On the night of August 8, 2017, Jasmine Block was lying on the couch at her family’s home in Alexandria, Minnesota. That weekend, she had been boating with her neighbors before returning home, complaining of a severe headache.
She was 15 and about to start the ninth grade the following week. At around 11 pm, Jasmine woke up and stepped outside the house to get some fresh air. She left her keys, cell phone, and purse behind at the house.
Her mother, Sarah Block, had also left earlier that evening to tend to a family emergency, so Jasmine was alone at the house. While Jasmine was walking outside, a family acquaintance named Thomas Barker approached her.
Barker told her that his son, who was also coincidentally her best friend, was having a mental breakdown, and he begged her to come help calm him down. Wanting to help her friend, Jasmine willingly got into Barker’s vehicle.
It was only after Barker began driving away from the neighborhood that Jasmine noticed something was off about the story. He drove her 10 miles away to his trailer home in Carlos. The moment they got inside, Barker immediately restrained her using zip ties, threatened her with a weapon, and began assaulting her.
Back at the house, Sarah found her daughter gone. She told the Alexandria Echo Press, “We realized she was nowhere to be found, and that is when we called the police.” Jasmine had left without her phone, a bike, or anything else, which was considerably out of character for her.
For the next 29 days, Jasmine was moved several times and kept out of sight. Court documents also later described her being locked in a closet inside Barker’s trailer.
Later on, after her rescue, she recounted to Fox 9 News, “I was usually in a closet, and I usually stayed quiet because I was scared they might hit me or do something.”
Twenty-Nine Days in a Closet
At the trailer, Barker had two roommates, Joshua Holby, 31, and Steven Powers, 20. They actively participated in physically and sexually abusing Jasmine alongside Barker.
Very shortly after the abduction, Barker put Jasmine into a bathtub while she was zip-tied and tried to drown her. She bravely fought back, and because Barker suffered from cerebral palsy, he lacked the physical strength to effectively hold her down, and she survived the attack.
After that, she was forced into a small closet in the trailer. The men threatened and assaulted Jasmine on several occasions over the weeks. She was also kept in the closet for extended periods over the course of days.
The closet was small and cramped, so to make the space a bit more tolerable, the men placed a fan inside to circulate the air. Jasmine was also given strict orders to remain quiet at all times.
She knew that any noise, including crying or calling for assistance, would result in severe punishment or even death. Barker used psychological tactics to crush any hope of being found. He repeatedly lied, telling her that police had stopped looking and her family didn’t care about her anymore.
She was also given minimal food and water, getting just enough sustenance to remain alive. Jasmine was only allowed out of the closet under heavy supervision. This was either to do chores around the trailer or when they subjected her to physical or sexual assault.
The trio also often botched attempts to kill the girl. On one occasion, they tried to suffocate her behind a couch. She also survived a fifth murder attempt when they botched a hanging after knocking over a bucket Jasmine was meant to stand over.
Bring Me the News reported Dr. Phil’s questions when she featured on his show: “Is it fair to say that they weren’t the brightest men?” Jasmine agreed. Barker even openly told her the plan was to eventually kill her so there would be no evidence connecting the men to what happened.
City-Wide Search
While Jasmine was being held hostage forty miles from her own home, Alexandria was organizing the biggest search efforts the city had seen before. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension issued an alert after a day, noting that Jasmine has cognitive disabilities that make her vulnerable.
The case quickly drew national attention, and the Alexandria Police Department, BCA, FBI, Douglass County Sheriff’s Office, along with the North Star Search and Rescue teams, joined in the search. By the end of August, investigators had covered 300 acres on foot with first responders and cadaver dogs.
Volunteers also rallied independent of law enforcement. Alexandria police chief Rick Wyffels led canvassing groups through wooded areas near the last place Jasmine was seen. Flyers also went up on store windows and car windshields around town.
A Facebook page, named ‘Help Bring Jasmine Block Home’, became one of the hubs for tips and coordination. According to another Echo Press piece, Kevin Taylor, the director of the local Youth for Christ chapter, said, “She was just a quirky kid. Her smile was infectious.”
The family’s $2,000 reward grew to $7,000 after an anonymous donor added $5,000 to the pool. Sarah Block also spoke to search volunteers at Big Ole Central Park in Alexandria, illustrating the areas that had already been covered.
As the days stretched on, Sarah posted in the group tracking the case, describing how the house felt without Jasmine.
The First Day of School
Jasmine didn’t join the rest of her classmates on September 5, as they started the Ninth grade at Alexandria Area High School. She was in a truck belonging to one of the three men parked on a rural property twenty miles from home.
Then a miracle happened, and the men left her, saying they would be back in an hour. Jasmine later told Fox 9, “They went to the store to get some food. And they said it would be about an hour.” It was the first time in 29 days they had left her alone.
As the men drove away, Jasmine didn’t waste any time. She wiggled her way out of the duffel bag they had stuffed her in, and jumped out of the truck. She then ran across the rural fields desperately looking for anyone who could help.
Realizing that her captors might return at any moment, Jasmine realized she had to put a significant physical barrier between herself and the property, so she ran down to the edge of Thompson Lake.
She got into the cold water and swam across a part of the lake to reach a different residential neighborhood on the other shore.
She lost her pants and shoes in the muddy water during the crossing. Dripping wet and exhausted, Jasmine made it to the other side of the lake and ran towards a nearby gravel road.
At around the same time, a local farmer, Earl Melchert, was driving by in his truck. Jasmine ran to the road, opened his passenger-side door, and frantically told him she had been kidnapped, pleading with him to call the police.
Melchert recognized her from the missing-person flyers, immediately pulled her into his truck, and dialed emergency services. Police swarmed the area and took her into custody.
As they were working the scene, Jasmine recognized one of the suspects’ vehicles passing on a nearby road and alerted the police, leading to Powers’s arrest. Holby and Barker were also apprehended in Pope County soon after.
An ambulance took Jasmine to Douglass County Hospital, where she was met by her mother and treated for minor injuries. The Alexandria Police also announced the news of Jasmine’s rescue publicly that afternoon.
According to the SC Times, Sarah posted on Facebook, “We found Jasmine, and she is safe. Thank you, God, and thank you for all the prayers and support and many thanks to law enforcement.”
Melchert, whose property became the endpoint of a month-long search, was given the $7,000 reward by the Alexandria police department for his role in finding her. He immediately turned around and gave the money to Jasmine and her family.
According to CBS News, the Alexandria Police posted on their Facebook page saying, “Thank you, Earl, it is people like you that make this world a better place.” The post has been shared hundreds of times.
Abductors Plead Guilty in Court
Immediately after Jasmine’s escape, Thomas Barker, Steven Powers and Joshua Holby made their first appearance at the Douglass County District Court. They were being charged with kidnapping, first-degree criminal sexual conduct, and assault with a deadly weapon.
Because of the extreme, violent nature of the crimes, the judge set the bail amounts at $2 million each for Barker and Powers. It was $1.5 million for Holby. None of them were able to post bail, so they remained in custody throughout the entire process.
Initially, they entered not-guilty pleas, and the court prepared to proceed to trial. However, because of the overwhelming mountain of evidence, including the victim’s detailed eyewitness testimony, not to mention the physical evidence retrieved from the trailer, their defense teams began negotiating plea agreements with the Douglas County attorney.
Thomas Barker was the first to fold as he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Joshua Holby followed in September 2018, pleading guilty to two counts of felony kidnapping.
Steven Powers was the last to enter a guilty plea in November 2018 for criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping.
The judge asked Holby whether he understood Jasmine’s age and that she had not been free to leave. He answered both questions in the affirmative. Sarah commented on the plea to Echo Press, saying, “I am glad he has admitted what he’s done and not fought anything.”
Barker was sentenced on November 30, 2018, in Douglass County District Court. Judge Timothy Churchwell handed down the sentences. These included 98 months for kidnapping, 156 months for one criminal sexual conduct count, and 300 months for the other.
This totaled 25 years, along with a lifetime conditional release and mandatory registration as a predatory offender. Holby was sentenced in January 2019 to seven years and two months. Powers, who was the last to be sentenced, was given eight and a half years.
The Letter and Carrying on After the Trial
At Barker’s sentencing, Jasmine’s mother read a letter that her daughter had written. Bring Me the News reported the letter’s intro, which stated, “Dear Thomas, I think you’re sick. You make me sick to my stomach. My life will never be the same…”
She also said she is always scared some guy is going to kidnap her. Jasmine told Barker the things he did terrified her, and she just wants her happy life back.
Jasmine concluded by telling him she hopes he has a good life without nightmares or worrying that bad things will happen to him. In her letter as covered by Echo Press, she said, “I just want to go a day without thinking about it, but I can’t.”
The hearings closed the legal chapter of the case but not the psychological baggage Jasmine had to deal with. Sarah said her daughter has since been hospitalized three separate times for stretches of two to four weeks after experiencing debilitating flashbacks of her captivity.
Speaking to Bring Me the News, ahead of their appearance on Dr. Phil, Sarah said, “She’ll never be the same again. None of us will.” She described her daughter having periods of shutting down, isolating herself, and having difficulty trusting new people.
Jasmine eventually returned to school in Alexandria within weeks of her escape and eventually resumed her teenage life. She has also continued therapy in the years following her escape.
She graduated from Alexandria Area High School in 2021. Following this, Jasmine and her mother transitioned into a quiet life away from public scrutiny to focus on long-term recovery. She also explicitly expressed a desire to work with children in the future.
During her recovery, Jasmine also showed deep empathy for other kidnapping survivors, speaking out to publicly support Jayme Closs, who escaped captivity after 88 days.
Thomas Barker remains incarcerated in a Minnesota state prison. As he received the longest sentence of 25 years, he is not expected to be eligible for supervised release until the early 2030s.
Holby was released from prison in June 2022 after serving two-thirds of his seven-year sentence. Because he was categorized as a Level 3 predatory offender, the police held a public community notification meeting before he was moved into a temporary residence in Wedona, Minnesota.
Powers was also released from prison under supervised release guidelines after serving the required prison portion of his sentence. Jasmine’s ordeal thankfully ended a month after Thomas Barker took her from her home.
Some, like Leigh Occhi, who was also taken from her home, have never been found despite being missing for decades. Jasmine’s case shows that the perpetrator is often someone the victim knows.
For more stories on unsolved disappearances, explore our articles on Darla Harper and Dee Anne Warner.
