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Hello everyone and welcome back.
Welcome back everyone.
I am your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski.
And I am your co-host, Eli Sulkowski.
And this is Cold and Missing where we cover cold cases.
And missing person cases.
This week I believe we are doing a missing person case.
Yes, we are on missing this week.
Alrighty, well episode 37.
Let's get into it.
So just as a content warning, today's story does involve a child.
Today we are going to be talking about the missing person case of Jason Cannon.
And this takes place in March of 1983 in Boise, Idaho.
But first a little bit about Jason.
Jason was two and a half years old in March of 1983, but he was almost three.
He was born May 7th, 1980, and he would be 43 years old today.
But his birthday is within a few days of recording this podcast.
So he will be turning 44 within the next few weeks.
Jason lived with his mother, Janeane Cannon, and his stepfather, Rodney Beiser.
They all lived on the 32nd Street in Boise, Idaho.
Their apartment was a duplex style home.
Jason's family said he was a shy but friendly child.
His mother Janeane said, quote, we used to take him to the store and sometimes he'd
follow other people around.
I don't think he'd be afraid of strangers, end quote.
And now a timeline of events.
On Wednesday, March 16th, 1983, in the morning, Jason was playing across the street with neighborhood
children for around one or two hours.
Later that day, around 2pm, Jason is back at his home playing with blocks on the front
porch.
Janeane is making brownies, but she keeps the front door and the window curtains open so she can
keep an eye on Jason.
Jason is wearing blue overalls, a light blue t-shirt, and black tennis shoes.
According to Janeane, quote, it was a nice day, but cold, so I went upstairs to get his
coat, end quote.
Originally, Janeane said she was upstairs for only four minutes.
But years later, she'll say that it was no more than 10 minutes.
So anywhere between four and 10 minutes, she was upstairs getting Jason's jacket.
When she returns to give the jacket to Jason, he has disappeared.
Janeane says, quote, when I came back, he was gone, end quote.
Janeane spends about 15 minutes looking in and around their apartment for Jason.
When she can't find him, she calls police who arrive within minutes.
Police immediately began to search for Jason.
All together on the first day, around 50 to 75 people arrive to help search for him.
Searchers divert water from Sand Creek.
And it looks like this has been renamed, whenever I looked at this on Google Maps, to Crane
Creek.
But this is a creek that runs behind Jason's family's apartment.
And it leads to Esther's Pond, which is a large swimming and boating area.
And it eventually leads to the Boise River.
Searchers don't find anything along the ditch of the creek or in the banks.
And at this point, they have diverted water from the creek.
So they are able to just look at the bottom of the creek.
Searchers find a toy bucket that is said to have belonged to Jason about a third of a
mile away from his home.
Small footprints were also seen near the bucket.
But police will later say that this was unsubstantiated.
The search is called off at 1130 PM that evening with a plan to resume at daybreak.
But there's no sign of Jason.
On Thursday, March 17th, this is the next day, police resume their search at dawn.
They start at the creek running behind Jason's home.
Searchers walk through the thick brush and divert water again from the creek.
Searchers also search the creek with rakes.
The fire department sends divers to the deepest part, where it's about four feet deep and
eight feet wide to search, from State Street to the mouth of the Boise River.
At around 330 that afternoon, police call off the search, believing that Jason was kidnapped.
Specialist Lynn Hope with the Boise Police says, quote, it's boiling down to look like
an abduction.
We have no leads at all and nothing to follow up on.
The consensus of opinion is that if he had fallen in, he could not have gotten down the
river.
There's too much debris and where the creek widens, it slows way down, end quote.
And I interpret this quote as meaning that if he had fallen into the creek, that they
should have been able to recover his body by now and that there's no way that it could
have gotten to the Boise River where they would be unable to recover it.
On Friday, March 18th, police interview family but do not believe that any family member
abducted Jason based off of their questioning.
Jason's biological father was in the Air Force in 1983 and stationed in the Philippines,
so he's also not a suspect.
On Saturday, March 19th, police say they are following up on tips but have no real leads.
Notably, around this day, they begin to walk back the abduction theory.
Sergeant Don Davis says, quote, he could have just as easily gone into the ditch.
We just can't find him yet, end quote.
On Wednesday, March 23rd, Jason has been missing for one week and police say they get around
five tips a day.
Sergeant Don Davis says, quote, sightings have been from here to Canada.
I took a couple calls last night.
One put him in horseshoe bend and another in burly.
The people are very sincere, but a lot of little boys of that age look very similar.
We really have no idea of what happened to him.
We haven't ruled out kidnapping at all.
There's still the possibility he did fall into the ditch, end quote.
On Friday, March 25th, Jason's been missing for just a little over a week now.
Police assisted by speedboats from the Western White Water Association searched four miles
of the Boise River over the weekend.
During the weekend search, no sign or clue of Jason is found.
Sergeant Frank Richardson says, quote, there is no evidence at all that the boy was kidnapped.
He was there one minute and he was gone the next, end quote.
Again, police here are really walking back their abduction statements as they believe
it likely he fell into the creek that ran behind his house.
On June 7th, 1983, so Jason has been missing for around two and a half months, but almost
three months at this point.
Jason's family has moved from the apartment where Jason disappeared from as they couldn't
handle being there anymore.
Jason's stepdad, Rodney Beiser, couldn't sleep if he heard a noise in the night.
He says, quote, it makes me a nervous wreck.
I got to get up and see who it is and make sure they're not messing around.
I don't trust no one here anymore because I think someone stole him, end quote.
Before the family moved, Jason's stepdad would walk the creek every day after work,
often wearing chest waders so he could walk out into the creek.
He even once constructed a 37 pound dummy to see if it was possible for Jason to float
down the creek.
He says, quote, I threw it in and it floated one time and sunk another time.
It took me 10 times before I could get it to the end of the creek.
That's why I'm not convinced he's in the water, end quote.
On July 27th, so this is four months that Jason has been missing, about 30 volunteers
searched the Boise River for Jason, but no trace of him is found.
And this does appear to be the last organized search for Jason that I could find.
On July 28th, 1985, so this is over two years now that Jason has been missing, police still
can't agree on a theory.
Sergeant Stan Wood, who in 1985 supervised investigations of crimes against people, believes
that Jason was abducted.
He says, quote, I think the probability is that if he had gone into the river, he'd
have been located by now, end quote.
On the other hand, Sergeant Frank Richardson, who specifically worked on Jason's case,
says, quote, we have spent hundreds of hours looking into the aspects of whether he was
abducted.
We can't rule out the possibility that he was kidnapped, but the probabilities are that
he went into the Sand Creek, end quote.
Janeane, Jason's mother, has been wracked with guilt.
She says, quote, people are always trying to find out why I wasn't watching him.
They say, what were you doing?
Where were you?
There's no way I can turn back time.
I pretty much thought the worst of myself for even letting him go outside.
For a long time, it was very, very hard to accept the fact it wasn't all my fault.
I still blame myself, but I try not to think about it, end quote.
Janeane still believes Jason is alive.
She says, quote, I think somebody took him and sold him.
Somebody else is raising my son.
Somebody that wanted a kid enough to buy a black market baby, end quote.
And then the last real update I could find about Jason's case comes from June 6th, 1987.
So this would be over four years that Jason was missing.
Don Newell, who in 1987 was the commander of the juvenile section of the Boise Police,
says, quote, there is no reason to suspect foul play with Jason, but we keep the case
open just in case, end quote.
Police believe that Jason fell into the creek and was carried into the Boise River, and
that truly is the last update that I could find about Jason Cannon.
There have been no additional searches, and no trace of him has ever been found.
But if you know what happened to Jason Cannon in March of 1983 or his whereabouts today,
please call the Boise Police at 208-377-6790.
And the sources for the timeline today comes from the Idaho statesman, who almost exclusively
covered this case, and the Spokane Chronicle and the Charlie Project.
So that is the case of Jason Cannon.
Yeah, I mean, it's just like really sad and bizarre.
I don't I just don't understand how things like that happen, but also like how quickly
that they can.
Yeah, I mean, it sounds very similar to the Tika Lewis case, you know, where her family
turned their back just for a second to watch somebody throw a bowling ball.
And in that moment, she was gone.
And for our listeners, the Tika Lewis episode was?
Episode 35.
Oh, great.
Okay.
So just for reference, and what Allie just spoke about, if you're new here, pop over
to episode 35.
So you know what we're referring to.
But a question that or something that I found really frustrating about this case was how
they had this theory of abduction so very quickly.
And saying it was that's that's what happened here, because there was no evidence of anything
else.
And then years later, they're like, there's there was no evidence of an abduction in this
case, and he probably just fell into the creek.
And I don't know.
I I don't know how it can vary so wildly within the own police department where people are
like, if he went to the river, he would have been found by now, where others are like,
there's no sign he was abducted.
So that's not what happened.
But I just think until you have evidence for sure that it was not a kidnapping, you can't
rule that out.
Just because there was no evidence here.
Like, it can happen so very quickly with kids, especially.
Yeah, I mean, I got to be honest with you, honey.
Like, this case is just like, I'm having a difficult time, like having emotional balance
talking about it, because like the I think it's like the the the phrasing of words connected
to like, a physical child's existence is just like, like to throw around the word abduction,
you know, just like on its own for a human being, and then like, for this child, you
know.
And it's also like the sorry.
It's just really small, you know, and I don't know, I guess it's just it's hard to listen
to that they're like, well, if you just like fell in, I'm like, that's a whole person that's
just like, maybe gone.
Or like, sorry, this one, like, I mean, they all get me.
But yeah, it's like, don't you dare rule a single thing out until you are sure and don't
say anything to anyone until you are sure.
Yeah, listening to his mom, like, you know, that she there is not a moment that after
that happened.
She didn't relive that.
It I think that something like that, I imagine when you're a parent, that that moment becomes
your life.
I feel bad for the mom.
Like, I wish that those simple answers that are in those like few minutes.
I'm like, what?
Yeah, so I I've never been to Boise, Idaho.
Maybe some of our listeners are familiar with it.
But I was looking at Google Maps to kind of get an idea and looking at the area around
Jason's family's apartment.
And you know, the creek is right, right behind the apartment.
And in the neighborhood I grew up in, there was a creek that ran behind my neighbor's
houses.
So like, we as kids used to play around it all the time.
And so I recognize that that space can be very interesting to kids.
But one thing that it does look like is that there's a lot of debris and that it's it would
be a very slow moving creek.
So with how quickly police and searchers responded and how logically that was one of the first
places they looked, which I think makes sense if you're looking for a missing child's like
you should check water nearby, especially something that's essentially in the backyard.
Clothing snags.
So like if someone you know, falls accidentally, like, especially if it's slow moving, there's
more possibility that they'll catch or, you know.
Yeah, it'll slow them down, I guess.
Yeah, definitely.
And the fact that the stepdad kind of ran this experiment with like a dummy he made,
which is something that police do.
Like I've seen police also kind of do these experiments with like dummies in water to
see, you know, where a body might land or you know what that sounds like.
But for the stepdad to do that and you know, him having a hard time getting the dummy down
to float down the creek without getting caught, without getting snagged, without sinking.
And with just how quickly police responded and searchers were in that creek diverting
the water looking away, like, or not looking away, but like looking in that area specifically.
It just seems wild to me that if that had happened, he would be missed.
You know, I guess there's always a possibility that a quick current was running at that time
and maybe the elements were just right that he could get farther than what they expected
and where they couldn't find him.
But yeah, this one, I just the fact that there's no consensus over even the theory of what
happened to him is really heartbreaking.
And it just kind of feels like police left it at he fell in.
So we're not really working on it anymore.
You know?
I say it every episode, but I just like, I literally don't understand.
Like, so you just stop doing your job if it's like not working out?
Like what?
Yeah, it just I, I personally feel like Jason has been failed.
There's been no updates, no, no searches.
I couldn't even find an age progress photo of him because I don't think that the police
and Boise are asking for that because they don't think that he's out there anymore.
They think he fell into that creek.
So again, if you know anything about what happened to Jason or his whereabouts today,
please call the Boise police at 208-377-6790.
And while you're still hopefully here with us, we would love it if you could give us
a review.
Yeah, if you're an Apple podcasts and can leave us a written review, it's so helpful
to help others find our podcast, which ultimately helps others find out about these cases because
these cases aren't being covered anywhere else.
You know, a lot of the cases we cover, this is the first time they've been talked about
on a podcast.
So getting them to as many listeners is the goal and your reviews help do that.
So if you can leave us a review on Apple, that would be great.
If you're not an Apple, if you could leave us five stars, a thumbs up, a shining rainbow,
whatever the metric is, they're all different than your favorite podcast app.
Yeah, it helps us remain visible and like by keeping us visible, like the goal is to
keep all these folks visible and their names out there.
So yeah, like, subscribe, like and subscribe while you're in your phone too.
If you're not following us on Instagram, you can head over there and search us cold and
missing will pop right up.
Eli makes beautiful graphics every week for our episodes and we have pictures of Jason
that'll be up there so that way you can see what he looked like in 1983.
Really sweet little guy.
Sweet guy.
Yeah.
And with that, that's all I have.
So have a good week and stay safe, y'all.
Stay safe, y'all.