Part 1: Baby William goes missing after a divorce

In this first part of a 5-part series, the Modern Divorce Podcast does a deep dive into the tangled events of a divorce gone bad between two young parents. 

The infant son of a young father, Jacob Gouchenour, along with the baby's mother, Madeline Jones, disappear on a June day in Mesa, Arizona not long after a family law judge orders that the two parents share parenting time.  Was she kidnapped, murdered, or the victim of an accident? Accusations fly between the families as law enforcement quietly begin a multi-state manhunt.

Modern Law's Billie Tarascio finds herself working to find a legal angle track them down, and does her best to keep the pressure on a campaign to find Baby William.

Transcript

Episode 1: Baby William Goes Missing

[00:00:00] Billie Tarascio: Hello, and welcome to the modern divorce podcast. I'm your host, Billie Tarascio. I'm the owner of modern law, a family law firm in the Phoenix area. I've been a divorce attorney for more than 15 years. I've got four kiddos and I'm divorced myself. And on this podcast, we're going to cover everything related to divorce.

Be it legal issues financially. Children issues, blended family issues, counseling mediation, and more. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. 

[00:00:29] Nancy Conrad: Hi and welcome to this special edition series of the modern divorce podcast. I'm Nancy Conrad, and I work behind the scenes here at modern law in the next five episodes.

Starting here. We're taking a look at the heartbreaking case of a baby boy, who was the focus of a divorce between two. Very young parents. The first I'd heard about it was a chilling report on the news. 

[00:00:52] TV Media Report: 19 year old, Madeline Jones went missing Thursday afternoon. Along with her nine month old son, William. Carla Navarette here. Now, after speaking with Madeline's parents in Mesa, Carla, Jared, just two weeks ago, Madeline or Maddie as her family calls her divorced her husband, Jacob, governor of Montana. The two had been married for about... 

[00:01:14] Nancy Conrad: Okay, so let me just hold up for a minute. We've got a young mother and her baby who've gone missing.

And she's just been through a contentious divorce, full disclosure here. This is a divorce that your podcast hosts Billie Tarascio had been involved in and she called me I'm her mother. But more importantly, I have a PR company and I work on modern laws, website and social media content. So when Billie called me and said, I should turn on the news to hear this report.

Honestly, I didn't know what to think 

[00:01:46] TV Media Report: ...we're left behind at the Mesa home. All of these things signaling to her parents that Maddie was taken abruptly, they've filed a missing person report with the Mesa police department today, they reached out to Maddie or whomever is with her. Plead 

[00:02:04] Roland Jones: that we love her. And we want to know that she's just to call us alive and that William's okay and alive.

[00:02:11] Cassie Jones: "Just to call us because we're such a close knit family. I would think that she would at least call us. You know, 

[00:02:22] Nancy Conrad: so now you've just met the parents of this young mother, Cassandra Jones known as Cassie. And Roland Alex Jones, who his friends call Alex. It's no surprise that they're heartbroken that they're their daughter, their sweet baby grandchild are missing.

And by their account, they might well have been kidnapped. In fact, it was the morning of June 17th, 2017. When Roland call to report Maddie and Baby William missing.

[00:02:53] 911 Operator: How can I help you today? 

[00:02:56] Roland Jones: I'm not sure who to talk to or what to do. Um, I'm just really worried that, uh, we haven't seen her from my daughter since, uh, yesterday evening, about five 30. Um, And, um, you haven't heard from them and supposed to be in contact with them, and haven't been enabled to get ahold of them or find out anyone that knows where they are.

And, um, like her stuff is at the house still like her wallet and her phone, and very concerned and trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do. 

[00:03:31] Nancy Conrad: So it's pretty clear at this point. Roland Alex Jones and his wife, Cassie, think that their former son-in-law Jake Gouchenourhad somehow taken Maddie. And then the rest of the call, which goes on for several minutes, the police operator tries to ferret out information.

Roland describes what Maddie looks like; a five foot, five woman with blonde hair, about 150 pounds. Mind you, this is a dad guess I'm thinking. So we can't really be sure. Right. And that Maddie wasn't there when they got up in the morning, later on in the call, the police operator thinks to ask any custody issues? 

[00:04:15] 911 Operator: Any custody 

issues?

[00:04:18] Roland Jones: Yeah.

Currently, custody (unintelligible) currently custody going on in the courts that's the cause of the stress she's been under. 

[00:04:31] Nancy Conrad: Well, we've certainly heard about difficult custody issues, but, but the weird thing is, is that the divorce court ruling that happened just days before Maddie's disappearance was for shared custody. The the two young parents were going to get equal time to spend with baby William. So why would the father Jake Gouchenour kidnap his own baby and Maddie Jones?

Well, it was just a day later that Jake got a chance to make his appearance on TV pleading for Maddie's returns. 

[00:05:07] TV Media Report: Her baby had been missing since Thursday. Her parents filed a missing persons report. And tonight we are now hearing from the baby's father, as well as her grandmother, Carla Navarette at they live in our newsroom with the very latest on this case tonight.

And Sean, I can tell you that today, the lawyers for Jacob Gouchenour asked a judge to give him full custody of the baby. And it was granted in that court paperwork. They cite the mother's past behavior and the possibility of her having a mental illness as the reasons why the baby could be in harm's way.

A worried father and grandmother in Mesa today, sharing with us that they fear for baby Williams' life. 19 year old, Madeline Jones and the baby disappearing from their Mesa home. Last Thursday, 

[00:05:51] Andrea Gouchenour: we're saying this is something to worry about. This is some of this weather out 

here is insane. She doesn't have a car.

She doesn't have a purse. This is not the way that someone who is rational behaves. 

[00:06:01] Nancy Conrad: Okay. You're hearing Andrea gouchenour ;she is the grandmother. Jake's mom who is stepping up to have her say with the TV station, 

[00:06:08] Andrea Gouchenour: what is her next irrational step with this baby? So we feel like now there's an order in place that if somebody sees something, this baby can be safe.

[00:06:16] TV Media Report: Last night Madeline's parents made a plead for her to call and let them know she and her baby are okay today. The baby's father is sharing with us. He's only seen his son twice since birth. Last Wednesday was the beginning of his parental visits. When Madelyn and baby William disappeared, 

[00:06:34] Jake Gouchenour: there is a history of mental illness in their family. So I'm very much concerned for this. This is the first time she's been so extremely on unrational. And I think she's very much desperate. Like she just lost in court and I got parenting time three weeks ago, parenting time started. She really didn't like that happening. So all of these, these avenues, which she thought were, were good for her are closing.

And so I think she's desperate and I'm very much worried. 

[00:07:00] TV Media Report: Madeline hasn't been seen on social media and as the days go on, the worry only grows. Jacob Madeline's ex husband has this for Madeline. If she's watching 

[00:07:11] Jake Gouchenour: Just to be safe and please bring them back. I don't know why it has to go so far all the time. I don't know why it has to keep getting worse and worse.

I want to be a good parent. I'm trying to be a good parent and doing the best that I know how to do. I want to be a part of his life. So just want to come back. 

[00:07:31] TV Media Report: And if you have any information on Madeline's, whereabouts you're asked to call the Mesa police department in the newsroom,Carla Navarette, CBS5 News.

[00:07:38] Nancy Conrad: So now we have a case of, he said, she said, It's all very confusing. And there are camps forming on both sides. Friends of the Joneses are rallying around them and friends of the Gouchenours are rallying around them. The problem for the Gouchenours is that they live in Montana and this case is taking place in, in Arizona.

So they don't really have as much support as the Joneses do. Plus Maddie is looked at as a vulnerable young woman and she made lots of accusations. About Jake that appeared in the divorce court. Let's just take a look at some of the things she said happened between them. No, I'm just going to read you something that was part of their divorce paperwork.

This is from a law enforcement report out of Montana in may of 2016 a year before the divorce where she claimed that she'd been kidnapped. On May 9th, 2016, I was kidnapped by my husband assisted by his mother and held for seven hours until my parents were able to get the local Sheriff's office to intervene.

They had planned to keep me in Montana indefinitely against my will. The Sheriff's department completely mishandled the situation. Hooting having conflicts of interests, a lack of report for five years. A lack of a statement taken from the victim, no investigation and complete falsification. Well, I'm not really sure what that's all about, but here's, here's more on the background of what happened on May 5th, 2016, flew into great falls to visit my husband.

Our plan was to move to Mesa, Arizona for delivering my baby. Since I had insurance through my dad in Arizona and to attend. Jacob had gone to Montana to work on his parents' farm for the summer, but ended up substitute teaching. Instead I planned to stay for a few weeks. Part of the reason for going was trying to reconcile a Jacob as he had been very abusive to me since we got married, the rest of Maddie's report.

In this particular narrative to law enforcement and the divorce court notes, the goings on in the household and the things she felt. And it sounds like she's a young woman who felt very troubled. She also makes accusations that she was kidnapped in one point because they were riding in a car and she didn't want to be in the car.

Um, she also lists here in bullet points. I was often denied medical coverage while married to Jacob. I was often denied food while married to Jacob and was only able to eat when I purchase food on campus with my ID card, which he only let me keep money on for the purpose of doing law. And that she says she was verbally, emotionally and sexually abused while married to Jacob.

And she calls that narcissistic and sociopathic behave. So what was going on with Jake? Whenever a woman says she's abused, it's always important to find out the real story. Since historically, we know these things are often swept under the rug or they're minimized. And as Cassie and Roland reached out to their supporters on social media, people were increasingly convinced Jake was a bad guy.

Sure. They had started out as big supporters. They loved him at first, but as reports came back to them from that. They were horrified that their daughter was a victim. And now. Cassie shared with her followers that she feared the worst. "We just know, she is gone. We have all prayed about it. We feel like William is still alive, somewhere being abused by that sick, sick sick family.

But that Maddie is with her heavenly father." That's a pretty heartbreaking thing to say for a mom. And it brought out a whole lot of support by friends and family of the Joneses. And mind you the Joneses who, well, they're very involved with their local church. They were well-known among their peers. They were known to help out every week.

They, they involved their three daughters in various church groups and activities. Now for those of us who live here in the Phoenix area, Mesa and its surrounding suburbs are home to a lot of devout and practicing churchgoers with the latter day saints. And as an aside, I should mention that, although technically you still hear people say, Uh, Mormons or even LDS and use those terms.

The church issued a statement in 2019 asking to be called by its full name and its members as latter day saints. So I'll try to use that, uh, whenever possible, but you'll also hear people call them still LDS. So I wanted to talk toBillie to find out how she was approaching this situation and get a little more background on what had happened leading up to this point.

So. Let's back up a little bit and talk about when you first became acquainted with this. And when did you think something's really off, this was not your normal case 

[00:12:54] Billie Tarascio: pretty early on because, um, the law firm got a call and. Um, Andrea and Rachel wanted to schedule a two hour consultation. He's 

[00:13:05] Nancy Conrad: Billie's talking about Andrea Gouchenour and her sister jake's aunt Rachel, 

Guernsey

[00:13:11] Billie Tarascio: and so I didn't meet with Jacob. I met with Andrea and Rachel, and they came in with binders and binders documents and documents and set out in great painstaking detail to tell me about a (unintelligible) and incidents that had occurred. Yeah. You know, maybe a year prior, um, surrounding Maddie and Jacob. And it took a long time for it to come out in the consultation.

What we were actually talking about, which was, you know, the story of Maddie and Jacob and Maddie and Jacob, or very young Mormons who got married, attended BYU together. Then they went to. Montana, um, where they were going to spend the summer with Jacob's family. And very shortly after that, there were very strange events that took place.

And then she left. Maddie left. She went to Arizona with her family. She was pregnant at the time and that was the beginning of their breakup. They were very, very young. And so she, she, you know, yes. So they, Andrea and Rachel had all of their text messages back and forth that showed that they were in this loving normal relationship and then many, many, many months later. Yeah. Maddie starts making claims that Jacob has been abusive, that Jacob's been abusive, their whole marriage that maybe other people in Jacob's family were abusive and she filed for divorce. She also had an order of protection against him.

She also got an order of protection against his mother, and they were very frustrated with their lawyer who had not just figured out how to get Jacob parenting time with his son who was born, you know, somewhere here in the mix. 

[00:15:00] Nancy Conrad: And they were working with that Montana attorney at that point. 

[00:15:04] Billie Tarascio: Nope. They had an Arizona attorney because the baby was in Arizona and the case was in Arizona, the Arizona attorney that they had, wasn't getting it done.

Wasn't taking proactive steps. Wasn't um, they didn't feel like they were well-represented and they wanted someone who would believe that. And would take their case seriously and dive in. 

[00:15:26] Nancy Conrad: And where were they at in the process of divorce? So what were you being employed to do at that point? 

[00:15:32] Billie Tarascio: Yeah, so they were midway, midway through their divorce.

They had already had an, a resolution management conference. Jacob had met the baby once in a courthouse. Um, after that incident, Maddie accused him of sexually abusing the baby inside the courtroom. Took the baby to the pediatrician, took the baby to the ER, Maddie claimed that he raped her on their honeymoon.

 Immediately after the wedding, immediately after the wedding. And I didn't believe her. And I deposed her and I asked her to give me details. Where were you. Where in the hotel room, what were you wearing? What did you say? Who did you call? Give me details. And of course she couldn't because these weren't made up stories.

[00:16:27] Nancy Conrad: Okay. So you start out, you're like this kid needs some defending. Yeah. And what is the, the legal step that you're going to take? I mean, normally divorces and I've heard you talk about this. They don't include a lot of components of who's right and wrong. Who's bad. Who's good. It's about how are we going to split up the property and how are we going to determine parenting time?

And you had more 

going on? 

[00:16:56] Billie Tarascio: Well, in this case, there was really no property. It was a very short term marriage of very young people. Neither of them worked, both of them, lived at home and were young college students. So we were really only talking about parenting time and legal decision-making. Um, and it really surrounded on fitness.

Jacob wanted to share the baby. Maddie did not want to share the baby at all. Um, the former lawyers, you know, strategy was what a lot of lawyers would do. Look, don't worry about it. This will all come out in the end. Um, you're going to get parenting time. You're a good guy, but they wanted to take the Gouchenours, want to take a different approach.

They wanted to prove that she was making up things. That she was lying, that she had some real... her behavior was really questionable. And once she took the baby to the doctor to claim that Jacob had sexually molested the baby and the medical records showed that the baby's genitalia was indeed red and swollen.

I filed for emergency orders to move custody, to Jacob. I said, look, your honor, we know, and you know that she's been lying from day one that this isn't true. You don't believe it. We don't believe it. But now they've crossed the line. Now they've started abusing the baby in order to create evidence because, you know, Jacob, didn't sexually molest this child in the middle of the courthouse in public.

And because Jacob had no contact with his son until, um, until after the divorce, except for this one time. 

[00:18:44] Nancy Conrad: And this was like December, I think. 

[00:18:47] Billie Tarascio: Yes. So I think, you know, the baby was born in September. You live in three months old and then Jacob did not have parenting time until after the divorce decree gave him supervised parenting time at a facility for a number of weeks.

Um, and that was mostly to make Maddie feel better. It was at those visits that he fed the baby formula. They, um, claimed that this formal was making the baby very sick. 

[00:19:16] Nancy Conrad: You filed for custody at that point because you felt this was just not adding up. Did, did the judge 

agree with you? 

[00:19:25] Billie Tarascio: The judge did not agree.

The judge said. Look, you got trial on a month because I think they Gouchenours hired me in March and trial was in may. So this all happened so quickly, but this was the first time that anyone had taken a very offensive approach in their case. So, um, not only are we going to say she's lying, but we're going to say, um, that that is not acceptable and that's putting the baby danger.

We also filed to get temporary orders. His previous, previous attorney had not filed for temporary orders so that he could see the baby on an ongoing basis before the trial again, because it was so close. The judge said, no, you're right there. We're going to deal with it at trial. So all of these things.

Short-term losses, but they all mattered because by the time we got to the two-day trial, the judge had heard from us a lot. And that was our strategy. We wanted the judge to know that, that this was a major case, that there was a lot going on that, that he should pay attention because things were not adding up.

Um, and by the time we got to the trial, you know, we had deposed, Maddie, we had filed lots of documents. We had really moved the case score. 

Had you deposed the parents at that point? No, it wasn't necessary, right. 

It wasn't necessary. 

[00:20:47] Nancy Conrad: Okay. And so you get to the, um, the two day trial in may and what was the outcome of that?

[00:20:56] Billie Tarascio: We won, um, decidedly, the judge. Agreed. With us, the judge, uh, admonished Madeline, um, judge set up a pretty aggressive parenting plan for Jacob. Now, the judge did copy away from Maddie. The judges said, look, you (unintelligible) stop. You know, this is, uh, we don't believe you. This is the baby's father. He's going to have time with his father.

Yeah. So it was a great when we were, we were really excited. Jacob was, could finally have a relationship with his infant, who he had had no contact with. So the judge ordered for two weeks or visitation to occur on a pretty aggressive schedule at a facility. And this was to protect Jacob and to protect Madeline because there was so much mistrust between them.

But, you know, the idea was if it takes place at a facility, the baby will have, have a chance to get to know Jacob and everything will be okay. Well, they immediately started fighting it, filing their own motion saying, um, you know, I think the visitation was four hours and they filed a motion saying maybe he can't go four hours without breastfeeding.

You, you know, you can't do it. So the judge broke it up into two, two hour segments. Like he was really trying to just facilitate like a normal. Relationship and really give her a pass because the judge called her out, but he gave her a pass and kind of a warning. But within, I think it was on the third day that visitation was occurring, you know, and they were kicking and screaming the entire time.

It was the third day. I believe that the baby didn't show up. It wasn't. So the baby didn't show up, you know, they called me and we talked about it. It was, yeah. You got visitation in the morning, let's just go back and see if they show up then, because I think they called the facilities that the baby was sick and he wouldn't be making it.

So the facility told the Gouchenours, you know, they're not coming baby's sick. We didn't file anything at that point. Um, you know, if the baby was indeed sick, which does happen, then you know, you're going to see him the next day. So the next day they went and again, the baby was didn't show up. That afternoon is when the parents reported Madeline missing.

[00:23:23] Nancy Conrad: Well, that's where we were as of June 17th, 2017. We don't know where Madeline and baby William are. Clearly the Jones family think Jake's family has something to do with it. He's an abuser they say. And Billie, along with the Gouchenours. Clearly think the Jones family has something to do with it. We don't even know if something else has happened completely.

Apart from the contentious divorce. Has Maddie driven off into some ditch and is helpless in the desert somewhere. Was she abducted by somebody else? Have they been murdered? In our second part of the missing baby William story coming up in our next podcast, we look at the growing army of social media sleuths who jumped in to help look for the pair and unravel the facts in their disappearance.

Thanks so much for listening to the modern divorce. Remember anything you've heard today or anything you read online is not the replacement for actual consultation with an attorney and does not create an attorney, client relationship. Even if you called in and we spoke to you, you were anonymous and we don't have your details and you have not become a client of modern law.

However, we would love to speak with you, or you should seek out the advice of legal counsel. Or counseling or any other expert near you. And if you have an idea for a show topic, or you need to speak with an attorney in Arizona, you can reach me at info. I N F o@mymodernlaw.com.