Criminology - Brandon Lawson

Episode Date: February 13, 2022

26-year-old Brandon Lawson disappeared from Texas in 2013. Brandon left home after a fight with his partner Ladessa to make a 4-hour drive to his dad's house to cool off. Along the way, Brandon ran out of gas and a number of strange things occurred. Brandon made some mysterious phone calls. He called 911 and also called his brother Kyle. Some of these calls were frantic and Brandon even suggested that someone was after him. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the mysterious disappearance of Brandon Lawson. Brandon had a history of substance abuse but had reportedly been clean for some time. The calls he made, however, made some think that he was on drugs the night he disappeared. Many searches were done trying to find Brandon but they all found nothing. But, a break occurred just this month in this well-known missing person case. Remains were found that are believed to be those of Brandon Lawson. DNA testing will conclusively prove whether the remains are Brandon but his family is confident that they are based on the evidence found near his remains. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 194 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. Normally my co-host and partner Mike Morford would be here with me, but he's under the weather. So he wanted me to apologize to everybody. We tried to tape earlier in the week. His voice couldn't make it. We waited. His voice is still pretty rough. So we made the the decision that I would do this one on my own. And I know Morp is a little upset because this is a case that he's been following for quite some time. Before we jump into it, let's go ahead

and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Elaine Cowley, Pia HC, Kya N, Jennifer Asplund, Tamara Salter, Eve Carson, Felisa Dios Basqueus, Scott Sanchez, and Jason. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. If anyone is interested in supporting the show, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology to sign up. All right. So all that out of the way, let's jump right into this episode. And this is a pretty big case.

It's a case that we've been holding off on doing because we've been hoping to have something in the way of major developments, fresh news, to include when we're doing. did the episode, well, just days ago, major news came out about this bizarre and strange missing person's case that has captivated people in the true crime community for the better part of a decade. And now it appears that at least part of the mystery has been solved. We are talking about the case of Brandon Lawson. The mystery of what happened to 26-year-old Brandon Lawson began on Thursday, August 8th, 2013. Brandon, and his partner, Ladesa, had been arguing that day. In various news reports and online forums,

Ladesa is sometimes referred to as Brandon's girlfriend. Other times as his wife, they had been together for over 10 years. They met in high school when she was a sophomore and he was a junior, and they had three children together. They had moved the previous year from Fort Worth, Texas, to St. Angelo, Texas, about three and a half hours southwest. This move allowed Brandon, who worked in the oil fields of Texas, to find more work. The stresses of everyday life, work, and raising a family caused tensions to grow between Brandon and Ladesa. And this is something that, you know, every couple deals with.

You know, relationships are tough. Marriages are tough. Just normal everyday life. brings it stresses. Work is often very stressful, depending on what type of job you have, and then raising a family. You know, three kids, that's a lot of work. There's going to be times where the relationship is tested. Brandon and Ladesa got into an argument that had to do with the fact that Brandon had not come home the night before, and that left Ladesa completely alone with their very young children. One of the kids was sick with an ear-infected.

in both ears. And any parent who has dealt with a small child with an ear infection will have some major flashbacks. It's very tough. Now in this situation, the child had it in both ears. So that was understandably very tough on Lodessa. Brandon was stressed out by what was going on by the argument and he left to diffuse the situation. At 11.53 p.m. Brandon hopped in his truck, a silver Ford F-150 and began the drive to his father's home to spend the night and let things cool down. He took the wall charger that he and Ladesa shared for their phones and left for the nearly four-hour long drive to Crowley, Texas, where his dad lived. I do think it's important and certainly relevant to the case that we mentioned Brandon had

a history with substance abuse, namely methamphetamines. He had once overdosed. and would occasionally casually use the drug. Now, he had been clean reportedly for about six months. But Ladesa later suspected that the night before this argument, when Brandon didn't come home, that he was out using drugs. I mentioned Brandon was an oil-filled worker. He had been working very hard.

He worked long hours, sometimes up to 95 hours a week, but he was getting ready to start a new job. So he had that going on. He had a sick baby at home. I mentioned it. It was a very stressful time, which could have potentially led to a relapse. Just a few days earlier, Brandon had passed a drug test required for his new employer, but then allegedly turned around and asked his little brother, Kyle, where he could find some drugs.

So, you know, I do think it's hard to say for sure where exactly Brandon's head was at. You know, maybe he wanted to celebrate. his new job. Maybe he wanted to relax a bit before starting that job, sort of a last hurrah, before putting his nose back to the grindstone once again. Just after midnight, a few minutes after Brandon left, Ladesa began to work about him. She was concerned that Brandon was trying to drive for almost four hours in the dark. After basically, you know, having very little sleep for the past few days. She didn't think it was a good idea. And she called Brandon on his cell phone. She left a voicemail, asking him to come home, or at least to go to his brother Kyle's house instead, since he also

lived in San Angelo. Around 12.10 a.m. Kyle drove to Brandon's house and checked on Lidessa and the kids. Brandon and Kyle's mother had called Kyle and asked him to go calm Brandon down because of the argument. Now, some articles online, say that Ladesa had called Kyle. But in a 2019 interview, he said in his own words that his mother had called him out of concern. But by the time Kyle got to the house, Brandon was gone.

So I think we have the first mystery in this case. You know, there's a fight. Brandon wants to leave. He wants to defuse the situation. Maybe it's only going to get worse if he stays. So he takes off. off. But he makes the decision to drive four hours late at night to his father's house. His brother Kyle lives in the same town. He does. Why did Brandon not call his brother

try to crash there that night? Four hours is a long drive in the middle of the night when you're upset when you've had very little sleep. Just after 2.30 a.m. Ladessa missed a couple of calls from Brandon on her cell phone. A few minutes later at about 1238 a.m., Brandon called Kyle to tell him that he was going to run out of gas. He was on Highway 277, heading to the gas station in Bronte, and needed Kyle to bring him a gas can. Kyle later recalled that during this call, Brandon claimed to him that Ladesa had Mexicans

in the neighborhood chasing him out of town. Kyle wondered if Brambley. Brandon was high or maybe hallucinating, but Brandon was adamant that he wasn't. At about 12.40 a.m. after Kyle got off the phone with Brandon, he called Ladesa to tell her that Brandon had run out of gas. She said she would put the gas cans on the porch. Kyle went to Brandon's house and picked them up. When Lidessa brought these cans out, she decided to charge her phone using the car charger since Brandon had taken the one from inside the house and then she went back inside.

But because she didn't have her phone with her, you know, that led to her missing at least another call from Brandon. And that later led to a lot of scrutiny, at least online. This has been, you know, a heavily scrutinized case.

A lot of people have had a great deal of interest in it. So, you know, when you look online, there are a lot of people who question how two adults only had one charger, that they would share, you know, plugged into the wall, or that Ladesa didn't have anything else that she could plug a USB charger into besides her car.

Some people have even questioned whether the phone could be charged with the car off, leading them to not believe Ladesa because the only other option they could think of was that she had stayed in the car all night with it on, which was impractical. But Lidessa has openly stated over the years that she regrets, not having her phone by her side, she's wondered for many years. If she had answered Brandon's call, would he have given her any information that would have changed the outcome? And I do think this is something that you see in so many cases.

Well, two things, actually. You know, one is the scrutiny and the speculation of people online about, you know, how individuals involved with a case acted, should. have acted or didn't act. That's tough, but it's very natural. Amateur sluice are trying to solve cases like this. So you're going to see questions being raised. Sometimes you're going to see accusations being levied.

I think the other part is what you see is regret, remorse, guilt from individuals for maybe not doing something. You know, in this case, Ladesda doesn't have her phone with her. So, you know, for so many years, that would be hard to get out of your head. You know, the what ifs. What if I had my phone on me? What if I had not missed, you know, the last call from Brandon? Could that have changed the entire situation?

Now, for the most part, up until this point, things seem to be reasonably normal. A couple gets into a fight. One of the individuals decides to leave to cool off, to let things cool off. Brandon apparently ran out of gas and his brother Kyle was on the way with gas cans to get him moving again. But this is when things got really strange. At 12.50 a.m. Brandon called 911. The dispatcher was an overnight nurse at a nursing home in nearby Robert Lee, Texas, just half an hour north.

And some people, you know, listening might find this strong. strange, but this is because of how rural of an area San Angelo really is. They didn't actually have trained call takers working in a local station. Instead, nurses working overnight answered 911 calls because they were up all night anyway. What Brandon told this nurse has been hotly debated for many years. I want to play the call and then we can discuss. 911 emergency Yes, I'm in the middle of the field

It's safe We're just pushing guys over Right here Going to a javelin on both sides My truck ran out of gas There's one car here You got straight to the woods Please heard

Okay, no, run that, Robin. When I talk to him I actually ran into him Oh, you ran into him, okay That's the first guy Do you need an ambulance? No, I need the call.

Okay Is anybody hurt? So as you can probably tell, that audio is very hard to understand completely. It seemed as though Brandon was out of breath. I think most people agree that he seems to say that he ran into someone, which is about the only thing that it appears the dispatcher understood. Brandon did relay that he was out of gas. At one point, he said, please hurry.

He also specified that he needed the cops, not an ambulance. It also sounded like he mentioned he was in a field and that he was heading toward Abilene on the Bronte side. This possibly meant that he had continued north on Highway 277 instead of merging onto the more direct eastward route of Highway 67. It's not really out of the way. 277 does lead to Fort Worth eventually.

It adds about 10 minutes or so onto an already long trip. So it's been suggested by some that maybe Brandon was trying to take the backroads, but we may never know. What is known is that the timeline here is incredibly tight. With some calls from Brandon happening back to back, almost within the same minute, there was not much time in between each of these conversations

or the messages that were left, this rapid succession of calls. along with the very spotty cell phone reception in the area at the time, could have affected the timeline of the calls. And because of this, we've only included approximate times and have left out numerous calls from Brandon's phone that did not go through or were not answered. But it appears as if Brandon even tried to call his neighbor unsuccessfully. And the neighbor called Brandon back but got no answer.

The 911 dispatcher who had taken Brandon. call tried to call him back. She needed more information to help an officer find him, but that call wasn't answered. She left a voicemail. She called him back again a second time, but he still didn't answer. Just minutes after Brandon called 911, a trucker called in from the Stripes gas station in Bronte to report that a truck was partially parked in the road about three miles south. So much so that he had to swerve to avoid. To avoid, hitting the truck. What was strange was that it wasn't just parked on the side of the road out of gas the way that someone would do if they ran out. But instead, the truck, a silver F-150,

was parked with the bed of the truck sticking out into the lane. Now, I mentioned it. This was a pretty rural area. It wasn't all that uncommon for people to run out of gas. It was reported that the nearest gas station was about 30 miles away. But the way the truck that later was proved to be brandons was parked was unusual. And this is a point that you see brought up online a lot with people commenting about how they've run out of gas. I think the thought by most is that, okay, even if it happens so suddenly that you pull off, maybe you don't get the car parallel to the road, but it's almost as if Brandon made a right turn to have the truck bed, you know, sticking out the way that it was. At the very least, people question it. They find it unusual.

It's just, again, another one of the mysteries in this case. At around 1 a.m., Kyle found Brandon's truck partially in the road. He looked around, but there was no sign of his brother. Now, there was no damage to the truck. There was no indication that Brandon had been run off the road. Kyle made a U-turn and parked across the road. That's when Brandon called him and asked him where he was. Kyle told him that he was parked near Brandon's truck. Headlights from another vehicle were approaching from the north. And Brandon told Kyle, I can see you. I'm right here. Kyle scanned the area, but he didn't see Brandon anywhere. Brandon then said something to the effect of he saw a cop and told Kyle he should run. Kyle replied to Brandon that he wasn't going to run. He wasn't in trouble. Brandon responded by saying,

where's your pride motherfucker before the call disconnected? Brandon had an old warrant for possession with intent to distribute from Johnson County. So Kyle later said that he figured he may just have been hiding afraid of getting arrested when they ran his name. But this is a very strange phone call and a strange situation, right? Kyle is there at Brandon's truck when all of a sudden he gets a call from his brother. He doesn't see his brother, but Brandon says that he can see Kyle. And it sounds like the call was a little frantic with Brandon telling Kyle that you need to get out of there, you need to run.

okay, why? You know, as Kyle responded, why was he going to run? He wasn't being threatened. He wasn't in trouble to what was going on in Brandon's mind that he felt as though he needed to warn his brother. The headlights that were approaching were from the vehicle driven by Deputy Neal of the Coke County Sheriff's Office. He had arrived on scene, responding to the call about a vehicle in the roadway. I think what is important, here is that most people surmise that Brandon was apparently close enough wherever he was when he was on that phone call with Kyle to see that the approaching car belonged to law enforcement. But if that is true and he was that close, then the question is why could Kyle not see him and why did Brandon not, you know, make himself known to his brother? Was it because he was scared. He thought he was going to be arrested, maybe because of this old warrant. You know, there are a lot of theories here. At about 1.18 a.m. Kyle's wife, Audrey, who had gone with him, sent a text to Brandon about Deputy Neal being at his truck, but she didn't receive a

reply. A minute later, Brandon called Audrey back, but the quality of the call was not good. Audrey later said it sounded as if Brandon said that he was 10 minutes north and bleeding. But she couldn't be sure. Audrey and Kyle decided to wait for Brandon to return to his truck on his own. Kyle wasn't really worried about Brandon at this point. Even though Brandon had potentially said he was bleeding on the call, the way that Kyle said he saw it was that it seemed as though maybe his brother had scraped himself or fallen, and something like that, because he didn't mention any incident that would have caused him,

you know, some type of major injury. The area was thick with cacti, mesquite trees and thorny bushes. Both sides of the highway were lined with barbed wire as well. If Brandon had run through a field, he may have had to climb over a fence. Maybe that scratched him. Kyle also didn't know that Brandon had called 911, which if he had known, that probably would have made the bleeding comment seem much more urgent. And I think if he had known that his brother had called 911, the whole thing, the whole

situation probably would have had a much higher level of urgency to it. The way that Kyle has talked about it is that he really just thought Brandon was simply hiding out in the field, fearful that he'd be in trouble. with the police if he came out. Kyle told Deputy Neal that the cell reception was really bad and that his brother had walked to get gas. He wanted to go further north down the road and try to get better cell reception, but Deputy Neal informed him that he'd come from the north and he didn't see anyone. So he didn't think Brandon was in that area. Kyle then got into his truck and drove off slowly and waited for the officer to leave before he pulled back over, hoping that then Brandon would

come out of the field when he saw that Kyle was alone and that the police were not with him. Kyle hadn't mentioned to Deputy Neal that Brandon told him on the phone call that he could see them. Since Deputy Neal had responded about the truck parked in the road, not Brandon's 911 call. and Brandon didn't tell Kyle he had called 911. Neither of them knew that Brandon had tried to contact police. But after waiting for almost 45 minutes for Brandon to pop out of his hiding spot, Kyle and Audrey decided to leave. It was late.

They also had their four-year-old son with them. They needed to get him back home. And they couldn't keep waiting for Brandon to show up. So Kyle put the empty gas can in the back. bed of Brandon's truck and left. Kyle had intended to stop and fill the can with gas, but his bank account didn't have the funds and a check that he had deposited, hadn't cleared, so he wasn't able to buy the gas. At the very least, he felt that when Brandon did come back to his truck, he'd have the gas can and could walk to get gas if nothing else. So I do want to break this down a little bit,

you know, for a minute. Obviously, you have a concerned brother here in Kyle. There have been some strange calls. The situation is confusing, but I think based on what Kyle has said, you know, from his standpoint, the way he viewed things, I don't think he viewed this as a serious situation. He knew about his brother's warrant. So I think it was natural to assume that Brandon wouldn't want to have any contact with police. Okay, he mentions possibly that he's bleeding. But again, when you think about the cacti and the barbed wire fences, you know, there's a lot of pretty superficial wounds that could come from things like that that would cause bleeding.

I can see where brother's not really going to go to the worst possible scenario. Now, obviously, he would have rather have gotten the gas. and left a full gas can in Brandon's truck. His finances didn't allow him to do that. So he did what he could. At least he had a gas can. He thought, okay, my brother's not coming out. But when he does, he'll find the gas can.

He'll walk and get gas, walk back to the truck. He'll be good to go. At around the time, Kyle and Audrey headed home. An officer had driven Highway 277 from Bronte, north and turned around, searching for a stranded vehicle or someone walking along the road. This officer searched for about an hour. There was no one walking on the road. The officer didn't come upon anyone stranded with officers unable to locate anyone

and the dispatcher unable to reach the caller. This incident, Brandon, out of gas and asking for police assistance was marked clear. Unfortunately, the officer had been north of Bronte when Brandon's truck was south of Bronte. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed

investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, Moms and Mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa.

Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to who-done it. where you're a go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Around 4.30 a.m. Ladesa woke up and went outside to check her phone.

That's when she saw all of the missed calls, as well as a text from Kyle that he didn't find Brandon and the truck would need to be towed. Now, Ladesa said that this was the point where she started to panic. As far as she had known that night, Brandon was headed to see his dad, ran out of gas, and his brother Kyle went to help him. She expected that Kyle went home and that by this point Brandon was on his way to Fort Worth. She had no idea that Kyle hadn't been able to find Brandon and had headed home without any idea of where he was until she woke up. By later that morning, no one had heard from Brandon. his phone had stopped ringing.

It was going directly to voicemail, perhaps indicating that the phone was dead or it had been turned off. Kyle's paycheck finally cleared his bank account. So he drove back out to where he had found Brandon's truck to see if it was still there. This was around 5 a.m. When Kyle found Brandon's truck still parked with no sign of Brandon anywhere, the hazard lights were on. Apparently the highway patrol had taken.

turn them on to warn other drivers of the obstruction, and then they locked up the truck. Kyle even drove down a trail and went to the area under the bridge that runs over the Colorado River looking for places where Brandon may have been hiding. He yelled Brandon's name a few times, but there was no sign of him. He ended up taking the gas can to get gas and returned, filled the truck up, and once again, yelled out that the cops were gone, and the truck. was gassed up, but there was still no sign of Brandon. So he left.

At around 8.30 a.m., Coke County sheriffs had Brandon's truck towed because it was still taking up part of the lane and obstructing traffic. Brandon had the only key and he was nowhere to be found. Ledessa called the sheriffs to tell them that Brandon hadn't come home and his truck was abandoned, but she later said that she felt as though they seemed dissentering. interested in this information. The next day on August 10th, police did a cursory search

around some of the empty homes and properties, not far from where Brandon went missing. In that area, some of the land was only used seasonally, and with no one there, homeowners wouldn't notice anything amiss, so it wouldn't be reported. Police even used a thermal imaging camera

to detect human heat signals in the area, but didn't find anything of interest and definitely did not find Brandon. On August 11th, a few people went out searching for Brandon. They searched from about 8 a.m. until noon. Apparently there was no trace of Brandon other than what could have been a mark from him sitting down under a tree. Searchers noted that it was possible to see the spot where Brandon's truck was parked at from that spot under the tree. So I think from that standpoint, they were hopeful that they were looking in the right area. On August 12th, Deputy Neal, Sheriff Wayne McCutcheon, and Lieutenant Dwayne Gull, a Texas Ranger,

had a meeting about Brandon's disappearance. The Coat County Sheriff's Office said that they did not suspect foul play. There was no sign of any struggle. And Brandon was a big guy who could take care of himself. He was 5'9, 230 pounds. it would have been a difficult but not impossible task to subdue him and they felt that there would have been some kind of evidence of someone attacking Brandon. So he was a pretty big guy, but no matter how big you are, someone can come up from behind you,

they can surprise you. That's entirely possible. What I think the police were thinking was that, okay, even if that had happened, there would be some signs, whether it was of a struggle or maybe a disturbance in the dirt where someone had fallen down, something like that. So at this point, in the eyes of police, Brandon was an adult who had seemingly avoided their attempts to help him. But they also found out that he had cashed out his 401k from his former employer. So there was a possibility. that maybe he had taken off of his own free will.

The issue was that those funds, which was less than $1,000, were never actually touched by Brandon because it had to clear his account before he could access it, but that didn't happen until after he vanished. That 401K money, all of Brandon's accounts and his debit and credit cards

were never used after. he vanished. And this is something that, you know, is talked about in a lot of disappearance cases. People's money, their bank accounts, their cell phone usage, all of that comes up. It's all important. I think when you're talking about an adult who goes missing, a lot of times police struggle early on to figure out, you know, is this someone who, you know, made the conscious decision that they wanted to leave. Maybe they were tired of their situation, their relationship,

their responsibilities, and they wanted to make a fresh start. Or did they meet with some type of foul play? I think what really helps to rule out that first scenario is when people don't touch their funds. You don't see any charges. on their credit cards or, you know, their debit cards, okay, pretty hard to kind of take off and have very little money and not access the money that you, you actually do have.

I think to me, you know, those types of facts lend more credibility to the theory that, okay, something bad happened here. It was hard for authorities. family to figure out where to start searching for Brandon. I mean, obviously there was the point where his truck was found, but he hadn't been near his truck as far as Kyle could see, but Brandon did claim that he could see Kyle. None of the searches by people on foot had come up with anything near the road. The only thing was really that spot under the tree where some theorized that maybe Brandon had sat down. Maybe he had a good vantage point from that spot. On August 13th,

Nick Hanna, another Texas ranger, searched the area by helicopter. According to police reports on the search, it was, quote, determined that Lawson was not on the ground due to the fact that there was a lot of exposed bare ground, even under the short mesquite and cedar bushes. Nothing was found. But police noted that sacks of course. corn in a field could be spotted and identified on the ground below by the chopper. I think that made them pretty confident that Brandon would have been too if he had been out there. Despite Brandon having disappeared near the Colorado River, there was a pretty bad drought that year and the water wasn't deep enough for an adult to really have been overwhelmed or

incapacitated by the water. so they didn't believe that he had fallen into the river and drowned. Suspicion soon turned to Brandon's own brother, Kyle, who was near Brandon's truck when Deputy Neal pulled up, with Brandon nowhere to be found. Some people have asked the question, was Kyle only pretending to not know where his brother was? Kyle had his own history with the law.

He had his own substance abuse issues, his own warrants, even Brandon's former co-worker Marcus Jones was suspicious, telling San Angelo Live.com that Kyle was kind of tore up about it, but not acting like someone who had just lost his brother, more like he might have known something was coming. He wasn't real informative, but kept to the same story. Now, for his part, Kyle took two polygraph tests. the first he apparently failed because he had to cough or clear his throat too many times. But the second test he passed.

He has always maintained that he never saw Brandon out there on the highway, only his truck, and that he doesn't know Brandon is or what happened to him. You know, we talk about polygraph tests so often. And obviously there's a reason why, you know, their admissibility has been so severely diminished over the years, it's interesting to me that you can fail or a polygraph test can be determined to be inconclusive because you're coughing,

you're clearing your throat. Okay, well, how accurate are these things? But I think, you know, when you look at the fact that he passed the second one, you know, if you are a person that takes a lot of stock in polygraph. test, which I think there are less and less people who do nowadays. Well, at the very least, you got to think that that first one was probably an outlier. Just because of the coughing and the clearing of the throat, one possible theory that has been floated is that after Deputy Neal

had driven away and Kyle had finally given up waiting for his brother and had gone home, that Brandon came out of his hiding spot and got a ride away from the area. His final phone pains were north of where his truck had been found. Brad Lawson, Brandon and Kyle's father, didn't think his son would have just left, not even due to the warrant. In fact, he has stated that Brandon had already been to jail and would have faced the consequences of his actions. He added that Brandon was also actively working with an attorney. to clear the Warren up.

So I think at least to him, that didn't seem like a legit reason for Brandon to just up and leave. Some people continue to circle back to the idea early on by police that Brandon had just walked away from his life because he was tired of the responsibilities of fatherhood, maybe because he was tired of fighting with Lodessa. Kyle stated that he knew that his brother wouldn't have done that. He wouldn't have just run off from his family because his brother wasn't a coward.

And running away from your family was something that a coward would do. Friends and coworkers came forward to say that they had heard Brandon talk proudly of his kids all the time. So abandoning them didn't seem like something that at least to them Brandon would do. His coworkers teamed up to keep looking for Brandon thinking that the, clues were out there to what happened to him in the area where he vanished. Some of the landowners along Highway 277 wouldn't let Brandon's family or private investigator Paula Boudreau searched their property. That hampered some attempts to locate him.

Authorities assured the Lawson's that they themselves had cleared the land. Indeed, there had been extensive searches for Brandon, at least eight of them, from August 2013 to July 2014. These searches included helicopters, ATVs, Texar, six cadaver dogs, and multiple agencies. Investigator Boudreau used search dogs and helicopters to scour the area near where Brandon's truck had been left. She cleared large swaths of land

on either side of Highway 277 south of Bronte, Texas. They felt that if Brandon was in that area, they definitely would have found him. Since many felt that Brandon should have been found there someplace, you know, close to where his truck was left, but wasn't. Many people who have followed the case online were still suspicious of Ladesa. After all, it had sounded in, you know, one of the phone calls that Brandon mentioned Lidessa having people chase him. They had fought. She missed. a number of calls, supposedly because her phone was charging in the car. I think the question related to this that you have to ask is how would Ladesa benefit from Brandon going missing?

It seems as though she didn't benefit from Brandon's disappearance at all. She helped fund aerial searches. She quit her job to search for Brandon for almost two months. And she has to have to to take care of the kids alone. Ledessa believed that he was somewhere in a field off Highway 277, but she wasn't sure whether there had been an accident or whether Brandon had been the victim of foul play. Almost two months after Brandon disappeared, Ledessa moved with their kids back to Fort Worth to be near family. And I think everyone in the true crime community knows, right?

A husband goes missing, a wife goes. missing. The spouse is going to be one of the first individuals looked at. And normally you're going to look for a motive. I think a lot of times in the cases where a spouse is involved, that motive is either financial or it has to do with wanting to be with another individual. It just doesn't seem as though those motives were here. I didn't see anything indicating that Ladesa, you know, would have benefited greatly financially from Brandon's deaths. Obviously, she wouldn't have benefited financially from his disappearance.

And many have made the argument that Ladesa moving the kids back to Fort Worth to be near her family was something that, you know, many people would do. You need the support of family when you have three kids that you're taking care of. If there had been another individual in town that let's say Ladesa wanted to be with, then why would she move to forward? But with no body, no sign of Brandon and no leads, imaginations went wild, as they tend to do when it comes to some of the cases that we talk about. It's also very important to note that Brandon's history with methamphetamine use had not been disclosed to the public when he first went missing.

There were rumors that he could have been involved with drugs. There was certainly a lot of speculation about it, including assumptions that he had been intoxicated based on the incoherent phone calls. But for many, it just didn't seem to be the likely explanation here. Okay, if he was high on something, would that help explain, you know, these somewhat strange phone calls? Maybe. But how would that play into him still being missing? You know, even if you argue that Brandon died from a drug overdose or succumbed to the elements,

where was his body? There had been a lot of searches that had taken place. They hadn't turned up anything. In 2019, Kyle was interviewed and confirmed that he believed that Brandon was high and possibly hallucinating that night. He told our pals Tim and Lance from the podcast Crawl Space, I know for a fact that he was high on methamphetamine.

Now, I think a lot of the speculation around this case surrounds the 911 call made by Brandon. some people think you can hear someone else with Brandon on that 911 call. theories have ranged from the person being a friend who was also in trouble, possibly running from someone, to the recording having picked up the voice of whoever Brandon was running from. One very popular transcription of the 911 call includes the supposed second voice saying, Protect yourself.

Okay, so that brings up an important. question. Why would someone warn the person they were chasing to protect themselves? And I think this has led many people to believe that, you know, a warning from a likely bad guy just does not make a whole lot of sense. Now, there are some echoes or what you could say sound like voices that you can hear on the 911 call recording, especially when you slow it down or you listen to it over and over. You can also hear what sounds like a faint yeah before Brandon answers, no, we need the cops, as if someone else could hear the dispatcher and wanted an ambulance. Unfortunately, it could have been picked up by the device recording Brandon's 911 call.

Now, if you really want to go down a rabbit hole, there are countless Reddit discussions and debates. You'll see a lot of conversations about a state. a scraper, a sniper, a sniper, or a state trooper. All possible words that people believe Brandon could have said. It's almost like reading a mad lip. You can put anything in there that starts with an S and rhymes to fill in the blank. In the recording of Brandon's 911 call, you can hear two sounds that don't sound like words,

but actual noises distinct and different from words, one might describe them as faraway bangs or loud clacks, but many of the transcriptions of the call online label these two sounds as two gunshots. And this was a theory that was very often discussed in the wake of Brandon's disappearance. The sounds interpreted by some as gunshots made people wonder if there really was. someone chasing him, or perhaps he was trespassing in someone's field and a landowner had shot him never confessing to stay out of trouble or just to avoid the hassle of an investigation and more unwanted people on their land.

Kyle's 2019 interview revealed that he thought the sound was familiar, but he thought it was the sound of a large truck going over the bridge. and he believed that the echo resulted from Brandon being underneath the bridge. So as I mentioned, a lot of discussion, especially online about this case. You know, people really have been left to their own guesses at what Brandon might have been saying without really a ton of context from his life or knowledge of what he sounded like. So for years, the debate raged on. In 2019, Kyle Lawson confirmed that he thought Brandon was trying to say state trooper in the call,

but that he was out of breath. When Brandon called him before Kyle showed up, he sounded like he was moving, like he was out of breath, very similar to how he sounded on the recorded 911 call. Kyle says that this was different than the call he got from Brandon while Kyle was standing at the truck near Deputy Neal. He said at that time, Brandon sounded like he was standing still somewhere. Kyle also mentioned or cleared up that there really are no state troopers in that area. If Brandon thought state troopers were chasing him, he probably was hallucinating. But for many, this doesn't mean that no one was chasing him.

Again, the debate about Brandon's final recorded words and his fate was hotly debated. But the investigation into his disappearance slowed. There really just was very little new information. For years, the only trace of Brandon ever being on that highway was a Red Cross placed there in his memory. For Ladesa, that wasn't enough. Though she believed she would be bringing home his remains someday, it was something she and his whole family still desperately wanted. No matter what happened to Brandon,

they wanted to have his remains. Eventually, the 401k money sitting in Brandon's account, went to the state to help cover child support costs. So for many, many years, there was nothing but endless speculation over Brandon's fate. Then on February 4th, 2022, it was announced that the remains of Brandon Lawson had been found after eight and a half long years of searching, and waiting. Though DNA testing had yet to confirm the skull that was found was Brandon's, his family has released a statement about the discovery confirming that in their hearts,

they know it's Brandon. On January 15th, 2022, a small team of searchers led by Jason Watts, who has acted as a spokesperson for the family for years and who never gave up on finding out what happened to Brandon found a Nike Air Mac shoe, the same kind Brandon was wearing when he left his house. And then another about 50 to 70 feet away from the first. It was said that it was embedded in the dirt. Not far from the shoes, a pair of tap out shorts with a camouflage print was found. It was at that point that the Texas Rangers were called in for the search on February 1st. and very quickly. The remains were found 400 feet from the area where the clothing was found just over about a football field away, basically.

The skull was sent to the University of North Texas to be DNA tested. This property where Brandon was found was right off of Highway 277 directly in the search area. It had been flown over supposedly with no sign of Brandon. this was not a new out-of-the-way area. Instead, it appeared that Brandon was basically exactly where he was last known to be. And I think this was shocking to many people because that area had been searched so extensively, authorities had come out and said, if he was there, we would have found him. Well, now it appears as though that was incorrect.

but almost immediately fingers were pointed at the property owners in online true crime circles. It seemed to many that clearly someone had been keeping search volunteers off of some of the property since Brandon had disappeared. We did talk about that a little bit. Many people assumed online that maybe a change of ownership or the death of an owner must have been what allowed a search to finally have been done. But actually, that was. not the case. According to Jason Watts, the people who own the land that Brandon was found on do not live on that property. They just own it. They actually had no idea that Brandon was missing or that he could have potentially been somewhere on their land. Through his continued efforts, Jason was recently able to make

contact with the owners who then immediately gave the okay to have the property searched. And apparently they mentioned that no one really had ever gone on a certain part of the land. Now, a lot of people find this nefarious. For many, the term conspiracy theory comes to mind because for years it had been said that all of these different areas had been searched and some of the areas couldn't be searched because landowners wouldn't allow it. now it comes out that, okay, they didn't even know about it. So how could they not have allowed it if they were never asked? So was it that police just didn't search it because they didn't get permission?

And a lot of people have made the claim that, well, maybe they didn't try all that hard to get permission. You would think that in eight years, someone would have seen the remains while tending to the land. But, you know, if this was a big plot and nobody literally ever went back there, I don't think that's all that outlandish to believe that he was never discovered. According to Jason Watts, there's no reason at all to suspect the landowners of anything shady. In fact, he has said the property owners were very friendly and cooperative. Now, obviously, we're still anxiously awaiting more updates. Any type of. official word that Brandon's DNA has been matched to the remains found any released information

about what actually happened to Brandon that night. We know where he was and we presumably know where he ended up. But there are still a lot of questions that are unanswered. If the remains are Brandon, what happened to him during that span of time? What kept him there? Hopefully a cause of death can be determined, but at the very least, Brandon's family may have some answers and may be able to lay him to rest. So I do believe that many people are supposing that these remains are the remains of Brandon Lawson. If they are, then it really takes many of the theories out of play, right? Him leaving on his own voluntarily, you know, going far away. from where he left his truck, you can kind of take all of that off the table.

Then it becomes, okay, what happened to Brandon from the time that his truck ran out of gas, the time that he spoke to his brother, Kyle, on the phone, was this some type of accident that resulted from, you know, drug use? Did he meet with foul play? Someone ended his life and then, you know, left his body. body in the field. And unfortunately, it just wasn't discovered amid all the various searches that took place. If he did meet with foul play, then the questions are who and what? You know, was this a crime of opportunity? Was this a serial killer, you know, traveling the roads who came

upon someone who was obviously out of gas? Or was the perpetrator someone known to Brandon? Maybe someone who had a grudge against him. I think if you go down that road, then you have to speculate as to how this person knew that Brandon was where he was that night. Was someone following him from the time that he left the home and pounced on the opportunity once Brandon ran out of gas? And I hope there is a lot more information to come out because there still are so many unanswered questions. But you can also see why this is a case that has captured the attention of the true crime community for many years. There are a lot of unique and strange aspects to the case from the phone calls to what was said on those phone calls. If Brandon was hiding close by, why didn't he come out after the law enforcement officer left and Kyle was calling out to him?

Was it because by that time he had already been hurt or even possibly killed? Brandon Mason Lawson was 26 years old when he went missing. He was a father of four. He had three children with Ladesa and another daughter from a previous relationship. I think it's appropriate to end here with Ladesa's words from a 2016 interview that she did with San Angelo Live.com. because they're important. She said about Brandon's disappearance and the night that led up to it.

It taught me so much to always value my words. I make sure every time I drop the kids off or leave for work, that I always tell them, I love them. You never know when you're going to get those last words. And I do think that is a very powerful statement. It's easy to take a lot of things for granted that you're going to see your loved ones tomorrow. And most of the time that is true. But here you have a couple who gets in an argument, as a lot of couples do. It happens so many times every day around the world.

One of the individuals leaves, I'm sure there were some less than nice words exchanged. But the thought is always that, okay, later on, I wish I hadn't said that we'll make up. we'll say we're sorry and we'll move on. But what if you never get that chance? And, you know, in the case of Ladesa, she didn't get that chance. Obviously, it's very sad, but it's something to think about. It's made me think for sure. You know, are there some things that I could just let go?

Do I need to say this? But that is it for our episode on Brandon Lawson. It's not the end, though, right? We're waiting on so much information. to come out to see what, if anything, they can determine from the remains. I mean, first of all, there has to be a match. Now, I think most people are assuming there will be. If there is, what can they glean?

But I know Morf and I, just like many of you in the true crime community, will be watching this story, waiting for the updates to come out, because we want to No. I think a lot of people want to see this mystery salt. Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for her help and researching and writing this episode. As always, if you love the show, but you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a review. Keep telling your friends who are into true crime about the criminology podcast. That really goes a long way and interact with us on social media. You can find us on Twitter with the handle at criminology pod. You can find our Facebook page or Facebook discussion group. Just search for Criminology Podcast. And Morph and I will be back with you next week. I'm sure by then Morph's voice will be back in tip top shape and we can do the episode together. So look out for an all new episode next Saturday night.

So until then, for Mike and Morf, we'll talk to you next week.