‘Countless red flags’: Report reveals years of warnings before 5-year-old Oakley Carlson vanished
A newly released state report details years of missed warning signs, repeated child abuse and neglect complaints in the case of Oakley Carlson, a five-year-old girl who disappeared from her Washington home in 2021.
The child fatality review, published by the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), documents at least 14 referrals to Child Protective Services involving Oakley’s family and raises questions about whether the girl was returned to her biological parents too quickly despite ongoing safety concerns.
Oakley was last seen by someone outside her family in February 2021. Authorities were not alerted that she was missing until nine months later, in December 2021.
Andrew Carlson and Jordan Bowers were never charged for Oakley’s disappearance or presumed death, but law enforcement has since maintained that they are persons of interest in the case.
In July 2025, Oakley was declared dead, which triggered a legally required review of how caseworkers responded to allegations of abuse and neglect.
For Oakley’s former foster mother, Jamie Jo Hiles, the new report confirmed her worst fears about how the case has been handled, she told The Seattle Times.
“I mean, honestly, when I read through it, it was just disheartening to read the countless red flags that were presented in regards to Oakley and her siblings,” Hiles said.
Oakley lived with Hiles from about nine months old until just before her third birthday, when she was returned to Carlson and Bowers.
“DCYF just lets kids fall through the cracks,” Hiles added.
The search for Oakley began on December 6, 2021, when a school principal requested a welfare check after discovering that she had not attended school for an extended period of time and that her older sister made alarming statements during a sleepover.
“She said that ‘Oakley is no more’ and that ‘there is no Oakley,’” according to an affidavit obtained by KCPQ.
In a later interview with a child advocate, Oakley’s sister reportedly said “her mother Jordan had told her not to talk about Oakley” and that Oakley “had gone out into the woods and had been eaten by wolves.”
Oakley’s nine-year-old brother told detectives that Bowers would “put Oakley in the closet, possibly under a stairwell,” and that he “witnessed Jordan beat Oakley with a belt and has been worried about her starving.”
Carlson and Bowers told investigators the last time they saw Oakley alive was November 30, 2021. Authorities, however, found no evidence that she was alive after a house fire on November 6 that displaced the family.
