Investigators team up to solve mystery of missing Iowa teen

Cheryl Nablo, a mother of three, is a detective with the Des Moines, Iowa police department. She specializes in finding missing kids.

Det. Cheryl Nablo: I myself have thought of Jade several times when not at work.

Det. Cheryl Nablo: I think of my own children. … if you went a day not knowing where one of your kids … was at … you’d go crazy. … nobody wants to be living in a world where they don’t know where their kid is … or if their kids’ safe.

In 2022, Nablo joined forces with Deputy U.S. Marshal Justin Wallace, Detective Chris Wuebker and Special Agent Jon Turbett in the search for Jade Colvin. Jade was 14 when she was reported missing in June 2016 after she ran away from a local shelter for troubled youth.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Justin Wallace: We are here to locate kids who run away.

The U.S. Marshals Service had adopted Jade’s case as part of a statewide effort to find missing children called Operation Homecoming.

Natalie Morales: What are the challenges … in finding missing children?

Det. Cheryl Nablo: … when somebody goes missing, they want to be missing. They don’t want you to know where they are … it’s hard to track ’em down.

At that point Jade had been missing for more than five years.

Natalie Morales: Where do you begin?

Deputy U.S. Marshal Justin Wallace: You gotta start at the beginning. … you gotta know who the person is, their friends, their family, their whole background.

And they soon discovered Jade had a troubled childhood.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Justin Wallace: Jade … had a rough go of it growing up.

Det. Cheryl Nablo: … things weren’t the easiest for her.

Detective Nablo learned Jade’s mother LaDawn, had died three years after Jade went missing.

Det. Cheryl Nablo: So I couldn’t just reach out to her and talk to her … about everything that she knew about Jade.

Jade’s father, Kevin, had lost contact with his daughter. Both parents had struggled with substance abuse, something Special Agent Jon Turbett explains had an impact on Jade.

Special Agent Jon Turbett: Jade Colvin grew up with a … I think a pretty dysfunctional family situation. It was difficult.

Dainlynn Greer: She didn’t hold any of it. … She just accepted it for like what it was and dealt with it and didn’t let it get to her negatively.

Natalie Morales: Where do you begin?

Dainlynn Greer: Loved her to death, spent every day together.

Despite everything, friend Dainlynn Greer and her mother Jamee Koopman describe Jade as easy going and upbeat.

Jamee Koopman: There was reasons she could have been angry, and she wasn’t. Like, she was very light —

Dainlynn Greer: Yeah.

Jamee Koopman: — light and bubbly.

Jamee Koopman: I met her mom … her mom was very unreliable. … she kept telling me, oh, how much she loves Jade and … all that, you know, and I believe she did, don’t get me wrong.