AZ AZ - Jason Saul, 17, Bullhead City, 15 Aug 1997

[RougeOF]

What if he never died? What if he wanted to start his life over again(If he was indeed in a gang) He could've been injured and someone found him. Jason could've the gave the person a false name and live under that name. No one would know, and if they did they probably woundnt speak up.

 

[MagnoliaMountain]

Possible that he just tried to get out of that gang lifestyle and chose that way to disappear and start a new life somewhere.

Personally I'm pretty sure though he never made it out of the desert...

 

[Fuuro]

Hey, guys, I'm back! Don't think I abandoned this case as I'm still holding out hope that something new will be discovered soon.

It's been about 9 months since this thread was started, and so far, these are the questions that have been ringing in my head:

Why isn't there a picture of Jason from after 10?
What desert was he and his friend in? Had they been there before?
I noticed the original casefile said that he was last seen "outside the desert". I wonder if this means he was last seen BEFORE he went into the desert or if he was seen outside the desert after he went in the first time?
Why does LE think that Jason is missing voluntarily?
Is this case gang-related?
Was the original casefile lost? It would explain A LOT.

I was also thinking of another possibility.
It's pretty farfetched in a case like this, but you wonder with all of the "runaways" that haven't been found after 10, 20, 30 years if this happened to them as well if they used an alias.

 

[DianeElaine]

I just checked and his DNA status is "Sample submitted- Tests complete".
No fingerprints and dentals available though.

BBM and RSBM. I was wondering who in his family (or very close friend) submitted his DNA for testing. Surely that person would know more about this young man. Is it possible to find out who submitted the DNA?

 

[ZannO]

"Personally I'm pretty sure though he never made it out of the desert..."

We need to know more about Kenford Farley and this part of the story.
Why did they split up??

 

[MagnoliaMountain]

Missing for 17 years tomorrow...

 

[sarah52181]

It looks like his friend died in 2000 at the age of 21. I can't find any info as to how, though.

 

[Fuuro]

Hey, everyone, long time no see (again).

Been having internet problems for a ridiculously long amount of time so I've had to wait until I could do this. I want people to be interested with this case because it makes very little sense when you start to analyze it.

First of all, let's recap the little info we know about this case:
A 17 year old male named Jason Saul disappeared from somewhere in Arizona in August 1997.
He and another child (a teenager who later died 3 years later) were in the desert in Bullhead City after their vehicle stalled and he was last seen outside of the desert.
Judging by his Doe Network profile and some other missing people informational resources, for some very strange reason, the police believe either that he is a runaway or that foul play may be involved in his disappearance. This leads me to believe that LE has investigated his case beyond the original newspaper clipping from the day of his disappearance, but they haven't released what they've found out to the public. As far as we know, Jason has no history of running away from home and there's nothing concrete to suggest that foul play was involved other than the long passage of time from his disappearance. I don't know why LE just wouldn't assume that he just never made it out of the desert unless there's some sort of unspecified evidence that points to the other 2 theories rather than the simplest one?

There are also no pictures of Jason after age 10. This detail, along with the fact that it seems as if LE knows a bit more about this disappearance than we do makes me think that the original case file was either lost or destroyed. Maybe there wasn't even one or maybe he just didn't take any pictures after age 10, but that's the impression that several pieces of information from this case have given me.
Sadly, Jason has now been missing for around the same time where people knew where he was. I was hoping we would get some new leads on this case for its 17th anniversary, seeing as numerous other cases with the ominous and dreaded "few details are available in his/her case" string have been greatly elaborated on in recent history, but still, we have almost nothing to go on.

 

[Fuuro]

I also realized something. This may sound like a cockabull-baseless story, but maybe Jason never was with the other teenager in the desert at all? We're going entirely on his testimony and that ambiguous line that he was seen "outside the desert" (whether that means before he went in or that he got out) the last time by anyone other than the other boy may make a little more sense. It seems as if LE has tried to omit the desert part of the story from Jason's casefile. Maybe they deemed it not credible and they don't believe the other kid's story? I can't think of any other reason why that they think that other things happened to Jason other than him just getting lost in the desert. I don't mean any ill will against Farley, who is now deceased, but I'm just trying to make sense of this deceptively "simple" case.

Also, speaking of being last seen "outside the desert", that line in particular is VERY vague and could turn this entire case upside-down depending on its meaning. We don't know if they mean that he was seen going INTO the desert or coming out of the desert. If they meant the latter, that would make sense as to why LE seems to not believe that the desert really played a big part in his disappearance.

 

[Fuuro]

I re-read the original article that I found over 18 months ago. If you want to see it, it's in my original post. I found out that it was stated that Jason was actually last seen by relatives (probably his parents) the day he disappeared. This kind of crosses out my theory that he ran away from home at a much younger age and went missing again in August 1997. Now I'm starting to think that this seems as if this is a child who had a home, had family, and had friends, especially considering that someone submitted DNA evidence. With all that being said, why is there so little information on this case? There wasn't even an article saying that they called off the search or that they now believe other factors were involved in his disappearance. We have not heard anything about new leads or possible suspects (if the police really think that foul play is possible) or where he could've gone if he indeed ran away. It's almost as if he never disappeared. This is probably the coldest cold case I have ever heard of by far. And it's one that involves a minor. That's just depressing to think about.

During my sporadic doenetwork sweeps, I haven't located any unidentified people, living or deceased, from Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, California, or Nevada (states surrounding AZ, Bullhead City is apparently, very, very close to California AND Nevada) other than one that I'm pretty sure at this point isn't even him (I already made a post about the UID in the first page) that match Jason's description. I don't know of any missing child/young adult cases in any of these states that sound as if they could possibly be connected to this one. I'm currently plowing through Charley's 1990s section as a hobby and I think I should also keep an eye out for cases involving children and young adults (13-19) that disappeared from around the same area as Jason did. I personally don't believe that foul play is involved and that the idea about the desert is more plausible, but hey, anything can happen.

 

[Fuuro]

Also, if Jason was living at home still, he was probably in school in August 1997 (although it was probably still summer break). He would have likely been in the 11th Grade and would have probably gone into the 12th grade shortly after his disappearance. However, nothing matching him comes up on old yearbook photo websites. I wonder if Jason Saul is this child's real name? Maybe he went by something else that everyone knew him as. Maybe he went by William or Bill, or Billy? A lot of people with common middle names go answer to their middle name instead of their first name; I've seen this a lot from reading a lot of Charley Project, and I, personally, used to go by my middle name instead of my first name.

I still have no idea when it comes to what evidence people have found that leads them to believe that foul play was involved or that he ran away. I think I remember hearing somewhere that police sometimes don't publicly release information in a case when they have an active investigation ongoing. That old comment on a broken link that I found about someone named "Jason William Saul" being murdered, possibly by more than one person and Arron Welsh being the one who orchestrated it, in hindsight, really doesn't make any sense. First of all, I'm sure that this would be something that law enforcement would find necessary to be included his casefile. Second of all, I don't even think that Arron Welsh even exists, since I did a complete Google sweep and I could not find anyone with that name, dead or alive, with that name that had been living in Arizona around the time Jason went missing. I think I might have found one person named Arron Welsh, but I think he would have been dead around the time when this all happened. Thirdly, I don't know why I trusted a comment that was embedded in a broken link in the first place -_-

 

[MagnoliaMountain]

I wish people that knew this young man would come forward and share something about his life, character, days leading up to his disappearance, friends etc. with us.

 

[Fuuro]

I wish people that knew this young man would come forward and share something about his life, character, days leading up to his disappearance, friends etc. with us.

That would certainly help quite a bit, because at this point, there are numerous questions that have not been answered about the circumstances of his disappearance that could only be elaborated on by people who knew him. Especially the days leading up to his disappearance, because if he really is missing voluntarily or met with foul play, usually, if someone plans to disappear or thinks that someone might harm them, they express it. I would also really like to find out what, exactly, happened to the other boy who was in the desert and died 3 years later.

Upon reviewing this case yet again, there are more glaring things that pop out at me:

I missed something the first time I read the old newspaper article: the police changed Jason's case from a simple rescue effort to a full-on missing persons investigation the day after his disappearance and the search was ended, at least in the desert. Now, instead of search and rescue teams, the police were solely looking for Jason, presumably they were no longer searching in the desert, for whatever reason. I think that around this point, the police started to suspect that other things may have happened to Jason other than him just being lost in the desert. The question is, what made them think those things? Another thing is that from my experiences with some similar cases, search parties usually aren't called off after barely a day of searching, but since I'm no expert, correct me if I'm wrong. It seems as if they didn't give up the search, they prematurely stopped it for whatever reason and went somewhere else, thinking as if there's a better chance he was there than in the desert.

On another note, today (well, for me, it was yesterday, but for the people in the central areas and in the west, it still is) today is Thanksgiving and I can't imagine how hard it must be for Jason's parents on Thanksgiving not knowing where their child is.

 

[Fuuro]

The whole thing about the search "randomly" being called off seems to me that it wasn't that they believed it was too late to save him, it's starting to make me think that they no longer believed he was still in the desert. The fact that the police soon got more involved is a very ominous sign and may be an indicator of possible foul play. LE wouldn't say why, exactly, they decided to take the route they did, other than they needed to get more information, whether that means interviewing witnesses or something else entirely. We still don't know what put that belief in their heads, though, but I think it would bust this entire story wide open if we found out.

Why do you guys think they stopped the search in the desert and decided to get the police more involved?

 

[MagnoliaMountain]

Considering his nicknames...I've always had the feeling that he could have been involved in a possible gang lifestyle or just something that wasn't the "best" path...
So maybe LE knew about his background/possible involvement in bad things and that's why they jumped to the conclusion it could have been foul play.

 

[Fuuro]

Considering his nicknames...I've always had the feeling that he could have been involved in a possible gang lifestyle or just something that wasn't the "best" path...
So maybe LE knew about his background/possible involvement in bad things and that's why they jumped to the conclusion it could have been foul play.

I'm still not 100% sure of that but I've had that feeling too ever since I found out, what, exactly, his "names" could possibly have meant. I would also not be surprised to find out that he also had additional numerous assumed names. Maybe "8-ball" is something innocuous, don't know about "Lazy J". This is kind of why I would like to know what he was like so we can have an idea of what could have happened to him based on his lifestyle. Unfortunately, the only things we really know for sure about Jason is that A) he exists or B) he disappeared a long time ago. That's just sad. But, I personally, I'm not sure he was living a high-risk lifestyle seeing as he was missed within a short period of time by relatives (according to the newspaper article). Usually, people who lead "questionable" lifestyles go a rather long time without their disappearances being reported to police since they spend a lot of time away from home/on the street, so they have little contact with family members.

I don't know very much about Bullhead City, but from what I gather, it really doesn't seem like a place that has very much crime. It's a very popular vacationing spot for tourists, with activities like water rafting, scuba diving, wildlife photography, and whatnot. Plenty of beaches there too. A lot of casino and gambling activity goes on over there, seeing as it's not too far away from Las Vegas in Nevada (about 90 miles or so south). Its climate, however, is merciless in August temperatures (when this all happened), usually reaching above the 100 degree mark, sometimes going over 120 degrees. Bullhead City is also near the Colorado River, which is very long and flows through multiple U.S. states as well as north Mexico. It's also worth noting that Bullhead city directly connects to 2 different states, California, and Nevada. Seems like a fairly decent place to visit in my books. Hopefully, some of these little pieces of information prove helpful somehow.

I'm trying to find out what specific desert Jason and his friend were in when they disappeared, because it seems as if a lot of the deserts in that area are actually surrounded by water, as strange as that sounds. My geography skills aren't what they used to be, so I might just be missing something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullhead_City,_Arizona

 

[Fuuro]

Bump bump bumpy bump. Hopefully, we get some new information in the new year that de-mystifies this whole case and the Saul family can find out what happened to their child and get closure.

 

[Tulessa]

If this has been posted, let it zip right over your head, and roll and scroll.

https://charleyross.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/jason-saul-and-kenford-farley/

 

[Tulessa]

But the comments are interesting.

 

[Tulessa]

I looked for Kenford on Facebook and couldn’t find him. Which is understandable, because he’s been dead for twelve years. He died on December 5, 2000, aged twenty-one.

I wonder what happened. I can’t find any articles about his death, whether it was an accident, suicide, maybe some tragic illness. He was so young.

Did he die?