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A Drive to Look at Land in the Mountains
On October 8, 2009, Bobby Jamison, 44, his wife Sherilynn, 40, and their 6‑year‑old daughter Madyson left their home in Eufaula, Oklahoma, to drive into the Sans Bois Mountains near Red Oak.
They were reportedly interested in buying a remote 40‑acre plot of land in the Latimer County hills, a rugged, heavily wooded area with rough dirt roads and limited cell service.
The Jamisons never returned.
Days later, searchers found the family’s white pickup truck abandoned on a dirt track in the mountains.
Inside it were their wallets, phones, GPS, a purse, Madyson’s beloved dog — weak but alive — and a fireproof bag containing $32,000 in cash.
There were no signs of a struggle at the truck, no obvious mechanical problem, and no clear explanation for why the Jamisons had walked away from so much money in such an isolated place.
Case Snapshot
- Location (pin): Remote forest road in the Sans Bois Mountains near Red Oak, Latimer County, southeastern Oklahoma – the spot where the Jamisons’ pickup was found abandoned.
- Date: Family last seen alive October 8, 2009; truck found October 17, 2009; remains discovered November 2013, identified in 2014.
Family
- Bobby Dale Jamison, 44
- Sherilynn Leighann Jamison, 40
- Madyson Stormy Star Jamison, 6
Key physical evidence
- Abandoned pickup with:
- $32,000 in cash in a locked fireproof bag
- Cell phones, GPS unit, wallets, IDs, coats
- Madyson’s dog, nearly dead from hunger but recoverable
- Strange home surveillance footage taken days before, showing Bobby and Sherilynn moving in and out of the house in a trancelike, back‑and‑forth pattern, loading possessions into the truck without speaking.
Outcome
- November 2013: A hunter found skeletal remains of two adults and a child about 2–3 miles from the truck, deep in the woods.
- Forensic analysis identified them as Bobby, Sherilynn, and Madyson; cause and manner of death could not be determined due to advanced decomposition and animal activity.
- The case remains officially unsolved, with homicide, accident, and murder‑suicide all considered possible.
The Truck in the Trees
When search teams found the Jamisons’ truck, it looked more like a vehicle temporarily parked than one broken down.
It sat on a narrow, rough track off a logging road, pointed as if it had been driven there deliberately rather than crashing or getting stuck.
Inside, investigators found:
- $32,000 in cash in a fireproof bag stashed under a seat — an amount unusual enough to draw immediate suspicion.
- The family’s IDs, wallets, and cell phones, suggesting they had not left intending to go far or for long.
- Madyson’s small dog in a crate, alive but barely, indicating the family had been gone for days.
- No signs of a struggle, no blood, no obvious damage.
The engine appeared functional, the tank had fuel, and the location, while remote, was not entirely unrecoverable by tow truck.
The question became: why would a family leave a working truck, their money, and their dog, and hike into steep, tick‑infested woods with a 6‑year‑old child?
Searches on foot, by horseback, with ATVs and helicopters, and using cadaver dogs turned up nothing in 2009–2010.
The forest simply swallowed them.
The Strange Surveillance Video
One of the most chilling pieces of the Jamison case is the CCTV footage from their own home, recorded in the days before they vanished.
The video shows Bobby and Sherilynn repeatedly:
- Walking in and out of the house,
- Moving items into the truck,
- Wearing distant, flat expressions,
- Barely speaking or interacting with each other.
They appear almost robotic — shuffling back and forth as if following a script or under heavy stress.
Investigators and commentators have suggested possibilities:
- They were on medication or in an altered mental state.
- They were deeply anxious or paranoid about something.
- They were surreptitiously packing to leave in a hurry.
Yet they weren’t emptying the house; they were moving selected items, and their movements don’t look like a typical organized relocation.
The footage doesn’t show the final departure, but it solidified the case’s eerie tone: something was wrong in the Jamison household before they ever drove into the mountains.
Theories: Cartels, Cults, Family Conflict, and Mental Health
With no clear cause of death and a pile of odd details, the Jamison case has attracted many theories.
Drug‑deal or cartel angle
The large amount of cash in the truck led some to suspect involvement in drug trafficking or a drug purchase gone wrong.
There were rumors of meth activity in the mountains and speculation that the Jamisons might have been meeting someone, then ambushed.
But:
- Leaving $32,000 behind is strange for a robbery.
- The remains were found within walking distance of the truck, not buried or hidden as one might expect in a planned execution.
Family feud and “hit list”
Sherilynn reportedly had a handwritten note in the house expressing anger and dark thoughts, sometimes described as a “hit list,” aimed at Bobby and others.
The couple had financial troubles and a contentious lawsuit with Bobby’s father over family land; some wondered if a relative or hired killer was involved.
Yet no clear evidence links any family member to the mountain site on the day they vanished.
Spiritual / cult / paranoia angle
Friends and relatives have said the Jamisons believed their house might be haunted and had consulted a local pastor about spiritual oppression.
There are stories of them researching witchcraft or spiritual warfare online, and of Bobby acquiring a protective book.
Some interpretations see the cash, the abrupt departure, and the strange video as signs of deep paranoia — possibly a shared psychosis, escalating mental illness, or the influence of drugs compounded by fear.
Murder‑suicide or family pact
Given the note in the house and both adults’ depression, a murder‑suicide scenario has been suggested: that one parent, or both, killed the family deeper in the woods.
However, without clear ballistic or trauma evidence on the skeletons, this remains speculative, and no firearm was definitively tied to such an act.
Simple but tragic misadventure
It’s also possible they left the truck voluntarily for a short walk — to scout the land, find a better view, or chase something Madyson wanted to see — and then:
- Got disoriented in the thick woods,
- Succumbed to hypothermia, heat stress, or dehydration,
- Became victims of a natural hazard (fall, snakebite) and then of the elements.
The presence of cash in the abandoned truck, however, keeps pulling the story back toward foul‑play theories.
The Remains in the Woods
In November 2013 — four years after the disappearance — a hunter stumbled upon partial skeletal remains in the forest approximately 2–3 miles from where the Jamison truck had been found.
Forensic work and dental records confirmed they belonged to Bobby, Sherilynn, and Madyson.
The remains were scattered, with some bones missing, consistent with weather and animal activity over multiple seasons.
There were no obvious bullet holes documented publicly, no knives or ligatures definitively associated with the bones, and no clothing evidence that clearly pointed toward one cause of death over another.
The medical examiner listed the manner of death as “unknown.”
Law enforcement has remained publicly open to homicide, accident, or some combination of the two — but has not named any suspects.
The discovery closed the missing‑persons chapter but left the mystery intact:
- The Jamisons did die in those hills.
- How they died, and why they ended up on that particular slope, is still unanswered.
Why This Case Is on True Crime Maps
This episode centers on a single, haunting pin: the dirt road in the Sans Bois Mountains where the Jamison family’s pickup truck was found. (Approximate area)
On a map, it’s just a small spur off an unpaved forest route, miles from the nearest town and far from any cell tower — exactly the kind of place most people never see unless they seek it out.
At that spot:
- A truck sat with $32,000 in cash, phones, IDs, and a starving dog still inside.
- Any tracks or footprints that might have explained the family’s path were erased by weather and time.
- The nearest answer — the hillside where their bones were eventually found — lay a couple of miles away, just beyond the reach of the first search teams.
On True Crime Maps, this pin raises the question at the heart of the Jamison story:
How can a family drive to a single remote point, step out of a vehicle full of money and supplies, and simply walk into the trees… never to return with a story we can prove?
It’s a rural‑road mystery where satellite imagery, GPS logs, and eerie video from days before still haven’t filled in the most important gaps: what they were thinking when they turned up that track, who — if anyone — was waiting for them, and what happened in the woods that turned three missing persons into three unanswered deaths.
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