13
the crime scene probably felt comfortable doing so only because she was not named in the affidavit and she
00:56:20
was not seen by The Killers it seems pretty clear that Reginal Parker he wanted to give the jaz's
00:56:30
family some information about jabz to help them figure out what had happened to him but he would not go so far as to
00:56:38
tell this information to police yeah and but the problem is if you don't take a stand that these people are going to
00:56:45
keep attacking the community and that more people are in danger and then you might also be in danger and you don't
00:56:54
even know it yet so why not have law enforcement go after these guys to get them off the streets the probable cause
00:57:03
affidavit that we mentioned to you is a statement that probable cause actually exists to charge Reginal Parker with
00:57:13
accessory after the fact to the murder of Travis Colmes this is because he impeded the investigation of armed
00:57:21
robbery and murder knowing the ident of the men who committed the crimes and then refusing to reveal their names
00:57:31
thereby helping them avoid detection arrest trial and of course punishment so prosecutors charged Reginal Parker with
00:57:40
accessory after the fact and he continued to refuse to talk while sitting in jail meanwhile jabz still had
00:57:47
not been found the family members stated publicly that they believe that jabz witnessed a murder and someone
00:57:55
associated with the murder did something to [Music] him make sure you check out our old
00:58:10
episodes on the Stitcher app and our bonus show off the Record join me tomorrow in the garage Nick will be in
00:58:18
Florida get in all well you know crispy kernel until tomorrow be good be kind don't
00:58:25
[Music] [Applause] [Music] L Angie's List is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I
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