On October 8th, 2009, the Jamison family consisting of Bobby, his wife Sherilynn, and his daughter Madison set out to look for a 40-acre plot of land that they were considering purchasing near Red Oak, which was around 30 miles from their home town of Eufaula, California. They were reportedly trying to find a new, quieter, and more off-the-grid place to live, only to suddenly disappear and then have their remains found in the woods four years later. With the development of this baffling case, theories have connected this troubled family to any situation that could explain their fate. From a murder-suicide to the Mexican cartel, the explanation of how these three bodies ended up in the woods has eluded police departments and amateur detectives for years.

A Short-Lived New Start

On the day of the disappearance, the family had been driving around Red Oak looking for a new plot of land. They were unfamiliar with the land making it harder to navigate through the forested area. The family was also not one that was accustomed to the outdoors, making this move even more out of character for them. The last known sighting of the family was by a man who lived in the woods, he had seen them walking in a forested area alone with no one else around them.

A few days after the last confirmed sighting on October 17th, hunters found an abandoned truck in a remote location of Latimer County around a quarter mile from their last known whereabouts. They reported it to the police who later confirmed It to be the Jamison family’s truck. Inside the truck was the parents IDs, their coats and warm clothes, wallets, phones, a picture of Madison, a GPS system, their dog, and a bag with $32,000 in cash.

First let’s look at the picture of Madison found in the car. Some say that she looks happy in the photo and that she’s about to laugh, but others say the opposite and that she’s on the verge of tears. The photo itself seems to be taken while Madison was mid-sentence so the emotions she might be portraying can be confused as one thing or another. Some have pointed out her seemingly unnatural position as proof of a kidnapping but ultimately the picture just seems to be a normal one, later determined to have been taken at a hilltop near the van. The family's dog who had been severely malnourished after being stuck in the vehicle for nine days was quickly rescued.

The scene that the family left behind indicated that they had either been forced to get out of the vehicle or leave in a hurry. The family was unfamiliar with the land and voluntarily going off into the woods without warm clothes, a GPS, or even their dog seemed to be impossible to say the least. A day after the discovery of the truck, a full-scale effort began, including a group of around 300 people including police, ATVs, dogs, drones, and even horses were conducted in the woods where the truck had been found.

Initially, volunteers weren’t asked to attend the search due to the sheer remoteness of the location but were eventually allowed to join. Despite the scale of this search, no credible leads were discovered, ultimately the woods where the truck had been found didn’t offer any more clues as to where the family had gone or what happened to them. But while the search parties couldn’t find anything, police investigating the Jamison’s house back in Eufaula, Oklahoma found a number of clues.

First, police found security footage of the Jamison’s packing for their trip. Some say that the family looks like they’re in a trance-like state in the video but honestly, I don’t see how anyone could come to that conclusion, considering the video runs at around two frames per second. Although, the footage does give us something of value, using the security footage police were able to reference the video to see if there was anything missing from the truck, and sure enough, a brown briefcase that the family was seen packing into the truck was missing.

Along with that, friends and neighbours had said that the family always kept a .22 calibre pistol inside the truck, and upon investigation, the gun was also missing. Subsequent searches in the woods showed no sign of either the briefcase or the gun. With the case slowly losing momentum and hunting season right around the corner making it more dangerous to go into the woods, the case fell silent, and nothing would be found for another four years.

The Bones

On November 16th, 2013 hunters on Panola mountain stumbled across three skulls, an unspecified number of bones and bone fragments, and scraps of clothing. This was found 2.7 miles away from the van. The bones were handed over to police and after over eight months of testing, it was confirmed that these were the remains of the Jamison family. But even with the bones having been found, the mystery was far from over. Because of the state of decomposition on the remains, the cause of death was impossible to determine but the bones gave investigators some clues.

On Bobby’s skull, a small hole was found, which police initially thought was from a bullet, maybe even from the pistol that was missing from the truck, but for unspecified reasons, police later dropped this line of inquiry. When asked how the bones had gone unnoticed for four years despite extensive searches in the area, police, somewhat dismissively, had said, “Fallen leaves potentially obscured the bodies when the area was searched in 2009.” After the discovery of the bones, the case fell silent, permanently this time, which gave the internet ample time to start proposing theories as to what happened to the Jamison family.

Theories

Unlike other mysteries, most of the theories proposed for this case are very possible and would very well have really happened. With that being said, the first theory is a murder-suicide. This theory proposes that Sherilynn, the mother, killed both Bobby and her daughter before ending her own life. As for her motive, well Sherilynn did not have the happiest of lives to say the least. She had been divorced before and had lost custody of her child. Following the divorce, her mental health rapidly deteriorated, she developed bipolar disorder and severe depression and even ended up in the hospital after a failed suicide attempt.

In the truck, police even found an 11-page letter detailing how much Sherilynn hated her husband. In the letter, Sherilynn calls him a “Loner, who doesn’t care about his daughter.” This theory is also supported by the small hole found in Bobby’s skull. Although this theory has substantial evidence, there are also some discrepancies. No blood or shattered glass was found in or around the vehicle. Sherilynn could have lured the family out into the woods and murdered them there, but then why wouldn’t Bobby or Madison have taken their coats or any warm clothes? Also, no gun was found around the remains of the bodies to indicate that Sherilynn had shot herself.

Another possible theory is that someone outside the family had murdered them. Some suspects have been Bobby’s father, Bobby Sr., who had a very rocky relationship with his son. Bobby alleged that his father was involved in drugs and the Mexican cartel. In a letter, he also says that his father is showing signs of Alzheimer’s, he needs to have his driver’s license eliminated, and even that he has tried to kill his mother four times. This seems like an open and shut case except for the fact that Bobby Sr. was 65 years old at the time and was living in a care home. There is no way that he could have executed this plan all by himself.

There’s also a possibility that the parents might have been under the influence during this trip. During the weeks before their disappearance, Bobby, the father had asked his pastor if he could buy bullets that could kill spirits. He explained that their house was being terrorized by them, one of which even had wings. They also said that these spirits would talk to Madison, their daughter, and even went as far as buying a satanic bible to try to repel them.

The final and most possible theory caught traction after the Jamison story appeared on the investigation discovery show “Disappeared” in 2010. Shortly after the episode aired, an anonymous caller contacted Sherilynn’s friend, Nikki Shenold and claimed that she had figured out what had happened to the Jamison family. The Anonymous caller claimed that she had once been part of a white supremacist group and that she had seen a book filled with the names of people that needed to be “taken care of”. This caller said that she would memorize the names in this book and then search them up later on the internet. She claims that she remembers seeing the Jamison’s family’s names in the book. Since Sherilynn was native American, the group could have decided to place the family on the list, which could have led to either the murder or the kidnapping of Sherilynn and the rest of the family.

The final and arguably the least possible theory is that the family went to Red Oak to do some kind of drug deal, this theory is supported by the mysterious brown briefcase, the missing gun, and the $32,000 found in the truck. The theory states that the drug deal ended up going south and because of this, the family had gotten murdered. But why would the couple bring their daughter to a drug deal? And the money wasn’t stolen from the truck, so if this theory is true, whatever was in the briefcase must have been worth more than $32,000 in cash. Ultimately the answer to what happened to the Jamison family is unsolved to this day and as long as uncertainty around the circumstances of their death exists, the mystery of the Jamison family will no doubt persist.

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