Jerol

Wife: Jerol, Age 57

Missing Husband: Jack

Location: Severn, Maryland

Jerol Married in 2015

Married For Five Years

Husband Disappeared 2020

Jerol met her husband Jack through a dating website in 2014 and their connection was instantaneous. Jack had recently gone through a challenging divorce after an unhappy marriage, discovering a renewed sense of hope in Jerol. Jack wined and dined Jerol and they quickly fell in love. Jerol was drawn to Jack’s intelligence and the way he took her seriously even though she didn’t have a traditional education. Jerol also had been in unlucky in love and was previously married. Her first marriage was a disaster, fraught with fighting and instability. The best thing that came from her previous marriage were her three children, her oldest daughter Emily, her second oldest Hannah and her youngest son Tim. Her oldest daughters live close by in Maryland and Tim lives in Chattanooga. Jack promised that he could take care of Jerol and her children. The two were married less than a year later in 2015.

Jack provided Jerol with a lifestyle she was unaccustomed to: he worked in finance/accounting and had a solid career contracting for NASA. With Jack, Jerol had the opportunities she had only dreamed of. She travelled the world, attended galas, went to nice restaurants, and met interesting and famous people. She received lavish gifts from Jack like jewelry and clothing that she’d never experienced before. Not only was Jack taking care of her, he was also supporting her children, providing food, clothing and money.

The whole family was quickly enthralled with Jack as a father figure and husband to Jerol. They were all experiencing new things and feeling safe and supported. Even so, there were things Jack and Jerol disagreed on from the beginning. Jerol wanted to go to work, but Jack refused. “I provide this life for you so you don’t have to work” he’d say, and ask her to stay at home. She followed his direction and stayed at home, allowing him to take care of all of their money, accounts, the house, etc. Nonetheless, the whole family remembers these early years of the marriage as a happy time in all their lives… until the summer of 2019, when everything changed.

Jerol was badly injured in a car accident that required her to begin taking pain medications. Soon, her daughters started to worry that Jack was feeding her these drugs even when she stopped needing them, seemingly to suppress her personality, to keep her in a stupor and under his control and supervision. The pills began to pose an issue for Jerol’s health and safety, as her daughters remember her driving while under the influence and falling asleep throughout the day. Fortunately, Jerol stopped taking the medications and her personality and clear-thinking immediately returned. Unfortunately, this is when she noticed a difference in Jack. He had come to expect the medicated version of Jerol, the one that was agreeable and “under control.” He started showing a darker, controlling side that aligned with the theory that he may have been feeding her the pills on purpose.

On October 19, 2020, Jerol decided to confront Jack about his behavior. It turned into a full-blown screaming match, and ended when Jack packed two bags of belongings, and left the house in an Uber, never to return. After five years of marriage, this was the last time that Jerol had any contact with her husband Jack.

Jerol begged Jack to come back through voicemails and text messages that were never returned. She was close with Jack’s sister, and reached out to her to find out if she knew where Jack had run off to. Jack’s sister denied any knowledge or contact with Jack, but Jerol rebutted this knowing that the phone bill confirmed that they’d been in touch. Jack’s sister called Jerol a bitch and a liar, and blocked her so they haven’t talked since. Jerol is still legally married to Jack and has reached out via email and phone to request a divorce, but he is not responding and not granting her a divorce. Because of the lack of communication, Emily, Jerol’s daughter even called the police to do a wellness check on Jack at his sister’s home in Missouri where they suspected he might be. The police can’t act as an intermediary so they only disclosed that he is fine and that he doesn’t wish to be disturbed. They can’t tell if the police actually spoke to Jack or just Jack’s sister and there is no way to find out if Jack is living there, if the sister told the police he is fine and living somewhere else, or what the answer is. Jerol and her daughters feel like they have exhausted their options in tracking him down.

Jack’s disappearance has impacted Jerol’s finances and the quality of her life. Jack stopped paying the mortgage on Jerol’s home and is sending it into foreclosure as he is the only one on the mortgage, even though Jerol’s name is also on the deed for the house. They don’t have an exact timeline but they think within the year. Financially, Jack has forced Jerol into a complicated and difficult position. Because Jack never allowed Jerol to work, stating that he was would be the provider of the family, Jerol hasn’t had a job in over a decade. Now that she is on her own she has had a difficult time re-entering the workforce, jumping from one odd job to the next, looking for a steady career. She is currently not working and looking for the next job. Jerol has contributed money, time and energy into the upkeep of their home. It’s the only major financial asset that she has. If she can’t find Jack and get him to sign over the home, she is at risk of losing the house.

Additionally, the house is still full of Jack’s belongings that he left behind the night he left. This includes a vinyl collection, book collections, all of his clothing, and rooms full of random things. Jerol has been living with a constant reminder of the husband that disappeared, and to sell it would mean sifting through everything and reliving the trauma of what happened. There’s also a question of how much money all this stuff is really worth. Since the abandonment, Jerol and her children have begun to question how much money Jack really had. During their marriage, he would lavish Jerol with what she believed to be expensive jewelry. When she needed extra money after he left, she went to sell the jewelry, only to find out that it is fake and relatively worthless.

Now that Jack has left, Jerol and her daughter’s are left to make sense of what happened: exactly what was Jack’s financial and career situation? Did he really have as much money as he said that he did? He mentioned that he had two sets of accounting books while he was married to Jerol, which now in hindsight sounds suspicious. He was let go from his NASA contract, but when pressed, Jack never told Jerol the reason why. Emily discovered that Jack, unbeknownst to her, took out a loan in her name! When confronted about it, Jack said that it was for her school, but she never saw a penny from it. It was Jerol’s father who ended up paying back the loan. This has made Jerol and her daughter’s question what Jack is capable of? Are there more loans, bank accounts, or hidden assets that Jack has that they are in the dark about? Has he been hiding financial secrets for years? If so, were there other secrets that Jack might have been hiding, or lying about?

Hannah and Emily are unsure why Jack left their mother the way he did. If they had to guess, they would say it’s because Jerol stopped taking the pills and fell out from under Jack’s influence. She was no longer the submissive, quiet, “Jack-worshipping” woman who could be controlled simply by being wined and dined. In their view, once their mother gained a sense of autonomy, the fairytale Jack had built for himself began to crumble

The mess Jack has made and left for Jerol and her family is all too similar to the mess he made for his first wife and grown kids, too. Knowing his history, Jerol fears the extent of what he’s capable of and whether he might do this again to someone else. And there’s only one way to make sure that doesn’t happen: Jerol needs to find him.