The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases. Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing. I'm Ali. And I'm Eli.
Welcome back everyone. I just want to take a moment here at the top to say thank you. We had several really kind reviews, a lot of engagement on our YouTube channel in the comment section. So thank you so much if you're reaching out, if you're commenting on Instagram and just engaging with us. Like we really appreciate it. It's so cool to connect with you all and talk to you about these cases.
Yeah, we are on episode 98 this week and every week when I make those graphics, it just kind of amazes me to see the number tick by and how long we've been doing this for. And I'm just so grateful that, well, to you, honey, that you, you know, were brave and had the guts to do it and that so many people are engaging with us and listening. And yeah, it's really incredible to be here and to, you know, in our small way, like kind of be of service. Yeah. What is a podcast without the audience?
So thank you so much for sticking with us, no matter how long you've been here, if you've been here since the beginning or you just found us recently. Thanks for being here. With that said, I think we should just go ahead and get into this week's case. Yes, let's get into it. So just as a content warning at the top, this case does involve a young person. Today we are talking about the missing person case of James Yoblonski . And this takes place in Baraboo, Wisconsin in June of 2023.
But first a little bit about James. James is 13 years old in 2023. He would be 14 years old today. James lives with his father and three other siblings, two older brothers and a younger sister in Reedsburg, Wisconsin. At this time in 2023, James had just finished up seventh grade and was entering his summer break. James is a kind but rugged kid. Him and his family would often go camping for Father's Day. Any chance he gets, he loves being outdoors.
On those camping trips, he would often explore the woods by himself. He loved being in nature. And now a timeline of events. On Monday, June 12th, 2023, after everyone had gone to bed at around 1252 a.m., James appears on the family security camera leaving the house. He has a backpack and two duffel bags with him. About seven minutes later, just before 1 a.m., James is seen driving away in the family van.
After James leaves in the van, it's unclear exactly what time this happens, but he posts a video to Snapchat. Here is some of the audio that I could find from the video. Everyone who cares about me. It's not their fault. It's no one's fault. It's my fault. I want to explain it, but I don't know how. I'm scared. I'm sad. I have no emotions anymore. I've lost them. I'm not processing anything. My brain is... Something happened to it. I'm sorry, Reba. I can't make it.
Now, while this audio is absolutely concerning, James's father says that he was not suicidal at this time. At around 3 a.m., James is caught on surveillance video arriving at his dad's golf cart business in Wisconsin Dells. He's still in the family van. It only takes about 20 minutes to get from Reedsburg to Wisconsin Dells. So where James was from around 1 a.m. to 3 a.m., I'm not sure. By all accounts, James seems to just be sitting in the family van in the parking lot.
There are no details about if he gets out or if anybody is seen around the van. But after about 54 minutes, the van pulls out of the parking lot. The next sighting of the van comes around 4 45 a.m. A deputy sheriff notices that it's been abandoned on the side of the highway near the western edge of Devils Lake State Park. Devils Lake State Park is in Baraboo, Wisconsin and is only about 25 minutes south from Wisconsin Dells.
As the sun begins to rise, James' dad, Bill Yoblonski, gets up and immediately notices that James is missing. As he wakes up the rest of his kids and asks them to call 911, he also notices the family van is missing. Bill calls the police around 7 30 a.m. to report James missing. He tells police that most of the clothing is missing from his son's room, but that it isn't like James to run away. He's never done this before. As Bill looks through the house, he notices other items are missing.
Bill's cell phone is gone, which is why he had to ask his other children to call. A Wi-Fi only cell phone that was James' is missing as well. Two wilderness survival guides are gone, as well as one of Bill's handguns. James had gotten it out of a safe. Bill had no idea that James had access to the safe. As police start looking for James, they ping the cell phone he has with him. From the cell phone pings, police are able to track down the van to the side of the road.
At this point, the deputy sheriff, who had noticed it in the morning, those dots haven't been connected yet that it's related to James' disappearance. So police looking for James, they find the van at around 8.45 a.m. And next to it is a makeshift campsite. Police find Bill's cell phone abandoned about 200 yards away from the van. The Wi-Fi only phone has not been located at this point. Investigators descend on the location of the van and bring in dogs to help their search.
Bill is perplexed as to why James would go to Devil's Lake State Park. While both him and James enjoyed the outdoors and camping, they had never been to this particular spot before. The next day, Tuesday, June 13, the search for James continues near where the van was found and into the state park. Police ask that the public stay away from the area so they can search along the road safely. During the search, they find another campsite that they're able to tie back to James.
They found his backpack, three pairs of pants, three shirts, and a pillow from his home, a jug of water, and a knife sheath they believed belonged to James. Police will launch helicopters to help aid them in their search, but they don't find any more traces of James. The search will last for the next five days into the woods. Police refuse to let the public help due to how dangerous the bluffs are. Two police searchers had to be taken to the hospital for injuries sustained during the search.
Police will find additional campsites, but they can't trace those back to James. By Saturday, June 17, James has been missing for five days at this point. The police will announce that they're switching tactics in their search for James. Investigators at this point believe that James is attempting to, quote, live off the grid, end quote. Pointing to the two wilderness survival manuals that James brought with him. Police will back off of their search.
They'll wait for more potential sightings to come in, and then they'll search those areas specifically. Investigators believe that James is avoiding them in the woods at this point, and they don't want to push him farther into the woods into an area he may not know as well. They hope that witnesses will come forward and point them to the direct areas to search. On Sunday, June 25, approaching two weeks that James has been missing, the family organizes their own search of the area.
While the search doesn't turn up any clues or signs of James, the family feels good helping and doing something in their search for their loved one. Investigators are still searching the woods for James, but by the end of June, according to police, quote, the ground search has mostly turned into patrol searches, end quote. By July of 2023, police are focusing in on James' electronic and search history.
They're able to review a tablet that belonged to the Oblomskys and a tablet that James was issued through school. Through the electronic analysis, police find that James had been searching means of traveling out of state and specific areas in Wisconsin. Police don't give details about the specific areas, but they do say that they searched these areas and there was no sign of James. By the end of July of 2023, James has been missing for six weeks now.
His dad offers a $10,000 reward for his safe return. Bill believes someone picked his son up, quote, as much as they searched, they should have found some evidence of him being in there and they found nothing, end quote. During the first week of August of 2023, James has been missing for seven weeks at this point. The FBI joined the search. They help assist Sauk County in giving polygraphs to James' dad. Bill passes the polygraph.
Police have since come out and said that Bill has been cleared of any wrongdoing in his son's disappearance. Police are also able to rule out James' mother. She had not been involved in James' life for several years and didn't have any information to provide. In November of 2023, James has been missing for five months now, and police plan to do more searches throughout the fall as the leaves fall off of the tree. But they also ask that hunters in the area be on the lookout for any sign of James.
They specifically urge hunters near Devil's Lake and Baxter's Hollow to be on the lookout. Bill believes his son is still alive. He feels that in his heart, but he has different theories on where he could be. Bill was contacted by a psychic that was able to tell him things that nobody else could know. She told Bill that she had a vision of James heading west in a car from Devil's Lake, possibly to Colorado or Montana.
Yet, he also thinks that he could still be in the area, pointing to the fact that on four separate occasions, Bill would hang missing posters near the search area, but by the next day, they were all taken down. Bill thought that maybe James was taking them down so no one would recognize him. Bill also mentions, quote, There's another duffel bag somewhere full of clothes of his, end quote. This leads me to believe that police have been able to recover one of the duffel bags.
We know the backpack was found at one of the campsites in June of 2024. So it's been one year since James disappeared. The family hold a vigil for him to get his name back in the media and to raise awareness for his case. Bill doesn't believe that any family members took James, but he does think that James's classmates may know more or have more information to give.
His father says, quote, I know somebody's got him somewhere and I can't believe he hasn't been seen or any tips have come in or anything else. He's my son. I won't give up, end quote. But that is all we know about the disappearance of James Yoblonski. If you know anything about the disappearance of James Yoblonski or his whereabouts today, please call the Sauk County Sheriff at 608-356-4895. So that is the case of James Yoblonski .
I feel like we all kind of knew a kid like James, at least I did growing up. Hearing about him kind of reminded me of a lot of the boys in my neighborhood that I grew up with. And granted, I've seen the picture of him now. He was very familiar to me immediately. He looks like River Phoenix in Stand By Me. Yeah, he looks like a very sweet, rough and tumble boy. That's really sad, especially after listening to his Snapchat post. I know we'll expand on that.
But yeah, the familiarity of him, I think, came along with this happening so recently. It was very palpable. I was able to map out what and when and where in my head, I think, because this has happened so recently. Yeah, at the time of this recording, it's only been just a little over a year since James disappeared. So very recent, very recent. James does seem like a very familiar kid to me. I think you hit the nail on the head. I knew somebody that was like that, too, that was outdoorsy.
And any chance they were outside. So yeah. Yeah, when you do see if our listeners engage with our Instagram content or our website and you go and see the picture of him, he has pretty close to a buzz cut or maybe a little bit of a grown-out buzz cut. But yeah, those boys that we grew up with, they always had buzz cuts. So yeah, again, with the familiarity, which ushers in the heartbreak around this, I kind of feel like I know him. And now, so desperately, you want answers for his family.
Yeah, Bill, his dad, has been working on this case and trying to find clues and engage the media. And the $10,000 reward that he's offering, he was able to offer because he like mortgaged his house. So he's really doing everything to bring his son home. Since James, you know, is an adolescent, a minor, and since he did go missing so recently, I really want to be gentle and conscious around any speculative language as to what I think happened, slash what he was going through.
And I know that you do as well. Just to speak on it for a moment, the Snapchat, besides the physical evidence that was found in the searches for him of stuff left behind, the Snapchat is really the last clue we have of what his mindset was like as he was leaving. And as far as what I feel comfortable saying is, it sounded like to me he was in the middle of a mental health crisis. And I could just really feel for him, at least his tone of voice, it was one that I have heard in myself before.
That's really all I want to speculate on in that moment. But clearly to me, he was suffering in some way. The Snapchat video is hard to listen to just because you can hear the distress in his voice. And it does seem like he was really going through something, like something was heavy on his mind. So what's happening in the video, since we're on a podcast, the video is you just see the dashboard of the van and like the sound of the van kind of running in the background.
So it's presumed that he's like kind of driving and recording this video. But there's no other visual clues, at least that I'm aware of, that come from the Snapchat. But I do believe that there's more that I just wasn't able to access. Something else that I wrote down, this was more towards the end when you had mentioned that James' father was interested to know what his classmates knew, what his friends knew.
And something that I wrote down was a whole world can happen at school without parents ever knowing. And that's not to say that terrible things are happening or are always happening. I just mean that as children grow up and navigate the world and school, they become their own people and develop their own little lives.
So there's a whole ecosystem of stuff going on in a school, whereas it's completely possible that none of those things would be brought home or spoken about, even in a home where the parents are great. Yeah. And I can only imagine how more difficult that is to navigate in the world of social media and cell phones and always kind of having contact with your classmates and your friends.
When I was in middle school, if I wanted to talk to my friend, I had to call the house phone and talk to their parents first. And vice versa. My friends would usually have to ask my parents if I could talk on the phone. So my parents knew at least who I was talking to and who was calling me. They kind of just knew.
But with cell phones, like, yeah, kids can have full on friendships that their parents don't really know anything about just through online, both at school and like with other people, which sometimes is really great and sometimes can be dangerous. But yeah, I can only imagine what a cell phone adds to middle school. Something else that I wrote down immediately, and it was a question more to myself in my notes, was it seems like he was planning this with a question mark.
And as you started to dole out the details of the search efforts on both behalf of law enforcement and his family and loved ones, the left behind cell phone, the left behind items to me, both to echo what his father said that maybe someone took him or what law enforcement said that he was avoiding them. I wrote all of those things down at different points.
Yeah, one interesting thing that his dad did mention was, you know, they brought in sent dogs, but they didn't pick up anything. They couldn't really find James's sent. So it seems as if he just went to this, you know, there was the van with the campsite next to it. And then I believe there was another campsite that was found a little bit farther into the woods.
So it would seem as if James went there, set it up, and then kind of walked back the same way he came since there was no other sent picked up, or at least that's what his dad thinks. But with how long James has been gone, it does seem less likely that he's, you know, living off of the grid. You know, Wisconsin winters are pretty, pretty harsh and for him to be gone a full year living in the woods. Maybe he is an amazing survivalist and has a natural talent and ability to do it.
But it seems that he would have needed to seek out like more substantial shelter or food source or warmth at some point during the winter. So again, not to speculate too much, but it's it really is anything is possible here. This is something that you might not have the answer to. But I was curious to know if when they ruled out other campsites that they had found either abandoned or, you know, set up as whatever.
I'm curious if any DNA testing was done to rule out the possibility of him being there or just what made them, you know, hard nose for law enforcement that he wasn't there. I got the impression that they were able to rule it out because none of the items could be traced back to James that were left there. I do hope that, you know, his campsites where they were able to find his clothes, I do hope that there was evidence collection done and DNA samples taken just so we have those on file.
Hopefully, we never need them. Hopefully, James comes home. But in the event that they do need to go back and like, relook at that evidence, like, I hope that it is bagged and saved. Again, I feel hesitant to be speculative in James's case because, you know, quite possibly people who love and know him might hear this or hear mention of it.
And more than anything, I just want him, you know, and his loved ones to know that we're on their side and, you know, would love to help in any way to get him home safe and sound. Yeah, and James's dad has started a GoFundMe. We'll include that in the show notes. So if you want to donate or just post it in your own life for your own circles, all that information will be in the podcast notes so you can find it there.
And I do hope that we get to see James come home to his siblings and his dad, who they so desperately want him to come home. And even if, you know, he loves living off the grid and in the woods, I hope he's able to tell his family that he's okay.
And James's classmates, I hope they all feel empowered to tell investigators what they know, even if they don't think it's that significant, just telling police about James so that way they can get a clearer picture, know him better, maybe understand him, because you never know that small little thing that he mentioned that he joked about a one off comment
and crack the whole case open and lead to James and like be able to bring him home to his family. So I just really hope that his friends and classmates feel empowered that like, they can, they can help they can be part of this too, even if it's just saying what they know which is a really easy way to help. I think I agree more. You said empowered and again, especially if we have young listeners. And just to say it in general, I hope you feel empowered to use your voice at all times.
And, you know, if you are someone who is feeling like how James felt, there are people in your life who love you so much and are ready and willing to receive your feelings. It's okay to talk about your feelings out loud. There are people in your life who, whether they say it or not, all the time are encouraging you to do it. What you have to say matters and what you feel matters.
So again, if you know anything about the disappearance of James Yoblonski or his whereabouts today, please call the Sauk County Sheriff at 608-356-4895. And we will have pictures of James on our Instagram as well as some pictures from the surveillance video of him leaving his house and police photos of the campsite that was found. So all of that will be up on our Instagram at Cold and Missing. You can find us there. And we'll also have the GoFundMe linked in our bio there as well.
Thank you again to everyone who has left us a review this week. We appreciate it so much. It really helps others find this podcast and therefore find these stories. So that is a small way that you can support this podcast. You can do it today right there in Apple Podcasts or you can go to our website
www.coldandmissing.com. You can leave us review there as well or whatever platform you're in. We appreciate all of them and they all help us. So thank you if you've already done it. Thank you if you're going to do it. And on our website you can also find the transcripts, the official transcripts. So I go through, I correct all the spelling on those. So if Apple Podcasts is incorrect in their transcript, find it on our website www.coldandmissing.com.
But that is all I have. Thank you so much for listening to Cold and Missing. I'm Allie. And I'm Eli. Have a good week and stay safe y'all. Stay safe y'all.