DES MOINES, IOWA — Des Moines Police Detective Cheryl Nablo joined Deputy U.S. Marshal Justin Wallace, Detective Chris Wuebker and Special Agent Jon Turbett in 2022 to search for Jade Colvin, a 14-year-old who disappeared from a Des Moines shelter for troubled youth on June 10, 2016. The U.S. Marshals Service adopted the case as part of Operation Homecoming, a statewide effort to find missing children, more than four years after Colvin went missing.

Nablo, a detective who specializes in finding missing children, said the case had stayed with her outside of work. "I myself have thought of Jade several times when not at work," she said.

The mother of three connected the case to her own family. "I think of my own children. If you went a day not knowing where one of your kids, you'd go crazy. Nobody wants to be living in a world where they don't know where their kid is or if their kid's safe," she said.

By 2022, Colvin had been missing for more than five years. Wallace described the challenge of locating someone who does not want to be found. "When somebody goes missing, they want to be missing. They don't want you to know where they are. It's hard to track 'em down," he said.

Wallace also described the investigative approach the team used. "We are here to locate kids who run away," he said. "You gotta start at the beginning. You gotta know who the person is, their friends, their family, their whole background."

Investigators found that Colvin had a troubled childhood. "Jade Colvin grew up with a pretty dysfunctional family situation. It was difficult," Turbett said. Both of Colvin's parents struggled with substance abuse. Her mother, LaDawn Colvin, died three years after Jade went missing, and her father, Kevin Colvin, had lost contact with her.

In September 2015, when Colvin was 13, the Iowa Department of Human Services took her into its custody, and LaDawn Colvin lost legal custody. For the nine months that followed, Colvin was in and out of different facilities and foster care, often running away. The department lost track of her after she ran away from a shelter in June 2016.

Investigators learned that Colvin's family and friends spent years searching for her online. State and national organizations shared missing-person posters on social media to help find her.