Justice for Danielle Bertolini and Sheila Franks

In 2021, I started a petition to help bring awareness to my childhood friend, Danielle Bertolini’s unsolved murder. Two years later, no progress has been made in the case, and it’s fast approaching the 10 year mark in February 2024.

I have made a goal to reach 5k signatures, and hope some magic happens. If you’re reading this and haven’t signed, could you do me that favor? Can you sign? And if you’re feeling extra benevolent, please considering sharing. I can’t do this without your help. Thank you for caring about justice for Danielle and Sheila.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION

My childhood friend’s disappearance

In 2014, my childhood friend, Danielle Bertolini, disappeared in Humboldt County, CA. We grew up together in my small hometown of Newport, Maine, starting in elementary school.

Today, she is known as one of the Humboldt County Five.

The following year, in 2015, her skull was recovered near the Eel River close to Fortuna.

For years I followed her case on Facebook through her family’s updates, seeing and sharing their pain.

In 2020, I reconnected with her mother, Billie Jo Dick, and said I wanted to give her a platform for people to hear Danielle’s story—the full story. The human one. I wanted them to know her from a place of empathy, not judgement.

This was the first interview I ever did for Murder, She Told, and it also lead me to interviewing Detective Brian Taylor of the Fortuna Police Dept as well. Billie Jo and I sat down at my dining room table, and we had a surprisingly intimate and tough conversation about Danielle’s life, and her death. It’s one of my most personal episodes to date.

Moving to Maine

Danielle was born in Oregon and moved to central Maine around 1997. The late 1990’s and early 2000's period is the most vivid of my memories. I remember her as spunky and unapologetic. I remember our cheerleading team at the Sebasticook Community Center in Newport, and the routine we did to Mambo Number 5. I remember summertime birthday parties where we'd tie-dye tee shirts, and stay up late scaring ourselves silly watching Nightmare on Elm Street—which felt extra creepy being in a house on Elm Street.

I remember going over to her house for a sleepover, watching The Tigger Movie, and cooking eggs in the morning. And I remember our middle school class trip to the brand-new Space Center in Bangor. We were interviewed by the Bangor Daily News, and when asked about the robotics arm she was testing out inside the mock space station, Danielle was quoted as saying "This is Awesome! Rock On!"

Billie Jo: “I remember having to go to Burger King when they'd have the N’sync and Backstreet Boys CD’s, you know, they'd give a couple songs out. ‘Mom. We need to go, we need to go!’ she'd say, so we’d go.”

Kristen: “I also remember her as very friendly and outgoing, and the kind of person who, if there was a kid that was being picked on or something, she would stand up for them whether she got in trouble for it or not.”

Billie Jo: “She was in trouble a lot for it. Her and her sister both. They were just like that. I mean they had a heart of gold. They didn't like to see anybody picked on.”

Kristen: “And she would make you laugh—even if it was at her own expense, if she could like make you laugh and make your day better, I feel like that was worth it to her.”

Billie Jo: “It was. She was always good like that. If she knew that you were having a bad day, she would do something stupid just to get you to laugh.”

Danielle also loved hunting, fishing, and everything Maine’s outdoors had to offer.

Losing Xavier David

At the age of 20, Danielle endured a hardship that changed her life forever.

Billie Jo: “Back in 2010, Danielle found out she was pregnant, and the ultrasound told her that she was having a boy. So she named him Xavier David, and she went into labor at six-and-a-half months along.

They told her that her baby had Edward syndrome, which is a form of Trisomy 18. He had an extra Y chromosome, and they told her that he had two tumors on his brain and one kidney, and that he probably wouldn't even take his first breath when he was born—if they even made a full-term.

The doctor wanted to send Danielle to Boston to have a late-term abortion because the pregnancy was very dangerous and Danielle could end up losing her life, and she told the doctor, ‘Under any circumstances, no, I do not want to have an abortion. I will take my chances.’ And then two days after they gave her all of that news, her water broke…”

Danielle ended up losing her baby that day, and almost lost her life, too. To hear more about this heartbreaking experience, please listen to Billie Jo’s telling of it in the audio episode.

California Dreamin’ and Murder Mountain

Danielle’s life was transformed by the traumatic loss of her son, Xavier. Two months later, she left behind her life in Maine, and went to find a fresh start in California in search of healing.

Danielle moved across the country to a beautiful area on California’s northern coast called Humboldt County, home of some of the tallest trees in the world—the giant redwoods. The beauty of the trees is juxtaposed by the ugliness of the crime and the proliferation of drugs in the area.

Alder Point, California, a small town in Humboldt County, is flanked by a famous peak dubbed “Murder Mountain” where many have gone missing and many have died.  Murder Mountain initially got it’s nickname after serial killer couple Michael Bear Carson and Suzan Carson hid out there after murdering 26-year-old Clark Stephens in 1982, seeking refuge in the trees while police tried to nab the perpetrator of their crimes. But it stuck because of the sheer number of people who disappear and are found murdered in Humboldt County.

Humboldt County is part of the infamous Emerald Triangle; a cluster of three counties that together make up the largest producer of marijuana in the country. It's also an area where people go to move off the grid, and an area that's easy to make somebody disappear. Murder Mountain isn't just known for its illegal production of marijuana, but also for its meth and heroin production, according to an article from Rolling Stone. A dark corner of sunny California.

Danielle found work on Murder Mountain amidst the marijuana growers as a pot trimmer.

But California wasn’t the answer she was looking for, and she soon fell into the wrong crowd and became dependent on drugs to cope with her trauma.

Billie Jo: “The last time that I talked to her, she called to let me know that she was ready to leave. She was wanting to tell the stories of the things that she has seen and she was going to go to law enforcement, but she never made it that far. That was January 29th, 2014.”

February 9th, 2014 - Danielle disappears

On February 9th, 2014, Danielle was seen in Bridgeville near the Swains Flat area of Highway 36, getting into the car of an unknown male who was supposedly giving her a ride back to the house she was staying at in Fortuna. She was never seen alive again.

Billie Jo filed a missing person’s report with the Humboldt County Sherriff’s Office on February 19th after Danielle hadn’t been in contact with her family for over two weeks, something that wasn’t normal for her. She and her sister Mariah were very close and spoke almost every day.

According to the report, Danielle was initially considered voluntarily missing because of her age and the fact that Humboldt County attracts a lot of young “free spirits”.

Billie Jo: “Danielle was three weeks away from her 24th birthday, and on her 24th birthday, we were holding a candlelight vigil in Ronan Park in Fortuna, California for her.

March 9th, 2015 - Danielle’s skull is recovered

On March 9th, 2015, a little over a year after Danielle went missing, an ATV rider spotted a human skull while cutting a new path along the Eel River, very close to its intersection with small tributary called Howe Creek, just south of Fortuna.

The Eel River is a 196-mile river known for fishing that flows through Northern California and empties into the Pacific Ocean. Fortuna is very close to the mouth of the river. The skull was reported to the coroner's office.

Billie Jo knew right away after seeing the photo that the skull belonged to her daughter.

Billie Jo: “As soon as I saw [the photo], I threw up. So that right there told me to take a closer look.

Growing up, Danielle’s mouth was too small for all the teeth that she had, and she had two sets of eyeteeth, and they had to pull a set out before they could put her braces on. The other eyeteeth that she had were so far up into her sinus cavity… And I knew as soon as I looked at [the photo of the skull] I said, “It's her.”

Within the hour, I called Officer (now Detective) Brian Taylor and said “That's Danielle,”

Sure enough, May 27th, it came back positive for Danielle.”

The Humboldt County Five

Danielle Bertolini isn’t the only woman to go missing in Humboldt County, California. In fact, she’s more famously known as one of the Humboldt County Five—previously known as the Humboldt Missing Five—a group of young women who went missing and whose stories seemed similar, or possibly related.

The women who make up the Humboldt County Missing Five are Jennifer Wilmmer, who disappeared in 1993, Karen Mitchell in 1997, Christine Walters in 2008, and Sheila Franks and Danielle Bertolini in 2014. There is no evidence that connects all five cases together, except for Danielle and Sheila...

Connection to Sheila Franks

Sheila Franks disappeared on February 2nd, 2014. She was last seen by her boyfriend, a man by the man of James Eugene Jones.

On February 9th, Danielle was last seen getting into a car at a friend’s house to get a ride into town. The driver of that car? James Eugene Jones.

Sheila Franks was 37-years-old and had two children. At the time of her disappearance, Sheila had only been dating Jim Jones for a few months. Sheila's sister, Melissa, told Crime Watch Daily that when questioned by Police on her whereabouts, Jim said that she decided to go for a walk, and the last time he saw her was when she was at the end of the road after she left the house they shared. She never came back home.

Melissa said that she and her sister Sheila knew Jim growing up in Humboldt County and went to school with him. Sheila, who was a divorced mother of 2, reconnected with Jim after her marriage dissolved, but Melissa said that Sheila told her multiple times that she wanted to leave Jim but couldn't because she was afraid that he would hurt her family. She had also found all of Sheila's belongings in a storage unit, including her purse with the money still inside.

One week later, Danielle went missing.

Two women missing

At the time of her disappearance, Danielle was staying in Fortuna at the home of a man named “Bob”. Bob has never been publicly named, and his name has been changed for this episode at the request of law enforcement. On February 9th, Danielle called Bob to come pick her up in the Swains Flat area (which is about 30 minutes away) to bring her back. But Bob sent Jim Jones instead, and she was never seen alive again.

James Eugene Jones

When you're the last person to be seen with two women who go missing, within one week of each other, and whose remains are later found in a close proximity... that is not a coincidence.

Jim Jones was born on July 30th, 1973. He is 6 foot 6 inches tall, and his weight on his last driver's license was 238 pounds. He has lived in Eureka and Fortuna, California for most of his life.

Jim has quite a record, and is rather familiar with the California prison system. He has previous charges and convictions for felony level assaults, domestic violence, drugs, and more.

His most recent arrest was on June 4th, 2020. Jim was arrested by the California Highway Patrol heading north on popular Route 101, just south of Willits, which is halfway between San Francisco and Fortuna. It's a mountainous area and sparsely populated. He was driving a white 2018 Chevy Silverado pickup truck, and it was registered to a man named Michael in Ukiah. It's not clear from the court records why he was pulled over, but it appears that as soon as the officer flashed their lights, he tried to flee. He was charged with at least three felonies after he was ultimately stopped: reckless driving while evading a police officer, theft of a vehicle, and an automatic second-strike felony as a result of his previous record. He also was charged with driving under suspension, a DUI for being under the influence of drugs, a methamphetamine possession charge, and an animal abuse charge.

He was scheduled to appear on June 26th, 2020 at 9:00AM, but he didn't show. The judge issued a bench warrant, and there was another arraignment on July 21st at 9:00AM, about a month later, but he again failed to appear.

Though we don't know the exact day, it was around this time that he was arrested and held in jail until his trial.

On October 13th, 2020, after about 3 months in jail, he agreed to a plea bargain with the state. Under the agreement, he pled guilty to the three felonies: reckless driving while evading an officer, theft of a vehicle, and the second-strike felony. The remaining charges appear to have been dismissed as part of the deal.

He remained in jail until his sentencing on February 26th, 2021, when he was sentenced to 4 years + 8 months. He had already served 227 days prior to sentencing, and he was given a 2X bonus for that time, so that was a credit of 454 days off of his 1,556 day sentence leaving 1,103 days to serve. With credit for good time, his earliest possible release would be in about 1.5 years. The earliest possible release would be around September 2022.

Sure enough, on September 18th, 2022, Jim was released from jail at the Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown, California. Jim Jones is a free man.

Despite being officially named as a person of interest in Danielle’s and Sheila’s cases, he has never been charged in connection.

2019 - Sheila’s femur recovered

Sheila's Femur was discovered in a location close to Danielle's skull in 2019. Though Sheila and Danielle are no longer missing, it's not clear what exactly happened to them.

Those are only two parts of both of their remains to be found.

The last public update in this case was June of 2019 to announce that Sheila Franks was no longer missing.

Approaching one decade

Detective Taylor has worked tirelessly on this case with one goal in mind: justice. Justice for Danielle, and ultimately Justice for Sheila, too.

Det. Taylor: “Our local district attorney’s office, we work well with them, and I don’t think they’re not going forward with it because they don’t want to—they want a case built because if we take him to court and don’t have a solid enough case to convict him for it, we can’t go after him down the road if somebody else comes forward.

I think we’re real close, I think we have enough that it’s not gonna take much for this case to go to court.

I currently have a few things going on with the case and I’m waiting to get information back and hopefully that will be enough for our DA to look at that and go, ‘hey, you know what? I think we can go forth with this case now.’ But I can’t guarantee that. I’d love to see Billie and her family get closure on this.”

2024 will mark one decade with Danielle and Sheila. One decade without justice. I, too, want nothing more than to be able to see these families get justice.

Every day, hundreds of people and media outlets talk about unsolved cases like Jonbenét Ramsey and the Zodiac—both tragic cases the entire world would love to solve. The media will never stop talking about them, even if they do get the justice they deserve… and they do deserve justice, and rightfully deserve the attention they’ve received.

But in the shadows of these famous cases are thousands of people like Danielle and Sheila, who don’t get People Magazine specials dedicated to them and whose names don’t pop up regularly on podcasts or Oxygen specials.

These are the people who I want to fight for. These are the people I am fighting for. I made a promise to Billie Jo that I would fight for Danielle, and that promise goes beyond one episode produced in 2021. It goes beyond this updated version, too.

Sign the petition

Help me reach my goal on the petition of 5k signatures. Sign the petition and share it. Justice is so close. Help the family get the closure that they deserve.

SIGN THE PETITION

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Let’s be the squeaky wheel.

If you’re holding onto any information or think you might know something about the murders of Danielle Bertolini and Sheila Franks, I urge you to submit a tip to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Anonymous Tip Line at (707) 268-2539 or the Fortuna Police Dept at (707) 725-7550.

This text has been adapted from the Murder, She Told podcast episode, The Danielle Bertolini Story: Revisited. To hear Danielle’s full story with interviews from Danielle’s mother, Billie Jo Dick, and Detective Brian Taylor of the Fortuna Police Dept, find Murder, She Told on your favorite podcast platform.

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Sources For This Episode

“Chase Darkness With Me” (book) by Billy Jensen

“MissingNelly2014” Facebook Page

“Seeking Justice For Sheila Franks and Danielle Bertolini” Facebook Page

“Humboldt Mysteries: Are 5 missing women in a California county connected?” Crime Watch Daily

“Murder Mountain: New Series Explores Missing Persons in Weed’s Emerald Triangle” The Rolling Stone

“Why 'Murder Mountain' Doesn't Tell The Whole Story About Humboldt County's Missing People” Bustle

“The Humboldt 35” North Coast Journal

“The Humboldt Five: So Many Missing From Such a Small Area” Redheaded Blackbelt Kym Kemp

“Families And Law Enforcement Search For Two Missing Women” Redheaded Blackbelt Kym Kemp

Media and Credits

All photos provided to Kristen by Billie Jo Dick

Research, writing, audio, and editing by Kristen Seavey

Additional research and writing support by Byron Willis

Murder, She Told was created by Kristen Seavey