Idaho : Stephanie Crane

Written By Navigating Advocacy Podcast

Photos: Claudia Rivero TV

The store had surveillance cameras that showed her checking out while talking on the. She walks in, grabs a bag of candy, checks out, and then leaves the store. She stops momentarily and scratches the front of her leg all while talking on the phone and then disappears off camera. And this is on the way home from school.

So she was here then at home to drop off her stuff or whatever happened, and then after that, she disappears. Do you know, you might come into this, who she was talking to on the phone at this point? We get into that. Okay, perfect. There was little to no media coverage of Janteyl's disappearance. One of the few news articles placed a small snippet beside some other criminal posts.

One photo is less than 10 sentences. One. Local reporter Claudia Rivero has extensively covered Janteyl's case since. . She's been in regular communication with the family and she's really pushing to further Janteyl's case. She was even working on creating a documentary at one point. I can only find the trailer that's out there on YouTube.

I'm not sure if the documentary ever was fully released, but we absolutely will share the trailer in the show notes. And the fact that the headline of this small article says, pregnant teen Missing, why do you have to even say pregnant? Honestly, I think that the ploy to gain more attention, people are more likely to help someone with a baby as opposed to without a baby.

Yeah. Well, give her more than a tiny article on. Yes. What makes me sad is that a harp sill that was rescued like this is a very positive article. I'm so glad a harp seal was rescued on this beach and was given a full page. Article here and a little bitty snippet for a missing teenager. Exactly. It's just, it's, yeah.

Not good. While authorities found all of Janteyl's items at her apartment, there were no signs of struggle or a fight inside the home either. After not receiving any leads for a couple of days, law enforcement pulls Janteyl's phone record. Okay. They see that the last call she received was at thirty-eight.

From the man that was the father of her unborn child. What made it a little more difficult is that when they tried to trace this call, it went to a burner phone. Oh, no. So, did her family know the guy that got her pregnant? Had they, he, he's never been named. Okay. In the interview I watched with her mom, she said that when Janteyl told her that she was pregnant, she sat her down and said, do you know who the father is?

And Janteyl said, yes, it's ex. Okay. And because he's so much older than her, it was a very big deal because statutory rape is a real thing. Yeah. And that might, she's under 16 though too. So it might even be a bit more than that. Yes, I did. Actually, we talked a little bit about it here in a second, but the age of consent in Delaware is 16 for those assigned female at birth and 18 for those assigned male at birth.

So he's well outside of any questionable. If he was 17, she was 15. They're in the same high school, that relationship. Yeah, I understand a little bit. 26 and 15 is a bit of a stretch for me. Yeah. And absolutely not. Okay. This unnamed man, he still to this day, has not been named, Hmm. Was questioned by police, but never officially listed as a suspect or a person of interest in her disappearance.

It is important to note that the last place Janteyl's cell phone pinged, was near this man's mother's house. Oh, of course. A couple of days after she disappeared. He also originally answered all of the authority’s questions, but very quickly became uncooperative

By gathering the cell phone records. Police also discover that Janteyl was not just in communication with this older dude. Police learned that she was in communication with a 42-year-old. Oh no. He also was interrogated, but again, not identified publicly or listed as a person of interest or a suspect. A third man who was 24 at the time was also contacted.

Again, no leads and not enough evidence to list the person to list as a person of interest, so investigations into Janteyl's disappearance slowed shortly after. Her family believes she left the house with the intention to come back. Given that she took none of her belongings, especially her glasses, maybe one of these men called her.

She stepped outside to speak with them because the door was left unlocked. Nothing was disturbed and she either got into the vehicle willingly at that moment or was taken at that moment. . But the fact that she was seen on the phone at the convenience. and do we know exactly what time she was at the convenience store?

I'm going to guess the surveillance. There are a lot of details that are not released. Okay. So I'm assuming the surveillance video is timestamped and that they are able to narrow that down and cross reference cell phone records. Okay. To see who, if that last call was the call that she was on at the convenience store, which would be the baby's daddy.

Yes. Okay. It would. In 2013, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released an age progression photo of what Janteyl may look like by the age of 23, police would officially label her case as cold in 2018 due to the lack of new leadership at the time of her disappearance. Janteyl was described as standing five foot, two inches tall, 120 pounds, with black hair, and brown.

She did have braids in her hair when she went missing. Both ears are pierced and she has a scar on her chin under her lip. She wore glasses or contacts but did not have them on when she left or was taken from her apartment on February 3rd. She was wearing a short. Black ski jacket and this is, I found multiple reports that she was wearing a short black ski jacket, but when you look at the surveillance camera, and it might just be a reflection or something with that surveillance video, it looks light, gray, or white.

To me, it looks like a lot lighter color than black. Oh yeah, definitely. Especially, oh yeah. That does not look black at all. But is it reflective? Could it be black and reflective? or did they find this jacket at the house and another one missing? And so they know it wasn't this one that she was wearing.

They said a short black ski jacket with fur around the hood. Oh, this one clearly has fur around the hood, so I'm assuming that this photo is the one they're going with. Yeah, but you could be right. Maybe. Maybe there was a different jacket. Yeah, possibly. But yeah, definitely has fur and it's shorter. In 2019, the Delaware Crime Stoppers placed Jan Till's photo on a billboard and had her added to a deck of playing cards that are distributed through the jails and prisons in Delaware, hoping that someone inside would have some information that could help find Janteyl police believe Janteyl could have traveled outside of Newark as well.

Possibly to Wilmington, Delaware, or to Philadelphia as one of the older men that she had been talking with had ties to both of those locations. Okay. They've also mentioned San Antonio, Texas as a possible location where she was taken. Now, how they came to that conclusion, I'm not sure. I do know that Claudia Rivera, the reporter that's actively

working on this case nonstop, said that she was in Texas at one point. Looking into another case and some ties somewhere, some lead came up that kind of tied back to Janteyl. So the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, they have listed San Antonio as a potential place where she could be.

Holy moly, that's interesting. Texas is nowhere near Delaware, nowhere near, they have to have some kind of lead or sighting or something to be that specific of a. Ooh, that's interesting. Janteyl followed through with her pregnancy, she would have a 12-year-old child. Oh my God. At this point, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also said that she could be in the company of a juvenile female.

I don't know if they've seen someone and maybe her, maybe she had a daughter, or if there is a juvenile female that took it. I'm not sure what they mean by that, but she could be in the company of a juvenile female. So is this female a juvenile now or a juvenile back then? I would assume a juvenile back then.

Okay. Wow. I last too. These feel very much the same. Oh, they are? Yes. Between this one and Leisha Stein that went missing. Yeah. In Colorado, correct? In Colorado, yeah. Yes. It's, because they feel very much the same. We have someone leaving a. Not in the middle of the night, but leaving a house. We've got two girls on surveillance videos.

Obviously, they're across the country from each other, so I don't think it's some big ring. I don't think they're connected in any way, shape, or form, but they're very similar. And this is probably two out of a hundred that happened exactly like this, which, oh, thousands. I would even say thousands. It's very not even gonna get into the whole human trafficking thing again, cuz I won't go off on a tangent exactly about that, but it's, I don't know.

So what theories are out there? Did Janteyl run away? She'd done it once before. Why wouldn't she do it? I think 12 years. I think there would be a lead-up to a runaway, an argument, or something that was making her not happy with the situation she was in. , as far as everyone can tell, everything was perfectly okay.

Yeah. And 12 years later it seems less likely. Yeah. The one time she did run away, she came back. , her mom was excited about getting a grandchild. Why would she have not? If she had a successful pregnancy, why would she have not brought the grandchild back into her mom's life at this point? She didn't, as you said, she didn't have a fight.

They were supportive. Everyone was excited about the future. This one just does not make sense to me. Does not to me. She would've taken her stuff with her knowing that she was about to have a baby. She would need a purse with her ID or her glasses. It. I cannot get on board with her being a runaway this time.

Okay. So was she a kid? With the last phone call she received being from her baby's father who was much older, did he take her against her will? I think she could have gone willingly with him, but it didn't end up with her willingly staying with him. Was he concerned with the fact that he could be arrested for statutory rape when she gave birth?

Because Delaware's age of consent laws are extremely strict. I think we've all recently seen this on an episode of, I don't know, it wasn't even Dateline. What was the one where it might have just been the regular news where a young couple went in to have a baby and they arrested the dad on site because she was 16 and he was 18?

Oh, yeah. And he didn't even get to go to the birth. I, it just recently happened and now the names are like, Pleading my mind to me. This probably would be my number one theory in all of it. Usually, the easiest answer is the one The most possible. Yes. Yeah. He had a reason to not want her to give birth.

I would vote for that one. If It's also worth noting that Delaware is a state where abortion is legal. Up to the point of fetal viability. With Janteyl being five months pregnant, she was very close to the end of this window. Was he forcing her to have an abortion? And she said, no, I'm keeping it. And that led to this disappearance.


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Navigating Advocacy Podcast

Whitney and Melissa, hosts of Navigating Advocacy, blend their true crime interests with a mission to spark justice through storytelling, inspiring action, and building a community of advocates.

https://www.navigatingadvocacy.com
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