Murder With My Husband - 66. The Jamison Family Disappearance

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

On this episode of Murder With My Husband, Payton and Garrett discuss the disappearance of the Jamison Family. LIVE ONLINE SHOW TICKETS HERE! https://www.moment.co/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: Disappeared season 2 episode called paradise lost Buzzfeed unsolved the disturbing mystery of the Jamison family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamison_family_deaths Links: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Sponsors: BetterHelp.com/HUSBAND for 10% off your first month HelloFresh.com/Husband14 and use code husband14 for up to 14 free meals plus free shipping! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Everyone has their own idea of wealth. Our Bank of Texas Wealth Management team is here to help make yours a reality. Bank of Texas is a trademark of the OKF and NA, number FDIC, Equ back to our podcast. This is Murder with my husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. If you're watching on YouTube, hi, please turn on notifications so you can be notified every single time we upload a video.

Also, please leave a comment down below if you like our show. And if you are listening on podcast and can leave a review, please do that. It helps us out so much. And if not, we're just happy to have you here listening. Sure. Before we jump in,

if you are listening to this episode right now, that means that there was also a brand new Patreon exclusive episode drop this week. So if you want to get those bonus episodes, just visit Murder with My Husband Patreon to sign up. All right, Garrett, what is your 10 seconds for this week? So for my 10 seconds this week, well Peyton and I went to Idaho at like... Two in the morning to the night? Yes. I guess that's a pretty good 10 seconds.

It was Father's Day, so we decided to drive out and surprise Payton's dad. And my father-in-law, hello. He listens. He does listen. But we decided really late and we were like, are we really gonna do this? But we successfully did it, we snuck in,

they didn't wake up and then we just surprised him the next morning. It was fun. And it was really fun. Happy Father's Day, Dad. Okay, so our case this week was sent in by Olivia May, which is the cutest name mine I add, so Olivia May, I love your name. I wish it was mine, but you can keep it.

And so thank you for sending that in. And our case sources are a disappeared episode on season two called Paradise Lost. And a Buzzfeed Unsolved episode called the Disturbing Mystery of the Jamison Family. And also Wikipedia has a pretty extensive page about this. I saw something about Buzzfeed Unsolved being renewed again or something like that. Well, they have like a lot of seasons. I mean, their episodes are short, but they go on. And I love them, by the way. So if you haven't checked them out Buzzfeed and solve this is not sponsored. I mean, I just love them so

Our case this week starts in you follow Oklahoma a woman named Sherylyn meets a man named Bobby Jamison during the summer of 2002 and immediately knew that he was the man she wanted to marry. Bobby seemed like a gentle man, and they fell in love and got married in July of 2004. Later that summer, Sherylyn and Bobby Jameson welcomed a daughter whom they named Madison into the world. Madison becomes the newlyweds whole entire world,

Madison lit up their life together. It's now 2009, and Bobby Dell is 44 and oh, I'm going to say there are middle names because their daughter Madison has a very good one. So I'm just going to go through those. Okay. So Bobby Dell, the dad is 44 now. Sheryl and Leanne is 40 and Madison Stormy star is six. Okay. That is a cute name as well. So the Jamison family have been looking to buy a 40-acre plot of land near Red Oak, which is roughly around 30 miles away from their home in Ufala.

They had found the secluded land on the internet and wanted a fresh start for themselves. Moving near Panola Mountain, which is by the property, is exactly what they want. They would be living next to a small community there who all pride themselves on independence and self-sufficiency, which is exactly the slow lifestyle that the Jamison family is looking for. It's a very off-grid area. You would need a generator, a septic system, a lot of people there live off-grid, that type of thing, and this is exactly what the Jamison

family is looking for. On October 7th, 2009, at 10am, the Jamisons load up their pick up truck to go look at the property they had found. They plan to take a storage container that they already owned on their property they lived in now and move it up to the new property and live in that because the new property didn't have a house. And I'm only including that detail so you can understand how off-grid they were wanting to go. During the drive up to the new property, the Jamisons run into someone who already lives off-grid up in the area. They stop to talk to

him and the Jamisons tell him that they are looking at buying this land in the area and they begin asking him questions about it. Like, how do you live? What's your solutions to things? Bobby and Sherylyn asked the guy for directions to the specific plot of land they had found online because they were kind of lost and struggling finding it and he goes, oh, this is this is where you're going to go to get there. And so they finally drive to see the property in person. The next morning, October 8, 2009, the Jamison family packs up once again and heads up the mountain to see their property. This was the place they would live out their dreams together and alone. Eight days later, on October 18, 2009, near Red Oak, Oklahoma, some hunters are hunting for the day

when they come across a parked truck near the top of Panola Mountain. It's around 3pm when they discover the truck and they get out and peek in the windows. They find a sickly looking dog abandoned in the truck. She had been stuck in the truck for days with no food or water. Oh my gosh. The hunters look around for anyone else, but find nothing and decide to call the Latimer County

Sheriff's Office. Police respond to the call, find the abandoned truck, and break the glass to safely get the dog out and taking care of. Police begins searching the vehicle and immediately feel like something had gone wrong here. In addition to the dog being left, police found cell phones, a wallet, and purse in the truck, as if whoever had abandoned the truck had planned on coming back way sooner than today. Police also find a bank bag stashed underneath the driver's seat with $32,000 of cash in it.

Police identify the truck in belongings as the Jamison family's truck. Police believe that Bobby, Sheryl and their now six-year-old daughter, Madison, must have parked the truck and got and lost in the woods nearby somehow. Yeah, because it's weird that the money, like if someone was trying to rob them or something, there was 30 grand just sitting in the truck. Yeah. It would be quite easy to get lost in this area as they didn't know the area well. They had just gotten lost the day before, as we know, well, the day before they went

missing. And, you know, the woods were dense. It's hard to see once you walked in. So five to six deputies began searching the surrounding area of the mountain. Police knew that they needed to move fast. After talking around, they discovered that no one had seen the family for roughly eight days.

And it being October, the nights were getting cold. The family's jackets and coats had all been left in the truck with the rest of their belongings, which made police believe that if there was any chance that they were lost and alive, they didn't have long to find them. It had been eight days. As the search was going on, police also began trying to figure out the last moments of the family's life before they had vanished.

Why had no one reported a whole family missing? It had been eight days. Law enforcement discovers that the Jamison family was a private family and with their new direction in life trying to go off grid, it wasn't unusual for them to go days without speaking to friends or family. They would leave town without telling anyone and had also just pulled Madison out of school because they were wanting to homeschool her once they moved up to this new property. Yeah, looking at. So on October 17th, 2009, the search party uses the family cell phones inside the truck to identify if they had moved at some point with them.

And it looked like they had the GPS on the phone showed that they had walked up the hill at some point with the phones and police positively identify six year old shoe prints and some mud with the phones. And police positively identify six-year-old shoe prints and some mud along the way. So like they walked up and somehow came back and... Put the cell phones back in the truck. Put the phones back in the truck. And then went missing. Okay.

They followed the footprints up to a rock where the family had spent about 15 to 20 minutes hanging out. It looks like, according to the GPS systems. They noticed the cell phone had a picture of Madison on it from this area that was taken that day. So they hiked up, took a picture of Madison on the phone, hiked back, put the cell phones in the truck and went missing. So there's a picture of her right before this family went missing. And all seemed well in the picture. It looks like after taking the photo, the Jameson family hiked back down to their truck and what happened next is a mystery.

Upon the discovery and remembering the large amount of money in the truck, police decided to tape off the truck and start treating the area like a crime scene instead of a family who had maybe gotten lost in the woods. Essentially what we know so far is that this this family who was looking to go off grid and had found a property to do so near Panola Mountain had packed up their truck one day with their coats and purses and wallets and toys for Madison as well as $32,000 in cash and had made their way up the mountain. So they had everything?

Mote like, I mean, they didn't have, I mean, they're, they still had a house with a lot of stuff. But they had a bunch of stuff. Okay. They had pulled their truck off the road, gotten out, bringing their cell phones with them and hiked away up the mountain to hang out as a family, taking a picture of Madison while doing so. And then afterwards, they hiked back down, put all of their belongings, including their dog, their coats, everything in the truck, locked the truck. All of that was locked inside of the truck,

and then vanished together as a family without a trace. I don't understand. I don't even know how you figure out what happened. It's like almost an impossible feat. There's no one up there. So if the family had willingly left, leaving all of their belongings behind, why leave the dog today? So as they were like, we're gonna disappear. Why leave the dog to die in the truck? Why not just leave the dog back at your house property? Also, I already said it earlier,

but you wouldn't leave 30 grand just sitting there. Especially if you were gonna go off grit. Yeah. Please think that as the family was leaving that day, they were stopped by someone in Metfell place so they don't think it was willingly that they left. There were no signs of struggle though. By the truck, no blood, no broken glass, no signs of a fight, how do you get three family

members vanished or in your car or wherever they took them without any signs of it. Please keep the area taped off and continue the deeper search of the truck, digging through the many bags and belongings that were in there. This is when they come across a buried 11-page letter written from Sherylyn to Bobby, so from wife to husband. In this 11-page letter, Sherylyn was lashing out hard against Bobby. It was filled with hate, addressing the stress of the marriage, talking about divorce, Police ask family and friends and they confirm the status of the Jameson's marriage, the rocky relationship between Sheryl and Bobby.

They have been looking at selling their house and moving off grid in hopes of fixing their broken relationship instead of getting a divorce. Police ask when the relationship had taken a downturn, and everyone pointed back to 2003 when Bobby had been involved in a car accident. He was driving his truck and came around a blind curve and was hit on both sides, making him unable to work and suffering from chronic pain. Medicine wasn't helping with the pain afterwards and he became depressed. The inability to do daily things in depression put a strain on their marriage. Upon discovering this new evidence, police are even more worried when family tells them that Cherlyn actually owned a pistol that she carried in the truck usually.

Police searched the truck and even the Jamison house 30 miles away, but still don't find the pistol. It's still just weird to me because say she did go in, just had to kill them. I mean, everything's in the car. There's phones, there's money, so this whole thing is just... It's just strange. And also, it's pretty, I mean, I don't want to say it's easy,

but in a wooden area where you have acres and acres of land, it's pretty easy to hide two bodies, but to hide your own body after if it's a murder suicide, right? Yeah. Because if it wasn't murder suicide, she would have taken the money. Yeah. But if it is a murder suicide, which police Yeah. Because if it wasn't a murder suicide, she would have taken the money. Yeah. But if it is a murder suicide,

which police are now thinking, how is she hiding herself? She has to be out in the open somewhere. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's been two days since police discovered the Jamison's abandoned truck and they are no closer to figuring out

what happened to the family. Things have just seemed to actually get more confusing now. All the fire departments and locals decide it was time to do a huge search for the missing family. Jumping into an ad and it is native. I use their body wash. I use their shampoo. We use their sunscreen, everything. Or deodorant. We are big native fans over here. And the funny

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Tracking dogs, helicopters, police release everything they can. The dogs hint on a large water tank, but nothing is found inside. Missing posters are hung up around Oklahoma for the missing family. Police begin diving deeper into the Jamison's lives as time goes on. They discover that Sherylann and Bobby had some secret beliefs about spirituality that they see and talk to spirits and all of that. The angels have been playing with Madison and she was talking to them as well. So Madison the six year old was also talking to these spirits and that they also had some evil spirits lurking around their house as well and had actually asked a local preacher if there was a special

bullet they could buy to kill these bad spirits. Cherylin had begun spray painting things in the neighborhood. Things like witches don't like their cats being killed. She had told people that she was a witch at times and her cat had actually died and she felt that someone in the neighborhood had poisoned it so she was spray painting things, try to get a message across. And once again, this case grows more interesting, but no closer to finding the family. Yeah, because I don't know, I guess everyone has some weird secret or I don't know, everyone has no life. And what made what constitutes weird?

Yeah, exactly. So on October 23rd, 2009, seven days after the Jamison Family's truck was found, police discovered that the Jamison Family's home was outfitted with surveillance cameras and had actually caught the family on camera the day they went missing packing their truck up to go to the mountain. Okay. At some point the couple is seen bringing out a brown briefcase to the truck that wasn't found in the truck when police searched it. So this makes the pistol, the gun, and the briefcase are the only two things missing, along with this family. A briefcase that they don't know what's inside and a gun and the family are all

missing. And what could possibly be in the briefcase, right? Like it was just a regular size briefcase. And the money bag was underneath. Yeah. The weird thing about this surveillance footage though is that the couple walked in and out of the home multiple times in what some people would call a trance like state according to the disappeared episode that covered this. Police found it weird that both Sheryl and Bobby probably walked in and out of the house packing the car around 20 times that morning.

And each time they would pass each other, they wouldn't acknowledge each other, they wouldn't look in each other's direction. It was just like, like, let me walk in and out. So do you, when you say that, do you mean almost like they were, like being followed or being watched or something?

Like, my first thought was forced, right? Like, are someone standing out of the camera's way forcing them to do this? Or those evil spirits got there? I mean, that's a personal thing. Or drugs, like, there's an op, like maybe there. They're just out of it. Yes.

So psychologists actually study the footage and conclude that the behavior indicated drug use. Okay. So they go with like the most obvious sign and say, this is why we think the family's acting like this. It's weird enough that behavior that something, you can tell something's off. And in Oklahoma, there is actually a major problem with meth. And police feel like this drug

connection could explain the money found in the truck. Like because both Sheryl and Bobby weren't working. They were just getting disability checks from the government. So it didn't make sense that they couldn't track where this this $32,000 had come from. What about the daughter? Was she walking in out of the house, but we're going on up there? No, she's not packing the truck with the husband and wife. So friends and family think the police are wrong. That the Jmasons didn't use drugs that they weren't

selling drugs. This was not how they were making the money. They couldn't explain the money, but they were like, there's no way this couple, this couple is just like a normal couple. Yeah. They believe in their spirituality thing, but that doesn't make,

they're not doing anything wrong, they're not harming anybody. Not doing meth. Yes. So police confront the family with the cameras asking why they would need so many cameras if they weren't connected in shady business, like which, I mean, maybe just for safety,

okay, but they've got a lot of cameras. But police are like, why do they need this many cameras? Family tells them, okay, the reason they installed these cameras is because Bobby's father, Madison's grandpa, was abusive and threatening and that the, that was the reason they had installed them and that Bobby had actually filed a protective order against his dad, um, stating in it that he had purposely hit him with his car at one point, that he had threatened to kill him multiple times. Wow. And that he was scared for his life.

But I guess in the early 2000s, it would be a little strange for that many times because I feel like a ring doorbell that I've never had. Now everyone, I mean, they're a lot more accessible I agree I agree So the FBI is actually called in on this case and they searched the family home and there were no traces of drugs in the family home or the family vehicle Okay Police learned that Sherylin had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and struggled with taking her medication Friends and families say that when Sherylin was taking her meds She was great, but anytime she felt good and would try to go off them, she would become a

whole different person. She was very angry. And people think this explains the angry letter that they found and some of the disturbing journal entries that they actually found in her journal back home. Investigators rule out her disorder as having anything to do with the family disappearance though. They also rule out murder suicide and they also rule out drugs. So now we're kind of back to did the family. The rule out everything. Yes.

By November 1st, it's been three weeks since the family went missing. And there has been a lot of evidence, a lot of backstory come up, but nothing that can help them solve this case. But around this time, police learn that in July of 2009, the Jameson had actually taken in a border who lived with them that was a handyman. They allowed him to live there as long as he worked on the house and did the things that Bobby couldn't do because of his injuries. But the man had made Sherylyn uncomfortable by telling her that she thinks she should

be killed for having Indian blood. He was kind of like a white supremacist. And so, Sherlyn actually pointed her gun at the man and said, you need to leave, get out of my house. The FBI tracks down this handyman and rule him out as a suspect as well. Like he had an alibi. So a lot of locals begin to point fingers

at the Jameson's as being involved in gang or local crime. Like that's gotta be why they went missing, but police don't think those are true. They don't, they say the family isn't involved. They're just gone in the wind. Yes. And all these leads lead nowhere.

The search was eventually called off and the Jameson family disappearance became a cold case. They had nothing. Right. Yeah. Until November 16, 2013, almost four years after the Jamison family went missing. Hunters were out searching the woods for a place to hunt in like days coming up when they come across some bones, human bones, and it

ended up being the partial skeletons of three different bodies, two adults, and one child. Wow, okay. These remains were found less than three miles away from where the Jamison's family truck had been abandoned that day. Police searched the surrounding area where the bodies were found and found a pair of shoes, torn clothing, adult teeth, and some more bones, and the bones would eventually be confirmed as the Jamison family, Bobby, Sheryl and Madison. All of them. All of them. Okay. The question is, were they alive during the time of the search? And that's why they hadn't been found because they weren't three miles away, or had they really been there the whole time? I mean, this search was one of

the most exhaustive searches in this town's history. And it was, they were only three miles away from the truck. That's what I was going to say is I kind of have a feeling they were a lot, I don't know. Like, hadn't landed there yet. Yeah. A cause of death could not be identified because there was no evidence of trauma to the bone. And there was no skin left. It was only bones.

They were outside for four years. The cause of death was ruled suspicious, though, because they have no idea how they weren't found out there and how they even got there. And just like everything else in this case, the bodies didn't seem to help. They got the thing you need the most to solve a case and it's still got them nowhere. And the disappearance of the missing Jamison family is still a mystery to this day. What? That's it. Oh my gosh, I thought you were going to be like, and this happened and then this happened.

No, it's an unsolved case. We're going to go through very quickly some four options of what people speculate might have. Okay, let's hear it. So the first option of what happened that day is that the Jamison family simply got lost in the woods and died from exposure. The temperature would have been around 40 degrees at night and eight days out there. I mean, the days go on. But three miles isn't that far.

To hike back to your truck. Yeah. So say they did go put everything away. Their cell phones, everything, took their coats did go put everything away. Their cell phones, everything took their coats off, put everything away and then decided, oh, let's just run back that way for something without our cell phones or anything. Yeah, that's weird.

It's still, you would, you could probably stay alive for enough time to make your way at least back to the road. Yeah, I just don't think you would leave your car without any of that stuff. It's so weird. So that's the first option. Okay. Unlikely to me, but also I don't think you would leave your car without any of that stuff. It's so weird. So that's the first option. Okay.

Unlikely to me, but also I don't know what else, you know. So the next thing is that it was a murder suicide and that's why the missing gun is also missing, but they didn't find the gun, which how would whoever had been the last one killed in a murder suicide shot themselves and then the gun wasn't found could they tell If someone was shot or would you not build the tell no they don't know because there was no damage to the bones They're not sure how they died But you know murder suicide due to the bad nature of their marriage or the bad spirits or the mental illness anything like that Could have caused a murder suicide and maybe that's an option. I don't think it is because

Like I feel like they would have caused a murder suicide and maybe that's an option. I don't think it is because, like I feel like they would have found the gun. The next theory is that they were on drugs and were unaware of what they were doing and just wandered off that day or were not doing it in a sane mind. Like drove up there, weren't in the right frame of mind, wandered off couldn't make their way back

because they were under the influence. I don't know. That does seem to tie in a little bit to the weird surveillance camera, it off couldn't make their way back because they were under the influence. I don't know. That does seem to tie in a little bit to the weird surveillance camera, but also maybe they were just in a fight and loading the car and not looking at each other. You know what I mean? The next and last theory is that the family was targeted and murdered by someone. Like someone followed them up that day, someone found them and had ill intention and murdered by someone. Like someone followed them up that day, someone found them and had ill intention and murdered them. It could have been the father,

it could have been the border who lived with them, it could have been the people who lived off grid nearby. There's even talk that maybe there was a cult that had targeted her because she was claiming she was a witch and they had followed them up there that day and done it. But truth is, we have no evidence pointing to any of these things. He was claiming she was a witch, and they had followed them up there that day and done it. But truth is, we have no evidence pointing to any of these things.

Oh my gosh. I don't even know what to think because there's nothing. Do you think it's foul play or do you think it's natural? I don't know. I really have no idea. I don't think it's natural. I think that someone, even if it wasn't like that they knew the person, maybe it was just like someone who lived off grid or something

and found them or they got in a fight with someone or something happened where that would explain they were packed up getting ready to leave. And then they met foul play or they were taken away by gunpoint. And that's why there's no evidence of a struggle. Yeah, I think the daughter, I feel like the parents would do anything to pretend like they would just go. You know what I mean? But why was the gun gone? Where's the briefcase? And where's the brief case? And if they took the briefcase, why did they not take the money? And what was in the briefcase

because the briefcase wasn't with them. And obviously it wasn't money. And if it wasn't money, why would the person who killed them and broke his case? And then also, if it's like this somewhere thing that they're involved in, there would have to be a paper chart at some point to point to like, oh, this is the trouble they had run into. Yeah, I really don't know.

I honestly have no idea. Because there's so many holes. We have a lot of, like backstory. We have a lot of, like, I don't wanna call it evidence, but just details about them and about that day and about what they had in the truck and about their marriage and what they were involved in. And it doesn't lead us anywhere.

Yeah. And that is the Jamison family disappearance. I thought for sure you were gonna be like, and then follow, follow, follow. No, we have to throw in someone's cell phone. But I also, like, there's family out there wondering, I mean, they have people who care and they had friends who cared and and they're wondering what happens.

And they were missing. That is crazy. And these, this poor family and their daughter, their six-year-old innocent daughter is missing and there's no, they died. Yeah, yeah, they're dead and there's nothing to shut like there's nothing we can say or Help them or anything like that. Wow, that's crazy. Okay, you guys. Thank you so much for listening. We All we sound like a broken record, but we love you guys so much and thank you so much for supporting our show and we will see you guys next week with another episode I love it and I hate it. Goodbye.