A four month search that led investigators, police, search & rescue teams, family, and attorneys on a country-wide search for missing baby, William Gouchenour, resulted in one of the most captivating cases that Modern Law has ever been involved with. Our 5-part podcast series on the Jacob Gouchenour and Madeline Jones case explains, in great detail, how the strained relationship and divorce of a young couple resulted in the disappearance of a mother and her infant son. Begin the story with us by playing Part 1 below.
Part 1: Baby William Goes Missing After a Divorce
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.
Part 2: Social Media Sleuths Sling Into Action for Baby William
Destinee Mack, who describes herself on Twitter as a wife, mom and random altruist, was the unexpected center of the unexpected band of 12,000 online strangers who came forward offering help to find Baby William. Her Facebook group to “Find Maddie and Baby William” offered information and a place to share theories, stories, and sometimes gossip. She played housemother over the group and intervened occasionally to keep comments from devolving into the ugly.
But her role as an unintended advocate for Baby William was not without a cost to her. She was eventually slapped with a gag order to cease her online activities. A judge thought she was a problem, but she thought it was clear the group was getting closer to the truth.
Part 3: Fighting Back Through Legal Channels to Find the Baby
In this 3rd episode of the special series on Missing Baby William, we hear from some of the main family members involved in the case. What can family law attorney Billie Tarascio can do to ferret out more information to find baby William Gouchenour?
By this time, during a typical hot Arizona summer, weeks and weeks have passed with no real news on the missing baby. Meanwhile police are combing through barns in Montana trying to determine if the baby’s father, Jake, or another of his family members has hidden or kidnapped the young mother and her child. The family – and the web-sleuths – are anxious for any new information to develop.
Part 4: A Shift in the Case of Missing Baby William
When Baby William’s Grandmother, Andrea Gouchenour and her sister Rachel Guernsey drive around town to put up posters for the missing baby and her mother, Madeline Jones, they’re shocked to see Madeline’s mother Cassie, making her youngest daughter tear the posters down while she waits in a car. That’s when their thinking changes.
Part 5: The Jig is Up!
In this final episode of the Baby William series, we learn the truth of what happened to missing Baby William and his mother Madeline Jones after a police detective tips off the legal team. Attorney Billie Tarascio describes that moment, while Andrea Gouchenour talks about how the crime affected her family. The baby’s father, Jake Gouchenour, now three years later and happily remarried, reflects on what’s next in his life for both him and his son.
