Nine years after 14-year-old Jabez Spann disappeared from Sarasota's Newtown neighborhood, police still have no suspects and no answers, and they're asking the public once more for help cracking the case. Spann went missing on September 4, 2017, and his skeletal remains weren't discovered until February 19, 2019, in a rural pasture across the county line in Manatee County.
According to Tampa Bay 28, the Sarasota Police Department believes Spann may have witnessed a murder shortly before he vanished. That belief traces back to a killing just one week earlier: 31-year-old Travis Combs was fatally shot in the upper torso on August 28, 2017, in a vacant grassy lot near 22nd Street and North Orange Avenue in Sarasota after being chased by three men during a suspected robbery attempt, according to CBS News.
Spann was last seen around 1 a.m. on September 5, 2017, near Martin Luther King Jr. Way and 22nd Street in Newtown, shortly after attending a Labor Day weekend barbecue and a vigil for Combs, per Patch. Newtown is a historically Black neighborhood in north Sarasota, and both the shooting and Spann's disappearance unfolded within blocks of each other in that community.
A Witness Who Recanted
The link between the two cases hardened weeks later, when Sarasota police arrested 55-year-old Reginald Parker on a charge of accessory after the fact to murder for allegedly impeding the Combs homicide investigation. Parker had initially told Spann's family that he saw Spann at the murder scene shouting, “Oh my God, y'all shot him,” before recanting that account to detectives, according to Sarasota police as reported by CBS News. Three witnesses reportedly signed sworn depositions describing Parker's initial statements before he walked them back.
The recantation wasn't the only obstacle investigators ran into inside Newtown. A local pastor interviewed during the initial 2017 investigation into Combs's homicide later invoked pastoral privilege through an attorney, declining further police questioning about confidential parishioner communications, per the True Case Files account of the case. Under Florida law, communications made in confidence to clergy are legally protected, adding another layer of difficulty for detectives trying to piece together what happened in the days surrounding both deaths.
An 18-Month Search Across County Lines
Six days after Spann vanished, Hurricane Irma made landfall near Sarasota on September 10, 2017, forcing local law enforcement to temporarily reallocate emergency response resources toward storm preparations and disaster recovery, according to reporting cited by the Zone 7 Podcast. That disruption came during what would otherwise have been a critical early window for canvassing the neighborhood for leads.
Nearly 18 months passed with no resolution. During that stretch, the Sarasota Police Department and the FBI evaluated roughly 100 tips from the public without making an arrest, per an account relayed via NBC News. The break finally came on February 16, 2019, when a worker repairing a fence line found skeletal remains in a rural pasture along Canal Road in Palmetto, in Manatee County, located west of Interstate 75 and about 25 minutes north of where Spann disappeared, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Three days later, on February 19, 2019, the Sarasota Police Department and the Manatee County Sheriff's Office confirmed the remains belonged to Spann through forensic dental examination, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Law enforcement has not publicly disclosed an official cause of death, and no homicide charges have been filed in either Spann's death or the killing of Travis Combs.
Reward Still on the Table, Foundation Carries On
The financial incentive for anyone with information has stood at $50,000 since early 2018, made up of $44,000 from the FBI, $5,000 from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and $1,000 from the Sarasota Police Department, according to a report from WTSP. Anyone with information about Spann's disappearance or death is asked to call the Sarasota Police Department at 941-263-6067, or Crime Stoppers of Sarasota at 941-366-TIPS (8477).
Spann's mother, Tawana Spann, founded the Jabez Spann Foundation in September 2019, on the two-year anniversary of her son's disappearance, to raise awareness of unsolved cold cases and support other families of missing people, according to Bay News 9. Nine years after Jabez Spann vanished, and with both his death and Travis Combs's killing still officially unsolved, Sarasota police say the case remains open — and they're still hoping someone in Newtown will finally come forward.
