MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: The Jamison Family

16:20Brit Prawat:It seems like he really believes it. Because as easy as it would be to write this all off as just like nonsense from someone who was off their meds, there are some weird things that I have to tell you. So we talked to Sherilyn's friend Nikki. I mentioned that earlier. And she says that they told her about the spirits too. And she says that she definitely believed that the Jameson's house was haunted. Because every time she visited them over the summer of 2008, there was just this heaviness in the house that she said made her sick to her stomach. And there was one moment in particular that really freaked her out.

17:01Brit Prawat:Nikki says that she and her husband were sitting with Sherilyn in the Jameson's living room. And Nikki could see this, like, huge gray mist floating down the stairs slowly. And she said literally the hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up. And then she just watched it until it disappeared near the bottom of the stairs.

17:25Ashley Flowers:I'm sorry like paging Russia and Yvette like did this just turn into a so supernatural episode like what?

17:31Brit Prawat:I don't know. Listen I know people will roll their eyes whatever this is these are people's own experiences. But it's really hard to write off the next thing which brings me all the way up to October 8th the day that the family goes missing. Police docs show that Bobby called the realtor whose name is Peggy to ask about the land for sale at around 8 a.m. Per a written statement from her, Bobby told her that they were really interested in living off the grid. They spoke for like two hours. And in this conversation, he talked about Madison and how smart she was and how he was excited to homeschool her.

18:07Brit Prawat:And he assured Peggy that he knew what they were getting into. And she said that he sounded excited, but nothing really jumped out at her. It was like many of the conversations she had with people about selling land. So that call ends at 10 a.m. At 10.30, things get weird. The Jamesons had a surveillance system set up around their home. And when police pull the footage from that morning, it shows the family loading up their truck from like 10.30 to 11. Except they're not really loading much. It's like the most eerie thing, Britt. Now, there are only clips of this video that live online today. As far as I could tell, the full video that captured multiple angles during this time has never been released.

18:53Brit Prawat:And when we tried to FOIA them, we were told that the original no longer exists. Because apparently a flood at the department where it was stored ruined it. But in the little bit that was released to the media and that has survived, you can see Bobby and Sherilyn walking back and forth to the truck over and over and over. but no one can figure out why. Like the truck doors appear to be open but it's not like they're loading it up. Most of the time they're walking back and forth with nothing in their hands. Though at one point authorities say that they see Sherilyn take what looks like a brown briefcase type thing like a bag to the pickup truck.

19:35Brit Prawat:Now I don't see a clear moment of that in the short clips we have. If it is included in what we're looking at I'm thinking it might be right here at this moment. You can kind of see, like, I don't know if you see that, like a shadow, right? Like on the side of Sherilyn by her legs.

19:53Ashley Flowers:Yeah.

19:53Brit Prawat:But the footage just like isn't great quality. So like it's really hard to tell. Now this video has become hugely sensationalized because this idea has kind of gotten perpetuated that the way they were walking was like they were in a trance. which makes for good TV when you've got talk of witches and demon-killing bullets. But I'm a little reluctant to go all in on that based on what I've seen.

20:20Ashley Flowers:Yeah, I mean, I can hardly tell anything from this, like, kind of really short loop of footage. Right, and I don't know what's been manipulated or cut.

20:30Brit Prawat:Right, or even if, like, these are, like, consecutive. Right, we can't even see timestamps. So I don't know what to make of it. After a full half hour of this, that's when they set off to make the about one hour drive to the coordinates that they've been given. But they make a few stops first to go look at some other land, which suggests to me that this idea of buying the land and the reason they're going up there isn't some ruse. Right, like it's legit. Even more evidence of that is the fact that on their way up the mountain, they stopped at the home of this guy named Dan Clemens. He lived on the mountain just a quarter of a mile from where the Jameson's truck would be found.

21:07Brit Prawat:And in Dan's written statement, he said that he talked to the family for like 45 minutes before they headed up to the property. He was like telling them, you know, about what it's like to live up there, whatever. Way of the land type stuff. Yeah, and he told them to stop by on their way out. But he says they just never did. Now, we know they arrive at the 40-acre property at 2.15. 2.51, that photograph of Madison was taken. and then poof, the entire family is just gone. All of their stuff just left behind. Well, all their stuff, that is, except one thing. The brown bag that authorities say Sherilyn was seen carrying to the truck in the surveillance footage is not found.

21:48Ashley Flowers:I mean, do they know what was or what might have been in it?

21:53Brit Prawat:No, that's like, that's the question. and no one is ever going to know for sure because, spoiler alert, to this day, that bag has never been found. But Sheriff Beecham told the Oklahoman back in the day that he thinks the bag could have had money in it. Now, how much and what was the money for? This is where we can spiral. Remember how there was like almost$32 ,000 under the seat like when the car was found? Yeah, because that's like a lot of cash. Right. So like that's the kind of thing that will make you think that this isn't something involving foul play, like at the hands of a stranger, right?

22:30Brit Prawat:Because like who is going to kill an entire family and not take the$32 ,000 in cash? Right. Well, Sheriff Beecham wouldn't return our calls, but I did catch a recent interview that he did on a podcast called I Don't Drink Coffee, where he dives into his theory a little bit. So remember the lawsuit that Bobby filed after he was hurt in the car accident?

22:49Ashley Flowers:Yeah.

22:50Brit Prawat:So Bobby's mom, Star, apparently told investigators that he got a$64 ,000 settlement for that and that he and Sherilyn split it down the middle. So$32 ,000 each. Correct. So the theory that kind of gets floated is that maybe someone did make away with$32 ,000 or something around there. In the purse or the bag? They just didn't know that there was a whole second bag of money kind of hidden away in the truck. Now, the only issue I have with that, though, is that is a lot of cash to just be sitting on from 2007 when that lawsuit settled to October of 2009, especially if there really were all these substance use problems.

23:34Ashley Flowers:Not that it can't be done, but I don't know, they're having financial troubles, yet they're like just sitting on this like cash.

23:41Brit Prawat:For how long? Like it just it's weird to me.

23:43Ashley Flowers:Yeah.

23:44Brit Prawat:Now, others have speculated that maybe it was drugs that was in the Brown briefcase. briefcase. And that's usually from the camp of people who see the surveillance footage and they don't think that they're in a trance, but rather they think they're going to be drugged out, which is what a psychologist at the sheriff's office brought in believed and told them, which is just

24:02Ashley Flowers:as, if not more plausible.

24:05Brit Prawat:And when you think about it, like how this all played out, there's a half an hour between when Bobby gets off the phone with Peggy and then when he is seen on the camera. And I say that because like she doesn't make any indication that he is speaking strangely, that he's sounding intoxicated. Right.

24:20Ashley Flowers:Like it's a very normal conversation with her with like a possible buyer.

24:24Brit Prawat:So I'm saying if you're going to say then like a half hour later he's like in a trance or so drugged out that he's acting weird. Like there's a short window of time where like something might have happened like after he got off the phone. Right. There's like this gap. Right. And he could have taken something. So like she doesn't know what he's like high or not. Right. Right. For sure. Like, I mean, he could have been high functioning. I think the thing that I take issue with is there's to me a big difference between having an hours long conversation with someone and like I said, and then behaving in a way that some people would characterize it as being in a trance.

24:57Brit Prawat:Right. Like there has to be like something that has to shift between those two times. Right. Ghosts? Is it drugs? Otherwise, like, whatever. Which makes me go back to questioning even the basis of this, like that video. Again, I'm not seeing weird movements or actions from the short clips that we have. I'm kind of taking law enforcement at their word here that the way they were moving was super weird. if there is a world where their movements over the full video weren't all that weird, and this is something that has just gotten blown up over the years, then they might have been in perfectly fine condition and then nothing weird happened after the call with the realtor.

25:36Brit Prawat:They were just getting ready to leave.

25:38Ashley Flowers:And I'd like to say, like, getting ready to leave with, like, a small child. Yes. Which is not the easiest, most clear-cut, direct thing to ever do.

25:45Brit Prawat:Totally fair. But usually, if I'm thinking about, like, the stuff that, like, holds me up with Joe, it's like I'm... It's stuff. It is. It's the stuff. It's the not having stuff that I think is the weirdest part of it.

25:57Ashley Flowers:Odd.

25:57Brit Prawat:Yeah. But if we are talking drugs in Oklahoma in 2009, meth is what everyone was concerned about. Use and production was rising at the time. And locals actually told us that the northern part of these mountains in particular are known for illegal activity like drugs and dumping. So weird behavior, large amounts of cash. For a moment, even the police think maybe this whole property sale thing was a ruse and they were really going up the mountain to make some kind of drug deal. But authorities debunk this one pretty quickly because they don't find any illegal drugs in the Jameson's house or their truck.

26:38Brit Prawat:And they're not finding any evidence that Bobby or Sherilyn were illegal drug dealers or users. It seems like everything that they were on was prescription. Though I will say, Bobby's uncle Jack told us that he thought Bobby was using something other than painkillers.

26:55Ashley Flowers:But not enough for their home or truck to show signs of that.

26:59Brit Prawat:Right. So I don't think that it was drugs in Sherilyn's bag. Now, the only other thing that might have been in the bag, the only other thing that has never been found, is a.22 caliber gun that Sherilyn owned. Like drugs or money, we can't confirm that she took it up the mountain with her that day. We just know that it is totally MIA. It wasn't in the home when they searched it, and it wasn't in the truck. So was it money? Was it a gun? Was it some combination of things in that bag? I don't know. But knowing everything you do now, you might see why many in the public start honing in on a theory.

27:40Brit Prawat:that it was actually Sherilyn, off her meds, having recently been suicidal, that picked out this plot of land, wrote a scathing letter to her husband that she read all the way up there, and then once they got to the right place, she enacted some kind of murder-suicide plot.

27:58Ashley Flowers:Okay, but then where are they?

28:02Brit Prawat:That's the big hole, right? Why can't anyone find them after weeks and then months of searching?

28:10Ashley Flowers:Well, and it doesn't make sense to me, at least, why you'd leave your dog locked in the car. Like, that's a prolonged death sentence for the pup. Like, not to get graphic, but if the dog was shot, like, that's one thing. Like, that's, like, everybody then.

28:23Brit Prawat:No, I know exactly what you mean. Like, let the dog run free, leave the dog at home or like do a million other things. But this seems like the cruelest fate. And everyone who talked about the family said that Madison loved that dog. Like she would not have gone anywhere without it. So it's just like another part that does not add up. Yeah. Other things that don't add up to me are like the key being in the ignition and almost all of their things being back in the car. Like if she wanted to take her family out to the wilderness and end things, then why wouldn't the phone still be with them? Like why not the keys?

28:57Brit Prawat:They went back to the truck. They had to have gotten in and then turned around so they were ready to go down this one lane mountain road. Then something happened to them. Like that, like it doesn't fit for me.

29:10Ashley Flowers:Well, that's assuming this was a murder-suicide. Like, what if that briefcase she had had the gun, had the money, and she was going to disappear?

29:19Brit Prawat:Well, that would have been a plausible theory. I mean, really for either Sherilyn or Bobby. But that stops being a plausible theory in 2013. Because that's when the entire family is actually found. Not too far from where their abandoned truck stood four years earlier. For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time.

30:05Brit Prawat:Listen to the deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

30:12Brit Prawat:On November 16, 2013, this is four years after the Jamesons disappeared, a man named Tim Graham is with his wife and family on their annual hunting trip to the mountain. They're just looking for signs of deer when Tim sees something strange in the brush, about like 50 yards away from a gravel road. He looks like a turtle shell at first. I mean, it's weathered, discolored, and a little stuck to the ground. But when he picks it up, he realizes that it is a skull. And there is a small hole near the forehead. Now, Tim immediately puts it down and yells to his wife. But then he sees another one, like a slightly smaller one.

30:53Brit Prawat:And then as the family is trying to get out of there and to go tell someone what they found, Tim's wife spots a third, really small skull with two front teeth missing. And her mind immediately goes to the Jamesons. because she remembers seeing missing persons posters for the family. Madison's toothless grin is seared in her brain. And in that moment, she says to her husband, oh my goodness, I believe we just found that family that was missing. And she was right. Now, there wasn't much left out there, just an arm and a leg bone, a left boot, scraps of another boot and a child's shoe, but nothing else.

31:32Brit Prawat:No briefcase, no gun. And after about seven months of analysis, in June 2014, they're able to confirm that they found the entire family just 2.6 miles from where their truck was found.

31:48Ashley Flowers:Like 2.6, like two and a half miles away.

31:51Brit Prawat:That's it. Which like I know this sounds like nothing to us like flatlanded folk who like live in the Midwest. Oh, I can see five miles for ages. Yeah, fields and fields. But Beecham said that to go from where their truck was found to where their skulls were recovered, like as the crow flies, it would take like a half day for someone who is in great shape to hike, which makes this location all the more strange because Bobby was not in great shape. He had chronic back pain. And I don't know if you've tried hiking with a six-year-old recently, but like in this area, that would slow you way down.

32:26Brit Prawat:Most people don't think there is any way that they got to that location on their own.

32:31Ashley Flowers:And this completely nixes the murder-suicide theory. Like it has to be foul play.

32:37Brit Prawat:But for some reason, like it doesn't for some people, right? So like let's talk theories and what works and what doesn't work. So first, the murder-suicide theory. People still point to Sherilyn's mental instability and like that hate letter is what they call it. The one that was in the truck as proof that she killed her family and herself.

32:58Ashley Flowers:OK, but if they never found a gun and they can't determine a cause of death, that seems like it takes away all of the elements that you need to make murder-suicide work.

33:08Brit Prawat:If it was a gun that was used and if they were shot in the head.

33:13Ashley Flowers:I mean, wasn't there a hole in Bobby's head?

33:15Brit Prawat:Well, yeah, but they officially say that that hole is from animal activity. But like I'm with you, like you could have been shot in like the fleshy parts of your body that you wouldn't see from the few pieces that they were able to collect. But even then, like you should see bullet fragments and a gun left behind.

33:32Ashley Flowers:But I mean, kind of going back to it, like if a gun was used, right? Like that's not the only way it could have gone down.

33:38Brit Prawat:Yes and no. Like, I kind of disagree because, like, unless mom and dad were in on this together and, like, quite literally drinking the Kool-Aid, you have to do something quick, like a gun. Like, I don't think you can overpower the other parent and kill Madison without being stopped. You know what I mean?

33:53Ashley Flowers:Yeah.

33:54Brit Prawat:And so much of what we know doesn't make sense with this to me. Like, why are the keys and the phone back in the truck? Why was the truck positioned like it was going back down the mountain? Where is the brown briefcase?

34:08Ashley Flowers:Well, and I don't know, like what if someone came across the remains or the briefcase and just never reported it, especially the briefcase, especially if the briefcase had money in it.

34:19Brit Prawat:Yeah, I mean, I could see that for this area, but it seems more likely to me that it would have been left in the truck and then someone rifled through that once they'd seen the truck unoccupied for a couple of days. And they just like make a quick grab for the briefcase, maybe miss the fact that there's other money under the seat. But like in that case, again, they're not like running off with stuff like where they are, where the remains are. You know what I mean? Right. But whatever someone taking the brown bag solves, it solves none of the other problems I have with this story. How did they get to where they were?

34:50Brit Prawat:Because I don't believe that they walk, especially if this was a plan that just one of them had. Like, OK, can you please leave your keys in the ignition,$32 ,000 under the seat and your GPS behind? And let's just like take a walk into the wilderness. Right.

35:05Ashley Flowers:No, that is going to raise, like, all sorts of alarm bells. 1 ,000%. So, theory number two, misadventure.

35:14Brit Prawat:And misadventure, this idea that they, like, somehow got stuck out there and died, it doesn't work for me for all the same reasons above. Yeah. But okay, say they were high or something. They're doing things that don't make sense. Actually, this is the only theory where the strange surveillance footage makes like even a little bit of sense or like contributes to something, I think. In every other scenario, that's the thing that is like always this weird outlet. It doesn't fit in anywhere. But like, OK, whatever. Say you're high, you're acting weird before you even get there. You spend your time in the mountains and you're about to leave and go down the mountain.

35:50Brit Prawat:And you're like, you know what? Nope. Like, let's just start walking into the great wide nowhere without our coats or a phone or anything else that we previously brought and used with us for the first time that we're exploring this place. Because remember, they did bring their BlackBerry with GPS when they were walking between 215 and 250. So, like, they were using their GPS before. But you know what? Let's just do it without it for the funsies. Say all that happened. Here's the thing that doesn't make sense to me. I don't think they would all die and end up in the same place. Like, if that's the scenario.

36:21Ashley Flowers:Right. No, because they'd have to, like, the remains are all found together at the same place. So, Justin, they, like, died at the same time. In the same place. And also with this theory, I'm thinking, like, that means that they're high from the time that they leave the house to the time they get to the mountain. We know that they go to a couple different, like, plots of land first. They talk to a guy on the mountain for, like, 45 minutes before they get to their, like, final location. It's just, like. And, like, that feels like it would flat, like, that would flag somewhere along the way, right?

36:48Ashley Flowers:I would think.

36:49Brit Prawat:Again, this does not add up for me, which brings me to theory number three, which is foul play. This is the only theory that I think works because it's the only one where most of the pieces we have fit together. The Jamesons have come to the mountain. They looked around. They'd gotten back in their truck and turned around ready to go home. But then they were stopped somehow. Maybe it was innocent at first, or maybe there was no niceties and they were forced out of their truck with like the threat of violence. Either way, I think they get out so quickly that Bobby doesn't even pull the key out of the ignition or grab his phone and they leave their dog inside the car.

37:31Brit Prawat:Then I think they're driven somewhere else and eventually killed.

37:36Ashley Flowers:Which, like you said, this is a theory that fits the most pieces, but they're still kind of a gaping hole in the theory. Like, who would know that they would be out there then?

37:48Brit Prawat:That is the key to everything. But it's a short list. So remember, barely anyone knew that the family was even gone. Like they didn't, it wasn't like abnormal for them to go away for a couple of days. It's why they didn't get reported missing before their truck is found. So it's not like they checked in a lot with people or had anyone really keeping tabs on them. So really, there's only like two people close to them that authorities look at. And then people who were up on the mountain. Now, of the two people who were close to the family, there's no evidence that they actually knew where the Jamesons were headed on October 8th.

38:22Brit Prawat:But those are just the two people who might have had motives. They have to look at those people. Now, the first is Bobby's dad because of the lawsuit and the protective order. But by the time the Jamesons went missing, Bob's health was deteriorated. And he was actually living in like a nursing home or some kind of like hospice care. And he was so sick that he could barely take care of himself, let alone hike a mountain or hurt his son and his family. And there is no evidence that he could be tied to their disappearance in any way. So authorities rule him out pretty quick. And Bob actually passed away just two months after they all went missing in December 2009.

38:58Brit Prawat:So the second person that they look at who had a personal connection to the family was this guy named Kenneth Bellows. He actually lived with the family at their lake house in Eufaula over the summer. The boarding arrangement was part of his compensation for helping them with things around the house since Bobby's back pain had gotten so bad that he couldn't do much. But there was a huge falling out because apparently Kenneth told Sherilyn that he was a white supremacist and said that people who had Native American heritage, like she did, should die. So Sherilyn ended up shooting at him and kicking him out of the house.

39:33Brit Prawat:But in the end, Kenneth ends up providing the sheriff's office with a really solid alibi. And I don't think they could even prove that he knew where the family was going that day since he'd been kicked out weeks before and hadn't had contact with the family since. So both dad and Kenneth cleared, which means that either leaves someone else who they knew personally, who just hasn't come up in the investigation, or someone who lived on the mountain. Whichever it is, there might be someone out there who has the answer. You see, Israel Beacham has retired from the sheriff's office, but in his 2020 podcast interview with the host of I Don't Drink Coffee, he said in no uncertain terms that he believes the Jamesons were murdered and he even thinks he knows who killed them.

40:27Brit Prawat:He just had no way to prove it. And he said he thinks someone shot Bobby and Sherilyn and then just left Madison on her own to die. And when it came to why, all he would say is follow the money. And that's the thing I keep coming back to. Why did they have that much money in their car anyways? I mean, this wasn't like an uber wealthy couple with cash just like coming out of their ears. I think it's risky to drive around with that much money, like, you know, maybe$32 ,000, maybe more. That's not something you do unless you're intending to use that money.

41:04Ashley Flowers:I was going to say without like intention, like to take it somewhere, to deposit it, for it to change hands.

41:09Brit Prawat:And we know that they were going up there to possibly make a purchase. So who knew that they were coming up there to make a purchase? The answer is two people. One, the realtor Peggy. And two, Dan Clemens, the local landowner. And there's something I didn't tell you about Dan. He actually claims to have seen the family on two different days. According to his statement, the Jameson family was up on the mountain the day before they got the coordinates from Peggy. Apparently, they had seen the property online and they decided to just like drive up and check it out on their own. But according to him, they had trouble finding it.

41:51Brit Prawat:So they pulled up to his place, likely since he was like the nearest house to, you know, where the property was. It was like a quarter mile away. And they were asking for directions, he says. And he says he talked to them that time for like an hour about, you know, building off grid, like herbal medicines. And he is the one who ended up giving them Peggy's number to call the next day. And he's like, listen, you contact her. Come back in the morning because it was like 6 p.m. by that point. Like so by the time they're on talking, it's like 7. It's like getting dark. He's like, it's not even safe for you to be out here exploring the mountain in the dark.

42:24Brit Prawat:So he says they leave. He says they do stop by the next day at around noon where they speak for another 45 minutes. and then the family headed up to check out the land. Now, remember, he told them to stop back by, but he... And they never did. But he says they never did, right. Now, right away, this is a little off to me because if they are talking to him, he says they start talking around like noon. If they're talking to him till like 1245, why does their GPS say that they make it to the land at 215? Where are they for the like hour and a half in between? Right. We're a quarter of a mile from where their truck is.

42:58Brit Prawat:And, you know, were his times just off? Like, maybe. Either way, he apparently wasn't concerned when they didn't stop back by and wasn't concerned that he never heard from them again. And it's worth pointing out that if all of Dan's statements are true, like this makes the murder-suicide theory even less plausible to me.

43:16Ashley Flowers:Because like, why not do it the day before when like Peggy doesn't even know you're out there, right? The realtor, like you're spending a lot of time. Multiple trips. Talking to people about buying this land. Yes. Finding the exact location. Like you don't need any of that if you just want to go to the woods. Yeah. go to the middle of nowhere for this murder-suicide plan.

43:34Brit Prawat:Totally. Everything about the circumstances makes me believe that they were up there to buy land, planning for their future. And on October 8th, something or someone stopped them. Now, based on Peggy's statement to police, someone alerts her to the Jameson's truck being there on the 15th. This is two days before this story started. And I guess at the time, she was like, oh, no biggie, whatever. The family probably just wanted to take a second look at the land. Happens all the time. So she didn't do anything. But then two days pass, and it's the 17th at 3 p.m. when Dan is first alerted to the truck being there.

44:12Brit Prawat:He said two people on four-wheelers stopped by his place and told him that there was this abandoned truck with a dog inside. And I guess he, like, asked some questions about the truck, specific features or whatever, and he realizes that the description sounded like the family that he had talked to. So he got worried and called Peggy. Peggy then tries the family, but she couldn't reach them. And so then Dan called a neighbor to go look at the truck with him. But by the time they go up there together, it's 5.30 p.m. And that's when Dan says that he first saw the abandoned truck for himself. But he doesn't call police right away.

44:45Brit Prawat:He does his own search, looking for the family first. And Peggy is actually the one who ends up calling the deputies, who then arrive at the truck at around 7.30 p.m. Here's what I find odd. One, why not call the authorities herself? Like Peggy's the one that has to do that. Like the second you hear about this trap dog and you're admitting that you're making this connection to the Jamesons, like why wait? Two, I find it super weird that he wanted to wait for a friend to go look at the truck with him.

45:17Ashley Flowers:Right.

45:17Brit Prawat:Like there is no context in the report for why he did this. Like, you know, maybe he didn't have a vehicle of any kind.

45:24Ashley Flowers:or maybe he wanted someone else to find it. Right. He's like creating this distance between like himself and the truck. Yeah. This has me wondering, like, was there any way he could have been behind the first call on the 15th?

45:37Brit Prawat:Like, hey, there's this truck up here, like trying to get someone else to get up there then? I don't see evidence of that. I literally had the same thought, but that call came from another landowner in the area who is named. So like if there's a world where he was behind it, he would have had to get that person to call. Again, like I said, there's no evidence that that happened. The thing I'll say, though, is like who isn't named are the two people on the four wheelers that apparently alerted him to the truck on the 17th. From what I have, I can't tell if police ever even identified those men, if they ever talked to them to verify Dan's story.

46:09Brit Prawat:My biggest question, too, is about the long conversations they had. They talked for an hour the first day, 45 minutes the next day. So at any point, did it come up that they would be traveling up there with cash? Did it come up that nobody would really know where they were? We couldn't reach Dan for this episode, so we couldn't ask him ourselves what those conversations were.

46:36Ashley Flowers:And do we know with the truck of a process for like prints or anything? Like could they tell if someone else drove it? But because like maybe there's a scenario where the family left on their own or otherwise and someone brought the truck back to this area later.

46:49Brit Prawat:Yeah. So according to police docs, they did process the truck, but it doesn't go into detail about what was found. So I don't know if they got anything good. I don't know if they got anything to compare to anyone. I don't know if it was like all wiped down. And then based on what we have when it comes to Dan, it just says that they thoroughly checked him with, quote unquote, negative results. But we looked into Dan Clemens ourselves when we were reporting on this case in late 2025, and we found something pretty interesting. A man with the same name and the right age was arrested in 2017 for killing a man back in 1997.

47:24Brit Prawat:Now, we haven't confirmed whether these are the same people since Dan would not return our calls, but we showed Sherilyn's friend Nikki this guy's mugshot, and she confirmed that that is the same man she knew as Dan Clemens, who she had interactions with on the mountain while searching for the Jamesons.

47:40Ashley Flowers:So this 97 homicide, like, is it similar? Do we know much about it?

47:44Brit Prawat:I don't know a ton. All I was able to find was that, so like you said, it happens in 97, and a man named David McLeod was found shot to death at his ranch in California. Nothing is taken from the house, but his killer took his truck and drove it up to San Francisco and must have fled or whatever because they end up arresting this Dan Clemens guy in Oklahoma. This is where like our story takes place, where he'd been living under a fake name. And the Trinity Journal reported that Dan ultimately pled no contest to voluntary manslaughter and got three years in prison as part of a plea deal.

48:22Ashley Flowers:I mean, OK, I assume police would have known about this at the time, though.

48:26Brit Prawat:I would hope so if it was, in fact, the same Dan.

48:32Ashley Flowers:Right.

48:32Brit Prawat:But it's not mentioned anywhere in the reports that we've gotten. All we see when it comes to Dan is that they thoroughly checked him with negative results.

48:41Ashley Flowers:which I still don't even know what that means, but did they thoroughly check anyone else on the mountain?

48:47Brit Prawat:I'm sure they talked to as many people as they could. I don't know. I don't have a list of everyone, but I do know one person because we tracked her down. Her name is Anne-Marie Duhon. And I specifically tracked her down because as we were reporting on this, I heard this rumor that her and her family moved off the mountain not long after the Jamesons went missing. So people were wondering if her and her husband might have been involved.

49:11Ashley Flowers:And I actually found this like, you know, these are rumors now, but I found a tip in the file that someone had made about them back in 2010.

49:18Brit Prawat:But our reporter, Char Adams, tracked Anne down and she says that deputies did question her about the Jameson's disappearance. And she just laughed in their face, she said. She says that her and her family moved off the mountain in the fall of 2010 because they'd been homeschooling their children and they wanted to move the kids back down so they could go to school. Though that's not quite how her daughter remembers it. When I talked to her daughter, she told us that her parents were not good people and that they moved off the mountain so abruptly that they left a bunch of their stuff. But Anne was never named as a suspect, and she denies having anything to do with what happened to the Jamesons.

49:55Brit Prawat:So I'm sure there are even more stories like that. I just haven't been able to track down every person who was on the mountain because turns out living off the grid makes it kind of hard to find you. Off the grid is off the grid. Truly. Now, if anyone on the mountain did it, I have to believe the motive was money. Beecham said, follow the money. But to who? Like I said, he never got back to us for this episode. But Bobby's Uncle Jack really wants to know what more Beecham knows that he hasn't shared in all these years. Maybe all the pieces are there. Maybe they're just held by different people.

50:33Brit Prawat:The problem is, it doesn't seem like anyone is really investigating this. It's that weird catch-22 we often see where the ME classified these deaths as undetermined, so there is no homicide that is being investigated. All the investigative files we have were from when this was a missing persons case. Now, it's just in limbo, meaning that if Bobby, Sherilyn, and Madison were killed by someone, that someone has gotten away with murder. But it doesn't always have to be that way. If anyone out there knows something that could change the status of this case, you can contact the Latimer County Sheriff's Office at 918-465-4013.

51:33Brit Prawat:you can find all the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkie.com

51:38Ashley Flowers:and you can follow us on instagram at crimejunkie podcast we'll be back

51:41Brit Prawat:next week with a brand new episode but stick around because we have some good

52:11Ashley Flowers:Okay, Ashley, I have a really cool story that I'm really excited to tell you. I've always loved true crime, but I wasn't sure if a career in it was right for me. I followed the path of veterinary medicine for a while until recently getting into nursing school. I had known about Crime Junkie for a while, but this past summer started from the beginning to watch every episode through work, study sessions, car drives, and cleaning the house. Crime Junkie was always there to keep me company. After some thought, I've decided I'd like to earn my nurse practitioner license and study forensic nursing. I want to be a piece of the bridge between medical and legal to help the victims get the care and justice they deserve.

52:48Ashley Flowers:I find it to be a privilege to be able to give them either care and dignity before they are laid to rest or a safe person to help them move forward in their next steps of life after being involved in a trauma. I'd specifically like to earn my saying credentials and take care of sexual assault and rape victims, as these people may feel like they lose their voice during their battle. But my voice is loud and will be heard and I will use it to advocate for victims. If not for Crime Junkie, I wouldn't understand how important and vital this is, and every episode provides me with motivation to keep working for this goal.

53:23Brit Prawat:Thank you, Ashley and Britt. Ella, a fellow Hoosier.

53:27Ashley Flowers:Oh! This was like so many crime junkie boxes. She started in vet med and then went into nursing school. And becoming SANE certified is just really incredible. And I was so excited to hear from her.

53:39Brit Prawat:It's like, it's wild, like keeping track of how many people have like changed their career paths. And like, it's so true. It's like not always like the most glamorous work, but there's like so many different occupations that touch true crime that you like don't often think of. Like a forensic nurse. Yeah. It's amazing.

53:56Ashley Flowers:So thank you, Ella.

53:58Brit Prawat:Crime Junkie is an Audio Chuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

54:07Ashley Flowers:Okay, Crime Junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. I think you'll love it too. Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.