Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Lady Bird Lake: New Details in Man's Case Surface as Police Find Another Body

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

Austin Police announced another body was found near Lady Bird Lake on September 18 but the case is not being treated as a homicide. The revelation comes as families are looking to have their loved ones cases reopened. The mother of Christoper Hays-Clark's son said she still doesn't know how he died. This comes as new details about a man who fell off of a bridge near the lake have come to light through a 911 call. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the new details in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: You can binge Criminal Attorney early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus by clicking our link https://Wondery.fm/LCCrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Officers responded and located an obviously deceased individual. In accordance with APD policy, homicide detectives responded and conducted a preliminary investigation. A body found near Austin's Lady Bird Lake, the same lake where the bodies of more than a dozen people have been found since 2022. I'll tell you what police are saying about this recent case. Plus, I was found at about 430 in the morning at the bottom of a ravine. I actually was right next to a river that would lead to Lady Bird Lake. I have new information about the man's fall from a bridge near the lake

as one woman searches for answers in the death of her son's father. I think either something happened at the lake or before going to the lake and he was just dumped there. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. For more than a year now, there's been a lot of talk on social media about Austin's Lady Bird Lake and the number of bodies that have been found in and around the lake in a relatively short span of time. Austin police say that the theory that there's a serial killer on the loose is not backed up by evidence or autopsy results, but the loved ones of the people who have died, many of them at least, do not buy it, and they want their deaths reinvestigated.

Since 2022, 13 bodies have been found in and along Lady Bird Lake. All were men with the exception of one. One man found on a trail in July died by suicide. Just last week, another body was found on a trail near the lake, but Austin police say they do not believe this is a homicide. Austin 911 received a call, a check welfare call in regards to a person the complainant suspected was deceased along the trail in the 2700 block of Canterbury Street. Officers responded and located an obviously deceased individual. In accordance with APD policy, homicide detectives responded and conducted a preliminary investigation,

after which the medical examiner's office responded and collected the decedent. The preliminary investigation shows that the decedent had no signs of trauma. There is no suspicion of foul play and it is not being investigated as a homicide at this time. I would like to add that the body was not retrieved from the water and there is no indication that the body ever was in the water. The officer stressed that the body was not found in the lake, obviously trying to quell any fears, but there are families who feel like they don't have the answers they need about to quell any fears. But there are families who feel like they don't have the answers they need about their loved one's deaths, like the family of Christopher Hayes Clark. It was just a lot. It's very heartbreaking. It's still very heartbreaking and very unbelievable for me. Regan Aparicio is the mother of Clark's son. Clark's body was pulled from the lake on April 15th of last year. It's been very difficult. It just is difficult because at the time my son was 12, he's 13 now.

But it's just very hard to deal with the loss of a parent. I haven't went through that. So I really cannot, you know, fathom how my son is feeling because it's his dad, you know. At the time when we found out, it was very, very difficult. Had a lot going through my mind, you know, I just really didn't know how I was going to tell my son that this happened. And then especially the way it happened, like something that's in the public eye, you know, my son goes to school, of course, you know, he's, he's on social media. So it was just a lot. One of the things about Clark's death that bothers Aparicio is an interaction recorded by police body cameras on April 10th

and the hours before Clark disappeared. Hey, Christopher? Christopher? Christopher? Hey, Christopher. What? You okay, man? You need to give me a mess? No.

As you can see, Clark was sleeping on a bench. You need money? Yeah. Well, Christopher, I'm here to tell you, man, you can't go back to Golden Chick. You have a criminal trespass notice there. And if you come in here, we're going to have to arrest you. I'm at the bus stop. I know you're at the bus stop.

You can't get to Golden Chick. They know you're at the bus stop. You can't be at the bus stop. They have a criminal trespass on you, so if you go back there, you'll be arrested. Do you understand that? I'm at the bus stop. All right. I'm just talking to you. You're okay? No EMS needed?

No. All right. You have a good day, okay? Yeah. You've been with him before? We'll be getting more calls on it later. The police later discussed how they are familiar with Christopher Hayes Clark. I don't think he overdosed. I think either something happened at the lake or before going to the lake and he was just dumped there. I know for a fact that Chris didn't put

himself in that water and despite them trying to blame it on his drug usage I have known Chris since I was a kid we met when we were teenagers he started using drugs like when my son was two my son's now 13 I've seen him at his worst and he is well aware of what he's doing and he's not, like he's very, very active outside. Like he did Boy Scouts, camping, like he can survive outside. So I, in my mind, don't think that it was because of drugs or he was so, you know, drugged out. I think something actually happened to him. Austin police told me in a statement,

the Travis County Medical Examiner's Office ruled the cause of death for Christopher Hayes Clark undetermined. The death investigation showed that there was no trauma to the body and no indication of any criminal activity. It is unknown when he died. Although Mr. Clark was found holding a mask, the detective's

investigative experience leads him to believe there was nothing suspicious regarding the mask. The investigation is closed and this case was not ruled a homicide. Many of the families of the people who lost their lives don't feel like they have all of the answers about how their loved ones died and they're frustrated. Most of these deaths were ruled accidental drownings. The men who drowned had alcohol in their system or drugs. The bodies found in Lady Bird Lake have sparked fears that a serial killer is on the loose targeting men. Facebook groups have cropped up where people discuss theories and fears. The feared serial killer has been dubbed the Rainy Street Ripper. But the Austin Police Department say there isn't a serial killer.

I spoke with a homicide sergeant earlier this year. How can the Austin Police Department be so certain that there's nothing suspicious surrounding the deaths of the people who've ended up in Lady Bird Lake? So just over the years, there's deaths that happen in and around the water. Sometimes they're shootings. Sometimes they're drownings.

Sometimes there's other deaths. And they all kind of get lumped in together a lot of the time. But I think the concern for most people are the folks pulled from the water that appear to have drowned. So in all these cases, we'll send an actual homicide detective to the scene to assess the situation, to assess the scene, to follow up later on with the medical examiner and to check on toxicology, which can take three months to come back. So all of that is looked at in its totality to make sure, was there any trauma to this person's body? Do we think that they were drugged? Was there any signs of foul play? In life, you never know when you might need a lawyer. Well,

Paul Berggren, he was the lawyer who could get you out of any sticky situation. Caught selling pirated videos like Queen Latifah? Caught stabbing your spouse nine times with a steak knife? Better call Paul. We see lawyers like this and the Sopranos or Breaking Bad. But what happens when those fictional lawyers exist in real life? Paul Bergeron was a master lawyer who knew the system inside out. But when an FBI agent finds traces of Bergeron's involvement in a massive drug ring, questions start to arise about how Paul achieved his dominance. In Wondery's true crime podcast, criminal attorney host Jinx Jenkins will tell you the true story of how Paul Berggren

went from representing others in court to representing himself. Follow criminal attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to criminal attorney early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Now, previously on Crime Fix, I introduced you to Jeff Jones. He's a man who fell off of a bridge, and he has questions about how that happened. Did you physically end up in the water and somebody found you? I mean, do you know what happened to you from what you've been told? Yes. It's mainly from what i've been told through the the reports my sister came down and was there the whole time as well as a few other my relatives and

they were taking notes and kind of trying to explain to me what was going on but you know i that is an odd twist to it as well i i was found right next to the creek where another individual a few years back also was found there. Unfortunately, he had passed away. But yeah, that lake that leads right to Lady Bird Lake. And I was found at about four thirty in the morning after disappearing from the group around one, so it is a strange amount of time that I had.

It was just kind of an innocent bystander who had found me and reported it anonymously. So it would be interesting to find out a little bit more about that person. I always thought it was kind of odd that I, why did they see me at the bottom of a creek bed, you know, in the middle of the night randomly? Jones, of course, always wondered who called 911 to report his fall. Well, I now have that call. Tell me exactly what happened. I was sleeping. I'm homeless. Well, I now back to sleep.

And then all of a sudden I heard a big thud. And I looked over, that was about a half hour ago. And I was like, oh my God. Hey, you know, can you hear me? Are you okay? So this is a homeless man who said he was sleeping under the bridge when he heard a loud thud. He continued explaining what happened when he encountered Jeff Jones under the bridge. I found his phone and I couldn't call 911 because it's password locked. And he was just moaning and going and weaving the whole time. So I said, he finally came to. I go, hey, I'm going to call 911.

You need to call the ambulance because I didn't know if I could use his phone. And he just said, no, no, no. But I'm so too worried that the fall was too hard, too high for him to just get up, you know, and start walking away. I asked if he's got any broken bones. He said, I don't know. And no, don't call. Don't call the ambulance. But I called you anyway.

Now, Jeff Jones was obviously out of it. He had been drinking, but he also tested positive for benzodiazepines, which are used to treat anxiety and muscle spasms, a drug that Jones didn't take and was not prescribed. Drugging of drinks has been a problem in major cities for years. And in response to concerns over drugging of drinks in Austin, the city launched the Sip Safely program back in April. The city's website includes advice like never leave your drink unattended. Watch your drink being poured. Be cautious about taking a drink from someone you don't know and use a drink cover and watch for others in your party. Jones suffered serious injuries and was placed into a coma. I'm still on some pain meds. I luckily have gotten off of most of them.

It was pretty intense at first, but I do have two very large rods in my back connecting, well, actually four rods in two places in my back connecting the spinal cord, the areas that were damaged. And those are actually supposed to come out this summer. Shockingly enough, they aren't permanent. But I still can function fairly normally with it. It is a little painful sometimes, certain activities, but really I'm pretty lucky. And I also did have a puncture wound. A branch went through my elbow.

Interestingly enough, Austin police wrote a police report about Jones's fall in May of this year, nearly a year after the incident. The department said they wrote the report because Jones had started talking publicly about his fall and they felt it should be documented. The officers said they didn't believe there was anything suspicious about the incident, but Jeff Jones felt something nefarious happened to him. It was definitely quite a revelation. I mean, I had never really contemplated my own mortality at all. I'm in my mid-30s, so it's not even something you think about, really. We had actually heard about it when we were going down. There was about six or seven of us on a flight down from Boston together on Thursday, and we had heard of the disappearances of people, and we were kind of joking with one another, oh, watch out for the serial killer in Austin, and, you know, to wake up

and then realize that, you know, it could have actually been a target of somebody in that exact situation we were laughing about was definitely a shock. Fears remain in Austin that someone is targeting men in the bar district. Do you understand the fear there or the concern? Sure. I think it's gripped the community just any time that someone passes in or near a body of water. And it seems like it could potentially be from a suspicious source. I can understand why people might be a little concerned, but hopefully it helps assure people that, like I said, we make sure that detectives look at every single part of this case that we possibly can. We want to make sure that this person wasn't hit over the head or

wasn't, you know, drugged at a bar and followed down to the water where they ended up falling in or were attacked or assaulted or anything like that. So we try to rule out as much as we possibly can. Obviously, we all would wish that there was video all over the place to see exactly what happened as things unfolded. But we're left with the evidence at the end of the day, and we have to piece together all the actual physical evidence that we have. And that is, were there any signs of trauma? Were there any signs of foul play? Like, do we believe a weapon was used? Did the body have any defects like stab wounds or bullet holes or anything like that? And then just reviewing that toxicology as well to see if there's any commonalities between any of the cases. A couple of petitions have circulated online

asking that the deaths in the lake be reinvestigated. Many of the families are not satisfied with the answers they've received about their loved one's deaths. I feel like somebody else needs to step in. Like I feel, sometimes I even feel like, you know, the FBI may need to come in and check this out because me personally I

don't believe anything the Austin Police Department says I feel like they just say one thing and then do another thing and it just to me it doesn't add up and I want answers I you know not just for Chris I want answers for everyone because everybody deserves to know what happened to their loved one I think the hardest thing about all of this is just knowing, like not, not knowing at all. Like I have no answer to what happened to him. Like, how can you go from seeing somebody and they were perfectly fine and normal to they end up dead in the lake? Like, it's crazy to me. And at this point, it doesn't appear that there are any plans to reinvestigate these deaths. The Austin Police Department appears confident in their findings. That's it for this

edition of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.