Watch never-before-seen video of missing Montana mom Jermain Charlo released exclusively to "48 Hours"
Police in Missoula, Montana, have released security camera video showing 23-year-old Jermain Charlo, who has been missing for more than six years. The video was released exclusively to "48 Hours" to help generate leads.
Charlo disappeared in Missoula in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 16, 2018. Missoula Police detective Guy Baker, who has been leading the search for Charlo, says the security camera video shows the last known images of her before she vanished.
Baker tells "48 Hours" contributor Michelle Miller that searches for Jermain Charlo have "come up empty-handed." Miller reports on Charlo's disappearance and the search for answers in "Where is Jermain Charlo?" now streaming on Paramount+.
Just before midnight on Friday, June 15, 2018, Charlo is seen on video walking down a street in downtown Missoula. A man is walking a few paces behind her. In a second excerpt, Charlo is socializing outside a local bar called The Badlander. The same man is standing behind her. Just before midnight, Charlo and the man leave the area and disappear into the night.
Baker, the lead detective on the case, says "Jermain walks out of view, so maybe somebody saw something that never thought about contacting us. So, if anybody has any information about that night or any aspect of this investigation, I encourage them to call me."
Six years later, with no arrest and no publicly named suspects, authorities are hopeful the release of the security video will lead to new clues about Charlo's disappearance.
Police have identified the man with Charlo that night as Michael DeFrance. He's her ex-boyfriend and the father of their two sons. The couple had an on-again, off-again relationship. According to Charlo's family, the couple broke up for good in 2017, but there was tension between them.
Police believe DeFrance was the last person to see Charlo before she disappeared in the early morning hours on Saturday, June 16, 2018. When Baker interviewed DeFrance, he told him he dropped Charlo off around 1 a.m. near a food market in downtown Missoula.
DeFrance said Charlo told him she was going to meet a friend named Cassidy. Police never found anyone named Cassidy, but they did learn Charlo had been visiting Missoula regularly because she had been dating a man named Jacob who lived in that neighborhood.
The couple had recently begun dating and had been in communication in the hours prior to her disappearance. Jacob was out of town in a different state the weekend Charlo vanished. When Jacob spoke with police, he told them he had tried to call Charlo shortly before 1 a.m. on June 16 and thought it was strange the phone rang several times and then went to voicemail. Jacob told police he thought someone purposely ended the call.
According to authorities, phone records determined that the call was silenced by someone.
Jacob also told police that the day before Charlo disappeared, she told him DeFrance had been yelling at her, asking her if she was dating anyone and that he wanted to get back together with her.
Police say Jacob cooperated with the investigation and he was never considered a suspect in Charlo's disappearance.
Police discovered the morning Charlo disappeared her phone was pinging from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. approximately 14 miles from downtown Missoula in an area known as Evaro Hill on the Flathead Reservation.
Charlo lived on the Flathead Reservation and is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes. She loved nature and animals. Her dream was to attend the Institute of American Indian Arts.
In Montana, Indigenous persons make up only about 6% of the population, but 24% of the state's active missing persons cases.
Jermain Charlo has not been found. The investigation into her disappearance remains open and active.
There have been numerous police and community searches for Charlo throughout Missoula and the Flathead Reservation since her disappearance in June 2018.
Jen Murphy, an educator in Montana who came up with the idea to put Charlo's missing poster on a billboard, has joined several searches. "They're heartbreaking. Every little step that you take … it's a grid search, so you can't be any farther than an arms-length apart … so that you don't miss anything. So, grid searching a mountain with trees that are right next to each other is almost impossible."
Charlo's disappearance is just one of many unsolved cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women known as MMIW.
"I feel like we're all of the human race and should be looked for the same. It's not like we're asking for special treatment, we're just asking for the same treatment. We're not going to stop looking for our people. We're not. Our lives matter," says Murphy.
Police wanted to know what happened to Charlo's cellphone. Turns out DeFrance provided an answer. He told police he had her phone and attempted to get into it after she disappeared, and that he then got rid of it.
DeFrance, who had been working as a truck driver, told Baker he disposed of Charlo's phone in Idaho at mile marker 94 on Highway 12. Law enforcement searched the area, but never found the phone.
"Why would you get rid of the cell phone if someone was around to give the phone back to 'em?" says Baker.
DeFrance has not been named as a suspect in Jermain Charlo's disappearance. "48 Hours" requested an interview through his attorney. The request was declined.
Baker's work phone number is on Charlo's missing poster billboard. He wants people to call him with any information about her disappearance. While the searches for her haven't turned up any new information, Baker believes someone knows what happened to Charlo.
Charlo's family believes she is no longer alive. Authorities are investigating the disappearance as a no body homicide.
HAVE INFORMATION?
If you have any information about Jermain Charlo's disappearance, contact Missoula Police detective Guy Baker at 406-552-6284.