Jason Anthony Jolkowski - Missing Since June 2001

Field	Details
Name	Jason Anthony Jolkowski (Nickname: J.J.)
Date of Last Contact	June 13th, 2001 (Wednesday)
Missing From	Omaha, Nebraska, Douglas County (Pinkney and N. 48th Street) Was walking a short walk from his home to his former high school, Benson High School.
Age at Disappearance	19 Years
Current Age	44 Years
Birthdate Range	June 24th, 1981
Biological Sex	Male
Race / Ethnicity	White / Caucasian
Height	6'1" (73 inches)
Weight	165 lbs
BMI	21.8 (Lean, average build, suggesting a tall, slender frame)
Hair Color	Brown
Eye Color	Brown
Clothing and Accessories	Blue "Cubs" cap, white "Chicago Cubs" or "Sammy Sosa" T-shirt, black dress pants, black dress shoes, carrying a red work T-shirt with "Fazolli's" on it
Circumstances	Jason was last seen leaving his home in Omaha, Nebraska, to walk to Benson High School to meet a coworker for a ride to work. He never arrived at the school and has not been heard from since.
NamUs Case Number	MP73
NamUs Case Created	December 12th, 2008 (Friday)

Body Mass Index (BMI) Insight: Jason’s BMI of 21.8, calculated from his height (6'1") and weight (165 lbs), places him in the healthy weight range. This suggests he had a tall, slender physique, which could help visualize him as someone who appeared lanky but fit, possibly noticeable in a crowd due to his height but not overly imposing due to his lean build. This detail can aid in reconstructing his appearance for witnesses or readers trying to picture him on that day in Omaha.

AI image generated from Grok.

By: Shane Lambert
Original Publication Date: October 17th, 2025

On June 13th, 2001 (Wednesday), 19-year-old Jason Anthony Jolkowski, known as J.J., vanished in Omaha, Nebraska, under baffling circumstances. The tall (6'1"), slender (165 lbs) Caucasian male with brown hair and eyes was last seen leaving his home (near N. 48th Street and Pinkney) to walk less than a mile to Benson High School, where he was previously a student. He was to meet a coworker for a ride to his job at a Fazoli’s restaurant.

A neighbor, Chester Link, reported seeing Jason pulling back garbage cans to the house. Jason's younger brother also saw this. But there is no evidence Jason ever reached the school, which would be just a 20-30 minute walk. No signs of struggle, phone activity, or CCTV footage (unavailable in the area) surfaced.

Theories range from an opportunistic abduction to an accident (e.g., falling into a construction site), but no evidence supports any scenario. This is one of the most baffling disappearances I've come across while operating this blog and the opinion is supported by true crime enthusiasts in general.

Timeline

The snippet below is the best description of the sequence of events from that day that I could find in local journalism from the summer of 2001. It appeared in the July 13th, 2001 edition of the Omaha World-Herald.

To summarize:

@10:30AM on June 13th, 2001: Fazoli's phones Jason and asks him to come in early. Jason agrees and states that he would walk to work. (Note: I took the timing of the call to mean that Fazoli's anticipated needing help with the lunch rush).

Soon after: A co-worker phones him and offers a ride, Jason says to meet at Benson High School.

@ about 10:45am: Jason leaves his home. His meeting time is scheduled for 11am with the co-worker at the high school.

At about that time: Redd arrives at Benson High School and waits 30 minutes for Jason and then returns to Fazoli's. The restaurant calls his home twice that day. 

Abduction by Unknown Actor(s)?

If Jason was abducted by an unknown actor, then it calls into question how someone abducted a man Jason's size in broad daylight at a time of day when people would have been out and about in a residential area. Jason was not a heavy person, but he was tall at 6'1" and taller people naturally have some power.

It would be hard for a normal person to abduct a 6'1" and 19-year old male without causing a commotion as people with these demographics are able to mount counterattacks more effectively than some other groups (ie. short and modestly athletic women). Even if we are talking about an abductor who is 6'5" and 250 pounds, then it would still be a struggle to abduct someone who is 19 years old and 6'1".

Therefore, I find an abduction involving force at about 11AM in a populated area hard to picture. That does call into question the size of the unknown actor and, presumably, his strength. It also calls into question the presence of a weapon to coerce silence. But that weapon could simply be trust.

I wondered if Jason entered someone else's vehicle voluntarily, meaning he entered the vehicle of the unknown actor, someone that he knew, before getting to Benson High School. Since he had to get to work, we can reasonably assume that Jason would only voluntarily enter a vehicle if the driver would either take him to work or at least take him to the meeting point at Benson High School. However, this scenario loses some momentum when you consider that he only verified that he would go to work at 10:30am that morning and disappeared sometime around 11AM. That's not much time to plan an abduction, lending support to "Wrong place at the wrong time" kind of scenarios.

Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

The phrase "Wrong Place at the Wrong Time" is an English idiom that describes bad luck. People in the wrong place at the wrong time are people who are not doing anything particularly wrong but just happen to be conducting their affairs in the random crossfires of clandestine life. Someone who dies from a stray bullet might be said to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, someone walking down the sidewalk who encounters some kind of clandestine event and suffers a mishap for it would be described in the same way.

It's still amazing that no clue as to what happened to him has surfaced. That in itself is a bit of a clue. Something happened to Jason that police, family, and scores of online true crime fans have not been able to trace.

The Restaurant That Jason Worked At: Fazoli's

The Fazoli's that Jason worked at was on 80th Street and Cass Street in Omaha. This restaurant still appears in Google Maps as of recent updates and it appears in archives with the site but those archives only go back to September 2008. I did see an update in an Omaha newspaper which claimed the Cass Street location would open in September 1996, meaning it was fully operational by the time Jason worked there.

September 4th, 1996. Omaha World-Herald

In the media coverage from 2001, Jason's home address, the high school, and his workplace appeared in a map, confirming that he worked at the 80th Street and Cass Street location.

July 13th, 2001.

Recommended source: There's a transcript at ListenNotes.com that is worth reading for this case.

What Makes This Case So Baffling

Aspect	Details
Time Window	Jason disappeared within a 15-minute window (10:45 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.) on June 13th, 2001 (Wednesday).
Safety of Time	The time of day was safer-than-average for being out in public, with clear weather (84°F, partly cloudy) and low traffic in the Benson neighborhood but still enough people out to deter anything overtly clandestine.
Physical Profile	As a 6'1", fit 19-year-old male, Jason would be harder to abduct than most, suggesting a swift or strategic approach was used -- but something that seems difficult given the conditions.
Neighborhood Safety	He was not in a dangerous neighborhood, disappearing from 3425 N 48th St, near James Lake Park. I did the walk on Google Maps using maps from 2009 to 2011, the earliest available. Nothing stood out at all. I recommend doing this walk yourself just to get an idea of how innocent the neighborhood seems.
Personal Conduct	Jason was not engaged in anything clandestine, with no involvement in drugs, alcohol, or crime, per family reports.
Coworker Behavior	The coworker who was to pick him up at Benson High School, did not behave suspiciously, calling at 11:15–11:30 a.m. concerned when he didn’t arrive.

Samuel Sherman Disappearance - A Red Herring

Samuel Sherman was a male who was the same age as Jason. He, Sherman, went missing at about the same time in the same vicinity. This case is commonly mentioned in online forums. But Sherman was found alive in 2020.