[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, and welcome to Day by Day True Crime Stories, the podcast a re-explore different crime or justice milestone from this day in history.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Kona Gallagher, and today is December 9th.

[SPEAKER_00]: On this day in 1988, 34-year-old Joan Yarbro Bernal was supposed to be kicking off a holiday road trip from Juliet, Illinois, to Texas with her husband and children.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, she vanished.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her husband Gilburnol has always maintained that she left voluntarily, but investigators and Jones' children believe that something much darker happened before that trip even began.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, more than 3 decades later, Jones' body has never been found, but her case continues to raise questions, especially as cold-case detectives and the team from the show called justice take another look.

[SPEAKER_00]: Today we're talking about the disappearance of Joan Bernal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get started.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joan Yarbero Bernal grew up in Hickory Hills, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.

[SPEAKER_00]: After graduating from Amos Alonso's Dag high school in 1972, she settled into life in Will County, eventually becoming a bus driver for the Juliette Mass Transit District.

[SPEAKER_00]: She lived on Zarlie Road with her blended family.

[SPEAKER_00]: Two kids from a previous marriage, brief stepchildren, and one young daughter she shared with her second husband, Gilbert Nall.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joan was known as a hands-on mother, and those close to her descriptor is gentle, nurturing, and deeply devoted to her kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: But behind closed doors, Joan's life was far from calm.

[SPEAKER_00]: According to Records, later reviewed by investigators in the TV show called Justice, Joan had sought shelter multiple times due to domestic violence.

[SPEAKER_00]: Notes from those days described a repeated pattern.

[SPEAKER_00]: Abuse followed by promises and apologies from Gill than Joan returning home.

[SPEAKER_00]: That Friday, December 9, Joan and Gill were supposed to be heading south to Edinburgh, Texas to visit Gill's family.

[SPEAKER_00]: They plan to take all of the children with them, including Joan's older kids from her previous marriage.

[SPEAKER_00]: But first, they had to pick them up from their father, Joan's ex-husband, Larry.

[SPEAKER_00]: According to investigators, Larry wouldn't allow the children to leave the state.

[SPEAKER_00]: On the drive-back home, Gill and Joan reportedly argued.

[SPEAKER_00]: When they arrived at their house, Joan and Gill went inside while the children stayed in the car.

[SPEAKER_00]: Shortly after, Gill returned and took his three children from a previous relationship to their biological mother's home.

[SPEAKER_00]: What happened during that brief period inside the house remains the center of this mystery.

[SPEAKER_00]: Years later, Gilsson Gilbert Jr.

would recall something that haunted him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was a teenager at the time and he remembered approaching the house and looking through the window.

[SPEAKER_00]: He later told authorities that he saw his father violently assaulting Joan.

[SPEAKER_00]: Quote, I looked through the window and I saw my dad jerk Joan's head, grabbed Joan by the neck, and jerk back, and went forward, and that was it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he dragged her through the living room, and quote.

[SPEAKER_00]: His story has remained largely unchanged since 1988.

[SPEAKER_00]: He claims that after dropping off his kids and repairing a headlight at work, he and Joan left the next morning with their young daughter, Serita.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then somewhere near McAllister Oklahoma, he says that Joan changed her mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was upset over the custody dispute with her ex-husband, so she asked to be dropped off so she could return to Illinois, get her older children, and fly down to Texas later.

[SPEAKER_00]: According to Gil, he left her at a bus station with about $1,500 in cash.

[SPEAKER_00]: That, he says, was the last time he saw her.

[SPEAKER_00]: But police have never found any proof of his bus stop story.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no record of Joan ever buying a ticket, boarding a bus, or arriving back in Illinois.

[SPEAKER_00]: She never contacted her children or family again, and she hasn't been seen since.

[SPEAKER_00]: Investigators later came to believe that she never made it out of joy at.

[SPEAKER_00]: By 1993, five years had passed and Jones' case remained open.

[SPEAKER_00]: That year, Gilles' son came forward with his story, the one about St.

Jonah assaulted through a window.

[SPEAKER_00]: Around the same time, other allegations of abuse surfaced.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jones older children spoke about living in fear, one son said that he once saw Gil holding knife to his mother's throat.

[SPEAKER_00]: An ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend of Gil's described similar abuse patterns, including being dragged by their hair and violently threatened.

[SPEAKER_00]: These weren't just family rumors.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were documented in police reports and interviews.

[SPEAKER_00]: While none of it was a smoking gun, Wil County prosecutors believed that the pattern was clear enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: In 1993, they charged Gilbert and all with Jones murder, but the case never went to trial.

[SPEAKER_00]: When a new state's attorney took office in 1994, Gilles Defense Team brought forward [SPEAKER_00]: For witnesses, who claimed to have seen Joan alive after December 1988, based with a lack of physical evidence and no body, prosecutors dropped the charges.

[SPEAKER_00]: Later, some of those witnesses reportedly recanted, but the damage to the case had already been done.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joan's remains were not found, and her DNA was submitted to national databases, but no [SPEAKER_00]: Gil eventually moved out of state and lived freely as he was presumed innocent under the law.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then in 2024, nearly 36 years after Joan vanished, the case got a fresh look.

[SPEAKER_00]: The team from the oxygen show Cold Justice joined Will County detectives to re-examine the file.

[SPEAKER_00]: A friend of Gilles, Ray Ogorman, had previously told police that Gilles had once discussed how to dispose of a body using any freeze, oil, and a 55 gallon drum.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had reportedly given Gil to barrels, but investigators only ever found one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Using ground penetrating radar, the cold justice team searched Gil's old property for signs of a buried container.

[SPEAKER_00]: While they didn't locate Jones remains, the work put new public pressure on the case.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gil, now in his 80s, agreed to speak with investigators on camera.

[SPEAKER_00]: He admitted that he used to quote bang her head when angry, but he denied killing Joan.

[SPEAKER_00]: He maintained his long-standing story that she got out of the car in Oklahoma and never came back.

[SPEAKER_00]: For her children, especially Serita, who is just a toddler at the time, the pain of not knowing has never faded.

[SPEAKER_00]: Serita has said that she doesn't know her mother's voice or scent, just the photo that's been passed around for decades.

[SPEAKER_00]: As of December 9, 2025, Joan Bernal has been missing for 37 years.

[SPEAKER_00]: her case is still open.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one has ever been convicted in connection with her disappearance.

[SPEAKER_00]: But despite this, the hope for answers always remains.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for joining me on today's episode of Day by Day True Crime Stories.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you found Jones case compelling please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast, it'll help us grow.

[SPEAKER_00]: And be sure to join me again tomorrow as we explore another significant event in True Crime History.

[SPEAKER_00]: Until then stay safe and remember that behind every headline is a life worth remembering.

[SPEAKER_00]: Day by Day True Crime Stories is a little monster production.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey you good girl!