Crime Junkie - MISSING: Young Men From Their Cars

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

Daniel Robinson:To sign the petition to elevate Daniels’ case click HERE and to sign up to help search click HEREIf you have information regarding Daniel please call 623-349-6400. Jason Landry:If you have information regarding Jason please call the Sheriff’s office at 512-398-6777 or any of the following investigators: Detective Ferry with the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office, 512-398-6777 Ext. 4516 or by email: [e-mail] Abel Pena, with PM Investigations by phone: [phone] or by email: [e-mail] Tuleta Copeland, with Leverage Investigations at [e-mail] Swanson:If you have information regarding Brandon please call Agent Woodford at 651-793-7000. You can also look for updates on Brandon’s case HERE A strange phenomenon keeps occurring where young men go missing from their cars and then seem to vanish into thin air. It happened in 2008 to Brandon Swanson, 2020 To Jason Landry, and 2021 to Daniel Robinson. It seems impossible that they could walk away from their vehicles, sometimes even leaving their clothes behind and never be seen again. Their families need your help to find their loved ones! For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/missing-young-men-from-their-cars/ 

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today, I have a bit of a collection of stories to tell you. The first one is actually one we covered in, like, this five-minute headline segment in our fan club back in, what, January? Yeah, I think so. It's about a young man who was driving home from college for a Christmas break and just vanished. Like, straight into thin air, vanished. And the circumstances were so bizarre that honestly, when we talked about it, I was like, okay, surely there's something that, you know, authorities just aren't telling the public.

He's going to pop up any day now. But then I never heard anything. Yeah, I remember, like, you would even ask me, like, hey, have you seen anything on this? Yes. Have you seen any updates? And I'm like, no, girl, sorry. Yeah, and that's when I, like, I started thinking about it. He just randomly popped in my mind.

I had asked you and I was like, okay, well, I'm going to start googling. And what I realized is I hadn't heard anything because nothing has happened. We are coming up on a year this December since he went missing. And there has not been a single new clue or sighting. And in that moment, the story reminded me of another young man who went missing over a decade before under equally bizarre circumstances. And then as I was researching for this episode, another similar case started making headlines. These are the stories of Jason Landry, Brandon Swanson, and Daniel Robinson. In the early morning hours of December 14th, 2020, like 1230, so really the middle of the night,

a volunteer firefighter is driving down this pretty desolate road in Texas when he spots a car off the road. And not just like someone pulled over, the car is like in rough shape. It was up against this fence and a tree. One of the tires is flat and both the front of like the driver's side and like the back of the driver's side looks crunched and the lights are still on. The passerby takes a peek around thinking maybe the driver needs help, but that's the strange part. There is no driver. Now as a volunteer firefighter, this person knows enough to know not to mess with a scene like this. They call it into authorities who see the same thing when they arrive and they have the car towed.

And do they do a search for the driver? As far as I can tell, they do not. But by 5 a.m. a terrified father was at the tow yard. He couldn't wrap his mind around what was going on. His son Jason drove that car and he was supposed to have been making the three-ish hour drive from San Marcos, Texas to Missouri City, Texas for his college Christmas break that he was coming home. So dad starts looking through the car, looking for any sign of what might have happened. And that's when he spots it. According to Drew Knight with KHOU11, tucked in that black hole of a space in everyone's car where I know I lose everything, right between the driver's seat and that center console was Jason's phone.

This has his heart beating even faster. If Jason isn't with his car and he doesn't even have his phone with him, where could he possibly be? His dad gets the location of where the car was originally towed from. He pockets Jason's phone and immediately gets back in his car to look at the scene for himself. He told Yummy Virgin for Fox 29 that he was the only person looking for his son at that point. And by 7 a.m. he was driving on the road that they pulled the car from looking for any sign of Jason. And that's when he spots it. Clothes.

Not in like a single pile, but spread out like in a trail. There's a shirt, underwear, a sandal, and then socks. And he knew when he saw those socks they were Jason's because his dad told Yummy Virgin, quote, he wears funny socks. These were his son's clothes. The clothes he was believed to have been wearing the night that he left for home. Wait, did they not see any of this the night before when the car had been towed? Like, I think that would be a pretty big red flag. Right.

Like you have a crashed car, a missing driver, and a trail of clothes. Right. And like, yes, this is Texas, but it's cold there in the winter too. Like this is concerning. Yeah. I mean, to me, again, I don't know if they just didn't see the clothes. Clearly, I think what the problem was is they didn't even bother to look. And if they would have looked, it is clear that this is someone more than just like fleeing to avoid a DUI.

No one flees from a scene naked unless they are in distress. Well, and not even naked. Like it looks like he's shedding his clothes. You know, it's not like a pile. Like you said, it was a trail. Yeah. So there's plenty that should have signaled right then and there that something is very wrong, but nothing was done. So on the clothing that they found, was there any blood on it or anything that might make them think that Jason was injured, like a tear or anything?

So when his dad called the local authorities, he turned over all of the clothes to them and you can actually find pictures on the Caldwell County Sheriff's Facebook page. We have them on our blog post too, or if you're in our app, you can see them right now, but let me send them to you, Britt, so you can see what I'm seeing. Oh, yeah, they look pristine. Honestly, they're just like pretty normal travel clothes. They aren't even dirty. No. And police process the clothes looking for any blood that might not be easily visible because again, the shorts are like black. The shirt's kind of like reddish.

The only thing that they find is this one teensy tiny speck of blood on the tag of Jason's shorts. Like look, Britt. Okay, that is minuscule and it could have happened at any point in time. It's like on the back of the tag too. This means nothing. Right. Investigators found no blood in Jason's car. So they're thinking that it, like you're saying, it's either completely unrelated or maybe it happened when he ran into some barbed wire, like that fence that his car ran into, or maybe he ran into a branch.

I mean, literally heck, if you had a bug bite and scratched it, like that's what would come out. Like, who knows? Oh, for sure. So did they eventually do a complete search of this area? I mean, they clearly missed the clothing the night of, like what else could they have missed? Well, there was more searching done and they all did miss stuff. They missed something huge. According to another image from the Caldwell County Sheriff's Facebook page, about 900 feet from where his clothes were was his quote, backpack plastic bag of personal toiletries and a plastic tumbler style container with a deceased beta fish.

Okay, these are all huge red flags. Like he brought this pet with him. That's now dead. All of his belongings are here. You can't even argue that he had other clothes and changed if his backpack is there. I mean, I guess that's also me assuming that it has stuff in it and it's not found completely empty and void of personal items. No, it wasn't found empty. According to Jacqueline Ramkassoon with KXAN quote, inside the backpack was the wallet, a usable amount of marijuana, a laptop and gaming equipment.

End quote. Now somehow in the early days, this got misreported that the backpack was quote unquote filled with narcotics. But that is absolutely not true. Again, it was just a small amount of weed, which like high open any college kids backpack. Let's not get stuck on this because I don't think it means much. Right. Now people on online forums have spiraled wondering if he was smoking while driving or if he was and it was laced with something. But there has been no evidence that that happened.

And I think people are just looking for answers in a place where there are few, but it can be distracting from the truth. So for the story, like let's just completely put that aside for now, unless new information comes to light. What police focus more of their energy on was trying to figure out how Jason's car had gotten into this accident and why it ended up where it did. Because if Jason was going home that night, the car's location actually doesn't make any sense. So we know that Jason was leaving school and heading home for Christmas break. Again, school was in San Marcos, Texas, and his parents home was in Missouri City, Texas. Now I have a screenshot of what that looks like when I mapped it out on Google. It's basically like a straight shot from west to east.

Well, if you look at where his car was found when he hit Luling, Texas, instead of continuing on his path, he takes this almost like straight northeast shot up and like completely off track. Yeah, on the map that you have here, it's like a little arm that just spouts off in a completely different direction. Right, and it's not going in a place that like reconnects to another highway. Like it makes no sense if you're looking at it. And actually, if you have time, John Lordin did like this step-by-step walkthrough of this path with Jason's dad using Google Street View to see where his trip went awry. And it's pretty interesting. I have that video linked in the source material, but it seems like there was one spot at this busy intersection where Jason missed his turn. But I think it's weird that he didn't notice right away and turn around like he continued on that road for a while until his car eventually crashed.

And even more interesting, he didn't crash with another vehicle. According to Rebecca Thomas for Fox 7, quote, the crash has been determined to be a single vehicle crash, most likely from overcorrecting on the gravel road and spinning off the road. The rear driver side corner hit a tree on the east side of the roadway, propelling the front driver side into another tree and barbed wire fence. The car's rear window was broken as a result of the impact with a tree, end quote. So with even more questions than answers, authorities used the phone Jason's dad found to track his last movements, hoping that it would tell them more about what happened. And here's the breakdown they found. I'm just going to read it to you verbatim as reported by KHOU11. At 11.05pm, he drives onto Highway 80 and passes under Interstate 35 in San Marcos. He continues south, entering Caldwell County at 11.07pm.

At 11.11pm, he was in Martindale, continuing south on Highway 80. He passes over State Highway 130 at 11.15pm. At 11.17pm, he was in Fentress, entering Prairie Lee at 11.19pm. Then the Stairtown area at 11.21pm. At 11.24pm, he entered Luling still on Highway 180, which this is a typo I think it should be 80. And then it goes on to say, as he goes through the intersection with Hackberry Street, where Highway 80 becomes Austin Street, he quits using the Waze mapping application and begins using Snapchat on his phone. He then continues on Austin Street to the intersection with Magnolia Avenue.

It's believed he continued straight through this intersection, but his digital footprint stops here. Now, when he continued straight, that's where I was saying earlier that he should have taken a right turn. Everything after this about his path is a mystery. People are just guessing what turns he took to land his car where it was ultimately found, but no one actually knows for sure because, again, he stopped using his phone and we don't have that digital trail that was mapping him minute by minute. Which is so weird because you'd think if you were off track, that's when you'd immediately grab your phone, go back to the Waze app and get back on track.

Right? And like, based on what I saw from that intersection, like, I'd be pretty shocked if there wasn't any cell service. Like, I can see you being like, you know, when I'm in the middle of nowhere, not because it can't recalibrate or whatever, but it looked kind of busy. Well, I mean, there's also the possibility that that's where he dropped his phone in that crevice between your seat and the console. Like, I'd been assuming up to this point that the phone fell as a result of the crash, but maybe it fell a lot earlier and that's how he kind of lost all of his navigation. Well, maybe, but you would think that he would just, again, if you're like in the middle of nowhere,

you would like pull over and find it once you know that you're like lost. I mean, yeah, but like you said earlier, it's basically a straight shot from his school to his parents' house. Maybe he didn't realize how far off the path he had gotten by the time he got to that place. And, you know, instead of pulling over, he's just kind of digging around and trying to find it. And that could have helped contribute to the crash. I don't know. I just don't know. Jason's dad says that they're trying to get more detailed records from Snapchat. So here's the thing about the phone that's so interesting. Again, they have the phone,

but they can't actually like get into it. And this is something that every news outlet Jason's dad has talked to. He's like reiterated over and over. This goes back to our, if I go missing file. He's like, if I could give anyone any piece of advice, it's that have like an emergency, like know the passcodes and like agree that you're only going to use it for certain situations. But he's like, if I could get into his phone, if I could have gotten into his phone right away, he thinks it would have made a huge difference. And so that's something that he advocates to anyone who will listen.

Anyone who's hearing this should do the same thing is get the passcodes to your kids' phones, to your loved ones' phones, and agree that like if something happens, that way you can use it. You're not waiting for warrants and stuff, because right now they're waiting for records from Snapchat to see exactly what he was doing, who he was communicating with. But that can take up to 18 months. Like can you believe that? That seems unreal to me. Yeah, that's like a really, really long time, especially when you're looking at a missing person's case.

And while all this is happening, I'm assuming they've done a lot of searches looking for Jason, right? Yeah, I mean, they searched the area. They drained a pond near where his car crashed. Texas EquiSearch even got involved, but there hasn't even been a blip of him. It is so strange. Jason's dad told CBS Austin that he thinks maybe Jason suffered a concussion, and that's the only thing that makes sense to me too, with him like undressing, leaving everything behind. Okay, but how have they not found him yet?

Like, you'd think he'd just been found out there in like delirious state, or maybe affected by hypothermia, but he's just nowhere. Well, the only other option is foul play, which according to CBS Austin, authorities have ruled out, but Jason's family can't fully close the book on that until they know everything has been done to rule it out. And there's still something that hasn't been done. What is it? A geofencing warrant.

Okay. Basically, what his family is asking for is, I guess you can pull a warrant like for a specific area and a specific time. Again, where his car was found, what's kind of off the beaten path? And they're asking for a warrant to basically get all of the cell phone tower activity from that kind of remote space for the date and time that his car crashed and that he went missing. And that way they can see if there were any other cell phones in the area.

Not saying, again, it might not be foul play, but those people could be persons of interest, they could be witnesses, or if it is foul play, it could lead you to someone who was in the area at the time. Until they have answers, they are going to keep pressing law enforcement and keep looking for their son. They even have a search set for this coming weekend, which will actually be passed by the time this episode comes out. And I pray they get some resolution soon,

because the alternative looks a lot like another case that I couldn't help be reminded of as I researched Jason Landry. And that's Brandon Swanson, whose parents have been going through the same hell as the Landry's, but for 13 long years. It was May 14th, 2008, at 1.54 in the morning, when Brandon's parents woke up to an unexpected call from their college aged son. Like Jason Landry, Brandon had just finished up his semester

and they knew that he was going to celebrate with friends, but Brandon had his own car, he was an adult, they didn't know why he was calling so late. According to Elise Weeds reporting for CNN, when they pick up, Brandon tells them that he was on his way home and he accidentally drove into a ditch. He can't get his car out now, so he needs them to come pick him up. And about how far out from home is he?

Well, he says he's in Lynde, Minnesota, and he and his parents live in Marshall, so it's not too far away, like Lynde is just a little southwest, so not that big of a deal. And I don't know how cool Brandon's parents are, like I can see my dad's face if I call him and my car's in a ditch. Yeah, this is like not a fun call to make. No, but like, again, his parents are gracious,

they both get out of bed and they both get in the car, all while staying on the phone with Brandon. And he seemed normal, coherent. So even though he was leaving a party, I don't think his parents were like, oh great, he's drunk, and that's what caused the accident. They say that he seemed totally fine, but here's where things take a weird turn.

They get to the area where Brandon is supposed to be, and there's nothing. Like, I don't know if our city folk can grasp the kind of middle of nowhere country nothing I'm talking about, but it is pitch black, not a street lamp in sight, and they're so far out in the middle of nowhere, there aren't even other cars for miles.

So they should be able to see his car headlights, but they can't. His mom told CNN that she was on the phone telling Brandon, like, we're flashing our lights. And he said he was doing the same. Like, she could even hear the lights clicking over the phone, but every direction they looked, all they saw was blackness. Where was Brandon?

Brandon became frustrated with his parents in a way that, I think you only can when you're 19, not realizing that all they're trying to do is help you. So he hung up on them. And of course, his mom calls right back. Tensions were high, and this is obviously frustrating because no one can understand what's happening. How are they both in the same place,

but not able to see each other? Brandon's parents are sure that they're on the road near Lind. Brandon is sure he's on the road near Lind. So why can neither see each other? Okay, this feels like it's going to take some weird, supernatural turn. Like, they're operating in parallel universes or something. Girl, by the end, you're going to really wonder,

but right now, frustrations are at an all-time high. Brandon finally says, you know what? I can see the lights in town. I'm just going to start walking that way and we can meet there. As he walked, he tried to continue explaining to his dad where he was. He mentioned running into multiple fences that he would have to navigate around or over. And at one point, Brandon tells his parents he hears water. And just then, Brandon says,

oh, and then silence. Brandon's parents frantically call out to him from the other line. They can't get any response. They try hanging up and calling back over and over. They told Nancy Grace when they were interviewed on her show that at a minimum, they were thinking, okay, if he doesn't pick up, we're going to see his flip phone light up, but they didn't. There wasn't a ring. There wasn't a light.

There was nothing but the ringing on their own line. They keep looking for Brandon, driving up and down every dark road calling out for him. But there's no sign of him or his car. He's just gone. By 6.30 that morning, his parents report Brandon missing to the local authorities. And by 8 a.m., they're out searching for him as well. Wait, why did it take hours? Well, his mom told CNN that police were like,

he's a college A's boy. He has the right to go missing. Okay, but he actually called his parents asking them for help. I think he kind of didn't want to go missing. Yeah, clearly they all come to their senses at some point, which is why they start looking for him by morning. And this time they have what Brandon's parents didn't. Daylight. But the daylight doesn't even help. They travel up and down every back road in Linde,

but there is no sign of the car. That is until 2.30 the next day when his car is found about 30 miles away from Linde in a town called Taunton. Wait, like it was moved there? I don't think so. They found it in a ditch just like Brandon described. So he had been wrong about his location the entire time and that's why they couldn't find him. Yeah, but no one knows how he got so turned around

or why he thought he was in Linde. And I assume he didn't have any kind of GPS system like we do now. I mean, I know his phone didn't. Again, it's like a flip phone. I mean, in 2008 I had like a Garmin in my car, but I've never seen any kind of report of him having any kind of navigation. And either way, at least now they have a real focus point for their search. And by the way, this whole time they're still trying Brandon's cell phone and it's still ringing. It rings and rings like this for days while they search

until finally the phone dies before they can ever locate it or Brandon. With law enforcement search efforts coming up empty and eventually tapering off, Brandon's family leads the charge. Organizing search parties almost every weekend and relying on volunteers to help them. On their website, thesearchforbrandon.blogspot.com, they detail each and every search. Sometimes they'll get 40 people out on foot or horseback in ATVs.

One time in June, they got like 130 people and even had some searching from the air in powered parachutes. Texas EquiSearch joins in and they even get dogs which help them eliminate some areas and focus in on others. Like in September, it was noted on the blog that one canine indicated interest in a specific area. So are these tracking dogs or? No, by this point, which we're talking months later, these are cadaver dogs.

And despite how much they search every time they come up empty. And the searches aren't as easy as you might think. Let me actually read you a segment from the family's blog from 2010. Quote, One of the main reasons why this is such a difficult search lies in the fact that the region receives nearly constant winds which can come from any direction. These winds move scent from the source

and deposit into quote scent pools such as windbreaks around farmsteads, tall grass in CRP land and along ditches and creeks. When the dogs alert on an area of quote hot scent, it is often very difficult to differentiate whether we are near the remains or searching yet another scent pool. We also may be facing the difficulty of locating remains that have been moved and or scattered over a wide area.

It is possible that predators such as coyotes, raccoons, and the like have scattered the remains. It's also possible that they have been inadvertently scattered or moved by human activities such as farmers tilling their fields or bailing hay or corn stocks. We also have some access issues. We can't search everywhere we would like to search. We are very careful to protect landowners property

and have generally avoided searching fields with crops in them even though there is a fair chance that Brandon ended up in a field. End quote. Which that last bit really intrigues me because didn't you say that he was telling his parents that he was coming to fences and having to go around or even over them? There's a really good chance he could have been on private property.

I think at some point he likely was, but the most prevailing theory at least at the time according to Jenny Kirk with the Marshall Independent was that he fell into the Yellow Medicine River. And then he got swept away? Well, no, here's what's weird. According to that same article, basically dogs tracked him to the river, then quote, followed his scent away.

So I guess the thinking is that he fell in, but then he was able to get out and walk away. But his phone was still working. Right. So to me, that means it couldn't have been submerged in water, right? I mean, that's my thought. And if it wasn't, I don't think it would ring for days. Like maybe you'd be okay for a couple minutes, but it would die so much quicker.

Well, yeah. And my thinking is, okay, so if you didn't drop the phone in the water, so you dropped it on the banks, like why not go back and get your phone? Well, maybe he thought he dropped it in the water, which I'm sure is freezing at this point. And he didn't know if it landed on the bank of the river versus in the water. Yeah. But like, okay, so say he falls in, he assumes he drops his phone in the water.

That kind of means that he had to like high-tail it out of there without even looking around or even like waiting a second. Because remember, his parents' call back were in pitch blackness. You would have thought that he would have seen it like light up if he waited. Or hear it or something. Yeah. And again, even to me, like waiting by the river strengthens your chances of being found since the last thing you told your parents is like, oh, I'm hearing water.

So did they ever find his phone? No, even all of these years later, they've never located it. Follow-up question. Did they ever get the phone records to know if he was calling from where his car was found or somewhere completely different? According to CNN, his phone was pinging off a tower that was near where his car was found rather than where he was telling his parents he was.

Now, though many people have pointed to the river as the most likely option, according to that same CNN article, his mom at least at the time said that she didn't think that it was the river because apparently one dog tracked Brandon's scent from his car to an abandoned farm. Okay, so what are the odds that someone's actually out there? Like someone who did something to him? Yeah. I mean, to me, anything's possible, right?

Like, I don't think Israel Keys had anything to do with this, but when you know about the Israel Keys of the world, you do have to like consider that it's a possibility, right? Yeah, completely remote, statistically almost improbable, but like we still can't find him. So I don't know how you rule out. Again, they'd have to be like waiting out there. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Honestly, it doesn't. And something that you said about the scent pools is like coming back up for me and that like, okay, there's this abandoned farm and we know that scent pools can happen around structures, around farmsteads. You know, a dog tracked to this farm, but it could just be a scent pool. We have no idea. Well, foul play or accident,

his mom told Mary Divine with Twin Cities quote, maybe I'm a terrible mother for this. I don't know. But I felt very early on before the first 24 hours were up that something terribly wrong had happened. It's a weird place to be because there's always a little glimmer of hope. But then I think that's my heart, but my mind knows it's not going to happen that way. I talked to my daughter about it this summer and I said to her,

you know, I'm not sure Brandon is going to be found in my lifetime. And she said, Mom, I don't think he's going to be found in my lifetime. End quote. Oh, that's a lot. Yeah. So you had said earlier that he had gone out partying after the end of the semester. It's weird that he was so confused about where he was, had he been drinking a lot?

Like, do we know any of that? Well, we know he was drinking and actually that might have been the reason that he was on those back roads. Like there actually was a straight shot to his home on the highway. So plenty of people theorized that he was using back roads to avoid DUI checkpoints, but I keep going back to his parents. Like they know him better than anyone. He was still living with them.

You'd think that if he was that messed up, you'd be able to tell in his voice. They were on the phone with him for almost an hour. Yeah. So what about a possible mental health break? In my opinion, at least these cases are giving me all kinds of briceless piece of vives. Yeah. His case would have fit right in with this episode.

I mean, there are lots of similarities, but from what I can tell, there were no indications Brandon had any history of mental health issues and he wasn't suffering from any kind of episode at the time. Again, we don't really have to like guess at that since his parents were on the phone with him, even in Bryce's case, right? He wasn't making a ton of sense. Like he was saying he's coming home and then he's having interactions with people. There was like constant confusion in the communication.

Yeah. Whereas this his parents say he was concise. He was clear. He was in Lynn, unless that was the red flag that he was so confused, but he could still, you know, communicate normally. I don't know. It seems at the end of the day that he was just lost. And all of these years later, that's all we know.

But there is one more case I want to tell you about. And this is actually unfolding right now with active searches going on and our listeners can help. On the morning of June 23rd, this very year in 2021, a guy named Ken was out working at a well site in Buckeye, Arizona, when his coworker Daniel Robinson drove up in his Jeep. Ken told the independent that they chit-chatted a little talking about work, the weather, what have you, when out of nowhere, Daniel's mood totally shifted. Ken told the outlet, quote, he was just looking off into the desert.

He had a very, very distant look in his eyes. Whenever he'd turn around again, I would look at him and look into his eyes. The first thing I thought was maybe it was drugs or something, but his pupils were not dilated. End quote. He went on to say that he kept watching him, but Daniel kept turning away and just looking off into the desert. He didn't speak much to Ken during this time,

but when he did, he was saying things that didn't make sense. Like according to Rebecca Cohen and Katie Balovic from Insider, Daniel asked Kevin if he wanted to go home to Phoenix to rest, which didn't make any sense to him. After like 15 minutes of this weirdness, Ken told the independent, quote, then he just turned around and walked back over to his Jeep. And I just assumed he was going to get something out of his vehicle. And he opened the door, got in, sat down, put on his seatbelt,

and then he looked at me and just waved at me and backed up and took off. End quote. Ken didn't understand what was happening. They still had stuff to do. They're on site. So he calls his bosses and he asked, did Daniel go back? Did he call out sick? Is he home?

But they said, no, we haven't even heard from him. This became more and more concerning to Ken as time passed. He couldn't stop thinking about the way Daniel stared off. Something wasn't right. So he decided to follow Daniel's Jeep tracks. And what he saw made his stomach drop. The tracks from Daniel's Jeep just led further and further into the desert, into nothingness.

Now, just as Ken is realizing something is terribly wrong, so is Daniel's family. He normally checks in with them on a regular basis, but today he hadn't. And though Daniel is a grown man, he had recently been acting in a way that had his family really concerned. A police report recat by Insider said that in the last few days, he had been quote unquote off. But what does that even mean? Like the same behavior that Ken was seeing or what?

Well, a few weird things. In that piece I mentioned earlier, his sister said that shortly before this, he'd come to her place like and just sat there in silence, staring for like a half hour and then just left. And then there are reports from his dad that in the weeks leading up to this, Daniel was talking about some woman that he was in love with, but he couldn't have her. He couldn't be with her.

He was kind of vague. It was weird. His dad's like, it didn't make sense. It wasn't his son calling him talking about like any other girl. Like it wasn't adding up. And the very day he went missing, actually, his sister got a text from him about an emergency, but it didn't say what the emergency was.

And then when she tried to like respond or call him, he wouldn't respond back to her. I also found a report in the independent about him leaving his apartment door wide open and disappearing for a time. Though obviously in that instance, he came back. And I tried finding out, you know, exactly when this was, how long he was gone for, where he went, because this incident specifically to me seems super relevant to his disappearance now.

Uh, yeah. But I couldn't find any more information. So with all of this going on and now him disappearing from work, his father, who is across the country, by the way, is... Wait, you said he went over to his sister's house. Was he visiting recently then? No, so his sister actually is living in Arizona like him, but his dad was back east.

Okay. And what about that girl he liked? I assume they checked with her. Well, that's a weird situation. So let me back up and tell you this a little bit. Yes, they looked into it, but the whole thing is just more evidence to everyone that Daniel was going through something, because the story with this girl is that he met her while he was working as an Instacart driver.

And I guess he like delivered food. She invited him in to hang out. I think she had some like friends over. But he ended up kind of becoming fixated on her and she wasn't into it at all, but he had her number. She had given it to him and he would text her. He would just show up. And finally she asked him to stop contacting her, which he did do.

So he was able to cut it off. And from what I pick up, like no one seems to think this had anything to do with his disappearance other than maybe showing distressing signs of his mental state before he went missing. So anyways, back to his dad knowing all of this and now hearing that his son is MIA from work. His father calls police the very same day that Daniel's last seen. But he told Brooke Lee Howard from The Daily Beast that he was told he had to wait 72 hours before he could officially report him missing.

Ashley Flowers, what year did you say this was happening in? This very year, 2021. We are still doing this BS? Are you kidding me? 72 hours. Again, I'm used to hearing this in the 70s, in the 80s. I had no idea this was still happening on such a regular basis. I would even be semi okay grown person 12 hour wait. Seems semi reasonable.

72 hours? I'm sorry. No. Especially knowing the like distress he was in before. Like surely his dad's like telling them the whole story. He just he's missing from work. And on top of this, like you have his family saying, hey, we aren't sure if he's okay. A coworker has picked up on this already. It's not just one person with a bad feeling.

We have a group of people saying something's not right. Let's do something now. And law enforcement saying thanks for calling call back in three days. Yeah, they wouldn't start searching right away. Though it is worth noting that same article, police say that they tried to make contact with him on the 23rd, 24th and 25th. So again, okay, so like a wellness check. That's not a search. Exactly.

And per the Daily Beast article, even on day three, quote, at first Robinson was hopeful they were doing all they could to find Daniel. As an officer with the department told him they were going to use a helicopter to search the area. Then there's a quote from Daniel's dad directly, quote, he had gone out and searched the area. They were going to try and get a helicopter out there in the morning. And quote, the article goes on to say, quote,

but the next morning the officer called him back and told him the flight was canceled, end quote. Why? Basically, the investigator wasn't able to get it approved by his superiors because they said Daniel could go missing if he wanted. So that's when Daniel's dad came out, afraid that they had already lost so much valuable time. And he's already more worried because of one piece of advice

that he'd gotten from police was to check Daniel's social media. They said, you know, maybe he's posted something that will give you a clue where he might be. But when his dad checked his social, everything had been deleted. Well, that's super eerie. Yeah, but his dad doesn't know what it means. So on his own, Daniel's dad has organized searches of the area with volunteers. And this is where I was saying our listeners can actually get their hands dirty

and help because as of this recording, they're still looking for people. If you are in the Arizona area, the family has a website with more information where you can sign up to do searches. We're going to link to that in the show notes, link to that in the blog post for this episode. So far, he's been able to get people on foot. They've gotten dogs. They've gotten drones.

And it took almost a month before the family got their first clue. Selma Reyes reported for the Arizona Republic that on July 19th, Daniel's Jeep was finally located. And it was found not by the search teams that had been scouring this area for him, but by a local rancher who owned the property that the car was sitting on. Much like in Jason Landry's case, the car looked like it had been in an accident. So where is his car found exactly? According to the Independent, just a few miles from where he left Ken

the day he went missing. So how had no one found it yet? I don't know, the mystery surrounding his car activity is weird because that area was searched, but the car was in a ravine and police say that the terrain is so rough everyone just missed it. How do you miss a whole entire car? I don't know, but it's actually what they learn from the car that I find even more interesting though.

All Daniel's stuff is in the car. Wallet, keys, and wait for it. The clothes he was last seen wearing. Oh my God, just like Jason. Yep. Like I said, the car looked like it had been in an accident, more than just falling into this ravine. And what they learned from the car's data, I guess it had,

what people keep referring to as this like black box thing, the way that like planes have, what they learned is that the airbags went off, someone was wearing the seatbelt when the crash happened, but they know that the crash wasn't as it was going into the ravine or even right before or even near the ravine at all. What do you mean? The GPS data showed that the car got into multiple accidents

and after the airbags deployed, the car continued driving for another 11 miles before it crashed again. And remember, it's only a few miles from where he was found, the paths don't make sense. And during those 11 miles, someone turned the ignition on 46 times. I mean, does that mean that he stopped and started the car that many times or was the car maybe having issues because of an accident

and he had to keep trying to get it to start because it was stalling out or something? Your guess is as good as mine. That much detail isn't available in the data as far as I can tell or at least that much hasn't been released. So we aren't finding this until months later. Does the data show when this crash happened? Like, are we talking hours, weeks, like what? Hours after he left the work site.

I mean, I know you probably can't answer this, but did he have a head injury or was he hurt from the crash? Like anything that could explain him just walking away? We don't know, right? Like, so just like in Jason's case, there was no blood anywhere. And just like in Jason's case, authorities are saying that no foul play was suspected, but the family isn't quite ready to write it off.

Daniel's dad told the Independent that he thinks the car could have been dumped there in a place that they already looked. So he doesn't think that they just missed it. He thinks it was put there specifically to throw them off. Because, I mean, when you think about it, finding the car has led them no closer to finding Daniel. Everyone thought that they might be close when on July 31st, a human skull was found.

Now, it would be the worst possible outcome, but at least they would have answers. But when it was tested, it wasn't Daniel. And they actually don't know who the skull belongs to still. The police were quoted in the Arizona Republic saying, quote, no other human remains have been found, despite online reports claiming otherwise. End quote.

And that's it. Daniel's case is baffling, but I promise you guys, you wouldn't know about it. I wouldn't have even come across it, probably without the notoriety of the Gabby Petito case. I mean, when I popped in your feed with that bonus episode to tell you about her, I told you, there are tons of cases like hers

that just are not getting attention. Like Lauren Cho, like Jelani Day, like Daniel Robinson. The national attention is absolutely critical. According to ABC 11, Daniel's dad says that they're getting some more support from the Buckeye police who are using higher-end technology to search mine shafts where Daniel could have fallen. And he says he knows this is happening

because of the public pressure. His dad has vowed to stay there till they find Daniel, and it's not been easy. In addition to the unimaginable pain he's facing in this terrifying and confusing time, he's also had to deal with people who are trying to harass him into leaving the area. He told Brooklyn Howard, quote,

I got people saying all kinds of things, like I got your son, I'll break his legs, down to we're watching you. We want to see some bloodshed. People don't know half the stuff I have to deal with, especially racism-type stuff, end quote. Actually, I just can't get over, like, how does this happen? How do they just vanish?

And they're all so similar. I can't wrap my mind around it. And to never find anything afterwards, not a bone, not... It literally, to go back to what you said, like this feels paranormal, like they were in their cars and then they're just gone. Well, and on top of that, like, Jason and Daniels feel even more similar, like their cars were in accidents,

their clothes were left behind, like... Those are very similar to me. Now, granted, I think that, I think it's more clear that Daniel was going through a mental health crisis, but I wonder if, again, Brandon's car wasn't crushed or smashed in a way that I think Jason's and Daniel's were. So, like, I have to keep wondering if there was, like, some kind of head trauma, even though there was no blood

or something involved that made them both respond in the same way, because there's something about that, like, them leaving their clothing behind that just, I can't wrap my head around. Well, and I also wonder how much something like shock could have come into play, you know? A young person, you're in a car accident that you likely are at fault in.

I mean, that shock can cause you to do things that aren't normal, which may mean stripping down, which may mean wandering around and trying to figure out what's next and... But to not find anything afterwards. That's why I cannot comprehend. No, but listen, there are very specific ways us crime junkies can help.

Now, obviously, if you have information, I'm gonna put the contact numbers for all of the agencies working each of these cases in the show notes and on the blog post. But if you want to get your hands in on Daniel's case, you can also, there's a couple things to do. First, sign the petition his family has started. They want the Buckeye Police Department

to upgrade Daniel's case from a missing person to a criminal investigation, which will actually unlock more resources. That takes all of 0.2 seconds, you guys. And doing it would mean the world to his father, who's out there doing everything he can to find his son. We have that in the show notes. We also, in the show notes,

have a place where you can sign up to volunteer and help search for Daniel, like I mentioned. I just checked the official Twitter for Daniel's case when I was writing this episode, and as I was writing just 16 hours before, there were people out in the desert looking for him. And the tweet said, quote, the search for Daniel continues this Saturday.

All are welcomed. We need everyone. There are many ways that you can help. You can find them at pleasehelpfindDaniel.com and on searchforDaniel.org. Thank you. God bless. So you can help. If you are in Arizona,

please consider giving a few hours to help look. I have also linked out to the page for Brandon Swanson. Since so many years have passed, his isn't updated as much, but you can get updates there. And if his family needs anything, that's where it's likely to get posted. Jason's case doesn't have a designated website,

but there is a $10,000 reward for information that helps investigators find him. And the contact information for that is in the show notes as well. Please take action on one or more of these cases. If this was your son or your brother or your friend, how would you want listeners to respond? Again, all of the links you need that I just mentioned

can be found right in the show notes on our blog post along with all of our source material. You can find that at crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crimejunkie is an audio chuck production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?