Naman Shrestha
When Jamie Fraley disappeared from her apartment in 2008, the entire town was shaken to its core, more so her family and friends. Due to the absence of any sign of foul play, the police found it difficult to solve the case. In Investigation Discovery’s ‘Disappeared: Innocence Lost,’ we are given a detailed account of the mysterious case of Jamie as it also includes the events that led to that point, the investigation that followed, and exclusive interviews with her loved ones who share their grievances and hopes.
Jamie Fraley Went Missing From Her Apartment
Jamie Michelle Fraley was born to Kim Fraley on March 5, 1986, in Gaston County, North Carolina. Having a big heart, Jamie was passionate about helping others from the very beginning. As she always tried to see the best in people, it turned her into a trustful person, which can prove to be troublesome in some situations. Unfortunately, as she was growing up, she struggled with several mental health problems, including bipolar disorder and anxiety issues, according to her mother. For higher education, she went to Gaston College. During the same time, she began responding quite well to her medications and there was an improvement in her mental health. Given her helpful nature, she had dreams of becoming a drug counselor and helping addicts get over their addictive phase.
Meanwhile, in 2006, Jamie started seeing Ricky Simonds Jr. and soon, they got engaged and started living together. But due to several charges of theft against him, he was sentenced to 15 months behind bars. On April 7, 2008, the 22-year-old woman caught the stomach flu and had already gone to the hospital twice that day, with her incarcerated boyfriend’s father Ricky Dale Simmonds Sr. Still feeling discomfort in her abdomen, she called up a friend from her Copperfield apartment complex on Lowell Bethesda Road in Gastonia, North Carolina, around 2 am of April 8, and told her that she was heading toward the hospital with someone. However, according to reports, she never made it to the hospital for the third time.
Come morning, when the healthcare provider knocked on Jamie’s door for a scheduled appointment, nobody answered. They called her mother, who in return informed the police about it and requested that a welfare check be performed. When the police arrived at Jamie’s apartment, they did not find any sign of forced entry or a struggle. Worried sick, Jamie’s mother Kim entered the apartment along with her aunt and cousin, and they noticed that her purse, keys, and ID were untouched; only her cell phone was missing. Moreover, they saw traces of vomits throughout the apartment, and shoe laces from one of her shoes were missing as well.
In light of all this evidence, Kim dialed 911 and reported her daughter missing. An extensive search for Jamie was launched, but since Ricky was serving his time in jail, he was ruled out as a potential suspect. Two days after her disappearance, Jamie’s cell phone was discovered by a utility worker at the intersection of New Hope Road and Hudson Boulevard. Checking the call log, the police found that calls were made around 4:30 am on the morning of her disappearance, but unfortunately, none of them connected.
Jamie Fraley is Still Missing But Her Mother Remains Hopeful About Her Safe Return
Since Ricky Dale Simonds Sr., her boyfriend’s father, was one of the last people to see her alive, coupled with the fact that he allegedly had an obsession with her, he became one of the suspects in the case. Previously, Simonds Sr. had served some time in the 1980s for the murder of her girlfriend and used to live at the same apartment complex as Jamie at the time she went missing. Thus, the investigators questioned him regarding Jamie’s disappearance, and he denied taking a lie detector test. Just a couple of months after Jamie vanished, things got even more suspicious when Simonds Sr. was found dead from heat stroke in the trunk of his ex-girlfriend Kim Sprenger’s car.
Following the discovery of the death of Simonds Sr., Jamie’s mother, Kim Fraley cried and told WBTV, “I knew any questions we had for him, any information we could’ve got out of him, was gone.” His son and Jamie’s boyfriend, Ricky Simonds Jr., claimed that he and Simonds Sr. were not just father and son, but also close friends. Noticing so many twists and turns in the entire saga, even he suspected that his father was somehow involved in the disappearance. Amidst all this development, Kim did not let any of it distract her from searching for her missing daughter who still hoped to find her alive. She said, “Until somebody shows me different, I’m not going to think otherwise.”
On the other hand, Ricky Simonds Jr. played his part in searching for his girlfriend. He stated, “I’m going to still hand out flyers, I’m going to still look for her, I’m gonna do whatever I got to do, I love her, I’ll always love her.” Over the years, the loved ones of Jamie Fraley made a lot of efforts to search for her — made hundreds of fliers, hired their own private investigator to look into the matter, and conducted searches of their own. They even created a Facebook group Missing Jamie Michelle Fraley to spread awareness about the case and get more leads. But their efforts did not bear any fruits. In 2015 though, there was a development in the case when a convicted killer Jerry Douglas Case confessed to killing Jamie Fraley. However, he was behind bars when she went missing so the authorities found his confession unreliable.
After 12 long years of searching for her daughter, in 2020, Kim admitted that she found it hard to get out of bed for the first few years after Jamie vanished. “People always say the word closure. But there is no such thing as closure. It’s been 12 years with no closure,” Kim told NBC News. “They say, ‘Oh, well, you still got memories of her.’ But memories are painful.” She was still hopeful that someday someone would come forward with some pivotal information. As of writing, the case of Jamie Fraley remains a mystery while there is a reward for anyone who provides information that leads to the truth.
Read More: Nadine Mendonça: Has She Been Found? Is She Dead or Alive?
