eyes. the river that runs through all of this is with money. very much so. now it s time to find out the truth. i just kind of froze and i said, is that what i think it is? she looked at me and said. you know you can t ever leave now. right? hello and welcome to dateline! colorado rancher jake loved tending the land, riding his harley, and hanging out with a type group of guys. then suddenly he stopped answering calls and texts. his friends feared the worst. but years would pass before a series of clues exposed a truth far darker than even they imagined. here is josh mann koen s with trouble at the 7-11 ranch! home on the range. sometimes here in western colorado it is so quiet that all you can hear is the wind. beautiful meadows that wave in the breeze, it s a lovely part of the valley. it is beautiful, no doubt. at the same time, that lovely lonely valley can be unforgiving place to live. it can drive some people to extremes. no one understood that bet
brother in law trying to do something to head. so he was protecting himself. so that was more strange when wagner saw. this posted on dave s facebook page. him astride jakes prized bike. something that jake would ve never tolerated. he loved that motorcycle. it had a history with him. nobody could ride it, if i heard correctly. he loved that bike he wrote it as much as he could to see something like his arch nemesis on his bike was really weird. maybe jake would ditch the ranch. maybe even the dog. but not the harley. that picture told jake s friends something that they did not want to admit. but now, could not avoid. jake was never coming back. where was jake? investigators turn up the heat on jake s family. and uncover a twisted trail of lies. coming up! the cities kept changing. and the reasons why he was leaving kept changing. and in any of those cities, you couldn t find anybody who had seen him or talk to him? and there was no financial record of him in any of tho
by august, jake had been gone almost three months. and by then, it seemed even his mom was becoming concerned. she filed a missing persons report. that wasn t enough for jake s friends. they wanted to get his story out. so they contacted chris rourke. a reporter for the gunnison times. and she called jakes mom. hey deb, thanks for calling me back. no problem. what was deb like? small, wiry woman. very talkative. she liked to talk. i know he originally was gonna go on his motorcycle. but decided to go with somebody. while the reporters recorder ran. deb told her the same thing that she had told the sheriff s deputy. jake had run off. he had taken off in a truck with a friend. and the friend did not want the dog along. and he took enough stuffer to people. she started out a little reticent. and then, the details started
in november 2019, deb died in prison from her cancer. at the age of 70. so whatever really happened, deb took that to the grave with her? i think so. i don t think stephanie will be telling us anytime soon. what really happened that night. we do know this all those stories, jake taking off. jake using drugs. the idea that there were two jakes. those were all lies. and his friends never believed them. you know, if it wasn t for you and jake s other friends. this would quite possibly have never been solved. i believe that. jakes buddoes on the mat, and his friends outside. we were the ones that pushed to get this solved. his family underestimated his second family. didnt they?
up, there s a lot of ground to cover. right. he meet some girl and they decide to go to las vegas? he had some fight with his family or somebody and decides to just hit the road and to hell with it? because a lot of things might have explained his absence that aren t criminal? absolutely. that s why i did not want to jump to any conclusions. there was something that jakes pal noticed. when he had gone to the ranch with a buddy, looking for jake. and they ran into jake s closest friend. his dog, black curly hair dog. and he runs out and meets us. and, that s weird. elmo is here so jake should be here. so we start talking to more people and we literally talk to everybody that we knew that he knew. we talk to. and everybody that we knew that he knew hadn t heard anything. had not turn and stories about any trips. it was really weird. in early june, the under