Police continue looking for answers four years after Jed Hall vanished
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IDAHO FALLS —- Four years after a teen from Idaho Falls vanished, the answers to his disappearance remain a mystery.
Matthew “Jed” Hall, then 16, left his parents home on Jan. 22, 2018. In the days, weeks and years following, Idaho Falls Police Department detectives have searched for Hall, who left a strange trail that suddenly ended with no clues to his whereabouts.
“We just want to know where he is at,” Idaho Falls Police Department spokeswoman Jessica Clements said. “I know for the Idaho Falls Police Department and for the Hall family, there is a lot of unanswered questions out there.”
Early the morning of his disappearance, surveillance footage from Hall’s school, American Heritage Charter School, shows him pulling up in a 2009 Silver Nissan Versa hatchback. The time was 2:31 a.m. when Hall then broke a window and went right to a friend’s locker, leaving a note, a large sum of money and a necklace. Police report this as the last confirmed sighting of Hall.
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It’s not clear what happened for the next several hours, but Hall’s parents awoke and realized their son had vanished. Hall’s bedroom door was left open and a note indicating he may attempt suicide lay on his desk. His parents called 911 at 6:51 a.m. to report him missing.
As the Halls searched for their son, police tried pinging the teen’s cellphone numerous times. At 6:48 a.m., Hall’s phone pinged from a cellphone tower near the interchange of Interstate 15 and U.S. Highway 20, a location along the Snake River.
Dive teams and investigators have searched the river in the area but found no signs of Hall.
Police issued a public alert for the vehicle and Hall. Then at 11:47 a.m. Hall went into the National Criminal Information Center database as a missing juvenile. His photo was widely circulated online and through media outlets across eastern Idaho.
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“(The search for Hall) is definitely not something that is just sitting on a shelf,” Clements said. “This is a case that we’ve had a large number of detectives and officers working on and looking at different angles, trying to figure out what happened and where he went.”
Investigators have learned Hall took a 9 mm handgun along with various camping and survival gear from his home. Police also discovered a notebook indicating depressed feelings but also plans of what to pack for a backcountry excursion.
As police continue to search for Hall, officers hope somebody who saw something or knows something about Hall’s disappearance will call. Police urge people with information to call at (208) 529-1200 and ask to speak with a detective.
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With Hall now being an adult, officers say he is under no obligation to return home. The police would like just to confirm he is OK.
“It is not really possible for a teen and a car to disappear into thin air,” Clements says. “He is out there somewhere so for our agency we will continue to look for Jed Hall until we find answers.”