Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
The Disappearance of Jermain Charlo: A Case That Demands Justice
14 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What happened to Jermain Charlo on June 15, 2018?
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Imagine you have two little kids who are safe and healthy, a new job that you're about to start that you're actually excited about. You're looking forward to this next chapter of your life. So you go out to a bar to celebrate, but you never make it back home.
This is what happened to 23-year-old Jermaine Charlo. And unfortunately, her story happens far too often to other young indigenous women like her. The search for Jermaine continues to this day. And if she's still out there somewhere, you could be the one to help bring her home.
Hi guys, welcome back to another episode of Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases. I'm Kayla Moore. I'm going to be the one digging deeper into some of the timelines, the backstories, the court files released on these cases. And I'm your internet sleuth, Morgan Absher.
I'm the one who's diving into the Reddit forums and talking about some of the lesser known details and really pulling out the threads that just don't add up.
And don't forget to share your thoughts on social with us. Want ad-free listening and early access? Subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. Also, search and follow Crime House Daily, Crime House's twice-a-day show that has unbelievable stories from the world of crime. Let's get into this case and the clues that defined it.
Morgan, before we jump in, can I shout out some of our listeners? Yes. I wanted to shout out some of our listeners. So we did an episode a few months ago on Savannah LaFontaine Graywind. And we heard from some of you guys. And so I wanted to shout out Ayanna was one. We had Kate, Kendra, and Dakota. These are at least ones that I saw.
I think there's maybe more people than that, but they're all indigenous women who listen to our show or descendants of indigenous women. And I just was thinking about them when we were getting ready to do this episode, because obviously this is another missing and murdered indigenous woman story.
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Chapter 2: Who were the key people in Jermain's life before her disappearance?
Absolutely. Without further ado.
Yeah, before we even dive in, I want to immediately give a shout out to Connie Walker, who was one of the many sources that we looked into for this episode. Instrumental in this case. But she did very in-depth reporting with the Stolen team for their podcast that they did on Jermaine Charlo. There's three seasons out, I believe now, but the first season is all on Jermaine's story.
So check out the Stolen podcast. It's incredible reporting. And Connie gets a lot deeper than the police can. ever get on this case. So just wanted to give a shout out to her. And also just a reminder, if you're watching this on YouTube, you're going to see some images and photos, assets that are going to help you visualize the case, some maps and stuff.
But if you are just listening to the episode, you can also check out our socials. That's at clues podcast, and you can see those same assets. All right, let's dig into this one.
Just a quick warning on this episode. It does include discussions of domestic violence, essay, pregnancy loss, and sex trafficking. So please listen with care. All right.
Our story starts on June 15th, 2018. That's when 23-year-old Jermaine Charlo just wanted to go out for the night and have a little bit of fun. Now, Jermaine lived around Missoula, Montana. And that evening, she met up with her ex-boyfriend, 25-year-old Michael DeFrance. He is also the father of her two young sons, who were two and three at the time.
Jermaine and Michael had been broken up for about a year at this point. They had a pretty tumultuous on-again, off-again eight-year relationship. But according to Jermaine's mother, Jermaine was hoping to get back on friendly terms with Michael. I mean, they have two kids together. It's just going to be a lot easier if they can at least be friends.
By this point as well, it seems like both of them have moved on from their relationship. Michael had actually announced his engagement to a 21-year-old woman named Cheyenne the previous December, so about seven months earlier. Jermaine even congratulated him on social media when he did this. So by June 15th, they were ready to catch up over some drinks.
Jermaine and Michael entered the Dark Horse Bar together in Missoula, Montana around 10 p.m. that night. Missoula is a college town. There's a ton of nightlife there. So when Jermaine and Michael left the Dark Horse a little bit later that evening, they had a lot of options on where they wanted to go next. They ended up taking a five minute drive to two bars that are located in the same building.
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Chapter 3: What evidence was found during the investigation into Jermain's case?
So Jermaine was born on April 23rd, 1995, on the Flathead Reservation in northwest Montana to 19-year-old Johnny Sean Sharlow and 15-year-old Jennifer Morgeau. Like her parents, Jermaine is an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, or CSKT for short. Now, unfortunately, from what we can tell, it seems like Jermaine had a pretty tough childhood.
Her parents were teens when they had her. They had a lot going on in their own personal lives. There's reports of them struggling with alcohol addiction. And they split up when Jermaine was about a year old. Jermaine stayed with her mom, and she didn't really see her dad much after that, but they did stay connected over the years.
Things didn't get much better for her mom, though, after her parents split. According to Jermaine's best friend Jocelyn, Jermaine later witnessed her mother being physically abused by a live-in boyfriend. It's not really clear how old Germaine was at the time, but luckily she had other relatives that were willing to take her in both on and off of the reservation.
Her extended family is described as being incredibly close. It's very typical for Germaine's tribe as well. Elders in the Salish and Kootenai culture take a very active role in child rearing. They're viewed as the leaders of their families. So throughout her early life, Germaine alternated between living with her mother and her great-grandfather, Elmer Sonny Morgeau, both in Eschalip, Montana.
Eschalip is this small town that's located on the Flathead Reservation. It was previously called Dixon at the time that Germaine disappeared, but in this episode, we're going to refer to it as Eschalip. As Jalip is kind of described as being this pretty boring small town, there's not even a movie theater or mall. There's like nowhere to really get food.
But Jermaine's childhood there was never boring. She loved nature. She had all kinds of pets. She had flying squirrels and lizards. There was like a pair of pigs that she looked after. And when she wasn't taking care of them, she would go down to the river where she would fish or she would be in her bedroom creating art.
She used whatever she found around the house for her projects, like nail polish and grocery bags her family described. Germaine even dreamed of going to school at the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico and becoming a professional artist.
But in February of 2010, when she was just 14 years old, she met 16-year-old Michael DeFrance, who moved in down the street from her, and that changed everything about her life. Now, there's something about Michael that is important to explain because it's actually going to play a really big role in the investigation later on.
But Michael's dad is an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes, but Michael's mother is white. And so Michael was not tribally enrolled at the time, even though his father was. Now, one thing that I was interested to learn about was
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Chapter 4: How did the police respond to Jermain's disappearance?
Now this was the total opposite of how her family saw her. They knew her as this brilliant artist with ambitions and all these skills. She loved hunting and fishing. She knitted and crocheted. Like eventually she goes on to crochet all of her children's clothing. She's like a very hardworking person.
She's so talented. You guys will see some pictures of her art and it's really beautiful. And like she was so resourceful. I mean, you mentioned nail polish and grocery bags. She was crocheting the grocery bags. Like Right. So resourceful and crafty.
But then she's calling, she's demeaning herself in this video. And so her family starts thinking like, well, is this what you think about yourself or is this what someone is telling you? Where's this coming from? About yourself. Where is this coming from? Exactly. And unfortunately, after this, things get a little bit tougher for Jermaine.
When she was 18 years old and a senior in high school, she got pregnant again with Michael's baby. He was 20 years old at the time. On July 11th, 2014, 19-year-old Jermaine gave birth to her first baby boy. And then in December of 2015, Jermaine gave birth to her second child with Michael, another boy. But the next few years for the couple was really on and off.
And that's kind of putting things lightly. They argued a lot. And eventually Jermaine realized it was best if she and Michael parted ways for good. She went back to live with her family while the two of them figured out custody agreements with their children. And a couple of years later, in December of 2017, she gets a job bartending at the Big River Cantina in Eshalip.
And that same month, that's when Michael announced that he was now engaged to a new woman. But Jermaine was busy with her own life. I mean, at that point, she was training to become a firefighter. She's also dating other people, too. In May of 2018, she starts dating this guy named Jacob. We don't know a ton about him other than the two of them met on a dating app.
He graduated high school in 2009, making him probably around 27 when they met. That was four years older than she was. However, Jermaine wouldn't tell people his name, but she would talk about how much better he treated her than how Michael treated her. And her life was really looking up at this point. She has this new boyfriend. She's starting her firefighting training.
She's actually about to start that on June 18th, 2018. But things in her life took a turn just three nights before on Friday, June 15th.
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Chapter 5: What were the circumstances surrounding Michael DeFrance's involvement?
Less than an hour after Jermaine was last seen in that security video, which was just before 1am on June 16th, Jacob, her new boyfriend, tried to call her. She was supposed to stay at his place in Missoula that night, even though he was out of town, and he says the phone rang before going to voicemail.
but that he thinks the call was ignored and sent to voicemail by someone doing it on purpose, by, you know, holding that side button on most phones. Yeah. Later, Jermaine's phone records do confirm that the call was manually silenced. So somebody, it's unclear who, must have had Jermaine's phone.
Yeah, it was confirmed that Jermaine did not make it to Jacob's house that night. But things got even more worrisome because no one had heard from her by Saturday, June 16th either. Her grandmother, Vicky, around that time tried calling her. And when Jermaine didn't pick up or call back that day, Vicky knew that something was wrong.
Jermaine always had her phone and she always answered her grandmother's calls. I mean, that is one thing that Michael complained about, too, is that she was always on her phone. But she was a texter backer. Like she had her phone on her. She was always texting her friends. So it's very strange when she doesn't text her family back.
Plus, on top of that, she's very active on social media the entire time.
Yeah, huge. I mean, she was making TikToks up until going out that night. Yes. Like her family knew she was very good about her phone. And like they immediately were on Facebook trying to message her, trying to FaceTime her. Like they knew something was up by her not responding.
And all of that social media goes dark after that moment as well. So both of those things become huge red flags. Vicki ends up calling Jermaine's mother and her aunts, who say they hadn't heard from her either. Neither had anyone else in the family. They're all at this point trying to get in touch with her.
And on Sunday the 17th, Jermaine's mother, Jennifer, reports her missing to the tribal police. We'll get a little bit more into the dynamics between the tribal police and the local police in just a bit, but... They say that since Jermaine went missing in Missoula, that's where she would have to be reported missing. And there wasn't much that they could do.
But the Missoula police wouldn't take a report by phone. So it was going to be a couple of days before someone in the family could actually make that 40 mile drive to Missoula. So in the meantime, they all just started looking for Jermaine on their own. And I see you picking up that watch board. That's absolutely right.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of domestic violence in Jermain's story?
They won't really listen to the family when they tell them that they've already done that. So at that point, Jermaine's family basically is begging them to do a full-blown search to expand the radius of people that they're talking to. And so the volunteers are still searching the areas anywhere they can think of for Jermaine.
And that's when the police decide that there is one person that they're interested in talking to. And that's who they can basically at that moment agree is maybe the last person to see her. And it's her ex, Michael DeFrance.
Finally, finally we get there. And that brings us to our second clue, Michael's story. Due to the confidentiality rules in Montana, we don't know exactly when this interview actually took place, but it is likely that it was in, you know, the first few days of Jermaine's disappearance. But after the days they already wasted because they wouldn't, you know, take that missing person report.
Here's what Michael said. He admitted that he had given Jermaine a ride after they left the bar that night, but he said that she was only in his car briefly before he dropped her off at the Orange Street Food Farm.
The food farm is a grocery store about a five-minute walk from Jacob's place, so this would have made sense if Jermaine didn't want Michael to know she was walking over to someone's house or who she was dating. But here's the thing. Michael changes his story about that night later on.
In a later interview with police, he said that he actually left Jermaine eight blocks away from the food farm in a residential area where Jermaine said she was spending the night with a friend named Cassidy. But detectives never found anyone named Cassidy who lived in that area or even had a connection to Jermaine.
The police kind of considered that maybe she invented Cassidy as another way to hide Jacob from Michael. Police did go on to check Jacob's alibi. That was rock solid. He wasn't even in Montana the night she disappeared. So as days tick by with no word from Jermaine, Michael was looking more and more suspicious.
Early on in the investigation, Jermaine's family used Facebook to get the word out about her disappearance, and these posts got hundreds of shares. Many of the reposts came from locals willing to show up in person and help search for her. Her family also got in touch with a local Christian nonprofit group in the area called the Lifeguard Group.
They printed up flyers and immediately sent a whole search party to the area where Jermaine was last seen. They even canvassed every home. They showed people pictures of her and asked if they had seen her. And that didn't really pan out, so they organized volunteers for a larger-scale search with up to 60 people. Jermaine's family also led their own searches at this time.
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Chapter 7: How has the investigation evolved over the years?
Because the more they looked into Michael and his relationship with Jermaine, the more they realized just how toxic it was. And that Michael could be their main suspect. So we're going to hop back in time again a little bit here because there's a lot we haven't really told you guys about Jermaine and Michael's tumultuous, again, understatement, seven-year relationship.
And that includes a pretty upsetting history of domestic violence, which is our fourth clue. Here is what we know. One of the earliest incidents we can pinpoint happened five years before Jermaine disappeared. Late at night on April 13th, 2013, the police are called for help at an address in Ashley.
By the time a deputy with the Sanders County Sheriff's Office arrived, it was just after midnight on April 14th. The deputy found Jermaine out front of the residence, upset and injured. Nearby, two tribal police officers were detaining Michael. Jermaine told the deputy that her night started with plans to meet Michael about 40 miles away in Missoula for a trip to a Walmart and a China buffet.
But Jermaine had decided to stay home instead, so Michael returned to Ashley furious, saying that he had waited over an hour for her to meet him, and she didn't show. According to Jermaine, she grabbed her belongings she had at Michael's place and told him she was going to her great-grandfather's house. But as she tried to walk away, Michael ended up attacking her from behind.
He ended up shoving her into his family's van, pinned her down, punched her in the ear, temple, and cheekbone, spat on her, verbally abused her, and then he walked off. Jermaine also told the deputy that Michael had previously said things to her like, quote, if I can't have you, nobody can.
After taking her statement, the deputy photographed Jermaine's face, which showed bruising on her cheekbone and around her left temple. Officers also took pictures of Michael's hands, showing swollen knuckles on his right hand. The deputy arrested Michael and charged him with partner family member assault, or PFMA, which is essentially Montana's way of describing misdemeanor domestic violence.
Michael did spend the night in jail, and these details were uncovered by Connie Walker, the journalist we mentioned, who... She ended up actually seeing this full arrest report, including police photos of Jermaine's bruised cheekbone and Michael's swollen knuckles. But before those bruises really even got a chance to heal, Jermaine and Michael had seemingly gotten back together.
And this is obviously a very complex situation. I mean, I talk about it on Too Hot Takes a lot because we do get a lot of these stories from, you know, people writing in. But it, on average, takes someone seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship. And there's so many psychological factors. And we're really kind of just beginning to study this.
But regardless, this is kind of where Jermaine and Michael stood at this point. So on her 18th birthday, April 23rd, 2013, Germaine took all of her stuff from her mom's house and officially moved back in with 20-year-old Michael. Less than a month later, on May 6th, Michael officially pleaded guilty to assaulting Germaine.
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Chapter 8: What resources are available for missing and murdered Indigenous women?
100%. It's out there. When I was reading through this case, I was just thinking about, because now I'm eight months pregnant, but just days I've had where I can't get off the couch. And I've had, by all means, an easy pregnancy. Days where I'm crying because I can't even make food for myself. Just needing someone to take care of me, which I'm not used to.
And so I can't even imagine being in a situation where you're also, you need to flee someone or someone's taking advantage of the fact that you can't fight back at It's some of the most heartbreaking stuff I've ever read about.
It is. It's really tough. And Jermaine did not have a safe and easy pregnancy by the sounds of it.
Yeah.
According to a lot of friends and family members who spoke with Connie Walker, her and Michael continued fighting the whole time. It was two weeks before Thomas was born that they actually had an altercation that also involved one of Jermaine's aunts. And this ended up with Michael being arrested for assault.
Connie was actually able to find an official record of this arrest, but there's no record of him ever being charged or convicted.
Well,
this is what i was talking about earlier when we kind of get into the dynamic of michael's family right because he's not a registered tribal member yeah he can't be convicted by the tribal police he can be arrested but he can't be convicted by the tribal police and oftentimes that's the only investigating agency looking into these crimes which i don't understand this and if we do have any listeners that like live on a reservation or are familiar with this like
Can you explain this to me? Because this seems like it should be a botched board. Because if someone who's not a tribal member walks on a reservation and commits a crime, they can't be tried or convicted because they're not a tribal member?
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