Crime Junkie - MISSING: Jamie Fraley

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

Everything was going great for Jamie Fraley when she vanished in April of 2008, after telling a friend she was getting a ride to the hospital. Police quickly zero in on a suspect, but a bizarre development throws the investigation off course…and years later, her family still has more questions than answers.  Anyone with information about Jamie’s disappearance should call the Gaston County Police Department at 704-866-3320 or Crime Stoppers at 704-861-8000. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/missing-jamie-fraley/

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and, you know, once in a while, you come across a story that is so full of twists and turns that you practically get whiplash from it. And the story I have for you today is one of those. When a young woman vanishes after telling a friend that she's getting a ride to the hospital, police quickly zero in on a suspect. But a bizarre development throws the investigation off course, and years later, her mom is still desperate to know what happened to her. This is the story of Jamie Fraley. It's Thursday, April 10, 2008, and in Gaston County, North Carolina,

Kim Fraley's morning is just getting started when her phone rings. On the other end of the line is her daughter, Jamie's caseworker. And Kim is surprised to hear from her because she's never called her before. Jamie's had some health and developmental issues since she was born, but she's 22 now. And for the past few years, she's been making major strides towards independence. Like in 2006, she got her own apartment about 15 minutes away from her mom, right outside of a city called Gastonia. Now, Jamie's caseworker is there to like check in on her. She helps her with like day to day stuff like budgeting, the monthly social security benefits that she gets. She also gives her rides sometimes because Jamie doesn't drive. And in fact, the

reason that she's calling her mom now was because she was supposed to take Jamie to an appointment the day before. But the caseworker says that when she stopped by that Wednesday morning as planned, Jamie didn't answer the door or her telephone. Kim feels a twinge of fear. Not that something criminal had happened to her daughter, but maybe she was super sick because you see two days before, which would have been on Tuesday. Kim knew that Jamie had woke up with some kind of nasty stomach bug. I mean, she was in so much pain. She actually went to the hospital twice that day. On her first visit to the ER, she was diagnosed with the flu. They gave her a prescription for something and sent her on her way. But Jamie didn't think that she had the flu. She thought it might

be something more serious. And when she wasn't feeling any better at that same night, she went back to the hospital. But when she got there, the wait was hours long. And after a while, she got impatient. So she decided to leave before she saw a doctor. Kim's not sure how she got home, but she knows that she made it home. Okay. She told our reporter, Nina, that she spoke with Jamie on the phone after she got back. This is like the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday, maybe around like 12 30 amish. When they talked, Jamie told her mom that she had been throwing up and Kim offered to come get her. But Jamie said no, she needed to be home to get picked up for an appointment. Her case worker was bringing her to in the morning. The appointment was with social services and she

didn't want to miss it because she was going to talk to the agency about possibly handling her own money. Essentially, she'd have to convince them that she was capable of managing it, but she really felt like she was. And this would be another big step towards her independence. So all in all, this is not something she would just skip. But it's not just the fact that she had that meeting or just the fact that she was sick that was making Kim worry. Jamie was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder when she was 18. She struggled with anxiety and mood swings and had been prescribed medication. But it doesn't sound like she took it on a regular basis, mostly because she didn't like how it made her feel. And she had been hospitalized for episodes in the past. So even

though Jamie had seemed totally fine lately as a parent, that was always on Kim's mind. So Kim hangs up with the case worker and calls her daughter. And when her daughter has an answer, Kim calls the police, who according to an episode of investigation discoveries disappeared, send patrol to do a welfare check at Jamie's apartment. Still, she's not answering the door for them either. But it's locked and officers don't see any signs of forced entry. Now, Jamie's mom told us she doesn't remember whether police went inside the apartment at that point. But either way, there's nothing indicating to them that something was wrong. Wherever she went, they think she's just probably going to show up back soon. But still unsettled, Kim wants to

see her daughter's apartment for herself. So she and her sister Stacy and Stacy's daughter, Haley, all go over there. Once they get there, they stand outside the door calling her phone to see if they can hear it ringing inside. But they don't hear a sound. And just like all the times before, no one picks up on the other end. For Kim, every unanswered call boosts her fear up another notch. And it only gets worse once the landlord lets them into the apartment. Because Jamie's not inside, but there on the ottoman in the living room are her house keys and her purse. And I don't know how her door was locked with her keys inside. I don't know if there was a spare set or if you could lock it and then close the door. But it's something that sticks out to me

and I think is important later. But her family knows that the only time Jamie leaves her apartment without her keys or purse is when she runs to a neighbor's or something like really quick. And if that was the case, she would have been home by now. She should have been home by now. Now in the purse, they find her ID, her wallet, everything except her cell phone, which is nowhere to be found. And that's not all they find. Jamie's favorite sneakers are placed neatly by the front door, which Kim says is unusual. Normally she would just kind of kick them off somewhere. But even stranger than that, the laces to the shoes are missing. And something about that just creeps them out. They've never seen Jamie remove the laces from

her shoes. And that is just an odd little detail that adds to everyone's unease. So Kim decides to call the police again. Now when officers get there, Kim points out the purse and the keys and the shoes. Like to Jamie's family, these are major signs that something is off. Plus she was obviously really sick. There's even dried vomit in her bedroom. So where would she go? But police still don't think there's evidence of any kind of disturbance or foul play. They tell the family that Jamie is an adult and she can do as she wants, which I actually have a really hard time with, because this is such a blatant fail of the system that was supposed to protect her. Because literally the state didn't

think she was competent enough to manage her own money or to like not have a social worker. Yet that same state is like, man, she's fine on her own. Like, we don't need to check up on her. She can do whatever she wants. Like, it just does not compute for me how you can say those two things at the exact same time about the exact same person. But they at least do the bare minimum and they start looking through her apartment. And as they search, Kim, Stacey and Haley wait outside in the parking lot. While they wait, they call her phone again, then again, and get this, the final time someone picks up. For the briefest second, there is this flood of relief, but it's gone in a flash because it's not Jamie on the other end of the line. It's a man. And when Kim

asks him who he is and why he has the phone, his answer makes her heart stop. The man on the other end says he's a utility worker and he's out fixing some cable lines. He heard a phone ringing on the ground, so he said he just answered it. Now listen, Kim already thought that something was wrong and now she knows. For Jamie's phone to be out on some random road means something is very wrong. And right there, she falls to her knees in the parking lot and just starts screaming. According to America's Most Wanted, the utility worker found the phone at the intersection of South New Hope Road and East Hudson Boulevard, which is about a mile and a half from Jamie's apartment complex. And just a heads up, there's

a bunch of conflicting details out there about this case, not just from the media, but even from law enforcement. And lots of the contradictions involve dates. Like for instance, some sources say that the phone was found on April 10th. Some say the 11th. We've kind of pieced everything together as best as possible thanks to news coverage, public records, and Jamie's mom. And she says that the phone was found on the 10th. So that's what we're going with. Anyway, the discovery is a watershed moment for police. Maybe Jamie's family is right to be concerned. Officers go get the phone and they notice that it's scuffed up almost like someone tossed it from a car. Whether that someone was Jamie or another person, police don't know.

And unfortunately, they can't retrieve any valuable fingerprints off the phone. It was apparently handled by too many people, but they do send it out for analysis to see what they can learn from its contents. So a missing person's investigation has officially begun. What's odd to me is, as far as we can tell, the department doesn't put out a news release or anything for five more days. On April 15th, they announced finally that they're seeking the public's help to find Jamie. And there's a $6,000 reward for information on her whereabouts. But even without a media blitz behind the scenes, the search was underway. As Jamie's family and friends hit the streets to hand out flyers and hang up posters,

investigators searched for clues near her apartment building and in the woods surrounding the area where her phone was found. They also interviewed family and friends trying to get a sense of what's been going on in Jamie's life lately. To them, there's still a chance that she left on her own, trying to get away from something or even someone. But they quickly learned that Jamie had no reason to run away. In fact, as far as anyone knows, everything had been going really well for her. Jamie was madly in love with her boyfriend of two years, 31-year-old Ricky Dale Simons Jr. Though they aren't physically together at the time because Ricky Jr. is in prison for larceny. Jamie had been living alone since Ricky Jr. went to prison, but he's scheduled to be

released in late April. And Jamie has been counting down the days until he's home, and I mean literally counting down the days. I was reading a web sleuth's post detailing her Myspace activity, and in her last update on April 8th, she said that there's only 17 days left until her sweetheart comes home. Again, she was madly in love with this guy, like name tattooed on her ankle, writes him letters every day, telling everyone she knows that they're going to be married kind of in love. And her relationship wasn't the only good thing in her life. She had recently enrolled in a GED program at the local college, and it was the first step on the way to achieving her goal of becoming a drug counselor. Years back, Jamie began attending a

program at her church so she could get a better understanding of addiction, particularly because she wanted to help a family friend. And while she doesn't use drugs herself, she thinks that drug counseling is her calling in life. All in all, she had been feeling optimistic and looking forward to the future. Detectives learn that Jamie is very petite, about 4'9 and 90 pounds, but she is feisty with a big personality. I mean, this girl wants to save the world, and she always gives others the benefit of the doubt. Her trusting nature actually worried her mom. Kim told us that Jamie took in random people like they were stray cats, and when her family warned her that she couldn't trust everyone, Jamie would get mad.

She thought that they were just being judgmental, but Kim says that she was just trying to protect her daughter. And as detectives speak with Jamie's loved ones and neighbors, they learn something interesting. Everyone says that she spends a lot of time with the apartment complex maintenance man. Now, this is not exactly scandalous. The maintenance man is Ricky Dale Simon's senior, and he's basically Jamie's future father-in-law. In fact, he's actually the reason Jamie and Ricky Jr. met in the first place, because after a stint in prison, Ricky Jr. moved in with his dad. And the relationship must have moved really fast, because according to state records, Ricky Jr. was released from prison on October 19th of 2006, and then he was

sent back on January 4th of 2007. So, at some point in that short window of time, he and Jamie met, he moved in with her, and they made plans to marry. Jamie's mom says that Ricky Jr. struggles with substance use disorder, and it seems like his frequent convictions are all related to that in some way, drug possession, theft, things like that. So, while Ricky Jr. was in prison throughout 2007 and into 2008, Jamie grew pretty dependent on Rick Sr. He'd give her rides when she needed them, stuff like that. And she also wanted to help him, because like his son, Rick Sr. struggles with an addiction, and we know that Jamie had a soft spot for those with substance use disorders. But according to investigation discovery, Rick Sr.'s interest in Jamie seems far from fatherly.

Her cousin, Hailey, said that he would make inappropriate sexual comments and jokes to her, and Jamie pretended that it didn't bother her, but Hailey thinks it really did. And listen, it's a grimy thing to do to your own son and your future daughter-in-law, but it's not like Jr. and Sr. had a great relationship before this. I get the feeling that Ricky Jr. was only staying with his father as kind of a last resort, because honestly, this dude sucked. He wasn't really around for his kids, and that's mostly because he'd been in prison for murder. Obviously, learning this is a huge red flag to police, or like anyone who's listened to a single true crime podcast. So here's the scoop. In January of 1986,

when he was 25, Rick Sr. killed his ex-girlfriend, a woman named Donna Miller. According to reporter Ken Sue of The Charlotte Observer, Donna had recently kicked him out of the mobile home that she shared with her mother and her young children. And he went over there because he wanted to get back together. She threatened to call police and have him removed, and he became enraged and strangled her. Afterwards, he tried to take his own life. Doesn't really matter how. I don't want to trigger anyone. But basically, it wasn't immediate. He wrote two suicide notes, took Donna's toddler son and left, and he ended up collapsed in his mother's driveway. And it was Donna's son's crying that alerted his mom to come out of the

house and find him. He almost died, and police had to wait to arrest him while he was hospitalized for a few days. Once he was stable, he was charged with first degree murder, and for reasons that I cannot even fathom, he was let out on bond while awaiting trial. He had another incident where he threatened suicide before his trial began, and he was committed to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation, although it's not clear what the outcome of that was. Ultimately, he was convicted on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter because somehow he convinced the jury that he didn't mean to kill Donna and he tried to revive her. But the details of this story to me are like BS. Like, he claimed that he had grabbed Donna by the neck, threw her on the bed, and then choked

her for less than a minute. And to me, like, no, that's not science because everything I've read about death by strangulation says that it happens within minutes, not a minute. But either way, he told the jury that once he realized what he accidentally did or what he did or whatever, he tried to revive Donna and was overwhelmed by remorse when he failed. So he got sentenced to 20 years. But get this load of absolute horseshit. He ended up serving only six. So six years and this guy is out. He goes on to live his life and now he's connected to a woman who is missing. Not a good look. And I couldn't find anything about this in my research, but considering Rick's senior handles maintenance for their apartment complex, it's possible he had keys or

at least access to keys to various apartments, which again, to me could be an explanation for this thing that sticks out in my mind, which is why Jamie's door was locked when her keys were inside. So police want to know everything they possibly can about this guy. In one of the places they start is his ex-girlfriend, a woman named Kim Springer. And just FYI, since we actually have two Kims in the story, Jamie's mom and Kim Springer, I'm going to refer to Kim Springer as Kim S just to avoid any confusion. So Kim S and Rick senior met when her husband hired him to do some painting for their home improvement business. By 2003, she left her husband and children and moved in with the sky. Like Rick senior, Kim S struggles with addiction. And when Jamie moved in a couple of

doors down from the apartment, they shared her natural caregiver instincts kicked in big time. Jamie wanted to help rehabilitate them and the three of them spent a lot of time together. But Kim S tells police that Rick senior paid more attention to his future daughter-in-law than he did to her. Like she would get home from work and Jamie would be in the apartment with him. And this was an issue. So between that and the fact that Kim S says that she was trying to get sober while Rick senior was not, the relationship pretty much collapsed in the fall of 2007. And so Rick senior moved out into a different apartment in the same complex. So all of them are living in the same complex, but they're not together anymore. The relationship pretty much

collapsed in the fall of 2007 and Rick senior moved out into a different apartment in the same complex, but they were still seeing each other. And Kim S tells detectives that it wasn't until March of 2008 that they split for good. Now, since then Kim S had moved out of the apartment complex, but she and Jamie still saw each other. She tells police that Jamie would sometimes watch her dog while she was at work. And in fact, she says that she had stopped by Jamie's to pick up her dog on the afternoon of April 8. Jamie had just gotten home from her first trip to the hospital. And when Kim S saw how sick she was, she dropped her prescription off at Walgreens for her. And police realized that no one had ever picked it up. After talking to Kim S, detectives are even

more eager to speak with Rick senior. And within that first week, they asked him to come in for an interview and he agrees. In that interview, police find him to be cold and manipulative. He is cooperative to some extent, but he really doesn't tell them much. Although he does give them an important detail. He says that he's the one who drove Jamie to the hospital for her second trip. He dropped her off. And when she decided that the wait was too long, she called him for a ride home. But he says he didn't answer his phone. So she called another neighbor. Sure enough, the other neighbor tells police that, yes, this is true. She picked Jamie up from the hospital and brought her back to the apartment around midnight. And we know that her mom talked to her

after that. But here's the thing. What police didn't know right away, but found out from her phone records when they got those back is that her mom wasn't the last person she spoke with. When police get the results of Jamie's cell phone analysis back, they learn that not long after she and her mom hung up, she called a girlfriend of hers who lives more than an hour from Gastonia. When they reach out to this friend, they learn that Jamie had spoken to her around two AM and told her that she arranged a ride to go back to the hospital for a third time because she still wasn't feeling any better. According to what detectives tell Investigation Discovery, Jamie said something to her friend about being picked up in a truck. And then Jamie's

last words to her as she was walking down her apartment complex stairs were something along the lines of quote, I think my ride is here. He's here. But she didn't say who the he was. All we know is that she didn't make it to the hospital. And before you even ask, no, Rick senior doesn't drive a truck, but he does drive a white panel van that police say some people refer to as a truck. And as a total creepy aside, if you actually pull up the apartment complex address on Google Maps and switch to the August 2007 street view, you can see what looks like potentially a blurry Rick senior in that van in the parking lot. I mean, really like what you see is kind of like an arm. Nina asked Kim Fraley if that could actually be him. And after Kim looked

at the image and saw the date, she said that it was. So we've linked to this image on our blog post for anyone who wants to check it out. It is a little eerie. Anyway, detectives know that if Rick senior was the he that Jamie was talking about, then he would have been the last person to see her. According to America's most wanted, Jamie's cell phone records do show several calls to Rick senior. But apparently police can't tell if the two of them actually spoke. And when detectives confront him about the calls, he says that while Jamie did ask him to take her back to the ER, he didn't do it. He says that he told her to just lie down and rest. And I'm not sure what if any other calls are in the records. Like, I don't know if Jamie contacted other people that night,

too. Or if it was just her friend and just Rick senior, we don't have access to like the detailed records. But police are obviously suspicious of senior. And they share those suspicions with Jamie's mom. Kim Fraley is surprised to some extent, but not as shocked as you would think. On one hand, she doesn't understand why Rick senior would want to hurt Jamie. But on the other hand, she didn't meet him before. And apparently that's all it takes to get major creeper vibes from this guy. And that was before she ever even learned about his violent past. When police tell her about his criminal record, she is the Lord, because Jamie had kept her mom in the dark about Rick senior and about his inappropriate behavior toward her.

It seems like in her family, only her cousin Haley really knew everything. And I don't think Jamie was trying to protect him. I think she was trying to protect the guy that she loved. I mean, her family had already expressed some concerns about Ricky Junior's criminal history and about how fast their relationship was moving. So Jamie could get like super defensive of him. So she probably didn't want them thinking any less of Ricky Junior because of what his father did. And that's not to say Jamie's family even dislikes Ricky Junior, though. I think they just had concerns because in fact, when he gets out of prison on April 29th, it is her family who goes to pick him up. And he even moves in with

Kim Fraley and her longtime boyfriend for a while. Ricky Junior had been devastated to learn that Jamie was missing. Kim says that he found out through news reports. And when he saw something about it on TV, he flipped out and was put in solitary confinement. He tells reporter Michael Barrett that he suspected his dad was involved right away, just knowing how he is and hearing that he was one of the last people to see her. And he's furious. All he can think of is finding Jamie. And once he's out of prison, he's out pounding the pavement with her family and friends every single day looking for her. And it's around this time that police get an interesting tip. Just a mile and a half from where Jamie's phone was found and two and a half miles from the

apartment complex, someone reports finding a bag of trash along the side of the road. And when detectives investigate, they find out the bag belongs to Rick Senior. I wish I could tell you what was inside this bag, but we couldn't find anything about the contents, just the fact that it was his. And when police ask him about it, he doesn't try to hide it. He basically says he dumped the trash on the side of the road because he had a flat tire and he was trying to like reach his spare. So I guess he's saying the garbage was somehow blocking the spare tire in his van. But police find this whole story super odd, mostly because if you connect the three locations, the apartment where the phone was found in this bag of trash, they form almost a perfect triangle,

which could outline the route Rick Senior took if he was driving around disposing of evidence. At the end of April, police have enough probable cause for a warrant to GPS track Rick Senior's vehicle. By then, he has left the apartment complex and he's living with his sister. And throughout May, investigators watch his movements, hoping that he'll lead them to Jamie. They pay special attention to areas that he frequents. If he goes to a particular spot, they search it, but they come up empty-handed every time, at least when it comes to Jamie's case. However, they do notice something else that's alarming. Rick Senior is sulking around the neighborhood where his ex-girlfriend, Kim S, lives. Since moving out of the apartment complex,

she had been sharing a house nearby with some roommates and police realize he's been following her. So according to Michael Barrett's reporting, they visit her on Sunday, May 25th and they urge her to get a restraining order against him. And this visit from police isn't totally out of the blue for Kim S, because before detectives even came to warn her about him on that Sunday night, she had seen him around. And once, she'd come home from church and found a window lock broken and a curtain knocked down. So she does what they say. She files for the order of protection the very next day. And in an affidavit, she lists off the recent incidents and tells the court that she and her roommates are afraid. But the restraining order doesn't stop Rick Senior.

Because on Saturday, May 31st, Kim calls police and says someone who she suspects is Rick Senior broke into her car late last night while it was parked in the driveway. According to City of Gastonia police records, she tells detectives that she put her black Liz Claiborne purse in the trunk and she must have forgotten to lock it because in the morning it was gone. Now at this point, I think it's safe to say that Rick Senior is not the most popular guy in town. And unsurprisingly, his relationship with his son is worse than ever. Ricky Junior is doing what he can to help detectives with the investigation. And what he really wants is to get his dad to confess. So he and Jamie's mom record phone calls with him for the police. And during one of those phone

calls, Rick Senior says something to Jamie's mom that chills her to the bone. He tells her that he's been out searching for Jamie himself. And he has a theory. Maybe someone took her and just doesn't want to give her back. Kim Fraley isn't sure what that means, but the comment haunts her. She's been trying to keep it together, but she is growing frustrated with the police investigation. And even though she gets a lot of calls from people offering leads, none of them have panned out. And that also includes so-called tips from Rick Senior himself. In late May, he calls his son and asks him to meet him at Lowe's home improvement store. Ricky Junior doesn't want to go, but Rick Senior says that he has something important to talk to him about. He says that he

knows where Jamie is. So Ricky Junior rushes over to meet him. But once he gets there, he realizes that his father isn't going to tell him anything useful. All he says is something about seeing Jamie in Kim S's car. And he's just not making any sense. Jamie's mom told us that Rick Senior was just trying to get some gas money or something from his son. And basically, he was saying what he knew would entice his son to come meet him. When Ricky Junior asks him to take a polygraph, Rick Senior hurries off into the Lowe's and that's that. But meanwhile, the search for Jamie continues. I mean, there's been no activity on her bank accounts, and with every day that passes, it becomes less likely that she is left on her own free will. Police keep an eye on Rick Senior,

but it sounds like they stopped tracking his van sometime in late May or early June, which brings us to Saturday, June 7. It is the hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures hitting 96 degrees by the afternoon. Kim S heads to work around 3pm, and about an hour into her shift, some of her girlfriends come in and tell her that her car alarm is going off. She goes out to the parking lot and checks, but everything seems totally normal. So she goes back inside. Six and a half hours later, her shift is over and she leaves. It's 10.30 so it's dark, and Kim's alone in her car taking her normal route home. And that's what she notices is this really bad smell. She figures that it might be coming from

her workout clothes or something, and I would be lying if I said that I myself have not lost a chicken nugget under the seat that went bad. So like, I get it. She doesn't think much of it, and once she's home, she goes to bed. Sunday June 8 promises to be even hotter than Saturday was. By the time Kim S drives some friends to church at 8.45 in the morning, it's already in the 80s and climbing fast. And that smell in her car is getting worse. Her girlfriends ask her about it as they head to church, but she can't tell where it's coming from. So early that evening, around 6pm, she decides to clean the entire car out. One way or another, that should help her find the source of the smell. She grabs some books off the front floorboard to put in the trunk.

And when she pops the trunk, she is completely frozen. At first, she thinks she must be seeing things, but then she realizes she's not hallucinating. There, in the trunk of her Ford Taurus, is a man. And before she can even look at his face, she knows it's Rick Sr. For a second, Kim S doesn't know if he's alive or not. She thinks that he might jump out and attack her, and she backs away screaming. But after that initial moment of shock, it's obvious to her that he's actually dead. He's already starting to decompose. His skin is discolored, and he's fully clothed in the fetal position, with his legs curled up and his knees against his chest. There's even dried blood coming out of his nostrils. Kim S calls 911 and police are stunned.

I mean, this isn't exactly a common occurrence. And by all accounts, she's probably been driving around with him in the trunk for more than 24 hours. As far as they can tell, and what's later confirmed by autopsy is that this was some kind of freak accident. Rick Sr. crawled into the trunk on his own and died of hyperthermia, which is basically overheating, combined with cocaine and alcohol intoxication. It looks like he got a copy of Kim S's car keys when he stole her purse. Police actually find the black handbag in the trunk with him and the keys in his pocket. But get this, please also find a knife in the trunk. Now, Rick Sr. was apparently known to carry a pocket knife, so I'm not sure if that's the knife they find or if it's another one.

But Kim S and the police think that he was planning to jump out and attack her when she least expected it, using the emergency release handle inside the trunk, which according to reporter Deborah Hirsch of the Charlotte Observer was working just fine. So investigators theorize that once he crawled into the trunk, he must have somehow gotten disoriented due to the heat and the drugs and the alcohol. So he wasn't able to carry out his plan or even free himself. And detectives tell investigation discovery that prior to his death, Rick Sr. told friends of his that he was going to give his ex, Kim S, the surprise of her life. Now, Jamie's mom, Kim Fraley, is at work when she gets a frantic call from her sister who tells her what's going on.

She can't believe it, but then she turns on a TV and there it is on the news. Now, even though she despises Rick Sr., this is not the answer to her prayers, just the opposite. Because if he did know anything about Jamie's whereabouts, she knows that he now took those secrets to his grave. Everyone is left with more questions than answers, including questions about Rick Sr.'s death. Because even though it was ruled an accident, it doesn't make sense to anyone. And within the community, there's speculation that there was foul play involved. His mother and his sister don't think that he got into that trunk on his own. They think it's just too bizarre to believe, like the plot of a movie or something. Detectives ultimately say that they

don't know if Rick Sr.'s death is related in any way to Jamie's disappearance. Obviously, there's some connection because of just the people involved. They don't know if there's a direct connection. Jamie's cousin, Haley says that when she heard about the situation, her first thought was that Kim S knew something and Rick Sr. was planning to kill her to keep her quiet. But Kim S tells the Gaston Gazette that she doesn't know anything about Jamie's whereabouts and that she's been cooperating with the missing person's investigation. And she tells them that she passed a polygraph. She says that she loves Jamie and she hopes that she's okay. And while she doesn't want to believe that Rick Sr. is involved in Jamie's disappearance,

she also thinks it's possible he is. And even though he's gone, Jamie's loved ones are still determined to find her. And over the summer, police conduct air, land, and even water searches in the area. According to Daniel Jackson's reporting, three types of dogs are brought in to try and track her. A grid search is extended to two acres around her apartment. And in July, divers search the pond across the street from the complex. They don't find anything, though. And even though police say the search for Jamie may be the most intensive missing person's investigation in Gaston County's history, the one-year anniversary of her disappearance comes and goes with no updates. Kim Fraley has been bracing herself for bad news. But with no evidence to prove otherwise,

she still has hope that Jamie is alive. Although, as years pass, it's hard to hold on to that hope. Some days, Kim says she can't even get out of bed, and she loses touch with Ricky Jr. after he relapses. She tries to keep moving forward, not just for Jamie, but for Jamie's younger sister. And tips do come in over the years. According to Charlotte Observer reporter Joe DePriest, in 2010, a woman from Connecticut tells police that she thinks she saw Jamie while on vacation in Hong Kong. She says that she saw a group of women, and one of them mouthed, help me. When she got home from her trip, she searched online for missing people to see if she could recognize anyone. And she says that Jamie looks just like the distressed woman she saw.

So with this, police wonder if Jamie could have been a victim of human trafficking. After all, North Carolina consistently ranks among the top 10 states for reported cases. So investigators decide to pass this tip along to the FBI, but nothing comes of it. Despite assurances that the case is still active, police efforts fall short for Jamie's loved ones. Kim Fraley says she thinks the ball was dropped from the beginning. So like we often see when someone goes missing, she decides to start her own investigation with help from her sister Stacy, who has experience in law enforcement. They find support in unexpected places like Rita Conley, a retired detective who's drawn to the case because she

has a daughter, Jamie's age. She actually contacts Kim out of the blue to offer help. And they even join up with the family of another woman who went missing from Gaston County in the spring of 2008, 42-year-old Jennifer Rivkin, who was last seen on May 4th. Two days later, police found a BMW she had borrowed near a bar with her purse still inside it. Now, just to be clear, police don't think the cases are connected, but the families bond over their shared pain, and they help each other in their search efforts, however they can, chasing tips and knocking on doors. And actually, one of those tips brings a fresh ray of hope to the case. Someone from a group that searches the dark web for sex trafficking victims

sends Kim a photo that they found on an escort website. The woman looks identical to her daughter, and she's wearing a beaded necklace with the last three letters visible, M-I-E. According to Adam Lawson's reporting for the Gaston Gazette, police contact authorities in either Nevada or Arizona and asked them to track the woman down. Now, investigators say that she was located, but she's not Jamie, though Kim isn't so sure. The woman she saw in the photo looks so much like her daughter, and she wonders if police really did manage to locate her. But that's as far as the lead goes. In April 2014, detectives tell WSOC-TV that they didn't get a single tip over the last 12 months, which is a first. But then in 2015, the case takes

another unexpected turn, when a convicted killer confesses to Jamie's murder. Jerry Douglas Case has a violent criminal record stretching back decades. In 1985, he killed Franklin Gorley, a taxi driver that he knew. And according to court records, it was an absolutely gruesome crime. Jerry and a woman he was reportedly pimping took Franklin captive, hogtied him, gagged him, and beat him. And then they stabbed him to death execution style. He actually drowned in his own blood. Now, Jerry was originally on death row, but the state court of appeals threw out his conviction and ordered a new trial because of an improper plea bargain. So he pled guilty to secondary murder and was let out on parole in

December of 2007. But the Associated Price reported that in July of 2009, he kidnapped an elderly man and his seven-year-old granddaughter at gunpoint while they were fishing in Gaston County. Then he kidnapped the man's daughter and baby grandson and made the family drive him to South Carolina. They managed to escape when he started arguing with a gas station attendant. Jerry ended up getting wounded in a shootout with police, but survived and went back to prison. So then out of nowhere, he's in prison. And in 2012, he wrote to the DA in the Gaston Gazette confessing to another 1985 murder, this one of a 17-year-old boy named Chris Farmer. And by the way, Chris Farmer's case, this was not an open homicide that police were even looking to close.

Chris's body was found on some train tracks and his death had been ruled an accident. So once he confessed, he was officially charged with Chris's murder in early 2015 and was expected to plead guilty. But he wanted the death penalty. And at the time, the court would need to follow sentencing laws from 1985, which would mean life in prison. So according to Gaston Gazette reporter Diane Turbifill, Jerry does an abrupt about face and pleads not guilty. But the DA is like, dude, I'm not playing these games with you. I'm not wasting time or money on a trial. You are almost 60. You're going to die in federal prison by and they kind of just leave it. So then in September of 2015, Jerry writes to the Gaston Gazette again. This time he says he's

dying of lung cancer and he has less than four months to live and he wants to clear his conscious. So here goes confession number two and three. He says that he killed Jamie Fraley and he killed another Gaston County woman named Lucy Johnson. Lucy was shot to death in her home in July 2008 and the killer set her house on fire afterwards and her fiance was actually charged with the murder but was acquitted. So at first glance, it looks like there's a perfect timing window for Jerry to be telling the truth out of prison in 2007 back in 2009. But actually, based on an editorial in the Charlotte Observer, his parole was revoked in April of 2008 because he allegedly threatened to kill his sister. So he did go back to prison then the charge was ultimately dropped and he

was let out after a month. But he was locked up when Jamie went missing, although he wasn't in jail when Lucy was killed. Still, the DA believes that both confessions are a ploy. There's no evidence that he was involved and the only details he can provide were already out there in the media. So the DA thinks that he was probably just trying to entertain himself while serving time. Though Jerry meanwhile tells the newspaper quote, all I'm trying to do is get all this off my chest and to try to lessen the pain the victim's families must be feeling. Now I don't know if Jerry was really sick, but he did die in prison, although federal records show it wasn't until February of 2018. His false confession was just salt and Kim Fraley's wounds. And there has been

so much salt over the years. Every holiday, every birthday, every anniversary, every day. Now this past February, there were human remains found in Gastonia near a creek behind Ferguson Park, which is less than 15 minutes from Jamie's apartment. Police told Kim that it could take up to a year to determine who that person is, but they can't rule out the possibility that it is Jamie. So she's just waiting to see what happens. All she wants is to hug her daughter and hear her voice. But if she can't do that, she at least wants to know what happened to her. And even though the main suspect is dead, police still believe that someone out there knows something about what happened. At the time she went missing, Jamie had blonde hair and blue eyes. She was white,

about 49 and 90 pounds, and she would be 36 years old today. Anyone with information about Jamie's disappearance should call the Gaston County Police Department at 704-866-3320, or you can call Crime Stoppers at 704-861-8000. To see photos and source material, you can visit our website crimejunkiepodcast.com. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast, and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an audio chuck production. So, what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?