52 APRIL 2020
it have been physically possible for her to drag his body from the
second story of the lodge all the way to the manure pile, even with
a winch and straps?
Many of Jake’s friends assumed that Deb, dying of cancer, was
covering for her daughter, and perhaps also her son-in-law. Ray,
Jake and Steph’s dad, also resisted the idea that Deb had murdered
Jake. “No matter how bad it was, I just can’t see her shooting her
own boy,” he told investigators. Cellphone records showed that
Steph had been awake in the early-morning hours when Jake was
killed. “Deborah didn’t gain anything by killing Jacob,” a CBI agent
later testified in a court hearing. But Steph, who would gain “sole
ownership of the ranch after Deborah passes,” did have a motive.
One thing was clear. Whoever pulled the trigger, whoever
helped bury the body, they were banking on the idea that every-
one else would see Jake the way they did—as insignificant, even
disposable. That no one would raise a fuss over the disappearance
of a quiet, working-class guy who lived with his mother off a rural
county highway.
Our families are supposed to be the people who know us
best, but that often isn’t the case. Sometimes the hardest people
to see clearly are the ones we’re closest to.
After the discovery of Jake’s body, and the multiple and confus-
ing confessions from his family members, what seemed to upset
his friends most was how they mischaracterized Jake. According
to Deb, her son was a drug addict and a drunk, a violent MMA
fighter, someone who physically assaulted her and threatened
to kill his sister and her family. According to Steph, Jake was a
worthless waste of space, lazy and useless. No wonder Jake clung
so strongly to his friends. His chosen family was perfectly aware of
his flaws—his stubborn ness, his arrogance—but equally attuned
to his loyalty, generosity, and dedication.
On May 13, 2019, almost four years after her son’s death, Deb
pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a 40-year
sentence. Dave Jackson had already been sentenced to a decade
in prison for his role in moving Jake’s body. When I visited Gun-
nison last fall, the question on everyone’s mind was what would
happen to Stephaine. She was scheduled to go on trial for first-
degree murder the next fall, but Ajarian worried that she, like her
mother, would end up getting a plea deal. The official version
of Jake’s death, codified in plea agreements and court filings,
didn’t strike him as the full story; without a trial, he feared he’d
never know what had really happened to his friend, or why. Sure
enough, several months after my visit, Steph pleaded guilty to
tampering with a dead body. In November, Deb Rudibaugh died
in jail; two days later, Steph was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Ultimately the system had worked: Law enforcement had located
the body, elicited a confession, and secured convictions. But even
after the case was legally closed, it still felt unsettled, incomplete.
One evening, I met Ajarian at a pizza place. Under his mechan-
ic’s uniform, he wore a T-shirt that said punker than you, and
his dark hair was styled in messy spikes. His grief over his friend’s
death expressed itself as a kind of grasping for purpose. When
Jake had first disappeared, when his friends were searching for
clues and urging the sheriff’s department to act, they’d been of use.
Now there was nothing left to do—except maybe hold a memo-
rial service for Jake. Perhaps that would help him feel as though
his friend had finally been put to rest. But where would he host
such an event? Gunnison was too full of bitter memories—but
it was also Jake’s only home.
The next day, I met Katheiser in his tidy basement apartment
in Colorado Springs. He, too, was plagued with thoughts of what
might have been. “A lot of mornings when I wake up, I think about
Jake, what his life would have been,” he told me. “I like to think
that he could’ve sold the ranch for quite a bit of money and maybe
just gone and worked a regular job somewhere. Bought a house.
Maybe he would’ve met a girl and whatever. And he doesn’t get that
opportunity. That’s what I would have hoped for him. Just that he
could’ve gotten into a life that he wasn’t frustrated at every day.”Rachel Monroe is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and
the author of Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women,
Crime, and Obsession.