2 Year Old VANISHES – Parents Named Suspects! 9 Years Later He’s STILL MISSING AND NO ARRESTS!

2-Year-Old VANISHES – Parents Named Suspects! 9 Years Later He’s STILL MISSING AND NO ARRESTS!

Introduction

A 2-year-old boy vanished without a trace from a desolate, rugged mountain campground in Idaho. His story made national headlines; people from around the world took notice, wondering what happened to the toddler. Search teams and law enforcement looked everywhere for him, their calls to him echoing through the vast canyons and canopies of the forest. Days turned into nights, months into years, with no sign of the boy.

Four adults were at the campsite with him that warm July day. Every one of them had a story describing the events that led up to his disappearance, but not all of them match up. Did he wander off by accident? Was he taken by a wild animal or by a stranger? Or is there a more nefarious reason for his disappearance?

After spending hours upon hours diving into this case, I have a sneaking suspicion either all four of the adults on the mountain that day know what happened to the little boy, or at least some of them do. There are still so many questions that need answers. We have to keep telling this story. The innocent 2-year-old boy deserves to be found, and if someone harmed him, justice must be served.

Now, you may have seen other videos and news reports of this case over the last 9 years. What I’ve tried to do in this video is gather all of the information available as of 2024 and combine it all in one up-to-date video, so we can take a look at where things are now and go back with fresh eyes to see where all of that leaves us. If you haven’t heard of this case, buckle up, you’re in for a wild ride.

Meet Little DeOrr

DeOrr was born December 30th, 2012, in Idaho Falls, Idaho, to Jessica Mitchell and Vernal DeOrr Kunz. He was an adorable blonde-haired boy with big brown eyes and full of energy. Described as easygoing and well-behaved, he loved playing with Matchbox cars and never went anywhere without his stuffed monkey and favorite blanket. He also loved wearing his cowboy boots, even though they were a couple of sizes too big for him. Unless little DeOrr is ever found, he will forever be this adorable little toddler. If he’s still alive, he would be 12 years old. [Music]

The Camping Trip

Now, on Thursday evening, July 9th, 2015, Jessica Mitchell, Vernal DeOrr Kunz, Robert Walton, and Isaac Reinwand drove a little over 100 miles from Idaho Falls, Idaho, where they all lived, to Timber Creek Campground right outside of Leadore, Idaho, for a weekend getaway. Timber Creek Campground is very remote and nestled in the Salmon-Challis National Forest. As the story goes, Jessica and Vernal brought their son DeOrr along for the camping trip, and on day two of the trip, he vanished.

Now, before we go any further, let’s get familiar with the four adults present on this camping trip. We’ve got Jessica Mitchell, who is DeOrr’s mother and fiancée to Vernal DeOrr Kunz. This is Vernal DeOrr Kunz, father of baby DeOrr and fiancé to Jessica Mitchell. This is Robert “Bob” Walton, who is Jessica’s grandfather. Last but not least, we’ve got Isaac Reinwand, who was a friend of Grandpa Bob Walton.

To keep everything straight, I’m going to call Vernal DeOrr Kunz “Vernal” so we don’t get him mixed up with baby DeOrr. I’m also going to call Robert Walton “Grandpa Bob” just so we don’t forget he was Jessica’s grandfather and baby DeOrr’s great-grandfather.

The Timeline of Disappearance

Here’s a basic summary of events leading up to DeOrr’s disappearance according to the four adults that were present on the camping trip.

According to Vernal, the family decided to go on a camping trip on Thursday, July 9th, 2015, after Vernal got off work around 5:00 p.m. About an hour or so later, Vernal, Jessica, and baby DeOrr left in their truck and met up with Grandpa Bob Walton in his SUV, which was hauling a trailer. They then picked up Grandpa Bob’s friend Isaac Reinwand, who rode with Grandpa in his SUV. The group drove about 116 miles to Leadore, Idaho, where they stopped at the Silver Dollar Restaurant to grab some snacks and supplies. It was closed, so they ended up finding a convenience store, grabbed what they needed, and continued to the campground.

They drove an additional 10 miles west on a one-way-in, one-way-out rocky dirt road. Now, it can take about 45 minutes to an hour just to traverse that road to Timber Creek Campground. According to Vernal and Jessica, they pulled into the campground around “dark.” Sunset in Leadore on that day was at 9:20 p.m., so it’s safe to assume they arrived anytime after 9:30 p.m. They set up their campsite and went to bed. Jessica, Vernal, and baby DeOrr slept in Grandpa Bob’s truck, Isaac slept in a tent, and Grandpa Bob slept in his camper.

The next morning, they all had breakfast, and between 10:30 and 11:00 a.m., Jessica asked Vernal to take her into town for feminine products. Vernal, Jessica, and baby DeOrr made the trek into town and went to the Stage Stop, where Vernal asked a clerk if they sold diesel. The clerk said no, so they tried a place two doors down with no luck. They finally found some diesel at a place called Peterson Metal Products, fueled up there, and then went back to Stage Stop to grab feminine products and snacks.

12:38 p.m. Jessica sends a text to her mom saying they are leaving Leadore to return to the campground.

According to Jessica and Vernal, they get back to the campsite around 1:00 p.m. After arriving back at the campsite, Jessica, Vernal, and Isaac decide to go fishing in a creek. It’s about 50 feet away from the campsite down a small hill. You can hear the creek running while sitting at the campsite, but you can’t see it. Jessica says she asked her Grandpa Bob to watch baby DeOrr while they went fishing. As they walked towards the creek, Jessica says she looked back to make sure baby DeOrr wasn’t following them. Vernal and Jessica stayed together, and Isaac went quite a ways upstream to fish.

The Search Efforts

Search and rescue teams arrive at the campsite around 3:45 or 4:00 p.m. About the time searchers arrive, Jessica claims to see Isaac carrying a muddy shovel. She also claims that the shovel had a blonde hair on the tip of it, but when Jessica tries to collect the hair, the wind blows it away. The story about the shovel is only mentioned by Jessica once in a more recent interview and has never been corroborated or verified by law enforcement.

“It looked like it’s been used recently, like it was kind of muddy, and at the very tip of it, there’s a blonde hair that was like the same color as Little Man. When the cops asked Isaac about it, they took him away from the campground and asked him questions. And he came back, and he ran his hands up and down the shovel. And I’m like, if somebody asked me about the shovel that might be involved with something, why would you… I wouldn’t go rub my hands all over it, like, I wouldn’t even want to be near that. And the hair… uh, when the guy picked up the shovel, I went to go grab it, and the wind blew and blew it right off the shovel, and so we lost that.”

Soon, the camp was filled with volunteers combing the area around the campsite. By July 12th, two days after baby DeOrr went missing, over 200 people were at the campsite. They were searching on foot, horseback, ATV, and helicopter. Later, drones and dogs were brought in to join the search. Not a trace of DeOrr was ever found at the campsite or the surrounding areas. Not a scrap of clothing, a boot, blood… nothing. Now, it’s been reported that cadaver dogs have hit on a few spots, but they were not related to DeOrr.

Analyzing the Statements

All four of the adults on the camping trip have given numerous interviews regarding DeOrr’s disappearance. Not all of their stories seem to match up, which has raised many questions about what really happened at the campsite. There is a ton of speculation and many rabbit holes in this case, which is to be expected because not a trace of baby DeOrr has been found since the day he went missing. The public wants to know what happened to him and, if he is no longer with us, want him found and respectfully laid to rest.

The public, in my opinion, has a pretty good BS meter. Something just doesn’t sit right in this case with most people. So in seeking answers, theories, questions, and speculation are common. I personally don’t see anything wrong with any of that. A 2-year-old baby vanished without a trace; that is terrifying, so the public has a right to talk about it and demand answers. That keeps pressure on law enforcement to keep working the case and not let it get buried somewhere collecting dust.

With all that said, because it’s been 9 years with no answers, the waters are pretty muddy. So I thought I’d sift through the information I could find and talk about what can be proven as fact, what law enforcement says, what the private investigators have said, and what the four people on the camping trip have to say, and then summarize where that leaves us now 9 years later. We have to keep in mind that this is still an open investigation, so not all evidence law enforcement may have has been released to the public.

What We Know For Sure

So let’s first talk about what we can say for sure is true in this case.

Jessica, Vernal, Grandpa Bob, and Isaac were camping at Timber Creek Campground for sure on Friday, July 10th, 2015. How do we know this for sure? Because law enforcement along with search and rescue teams physically came in contact with the four adults at the campsite that Friday afternoon during their search for baby DeOrr. That information has been released to the public.
Friday, July 10th, 2015 was the day baby DeOrr was reported missing. We know this for sure because Jessica’s 911 call was released to the public, and law enforcement has confirmed that was the day he was reported missing.
Jessica and Vernal were at the Stage Stop Junction in Leadore on Friday, July 10th, 2015, between 12:00 and 12:30 p.m. We know this for sure because there are receipts posted from Klein Investigations on their Facebook page along with Sheriff Lynn Bowerman corroborating that to East Idaho News via interview:
- “Did the family go down to the store there in Leadore, and was there any surveillance captured of this boy?”
- “Surveillance video, I don’t believe they have a surveillance… but uh, we have a receipt that we’ve documented that they purchased certain items. They were on the receipt, the time was stamped on the receipt, and so we believe, you know, that’s where they went.”
Polygraph examinations were given to Jessica Mitchell, Vernal Kunz, Grandpa Bob, and Isaac. We know this for sure because Sheriff Lynn Bowerman stated this publicly in a news interview given to East Idaho News:
- “And as far as the lie detector test, you said you couldn’t say much about…”
- “Yeah, you know, they’ve all… all four have voluntarily taken polygraphs. And right now that those have been turned over to the FBI along with the statements. And I would prefer to have them look at the reports and look at the evaluations on the polygraph to make sure we’re looking at everything correctly and that we didn’t miss anything.”
We also know that Jessica and Vernal were being “less than truthful” during their polygraph tests, as stated by Sheriff Lynn Bowerman via a news interview given to East Idaho News:
- “…After a week of uh, interviewing, and an announcement from the FBI that they were being less than truthful on their polygraphs.”

Now, this may be stating the obvious, but just to keep in line with what we absolutely know for sure: In 9 years of search efforts, no trace of missing baby DeOrr has been found in or around Timber Creek Campground or the surrounding areas. How do we know this? Law enforcement has publicly stated this via news interviews, and as of the date of this video, there has been no public announcement that baby DeOrr or any trace of him has been found.

What We Can Assume Is True

Now let’s talk about what we can assume is true. We can assume that Jessica, Vernal, Grandpa Bob, and Isaac drove to Timber Creek Campground on Thursday night, July 9th, 2015. How can we assume this is true? Sheriff Lynn Bowerman states this in an interview given to East Idaho News, along with Jessica’s mother, Trina Clegg:

“Go back to the beginning, can you kind of give us a timeline as to when the family arrived and what preceded?” “Well, the family, from what I understand that we learned during the investigation, arrived the evening prior to July 10th. Sometime uh, fairly close to dark on Thursday, July 9th.”

So for those of you kind of trying to piece together the timeline, they got up there really late Thursday/early Friday, maybe like midnight… it was dark, they go to bed. So the sheriff is saying they arrived right after dark, and in the clip with Jessica’s mother Trina Clegg, the interviewer is saying “after midnight, possibly into the morning hours,” and Trina is nodding her head in agreement.

The discrepancy in arrival times goes to show there doesn’t seem to be any hard evidence such as CCTV footage or receipts that show when they definitively arrived at the campground. But the sheriff seems pretty convinced they arrived sometime Thursday night. Now, he may have more evidence proving that, but that seems to be the prevailing story between law enforcement and all parties involved. So I think it’s safe to assume that they did arrive Thursday night, July 9th, 2015, in the evening hours.

To add to these facts we know to be true, I also want to point out the vehicles at the campsite were Grandpa Bob’s SUV, his camping trailer, and Vernal’s truck. Grandpa’s SUV and Vernal’s truck would have been their only methods of transportation. Isaac rode with Grandpa Bob, so he would have been dependent on Vernal, Jessica, or Grandpa if he needed to leave the campsite for any reason.

The Gray Areas and Inconsistencies

Now let’s talk about the gray area and inconsistencies in this case and hear from the four adults on the camping trip and others involved in this case. A gray area that many have questioned is this: Was baby DeOrr even with the four adults on this camping trip?

All four adults have stated he was there. Both sheriffs think he was there but haven’t produced any solid proof. There’s no CCTV footage of baby DeOrr in town or at any of the businesses visited by Jessica and Vernal. So it makes sense people would question if he was even with them on the trip. Let’s see what those involved with the case have to say about it:

(Trina Clegg – DeOrr’s Grandmother) “Is there ever any doubt in your mind, because this has come up, that DeOrr was up there?” “Absolutely not. I have personally, because in the beginning there was so much stuff that was going on that, you know… I mean, I had everyone trying to convince me that he never made it up there. And I went over to Isaac’s house, and I knocked on the door, and he and I sat and had a conversation, just the two of us. And I said, ‘Isaac, I need to… you have to tell me, was the baby up there?’ And Isaac told me face-to-face, ‘Yes, baby DeOrr was up there.’ Okay, when was the last place you’ve seen him? And he’s like, ‘Well, around the campfire that morning, and then when they come back from the store he was there.’ So I know 100% that he was up there. He came back from the store in Leadore with them, and so I know 100% in my heart that he was up there, and even after the store, he was in the campground.”

(Isaac Reinwand) “What was your impression of him that you can remember, the last time seeing him?” “That he was, you know, having fun. Just like I said, he’s just like a normal… just like a normal two-year-old. Having fun, doing his thing. Looking at, looking at different, exploring, looking at different things, you know.” “Can you say 100% for sure baby DeOrr was up there?” “Yes, I can tell you that much, that he was up there.”

(Vernal DeOrr Kunz) “He thought… he said, ‘I don’t even know if DeOrr was up there at that campground.’ “ “You know, eventually I’ll be able to prove a lot of these theories wrong…” “But what do you mean by that? That’s just a theory that is wrong, and at any point, was there any sign of baby DeOrr?” “No.”

(Sheriff Penner) “So some might say, was he even up there to begin with? A lot of people thinking that he wasn’t. What do you think?” “I think… I think he was. From everything we’ve been able to put together timeline-wise, um, there’s nothing that says that he wasn’t. I’m 99% sure he’s probably deceased.”

(Private Investigator Philip Klein’s Team – Jane Holmes) Jane Holmes worked with private eye Philip Klein. She’s about to drop another theory that could change the entire story. “Some people have speculated that something had happened to the child before they went on the trip to try and cover up the child’s death possibly, or an accident, or whatever may have happened.” One reason behind her hunch is a lack of photos taken by DeOrr’s mother. The investigators say that she always posted pictures of her son on Facebook, but not during that camping trip.

“Did you take any pictures, by the way, uh, at all during the camping trip?” “No.” “Okay, any particular reason?” “Just didn’t think about it. Just… when I’m camping, I don’t really, you know. I didn’t have service. I didn’t… I kind of wanted to relax and enjoy being camping.”

At this point, Jessica says she had two witnesses in town that saw her with DeOrr. One was a store clerk, the other worked at a restaurant.

(Philip Klein) “We questioned those witnesses. They never saw a child inside that store. So now we have two witnesses saying, ‘What are you talking about? There was no child.’ I’m pretty comfortable saying he’s not in this particular area right here.”

“Is there evidence that DeOrr was actually last seen at that campsite?” “We believe he was.” “You believe he was? What’s the proof?” “Um, it just… the various timelines, the testimony that we’ve collected.” “Testimony, but there’s no physical proof? No photos?” “Correct.” “So it’s the official belief of the Sheriff’s Department that he was up there?” “Yes.” “Are you investigating any chances that maybe he wasn’t?” “Yes.”

(Philip Klein continues) “And you’ve looked at all of the evidence, you’ve done an investigation. What do you think happened here?” “What I think happened was, uh, I think we have the child that possibly—and I’m going to say that word ‘possibly’ because we don’t have anybody that has seen that child from the night before—we have two family members that have both lied on not only their polygraph tests but on their witness statements.” “You’re talking about Mom and Dad?” “We believe what has happened, yes, Mom and Dad have both told us… now we’re up to six stories on Dad and four stories on Mom. So basically what we have is we have two parents that say they brought their child up to this mountain on a camping trip when we don’t have any evidence that child made it up there on that camping trip.”

Dissecting the Evidence

Let’s dissect the clips we just watched for a minute before we move on to more of the inconsistencies in this case. Jessica’s mother Trina Clegg’s proof that baby DeOrr was on the camping trip is that Isaac told her he was, and that she knows in her heart he was there. I was a bit shocked when she referenced Isaac instead of her own daughter Jessica. Whether Isaac swore to her baby DeOrr was there, or she felt it in her heart, either way, none of that is evidence we can go off of to prove he was up there. As a side, I do feel horrible for Trina. What a nightmare of a place to find herself in. Her grandson is missing, she’s caught in the middle of a national media storm, and her daughter is failing polygraph tests.

Then we have Isaac stating baby DeOrr was at the camping trip. Now it’s been said that Isaac is the only one out of the four who has been consistent with his story. But I noticed something at the very end of the clip that gave me a little pause. Notice he looks to the side for a split second after he says, “Yes, I can tell you that much, that he was up there.” It could be nothing, but it did give me a little pause when I saw that.

Now we have Vernal’s clip. After the interviewer says, “I don’t even know if he was up there at that campground” (and she’s referencing Sheriff Bowerman, not Sheriff Penner. A side note: Sheriff Penner took over for Sheriff Bowerman when he retired, that’s why you will see both of them referenced in this video). So after the interviewer mentions that baby DeOrr may not have been at the campground, notice instead of saying, “Yes, he was up there,” Vernal looks down first and then says, “You know, eventually I’ll be able to prove a lot of these theories wrong,” and says it’s just a theory. Which it may be, but the way he looks down and stumbles a bit bothered me. And well, Vernal, it’s 9 years later, and that theory has not been proven wrong as of yet.

Then we have Sheriff Penner, who states the belief of the Sheriff’s Department is that baby DeOrr was up there, but doesn’t seem to have any solid evidence to back it up. Then we have the private investigator Philip Klein saying he didn’t find any evidence baby DeOrr was up there. And you add that with the fact that Jessica evidently posted photos of baby DeOrr to Facebook often, but didn’t take one photo of baby DeOrr that weekend, and I don’t know… It really makes me wonder if something didn’t happen to him before, and the camping trip created the perfect cover-up. I don’t think that theory is too far-fetched. The only thing we have to go on saying baby DeOrr was there is the word of Jessica, Vernal, Grandpa, and Isaac.

The Genesis of the Trip

Now we’re going to get into the other gray areas and inconsistencies on this case, but let’s hear what Trina has to say about the genesis of this camping trip and how Jessica, Vernal, Grandpa, and Isaac ended up together at Timber Creek Campground.

“So but you knew they went camping?” “Oh yes, they had told you we were going to go camping. And from what I remember, it was kind of a last-minute camping trip. My dad, we had… my dad and I had talked about going back up to Leadore where we had been when I was a kid, and he really wanted to share that with Jessica. Um, kind of the kids wanted me to go, wanted the family to go. He knew he was getting sicker, and so, um, unfortunately, I wasn’t available to go up there that… um, you know, I was… my plans were to go Saturday after. I had an engagement um already going. So my intentions were to go up Saturday after it. It was just really quick. He’s like, ‘I want to go.’ And my dad, once he said ‘I want to go,’ it was ‘I want to go now,’ you know? And um, it started happening quick, you know, it was ‘need groceries, need to get the camper fixed,’ you know, all that kind of stuff was really, really quick of getting everything ready. Dad wanted to go, it was he was going.”

“And Jessica was close to your dad cuz she cared for him, right?” “Right, yeah, yeah. So she was one of his caregivers. And I asked Jessica if she would please go, you know. She wanted to go, but I just had to, you know, ‘Please Jess, I really want you to go, I need you to make sure Grandpa’s going to be okay.’ You know, he was going to take Isaac with him, but I, you know, I didn’t know Isaac well enough to know whether if something happened with my dad… And so Jessica did decide to go and with Vernal and take the baby. And so I was really excited that they were going to have that opportunity to go up there and go somewhere where my dad and I spent a lot of time as a kid.”

According to Trina, the camping trip, although it was somewhat last-minute, was Grandpa Bob’s idea. He originally planned for it to be him and Isaac, but Trina inserted herself into the planning and asked Jessica to go as well to keep an eye on him because of his failing health, since she was also one of his caregivers. That still doesn’t mean the trip couldn’t have been used as an opportunity to cover up something nefarious happening to baby DeOrr in my opinion, but I’ll talk more about that later.

Suspicions Surrounding the Parents

I think now is a good time to talk a little bit about Jessica. She was known to be erratic and irresponsible. She couldn’t hold down a job for very long; that’s how she ended up becoming a caregiver for Grandpa Bob. She had two other children with another partner, had 50/50 custody for a while, and once she met Vernal, she gave up custody, and they went to live with their father full-time. She stated she did that because their father was better able to support the kids financially, and that she maintained contact and saw them often. That doesn’t really make sense to me. Why did she give up custody if she still saw them often? Something doesn’t sit right with me about that.

Soon after baby DeOrr’s disappearance, Jessica and Vernal ended their relationship. And shockingly, only 8 months later, Jessica married a man she only knew for 6 weeks.

Here’s a clip from the first private investigator the family hired to look into baby DeOrr’s disappearance. Now, we’ll talk more about him a little later in the video, but his name is Frank Vilt, and he’s speaking on Jessica and what he thinks may have happened to baby DeOrr. And then I’m going to play a quick clip from Philip Klein, who we heard from earlier, talking about Jessica’s behavior as well.

(Frank Vilt) “What do you think happened to DeOrr?” “Well, I feel there’s uh, one possibility as a scenario is… is that, uh, it’s only because of Jessica giving up custody of her other two kids. And because uh, she didn’t really want kids, and when she had DeOrr, that she was… her tubes were tied, and for all intents and purposes sterilized so she could never be reversed. And uh, I believe that uh, because of the laws in Nebraska as an example, and Utah, their adoption laws, as long as the… even though the father may be on the birth certificate, as long as they were not married, the mother could basically have carte blanche to do what she wants to do as far as adopting out her child. So the one possibility was the child was adopted out, uh, was an out-of-state adoption which was arranged. And uh, as a cover story so DeOrr wouldn’t find out about it, they staged this possible stranger abduction or pre-arranged.”

(Philip Klein) “Jessica has a long history of erratic behavior. The child was getting in her way, uh, and she uh, frankly uh, was not interested in, in uh, in raising a child.”

Now look at this, it’s Jessica’s Facebook page. Just last week, she shocked everyone with the announcement that she had split from DeOrr’s dad and married a guy she met 6 weeks ago. Jessica seems to be a bit shady. Now, that doesn’t mean she’s guilty of anything, but it’s like the saying goes, things that make you go ‘hmm’.

Now let’s talk about the other three adults on the camping trip. I couldn’t find much on Vernal prior to DeOrr’s disappearance, only that he and Jessica were engaged. As was mentioned earlier, Grandpa Bob was in ill health and on oxygen. And it’s been said Isaac seems to be a little slow or possibly on the spectrum. He did have a prior conviction for domestic battery; there are conflicting reports as to whether the original charge was more serious and was pled down. He apparently lived close to Grandpa Bob and helped him with yard work and other tasks, and that’s how they became friends. They weren’t really close, just casual acquaintances.

The Private Investigators and Suspects

The family hired two different private investigators to help in the search for baby DeOrr. The first was Frank Vilt. He was a retired US Marshal with a respected reputation. He spent a couple of weeks on the case and then quit, stating Jessica and Vernal were not being truthful. The family said they fired him, but he disputes that. Not only did the two private investigators come to similar conclusions that Jessica and Vernal were not being truthful, Sheriff Lynn Bowerman named them as suspects in baby DeOrr’s disappearance about 6 months later, in January of 2016.

“[Vernal] and Jessica are suspects in their child’s disappearance. After a week of uh, interviewing Reinwand, um, and an announcement from the FBI that they were being less than truthful on their polygraphs, and a lot of uh, irregularities and discrepancies in their interviews, I felt it was necessary to come forward and say that the parents are being less than truthful. Inconsistencies in their stories aren’t boding well for Jessica and Vernal.”

They have now been named suspects in DeOrr’s disappearance from law enforcement, and two private investigators have come to the conclusion that they’re not being truthful. As I mentioned before, the first private investigator they hired, Frank Vilt, disputed the fact that Jessica and Vernal fired him. Because Jessica and Vernal were disparaging his name, he publicly released a scathing letter he sent to them in September of 2015, disputing their efforts to discredit him. Remember, this guy is a retired US Marshal; he’s not some fly-by-night private investigator. Here’s what the letter reads:

“As I previously informed you today via my text to your cell phone at 8:31 a.m., I am withdrawing from the investigation because of circumstances beyond my control, including but not limited to a breach of trust on your part concerning your refusal to allow me to make this case national. I am perplexed as to why you did not want me to advertise the $20,000 reward. I was willing to put up personal funds in the hopes that the public could provide information leading to the whereabouts of your son. I agreed to assist you. I informed you that I would work for my out-of-pocket expenses; I was willing to forgo my normal hourly fee. My stipulation was that both of you would be absolutely truthful.

I told both of you that if I felt that you were not telling the truth, stalling me, or otherwise misleading me, that I would withdraw from the investigation. In my opinion, both of you lied and misrepresented the true facts that could solve the mystery of your missing son. There are other aspects of this case that I cannot go into at this time, but simply put, I believe that the searches will all be nonproductive. The searches are only used by you to cover a possible crime that one or both of you have committed (emphasis added). My suggestion is that you fully cooperate with the Lemhi County Sheriff and tell the truth.

I do not appreciate the fact that one or both of you are spreading rumors that you have paid me. I have not received reimbursement to cover my expenses. I also feel that you are exploiting the public for financial gain. How can you live with yourselves? Sooner or later the truth will come out. I have enclosed a copy of my expenses and I expect to be reimbursed. I am a professional and I take my work seriously, but I do not like clients that do not cooperate by giving me false and misleading information.“

Let’s hear a little more from Frank Vilt via a phone interview he gave East Idaho News:

“All right, so Frank, this letter that… that’s been going around the internet, uh, looks like you wrote back in September.” “Basically, I told them that because of circumstances beyond my control, I dropped them as clients because of a breach of trust on their part because they didn’t seem to trust me. What I wanted to do, and what I mean by that: I wanted to go public with this, I wanted to go national public, and I wanted to advertise. We have this little missing boy, we need more eyes and ears to try to find this missing boy. I offered a $20,000 reward, and they did not want me offering the reward. They said that the sheriff didn’t want it, they said the sheriff didn’t want to go public. And the sheriff never mentioned that to me. And so I started finding a little… little things that they were inconsistent. Their stories didn’t jive. One was the timeline. And uh, there was an overemphasis of Jessica uh, stating that she knew the boy was in the campground because she kept looking back: ‘I kept looking back, I kept looking back.’ And um, it seemed like this was like an overkill. Why would she keep saying it over and over and over again? She wanted to establish that the boy was in the campground. And this was after they came back from town, and uh, they saw some fish that Isaac and Bobby, grandfather, caught. And so DeOrr said, ‘Well show me where those fish are, where’d you catch those fish?’ And so they went off with Jessica, DeOrr, and Isaac went off to the creek where they caught the fish, supposedly. And Jess kept saying, ‘I kept looking back to make sure the Little Man was there. Kept looking back, kept looking back.’ And why did she overemphasize that? And that was kind of one of the things. And she couldn’t answer my question as to why she kept uh, saying that. Why she wanted to establish like an alibi that the boy was there. And some other things that were just inconsistent. And they didn’t want to uh… they just were hiding things, like they weren’t coming forth with uh, with the truth. It didn’t make line, the timeline didn’t make sense.”

“When the news came out earlier this week that the sheriff is naming them as suspects, were you surprised?” “No, I wasn’t surprised at all. And uh, a lot of reasons for that is the sheriff’s not going to just make wild accusations. They’re not going to do anything until they have some evidence. There’s always double jeopardy involved too. So they name them as suspects, and uh, they’re not going to make an arrest. And most law enforcement people aren’t going to make an arrest till they have the evidence to do so because of double jeopardy. Because you don’t want to make an arrest and then the charges are dismissed with prejudice. So they want to avoid that. So that when they know that they have suspects, they have some good concrete evidence, and they’re going to name them as suspects and move them up from persons of interest, and that’s what they did in this case.”

“Why come forward with this information now?” “Was because they spread the rumor they fired me. And that’s not true. And I got that from the guy that was making the um, the documentary on missing children. Uh, they told me that the Kunzes told me that they dismissed me, that you fired me. And it’s dated September, that’s when you actually sent it to them and mailed it to them. Correct. That followed up the same date of my email. I sent them an email of the same date, September 25th. Basically, I said the same thing in my email to them.”

After Frank Vilt quit, the family hired Philip Klein. After investigating DeOrr’s disappearance, he came to a similar conclusion as Frank Vilt. Once Philip Klein approached the family with his suspicions, they fired him and went public disparaging him, stating once he got the money he just blamed the parents because it was easy. I went through Klein’s website and Facebook page, and he seems to be a no-holds-barred investigator. I’ll link both in the description, and I encourage you to look, especially at his Facebook page. He has a lot of documentation there from his investigation into baby DeOrr’s disappearance. Now he was off the case for a while, but an anonymous family member has rehired him, and he has resumed working the case.

Let’s hear a little more from Philip Klein and what he has to say about Jessica and Vernal’s conflicting stories:

“And it’s always ‘oh, we forgot.’ And so then we finally, actually on the I think the second trip or the third trip, we got up to the mountain, and we actually got to see the layout, and we knew right then and there what they had told us couldn’t have been the truth. There’s no way that you could not have seen that child. There’s no way that the child was doing what you said the child was doing. ‘Here’s some candy, go take it to Grandpa.’ First, they told us Grandpa was in a chair and he said, ‘Come on, DeOrr.’ Then we find out Grandpa wasn’t in the chair, that Grandpa was in fact asleep in the trailer, according to Grandpa.

And then this poor uh, this poor guy they just keep going after um… you know, then started pointing the finger. Huh? Isaac Reinwand, yeah, Isaac Reinwand. They keep pointing the finger at him, and we kept going, ‘Okay, but where was Isaac?’ ‘Oh well, he was down fishing.’ Well, either Isaac was down fishing or he was up in camp. What was he? ‘Oh, he’s down fishing.’ ‘Oh no, no, wait, wait, he was up in camp.’ ‘Oh no, no, no, no, wait, he was asleep in his in his tent.’ ‘Oh no, no, no, no, wait, well we really don’t know.’ ‘Well, we don’t know. Well, what was he all the way down to? What are you carrying? Was he carrying a fishing box? A tackle box? Was he carrying a rod and reel? What was he carrying?’ You got one of them saying, ‘Well he had a rod and reel.’ The other one said, ‘Well he didn’t have a tackle box.’ And it’s… it’s the little things that kept bothering us. Until finally, we just… we just called this family meeting, I think it was in March, and we sat everybody down and we said, ‘You know, Vernal, the first thing we can tell you is, you know…’ And then of course, the games begin. Allen Browning is floating around in this restaurant at this hotel trying to uh, trying to listen in on the conversation. And it’s so unprofessional. Allen Browning is the attorney that was the attorney for Vernal. And then finally we said, ‘Vernal, we believe you need to probably hire legal counsel because everything you’ve told us we can’t prove up. And until we prove something up, we can’t get a good timeline or know where this child went. We’ve got to know where the child went, guys.’ And Jessica was already starting to bail out on all of this. Vernal in that meeting, in different ways that you can do it, called Jessica a liar. Could Jessica have been involved? Yes, she could have been involved. And in the middle of all this, we’re reporting to law enforcement directly. After the meeting, ‘Oh my God, we got a problem, what the hell’s going on up here?’ They immediately called Jessica back into the police station, and they do a six or seven-hour interview with her, and they just drill her. And I mean, they… I mean, I watched a little bit of it. I can tell you, I don’t think I could have made it through that. I mean, the FBI guys really did a great job. And she would… she almost, almost gave in. And then Trina shows up and Vernal shows up. And because they knew it was gonna… I think Jessica was fixing to tell the story, whatever that story is.

And um, she leaves with Vernal, they get in the car, they take off, and they leave. Obviously, we… it looked like a mass exodus after a football game, you know, all these undercover cars following them around. I guess they didn’t know they were being watched. They go over to a sex shop and buy a thing called ‘Clone My Winky’ and six toys, and they proceed back to their apartment. Now, to the average person out there, that’s weird, right? To investigators, after you’ve interrogated someone for seven, eight hours, is that something you normally would do? Normally… um, and at that point, we started taking a good hard look at Vernal and Jessica. At that point, Allen Browning then stepped in, told us we were fired, said he was going to sue us for making defamatory statements, which eventually he did sue us. He sued us twice. The first one, Jessica bailed out so they had to drop it. The second one, they sued us… we got, we almost got to discovery. I mean, we were this close to putting them both in the box. We were going to take their depositions, we were gonna… we were this close. And the judge came in and goes, ‘Hold on everybody, everything Klein has said in public, everything Klein has said is the same thing the cops are saying.’ The lawsuit filed against Klein by Vernal for breach of contract, infliction of emotional distress, libel, slander, and fraud was dismissed by a judge.” [Music]

Diving Deeper into the Inconsistencies

Let’s dive a little bit deeper into the many inconsistencies in Jessica, Vernal, and Grandpa Bob’s stories. I am going to highlight only a few; this video would be hours upon hours long if I covered them all. I’m going to link sources in the description where you can go and find even more nuggets of information on this case. There are two sources who have done an outstanding job compiling details in one place and make it easy for you to go down the rabbit hole. One is JusticeForBabyDeOrr.com and the other is East Idaho News. So make sure to check out the description section of this video for links to all of those awesome sources.

Going back to when Jessica and Vernal said they went into Leadore on Friday, July 10th, 2015, for feminine products, snacks, and diesel for Vernal’s truck. In a videotaped interview Jessica gave to private investigator Philip Klein, he asked her where they stopped to get diesel.

“The only place in town that had diesel was two buildings down at the… it looked like a closed-down um, gas station, and that he needed to go over and prepay across the street at the uh, Clover Creek Motel.”

She states they stopped at the Clover Creek Motel. Well, Jessica, I don’t know about you, but driving 250 miles from camp to find diesel seems quite counterproductive. As a matter of fact, I imagine you guys would have run out of diesel before ever making it there, because there is no Clover Creek Motel in Leadore. Not even a business named anything close to that. But there is a Clover Creek Inn in Idaho about 250 miles away from Leadore. In my opinion, the name Clover Creek Motel wouldn’t just come to mind like that unless you’ve been to a Clover Creek Motel before. She had probably been to the Clover Creek Inn before, and in searching for a name of something to back up her shady story, that’s the name she blurted out. Again, just my opinion.

Another interesting slip-up from Jessica is in her written statement. Here she is talking about the 911 call. She states: “DeOrr [meaning Vernal] said he was really going to call 911 when he left. I tried to call my mom to see if I could make a call and for her to understand me. I tried to call her five times before the call went through. When my mom answered, I told her Lil Man was missing and we couldn’t find him. She couldn’t understand me because I was crying and panicked, so she yelled at me and told me to calm down so she could understand me. When I told her what was going on, she told me to call 911. I hung up with her and called 911. I told the dispatcher what was going on and she told me my husband was on the other line with them. When I was done talking to her, I took everything out of my pockets and threw them into DeOrr [meaning Vernal]’s truck and started heading towards the creek.”

Number one: if my 2-year-old son was missing, I would not waste precious minutes trying to call my mom, or anyone else for that matter, to see if it would go through. I would spend every second trying to get through to 911. What’s funny is Jessica said that it took five tries to get through to her mother, but got through to 911 on the first try. So calling her mom wasted valuable time getting the call into 911.

According to Vernal’s statement, it says that he and Jessica said they need to call 911, and Grandpa Bob says, “No, he’s here, it’s only been 20 minutes or so.” Vernal says here, “I told Jessica I was going for help and ran for my truck. I went to the… “ like, and then I’m not sure what that word is, he went to something in the road between the cut-offs and turned around thinking, “He’s got to be here, he’s little, he couldn’t go far.” So skipping a couple of lines, he then writes that he went a mile or so down the road and got service and called 911. He states 911 asked him to stay there so he would stay in service, but he said he hung up, stayed a few minutes, and because his son was missing he couldn’t just stay there, so he went back to camp.

So Vernal and Jessica in both statements say that Vernal left to call 911. Vernal says he ran for his truck and drove a mile or so down the road to call 911. Jessica says when she’s on the phone with 911, the dispatcher states her husband is on the other line. So it’s safe to assume, according to their statements, that Vernal is down the road a mile or so in his truck on the phone with 911, and Jessica is back at camp on the phone with 911.

If that was the case, then why does Jessica state that after she hung up with 911, she took everything out of her pockets and threw it in Vernal’s truck? I thought Vernal was over a mile away in his truck. How can you throw things in his truck if his truck is not there? Well, obviously you can’t. So this 911 story is not adding up at all. Also, why would you hang up from 911 and empty your pockets? That statement is just weird to me. Empty your pockets of what? Who has time to think of emptying your pockets after hanging up from a 911 call for your missing son? Why is that so relevant to her that she writes it in her statement?

Now we’re going to bring Grandpa Bob’s statements into play from an interview he gave private investigator Philip Klein. Vernal and Jessica have conflicting statements on what happened when they arrived back to camp from supposedly fishing in the creek to find that baby DeOrr was missing. Vernal said he asked Grandpa Bob where baby DeOrr was, and Grandpa said, “I thought he went down to you.” And Vernal said, “Down that way?” meaning toward the upper campground, and Grandpa said yes.

Jessica states that when she got back to camp, she asked Grandpa Bob where he last saw Lil Man and said he pointed to a tree and said he was right there sitting in the dirt playing with his boots. How can this be? How can they both get back to camp and ask Grandpa Bob the same question and get different answers when both Jessica, Vernal, and Grandpa were there together at this point? Something isn’t adding up. Let’s see what Grandpa has to say about this.

“Did you ever tell Jess that you saw him down by the creek sitting next to a tree?” “No.” “You never told… you never told her that?” “No, messing with the dirt or with his boot… never ever told her that.” “Okay.”

So Grandpa denies telling Jessica that baby DeOrr was sitting by a tree in the dirt playing with his boots. Let’s see what else isn’t matching up. In both Jessica and Vernal’s written statements, they say that Jessica asked Grandpa Bob to watch baby DeOrr while they went fishing with Isaac, and he said yes. What does Grandpa Bob have to say about this?

“I’m trying to image this in my mind cuz I’ve never been up there before, so DeOrr Senior, Jess, and Isaac walk away from the camp, right? And do they ask you to watch little DeOrr?” “That’s what I hear.” “Okay. That’s what you hear.” “That’s what I hear.” “That’s what you hear from them say?” “That’s what I hear. I didn’t know whether I heard them, or they said that.” “Okay.”

That’s an interesting choice of words Grandpa used to answer Klein’s question as to whether Jessica and Vernal asked him to watch baby DeOrr. Now, if Grandpa didn’t remember them asking him, he could have said “I don’t remember.” Instead, he says, “That’s what I hear.” Is that what you heard they told investigators, so that’s the story Jessica and Vernal are using? Then he says, “I don’t know whether I heard them or they said that.” What an interesting answer. Even though Grandpa Bob isn’t some young spring chicken anymore, being left in charge of a 2-year-old is not something that happens to him every day, especially on a weekend camping trip. So I would think that is something that would stand out to him and he would be able to answer definitively yes or no to whether he was asked to watch baby DeOrr.

There are a few more eerie statements Grandpa makes that I would say go under the category “things that make you go hmm”: “We all probably got a different story, so I don’t know what happened, that’s all there is to it. Things showed up too much, you know. Find out what’s going on, you know that.”

Conclusion

I really wish this story had an ending—an ending where baby DeOrr is found to be healthy and thriving, or an ending where he gets justice. But unfortunately, that’s not the case. I firmly believe someone on that camping trip, or all of them, knows something more. It’s been said by both Sheriff Bowerman and Sheriff Penner that it’s very unlikely baby DeOrr was abducted due to the location of the campsite. If someone abducted baby DeOrr, they would have been seen or heard, and it would have been risky as there is only one way in and one way out. Not to mention, there wasn’t anyone camping near them on that weekend. Child abductions most times are a crime of opportunity, so that doesn’t make any sense. It’s not like they were in some crowded campground where someone could grab baby DeOrr with no one noticing.

Both sheriffs have also stated the predator theory is unlikely as well. The area they were camping in was pretty open; if a predator were to have entered the camp, someone would have most likely noticed, and if baby DeOrr would have been grabbed, there’s a high chance he would have screamed or cried. There probably would have been blood evidence or scraps of clothing; his boots that are three sizes too big would have probably fallen off.

So to me—and this is just my opinion—that leaves us with Jessica and Vernal, or just Jessica, knowing what happened to baby DeOrr. Maybe this whole trip was a cover for something nefarious that happened to baby DeOrr. Or maybe baby DeOrr was there and something happened to him and Isaac was supposed to be the scapegoat. To this day, Jessica and her mom Trina blame Isaac. I personally don’t think Isaac did anything. Either he was threatened to say baby DeOrr was there, or something happened to him while Isaac was off fishing. My gut is telling me Jessica didn’t want baby DeOrr anymore and found a way to get rid of him. That is my opinion only; I’m not stating that as fact. I could be completely wrong, but that is where diving into this case led me.

I think law enforcement knows a lot more than they can say, but because they don’t have a body, it would be too risky to move forward with an arrest. They went so far as to name Jessica and Vernal as suspects but have probably been hoping more will come out or baby DeOrr’s remains will be found. I’m disgusted if Jessica and Vernal know where their son’s body is and go to sleep every night leaving the public to worry and wonder what happened to this innocent, beautiful baby boy. That’s why we can’t let this case rest. We need to keep the pressure up until something gives. The truth always eventually comes out. I know it will someday in this case. Wherever you are, sweet baby DeOrr, I pray you will be found. Until then, we will be your voice, and we will not give up our fight for answers.