In mid-April, 1999 authorities confirmed the identity of Jake Bannon and tracked down his ex-wife, who currently lives in Pomona, CA.

The ex-wife stated that she last saw Bannon around August 20th the best she could recall. He had been working on boats out of Long Beach harbor and would often disappear for weeks at a time. The longest period he had been gone had been three months.  When he did not return she wasn't really concerned, especially after she received a phone call from a woman who identified herself as "Charlie".  Charlie wanted to know where Bannon was and claimed she was a "friend."  The ex-wife told police she figured the woman was one of his many girls he "kept on the side" throughout their 6 years of marriage. 

The ex-wife never reported the disappearance because she assumed Jake had taken up with this woman or some other woman since he had done the same thing with his previous two wives.  She had no idea who the previous wives were and police have been unable to locate any marriage licenses. 

Police were able to track down old telephone records and traced the call from "Charlie" to a pay phone in a bar in Long Beach, CA. The bar went out of business in 1996.

The ex-wife stated that Jake had a "tendency" to fall in with the wrong crowd, although he wasn't a tough guy and was not the type to look for trouble. She thought he possibly got in "over his head" in some nefarious activity. The tuna clippers he was working on were reportedly attached to some of the large drug cartels in Central America that had bought out whole fleets after regulations on tuna fishing in the area made fishing difficult and not profitable. 

The ex-wife did not recognize the photograph or the room it was taken in.  She recognized the name in the anonymous letter received by police as the name of a man who owned one of the boats Jake Bannon talked about.  We will use the initials "BC" for this man.

The ex-wife allowed police access to Jake Bannon's belongings, although she had since thrown out most of his things.  They found a journal with cryptic entries. A torn photograph of a boat was found inside the journal as well. 

The ex-wife gave the police a list of names of associates and employers Jake Bannon knew or worked with before his disappearance.

Torn photograph of fishing boat was found in Bannon's journal
 
 

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