Unheard: True Crime in Their Own Words - The Death of Jason Abarca Doesn’t Make Sense

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Jason Abarca was 19 years old when he disappeared in December 2023 after a series of events that ended with him running into the woods near Winchester, Virginia.Months later, his remains were found.But for Jason’s parents, Jennifer and Benito Soto, finding their son did not bring the answers they had desperately been searching for. Instead, it left them with even more questions about what happened to Jason after he disappeared and whether his death was properly investigated.Jennifer and Benito believe their son was murdered.In this episode of Unheard, they tell Jason’s story in their own words, from the devastating loss their family had already endured, to Jason’s disappearance, the discovery of his remains, and the evidence and circumstances that led them to question the investigation into his death.This is the story of a family that found their son but is still fighting to find out what happened to him.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a complicated case, and I want to say that right at the beginning, because there are a lot of different pieces to Jason Arbacca's story. His disappearance, the circumstances leading up to it, the search for him, the discovery of his remains months later, and the questions his family still have that have not been answered. Jason was just 19 years old when he disappeared in December of 2023. He had been struggling following the devastating loss of his older brother, Army Captain Corey Platt, who died by suicide only months later. What happened on the day Jason disappeared will eventually involve multiple vehicles, law enforcement, a wooded area in Virginia and a search that stretched on for more than four months.

Then in April of 2024, Jason's remains were found to be in the woods near an area where he was last known to be. But finding Jason did not bring his family the answers they had been desperately searching for. Instead, in many ways, it actually created more questions. There are questions about what happened to Jason after he disappeared, questions about the search, questions about the condition and location in which his remains were found, and questions about whether everything that could have been done to find out what happened to this 19-year-old was actually done. And today, rather than trying to summarize an incredibly complicated story in just a few minutes, I want to take our time and go through it from the beginning with two people who know Jason's story better than anyone else, his parents.

Jennifer and Danita, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to Unheard. Now, I know you had some things you want to say, Jennifer, but after you say that, one thing I like you guys to start with is that I think is really important to me is tell the audience about who Jason was to you guys. All right. I just wanted to tell you, Justin, thank you for letting us share our story on here. And my name is Jennifer Soto, and this is my husband, Benitovino Soto. I'm Jason Abarka's mom, and this is Jason's stepfather. He was his father since he was seven years old. Jason grew up going to the same public schools that all his older brothers went to.

He loved sports. He played football, basketball, did track, did wrestling in high school. Just love sports. As most kids, he also loved. love to play Xbox, be online. He played multiple games with his older brothers online. Jason was a sweet boy. He really always would tell me he loved me a lot.

It was very close to me. And I'm sorry. No, don't be sorry. I understand. I know it's hard. I do think that part of what happened to Jason was that he was bullied in school, and he couldn't get over that. He was bullied and he's in school.

He was not a large-framed kid. He was about 5-4-20 pounds, probably max. Maybe when he died, he was about 130. I don't remember exactly, but he wasn't a large-framed kid. But he was a very home-body person who would stay at home a lot to help me out with stuff in the house, mostly being on X-Permost. box, like I said, with his brothers. Jason worked at my job. I'm a truck driver. Jason worked for the year and a half before he died in the warehouse at my job, five days a week, always went to work,

didn't have any problems at work. He'd also done the ASFABs because he wanted to join the military like his older brothers. He has an older brother that served in the Marines, one in the Navy, and one in the Army, the one in the Army did take his own life. He was the brother that was really close to Jason. Corey took his own life in May of 2023. And then about six months later is when Jason ended up taking a little bit more of his prescribed arrow. I think that he was just a buildup of depression, not understanding and seeing his mom cry about his brother. He couldn't understand why Corey commit suicide and from there the story begins and i just want to say i am sorry no don't don't be sorry you you have suffered on just unimaginable loss you know parents you know i'm a parent um parent

should never have to bury a child much less two children much less six months apart i i i don't even know how you're here functioning so so i so i i i don't even know how you're here functioning so i so i you have nothing to be sorry about. So this case, you know, even after we've spoken about it, it is incredibly complicated. There's a lot to it, a lot of moving pieces from what happened the day that Jason first disappeared, to the way law enforcement to even, I was actually talking to my wife about this today. We had taken a walk a few minutes ago before we were recording, and she was asking, what case are you talking about? I said, this is a very bizarre story. And I was telling her about

the field. And I was like, you know, they got permission from the people who own this property that they could check the property, but they could only check it in this one spot. And they weren't allowed to go over here. And then that's the place that they weren't allowed to go is where he was found. And I said, it is just so convoluted and complex. I was like, I can't even begin to explain it to you. Like on this walk, it's just so much. But that being said, I'm going to let you all take the Rames on this one, if that's okay, because it's your story. Where would you like to start this incredibly complex story? I'd like to start on the very first day, December 13th, the first call that we received. I'll talk about that a little bit and then let Benny take over some.

We were on our way back home. We had gone on our anniversary, 12 years of being married anniversary trip. So we were on our way back from the airport. This was on a Wednesday, December 13th, 2003. My phone had rang, and I didn't recognize the number. And as many people do, you don't normally get a call. You don't recognize. Well, then that number started calling my husband's phone. And so then I called the number back.

And I said, you know, who is this? And it was around 5.45 p.m. And the person said, my name is Detective Dixon. I'm calling from Winchester Police. Are you Jennifer Soto? And I said, yes, I am. I'm like, you know, what's going on? And then he said, do you know Jason Abarka?

And I said, yes, that's my son. What's going on? And he basically told me that my son had wrecked a rental car that was in my name in Winchester, then allegedly taken a kitchen knife with him and scared an elderly lady out of her car. So technically carjacking, took the car and fled. And then after that, after that, that point, they found his wallet in the rental car and an empty Adderall pill bottle that was in his name in the rental car. Jason then fled the scene, and then he called me to tell me that the car had been located in Starr, Tannery, Virginia, and then it was wrecked in a ditch, and that they were trying to find out anything about Jason.

And I started crying, and I said, you know, please find him. I said, if you found his wallet, that means he has no money. He doesn't know where he is. I don't know why he's even driving there. I feel, you know, I feel bad about if he scared anyone, you know. But I said, if you found an empty outer pill bottle, that means he's taken too much of his medication and he's probably out of his mind. So I told him all this. And I said, please find him, you know, put him in jail, whatever, please find him.

He does not know where he is. And I said, so how can I, can I know where he's at? Where did you guys find this wrecked car? And he says, no, we can't let you know the information because he's a wanted fugitive. And I said, well, how can I know? He said that we'll be in touch and basically ended the call. He never answered the phone again that evening. Never.

I kept trying to call. And obviously, a regular police station closes at four or five o'clock. They don't answer their phones. So for all night long, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't do anything. First thing in the morning, I called Hagerstown Police Department. Oh, I'm sorry. And also after we reached home, the Hagerstown Police Department came to try to raid our house

because they thought that Jason had come to our home. And I let them in. I said, I was crying. And I said, I don't have him. Please go to the woods in Virginia. He's probably somewhere in the woods in Virginia. He doesn't know where he is. And but, meanless to say, I called the Hagerstown Police, the next.

morning to report him missing. An officer came out and she told me I couldn't report him missing because he was already a fugitive in Virginia. And again, no one's answering my phone calls in Virginia and Winchester. And from that detective's call, he wouldn't answer texts or calls. So it was just a terrible night. And in my gut, I knew that he had died that night because I knew if he had gotten away or something he would have called me because he knew my phone number by heart. And anytime Jason had ever maybe lost his phone or whatever, he'd call on a pay phone or a school phone or his phone's dead, you know, he knew my phone number by heart. So him not calling me, I knew that he had died that night somehow. So I'll let Benny take over from there.

And real quick before Benny does, I want to kind of point this out, because it's, it's frustrating because clearly, you know, when you've spoken with the police, when they've come to your house, you're cooperating. You just want to know answers. You even said, you know, put him in jail if you need to. Whatever you need to do, let's find him. And so for them, I mean, I get what they're loosely get like, okay, he's a one infusitive, so we're not going to give you any more information.

But at the same time, I think that what's really challenging with law enforcement at times, I know that they have a tough job. I'm not, you know, getting down on them. But, you know, you're a parent, that's your child. How would they feel if it was their child and you didn't, you didn't. you didn't know where they were. Even if they did something wrong, you'd at least want to know that they're safe.

And if you did have information of where he might be, why not stay in touch? Because, you know, obviously you know him better than anybody. Right. You'd probably be the one that could help locate him faster than anybody. It just, it makes no sense to me.

I just don't understand that first call when I told him that he's going through a mental depression. He's going through something mentally. If he's taken a bunch of out-or-all, he's not in the right state of mind. why didn't they put it a purple alert, which if a purple alert is someone who's having mental issues, sure, you can arrest him, you can put him in jail for years, that's fine, but he would have been alive. Like, find him and put him in jail instead of just abandoning him and he didn't know where he was and, you know.

Yeah. I didn't mean to interrupt where you were about to take over. No, you're fine. You're fine. Yeah. So, um, so Jason goes missing. in December 13. Like she said,

Winchester just kind of left her with no answers that night, no phone calls, not a text, nothing. So she had no idea what, you know, what the status of Jason's life was at that point. I know that morning she,

you know, we were both awake downstairs and she looked at me and told me that she knows in her heart that Jason's not alive anymore. and Adrian's brother told him the same thing that he feels like Jason's been wrong with us. Well, Adrian's, Adrian's, Jason's older brother. Yeah. They had like a really close relationship, so they play a lot of, like, you know, Xbox.

They had a very good relationship. So, but the few days after Jason went missing, we actually went to Star-Tan road because we actually found out the address of where the car wrecked in the ditch on that road. We tried to get the address from Winchester Police Department, and they had given a number for Winchester, Frederick County. We got it from Shenandoah. We got it from Shenandoah was the address. So Shenandoah County is the one who actually gave us the address, and we were able to drive out there

and look around. So we searched, you know, the area. We walked the fields. We checked where he wrecked the car. And I took a second to look at the terrain because it goes up. And then there's a field at the top of this terrain. So I went up there by myself. I walked all the way up there through the trees,

trying to just kind of get up to the top. and when I got to the top it was a big open field and it looked like a hunting trail because at the middle of that field there was a cabin like a wooded cabin with little windows and there was a chair inside of it so I went there to see if there was any footprints if it showed signs of someone being inside that cabin

didn't see anything and then I kept looking towards the field or the tree line where they found Jason. I looked at that area. It had a crazy hunch. But I had gotten so far away from them that I was like, you know what? I'm kind of far.

Let me just walk back to them because I walked too far away. So I never actually went and checked that area, which I regret to this day, because that's the area where Jason was. And then the week after, Jennifer went to, Winchester Star to plead for, you know, help to help us find Jason because the police weren't doing anything. They weren't giving us any answers. So we had to just do things on our own. And when she went to the Winchester Star, they posted an article and a property owner a few days later reached out to me on Facebook. And he said, hey, this is.

this person, my dad is trying to communicate, you know, communication with your wife. He emailed her and got no response. So I immediately messrs him back. I was like, here's my number. Can you call me so I can, you know, so I can speak to your dad? So I, he said, okay, so I sent him my phone number. And then he said, I'll give my dad your phone number and I'll have him call you tomorrow morning, which he did.

He called me. And he, so he, when he called us, he said that the night of the accident, him and his boys were searching for Jason. They were searching for him until 1.30 in the morning. Which I found that kind of odd. He was like, why are you looking for him? Because Jason got wrecked that car around 5 p.m. Yeah, like that's not, like, job to do that. I know it's your property, but.

very very unusual like why would you be looking for him i mean what was the intention um so he said they they searched him to 1 30 in the morning and they you know went to a few houses a cabin and he said that they gave up so so on their way back um they saw a light on the hill like a like a like the flashing light like a cell phone screen um and he said that when they started they when they walked towards that light that he darted off, he ran up the hill to get away from them. So him and his sons

walked back to their house and then they ended up calling Frederick County and he said it took them two and a half hours to come back out because he said they were doing a shift change

and that they brought out a drone to search. Now, there is a report from Frederick County with a drone, it's not very detailed. All it says is that they search the area, they give coordinates, and that they didn't find anything from the search or from the footage.

And it also says states that he called in around 1030, not 1.30 in the morning, 1030. Landowner calls in around 1030. It says a few times landowner called again, says he saw them and he already, he saw this guy running up the hill, and he's already, he's already, called in and you guys still haven't come out. So that's a three hour, that's a three hour time difference. So we don't understand was it 1030 or was it 130, you know. Did they ever give you guys a reason as to why they were searching for him in the first place? It was just that he was on, they thought somebody was on their property, maybe like a trail can picked it up or what was,

what was their reason? Or did you ever learn? No, they didn't get a reason until they also saw how my family is very military oriented. And then it was like when we actually met them, it was like, oh, I feel sorry for you. I feel bad for you after I saw your story. I feel bad for you. So we wanted to help you try to find your son, you know, feel bad for you.

Now, I remember this phone call very clearly. And he told me these words are verbatim. I was all right until I saw the newspaper article. That's what he told me. What does that mean? You were all right until you saw the newspaper article. Did you ever get an answer for that? No.

That's very strange. It was 20. I'm not trying to get. It was 22. Sorry, it was 22 degrees that night. And sundown was like at 457. So it was already dark and very cold by the time Jason and reached there and wreck the car.

Their answers or responses are very peculiar, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So when we went out, he reached out to my husband, the son of this person, and we went out to search on the property. We were not allowed to search over that field, where that field was, where my husband, my daughter, my daughter's cousin, and her boyfriend,

We went and searched on December, I believe it was 18th. It was like five days after Jason had gone missing, December 13th. Then on December 21st, I believe it was, is the Saturday. That's when the landowners said we could come out. They wanted to help us. An owner and two of his son wanted to help us to search the area to look for my son. So we agreed. We thanked him.

Some of my coworkers, the truck drivers, came out to help. some of my friends and all together. It was about 13 people or so, 13, 14 people. However, so this forest, this land is heavily, heavily wooded, and it has briar thorn bushes everywhere. Like, you get cuts all over you, no matter if you try to cut them away or move them. It's very steep terrain, like very hills and everything. So as my husband has stated, earlier when we went out to look first the day December 18th. He wanted to go across that field and

down and search down the hill, but he knew he had gone far away from us. So he came back to us. Well, the landowner told us that we could not go across that field. And when my husband got close to it, I had already reached for the point the other cross, you know, across this long, long wooded area with the other people. And the Landover told me, hey, my son tells me your husband's getting too far. He needs to come back

towards the stream. He needs to come back towards us. And so we ask, why can't we search across that field? And he says, oh, well, the police said, you know, because they're going to search and they don't want land droppings or whatever it's called what falls. So you might mess up anything that they're going to find. And that was BS because the police didn't search again until January 3rd. That's a whole 22 days after my son was missing. And so what day, I guess how long after he'd been missing did they tell you, like what's the timeline here that you couldn't go on there that the police might be searching? This was December 21st that the landowners told us.

The police told them we couldn't go across that field. We're across this plain field that looked like a huge football field. Down the hill was where Jason was. And I'm not saying that you guys. are saying this, but as somebody listening to this story, and this is where I'm at, and I'm not saying you guys are saying this or even implying this, but for me, and I know that I've heard this before because we've chatted, it's very suspicious. It's like, why wouldn't they want you down there? That's, you know, and even for the police, because even it's, you're not

talking about like a crime scene that's, you know, contained inside a house or a store, or some inside inside a building of some kind. You're talking about something that's out in the elements where there's, you know, where there are just that elements and there's animals and there's wind and literally a gust of wind can change, you know, what's on the ground. So for them to come in and say that you can't do it, it just seems very peculiar and suspicious to me almost like,

I guess my thought would be hearing the story for the first time that these people must have something. And I'm not baiting you, I promise you, I'm just telling you where I think. Like, they must have something to do with this. Right. Like they knew where he was and didn't want us to find him. Wanted him to stay there longer so he can decompose longer. So evidence and anything else. Okay. So I'm not crazy. No.

Okay. And I'm sorry on the date. I need to correct it. It was Saturday, December 23rd in 2003 on the 18th is when we went and searched our, I'm sorry, on the 9th. It was up Friday. When we were with Lindsay and then it was this day. So the scene would have already changed that day anyways by then by the time you guys got out there. Yes, because there's animals, there's deer's there's fears, there's who knows what out there. There's weather.

Winchester didn't report him missing until December 20th. So seven days after he went missing, that's when they actually put in the missing person's report. They submitted it. So he waited a week to do it. It wasn't done right away. It's very sussed the whole thing. And then I'd like him to explain about the 18 police officers that were called out that evening and what happened with that? Because I have a big problem with that as well.

All 18 police officers did not have dash cam or body camera footage on them. And per Virginia statutes, they are required to have them on when they are in an active pursuit or in, you know, doing something on duty. Okay? So all 18 officers from three different counties had no dash cam, no body camera footage. My son's body was found 1,200 feet away from the car that he crashed in the ditch. 1,200 feet. That's like three and a half football fields.

Yeah. Yeah. Not very far. Yeah, so 18 units. The first unit to respond to arrive on the scene was at 5.3. 50 p.m. And the last unit to leave that area

was at 258 a.m. The total of 18, 13 from Frederick County, 4 from Shenandoah, and then one from Winchester Police Department. The one from Winchester Police Department was the K-9 unit.

He's the one that that tracked Jason sent from the car. to a green gate. And there's like a field past that green gate. In the middle of that field is where the dog lost sent. So that police officer, I'm going to say his name in this in here because he's a police officer. So I'm going to tell you exactly what he wrote in his report.

Because I find a big issue with the report and the FOIA requests that we really were. requested about the body cams at the crash site. So at approximately 1,800 hours, which is about 6 p.m. On the same date, I was requested by Frederick County's sheriff office to respond to the 1,200 block of Starr-Tanney Road with my canine partner to attempt a track of the suspect involvement in this incident. They reported that they had located the victim's vehicle at the aforementioned location, and it was crash. and abandoned in the woods. I responded to where the vehicle was located and utilized a canine striker to track the suspect. Striker picked up a fresh human odor and began to track northbound from the crash site. He continued to track for nearly half mile until raising his head

and appearing to no longer be an odor. In the same area where he lost the odor, fresh tire tracks were observed in the gravel of the roadway. indicating that there was a high likelihood that the suspect was picked up by someone in a vehicle, which that didn't happen. The surround farm buildings in the area were checked, and the suspect could not be located. I have nothing further to report at this time, and my department issue, BWZ, was activated during this incident. It was activated during the incident. when I emailed Winchester Police for a FOIA request since he stated he had a body cam turned on

they responded and said that there was no footage for that day from that police officer. The lieutenant. The response from him was, let me pull it up. And again, they said the dog stopped smelling his smell in the middle of a field, which across that field down the hill

was where Jason's body was found four and a half months later. But why were their tire trucks right there? Did he get abducted in the middle of the fields and disappear? You know, he couldn't have flown over there to the edge of the, you know, ravine. Based on your description, it would have been hard to get a vehicle down there anyways. Well, those gator, those four-wheeler gator things. Oh, yeah, yeah. All right.

So this is the response that I got from their captain from the, I guess, the four-gate division. to have like a division for that. Says, my apology for the confusion in the last message, Sergeant Carlensi, that was the name of the sergeant that had the canine, responded to the original incident scene on Barreville Avenue in the city of Winchester. Sergeant had his body camp activated during that time slash incident. That was included in your attachment, which were previously provided to you. Carlensi was traveling out of the city at the end of

his tour of duty when he was requested by Frederick County Sheriff's Office to respond. Carl Vincerey responded to Frederick County, Stark's Henry, as you stated, but did not have his body cam with him at that location as he docked his camera to upload content at the end of the shift per Winchester Police Department policy. There is no body cam footage from Sergeant Carlensi at the scene. The statement in the narrative you have cited refers to the body cam footage captured at the original incident location in the city of Winchester. Here's the verbiage from our policy on docking the body cams.

Offers are required to dock and recharge their assigned body cam at the end of their duty. But if you are sent out with a canine to go to a location that we're a known fugitive that we're chasing a fugitive, would you not think that, oh, I need to record this? Because what if, what if it was my, what if my son had jumped down and had a gun? What if something would happen? Who's, who's word is it against whose? What would have said? Like, it doesn't make sense. Like, I've watched so many programs that are live, police patrol things. And it protects the police themselves as well as the story of what actually happened. You can't tell me something happened when I can't see what happened. You can write whatever you want on paper.

So. Exactly. It's, it, it comes down. to just trust me, this is what happened. And there's nothing, there's a lot that doesn't add up with all of this, you know, even at this point. And again, I'm not trying to sit here and stir a pot or anything like that. I realize that police have a hard job. Yeah, I respect the police.

But at the same time, it makes you wonder, all right, how were these landowners connected to this area? Like, you know, I live in the south myself. I live in Tennessee. And I know it's all over the place, but I mean, let's be real. We know that there's a lot of these smaller towns, cities, that the police forces aren't exactly on the up and up, you know?

And I'm not saying that's the case here or isn't here, but there's just when you're dealing with a missing person, somebody showed up on the land, you know, you could have somebody who's gung-ho about trespassing, shot someone. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of things that could have happened. And they're like, okay, well, hey, now we're going to cover it up

because we don't want this mess. So like you said, let's let them stay out in the elements, until he decomposes enough that you, that an autopsy is not going to tell you anything. So I just want to say one thing, and then when he has something to say too, I can tell. On December 15th, we went to the Winchester Police Department. I met the detective, Detective 9, who was in charge of Jason's case. He made me and my husband feel like we were the worst people on the earth, and that my son was the worst person that could have ever been born, had no emotions, had no, just made us feel like he had done the worst thing in the world, like he had murdered someone. I have never said anything that I have never said anything that I, I don't think that my son should have been, you know, held accountable for what he did. Anybody he's scared. He should have gone to jail.

He should have paid restitution. And then he could have also gotten mental help. Okay. He would have been alive. This police officer, detective, told us in our face, he wouldn't let me speak at all about Jason's mental health or anything. Then in the end, finally let me speak about that. And then I ask him, so what are you guys going to do? This is December 15th in approximately midday.

When are you going to look for him? When are you going to search for him? Because I know he has to be in those woods somewhere. There's no way. He had no phone. He had no money. He had nothing. He doesn't know where he was.

So don't tell me that he got picked up by someone. Who would have picked him up? Not someone he knew. You know, there's no way. And so Detective Nang turned to me and said, oh, I'm sorry. Well, we don't have any resources that we could pick, to go to search for your son.

We might be able to talk to the U.S. Marshals, but we just don't have the resources to search for your son. the reason I think he did that was because he recorded us. He didn't sell us he was going to record us. He didn't say that that conversation was going to be recorded. I think he really wanted to get that out as per recording. So to kind of set the narrative for our son. That's why he did that.

Well, he remained that way the whole time. If I ever texted and said, hey, is there an update? Are you guys going to try to search? They're going to be able to be a search. He would always tell me they're trying to work on it. They don't know when. And then eventually I started working with a sergeant at the Frederick County Sheriff's Office, and he's the one who actually goes with their team of people to search.

But even him as well, because they said it was Christmas and New Year's and whatever, so they didn't do an actual 25% radius search until January 3rd. And that was a disappointment to me because they did not do it. the perfect 25% radius search from the car out. If they had done the perfect 25% radius search, they would have found my son's body, January 3rd. So when they did the search the first time, January 3rd, they went more left, more west,

because when Jason went missing a few days after, one of the property owners there said that someone went inside his barn and that the door was left open and there were footfalls. and that one of his toolboxes was was tampered with. That landowner's property was more west of where the park crashed. So I think what happened there is the police went by, made by that report, and went more west thinking that he went more west. When the whole time he just, he went straight up over the hill and then down the embankment.

That's why I think they did it that way, which, it doesn't make sense. I mean, even when we sat down with the Frederick County's search and rescue, typically they go that center and then do a 25% radius of where they're trying to search. And then after that, they'll do a 50% radius to find whoever, you know, they're looking for. It's just very odd, which is what I told at the beginning of this for the listener, that there's, it's so complicated and it's very strange, but a lot of what's going on.

And so ultimately, and I'm sorry, I know I'm trying to keep the date straight with me. So ultimately, what day did they finally find him? And how long after, because he went missing the 18th, December 18th? December 13th. They found him on April 29th. And it was about four and a half months. Yeah. It's a long time.

Yeah. Did you want to listen to the audio from that? We can. Yeah. I'm going to mark this real quick. You can, if you want to, you sent it to me, correct? Yeah, I mean, I have you here. I can play, I can actually embed it into the thing.

Oh, okay. If you have it right there, do you want to send me a link to it real quick? And I can just pull it up. Yeah. I just want to say also about that after December 3rd, or I'm sorry, January 3rd when they did that search. Later in January, I had a close friend reach out to me. And she had a friend that does a search and rescue. She has her own horses and own dogs that does search and rescue.

And they were willing to come up from, I believe it was Tennessee. And I gave her both the sergeant from Frederick County Sheriff's Office since he was kind of in charge. And also this Virginia State Trooper that was also into the case as well. And they both turned her down to let her come up to search. Basically, it would be a search and recover because obviously we knew Jason. was dead, but they would, they refused to let her come and search. It literally makes no sense. Yeah.

Makes no sense. And since it was on private property, like, I, I wanted to go there almost every day, like every week. I was telling my husband, like, let's just get everyone we know and go. Just put the yellow vest on. Let's just go, because I don't care anymore. But literally there is, and then that's the other thing. There's cameras everywhere, hunter cameras and property owner cameras.

And when I asked the sergeant, I said, from Frederick County. I said, what happened to all these cameras? Can you repeat what you said? I'll say that again. Sorry, I was getting the thing pulled up.

Sorry, I got it. What was the last part you said? I'm sorry. I started playing in it kind of. Yeah, sorry. All the cameras that were on the property owner's cameras,

as soon as you turn down that gravel dirt road and start tannery, it says, smile, you're on camera, you're being recorded. Trusspassers will be shot, you know, all this kind of stuff.

I ask the Frederick County Sheriff's, department and Winchester, did you guys ask any of the property owners? Did they see anything on the cameras because they have cameras everywhere? And they just responded to me to say, yes, we asked them and they didn't see anything. They just took their word.

And someone also was chasing Jason that had called into Shenandoah County and that's also on the police report saying that he had a weapon and he's not afraid to use it. And he was chasing after Jason. He was in a pickup truck. when I ask the Frederick County Sheriff's Office, what happened to that guy?

Did you guys question him? Oh, yeah, he's basically nowhere in the reports does it say that they question him. And this car that Jason took, it looks like it's been rear-ended totally. And I asked them, it looks like it's been rear-ended. The pictures show it looks like it's totally been rear-ended. And they tried to console me and say, no, that's just how he crashed it. that's how he crashed it. But that guy that was chasing him who called in and said,

I have a weapon and I'm not afraid to use it. He'd never got questioned. Yeah, it's very suspicious. Okay, I got the call up here. We can go ahead and play it real quick. You ready? Yep. Can you repeat what you said?

I'm sorry. Is your husband there? Yes. Okay. Just say again, what time? Okay, at about 125 today, our search and rescue people located a body in a tree between Star Tannery Road and Piper Road in a heavy, dense, populated wooded section. And for just an explanation, and we don't know how. happened or what happened, but it appears that he may have gotten in this tree and maybe

slipped and fell and one of his legs was in the V of the tree and his body was below his feet. So I want him to be transferred to Baltimore, the examiners in Baltimore. Is that possible? Well, he has to go, we're having to go. We're having to be transferred to Baltimore. the medical examiner come up there first to view the body and then he would probably have to be taken to our medical examiner's office. No. But we don't want it in Virginia. I want him to go to Baltimore.

Well, I don't really know if we have a choice. There has to be a choice. Well. And what's your name again? I forgot what you said when you first called. I am the sheriff. I'm the sheriff for Frederick County. Okay.

So what's happening right now? Is he like taped off the area? Oh yeah. All that stuff being taken care of. We have investigators going up and everything. But why don't I have the right to ask him to be transferred to the Baltimore medical examines? I'm not telling you that you don't have that right. Okay.

But we'll have to check with our. medical examiner and the people that are up there from the M.E.'s office to see whether or not that's even, you know, acceptable. Okay. That's a hard call, and I can't even imagine what you guys were going through with that, and I can hear the frustration, too. So what do you want to tell us about that? First of all, they did not let me, they didn't even ask me.

I couldn't go to see my son. some people may say well you shouldn't see your son looking like that however i've been told that my son's body was still 75% there like still recognizable um i called to ask the medical examiner that that very day or the next day can i come and identify my son because he has tattoos that are very recognizable that are just from him he had a tattoo huge across his chest that was moses part the Red Sea. To this day, I don't know why he ever wanted to get that tattoo, but I helped him to get it. He had a KP on one of his upper biceps standing for Corey Platt.

My son, there was a captain that took his all night. That was his brother. And then on the other biceps, he had, how do you say it? Naruto. Naruto, it's like the cartoon character. Like an anime. Yeah, it was blue and red. It was very bright.

And then also his chest was very bright. when Moses parting the Red Sea. When I told her that he had tattoos, you know, that I could recognize his tattoos, her response was, well, many people have tattoos. There could be someone has the same tattoos. And I said, are you kidding me? He's 19 years old. He's been missing.

They just found him finally. And I've been told you could still see his tattoos. So why wouldn't you let me, you know, see him, you know? So she said no. And then she made us do obviously DNA to prove that it was my son. The first DNA lab said that they could not identify his blood, his DNA, because it was so decomposed. I don't know. I've never heard of that.

However, so she sent it away to another special lab. So all in all, I did not get my son back until the middle of June. So they had him for over six weeks. Yeah. In the beginning, also that week that they took him, I called the CID at Frederick County Sheriff's Office and said, are you going to do forensic testing on my son's clothes? Because we believe someone may have done something to him to test his clothes, his articles of clothes. And at first I asked the medical examiner, I'm sorry. And she said that she could only do that if she was prompted by the police to do the forensic evidence check.

So I called him and I asked him his phone went to voicemail. So I had to leave him a message. When he called me back, I guess my phone wasn't working correctly. So he left me a voice message that we have. But I sent it to you, Justin. Yeah, you can hear it if you want. Yeah, I can put it up. I've got it.

Let me. Yeah. And so what call is this one? Is this with the medical care? That's the CID officer. That's the CID officer from Project County, Sheriff's Office. We had Jason's case. All right.

Let's play it real quick. Hey, Jennifer. The Sheriff's office. Sorry, Mr. Call. Just returning. I just tried to call you, and I think your phone did that weird thing that you were telling me about. So I figured I'd just leave you a voice text on here. So, yes, we did find, we do have the coat and the shoe.

We did not send that in to test for DNA. There would be no reason for us to do that. We identified it as, I'm sorry. Well, we have, we do not have the, we have the shoe that was on his, that was on his foot. We did not find the other shoe. We did find his coat and a sock. But we do, we don't submit that stuff for DNA because it's his, it's his items. The sock match, the one that he was wearing and the coat.

was obviously the code that was depicted in the picture of him. So, no, we don't submit that for DNA purposes for DNA testing because we identify that as his stuff. So you find a dead person and they said they rule it as homicide first. Well, if you ruled it as a homicide first, then why wouldn't you just test the clothing? To see if there's anybody else's DNA on it. Well, that is just the circumstances of how he was found and how he disappeared. It just made no sense. He was missing a shoe.

He was missing a sock. He had a blue first down puffer jacket, which he always zipped it up always to the top because he's always cold. It was laying on the ground and he was hanging from the tree from his left leg. and when a lot of the a lot of things online like on Jason's Facebook page it says that his foot was wedged in the crook it wasn't his foot that was actually wedged in the crook it was in the crook but not actually in it it was more almost to the edge of that Vee what was holding him up was his knee his knee was actually wedged in that V fork it was like it was like in there so it just didn't make any sense to me how the position of the foot. It made no sense.

And when they found his body, they cut the tree that he was wedged in, let the tree branch drop, and then let my son drop to the ground. They didn't, like, have a tent or have something that would catch his body so it wouldn't just fall to the ground. They just let it drop like a dead animal. Um, I don't know. Okay. Now, just say, well, like, it seems to like if he had, let's just say that he on his own like scurried up a tree or whatever and and got fell slip fell and the crete you would think that he somebody would have heard him screaming yelling for help you know when you have a field voices echo and carry over it just yeah you know or even all the people that they go hunting there in those woods or nearby yeah for four and a half months you're

telling me there was no hunters that that didn't see some body in a tree you know or that bright blue jacket on the ground it was bright blue like those polo jackets they're bright blue so i don't okay and so i got what you sent me so for the people who will be viewing this on youtube because i see the the warning what kind of warning do you want to get people if they want to listen or look away it's a trigger warning it has a sketches of jason's body on the tree and his uh in his leg it's a sketch it's not the actual photo because we're not, you know, we're not going to put the actual photo. But it's close.

I saw that you put a big warning on it. I was like, Let me, let me get it started over here. I saw you put it on that, like, let me make sure at least we tell the people, you know. Yeah.

And some people have tried to say it looked like his body was burned, but that's just from the exposure to the sun over those, you know, four and a half months, you know. Yeah. All right, we'll go ahead and play it. Look at this drawing of my son, Jason. He's upside down in that tree, his head near the ground, his body hanging there in a way that no parent should ever have to see or imagine.

Authority say he somehow got stuck like that and died, possibly from the cold. That's the explanation we were given. But as his parent, and as someone who knows my son, that story has never made sense to me. The detail that haunts me the most is his left foot. It wasn't loosely caught or dangling over a branch. It was jammed straight down into a tight V-shaped split in the trunk of the tree, wedged in deeply, almost perfectly vertical. I keep asking the same question over and over.

How does a healthy, strong 19-year-old end up completely upside down with his foot force straight into a narrow crack like that? It's not how someone naturally falls or gets stuck while climbing. The position looks too precise, too unnatural. To me, it doesn't look like an accident. It looks like someone put in there. Many people who have looked at the details believe the same thing that Jason may have been placed in that tree

to make it appear as though he climbed up. Got stuck and died alone. As his parent, I can't ignore what my eyes see. My son didn't deserve this. And he deserves the truth about what really happened to him. Yeah, I mean, the more you talk about it, the more and more things that just don't really. quite add up.

And I know you know that, obviously. That's what we're having this conversation. There's a few things that we kind of skipped on when the property owners invited us to search for Jason. I'm going to say it. I actually brought a drone out with me that day. About a what out there? A drone.

A drone, okay. I actually had one with me. My intention was to go on top of that hill. and launched a drone and then search that area that I always had interest in just to kind of, you know, scan it back and forth to kind of see if I saw anything. Before we went to go search, the landowner's son, his older son, noticed that I had a box. He said, hey, what's that? It's a drone. It's going to, when I have time, I'm going to go over there on that hill and just launch it to see if it helps us find anything.

he didn't say anything. He turned around, and then he taps his dad on the shoulder. He's like, hey, he's got a drone. He said it just like that. And I looked at his dad, and I'm like, is that a problem? And then his dad said, no. He's like, but you don't have to bring that because Frederick County, they already came out here with a drone with their, you know, big $3,000 drone.

the zone and they searched the area, all they find was the carcass of a dead deer. You're not going to find anything. He's not, you're not going to find anything. Just like that. So I didn't want to escalate the situation because they invited us to search.

Let me just calm down. I'll leave a B and we'll just go search. So I didn't, you know, I should have did something. I should have, you know what, you know what, let me just take it just in case. But I didn't do that. because I didn't want to escalate the situation

because I kind of felt it was a lot of tension at that point. And that's when I noticed when I walked far away from the group, I got really close to the top of that hill and that's when she called me to come back. She said, hey, property owner says you went too far, you got to come back. And I'm like,

what is wrong with this guy about me going over this area? What the heck? Why is he so adamant about me not going over there? Yeah. so I never said that to anybody so we only know that so well now more people do I guess but it is very odd because you know if

for I would say most average people if your loved one your son you know whoever could possibly be on land that I own, I would want to open up, be like, you know what, let's let me help you. Let me get, you know, if I have side by sides or whatever, let me get those out. Let's let's go explore. Let's look. And it would be, you know, the hell with if the police said, don't go over here or don't go

over there. Because if they really didn't want you to go over there, they would have already roped that off and said, okay, don't go over there. Yeah. And, you know, it's a act of crime scene. That wasn't, that hadn't happened at that point. So you would think that, okay, hey, we've got these distraught parents. They're trying to do.

All they want is answers. They want to see, you know, and if it's, if this, if their son is on, on our land, we can help find him. If he's not, then no harm, no foul. And you, you would think that you would want to open up all tools and resources in order to do that. Because at the same time, if you have a body on your land that's, that's deceased, you probably don't want that either.

No, I wouldn't. Because then you might get people keep searching, right? People might come up there and keep searching. So it's just very odd, you know, and when I've looked at things in the past of like searches, you know, I'm in Tennessee, we have Sebastian Rogers and Summerwells. And, you know, the only time there's issues with searches is if people, those people become very, maybe not by the police, but by the court of public opinion, if you will, those people are the ones who become, you become suspicious about. because why why what would be the reason other than that to prevent you from looking for your son if there's if it's if it was a really if it was an accident there's no foul play right which you guys have said at this point it's been ruled a homicide you know then why but if at that point there's nothing what's the issue well it wasn't ruled a homicide it was a homicide and so proven otherwise and the medical examiner determined it made it undetermined as his cause of death even though he had a fracture to the back of his skull. She determined it undetermined.

Even had a specialist that was a bone specialist. Apophologist. Another factor of this case is that the detective nine that was in Winchester is friends with one of the property owners at Starrantia, Virginia. And I believe that should have been a problem right there. I don't think you should be assigned to a case where the people that live around the missing, you know, fugitive died. I don't think you're supposed to be involved in that case, you know.

Was a friend of one of the landowners or some of the landowners there in Startanay, Virginia. And I'm pretty sure that's a conflict of interest that he should not have been a detective on my son's case when he was friends with some of the landowners where my son went missing. So, yeah, I'm going to blank because I want to say that, I want to say it so bad. So I'll talk about another thing. We have a memorial set up. You sit with it, Benny, sorry. Sorry, I've been turning up. You sit with it, Benny, and you think about it.

Yeah, I will. We have a memorial set up for Jason on the road where he drove down and starred tannery. It's a bunch of flowers that light up solar flowers and cross and a picture. And then I'm going to get up just for a second to show you this flag that we had there. But the last time we went there, which was May 25. of this year because we went to pay a pass and see my son, Captain Corey Platt's Tombstone and Silver Spring, Maryland on May 24th because that's his three-year date that he passed. And so since we had that day off together, we decided to go also and see Jason's and pay a, you know, remembrance of Jason. So this is the flag that we had out in Star Tannery, Virginia. Well, this was the exact same flag that we had out there. And when we went out on May 24, someone had removed the flag from the flag post.

And this is not a type of flag post that the flag could have just blown off. There are clips and it's actually attached to the flagpole. So someone purposely took the flag off. About 10 minutes after we had left or maybe 15 after we had left to get back on the highway, a person started getting on my butt of my car on the main highway. highway and I'm just thinking it's a jerk or an idiot, right? And I'm like, all right, he's going to pass me eventually because I can't go anywhere. I have a car in front of me and a tractor trailer beside me while he eventually swerves around me and goes to take an exit ramp, but cuts

the tractor trailer off, goes to take an exit ramp and rolls his window down with his sunglasses on and like, he makes this weird face at us, you know, we're just like, at first I didn't know who it was. And then we recognized him from our Facebook page of Jason's Facebook page as one of the people that kept just staying on there leaving negative comments saying that one comment he said was, well, if he pulled a knife on someone, he deserved to die. Like, just he always would say negative comments. He was a criminal. He deserved to die.

You know, and he literally followed us because he knows those landowners there. So that tells you right there that they did have those cameras on. They had the cameras on, told this guy, and then the guy comes to chase us down to scare us or something. So that's maybe why. You don't need to ban him from your page, though. Yeah, he's banned. So on my way to work one day, in front of my job where I work up, there's a light. And at that light, I stopped.

And a guy with a pickup from West Virginia had West Virginia place on it, goes up to the side of me and goes like this. He kind of like goes like that. So I'm like, I want to hear him. He wants somebody to wear my window and I roll it down. And then he says, he says, fuck your son. And it just takes off. Now, how do you know, how do he know who I was? It's because I have a personalized plate and it has my name on it.

So I think he put two and two together. Maybe he follows a page and just say what he said. So. You know, we're trying to get accountability for the police. I like the police. I don't have problems with the police or firefighters or EMS workers. It's not that.

It's just there are corrupt people. There are people that don't do their jobs right. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'm not just another crying mother out here. My son is gone. That's the end of it. I just want someone to come in and look over everything that we have saved, everything that we have done.

And just tell me, was there something that was done wrong? And should the police be held responsible, accountable? this is not about money for me. This is about accountability. Why didn't you do things you were supposed to do by your regulations, by your laws? And my son would have been alive because you would have found him. Why did 18 officers go there with no cameras?

What were you doing? Just standing around? How do we know what you were even doing? Did you look in the woods? Did you look in the woods? Did you do even go in? He was 1,200 feet away from the car. And there was 18 of you.

Well, and if he was murder, there needs to be accountability for that. If the people who owned that land had something to do with his death, there needs to be accountability for that. I feel like something happened in between the five, whatever, and after the police, you know, those, most of those police left and those, the son and his landowner and his two sons and whoever else there, I feel like something happened. And, you know, like I said, whether it's with them or I don't know who, but something happened and it's not being forthwith. it's not coming to this truth light. And then, like I said, from the very beginning, when that first officer called me, he should have made it a cold purple, and they should have found him because my son was crazy out of his mind at that moment, and he should have been locked up.

And I want to say something, too, if I can for the list. Because, you know, most of the people who listen to me or, you know, my content are pretty reasonable people. But for the people that who might hear this or need to hear this, that are the people coming into your Facebook group, you know, saying things like, fuck your son or, you know, chasing you down, making faces at you down the interstate, following you. You know, I understand people being, wanting to be hard on crime. And if Jason, you know, pulled a knife, like you said, there needs to be accountability for that.

However, the punishment for that is not death. No. The punishment is not for death. So by that same regard, then every time somebody swerves around somebody, cuts them off in traffic almost causes. You said you drive trucks, right? Cutting off an 18 wheeler with 40,000 pounds on the back of it, that's dangerous. So every time you do that, then maybe you deserve, you know, that's like saying they deserve to die too.

Maybe they deserve a ticket. Jason maybe deserves some help, but he especially was having a mental health crisis. But he's a 19-year-old, and when we're 19, we all made dumb decisions when we're 19. You couple a mental health crisis, the depression, you know, him losing his brother, you know, just a few months ago, him not being in the right mind. there's a lot of mitigating factors here that doesn't necessarily excuse behavior, but it explains behavior. And he was maybe just needing help. And so for people who say that,

maybe you need to have a little bit more compassion because it could be somebody in your family. And you can sit there and say that no, it won't, but you don't know till it is. That's just, that's it. That's my piece. Yeah, no. And I just feel like if you go on someone's platform, if you don't agree with the story or don't like it, then just change it to another story or go look at another story.

Why do you need to put forth the effort? to bleed negative energy or negative comments. Like everybody has people dying their lives. There's cancer. There's all kind of sickness. Don't create more negative energy than you need to. Like I want to get mental health awareness out there. I want to get police, you know, accountability out there that there's many things that have

happened not only with my case, but many cases that, you know, a police are human beings. Of course they're going to make mistakes, but some mistakes cause people lives. So if they had found my son that night and put him in jail, I would still have my son right now. He might have been able to join the military or whatever he might have been able to do. I'll never know because he's dead. And I'll take it step further. If I go out and get into a car accident that kills somebody,

I'm going to have to be held accountable. It doesn't mean that I did it on purpose. It means that I didn't, there was some mistake that I made, some poor judgment. So, you know, why shouldn't anybody else, you know, if they make a mistake, I guess the hardest part is how to prove it, but like in a situation where their mistake, their lack of caring, their apathy and not really trying to move things in timely manner, could that have saved Jason? Maybe, like you said, you'll never know,

but you know, to sit there and be like, well, we don't have resources to search for him or we're not going to do this. That's just really, it's cruel. It's cruel and it's cold. And I realize that police get, you know, get a little desensitized to what they see and, and, and, and, and, and, And I understand that. It's hard, but, I mean, part of the reason people supposedly get into being, you know, first responders is to protect and serve. Well, a mom desperately looking for her kids kind of exactly the definition as to why you should be helping. Yeah. And to talk about that, in two months before they found Jason, Jennifer reached out to Frederick County, Winchester Police Department.

and she also reached out to the state trooper that was in charge of Jason's case for a short period of time to ask questions to just figure out what are you guys doing with Jason's case? I mean, are you looking for him? Like, what's happening? And then, was it like a week after? It was that same week. That same week that she made those calls, Winchester PD sent the U.S. Marshal to our son's house in Baltimore.

And they raided his house. And when he asked the corporal, why, like, what's going on? He's like, Winchester sent us here because they said they saw Jason in your backyard. So they lied. He used taxpayers' dollars to send the U.S. Marshals in Maryland to Dundalk, Maryland, to my son and his fiance's house. And my fiance, my son's, my son's. fiance was on her way to work, they surrounded her car with sniper guns and scared her to death.

You know, they let my son let them search his house. Obviously, my son wasn't there. He was dead in the woods in Winchester. Okay. But that was taxpayers' dollars that the U.S. Marshals were sent there on a lie from Winchester, Virginia. It's very, it's very interesting. So where, where does everything stand now with his case? Like, I mean, I'm guessing nobody's doing anything. I know you all are fighting for it. But what, what, what, what, what, what, what they have it listed as a status? Well, the case is closed. Um, like I said, I just, I'm hoping and praying that because you have so many followers and viewers that there'll be someone that can come forward or let us know who could look at our case and just say like, yes, we see where there was the mistakes and we

can help you to make sure these people were, are held accountable for making those mistakes, you know, or look at it and say, I'm sorry, but I'm sorry for your son's loss, but there's nothing that can be done. You know, whatever. Whatever it has to be said, that's what I want. I don't need to hear the same thing over and over again. Like, it's hard to keep saying this story. I don't want to keep telling the story. I don't need you guys to keep seeing my face and me crying.

I want it to be over too. But there's something in me that just keeps saying that I need to keep doing it until I get this final done. Like I needed to be reviewed by someone who has the authority over the police, like to look at everything. That's what I want. And then I'm going to go towards helping mental awareness out there because I don't think there is enough of it. When people are having a mental breakdown, like, that's not an excuse. They can't just commit crimes everywhere. They need to be held accountable too.

But they need help. They need mental health as well. I mean, that's been a big con. As we're recording this, the Lindsay Clancy trial is going on. and that's been a big discussion of that. Like, you know, it's the postpartum depression and mental illness and psychosis. There's a lot of things. And I get it's really easy for people who've never experienced anything like that

or had a family member experience anything like that to sit there and be like, okay, well, there's just a crime, blah, blah, blah. But it's not always that simple. When you're dealing with mental health challenges, there's very much a gray area. Again, like you said, it doesn't excuse it. And that's the thing, too. And I'll say this for the listeners. This is not our first time chatting.

You guys are very reasonable people. Like, you know, you're not sitting here cussing everybody or demanding that somebody, but you just want answers. You want to know the truth of what happened to your son. And you want to be able to heal as best as you're going to be able to heal from that. And you just want the truth. And I think that that's a really reasonable thing to say. I mean, this entire time you've said, you know, he should have been held accountable.

He needs, you know, to get his, you know, he needed to get his life together at that point. But at the same time, you know, he's got a lot. going on too. He's processing the loss of a brother that he was incredibly close with, probably trying to understand exactly what happened or why, because suicide, unfortunately, leaves the people behind with a lot of questions. And you don't always have the answers, even if they leave a note, you still don't have the answers. And you then beat yourself up, well, how come I didn't see it? Or what could I have done that's more? You know, it's endless, right? And I know I'm preaching to the choir because you know this, but I think that if somebody told you,

looked at your stuff and told you you would accept whatever that was. And I'll ask you, have you considered talking to like a PI about this or have you talked to a PI? We've reached out to a few. And then when we spoke to Joey Petito, he told us to stay away from them. Did he? Okay. Yeah.

He said to not invest money into a PI. He said, just try to find an attorney that's actually willing to go to bat for you. And it's been difficult. I'm glad you got that to connect. Yeah. And it's hard to keep talking about that story when, yes, it's already been over the two years, statutes, statute of limitations. But that's not, I'm trying to get someone to look at it to show the accountability of what the police did not do, did and did not do.

And I had to say goodbye to my son in a body bag when they should have found him. At the minimum, if they didn't find him on that night alive, they should have found him a few days afterwards. so I could say goodbye to his face, not four and a half once later, and I had to say goodbye in a body bag. And his sister, my daughter was crying, begging me, can you open the body bag? I want to hold my brother's hand. I had to tell her, there's no more hand. You have to let him go. Well, I hope with this recording, though, at least, you know, I don't know what all you get out there,

but I'm going to imagine this is probably going to be one of the most complete records of this story that you have, and you can just share it with people versus having to live through it every time. somebody asks. So I was, you know, there's no statute of limitation because remember how we said there could be possible landowner involvement. Yeah. There's no statute of limitation for murder. No.

There's no statute of limitation for negligence as long as it's proven. But we just need an actual investigation to be conducted because it never happened. They took it as it was. they, once the medical examiner deemed Jason's death as undetermined, they close that case as fast as human as human as possible. So, um, that's, that's what we want. We just want a fair investigation from an outside agency that can come in. And if, and if it is what it is, then we're, we'll accept that. But I can tell you this. If someone comes in, and does an actual investigation,

you're going to find something. I think so. Stuff's too weird. Even in Winchester police report, it states that they dropped the ball when they didn't send a helicopter to look for my son. So they even admit in the report that they should have sent a helicopter to look for him.

Yeah. On two separate occasions, Frederick County search and rescue told Winchester PD that they messed up the night that Jason went missing by failing to launch a helicopter or a search and rescue team that night. They admitted to it on a police report. I mean, that seems to the series of accountability for that. Have you all considered going to the Virginia Bureau of Investigation?

The FBI? No, the Virginia Bureau. Each state has their own bureau. I might be called something else. And I'm in Tennessee. They call it the TBI and Georgia. It's the GBI. I want to say Virginia is probably the Virginia.

I've written letters to the governor of Virginia, to the state's attorney. I never get anything in response. Well, no, they're not going to do. That's not going to be the state's attorney. I also tried to block us from even getting my son's records from the medical examiner. His photos. You could call, it's called the Virginia. It's called the BCI, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which operates as a major division under Virginia State Police.

So they're basically the state. state's version of the FBI. And I say that because, like, you look, here's a really good example when you talk about small town corruption, a different case, completely different case, but you look at like the Alex Murdoch trial. Alex Murdoch was, you know, ruled his town, very small. You know, they literally had to take his granddaddy's photo off the courtroom wall

before his trial began. And he was good until SLED, which is a South Carolina law enforcement division, and their basically Bureau of Investigation came in. And then the feds came in as well. So you could reach, I don't think it would hurt to make a phone call or drive up there. They're going to be located in. I don't know how far it is for you guys. They're going to be, I don't know where they are.

Right. How much time do we have? How much time do you have? Not a, I'm not supposed to be on something in about a minute, but that's okay. I'll go over a little bit. It's in Richmond. The physical address, sorry, is in North Chesterfield. Okay.

I mean, yeah. I just wanted to leave something. This is also pertaining to, you know, landowner involvement or relationships between landowners. Jason, when they found Jason was April 29, 2024, and then on May 1st, 2024, for the CID for Frederick County, a resident called him. And she, I'm going to read it to you. She had previously called in and left a message on CID's desk line stating that she had information about would be pertinent to the investigation.

She advised that on the night of the day of the incident involving a bark of fleeing from law enforcement, She was working as a USPS delivery person when she observed the vehicle that a barker was driving on Colors Lane in Chimandoah County. She advised she observed the vehicle drive through an open gate into a field. She advised that she observed the vehicle attempt to drive through a fence but got stuck. She advised the vehicle backed up in attempting to go around the fence but ended up going through it in a different location. She advised the property owner. I'm going to leave this property owner name out, but this is one of the property owners that chased after Jason. Property owner came out and chased the subject who then ended up driving through another fence to get away from him.

She estimated that the subject went through some fence approximately five different times. advised she called her husband to tell him what had happened and she stated the vehicle in question had just gone by their house. CID advised that meant that he would have had to have gone down Hockman Road and down Cotman Road, which is the road she lives on. She advised CID the subject in the vehicle was alone and when she saw him. She disquired him as a looking Hispanic and being of late high school age, she described the subject as having a curly, bushy, poofy, afro haircut. She felt his face looked chunky and he appeared to be in good health. She advised that she could not see any obvious injuries when she observed him. Describe the vehicle as a four-door Camry or Chevy and possibly burgundy in color.

It was red. CID asked, why was she providing this information at this? this time. She stated that she felt like her information of seeing the abarca subject that night would help his family know that there was no foul play involved in his death. How would she know that if she saw him fine and then he... Exactly. But no investigation happens. No investigation. And then she probably knows the guy that chased Jason down too.

So she probably wanted to call him to pretend that, oh, well, he chased him, but he was fine when we saw him. and I'm going to send you one more video if you want to play this and then we can get all this footage is from Chronicles of Olivia okay so she gave us permission to to put this on on the platform I know I'm friends with Olivia she'd be fine with it

Olivia does good work yes she does she's been to our house twice yeah she travels I never leave my house she's always somewhere I haven't gotten it yet Oh, it says it's sent I'd probably show up here in a second now

There it is, got it. It's downloading. Yeah, again, Destiny, I want to really thank you for having us on your show. Of course, I appreciate you guys trust you with the story. I don't know how much she means. I appreciate y'all trusting me with the story.

There it goes. If I can make it. I try to get to open on its own. There it goes. There you go. Their story deserves. to be told. They lost two sons in the span of six months. Jason was found hanging upside down in this very tree. His family believes that he was placed here. It's a mystery. How did he end up in this tree? What happened that night? I just want people to see that my brother was loved and that we come

here and we see the road all the time. My mom has a constant hard date. because she drives down here all the time for work and it's just hard on us all the time. Hi, my name is Jennifer Soto and I'm here with my family today because we wanted to bring something as a memorial symbol for Jason, my son that died on December 13th here in Star Tannery, Virginia. I'm a truck driver and I pass by this exact point of the road every Tuesday and Thursday. So I really wanted to bring something here to remember my son and to show everyone our remembrance. So he did not die in this exact spot, but he died after he drove down this road and starred Tannery, Virginia.

I interviewed Jason's grandparents, and they tell me certain details about the case that they find to be red flags, such as the fact that there's signs that say there's security cameras around, but the security footage could not be retrieved because it was deleted or it went. missing. Here's a sketch of how Jason was found in the tree. His foot appears to be stuck in the crook of it. His family thinks foul play. Here's a quick background on what happened. On December 13th of 2023, Jason left his home in Hagerstown, Maryland. He had a mental break. He was very depressed about his brother passing away from suicide six months earlier and Jason took more than his prescribed amount of Adderall. Then Jason drove an hour away to

Winchester, Virginia. It was here where he crashed his rental car and he took a vehicle from a woman and after that his vehicle was found crashed in Star Tannery. And in the police report, it states that he was being chased. A resident actually called 911 and said that he was armed and not afraid. Here are pictures of the car that Jason had stolen. It crashed into a ditch. And it's from this point onward where his whereabouts are unknown. On December 13th of 2023, Jason crashed the vehicle he was driving in Startanery, and his body was found five months later. He was hanging upside down in a tree on private property, 1,200 feet away from the crash site.

In the police report, they also mentioned that the dogs smelled his scent to the middle of the field and that it disappeared. They then decided to say he got picked up in the car. middle of the woods by a friend. Jason's family really wanted law enforcement to keep searching for him, but they were going with this narrative that he had been picked up by someone. In the police report, it also states that a witness saw a person running up the hill with a phone. They saw the reflection of the phone light. However, Jason's family says that he did not have his phone with him that night. So who was that person on the hill that was in such close proximity?

to Jason. The first search for Jason took three weeks later, and then the second search was on April 29th, and that is when they found Jason. The way that Jason's case was handled really deeply hurt his family. They feel like they were forgotten that Jason didn't matter, that he was just a fugitive, and that's all they cared about. But at the end of the day, he was a real person that was going through a mental break and needed help. Olivia, Olivia does good work. Yeah. I've known her for a long time, so.

I don't know if you saw those pictures of the Red Camry, but they try to tell me that he did not get rear-ended, but that car totally looks like somebody rear-ended house. Something slammed the back of that car. And to me, it's like, so someone was chasing him in a pickup truck, and you guys didn't even question this person supposedly, and the car was rear-end. ended, but. Now, you all deserve answers and not a runaround. And hopefully, you know,

somebody will listen to this. And, oh, this is also very important. I'm going to come back. Hopefully somebody will listen to this and they'll be able to reach out with something a little bit more. But that reminds me, where can people find you guys? Our Facebook page. That means like the Facebook group, things like that and social media. Justice for Jason. Justice number four, Jason, on Facebook. We have about $47,000. followers. That's a good size group.

47,000 significant. Yeah. Are there any other socials that you all use, TikTok, Insta? Yeah, we have a TikTok. Let me get the actual. It's Justice Number 4,

Jason Corey with a K. That's the app for TikTok. And then we also have a website. it's justice for Jason we have the website and we have a phone number too and if you send me those I can put those in the show notes as well okay yeah I'll send it over we have the so we have a website and then we have the phone number

as well just if anybody wants to leave a tip about anything about Jason's case or if they know anything they can leave a message anonymously well before we close out I just want to thank both of you all. I know, Jennifer, you having to share both of you all, but especially I know it's harder for moms to share this story and retramatize yourself to get it out there. So I do appreciate you trusting me with this in this platform for that. I know it's hard. And hopefully we will get you answers. He didn't, for what it's worth, though, he didn't deserve what happened to him. And I hope that you really know that. Thank you.

And before we close out, anything else for letting us talk on this platform. with you. Absolutely. I'm glad we were finally able. I know we've been talking for a long. I'm glad we were finally able to get it recorded. Yeah. Well, with that said, if you guys, if anybody knows anything who's listening, I'll put

everything in the show notes where you can reach out to Jason's family. Please do. Even if you just want to write some words of encouragement, do that as well. But other than that, we will see you all next week. And I hope you all have a great rest of the day. And thank you guys again for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the individuals speaking and do not necessarily reflect those of the host. Unheard is intended to provide a platform for personal stories and lived experiences, not to establish facts, determine guilt, innocence, or provide legal, medical, or professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to conduct their own research and form their own conclusions. Thank you for listening to Unheard.