Happened to him. This need to be reported to the police. Unusual for him not to tell one of us that he was going to be gone. When was the last gotime you heard from him . Way back in may. Yeah. His dad stated he had been gone in the past to take off. It was always pretty tense at the ranch. Im not supposed to know but i do know. If the wrong thing was said or done, there was fire in her eyes. The river that runs through all of this was green with money. Very much so. Now was the time y. To find o the truth. I just kind of froze. And i said is that what i think it is . She looked at me i and said you moe you cant ever leave now. Right . Hello and welcome to dateline. Jake loved hanging out with a tight group of guys. Then he stopped answering calls and texts and his friends feared the worse. But years would pass before a series of clues unearthed something much darker. Here unis Josh Mankiewicz with trouble on the 711 ranch. Reporter sometimes it is so quiet in Western Colorado, all you can hear is the wind. Beautiful hay meadows that wave in the breeze. Its a lovely part of the valley. Reporter it is beautiful. No doubt. At the t same time, that lovely lonely valley can be an unforgiving place to live. It can drive some people to extremes. No one understood that better than rancher jake. He would etjust be out there working. Reporter and a ranchers work is never done. There is always a fence that needs mending. And jake seemed cut out for that life. But then he disappeared. Thno one got a message or a text, nothing. No. He evaporated. No one heard from him two years. Reporter it was weird, the ranch had been jakes life most of his life. The spread was the 711. Hundreds of acres outside the town of gunnison under a canopy of colorado sky. Jake lived with with his older sister stephanie since they were kids. Jakes parents had divorced and his mom had found another husband. A guy who owned the 711. They home schooled jake. So he could help out more on the ranch. He was out there all day every day. Reporter another jake and rebecca used to help out. What was the vibe at the ranch . Really quiet. Maybe a couple of times a year they would have a Family Reunion or hunters would come up and stay in the cabin. Reporter by 2003, jakes sister stephanie had moved out. Looking for a life beyond the sprawl of the 711. What about jake and his sister . I know he loved his sister. But, he kind of was upset she married who she married. Reporter that would be David Jackson. So, jake didnt like dave so much because he was a carney and he did the Paint Ball Booth in gunnison when the carnival came through. And jake thought my sister would do better than that . Exactly. Reporter they married anyway and liveed in town only coming out to the ranch originally. Jake had an adventurous streak. He was kind of a recluse but always willing to go explore the mountains and just try to hang out with his friends. Reporter Randy Martinez was another member of jakes posse. Very quiet. Shy toward girls. Reporter jakes stepfather died in 2009 and the workload got heavier. Now, it was 23yearold jake and his mom running the ranch. Except for that time he took off to alaska to make money on a fishing boat. And even that was about the ranch. He was on a ship i think for three months. He came back with a good chunk of money. And he put all of that into the ranch to kind of save it from going under. Reporter the only break jake ever got was time with his friends. A kind of second family. A we were all best friends. So, we would all hang out. We would kind of Snow Everything we were going. And do it together. Reporter that meant Oi Shooting Pool at some local hangouts and drinking beer. Except, for jake. Who was always happy to be the designated driver. Jake would always go up to o the bar and order a coke. Even though he was just a couple of years older than us, he always acted like an old man. He was always the responsible one trying to do the smart thing in tricky situations. I met jake in the winter, December Of 2012 at the gunson jujitsu gym. Reporter that was the other important part of jakes life and another group of friends. Marshal arts. Particularly jujitsu. Derek was one of his sparring partners. And jake was good at it . Jake was good. Jake was the most akconsistent student that was ever in that gym. He was there every night. Four nights a week. Reporter he announced his presence on his motorcycle. A sportster. He had it since high school. I can picture him coming on it right now. He was proud of it . Oh yeah. He iwore a red bandanna when hd drove it. Reporter in may, 2015, they were practicing for an upcomingc tournament in denver. He landed on his ankle and twisted it and i believe he had to pull out of the tournament because he couldnt walk. Reporter then came friday night. May 15th. Stuck at home, jake called his pal randy about going to a movie up in crested butte. After the movie, they hit a couple of bars. Played some pool and parted ways around midnight. There arent a million thing to do in gunnison and this all seemed routine. It turned out not to be. The next morning i woke up. Texted him to see what was up. Never got a replay. Reporter the next week, jakes jujitsu pals were back from that tournament and back on the mats. No jake. They figured he was still nursing his ankle. Then after a few days they started to wonder. Week goes buy. And we are like where is jake . Unusual for him not to come in. Unusual for him not to tell one of us he would be gone. Reporter gone because he was fed up with the hard life on the ranch . Or was there a side of jake that even his best friends didnt know about . Coming up. His bad stated that he has been gone in the past. Known in the enpast to take off abruptly and do things. Reporter the mystery deepens. When somebody doesnt show up, theres a lot of ground to cover. A lot of things to explain his absence that are not criminal. Absolutely. I didnt want to jump to any conclusions. Reporter jakes mother had her own idea about what happened to her son. Im not supposed to know. But i do know. When dateline continues. When dateline continues. Some things should stand the test of time. Long lasting eylea hd could significantly improve your vision and can help you go up to 4 months between treatments. If you have an eye infection, eye pain or redness, or allergies to eylea hd, dont use. Eye injections like eyla hd may cause eye infection, separation of the retina, or rare but severe swelling of Blood Vessels in the eye. An increase in eye pressure has been seen. Theres an uncommon risk of heart attack or stroke associated with blood clots. 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Lets hit the road. Hey fam im just at this Beautiful Lake that i just discovered. Practicing gratitude, manifesting abundance. vo if you have graves disease, your eye symptoms could mean something more. That Gritty Feeling cant be brushed away. Even a little blurry vision can distort things. And something serious may be behind those itchy eyes. Up to 50 of people with graves could develop a different condition called Thyroid Eye Disease, which should be treated by a different doctor. See an expert. Find a ted Eye Specialist at isitted. Com it was may 2015, ten days had passed and there was no sign of Jake Millison. This need to be reported to the police. And so, i stepped up and said you know what . Ill do it. Because . Youre not just any friend . No. Im a sergeant with the town of mount crested butte. And so, i thought i had a little bit of credibility so if i had red flags it would translate to the deputy there. Reporter that deputy was mark michael. His first order of business, call jakes mother. Deb told us he left with a friend and was going to the reno, nevada area. Reporter investigators phoned jakes father. His dad ray stated that he has been gone known in the past to take off abruptly. And do things. Reporter at 29, he had no obligation to tell anyone where he was going and it didnt mean something bad had happened. When somebody doesnt show up, theres a lot of ground to cover. Right. He met some girl and they decide to go to las vegas. He has some fight with his family or somebody and decides to just hit the road. Theres a lot of things that might have explained his absence that werent criminal. Absolutely. That is why i didnt want to jump to conclusions. Reporter there was something jakes pal Randy Martinez noticed. When he had gone to the ranch with a buddy looking for jake, and they ran into jakes closest friend. His dog. Really cool dog. He runs out to meet us and we thought thats weird, elmo is here, so jake should be here. So we Start Talking to more people. We talk to everybody we knew that he knew. Nobody had heard anything. And it was really weird. Reporter in early june, the sheriff paid his own visit to the 711 and heard jake had returned. His mom said jake had been gone for a little while, but then came back to pick up supplies. She said jake was with a friend. Someone she didnt know. Deb was telling us it was late at night. Took a bunch of camping gear. Loaded it all up and took off. There wasnt any room for the dog. Reporter none of it made sense. What could jake be up to . And who takes a trip without his cell phone . She told us the phone fell in an Irrigation Ditch and showed us the phone. It was in a bag of rice. Reporter that could definitely explain why jake wasnt answering any calls or texts. Deb said jake told her he was off to nevada to study marshal art. So didnt have anything to go with at that point. Reporter by august, jake had been gone almost three months. And by then, it seemed even his mom was becoming concerned. She filed a missing person report. That wasnt enough for jakes friends. They wanted to get his story out. So they contacted chris rourke. And she called jakes mom. Hey, deb, thanks for calling me back. No problem. What is deb like . Small wiry woman. Very talkative. She liked to talk. I know he originally was going to go on his motorcycle. But decided to go with somebody. Reporter while the reporters recorder ran, deb told her the same thing she had told the sheriff deputy. Jake had run off and jake took off in a truck with a friend. And the friend didnt want the dog along. And he took enough stuff for two people. She started out a little reticent. And then, the details started coming. He also wiped out my groceries. Oh really . Huh. And, you know, he took all the chef boyardees. When is the last time you heard from him . Id have to look it up on a calendar. It was about the 20th. Of september . No. Way back in may. Reporter deb told rourke something the reporter had never heard before. Jake had a dark side. A serious drug problem. Im not supposed to know, but i do know. Because everybody has kept it a Big Dark Secret that my son has been doing drugs. Reporter because of that, deb said, there was tension between mother and son. Have you two been typically close . No. Once he started doing the mixed marshal arts and the drugs and stuff. We had one argument fight after another. Reporter maybe that is why jake left. He was just sick of fighting with his mom all the time. And i knew he was going to be gone a while. He has been gone too long. And so i have declared him a missing person. So it is possible he left of his own volition . Oh he did. And gets into some kind of trouble . Right. Reporter a picture of a different jake was starting to emerge. And i think it lends itself to the two sides paints of who jake was. This reckless person that was irresponsible and had run off and his friends described him as someone who was very disciplined. Cared and his friends. Reporter with that in mind, chris filed her story. So, you make sort of reference to the two jakes. Right. And what reaction does that article provoke . The friends were mad. They were upset. They said something has happened to him. The jake that deb is portraying is not the guy we know. Reporter jakes friends seemed hellbent on finding him. That was in october. Soon the case would get as cold as a Western Colorado winter. Coming up. She did a posting that said big things are happening for the jackson family. A couple of days later, she posted again, do you ever hear such great news in the morning that you cant stand it . Reporter with jake gone, his sister stephanie moves in to help with the ranch. And reveals a dark side. If the wrong thing was said or done, there was fire in her eyes. When dateline continues. You ready . Showtime. This is gonna be epic. [ barking ] its what the poster said. Do you want to make out or . Nope. I meant yes. Hes a bon garcon. I give amazing spongebaths. Can i get a room . [ chuckling ] chefs kiss. He had never met Jake Millison but Jeremy Mcdonald would have the ring side seat for the circus that was jakes family starting with jakes brotherinlaw dave. You have known him for a long time. Yeah. Since we were nine or ten years old. Reporter remember, dave jackson was married to jakes sister stephanie. By then, jake had been gone almost a year. Without him, his mom had been running the ranch all by herself. That was about to change. Dave called jeremy and offered him work. Jakes mom deb had been diagnosed with cancer and undergone major surgery. Dave, stephanie and their then eightyearold son had move today the ranch to help out. Dave asked jeremy to live with them and fix up the place for room and board . I thought it wasnt a bad idea. Get the ranch back to making money. Pretty much. What is it like when you get there . Its a mess. Theres clutter and junk everywhere. A lot bigger project than i had ever exspected. Reporter he decided to stick it out. After off, dave was one of his best friends. What about deb . Did you know her . I had never met deb until i moved there. And she seemed very reclusive but was very obvious she was a little bit ornery. Ill say that. How did that manifest itself . She was super controlling. Any time we tried to clean up. There was a building with couches covered in rat feces and they were destroyed. And, dave and i were moving them out and she came out and started screaming and yelling at us that she wanted to keep the couches. And you chalked that up to what . Crazy. Honestly. Thats just how she wasful everything she got didnt leave. Reporter and jakes sister stephanie, jeremy says there was a side of her few people saw. There is the steph that most, a lot of people knew. Which was a very nice lady. But, seems like there was a switch. If the wrong thing was said or done, there was fire in her eyes. Reporter stephanie and her family seemed pretty cool with jakes disappearance. His friends were not. They created a facebook page. Where is Jake Millison and they peppered the Sheriffs Office with phone calls. They had been looking all over for some sign of Jake Millison. Our heads are in alaska, our notions are in nevada and we are still running across nothing. Reporter in the fall of 2016, mostly because of the attention generated by jakes friends, the case finally landed on the case of Gunnison CountyDeputy AttorneyJessica Wagner. His friends knew this was not something he would have done. Reporter at that point, jake had been missing for a year. The Colorado Department of investigation got involved and we put a plan in place to do Search Warrants on the phones. And begin the process of looking for jacob. Reporter the more the prosecutor talked with the investigators, the more concerned she became. Normally when somebody disappears, it is the family who is saying to you this isnt normal. Something is wrong. But, in this case, family is telling everyone there is nothing to worry about. Right. And it wasnt until the friends really pushed. They started posting it on facebook. Started calling Law Enforcement. That is where we had to just keep digging. Reporter and when wagner dug into stephanies facebook page, she noticed something stephanie had written just a few days after her brother went missing. She did a posting that said big things are happening for the jackson family. A couple of days later show posted again do you ever hear such great new ins the morning that you cant stand it or Something Like that. And her friend responded saying oh, jakes gone. Reporter stephanie seem today be treating jakes sudden absence as an opportunity. The prosecutor found that troubling. She saw comments like this. It was always pretty tense at the ranch when ever dave was out there. Reporter in fact, she learned jake was afraid of dave. And taking up jujitsu hadnt been just for the exercise. So he decided to start taking jujitsu because he was kind of scared of his brother inlaw trying to do something to him. Reporter so that made it all the more strange when she saw this posted on daves facebook page. Him astride jakes prized bike. Something jake never would have tolerated. He loved that motorcycle. It had a history with him. Nobody could ride it if i remember correctly. He loved that bike and road it as mu