In 2025, a family’s three-year effort to hold someone accountable for their daughter’s killing in Northern California, came to a halt after prosecutors said there was not enough evidence to charge the mother of the man they believe is responsible.
The legal decision closes a painful chapter that began in 2022, when the victim 24-year-old Alexis Gabe left her home in Oakley to spend time with friends and never returned.
Her disappearance subsequently set off an exhaustive search that stretched across multiple counties and eventually turned into a homicide investigation.
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| Alexis Gabe on the night she disappeared |
On January 26, 2022, Alexis went to hang out with friends, and she was last seen that evening at the home of her ex-boyfriend, Marshall Curtis Jones III in Antioch.
When she failed to return home, her family filed a missing persons report, and during their investigation, police found her car abandoned by the road side. It was unlocked with the keys still inside, and it was parked on a cul-de-sac in Oakley.
Surveillance footage showed someone, getting out of the vehicle and walking away, but it wasn't Alexis, and she was nowhere to be found.
After roughly three months of investigation, detectives eventually pieced together the movements of the person who abandoned Alexis Gabe’s car on that cul-de-sac, and they confirmed it was Marshall Jones.
He had been interviewed twice before that point and had repeatedly insisted he had nothing to do with her disappearance. However, after they placed him at the scene of the abandoned vehicle, investigators decided to arrest him and bring formal charges.
On June 1, 2022, law enforcement tracked Jones to an apartment complex in Kent, Washington and when they moved in, Jones charged at them with a knife.
This prompted officers from multiple agencies to open fire, and tragically, he died right there at the scene, as reported by CBS News.
On November 3, 2022, eleven months after Alexis disappeared the search took a grim when a resident in the Amador County town of Plymouth discovered human remains in a thrash bag, so they alerted the sheriff’s office.
The remains were eventually collected by deputies, and a forensic odontologist later positively identified the remains as those of Alexis’s using dental records. Officials also said that the condition of the partial remains made it unlikely that her entire body would ever be recovered, as per CBS News.
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| Marshall Curtis Jones III |
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| The suspect carrying a suspicious bag |
After Jones’s death, Oakley Police Chief Paul Beard accused Jones of killing, dismembering, and disposing off Alexis’s remains. He also made it clear that investigators believed he had help along the way.
This led them to ask the public for help at the time, while announcing a $100,000 reward for information that could lead to Alexis’s remains.
For the Gabe’s family, they were convinced that Jones mother was the one who helped him to dispose of Alexis’s body and assist Jones in leaving California. So after her remains were located in Plymouth, the Gabe family shifted their focus to Jones’s mother, Alicia Coleman-Clark.
They worked with Dara Cashman, a former prosecutor with 30 years of experience in the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office, to build a case for an accessory after the fact charge against Coleman-Clark.
Cashman said she believed the evidence was sufficient not only to file charges, but to win a conviction.
District Attorney Diana Becton’s office reviewed the material, which included forensic evidence, a fresh interview with Coleman-Clark’s former boyfriend, and an examination of who purchased Jones’s plane ticket to Washington.
However, after reviewing the evidence, authorities said that it wasn't enough to bring charges, and with the statute of limitations for the accessory count running out, the door on that possibility has now closed.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the Gabe family for the unimaginable loss of Alexis,” Becton wrote, adding that the office had worked tirelessly for three years and remained committed to supporting the family.
Gwyn Gabe, the father of 24-year-old Alexis Gabe, told CBS News Bay Area that his family was deeply disappointed with the outcome.
He also addeed that his wife was furious after learning the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office would not be filing accessory after the fact charges against Alicia Coleman-Clark.
“We had significant amount of evidence that we presented to them,” Gabe said. “I don’t know what they’re thinking. I just didn’t see why it wasn’t enough.”
Gwyn Gabe said he now plans to channel his energy into helping other victims’ families navigate the legal system.
The investigation into the exact circumstances of Alexis Gabe’s death remains officially closed, but for her loved ones, the search for complete closure and remembrance continues.
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