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In March 2010, 31-year-old Jacob Cabinaw was in the midst of rebuilding his life after going through a divorce. Not only was he working full-time as a mechanic, but he was also taking classes at Northwestern Michigan College, a local community college, with the idea of one day becoming a nurse so he could better support his two young sons.
Since Traverse City, Michigan was experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures on Wednesday, March 31, 2010, Jacob took advantage of it & spent the evening playing frisbee golf with his friend. When they finished, he declined the invitation to grab dinner & drinks, explaining that he needed to catch up on some homework.
But, rather than going home, he drove nearly 1,400 miles southwest, ending up in Texas, before he suddenly vanished, leaving his family baffled, confused & devastated.
Since Jacob had always been such an incredibly reliable, communicative, family-oriented person who was dedicated to his sons, no one could understand what prompted him to leave or what became of him. Despite the passage of more than 16 years, they’re still left with nothing but questions & speculation.
Jacob “Jake” Cabinaw was born on October 6, 1978 as the seventh of ten children to his mom, Mavis Clous. He grew up without a consistent father figure in his life. He was a proud member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa, a federally recognized Native American tribe in northwest Michigan.
At the time of his disappearance, Jake was living in Grawn, Michigan. Grawn is a community about 10 miles south of Traverse City, which is situated in the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan along Grand Traverse Bay, an arm of Lake Michigan, about a five hour drive northeast of Chicago.
According to Mavis, her son was a goofy, adventurous little boy who always wore a smile on his face that stretched from ear-to-ear. He loved biking, frisbee golf, football, basketball, skateboarding & generally anything to do with the outdoors. As much as he was a joker, Jake was always particular about making sure things were clean, in their place & easy to find.
His sister, Sandra Cranson, laughs as she compares her brother’s stature to that of Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas since he was tall & skinny at 5’11” & 150#. He also always kept his brown hair in a short buzz cut.
During high school, Jake studied to become a car mechanic & when he vanished in 2010, he was working full-time as a master mechanic at Dave’s Garage in Traverse City, Michigan. He was also going to school & serving as an active member of the National Guard where he served guard duty every other weekend.
After graduation, he married Rachel, his girlfriend since junior high & the couple had two boys together.
Although he was busy, he always prioritized his sons, his family & his friends, often putting the needs of others before his own. Although he loved working on cars as a mechanic, he also enjoyed taking care of people, which is how he came to the idea of becoming a nurse.
In 2008, after ten years of marriage, Jake & Rachel made the decision to divorce. Since his child support payments were putting a strain on his finances, he decided to move in with his mom in Grawn to save money.
According to Mavis, although it was a very stressful time for her son, Jake never complained about his struggles or had a negative word to say about his ex-wife. He was working as hard as he could with the goal of ensuring that his two boys were taken care of through the difficult transition of their parent’s divorce. Since Jake had grown up without a father in his life, it was especially important for him to be a constant figure in their lives.
In March 2010, one year after his divorce was final, Jake had been saving as much money as possible with the goal of buying a house for himself, his girlfriend & his boys.
On Tuesday night, March 30, 2010, he spent the night with his girlfriend & on Wednesday, March 31, he worked a full shift at Dave’s Garage.
After work, he met up with his friend, Gary Wittig, at the Hickory Hills Recreation Area so they could play a few rounds of frisbee golf. When they were done, Gary suggested they go out for drinks & a bite to eat, but Jake told him that he needed to get back to his mom’s house so he could finish up some homework. The mystery began at 9 pm after he dropped Gary off at The Open Space, the largest beachfront park in the city.
When Sandra’s phone rang the next day, her mom told her that Jake hadn’t come home the night before. When Mavis called Dave’s Garage to see if he was there, they let her know that he hadn’t come in. Jake’s family was immediately concerned since this was all entirely out of character for Jake. Although he was a grown man, he was a very respectful person who always contacted his mom if he wasn’t going to come home.
Gary Wittig, who had been the last known person to have seen Jake, indicated that nothing seemed amiss during their Wednesday evening together. He had been in great spirits & never mentioned any issues. Sandra agreed with this sentiment as when Jake had been at her house only days earlier on Sunday to work on a school paper, he seemed completely himself.
Over the next two days, each time Jake’s family & friends tried calling him on his cell phone, it went straight to voicemail. On Friday, April 2, Mavis contacted the Grand Traverse Sheriff’s Department to report her son missing, but she was told that since he was an adult, they weren’t able to open a missing persons case until he had been gone for a week.
The following day, Saturday, April 3, Mavis received an alert from Jake’s bank that a $40 withdrawal on his debit card had been declined at an ATM due to insufficient funds. The fact that her son had let his account balance drop so low was highly unusual, not to mention, the bank in question was nearly 1,200 miles south of Traverse City in Ardmore, Oklahoma, a drive that would have taken more than 17 hours.
With this information, Sandra & her mom went to the state police. Despite the fact that Jake had only been gone for three days, they wanted to report him missing since they had this new information. When they showed the officers his bank statements, the state police put them back into contact with the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Department & they agreed to help.
Mavis & Sandra told Detective Jason Polzien just how out of character all of this was for Jake. He was an attentive father who was family-oriented, he was a dedicated employee & student & someone who wasn’t known to just up & leave without communication. With this information, a police report was filed & an investigation began.
After police obtained Jake’s phone & bank records in hopes of tracking his movements, they discovered the last charge on his credit card was from a gas station in Sweetwater, Texas on Sunday, April 4, four days after he was last seen at a location nearly 1,400 miles from home. From there, they backtracked, putting a timeline of his movements together starting from Wednesday night when he dropped Gary off.
Gary & Jake played frisbee golf in Traverse City from about 7-8:30 pm before Gary asked Jake to drop him off downtown. Only a few minutes later, Jake used his credit card to buy gas at a station in Traverse City. From here, he headed 30 minutes south to Buckley, Michigan where he used his card again between 8:30-9 pm at Buckley General Store to make a small purchase, likely for snacks & a drink.
At 10:31 pm, he withdrew $140 from an ATM in Cadillac, Michigan, a 32 mile drive southeast of Buckley General Store & an hour from home. Since there was no video at the bank, it couldn’t be confirmed that it was Jake who was using the card.
However, about 3 ½ hours later, at about 2 am on Thursday morning, April 1, investigators did get surveillance from a Speedway gas station in Mattawan, Michigan near Kalamazoo, a 2 hour & 15 minute drive south of the ATM in Cadillac. Here, he used his card to purchase gas.
According to the footage, Detective Polzien said that it was definitely Jake driving his silver Chevy Malibu & he was still wearing the work clothes he wore five hours earlier. It appeared that he was alone & no one seemed to be following him. This made him believe that Jake had just decided to take an impromptu trip for whatever reason without telling his family.
Later that Thursday afternoon at 2:36 pm, about sixteen hours after he was last seen, Jake’s cell phone was used for the very last time when he called the National Guard’s automated call center. He routinely made this call at the beginning of each month to relay that he was still a student. He was receiving student aid for his classes through the National Guard, so the call would trigger a deposit into his account.
The call pinged off of a tower near Springfield, Missouri, 803 miles from Traverse City, a drive that would have taken about twelve hours. After this point, he either manually turned his phone off or it lost power since he didn’t have a charger with him.
As investigators looked more closely at his route, they concluded that he was headed for Texas. The next sign of Jake came nearly ten hours later, but only 50 miles south of Springfield, when a Hollister, Missouri police officer ran his license plate at 12:15 am on Friday, April 2.
It’s unclear if he was pulled over as no action was taken. It was likely a patrol officer routinely running an out-of-state plate. This left his family wondering what he’d been doing during those ten hours as Hollister was less than an hour from Springfield.
It’s unlikely that he had been resting as three hours later at 3:32 am, an Arkansas sheriff’s deputy saw Jake’s car at a rest stop near West Fork, Arkansas, two hours southwest of Hollister. The officer found him asleep in his Malibu & asked him for his ID before he went back to his patrol car to run his name as well as his plate. The dispatch confirmed that the car belonged to Jacob Cabinaw of Traverse City. He had no warrants, he was a valid driver & it appeared that he was the only occupant in the car. This was the very last confirmed sighting of Jake.
Moving forward eight hours, at 11:30 am on Saturday, April 3, 36 hours after he left Traverse City, Jake or someone else attempted to withdraw $40 from his account at an ATM in Ardmore, Oklahoma. The ATM was a four hour & fifteen minute drive southwest of the rest area in West Fork. This was when the transaction was declined due to insufficient funds & his mother was alerted.
Investigators found it odd that after basically driving straight south from Michigan toward Texas, he suddenly diverted his path 57 miles west from West Fork, Arkansas to Ardmore, Oklahoma rather than driving straight south into Texas since it added hours to his trip.
From Ardmore, he drove an hour & a half south to Fort Worth, Texas where he successfully used his credit card to buy a full tank of gas at 1:26 pm at an Exxon Mobile. From here he headed west & three hours later, he stopped again to refuel at a 7/11 in Sweetwater, Texas at 4:49 pm. This was the last time his card was ever used.
Investigators couldn’t understand why he hadn’t used his credit card in the 1,000 miles that separated Mattawan, Michigan & Ardmore, Oklahoma. He had $140 in cash with him & it’s likely he would have needed to refuel twice in this span of miles, spending about $100 to do so.
It’s also unclear why he chose to stop for gas in Fort Worth & again only 191 miles later in Sweetwater.
When Jake’s family watched the surveillance videos from the stations in Fort Worth & Sweetwater, they noticed that he entered the station from the town side rather than the highway side. Since there were many missing hours in his journeys, they wondered if he’d been spending time in town which would also explain why he needed to refuel sooner than expected, had he been driving around in those areas.
Other than Jake’s brother, who was stationed 3 ½ hours northeast of Sweetwater in Fort Hood, Texas, there was no reason that they knew for him to be in the area.
They also questioned if it was actually Jake who was buying gas at the Sweetwater station. Not only was the footage grainy, but it was also sun flared. Although it did appear to be his car, the person seemed shorter & stockier than Jake’s thin 5’11” frame. He was also no longer dressed in the work clothes he’d been seen previously wearing & Jake hadn’t brought an extra pair of clothes with him nor a cell phone charger or toothbrush.
According to Detective Polzien, he was the only occupant in the car & from the brief glimpse caught of him that didn’t really depict his head or face, it was a thin male who wore a white t-shirt, khaki shorts & dark boots with socks that were higher than the top of the boots.
Sandra indicated that she had never seen her brother wear the baggy, sloppy cargo shorts that the person in the footage had been wearing. Since he hadn’t brought an extra change of clothes with him, he would have had to have bought the clothing which wouldn’t have left him any cash for gas. This has left Sandra unconvinced that it was her brother in the footage.
Detective Polzien wasn’t able to find any incidents involving a silver Malibu or any contacts with Jacob Cabinaw in Sweetwater. With no leads, he has been unable to determine what led Jake to drive to Sweetwater, if, in fact, the person in the footage was him.
This has left his family to wonder if someone else was driving Jake’s car & utilizing his credit card. Did he meet foul play sometime between when he was found sleeping in his car at the rest stop in Arkansas & when his car was seen at the gas station in Sweetwater? Or was it Jake in the footage & if so, was he on his way to Mexico to potentially restart his life or to do something illegal to make some quick money?
However, not only did he not have a passport with him, but he didn’t speak Spanish & had he planned to work as a mechanic there, he’d left all of his tools behind.
With Jake missing, police began searching for his car in hopes it could lend a clue as to what happened to him. Moving forward seven years to 2017, Detective Polzien was put in touch with the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) & according to their records, at some point, the VIN for Jake’s Chevy Malibu flagged an alert in Mexico. The only information he was given was that it was most likely at a scrap yard.
Despite this information, there is no evidence that Jake himself ever entered Mexico. This has led Detective Polzien to believe that the only logical explanation is that Jake met foul play & the person responsible didn’t want his car to remain in the U.S. so the car was taken across the border.
The only explanation his family has been able to come up with is that Jake was offered a quick way to make cash for an illegal drug trade that he believed would erase his financial burden & someone killed him in the process.
Some have wondered if Gary Wittig, who was the last person to have seen Jake, might know more than he’s revealing since Gary also disappeared for a few days at the same time that Jake went missing.
When Gary did finally surface, he claimed to have met a couple of girls at a bar on Wednesday night, March 31 after Jake dropped him off. He said he went back to a hotel room with them to party & he hadn’t answered any calls or text messages from his mom because his phone died.
Investigators have never been able to verify his story, but he has also never been named a person-of-interest or charged with a crime in connection with Jake’s disappearance.
Detective Polzien believes that Gary likely does know more than he’s saying as he & Jake had spent more than two hours together that night in a wooded area of Traverse City playing frisbee golf. Then Jake suddenly got in his car & drove south, rather than going back to his mom’s house to do his homework as he’d planned.
Despite the passage of nearly 16 ½ years since Jake suddenly left his family’s lives, detectives still have no theory as to where he could be or what may have happened to him.
Sandra doesn’t believe that her brother was planning on being gone for an extended period of time since he was actively working on a school paper only days before he vanished. Had he intended to disappear, why would he have put the effort into something that added to his future?
It was entirely out of character for him to pick up & go somewhere without letting his family know, especially their mom. He was also a hand’s-on-dad & because he hasn’t come home to be there for his boys, who were 6 & 12-years old at the time, they sadly believe that he is dead.
Jake had always been a reliable man defined by his commitments. He had no history of erratic behavior & was deeply devoted to his sons. He was on good terms with his ex-wife, he was up-to-date on child support payments & since Rachel had Jake’s cell phone in her name, she was able to review his call log. In every call he made over the year before he disappeared, not one was placed to Texas.
In order to solve his case, Detective Polzien would need to figure out who sent Jake down to Texas & why. He especially would love to be able to sit down with his two sons to look them in the eye & tell them what happened to their father. They have grown up without a dad & have been left to wonder if they may have done something to cause him to leave.
During an interview in 2014 with Jake’s son, Zander, who was 6-years-old when his dad vanished nearly 14 years earlier, he voiced his desire for closure, whether it be good or bad. Zander admits that his feelings are complicated as to his dad’s whereabouts. He would rather his dad be dead & gone rather than learning that after so many years, he was still out there & didn’t care enough to make contact. He likes to believe that his dad was better than that.
Zander feels thankful that he was able to get the six years he did with his dad. He & his brother visit the Hickory Hills disc golf area where Zander & his brother dedicated a bench to their father. Jake’s love of disc golf was also passed to them.
When they first brought the bench out there, they wrote letters to their dad on balloons & released them in the air. It’s a place where they go to connect with him.
Jacob Cabinaw was a Native American man, who was 31-years-old when he vanished in 2010, making him 48-years-old this year. He had brown hair & brown eyes, he was 5’11” & weighed 150#. He was last seen wearing his work uniform that consisted of dark blue pants, a white t-shirt, a dark blue jacket with Dave’s Garage printed on it & brown work boots.
According to Mavis, her son was someone who much preferred to be in the company of others rather than being alone. Sandra indicated that there hadn’t been any warning signs leading up to her brother’s disappearance. He hadn’t seemed overly stressed & he was actively working on homework. Other friends agreed, saying that Jake was always smiling & never seemed stressed.
According to Ken Barringer, one of Jake’s best friends, throughout the ten years of their friendship, Jake vanishing in the way he did, is not the person he knew. He was always someone who opened up when he was having problems & he hadn’t said a single thing to Ken. Other than his brother being stationed there in the military, he never spoke of Texas so everyone is baffled as to why he took a spur-of-the-moment trip there.
Gary Wittig did admit that Jake had smoked marijuana on the Wednesday that he disappeared. It’s possible that he may have been stressed that the National Guard would drug test him & potentially kick him out. However, Sandra had spoken to her brother’s commanding officer who described him as a model soldier who had never been in trouble. She doubts he would have ever turned his back on his family for something so minor.
For legal reasons, the court declared Jake deceased five years after he vanished in 2015, but his case was never officially closed.
Jake was last seen driving a silver 2002 Chevy Malibu with Michigan license plates. If you have any information about his disappearance, please call the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Department at 231-995-5000.
References:
- Unsolved Mysteries: Jacob’s Last Drive
- Wikipedia: Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa Indians
- Wikipedia: Traverse City, Michigan
- Up North Live: Family hopes for closure 14 years after northern Michigan man went missing
- IPR: Together: Family copes with loss, unanswered questions
- Western Michigan University: Jacob Cabinaw cold case
- Unsealed Evidence: The 1,200 mile drift: The disappearance of Jacob Cabinaw
- City of Traverse City: Open Space
- Yahoo News: Police renew search for missing man: Traverse City’s Jacob Cabinaw has been gone for 14 years, but police have not forgotten
- Northern Express: The strange case of Jacob Cabinaw 3/21/11
- Medium: The puzzling disappearance of Jacob Cabinaw
