48 Hours - Where is Jermain Charlo?

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Police release last known images of 23-year-old missing mom. Can this security camera video help reveal what happened to her? Michelle Miller reports. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial, and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most. A bizarre and maddening tale involving an eyewitness account that doesn't quite make sense. A sister testifying against a brother. A lack of physical evidence. Crosley Green has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove,

the troubled case against Crosley Green, ad-free on Amazon Music. This search for Jermaine Austin-Sharlow continued today in the Missoula area. This is a 23-year-old, mother of two. We get a missing person advisory probably maybe a couple times a month, and 98% of those people who are reported missing are going to be found or their case is resolved. It is unusual just to have somebody vanish. Germaine Charlo was 23 years old when she vanished on June 16th, 2018. She was very active on social media.

Hi, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Germaine. This is now going to be my blog about me and whatever I do. She posted about everything. None of this is scripted. It's all real. I don't like fake s***. Like, food, makeup. This is what I'm doing.

This is where I'm going. I'll have a better blog tomorrow because I'm going grocery shopping. So like for her to not be active on social media, then I knew something was not right. So in the evening of June 15, 2018, Germaine was downtown Missoula socializing at some bars and she was last known to be alive in the alley behind one of the bars. Charlo is a Native American woman. She's 5 feet 8 and weighs 130 pounds. She was last wearing blue jeans. We started thinking about, okay, did she make it back on the reservation?

Did she not make it back on the reservation? The reservation itself is 1.319 million acres. It's mountainous, there's numerous rivers, there's numerous predators, and every hour, day, minute, that search area expands. I think there's always that hope that she's out there somewhere. You didn't know Jermaine. You didn't know Jermaine. I didn't know Jermaine.

I dream about her, I think about her. But what does she represent to you? She definitely represents our people. This is one of many cases in Montana. I know how to take pictures, and visual representation of any issue is huge. That red hand, you can't not see. It shouts out,

we're not going to take this anymore. Jermaine has become the Western Montana face of missing and murdered Indigenous people. And now we're to the point where it's the first anniversary, it's the second, the third. And you've been living in limbo for six years. Yeah. I miss her. I'm never going to say,

you know what, I'm going to stop searching for her. She's out there somewhere, but where? What do you need to solve this case? I feel like I got this puzzle in front of me, but I don't have all the pieces on the table quite yet. One or two pieces could break the case. Someone out there knows. Someone out there knows what happened to Jermaine Charlot.

And they're just not talking. Come forward. We know you're there. Be brave. Michelle Miller reports, where is Jermaine Charlo? On Highway 93, en route to Missoula, it's hard to miss this billboard and Jermaine Charlo's haunting gaze. When I see that billboard, I'm frustrated.

Missoula police detective Guy Baker has been searching for Jermaine for more than six years. We've just time and time again come up empty-handed. These are the last known images of Jermaine Charleau. They were captured on surveillance video on Friday, June 15, 2018, in downtown Missoula. There's Jermaine chatting with people outside a bar called the Badlander. A little before midnight, Jermaine chatting with people outside a bar called the Badlander. A little before midnight, Jermaine walks away from the camera,

a man by her side, and disappears into the night. Six years later, with no arrests and no publicly named suspect, police release the video to 48 hours, hoping to generate leads. Someone out there knows what happened to Jermaine Charleau. Jermaine walks out of view, so maybe somebody saw something that has never thought about contacting us. So if anybody has any information about that night or any aspect of this investigation, I encourage them to call me. For Jermaine's aunts, Danny Matt and Valinda Morshup, this painful ordeal began on Saturday, June 16, 2018,

with a call from Jermaine's grandmother. She was very close with my mom. My mom's actually the one who had called me and said, have you heard from Jermaine? And I said, no. Why, hello, I'm back. The family says Jermaine never went anywhere without her phone, so it would be unusual for her not to text or call. They knew she had been in Missoula. So I kept calling her, calling her. And when she didn't answer her phone,

And when she didn't answer her phone, Danny had a feeling something wasn't right. We'd called the hospitals, to the shelters, anywhere we could think of, just because it was not natural for her to not talk to my mother like she did on a daily basis. She disappeared without a trace? Nothing. The family was sick with worry. No one had heard from her, and she had not returned to her home on the Flathead Reservation, about 40 miles from Missoula.

On Monday, June 18th, 48 hours after Jermaine was last seen, Belinda contacted authorities for help. Because she went missing out of Missoula, I had called Missoula Police Department to let them know she had gone missing. There was, like, no sense of, let's make sure that we check all the boxes and make sure that we've done everything that we can to make sure she's safe.

The family also contacted the Flathead Reservation Police. We try to get as much information out there as we can, try to get flyers, pictures, whatever we can do out there. Police Chief Craig Couture. As the days go on, people start thinking, hold on, maybe there is more to this than just she's gone. Then on June 20th, four days after Jermaine disappeared, Valinda made the drive from the Flathead Reservation to the Missoula Police Department, officially filed a missing persons report, and met with a detective assigned to Jermaine's case. He did his due diligence, and he checked the hospitals and the homeless shelters. I was told that she was not in immediate danger.

Valinda knew in her heart Jermaine was in immediate danger. Frightened and frustrated, the family reached out again. Thank you so much for being here today. Volunteer searches were organized. I've been on a couple of the searches. Describe them to me. They're heartbreaking. Jen Murphy is an educator living in Montana.

Every little step that you take, it's a grid search, so you can't be any farther than an arm's length apart so that you don't miss anything. You come upon anything that looks out of place. So grid searching a mountain with trees that are right next to each other anything. You come upon anything that looks out of place. So grid searching a mountain with trees that are right next to each other is almost impossible. During one of those searches, she met Valinda. How would you describe your bond with Valinda?

She's like a sister to me now. So her pain is your pain? Absolutely. Mm-hmm. They're continuing to investigate the disappearance of 23-year-old Jermaine Charlo. Here is another look at her right now, if you have any information on her disappearance. After Jermaine had been missing for about 10 days, Detective Guy Baker, who'd just come back from vacation, volunteered to take over the case. Is it unusual for someone to go missing in Missoula? No, no. I think we have sometimes multiple people per week, 97, 98 percent statewide reported missing people are found. So it's that 2% that are the difficult ones. Baker was concerned Jermaine's case was among that difficult 2%.

Then in mid-July, one month after her disappearance, there seemed to be a new and disturbing development. Missoula police are concerned that a missing Dixon woman might be held somewhere against her will tonight. They're continuing to investigate the disappearance of 23-year-old Jermaine Charleaux, who also goes by the name Liz. We had some information early on that there might have been some people in Missoula from out of state that were trying to buy a girl, and I was thinking there was a connection

there. There are thousands of rural areas and miles to go across this state and there are people who are extremely vulnerable. Missoula County Deputy Attorney Brittany Williams. Human trafficking is a huge problem nationwide but how does it differ in Montana? I would say it differs from a lack of knowledge. I think people have an idea that Montana is rural and undeveloped, and we don't have major crimes that occur here. But the fact of the matter is we have one of the largest interstates that runs through our state, right here through Missoula, Montana. There are people who can be swept away in an instant.

And because of lack of GPS or cell towers, you might never hear from that person again. In a matter of minutes, they could be gone. And they could be trafficked to another state, potentially another country. If Jermaine Sharla was a victim of trafficking, could law enforcement find her? In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military, and when they do, the NCIS gets involved.

From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still a virgin. It just happens to all of them. I'm journalist Luke Jones Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls

from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. While Detective Baker was investigating the possibility Jermaine Sharlow may have been a victim of sex trafficking, her family was desperately trying to get her back home. We called her phone, it seems like a million times over.

Tried to Facebook, FaceTime. Even from the time she was a little kid, she had like the best personality. She's very outgoing. Beautiful, resilient, animal lover. Oh gosh, the list of pets she had is... I think she had like a flying squirrel or something. And then a pig. She had two pigs.

She's very outdoorsy. She'd always love to be by the river and fishing. Valinda was only 10 when her niece Jermaine was born. Soon, they were as close as sisters. When she was born, I didn't like her at all. I was the baby of the family, and she stole my thunder. And then one day, my grandma was cooking, and Jermaine, she needed to be fed. And my grandma was like, hold this baby. I was like, I remember like looking at her, I was like, all right, you're not that bad. And then from that day on, she was my baby. She was my baby sister. Jermaine was creative and imaginative. She was an amazing artist. Her dream was to attend the

Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico. On her YouTube channel, she was using fingernail polish to make an octopus. She would crochet grocery bags to try to save the environment. That girl could do anything she set her mind to, I swear. She was so smart and so talented. She grew up on the Flathead Reservation. You've got the confluence of the Flathead and Jocko Rivers. You've got the bison range right next to you and mountains, you know, as far as you can see.

A really strong sense of community. And Jermaine Sharlow's roots run deep on this reservation. She's a member of the Confederated, Salish, and Kootenai tribes, and a descendant of Chief Charleau, known for his peaceful resistance during the 1870s, when the tribe was forced to move from their ancestral land in Montana's Bitterroot Valley to the Flathead Reservation. We are on tribal land. Yes. Jermaine lived in this orange house over here. Jermaine was balancing life while co-parenting her two young sons, Jacob and Thomas. Her relationship with their father was strained. She was a great mother. Her world evolved around those boys. She wanted to teach them all about fishing and hunting, take them to the fair,

try to give them the best life she knew how. Germaine had been working at the Big River Cantina on the Flathead Reservation. She was hoping to find work as a seasonal firefighter and had an interview scheduled, but she didn't show up. Is she the first native woman to disappear from the Flathead Reservation? No. Missoula County Deputy Attorney Brittany Williams knows it all too well. In Montana, indigenous persons make up only about 6%

of the population, but 24% of the state's active missing persons cases. Would you consider it to be an epidemic? I would, yes. And is there any indication why? I think that there's, that's a very complex question. There's a lot of history there. I think there's just so many different factors that go into each missing person,

from domestic violence to human trafficking to poverty to homelessness. As law enforcement began digging deeper into Jermaine Charlo's disappearance, they would rule out the possibility the 23-year-old mother of two had been a victim of trafficking. That was initially an avenue of investigation. Ultimately, I don't believe that she was trafficked. Why? I think that we have enough evidence through this investigation that lends itself to believe something else has happened to her. Jermaine posted this TikTok video,

lip-syncing lines from a TV show. Together, together? Yeah. The day she disappeared. syncing lines from a TV show. Together, together? Yeah. The day she disappeared. It's the same image seen in her missing poster billboard. She's wearing the same clothes in the surveillance video. Detective Baker discovered the video early in his investigation, and he shared excerpts of it with us.

He told us that the man standing behind Jermaine was Michael DeFrance, Jermaine's ex and the father of their two children. He agreed to speak with police without a lawyer. You believe Michael DeFrance was the last person to see Jermaine Charlo? That's what the investigation has determined, and he told us that. According to police, sometime around midnight, Michael and Jermaine walked away and got in his 2011 brown Dodge truck. He said that they left the downtown area and that he dropped her off and that that ended their night together.

According to law enforcement, Michael DeFrance stated he dropped Jermaine off at the Orange Street food farm. Michael DeFrance did this because Jermaine stated that her friend Cassidy lived nearby, and Jermaine was going to spend the night there. Michael DeFrance dropped Jermaine off at approximately 0100 hours. Police didn't find a Cassidy, but they learned Jermaine had been visiting Missoula regularly because she was dating a man named Jacob, who lived in that neighborhood. They had met on a dating app, and they weren't together for very long, but it seemed like they had a very strong connection, and he was just totally infatuated with her. Authorities say Jacob was out of town, miles away in another state. Belinda says he and Jermaine were texting each other that night before she disappeared. Her plan, according to like her message to him, was that she was going

to go back to his place that night because he was out of town. According to law enforcement, when Jacob attempted to call Jermaine shortly before 1 a.m. on June 16th, he thought it was strange because the phone rang several times before it went to voicemail. Jacob felt that somebody purposely ended the call. And this particular call that was made to her has been shown through the carrier to have been silenced by someone. Jacob also told police that the day before she disappeared, Jermaine told Jacob that Michael had been yelling at her, asking if she was dating anyone, and wanted to get back together with her.

and wanted to get back together with her. Police say Jacob cooperated with the investigation and was never considered a suspect. It's unsettling to see Germaine Charlotte socializing that night and Michael DeFrance, the last known person to see her alive, and not know what they were talking about or what may have been going on between them. Michael DeFrance has not been named as a suspect in Jermaine's disappearance. We showed the surveillance video to Valinda and Danny. They're seeing it for the first time.

There she is. For her to be walking in front of him, it seems like he keeps like trying to catch up to her. They sensed Jermaine was sending a message about Michael DeFrance. And she's, you know, we got to go our separate ways. What do you think is the most important clue in the disappearance of Jermaine Charlo? Chat now with the 48 Hours team on Facebook and X. Jermaine Charleau never went anywhere without her phone, so it was crucial for investigators to find it. We got cell phone data linked to Jermaine's cell phone that indicated it was active on the night she disappeared, and it was active multiple times, primarily between the hours of 2 a.m.

and up until just about 10 a.m. on the 16th of June. And where was the phone? So the phone's never been recovered, so we don't know where the phone was, but judging by the information we got from the tower, it was most definitely north of Missoula, and it was in the area of Evero Hill. Evero Hill is on the Flathead Reservation. It's a rugged area with lots of trees and wildlife, And it's a place Michael DeFrance knows well. He lives specifically up on the Evero Hill area. He was the last person to be with Jermaine Charlo before her life as we know it came to a standstill. Searches have been conducted on Evero Hill,

but Jermaine was not found. There's always that hope that she's out there somewhere. Jen Murphy, who has joined several volunteer searches for Germaine, came up with the idea to put Germaine Charleaux's missing poster on a billboard. I currently am doing a project with billboards throughout Montana and throughout the United States. I try to have billboards as close to our reservations as possible,

trying to make sure that speaking to the perpetrators too, like, we see you. The investigation into Jermaine's disappearance is just one of many cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, known as MMIW. In 2019, the Justice Department created a task force to investigate cases of missing and murdered indigenous people around the country. Social media has helped to ignite the movement. And this is the case of Jermaine Charleau. At the 2024 Emmy Awards, Reservation Dogs actor and nominee, DeFarra Wunatai, was on the red carpet. This is representing, this is red palm print,

representing missing and murdered indigenous women. Bringing attention to the crisis. I feel like we're all of the human race and should be looked for the same. It's not like we're asking for special treatment. We're just asking for the same treatment. We're not going to stop looking for our people. We're not. Our lives matter.

As a photographer, Jen Murphy is using her lens to open the aperture to the MMIW crisis. This photo shoot with Vina Littleow was in the same alley where Jermaine was last seen. It starts out with praying and trying to set yourself right. We offer a moment of silence and a space for our sisters. It's a painting on the paint. Just relax your hand, okay?

And just put your hand just straight down. What does the red hand mean? The red handprint really symbolizes our people being silenced. How we have always been looked at differently and that our people have not been heard in the same way that other people are. That's a harsh reality and it has been

since the beginning of time, since colonization. Jermaine's family can't help but wonder about how her case was treated in those critical early days in the investigation. When I reported her missing, there was no sense of urgency. I don't know if it's because she's over 18 or because she was drinking or the fact that she was Native American. Lead detective Guy Baker can't speak to those first days of the investigation. Remember, he didn't get the case until 10 days after Jermaine disappeared. But he's well aware that some missing persons cases do get more attention than others. persons cases do get more attention than others. You know, just look at our national media.

Gabby Petito goes missing, and look at the national exposure she got for a week or two for a Caucasian female, and how many missing Native American females went missing in that same time period and got nothing. So I've made a concerted effort to keep Jermaine relevant. It's Baker's hope that by releasing the surveillance video to 48 hours, he'll gain new leads. For Valinda and Danny... Do you see her?

Yeah. Being social. Silly being herself. It's the last glimpse of Jermaine's life the night she disappeared. Jermaine, her bubbly self, it's beautiful to see her. Hearts at the same time, but so full of life. Then they zero in on the man standing behind Germaine. Here.

Michael DeFrance. Introduces him. Then he's got his arms crossed, like, and rolls up his sleeves, like, trying to intimidate whoever the dude is that she's talking to. Does it tell you anything? It kind of shows me his demeanor that night. Looks like he's in a rush to leave,

and that he's annoyed that she's, her attention isn't focused on him. Danny was surprised and relieved to see there were other people, potential witnesses, in the alley that night. There's a lot of people, which reassures me that somebody knows something. Somebody's seen her. Somebody's got to know what that conversation was. Detective Baker says he spoke with several of the people seen on the video.

But because this investigation is still active, he wouldn't say much about what he learned. I'm hoping that maybe by chance somebody saw them and just has no idea that she's been missing and says something and that is just like the small missing piece that we need. Authorities needed a break in Jermaine's case. To learn more about her life, they would take a closer look at her past and they would discover her relationship with Michael DeFrance wasn't just strained, it had been dangerous.

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there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in a Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman? Now we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to

talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free, with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. While authorities did not name Michael DeFrance as a suspect in Jermaine's disappearance,

they did want to learn more about the couple's relationship. They started at the beginning. Jermaine Charleau was 14 when she met 16-year-old Michael de France in 2010, when his family moved in across the street. They both enjoyed fishing on the river and taking long walks. The teens were practically inseparable. But there were red flags. I don't remember why I had her phone,

but I had found some explicit photos of her on her phone. Like, you know, I had mentioned to Michael, I was like, she was never like this before. Like, you know, this is not okay. This is not something that you guys should be sharing at your age. What was his reaction? He didn't really say much. Despite family disapproval, Jermaine continued to see Michael DeFrance. Then in April 2013, just two weeks shy of Jermaine's 18th birthday, Valinda got a harrowing call. There was an incident where she had called me and said, Auntie, I need you down here. Michael hit me.

According to court documents, Michael DeFrance, who was 19, admitted he assaulted Jermaine. On 4-14-2013 in Sanders County, I caused bodily injury to my girlfriend. The documents also state how he hurt Jermaine. The defendant made the following admissions, that he hit her three times, that he used his fist. It was hard to hear that and see her go through that and the emotional

phone calls and the conversations that followed. You know, she was a kid. DeFrance pled guilty to partner family member assault. He wouldn't serve any jail time, but he would be prohibited from possessing firearms. Despite the violence, Germaine and Michael DeFrance remained together. Germaine's family says she was staying with DeFrance in a camper on his parents' property. was staying with DeFrance in a camper on his parents' property. A few months later, Michael DeFrance left town to work as a seasonal firefighter. I'm home alone for two more weeks, so every day vlog will probably be only me until my boyfriend slash fiance gets home from work. My boyfriend slash fiancé gets home from work.

Jermaine, alone, lonely, and living in a camper, began sharing her world on YouTube. I usually don't do much. I'm just supposed to be a housewife. She was very good about hiding pain and tried to pretend like everything was okay. Soon, they were young parents raising their two boys. But Valinda says the violence continued. Multiple times of getting phone calls and going down to make sure she was okay.

And it was hard for us to watch her go back, but that's what happens to a lot of women who are victims of domestic violence. They break up and make up and break up and make up. According to Dani, the couple eventually broke up for good in 2017. Michael still wanted Jermaine to do as Michael said, and so when Jermaine started to create a life without him, it seems like things got worse for her. She was the mother of his kids and had to kind of walk on eggshells around what Michael wanted

or how, you know, he pictured her or wanted her to be as a mom. In early 2018, just months before her disappearance, Jermaine and Michael had a heated custody battle over the boys. According to her family, Jermaine had limited resources. Michael DeFrance, it seemed, had more. He had an attorney. She didn't have an attorney. Jermaine was working hard to find stability with work. A judge decided the kids would live with their father, and she would have visitation rights.

The parenting plan, says her family, was stressful for Jermaine. Shayla Russell noticed a change in her cousin's behavior. Michael had the boys, and so she was lonely and scared for her safety. She was scared for her safety. Yeah, she would talk about having nightmares or being scared to be alone. After Jermaine's disappearance, investigators would discover something else about Michael DeFrance. Detectives realized that he was in possession of firearms,

which is against the law when you've been convicted of partner-family member assault. Investigators seized guns from Michael DeFrance's property. In 2021, he was arrested and charged with possessing firearms, a violation of his 2013 sentence. firearms, a violation of his 2013 sentence. KPAC's anchor and reporter Jill Valley covered the federal trial. On one side, it's the DeFrance family. On the other side, it's Jermaine's family and friends.

And it is tense. I don't think there's any love lost between those two families. In 2023, Michael DeFrance was convicted and sentenced to 21 months in prison. He hasn't served any time because he is appealing the conviction. 48 Hours requested an interview through his attorney. He declined our request. In their effort to find Germaine,

authorities secured numerous search warrants, including at least two on Michael DeFrance's property. But because this is an active investigation, many of the search warrants have been sealed. Dozens of searches for Germaine over the last six years. There have been canine searches, canines who are trained to detect bodies. Every place that we've searched has not yielded the evidence that would give us the answer. What do you think happened to her? And why?

All I can say without compromising the investigation is that I think Jermaine's disappearance is a result of a criminal action. And somebody knows what happened to Jermaine. And we need their assistance. Somebody knows something. Something that always baffled Baker is what happened to Jermaine's cell phone. Turns out Michael

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I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access,

I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. True crime shows early and ad-free right now. Evero Hill is the last known area where Jermaine's cell phone was active. According to investigators, it was pinging between 2 and 10 a.m., the morning after she was last seen. It's a very heavily forested area,

lots of different wildlife, and then one sole highway that runs through the top of Everhill Hill. It's the area where Jermaine's ex, Michael DeFrance, was living. In his initial statement to police, he said that he dropped Jermaine off in Missoula around 1 a.m. and that

she had her phone with her. So why was it active on Evero Hill, roughly 14 miles north of Missoula, hours later? DeFrance changed his story and said her phone was with him. In a subsequent interview, he provided a statement that she left her cell phone and he attempted to go through her cell phone and he was unable to get into her cell phone. What he said he did next surprised Detective Guy Baker. DeFrance admitted that two days after he last saw Jermaine, he threw her phone away. So Mr. DeFrance had told us during one of his interviews that he discarded Germaine's cell phone in Idaho. Michael DeFrance, then working as a truck driver,

told authorities he disposed of Germaine's phone in Idaho at mile marker 94 on Highway 12, law enforcement searched the area, but never found the phone. I have to ask, why would he get rid of her cell phone? What explanation did he have? You can't tell me. Can't tell you.

Is that unusual? That someone would, one, admit to having No. You can't tell me? Can't tell you, yeah. Mm. Is that unusual? That someone would, one, admit to having a missing person's cell phone, and then, two, that they would dispense with it? Yeah. Why would you get rid of a cell phone if someone was around to give the phone back to them? Why would he have her phone? Why would he destroy it, throw it out at mile mark or what the hell ever?

I don't understand. I wouldn't say Michael DeFrance is not a person of interest. I would say that I'm not at liberty to say who is or who is not a person of interest. No suspects have been named in connection with Jermaine's disappearance. Police are now considering the case a no-body homicide. But without a body, prosecuting a homicide is a challenge. I think it's important for everyone to know that you only get one bite at the apple here, only one shot. And so I want to gather as much information to ensure a successful prosecution should we meet that crossroad.

It's my belief that we are close to moving forward in this case. Moving forward meaning filing charges against a suspect. If it ultimately is determined that this is criminal means, absolutely. Germaine and her family deserve answers, and it is my hope that someone comes forward, provides us some new lead that can lead to justice. I have my cell phone on that billboard, not just the police department's main number,

because I want someone to call me because I want the information. The billboard's location was important to Danny and Valinda. It looks out toward the reservation and Evero Hill, where Michael DeFrance was living with Jermaine's two sons. I know that Michael would probably have to take that route to come to Missoula. And I thought, well, the boys might not

be able to see her in person, but that picture will be there. And Jacob and Thomas could see their mother every time they drove by there. I hope throughout these years that Thomas and Jacob haven't forgotten who their mother is. And I hope they know that she loves them very much. In Missoula, there's a different billboard, this one showing Valinda's face.

Her photo stands as a stark reminder of the ongoing crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women. It took me a long time to do that photo shoot because I don't want people thinking that, like, I want attention on myself. It's not about me. It's about Jermaine. We will no longer be silent about our women going missing. We have to fight for justice for our loved ones.

Do you still plan on searching for Jermaine? Always. I don't care how long it takes. I'm never going to give up on her. I don't care if I have to search until I'm 80 years old. If this case is never solved and I retire, it's not going away in my mind. That'll be one of those things that will be with me until the day I die. That weighs on us.

That weighs on our tribal council. Everyone here thinks about it. Six winters have passed since Jermaine disappeared. Today is Jermaine Charlo's birthday. Danny and Belinda no longer believe she is alive. Brenda no longer believe she is alive. So I have a gift of when my family makes it to the other side. When my grandma passed away, she came and told me she made it.

When my grandpa passed away, he told me he made it. And I had this dream, and Jermaine was there, and she's like, I just wanted to tell you I found Grandma and Grandpa, and I'm fine. And she gave me a hug, and she turned to walk away. And I said, Jermaine, and she goes, what? I was like, where's your body? And she looked me dead in the eyes. She said, it's in Evero.

She's like, I love you, but I have to go. If you have any information pertaining to Jermaine Charlo's disappearance, contact the Missoula Police Department at 406-552-6284.