MISSING: Christopher “Cole” Thomas

And I'm Brent.

“And you guys sometimes the hardest cases to crack aren't always the ones with nothing to go on.”

They're often the ones where everybody seems to know something, but they're too scared to talk. Because today's story isn't about someone disappearing into the dark alone. It's about a young man who vanished in front of, quote unquote, "friends from work."

Their first version? He panicked, pulled the car over, hopped out and booked it.

But the only people who say they saw what happened next are the same ones who can't keep their story straight. And when the truth keeps bending like that, it's not confusion, it's not bad memory. Usually, it's a bold-faced lie. This is the story of Christopher Cole Thomas. [Music]

It's just after 3 a.m. on Black Friday, in 2016. But in the small town of Benson, North Carolina, no one's lining up to snag a deal on the latest iPhone or the biggest TV.

“It's quiet. Most people are asleep, and the streets are practically empty.”

Which is giving time for a couple of officers to finish up some paperwork in the police department parking lot. And it's in that quiet moment when two men walk up. Their names are Julian Vias Jr. and Jeremy Carpenter. Now they're not panicked or screaming or anything like that, they just need a little bit of help. They're passing through after visiting Julian's family for Thanksgiving.

They were on their way back to Minnesota where they both work. But now they don't have keys to their car. And the story of how that happened is weird.

They say that they were traveling with a third buddy, Christopher Thomas, who goes by Cole.

And he's the one who was driving. But out of nowhere, he started acting paranoid. And before they knew it, he pulled over, took the keys, jumped out, and then ran until he dropped out of sight. They don't know why or where he went.

I mean, Cole couldn't have even known where he was because he's not from around there. He's from Florida. The only half explanation that Julian offers up is that he had heard rumors that Cole might have quote mental problems. But he wasn't even really sure. They said they tried looking for him themselves, but they can't find him and now they're just stuck.

Now, the story is a bit odd, sure, but not enough to set off alarm bells for these officers. Because even though it's an ungodly hour, these guys don't appear to be under the influence or anything like that. So the officers do what they can. The guys point them in the direction of North Johnson Street, where they say Cole ran off. They check the few places that might still be open for gas or coffee, but there's just no sign of them.

No one who saw or heard anything either. So within hours, that's pretty much it. Because as far as police are concerned, this sounds like a grown man who just chose to leave. That is not a crime.

“Yeah, but he didn't know anyone else in the area did he?”

No, and honestly, Cole didn't even really know these guys all that well. They had just met while working a contract construction gig up in Minnesota.

It sounds like Cole basically didn't have plans to go home to Florida for Thanksgiving.

So he kind of just tagged along with them for something to do. And was it just for like a long weekend? Yeah, like they all had to be back at work on Monday, which I think is part of the reason that Julian and Jeremy are stressed about getting stranded without the keys. Yeah, now they eventually call up a locksmith, but strangely when he gets there, he ends up finding the keys right underneath the car. So the guys head back.

Like they just leave Cole. Yeah, I mean, like he ran off on his own, they have to get back for work. I mean, they filed a missing person's report with the officers that they talked to. So they go home. She is what friends.

I know, and the thing is though, like you don't know the half of it. Because, but even though they told police what they say happened, neither of them actually bother trying to reach Cole's family down in Florida. Like you report him missing, but you don't call anyone. So his parents are completely unaware that their son is missing until Sunday when they get an out of the blue call from police in North Carolina. To say they were shocked is a gross understatement because they didn't even know Cole was going to North Carolina.

Just like a simple, hey, love you. Enjoy the turkey.

“But there was zero mention of this cross country road trip, which seems like it's something that would at least come up in conversation.”

You think. So the family gets word of this. They get this phone call.

And the only explanation that they're getting is that their son just ran off into the pitch black in a place that he had probably never been to or even heard of before.

And they had never heard the name Julian or Jeremy. Since Cole had only been on that Minnesota job site for like less than a month. But give this, Cole's dad, his name's Chris. He told our reporter Madison that even though that his mind was like racing in that moment, he actually did know someone that he could call. The guy that Cole had been working under as an electrical apprentice.

This is someone who he knew was working with this same crew up in Minnesota. So he leaves as a name, Steven, right? So Chris didn't have his number, but like lightning, he looks through Cole's Facebook friends. Find Steven says like call me ASAP. And within minutes, Steven is hitting him up.

And he spits out something like, oh, Mr. Chris, I've been trying to get a hold of you. Which right away, Chris is thinking like, no, you most definitely have not like, I'm not a hard guy to find. I mean, he could have done exactly what dad did and found him on Facebook. Yes, and Chris is listed as Cole's father on his Facebook page. So he's like right there.

Easy. But anyways, he doesn't harp on this. He is just listening. And what Steven says next is far from reassuring. He wasn't on this getaway with these guys, but he sure seems to know a thing or two about it.

Because he starts rambling on something about a strip search about Cole freaking out. And then he says something that stops Chris Cole. I think they killed him. They who that is exactly what Chris is trying to figure out.

“He is asking all of the questions like a strip search for what why was he freaking out?”

Who are you talking about? And that's when Steven starts filling in some of the blanks. He tells him that the guy's Cole was traveling with Julian and Jeremy. They weren't just passing through North Carolina for Thanksgiving. They had driven there all the way from Minnesota to buy drugs.

And he says they went to meet up with some like very dangerous dudes. And afterwards, something must have gone wrong. And this is like the foundation shaking for Cole's parents.

Like this is never the kind of story they would ever expect to be hearing involving their son.

I mean, obviously, you never really know who might be struggling with substance use or fall into a lifestyle of dealing whatever. But Cole, like this was never something they ever had to worry about with him before. Like he grew up in a small town, graduated as a salutatorian of his high school, earned some scholarship money to attend the University of Florida, and had plans to go into medicine, inspired by his younger brother who has autism.

He was smart, he was driven.

“But like a lot of people in the early 20s, he was still figuring things out.”

So after a few years of college, he was like feeling kind of burnout. He decided he just wanted to take a break from school. He was motivated to like make some money, get real world experience learning a new trade. He meant traveling, and been working long hours with his hands, and being introduced to new people from widely different backgrounds.

But to his family, it sounded just like this temporary detour, a way to save up some cash. And look, his mom Kathy even told us that Cole was seemingly so open with her. He even admitted that he tried some party drugs here and there when he was in college. So no, this situation that he's not impossible,

but traveling across state lines for a drug deal. Like that's the part that like it just didn't sound like the Cole she knew. And for him to change that much in just one month, like he's been gone for a long time, like it makes zero sense. Of course, Cole's dad doesn't want to believe what he's hearing,

but that's not a risk that he's willing to take. So within hours of that call with Stephen, he and Cole's mom Kathy throw their things in the truck and they start driving from Florida to North Carolina, because if there is even a small chance that their son is still out there, hurt or scared hiding or otherwise, they are going to find him themselves.

Now the drive from Florida to North Carolina should take less than eight hours, but that weekend with holiday traffic, it takes a heck of a lot longer. And the whole time, it is just like absolutely brutal being in that car. The drive is a blur for both of them as they try to wrap their heads around what they've just been told.

So when they finally do get to Benson, North Carolina,

it is the middle of the night and they don't waste a second. They go straight to the police station and tell officers the bits and pieces that they heard from Stephen, even though it's not much to go on, it's like more than they had gotten from Julian and Jeremy,

So the cops, when they hear this, they call Jeremy and Julian back up and try to get to the bottom of what's really going on.

“Now when they reach them, the men are supposedly still traveling back to Minnesota.”

And at first, Julian and Jeremy stick to the same story.

But officers don't just ask once and accept their answer. I don't know if they eventually rat out Stephen as their source or what, but at some point these two end up admitting it. We're like some of it. It's true, they didn't go all that way for mom's mashed potatoes. It was to buy meth.

Not like a ton, I don't think, but like enough for them enough to maybe sell some of the guys at their job site back in Minnesota. And Julian is from North Carolina, so he is the one who had this hook up down there. They all drove down there. They went to the town over from Benson, it's called Mount Olive. And that's where they met up at a house of this guy who Julian knows.

His name was Rudolfo Dalyon Jr., AKA Rudy. And they also met with apparently Rudy's buddy Anthony James Jr., who goes by TJ, so Rudy and TJ. Now Julian and Jeremy don't really say what else happened or who else might have been there just that they did this deal. And then they left.

And sometime later in the car, the story that they first told kind of picks back up, Cole becomes frantic.

But this go around, they're not saying anything about mental health struggles anymore. They're a little bit more honest, they say that he was maybe paranoid about the drug deal and thought that they were being followed by the cops. So that's why he ran. Now investigators are sensing that like something is up. That maybe they still don't have the full story.

So together from like what we got from Stephen, this theory starts to emerge. That something with the drug deal went wrong. Or Cole, who may have just been the driver because Julian and Jeremy didn't have their licenses. Maybe he realized that he was in way over his head and like freaked out. If that part about him taking off is even true, though.

“I mean, the truth is, at this point, police don't even have proof that Cole was ever in Benson at all.”

Like, but all they have is that report from them, right? For all they know, the entire story about Cole pulling over there, running away could have been made up to cover for whatever really happened to him. To keep police from knowing Cole's real last whereabouts. Though that whole part about them being like 40 minutes away over in the town of Mount Olive when they met up at Rooties with whoever else, that might actually be legit because police tracked down video from a handymark convenience store there

from earlier in the night. This would have been Thanksgiving day. The department wouldn't share that video with us, but we spoke to Benson police chief Greg Percy about it. And he said that Cole, Julian and Jeremy can all be seen on this video between like 11.37 pm and 11.50 pm. This is just about three hours before Julian and Jeremy would eventually report Cole missing to the cops.

But at this time, Chief Percy says that everything seems completely normal. Cole goes in, grabs a drink, apparently he doesn't look paranoid at all. In fact, nothing about his behavior stands out as far as Chief Percy can tell.

“So, knowing that their son was somewhere around this area in North Carolina, right?”

Like, we know we can put him there. Cole's parents, Chris and Kathy, know that this is going to have to become home base for them for a while. So they go back to Florida, they pack up what they can, and then they turn right back around and head to North Carolina. This time, with an entire travel trailer, and they set up at a campground nearby. Every day, they're out putting up signs, they're working on billboards, they're driving roads, checking ditches, using search dogs, combing through areas,

that even have already been cleared just in case something was missed. All while police are collecting surveillance footage from Mount Olive, from Benson and parts in between. And back then, Chief Percy wasn't Chief. He was captain. And it was his job to go through all of the footage that they were collecting hours of it. And it takes him weeks, completely consumes him.

I mean, talk about bringing your work home with you, Percy, cannot just leave this at the office. He is literally reviewing footage at home in the night, like at all hours,

and it's actually in one of those late nights at his kitchen table in December when he finally catches something.

Now, the footage he is looking at is from a camera at the Walgreens in Benson. And it's pointed at the parking lot, but you can also kind of see a cross-north Johnson street where you get like the slightest view of a bank in its parking lot. And it's pretty good, as like video footage goes, or like it would be if you were in the Walgreens parking lot, like close to the camera, but that's not where he spots movement. At 110 a.m., he sees something moving through the frame in the distance.

When he realizes what he's looking at, he gets this rush of adrenaline.

“He actually wakes up his wife to show her, too, because for the first time, he can prove it.”

Cole was actually in Benson, like a five-minute walk from where the car was left just like Julian and Jeremy said. Except, he didn't run off alone. In the footage, Cole is just walking, and there's someone following on foot right behind him. The wilderness is meant to be a place of peace, but for some, it became the setting of tragedy. The podcast park predators explores true stories of people who encountered danger, where they least expected it, deep in forests, along remote trails,

or while camping under the stars. Each episode examines a different case, with the same careful research and storytelling you get here on crime junkie. You can start listening to park predators now, wherever you get your podcasts. At exactly 110 AM, in the top middle of the screen, you can see two figures, and like only the bottom halves of their bodies are visible.

And at first, it looks like they're walking like right across frame, but when they disappear behind something dark,

and then they don't reappear, you realize that like the depth perception is a little weird without context.

“And the two people are actually walking right to left on screen, but I think they're walking behind the bang.”

And so it takes 20 seconds, but then you see them reappear on the other side of the building. Police determine this is coal, and walking slowly behind him, maybe kind of even to the side. He's one of his fellow travel companions, who they determine to be Jeremy Carpenter. Now, it's not like he's sneaking up on him or anything, almost certainly knows that Jeremy was there. I mean, to me, it even looks like coal, he's like gesturing like maybe they're talking as they walk off camera.

Now, of the three hours of footage from that Walgreens camera that we got from Cole's family, that's it.

Just like 30 seconds that eagle eyes Percy caught, but it was enough to prove that the guys were still lying to them. Yes, he was in Benson, but he did not walk off alone. So when they go back to Jeremy and confront him with this, the story evolves again, not a completely different version or anything. It's like Jeremy just drops another breadcrum. Something like, oh yeah, okay, so after Cole got out and walked off, I went after him so that I could calm him down or whatever. And then at some point, he says that they end up outside a nearby church. And supposedly, one that's like a pretty short walk from the bank, so wouldn't have been like long after we saw them on that camera.

And suddenly, it sounds like Jeremy too is convinced that they're being followed, because he's now saying that he's just as freaked out as coal. Wait, where's Julian in all of this?

“I don't know, I think he's actually saying behind with the car, like he's not seen on any of the footage and it's not part of his story that Julian's like with them, okay.”

But anyways, Jeremy and Cole are supposedly at this church and according to Jeremy, Cole says that he has to pee, so he walks off to go take care of that. And that's when Jeremy tells police that he like gets down on his knees and starts praying for what? Maybe that, like, if somebody's really after them, they don't find them or maybe that they come out of whatever this is, okay. I don't know, but like, per Jeremy by the time he says a man, Cole's just gone. Except, later, another breadcrum drops and he admits, well, okay, actually while I was out there, I did hear a car door, but then that car door sound eventually turns into, I think I made of heard gunshots.

So he's saying someone picked up Cole or now maybe shot Cole while he himself was praying. I guess, but he says that essentially, like, when he opens his eyes and he sees that Cole is gone, that like, he actually does say he tries to go look for him. But after he looks and looks and he can't find Cole anywhere, at some point he realizes he needs some water. According to him, he's diabetic, so he actually like really needs it and low and behold, one of the only places still open in a small town at this hour, he spots those like bright golden arches, Mickey D's.

Now, police are actually able to verify that he went to the McDonald's that night because in more surveillance footage that police got that again, Cole's family shared with us. There goes Jeremy by himself walking into the parking lot. It looks like he's like speaking to someone who works there, maybe like seeing if he needs to go in or maybe he could just go through the drive through. He ends up walking through the drive through and he gets his cup of water just after 220 in the morning.

And no Julian either. No Julian either. But he has to meet back up with Julian at some point somehow because we know that they're together like 40 minutes after this talking to cops and reporting that Cole ran off. That was like 3 a.m., but here's the super interesting part. Julian in Jeremy aren't just alone the rest of the night.

Obviously, the police and later a PI brought on by Cole's family get phone data for all the men that night. And based on location data, it seems like Jeremy and Julian are still with and around Rudy and TJ. Sometime after Cole goes missing and where was Cole's phone? Well, I think everyone originally made the assumption that he walked off with.

“Yeah, that's what you would think, right?”

Turns out that was a wrong assumption because when they finally got Jeremy and Julian to come back to North Carolina to be questioned in person.

They were like, oh yeah, by the way, here you go. Wait, they had Cole's phone. This whole time. Why didn't they tell police that? I don't have any answer for that.

Like, it might be as simple as nobody asked. But like, they're asking for it now. Yeah. And they get it.

“Not only do they have the bread crumbs that Jeremy and Julian have been dropping.”

Now they actually have a digital trail that shows Cole's movements the whole night. And lined up with the other phones, it tells an interesting story. One that the family's private investigator, David Marshburn, really helps put together by dumping all of the data points into an app called Selhawk. If law enforcement agencies aren't using things like this, this is my PSA. I mentioned a similar application badge app in the Melissa Casillas case recently.

These programs are for law enforcement and they take basically huge data dumps put them into a map that you can actually like see and make sense of like process of data.

Something that tells a story, right? Now just like the surveillance footage showed, the phone puts Cole at the handymark convenience store in Mount Olive at 1138 pm on November 24. They now know that this is after the drug deal took place. From there, Cole's phone starts moving.

“Based on what points they hit when it is clear that these guys are in the car, but their driving doesn't make a whole lot of sense.”

Like getting back to Minnesota should be a straight shot on the highway, and it seems like they're making their way there for a while. But then, at some point, they start like cutting through random side roads and it looks like they are like looping back. Their phones show continuous movement from Mount Olive all the way to Benson from 1152 pm to 107 am. And 107 am is when their phones finally come to rest near where Cole pulled the car over.

And here's what's strange.

We know that Cole and Jeremy get out of the car and walk away, but it doesn't look like their phones move. From 107 on November 25th to a little after 345 am, their phones just stay put. Presumably left behind in the car when they took off, which I don't know why you would leave your phone behind. But and when confronted with this data, Jeremy and Julian eventually say as much that Cole left his phone behind in the car and ran off. But after they report Cole missing two police, the phones start moving again, including Cole's.

Guys say that what they did is they called Rudy to convict them up so that they had somewhere to stay while they waited for the locksmith instead of just like waiting with the car. But this is odd, right? Like the fact that Cole's phone is moving to not like in the car. Yes, he's missing at this point. And instead of leaving his phone in the car in case he comes back, they take it with them as they all leave Benson completely, traveling back towards Mount Olive. And just after 4 am, Cole's phone goes dark.

Investigators suspect that everyone in that group wise up and eventually turned off anything tracking their location at that point. That's not good. No, especially when you hear what comes next. Cole's phone does eventually come back on hours later, but it's not in Benson where he supposedly walked off. It is still over in Wayne County. Is that where like Mount Olive is where Rudy is?

Mount Olive is in Wayne County. Yeah, but like Wayne County encompasses more than just Mount Rollin. And all police would tell us was that Cole's phone was somewhere in Wayne County, which means whatever happened to Cole. It sounds like it didn't end in Benson.

For some odd reason, Jeremy and Julian just aren't repeatedly calling it.

“I mean, to make it look like they were looking for him, maybe?”

Or investigators think it might be that they were trying to get into the phone, possibly to get rid of stuff. Like, maybe they thought somehow, if it was locked right if you answer it while it's a call, could they break into it? I don't know. Like, it's past were protected. That's not how it works. Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me. I know. And I don't think they were actually able to access anything. That's just the theory that police have.

So now, investigators are looking at a group of people who had Cole's phone, maybe tried to access it and didn't turn it over right away. Yeah.

“That sounds a lot like interfering with an investigation, my friends.”

So, fast forward to mid 2017, grand jury indictments lead to the arrest of the four guys that they know about so far, who they believe are connected to Cole's case. Julian Vias Jr. Jeremy Carpenter, Ruedolfo Daly on Jr. aka Rudy, and Anthony James Jr. known as TJ. They are all charged with concealing Cole's death, and all but Rudy also get hit with obstruction of justice charges. All of the suspects plead not guilty to all the charges. And this was more than just like a small wind to like get on the board. This was a strategic move on behalf of law enforcement.

Police were hoping that separate it and maybe under pressure, maybe just maybe the weakest link might finally break.

But even with all four of these guys in custody, the case doesn't just magically fall in the place. It takes some serious legwork and a dedicated PI to come to the realization that these four guys are actually just a piece of the puzzle, not the whole thing. And to even get there, it was dangerous. The PI David had to basically infiltrate this network of people, and his presence didn't go unnoticed. I mean, once he started learning more and asking more questions, he says that he started receiving threats, including this voicemail that he shared with us.

Look, I'm calling you because I know you investigated for this case. Somebody thought to be calling you today. If they don't call you today, I will find out. I want you to answer this phone at 9 o'clock tonight. If you don't answer this phone, it's going to be personal stuff between me and you. David believes that whoever that was who called him is part of something bigger, and that this was more than just a one-off drug deal gone wrong. Through all of the conversations that he has had and the phone data that he's mapped out, David starts to piece together what he now believes may have been the plan all along.

He thinks it's possible that Julian may have been double crossing everyone. So, based on everything he's hearing, Cole, and honestly may be even Jeremy, probably thought that the plan was simple. They were going to go there, pay for drugs, bring them back to Minnesota.

“Maybe even sell them to the guys at the job site, but like, that's what they thought.”

Yeah, the David believes that maybe Julian was working with the guys that they met up with, and the plan was actually for them to sell the guys this like met, and then somehow, some way that night, steal the drugs back. So, they get paid for the drugs they sold, but they get to keep their supply. Precisely, and according to David, there are a couple of things that could have thrown off this whole plan.

First of which is Cole himself.

Everyone we spoke to still believes that when Cole agreed to drive his co-workers down to North Carolina, he probably had no idea the level of danger that he was actually getting himself into. But, according to David, it seems like Cole may have slowly and surely been figuring it out, like on the fly. You see, Julian didn't know something about Cole. He'd only known him for a month, and might have made some assumptions about him. Like, for instance, that this premed white kid from rural Florida only spoke English.

But that wasn't the case, and it's very possible that Cole picked up on the fact that he was in danger that night before he was supposed to ever even know. The wilderness is meant to be a place of peace, but for some, it became the setting of tragedy.

Each episode examines a different case, with the same careful research and storytelling you get here on crime junkie.

“You can start listening to park predators now, wherever you get your podcasts.”

From what we heard, Cole actually knew a good bit of Spanish. Enough that if Julian Rudy or their guys started talking about the real plan around him, Cole might have been able to pick up on it. Which could have been why he was panicked on that drive back, like it could have been right. Right. David believes that could explain why Cole was so freaked out, maybe why they were cutting their bends into begin with.

Why he didn't just think that they were being followed, he may have known that they were being followed. And it wasn't the cops he was afraid of, it was the drug dealers following them potentially.

And there's a possibility that they didn't even have all of the drugs to give back to them if the dealers caught up with them.

Because you see, depending on who you talked to, at some point during that drive, apparently some of the drugs got thrown out of the car. Probably by Cole possibly by Jeremy. Trying to get rid of them? Or just like, I don't know, with their scared, I don't know if that's giving them back trying to get them off their hands something. And David believes that some of the drugs may have even been hidden by Julian without everyone knowing.

So like, say they catch up with them, they realize everything's not actually there.

“They wouldn't know who had it, but who's the easiest to blame?”

The person who probably tossed the drugs out, the same person who doesn't really belong there to begin with. Cole. And are police bought in with David's theory? So our reporter Matt is an ass chief per se about this. And while he says it's definitely possible, he thinks it's also possible that whatever went down could have been even way less complicated than double crossing.

But he does think that whatever happened involved missing drugs. He said that there is a world where maybe Julian's boys had front of them money for drugs and then said drugs were thrown out the window. Well, now someone's got to pay up. It's also possible that Harming Cole wasn't part of the original plan.

“Chief Percy says that he got intel that Cole may have fought back when confronted about the missing map and maybe things just escalated from there.”

But even if there are multiple possibilities about what led up to Cole walking away from the car after one o'clock in the morning, everyone seems to agree on one point after the fact that there was likely someone else there. Someone who encountered Cole after Jeremy lost sight of him. According to what David uncovers, there is another guy who keeps popping up, a guy everyone calls Gordo. And he is one of the guys that Julian and Rudy may have been coordinating with throughout the night once things took a turn.

So it sounds like Cole really did take off like of his own free will, but then he and Jeremy supposedly get separated. And then Jeremy thinks he hears a car door sign maybe a gun, right somewhere like in the distance. Well, based on phone records that police have. When Cole had first taken off, it sounds like Julian may have contacted Rudy, who then gets in touch with some of his guys to include Gordo. And they set out to try and track Cole down, who is now on foot.

Possibly to try to figure out what happened to their missing drugs, see if they can find out where they were tossed, if that is what happened. The thinking is maybe that car door that Jeremy heard was real. Maybe they got Cole into another car and maybe it was Gordo's car. David's able to track Gordo down and get him to work with the police. Maybe it's changed for some kind of deal.

He talks, he never ends up with any charges related to Cole's case, that's simple.

Because no one else will say a word and invests eaters need someone on the inside. So eventually he says yes, he was there that night. And he, along with some other guys, were instructed to find Cole, which they did. And for his story, Cole just gets into the car willingly. I doubt that. Yeah, B.I. David knows an already paranoid Cole and going to begin in the car with strangers. So he keeps pressing him when they're having this conversation.

And the story evolves like these stories in this case keep doing. At one point, he says they threaten him with a gun. Then in another version, they catch up to him, Disorient him by hitting him with a baseball bat and they take Cole into the car with them. Okay, but take him where though.

According to Gordo, they are instructed to take Cole and hold him until the rest of the guys get back to do whatever they're going to do with him, I guess.

“But he claims that he doesn't know what happened after that.”

Whatever it was, can't be good though. But does he say where he took Cole to? This is the thing, it's not clear, like just some guy's house in Wayne County, which is the area where the phone was. Right, now here's where things get tricky though. Investigators get a warrant for the car in question that he was supposedly like transported in. They search it, they're looking for blood DNA anything that could confirm this story that Gordo is telling.

They don't end up finding anything definitive.

So they're still seemingly not telling the whole truth.

Cole's dad Chris and the PI David feel so close yet so far. And they know what they really need is one of those like core four to flip. They believe that they know what happened.

“So they start thinking outside of the box, like how do we get someone to finally give it up?”

And what they come up with is out of the box and has to be so painful for Cole's dad. They decide to hone in on TJ because compared to the others, he doesn't seem as deeply tied into this drug scene. Not necessarily totally innocent, but maybe less culpable.

So Chris makes a decision.

David is a PI and a bondsman. And Chris puts up the money, essentially taking on the risk of bonding out someone who may have been involved in whatever happened to his own son to get him out of prison. To get him away from the other three guys who are tied up in this, the thinking being that maybe if you can separate him, he could think for himself. Save himself if he was given the chance. So they free TJ.

“And for a little while, it actually seems like it might work.”

Because once he's away from the others, he is willing to do a long sit down with them. David recorded this conversation, legally, I might add North Carolina's a one party consent state. And Cole's family shared that audio with us. So here's TJ. On a thing like that, he went down when Chris got missing. He got missing. I don't know where he's at. I already don't know.

I don't know where they went. He sort of hinting something went wrong. They already knew that. He just won't say what. But minute by minute, you can tell that something slowly shifting though. And at a certain point, they decide to bring in someone else. Kathy, Cole's mom, thinking that maybe she can appeal more to his emotions, convince him to tell the whole true.

And when she sits down with him, she doesn't come in all aggressive or angry. She just talks to him as a mom, asking about her son, asking what happened, trying to get him to understand what this has done to their family. It would be so hard. And according to what they describe, this is when they sense that TJ is starting to break. Now he doesn't tell them everything, but he does say something, something that sticks.

This makes it feel all the more real. Now they know what everyone already suspected, but they won't get to know any more, because TJ won't go much further. They get fragments, but nothing that could actually hold up in court. And that continues to be the path that's going to happen. But they won't get to know any more, because TJ won't go much further. They get fragments, but nothing that could actually hold up in court. And that continues to be the pattern with just about everyone connected to this case.

People talk, but only to a point. And so far, no one is willing to give this family what they really need. Proof or even a body to bury. All four men served some time, but eventually the concealment and obstruction charges against TJ, Anthony James Jr. And Rudy, who doleful daily on Junior, Julian Vias Jr. and Jeremy Carpenter, they'll all end up getting dropped.

According to Chief Percy, this was done at least in part to avoid compromising any potential future homicide prosecutions. Now we tried reaching out to everyone named in this episode, every which way we could think of. But as of this recording, we haven't heard back.

And unfortunately, we will never be able to talk to Jeremy Carpenter.

“Per an online obituary he passed away in 2024.”

Now some people believe that Jeremy may have been in the same boat as Cole, but he was just as surprised by the turn that things took. And that everything he did that night, his silence and the evolving stories that followed were out of both fear and survival. But it means that we will never be able to ask him the one question we have for everyone in this case. Where's Cole?

Because when it comes to that detail, the part that matters most, everyone conveniently claims they just don't know.

That whatever happened next happened in secret. But with this many people possibly involved with some of their phones moving together, that's hard for me to believe. Because somebody knows where Cole is, and it's time that they say it out loud, before the data does the talking for them. Because no one is done with this case, not Cole's parents, not Benson PD, they are on a mission and they might be closer than ever to answers.

“So if there ever was a deal to be made, I think someone's running out of time to make it.”

So if anyone out there knows what happened to Christopher Cole Thomas, you can contact the Benson Police Department at 919-894-2091,

or you can email [email protected].

You can also contact the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation at 919-779-8188. [Music] You can find all the source material for this episode on our website,crimejunky.com. And you can follow us on Instagram @crimejunkypodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

[Music] [Music] [Music] Crimejunky is an audio check production. I think Chuck would approve.

[Music] Sometimes in the quiet corners of our world, or even in the glaring light of day, events unfold that defy the very fabric of reason. There is no scientific logical or readily apparent explanation for what we witness. It challenges our understanding, our beliefs, and even our sanity.

“Why do these things happen? What forces are it play?”

I'm Evett Gentile, and I'm her sister, Rasha Pekarero. Every week on our podcast, so supernatural, we dive deep into some of the Earth's most bizarre and inexplicable occurrences. We don't just observe them. We actively try to explain the unexplainable.

So if you're ready to have your perceptions challenged and your curiosity ignited, listen to so supernatural, every Friday, wherever you get your podcast.