Lead: In June 2016, 14-year-old Jade Colvin ran away from a shelter in Iowa and vanished. Years later a coalition of local detectives, the U.S. Marshals Service and state agents reopened her file, tracing social media, phone records and witness reports to a rural Decorah farm. That long inquiry produced photos and deleted messages that shifted the investigation from a runaway case to a homicide probe. By August 2025 a jury found James Bachmurski Sr. guilty of second-degree murder, though Jade’s remains have not been recovered.
Key takeaways
- Jade Colvin, 14, was reported missing on June 10, 2016, after leaving a youth shelter in Iowa; she had a documented history of running away from placements and facilities.
- Operation Homecoming, a statewide effort by the U.S. Marshals Service, brought renewed attention to Jade’s cold case beginning in 2022 and generated nationwide tips.
- Investigators used warrants to access Instagram and Facebook records; messages and voice notes tied Jade to her mother LaDawn and to a Decorah farm owned by James Bachmurski Sr.
- An old cellphone recovered from Bachmurski’s property contained the last known photos of Jade and deleted messages from family members pleading for contact.
- Agents say photos taken on April 1, 2017 showed an unusually clean kitchen and bedroom two days after Jade’s last confirmed texts, a change later followed by evidence of a replaced mattress.
- Based on the digital trail, witness accounts and interviews, authorities charged Bachmurski in August 2024; he was convicted of second-degree murder in August 2025 and received a 50-year sentence.
- Jade’s body has never been located; investigators and family members continue to seek her remains and urge anyone with information to come forward.
Background
Jade grew up in a family affected by substance use and instability. In September 2015 the Iowa Department of Human Services placed her in foster care after concluding her mother, LaDawn Colvin, could not provide safe custody. Over the following months Jade moved among shelters, facilities and family contacts, often leaving placements and returning home or to friends.
Her mother retained contact through social media and voice messages, and family and friends posted public appeals after Jade disappeared in 2016. Despite repeated online outreach and localized searches, Jade’s digital footprint effectively stopped after late March 2017, prompting investigators to treat the case as more than a habitual runaway scenario as time went on.
Main event
In 2022, the U.S. Marshals Service folded Jade’s file into Operation Homecoming, a campaign to locate missing children across Iowa. The team — including Des Moines detective Cheryl Nablo, Deputy U.S. Marshal Justin Wallace, Winneshiek County Det. Chris Wuebker and Iowa DCI Special Agent Jon Turbett — began systematically reexamining records, social media and leads from tip lines.
That review identified a pattern of messages indicating Jade had spent months in Arizona, and evidence LaDawn planned to move her back into Iowa. Social posts and voice notes led investigators to Decorah, a small northeastern Iowa town, and to a farm owned by James Bachmurski Sr., who had been in a relationship with LaDawn.
Local interviews located Bryan Bachmurski, who confirmed Jade had been on the farm and showed staff photos of her smiling at a local Pizza Ranch. Bryan initially provided an account of the last night he saw Jade and was later cleared after corroboration from phone timestamps and employment records.
A search of property-related locations produced an old cellphone belonging to Bachmurski Sr. The device contained the last known photographs of Jade, communications showing family members pleading for her return, and, crucially, seemingly ordinary photos taken shortly after her disappearance that showed rooms in the house cleaned and rearranged.
Analysis & implications
Investigators interpreted the abrupt disappearance of Jade’s online activity, the deleted family messages on Bachmurski’s phone and the unusual post-disappearance photos as indicators that criminal activity, not voluntary absence, explained her vanishing. For prosecutors, the pattern suggested concealment and possible destruction of evidence.
Legally the absence of a body presented a significant hurdle. Prosecutors had to connect circumstantial proof — last-known-location evidence, digital traces, witness accounts and Bachmurski’s statements — to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that Jade did not leave voluntarily and that a crime occurred. Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown emphasized the challenge of proving death and homicide without physical remains.
For rural investigations, this case underscores how modern forensics and old-fashioned canvassing can combine: social-media forensics and seized devices created leads; local interviews and searches supplied context. The prosecution relied on that hybrid approach to convert a cold-case file into a courtroom case.
Beyond the courtroom, the case has policy implications for how child-welfare agencies track runaways, how custody disruptions are documented and how interagency task forces like Operation Homecoming can sustain attention on long-term missing-persons investigations.
Comparison & data
| Year | Key development |
|---|---|
| 2015 | Iowa DHS places Jade in foster care (age 13) |
| June 10, 2016 | Jade reported missing after leaving shelter (age 14) |
| March–April 2017 | Last known social contacts; photos on Bachmurski Sr.’s phone |
| 2022 | U.S. Marshals’ Operation Homecoming reopens the file |
| August 2024 | Bachmurski charged with second-degree murder |
| August 2025 | Jury convicts Bachmurski; sentenced to 50 years |
Placing these milestones side by side highlights the long interval between disappearance and prosecution: nearly a decade elapsed from Jade’s vanishing to a verdict. The data also show how intermittent traces — social posts in 2017, deleted messages on a recovered phone and later tips spurred by a 2022 statewide effort — can coalesce into prosecutable evidence when investigators persist.
Reactions & quotes
Family and friends described shock and grief at the verdict and frustration that Jade’s remains remain undiscovered. Investigators stressed persistence and teamwork as decisive factors in solving the case.
“I think of my own children,”
Det. Cheryl Nablo, Des Moines Police
Det. Nablo — who specializes in locating missing children — said the case consumed investigators’ attention for years and that every credible tip was pursued to the end.
“We are here to locate kids who run away,”
Deputy U.S. Marshal Justin Wallace
Wallace framed Operation Homecoming as a concentrated effort to reconnect runaways with family and clarify unclear cases, noting the nationwide flow of tips that followed renewed publicity.
“I thought James Bachmurski had killed and disposed of Jade’s body,”
Special Agent Jon Turbett, Iowa DCI
Turbett recounted how photos and deleted messages shifted his theory from disappearance to homicide and how he used repeated interviews to test that theory against Bachmurski’s statements.
Unconfirmed
- Exact location and condition of Jade Colvin’s remains remain unknown; no recovery has been publicly reported.
- Whether LaDawn Colvin knew specific details about Bachmurski Sr.’s prior violent behavior has not been established in public records.
- Some motives discussed at trial — including allegations of sexual attraction — were supported by evidence presented by prosecutors but not independently verifiable outside the courtroom record presented to the jury.
Bottom line
The investigation into Jade Colvin’s disappearance demonstrates the evolving nature of missing-persons work: years of intermittent tips, new task-force resources and phone-based evidence combined to convert a cold file into a murder prosecution. The jury verdict brought accountability for a man prosecutors say was the last person to see Jade alive, and it offered partial closure for family and community after nearly a decade of uncertainty.
Yet the case is incomplete: without Jade’s remains, many factual and emotional questions remain unresolved. Authorities and family members continue to seek information that could locate her body, provide a fuller narrative of what happened in March–April 2017, and enable a proper burial and final answers for those who knew and loved her.