It has been 14 years since Jacob Cabinaw disappeared from Grand Traverse County.
Detectives recently renewed their focus on the case, hoping to piece together what happened to the young father, son and brother.
March 31, 2010 is a day Sandra Cranson has lived over and over again for 14 years. For her brother Jacob Cabinaw, it was a day like so many others.
“He went golfing with some friends, and what I was told is after disc golfing, he was invited out to go, you know, to a hang out at the open space or do something else with the friends. And he said, No, I’ve got homework to do. He was a student at NMC, so he was heading back to our mom’s house where he was staying at the time and dropped friends off in open space,” said Cranson.
It’s after that drop-off at the open space in Traverse City, that the mystery of what happened to Jacob begins.
“The next morning, when my mom called me and said, Jacob never came home last night. She called Dave’s Garage where he was employed at the time, and he did not show up for work. And so that was all against his character. And that’s when she said something’s definitely wrong,” said Cranson.
Jacobs’s son, Zander, was just six years old at the time.
“I’ve got memories from parts here and there, but overall, he’s definitely left a lasting impact for me with certain activities like disc golfing, skateboarding. I do know the day that he actually disappeared, I was off on vacation at my grandmother’s and when I came back, I think I even waited a while just to make sure that if he was going to pop up, it would have been within the first few days,” recalled Zander.
According to a timeline from detectives, the evening of March 31 was the last time anyone would report seeing Jacob alive in Michigan.
The timeline after that is truly puzzling.
Detective Jason Polzien is one of the investigators currently working the case for the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office.
“There is one stop he does hit a gas station in Traverse City, the Municipal Station, and then he goes down to Buckley. There’s a gas station and Cadillac in $140 was taken from an ATM. And again, that’s another one. There was no video. His card was used, so we’re assuming that was him.
At 2:04 the next morning, Jacob is seen on video buying gas at a Speedway station in Mattawan.
His cell phone was pinged more than 12 hours later off cell tower near Springfield, Missouri.
Just after midnight the following morning, police in Hollister, Missouri run the plates on Jacob’s car.
Also that day, deputies in Washington County, Arkansas ran Jacob’s plates and report that he’s asleep in the car at a rest area in West Fork, Arkansas.
It’s the last time Jacob is definitively seen alive.
His card was declined later that day in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
It was used two hours later at an Exon Mobile in Fort Worth, then again in Sweetwater.
That was the last activity on the card.
“He pulled out cash in Cadillac, but even doing crunching numbers and to go from Mattawan, Michigan, all the way to the Oklahoma, I don’t I don’t know how you get gas and meals on $140 cash,” said Detective Polzien.
“He didn’t take any extra clothing. He didn’t take his passport. He didn’t take his toothbrushes, car charger. He didn’t have any of that,” said Cranson.
In 2017, the VIN from Jacob’s car turned up, possibly at a scrap yard in Mexico.
More recently in 2022. detectives did a fresh round of interviews.
“Time has passed and, you know, there’s people out there that they have their mind made up of, what information they’re going to tell us. And from an investigative standpoint, there’s, I’ll just call it discrepancies in their stories,” said Polzien.
All as detectives and Jacob’s family continue to wonder what happened.
“I guess some closure just to finally know what actually happened. I don’t know that the actual answer will be satisfying or, you know, something that I necessarily want to know or something that’s good, but I think I’d rather know than not know,” said Zander.
“Somebody knows something and, you know, I, I just think that it’s got to be eating at that person. They have to be wanting to come clean and just tell their part of it. There’s somebody out there,” said Cranson.
If you have any information on what happened to Jacob Cabinaw, contact the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office at 231-995-5000, or click here.
