Jake Just missing 17 years

By Sharon Weatherall

Time moves on but yet its standing still for a Midland area mom whose son went missing 17 years ago.

Each Halloween I feel compelled to write something to help keep this story in the public eye. I didn’t know Jake Just but I have come to know his mother quite well feeling her pain and hopelessness as another year goes by and still there are no new leads as to what may have happened to her son. With three sons of my own I can’t help but glimpse just a fraction of the torture she has endured over the years…not knowing. To spend 18 years raising a boy and then all of a sudden he is gone and no one knows that happened is a nightmare that never ends.  

Jake Just disappeared without a trace on October 30, 1998 - Halloween Eve. Each Halloween Debbie Just relives that tragic night and the weeks and months that followed ….it’s a bad time of the year and one she wants to end by finding some closure.  But the case has gone cold and police don’t have any answers.  Foul play is suspected but nothing can be proven. Police say someone out there knows something.

After so many years Debbie feels certain that Jake will never come home but she still wants to know what happened so she can put him to rest. Like the police, Debbie believes that somebody out there knows something and what happened to her son remains a well-guarded secret.

“I have always felt that someone knows. When people do wrong they are always worried about the punishment – I have felt that punishment for 17 years and believe it is time to balance to books,” said Debbie.

“I just want someone to let me know - even anonymously, where my son is and let our family move on. I am not taking it lightly when I say it doesn’t matter to me if they are punished because they have lived with this for 17 years too – that’s got to be hard. We just need closure.”

Debbie says it’s hard for her family to go to the cemetery to see a tree and a plaque while knowing Jake is not there.

“I don’t know where Jake is and my main concern is to find out where my son is! Whether what happened to him was intentional or not or if it was an accident, doesn’t matter now – I just want to know,” said Debbie.

Jake Just had been at a party and was gone exactly 24 hours when Debbie called the police. Not a day gone has gone by since that she doesn’t wish she’d called sooner. Would it have made any difference? No one knows, least of all the police.

“It was 8 p.m. and I had just finished handing out tricker-treats to the kids when I decided something was not right and I was calling the police,” said Just.

“He never came home and that was not like Jake but I wasn’t sure what to do. I had called all of his friends but thought I had to wait a certain amount of time before calling the police. They told me later you can call anytime if it is unusual behaviour.”

At the time of his disappearance, Jake JUST was described as male white, 6’2, 170lbs., blonde hair and green eyes.  He was last seen wearing an olive green and beige long sleeve T-shirt, black D.V.S. size 11 running shoes, and was carrying a black “Jaguar” brand knapsack.

Immediately after and over the years searches have been done including a grid search in 2010 by OPP Criminal Investigation Branch of the swampy wooded area near where Jake disappeared west of Sunnyside Drive and north of Vinden Street in Midland. While this was 12 years after Jake went missing police hoped to find some possible remains from the back pack or shoes Jake was wearing when he went missing. The search was carried out by members of the OPP Central Region Emergency Response Team (ERT) along with members of the Midland Police Service. Unfortunately nothing was turned up during this intensive search.

Midland Police confirmed last year they speak to Debbie Just when there is something to report which doesn't mean they aren't pursuing any tips which may come in. In the past more tips have tended to come in around Halloween which is the anniversary date and when people remember that Jake went missing.

For the 9^th anniversary crime reporter Sue Sgambati was in Midland filming a segment for CourtTV Canada’s Crime Files: Cold Case Edition. The story of the missing Midland youth captured the interest of the national television network and the show aired several times around Halloween that year.

The high profile case has also attracted the attention of mediums and psychics from across the nation and farther. In recent years Debbie Just has gained some comfort through turning to psychics and trying to reach her son through communicating with them. Jackie Dennison from Rescue Mediums and her associate Steve Furlong at Feathers Academy in England have come to know Debbie over the past few years and have provided her with details of what they ‘feel’ happened to her son. In this sense she has come to believe that Jake is no longer alive.

The two gifted mediums became committed using maps, dowsing with pendulums and other forms of techniques. They, along with an assistant - Edna Dargie, have even gone to the Sunnyside woods with me to retrace the steps Jake took on the night he went missing. That experience was not only exhilarating but informative. It was as if Jake were there speaking to them and guiding them along the path he took then eventually exited from. Both Jackie and Steve felt that Jake left the woods before he went missing and made it on foot to a nearby road where he was possibly struck by a vehicle – then taken from the area. This would make sense since his body could not be found and several police searches of the wooded area have turned up no clues.

As the 17^th anniversary rolls around it is no less painful for Jake’s mom and two sisters who still live with the pain of a missing family member - a son and brother they don’t know what happened to. Debbie tells me she is thankful that I remember Jake through my blog on an annual basis.

“It gets harder every year. I think as I get older that hope of finding out about Jake gets farther away, not closer and it takes so much energy. I am at the point where I thought we would be someday. When people remember but only from the past and they have moved on with their lives,” said Debbie.

“This week I watch and listen as people talk about things and I am in my sad world – there in the space but not there. I shall visit my girls and grab some grandchild joy this week.”

 You keep up the fight and so will I, she tells me and I agree that someone has to.

There is currently a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of the person responsible for the disappearance or death of Jake Just. Call Crime Stoppers at 1-888-310-1122.