Missing Since: 2021-01-01 Location: New Albany, Mississippi
Stacks was last seen in New Albany, Mississippi on January 1, 2021. Her boyfriend, Jerry Wayne Baggett, was sighted on surveillance video getting gas at 6:00 a.m.; he had a passenger at the time, whom he says was Stacks. They reportedly borrowed a friend’s boat that day. The boat had no oars and no motor, and Baggett and Stacks planned to float down the rain-swollen Little Tallahatchie River and use a shovel to steer while they hunted wild game. Baggett stated they launched the boat into the river near a bridge on County Road 46. Stacks left her phone with a friend. Because the river was flowing quickly and the boat was taking on water, Stacks asked to be let out. He let her out on the north side of the river. She planned to walk through the flooded river bottom to Highway 30, about a mile away. She has never been heard from again. It wasn’t until 10:15 p.m., about twelve hours after he last saw her, that Baggett reported Stacks’s disappearance to police. When they searched the area where Baggett says she was left behind, they found a coat similar to hers, a pair of gloves, footprints, and a single woman’s size 6 or 7 green rubber boot, with the top cut off. Before the boot was found, Baggett had mentioned to police that Stacks had cut the top of her boot off because it was rubbing her leg and bothering her. There were footprints that police followed about 100 yards west up the riverbank towards County Road 46. The tracks then turned north towards Highway 30, then disappeared into the standing water in a flooded crop field. Stacks’s family does not believe Baggett’s story and thinks she was never on the boat that day. They stated it would have made no sense for her to go out on the overflowing river in a boat with no motor or oars. Her family does not believe local law enforcement handled the investigation properly, and they think Stacks may have met with foul play. When he was interviewed by News Nation in February 2023, two years later, Baggett changed his story and said he never saw Stacks on January 1, and that he was working that day. He said he had last seen Stacks a few days before, and that neither of them had ever taken a friend’s boat out on the river because neither of them could swim. The circumstances of Stacks’s disappearance are unclear. Investigators stated they had no evidence of foul play and that what little evidence they found, supported Baggett’s story about the river boat trip. Her case remains unsolved. Investigating Agency Union County Sheriff’s Office 662-534-1943 Source Information NamUs News Nation Now Facebook Page for Jessica Stacks Northeast Mississippi News The Truckers Missing Child Project Second Facebook Page for Jessica Stacks NBC News The Delta Daily News Updated 1 time since October 12, 2004. Last updated February 28, 2023; casefile added.