Going West: True Crime - Bryce Laspisa // 30

Episode Date: July 8, 2019

In August 2013, a 19-year-old boy takes an unexpected road trip away from college down the I-5 to visit his parents in Southern California at the same time his friends reported him having incredibly strange behavior. The (what should have been) 6-hour drive turns into a frustrating and dumbfounding 24 hour journey when he never arrives to his family home. Police find his car crashed, but there's no sign of him anywhere. This is the case of Bryce Laspisa. Get 20% off your first Hunt a Killer box by using promo code GOING WEST  https://www.huntakiller.com **GOING WEST DOES NOT OWN THE MEDIA IN THIS EPISODE** Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEnDJld5D5c CBS Chicago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TONcOaRscz8  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host Heath. And I'm your other host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Today we've got a really strange disappearance case, but first we want to give some shout outs to some awesome people who left us five star reviews on Apple Podcasts this week. So thank you so much to Rebecca from Henderson Tennessee and Casey from Bentonville, Arkansas. And then we have Brenda from Alabama and a big thanks to Megan from Seattle. Thank you so much to Andrea from Miami Florida. Your review was really sweet and thank you so much to Peggy from Sweet Home Oregon.

Thank you so much to Tiffany from Minnesota and Logan from Minneapolis, Minnesota. And big thanks to Stacy from Shelby, Ohio, Mindy from Seattle, Washington, and someone really awesome in New Orleans who didn't leave their name. But thank you so much for the review. We also want to give a big thanks to our newest patrons this week. Thank you so much to Brittany and Emily. If you guys visit patreon.com slash going west podcast you can have access to bonus episodes, special content and sometimes leave an exclusive merch. So make sure to head over there. It's just five dollars a month. You get all this cool stuff You help out the show and we donate 10% of the proceeds to the National Center for missing and exploited children And we're also planning on putting a new tier in so stay tuned for that as well

All right gang. This is episode 30 of going west. So let's get into it. A former Naperville man attending college in California has been missing since the end of last summer. Briceless Spisa disappeared under bizarre circumstances last fall. To this day, it is still a mystery. He called Mom early one morning, said he'd be home. His vehicle soon after found here on its side. The back window busted out his stuff inside.

Soon after a charged corpse was found nearby. No price. Some days are better than others. I'll never give up hope, but it's really difficult. Brice's last piece was born on April 30th, 1994, and was raised as an only child by his parents, Michael and Karen, in Naperville, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago. After Brice graduated high school in 2012, his parents decided to relocate the family to Laguna, Nagel, California, because they were able to go into early retirement. Michael had been working as a controls engineer while Karen worked as a manager with BP. Even though Bryce was in his first year of college, he made the choice to move to California with his parents.

But instead of moving to Laguna Nagel, he applied for Sierra College in Rockland, California, which is just southeast of Sacramento in Northern California, and it's about a six-hour drive from where his parents would be living. And Sierra is a community college, so it's unclear why he moved all the way up to Northern California just to attend community college, but some people thought maybe he wanted to be in California but not necessarily too close to his parents. But regardless, since there were no dorms at the community college, Bryce moved into an apartment in the area with his friend Sean.

Laguna Nagell is a beautiful beach town located in Orange County, so Bryce could definitely visit them pretty easily from his school. Bryce was known as a very outgoing and charismatic guy, and he had a lot of friends. He was described as being incredibly funny, and according to his friends, he was an overall positive and happy young man. Bryce was a very talented artist and even enjoyed drawing and building, so he pursued industrial and graphic design at college. He also had a girlfriend named Kim Sly who he apparently treated very well and they had a great relationship after the two met at

school. On August 28, 2013, so when Bryce was entering his sophomore year of college, Bryce's friends started noticing his behavior changing. He started drinking very heavily and using prescription drugs mostly vivants, and for those of you who don't know what vivants is, it's basically aterol, so it's supposed to be used for those who have ADHD, but of a lot of college students use it to stay awake for longer periods of time. Bryce started to act incredibly strange and very depressed.

So much so that one of his friends was worried and actually called Karen, Bryce's mom, to tell her that he was acting weird and that he'd been abusing drugs and alcohol. Bryce tried to break up with his girlfriend Kim via text message, but the two ended up meeting in person to talk about it at her apartment in Chico, California, which was roughly 90 miles or 150 kilometers away from his own apartment. She said he was acting so odd and didn't appear to be in any position to drive, so she took away his keys. Then Kim calls Karen to report the situation, and she talked to Bryce herself.

She then told Kim to give him the car keys, and Bryce tells his mom, I have a lot to talk to Bryce herself. She then told Kim to give him the car keys and Bryce tells his mom I have a lot to talk to you about. Kim and Bryce then break up. At 11.30pm that Wednesday, August 28th, Bryce leaves Chico. And as far as we know, Karen was comfortable enough with Bryce's situation that she believed that he was capable of driving and that's why she had asked him to give Bryce his keys back. And this will definitely come up later on in the episode again where someone thinks he's acting weird and then suddenly he's not acting weird so at this point in time he seemed to be okay.

At around 1am, Bryce called his mom, who thought he was back at his apartment in Rockland. But cell towers would later show he had been heading further south, past Sierra College, and toward the mountains. It's unknown what Bryce was up to the next 8 hours, but at 9am, he runs out of gas near a rest stop in Buttenwillow, which is close to Bakersfield for those of you who know California. Three hours later, a roadside assistant serviceman named Christian delivers three gallons of gas to Bryce's car, which was purchased for $20 on Bryce's credit card. About this time, Bryce's

parents receive a message from their car insurance provider, who informed them that Bryce's 2003 Toyota Highlander needed roadside assistance. Karen tried to call Bryce multiple times to figure out what was going on, but she had no luck and she couldn't get through to him. So at this point, it appears Bryce is on his way down to visit his parents, but he didn't inform them of that. Karen then decided to call Bryce's roommate and ask if he knew anything, but all he told

her was that Bryce hadn't come home the night before. And by the way, at this point in time, Bryce was not working, he was in college, and he had a monthly allowance from his parents, so that's how they were able to see his credit card transactions and track his bank statements. So Bryce isn't picking up his phone. His parents know he's having car trouble somewhere, and his roommate doesn't know where he is. Mike and Karen Lispisa look at Bryce's bank charges and then notice the gas station charge and button will of California.

Again, they didn't know he was on his way down to see them, but at that point they figured that that's exactly what he was doing. Mike traced the credit charge to Castro Tyron Truck, which was a repair shop near the freeway Bryce would have traveled on. At about 12.30 pm, they then called the shop and asked the man if he saw or spoke with their son. That's when Christian, the employee, told them that he had been called after Bryce had run out of gas. Since the parents seemed very worried, Christian them that he had been called after Bryce had run out of gas.

Since the parents seemed very worried, Christian offered to go back to the spot Bryce had been at to see if he was still in the area. After he did, he called Karen back and put her son on the phone because Bryce was in the same spot he had been 30 minutes prior, despite having enough gas to leave. Christian handed Bryce the phone and she asked him what he was doing. Bryce said nothing was wrong, and without prying, Karen told him to just come home. Bryce was roughly three hours away, so his parents expected him home around 3 or 3.30 pm. When 3.30 pm came around, and Bryce still hadn't arrived in Laguna, Nagel, Karen began to reach out to him, but received no response. She kept trying to contact her son for the next several hours, until she and Mike decided to file a missing person's report with the Orange County Sheriff's

Department at around 6 o'clock PM. When the police heard about what was going on, they contacted AT&T to do an emergency ping on Bryce's cell phone to see where he was. And get this! Bryce was only eight miles or 13 kilometers away from where he was when he ran out of gas nine hours earlier. Because remember, he ran out of gas around 9 a.m. but didn't get gas delivered until 12. And now it's 6 p.m. So after he got off the phone with his mom, he drove a little bit and then stopped again. Local police drive to the location of Bryce's phone and when they found him, he was just sitting in his car. The deputies performed a sobriety test and searched his car for any kind

of paraphernalia or alcohol to see if he was under the influence. They found no evidence of alcohol or drugs and thought Bryce was acting completely normal since he was very polite, talkative, and alert. The deputies asked Bryce why he'd been sitting in this car all day and he told them that he was just trying to blow off some steam, which they didn't think was abnormal for a 19 year old college student. It's actually pretty surprising that the police went and checked on him considering he was 19 years old, because I feel like usually when you're over the age of 18, police just kind of say, well, they're an adult and they can do whatever they please. And even more, they actually told him that he needed to call his mom, and Bryce was very hesitant to do this, so the deputies called her themselves

and put him on the phone with her. Which was really cool of them to do because they know that regardless of the fact that he's an adult, he's still really young and the things he'd been doing that day just really didn't make any sense. I think it's really odd that he was sitting in his car all day anyway, but this is also Southern California in August. And we looked up the temperature that day in the area, and it was roughly 85 degrees Fahrenheit that day, which is hot. Yeah, that's very hot to be sitting in your car for hours on end. And you know, it's, it's, this is the strangest part of this case to me is that I get it. If you're trying to blow off steam, trust me, I've done it too.

I've sat in my car for hours before, but not nine hours. You know, that's just a really long time to be sitting in one spot. Personally, I feel like driving can be kind of relaxing on its own. and driving for six hours would probably kind of get him into a better mood or a different mindset. So it's just weird to me that that wasn't enough and he felt like he needed to sit on the side of the road for that long. Not only is that boring, but like a huge part in this entire situation. Agreed, but we'll talk more about that later. After Karen spoke to Bryce, she talked to the cops again and asked them if they thought that he was okay to drive. They told her that they were confident that he was now on his way home and that he was totally fine. They had spent about 20 minutes with Bryce and

didn't notice anything strange. Apparently a few hours later, Karen hadn't heard from Bryce so, again, she called Christian at the auto repair shop to see if he had seen him. Christian then decided to drive to Bryce's last known location and he was again still sitting there. There's a couple different timelines we're going off of and we're not exactly sure when this happened that night, but Christian decided that he was going to follow Bryce onto the freeway to make sure that he was actually driving home this time. It appears that this may have happened around 9pm or so, but that seems like a pretty long

workday for Christian, so we're not completely sure. Christian followed Bryce for a few miles before he got off the freeway and turned around going back to his work while Bryce carried on driving. About an hour later, after 10pm, Karen talks to Bryce on the phone and she asks him what he's doing. He responds that he's just chilling and going to hang out with his friends later. But Karen was under the impression that he was driving. It's unclear where those friends were located because it's kind of unlikely that he had friends in his parents' town of Laguna N'Gel since they had just recently moved there and he had friends in his parents' town of Laguna Nagel since they had

just recently moved there and he had been living in Northern California. But it's definitely possible that he did have some buddies down near Laguna Nagel. So at 11 p.m. Karen calls Bryce again and he said he was buying a drink from a gas station and it's known that he spent $1.71 on this beverage and then $39 worth of gas. It's later discovered that this gas station was in Button Willow. The same town he had run out of gas in 14 hours earlier and where he had supposedly left two hours earlier to head to his parents' house. Karen and Bryce kept in contact throughout Bryce's drive and Karen kept asking him to describe landmarks to her so that she knew where he was. But he would just say that it was too dark to see anything and he wasn't giving her any

information about his location. At 12.30 pm, Karen calls Bryce. Once again, he should have been to the house by this time. It was roughly three hours since he had supposedly left button willow, and that's how long it takes to get to Laguna Nagel, like we've said before. All Bryce would tell her was that his GPS stated he would arrive to their house just after 3am. At 208am, Bryce called his mom Karen and told her that he was pulling over for the night because he was too tired to continue driving, even though he was supposedly just 50 minutes away from her house. He told her that he had gotten off the five freeway and was in a suburban area.

He explained that he was going to sleep in his car for a little and call her when he got up. Hours and hours passed and the list pieces had not heard from Bryce. At 8am they got a knock on the door. Relieved they thought Bryce was finally home. Karen went to the door and to her surprise, it wasn't Bryce on the front doorstep. It was the police. What's up, two crime fans. Are you looking for something fun and interesting to do with your friends and family? What about something involving a murder? Have you ever listened to a podcast and thought, maybe I could be a detective? Then you need to get the game hunt a killer, the murder mystery box that

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box. That's Hunt a Killer.com using promo code going west. No spaces for 20% off your first box. That is such a good deal and we know that you guys are going to love it because we love it. Happy hunting guys. So at 8 a.m. the doorbell of the Lispisa's home rain. When they opened the door, a California highway patrol officer asked if they owned a 2003 beige Toyota Highlander.

When they told him their son had been driving it, he informed them that at 5.30am, that morning, the vehicle had been found abandoned in Kestéok Lake, often access road to the state recreation area, two hours north of Laguna Nagell. And this location was about an hour and a half south of Baton Willow. It had been crashed and was found on its side at the bottom of a 25-foot embankment, adjacent to the lake's main boat access road. The back window had been broken from the inside. Since Bryce wasn't in the car, it appeared most likely that he'd been inside at the time of the crash and broken his way

out. His laptop and phone were found in the car while his double bag and wallet were outside near the rear window. Bryce's blood was found on the passenger headrest and on the back seat. but there was no evidence he had sustained serious injuries. An examination of the scene suggested that, before dawn, for unknown reasons, Bryce drove off the service road into a rest area, along a cell tower and toward the lake accelerating as he did so. So right off the bat, this isn't too shocking because we know that he was tired, so maybe he accidentally drove off an embankment because he fell asleep at the wheel. But there are some really strange details we're going to unpack that could lead us to believe

otherwise. Given the scene, police were convinced that this was a failed suicide attempt, but that didn't explain where Bryce went. His roommate and close friend, Sean Dixon, got a text from Bryce the night before his road trip when he didn't come home. It read, I love you bro, seriously. You are the best person I've ever met. You saved my soul. Sean responded, I love you too man. You have an amazing life. Full of love and blessings.

Don't waste that. You have too many people who love you, Bryce. And Sean was probably referring to the fact that Bryce had been seemingly depressed and had been abusing drugs and alcohol since this text was sent before he disappeared. And before we continue any further, I just want to explain that Bryce was definitely, when

we say that he had a problem with alcohol, we're not just talking about a few drinks and night, we're talking about his friends saying that he would polish off two bottles of hard liquor in a weekend by himself. And then on top of that, you're mixing ViVance with alcohol, which couldn't have a good effect on your mind or your body because for one, alcohol is a depressant and then mixing that with ViVance, then not sleeping, that can have a very terrible effect on your psyche. Before Bryce disappeared, he'd also begun giving away his personal items, including his much-used Xbox, he loved playing

video games with his friends, and a pair of diamond earrings that his mom had given him. While his parents don't understand why their son would do this, this discovery, again, led police to believe Bryce wanted to commit suicide or run away and start a new life. But Mike and Karen disagreed, saying that while their son experimented with drugs as many teenagers do, he hadn't been struggling with substance abuse, as far as they knew, and that he'd been completely normal during the summer. After Bryce's car was found, a large-scale search was conducted, consisting of hundreds of deputies and volunteers, as well as search and rescue

crews, cadaver dogs, and divers. Since his car was found at Castellac Lake, they did an extensive search of the lake to make sure he hadn't died by drowning, even though his car was not found in the lake, by the way. Using ATVs and helicopters, they also searched the Hills, Lake, and Shoreline. But the weekend long search brought up no evidence. No witnesses reported seeing Bryce and the Santa Clarita Valley around the time of this accident.

During the initial days of his disappearance, Bryce's parents received numerous tips and possible sightings from across the West Coast, but none of it led to Bryce's discovery. Mike created missing-person flyers, while Karen got a hold of the media to get Bryce's face across the United States so that the general public could be on high alert for him. It's important to note that Bryce had really bright red hair. At the time of his disappearance, his red hair was shaved into a buzz cut and he had green eyes. He was wearing a blue and white checkered shirt with white cargo pants and Nike shoes and he stood about 5 feet 11 inches and weighed about 170 pounds. He had

a tattoo of a tourist bullhead and his birthday and Roman numerals on his upper left arm. Despite the list pieces' efforts, no leads surfaced. When they were asked about Bryce's mindset before his disappearance, they said that he spoke clearly when they talked on the phone, and they really didn't believe that he would willingly walk away from the crash without taking any of his things. They also said that he wasn't an outdoorsy person and he wasn't one to hitchhike either. So it's very unlikely that he would have walked off, especially because he wasn't at all familiar

with the Kasteg Lake area. On September 4th, 2013, so five days after Bryce's car crashed, a jogger called 911 to report a brush fire just three miles from where his car had crashed. When first responders arrived, they discovered a burning body. Police were convinced this was the body of Bryce Les Pisa. But after forensic testing was done, they proved it to be a Los Angeles man who had been the victim of a homicide.

After this, police quickly discovered that there was in fact surveillance footage of the area where Bryce's car was found. When they looked at the footage from the night Bryce drove off the embankment, they found something strange. It showed stills of his car driving the same road on two separate occasions, nearly two hours apart. The camera had taken pictures of his license plate at 2.15am, which was six minutes after he had told his mom he was in a suburban neighborhood and was going to sleep for a while. The next time was at 4.29am.

The area of Castellac Lake where his car was found wasn't suburban at all. So the fact that he told his mom he was in a suburban area wasn't true. But why would he lie about that? Nine days after Bryce disappeared, Bloodhounds were used to try to track his scent in hopes of figuring out where he went after the crash. The dogs caught his scent and followed it to a dam on the lake, then trailed it across the dam and down south toward the west side of the lake. The scent then led them toward the truck stop on Castellic Road.

After that, the scent stopped. Investigators were pretty confident that this proved he had either gotten into a car or a truck that had driven by within the single hour that he had crashed his car and police showed up to investigate. So to put that into perspective, if Bryce had just stayed with his car, police would have found him within an hour after he crashed. According to the evidence investigators have, there are no indications he was met with foul play or died by suicide. They believe that, if he had taken his own life, they would have found him at the lake. Like we touched on earlier, they think that if they knew what Bryce wanted to talk to his mother about,

that that could be the big key to figuring out this case. But Bryce's parents don't believe that. They actually think whatever it was that he wanted to tell them most likely doesn't hold any significance to his disappearance. Within days of his disappearance, his best friend Sean Dixon stated, I think he's trying to find himself right now. He doesn't want to be found. He didn't believe foul play was involved initially or that Bryce tried to take his own life,

because Bryce told him that he would be back that coming Monday, which was Labor Day. So just three days later. But when he didn't, his friends really started questioning his whereabouts. After three weeks, all search efforts were called off because police were convinced that he was just off doing his own thing, but his family did not believe this. Months passed with no new leads, so the Las Pisa's hired private investigator, Denise Savastano, who specializes in missing persons cases. Denise offered her services pro bono because she was on the side of the Las Pisa's and believed that Bryce had disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Based on the

coordinates plugged into Bryce's GPS, she also believed Bryce had wanted to go home to Lagoon and Agel. This led her to speculate that he could have suffered a head injury from the car crash and that he could have become disoriented. She also theorized that he could have suffered a psychotic break as a result of his drug use, which she thinks could have caused his erratic behavior. In August 2015, so two years after Bryce's disappearance, private investigator Denise Savastano and the Les Pisa family hired a sonar specialist to search the lake using sound waves to generate images of the lake bottom. Although the Castellic Lake was searched, it's 330 feet deep and it's incredibly long, so

searching the entire lake wasn't really a possibility. They believe that if Bryce had been suicidal, he would have entered the deep water at government cove, but two 12 hour days brought up no new evidence. The Las Pisa's are currently offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the return of their son, Bryce. Bryce's license, social security number, fingerprints, and passport have been uploaded to a nationwide missing person's system. His dental records are also available.

So now that we've given you guys all the facts on this case that we have, let's talk about some possible theories. One of the big theories is that Bryce Les Pisa died by suicide. This is believed due to his odd behavior in the days before he went missing, such as him giving away his possessions and refusing to leave the button willow area. Also, there's a car wreck which shows evidence of having been done intentionally. However, this theory tends to be one both the family and investigators have turned away from. So there's a couple reasons why I really don't believe this theory. I do think it's incredibly strange that he gave a bunch of his stuff away, and I'm sure that he was depressed, but then why wasn't his body found?

I definitely think it's possible that he went off the embankment on purpose, because I can't figure out why he would have driven down that road twice. I was thinking maybe the first time he did rest, and then he went back, because he had then known of the embankment and decided to commit suicide but failed. But even if that's true, it doesn't explain what happened to him after. I think it's pretty obvious that he got into a car or truck and was taken out of the area, but if that's true, why would he commit suicide then? I really believe that if he died willingly, they would have found his body.

Also, he told his friend Sean that he saved his soul. So, if he saved his soul, why would he be suicidal? I also think that if Bryce was suicidal, then whatever he was going to tell his parents had to do with it. Some people theorize that maybe he was gay, and that's why he told his mom the night he broke up with his girlfriend Kim that he had a lot to talk to her about. And I know a lot of people have strong opinions about this theory considering there's no evidence, but it's just a theory. And the point of this theory to me is that he had something that he wanted to tell his

parents that was clearly weighing on him, and it's nearly impossible for us to determine exactly what that could be. You know, maybe it was something illegal or maybe he wanted to drop out of school. I mean, it could be a lot of things, but regardless, apparently his family was extremely judgmental, so that would make confiding in them about anything very difficult. And obviously, I don't know his parents. They went through something so terrible, so I don't know if they're judgmental, that's just something I read online. To me, there are two clear reasons why I think this is plausible, and then there are some reasons why I don't think it's possible.

The two reasons why I think it could be possible is the fact that I think he definitely, willingly crashed his car, and I think it's possible that he may have kicked out the back window when he realized it was a failed attempt. On top of that, the only reason why I think this is possible is because he was mixing a lot of alcohol with different prescription drugs, so that could have an effect on your brain and make you suicidal. But the fact that he wasn't found at the scene, the fact that his body wasn't found anywhere in the area, so I mean, if he did want to kill himself, they probably would have found his body somewhere around that area in this time. Like you had mentioned,

that lake is very big. But I do believe that his body would have surfaced, and we also can't take away from the fact that those houndogs had found his scent at the truck stop on Castellic Road. Those investigating the case believe Bryce willingly walked away from his life. Investigators are convinced he is still alive and doesn't wish to be found. This is supported by the lack of evidence and a body at Castellic Lake, and the area's location near the freeway. Bryce's family doesn't give credence to this theory, saying that their son would

never run away. They also feel he would have been open with them if anything had been on his mind or bothering him. This theory isn't completely off the table for me, and I guess my biggest thing against this theory is that he crashed his car and left all his belongings, including his wallet at the scene. I'm sure it's possible to just disappear with nothing and somehow make a new life, but that just seems really difficult.

You know, like how would he eat, how would he sleep, how would he travel, and what would he do with his life. Also, with his face all over the news, how would he not be identified? I know some people claim to have seen him, but how would he not be successfully found? He was also incredibly close with his family and friends, so to at this point, not contact any of them for six years just seems really strange. I am going to agree with you that it does seem very strange that he hasn't tried to contact anybody in that long if he was in fact that close with his family and his friends. And I

suppose that it would be possible to just up and leave. And if he was trying to disappear, I mean leaving your laptop and your ID and your credit cards and things would probably be the smartest thing to do. That way they can't track you or trace you. I'm not sure if this is the case or not, but this kind of goes along with the last theory that we have, which is possibly if he did leave that area, he could have went to the truck stop. Got in a truck with a truck driver and said, I don't care where we're going, just take me. Just take me away from this area. I'm trying to start a new life

But then again, you know like you said, how is his face not recognized? How did somebody not say hey like I've seen him, you know that to me is kind of the strangest part about this? I also just feel like if he did want to run away and start a new life instead of just sitting in your car all day and Basically taunting your parents. Just drive, just go, you know, just see what it's like, see if it's for you to go and try and start new. And maybe he did plan on doing that and then he got in the car accident, but like we've already determined, we think that the car accident was probably deliberate. So I get it, maybe you don't want someone to track you down with

your car, but at that point then you'd probably want to take cash out, you know, in certain increments over the months to survive and save up and maybe get a new car or something, but it just doesn't really make sense. If you really wanted to go and start a new life, I don't think this is how someone would do it. Yeah, and I can definitely agree with that. And I also feel like, you know, there's a lot of people who don't have great relationships with their parents. They just move, you know, they move to a different state or across the country, unless there was something really daunting that he needed to get away from, I don't know if this is going to be the possibility. And one more thing regarding

this theory, he was just 19 years old, he was in a second year of college. It just doesn't seem like the time that you would want to start a new, like your life is just beginning as it is. And like Heath said, if you don't like your parents, if you don't like your life, go to college across the country, you know, change something up. But running away, starting a new life just doesn't make sense with his situation to me. Yeah, I mean, unless his parents were extremely controlling of his actions, and he had to get away from that, I mean, I'm not saying I'm gonna rule it out because there's always a possibility, and that's why these things are called theories, because we need to talk about every single angle, and try and get to the bottom of it to figure out what happened to Bryce.

I will have to say though, the majority of cases that we see where somebody actually does start a new life, it's because they are in danger most of the time. I mean, I'd say probably 90% of the time, they're in danger and they have to leave a dangerous situation. That's actually a really good point.

And I don't mean to come across as whatever Bryce was going through isn't valuable and he isn't worthy of starting a new or anything like that. I have no idea what he was going through but I'm just trying to think of it logically and and maybe this isn't a logical situation. Maybe there is no clear answer to it. Maybe he did try to start a new and he didn't plan it. He just said screw it. I'm just going to go. That's absolutely possible. I think I'm just trying to come from a more logical standpoint, but I do agree with you, Heath, that I think a lot of people start a new when they are in danger, and I just we don't know if Bryce was in danger.

Mike and Karen Lespisa, along with private investigator Denise Savastano, believed Bryce is alive and is possibly suffering from a head injury. They think the injury could have caused amnesia, resulting in him not knowing who he is. This would explain why he hasn't tried to reach out to them. By the way, like we mentioned earlier, during the crash there was some of Bryce's blood found on one of the headrests in his car, but we don't know exactly which headrest that was or where exactly it was found or what part of Bryce was actually injured,

so we can't really speak to this. Hearing that there was blood on the headrest automatically you go, oh, it's from his head, you know? But we don't know if it was maybe the back when he was trying to get out and the blood had been on his arm or his hand and he touched the head rest. So that's just something we wanted to clear up. I definitely think this is possible, but again,

where is he then and why hasn't anyone seen him? He could have potentially wandered off or caught a ride with someone and is now part of Southern California's homeless population due to him not knowing who he is. But again, wouldn't whoever picked him up have come forward and said so. And I mean, a lot of people also wonder if this happened. Why didn't he look at his wallet and phone to see who he was? And you would think if he got into someone's car and just didn't know who he was, didn't have any of his belongings and someone picked him up when they'd be like, who is this guy and remember him? I would also have to say that also if you had amnesia from this crash, you probably wouldn't know directionally where you were trying to go. So even if you did hop into a car with someone,

you're not going to say, hey take me to LA because you probably don't really know that you're in California or that you probably don't know where LA is. And the last theory that we have for you guys is, of course, homicide. It's interesting to me that a burning body was found just five days after Bryce disappeared within a three mile vicinity of where his car was. It could be completely unrelated, but this proves that a murderer had been in the vicinity of Castellac Lake around the same time. And this would also explain why he has never been found, and why no driver has ever come forward telling people that they saw him or that they picked him up. And I was talking to Heath about this earlier, but if Bryce had gotten into a stranger's car or truck with none of his belongings and he was injured because if there's

blood found in the car, then you're bleeding. So if he had gotten into someone's car and was all tussled up, you would think that that person would come forward, but not if they did something to him, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think that this theory holds a lot. The reason why I believe this is because a lot of strange things happen at truck stops. I mean, there's been a lot of people who have disappeared at truck stops. They hop into a cab with a truck driver and they're never heard or seen from again. Also, it was four o'clock in the morning. So some truck driver is driving

in the dead of night. There's no witnesses around. This is the perfect time to abduct a young boy. I mean, he's not super young, but he's 19. So, I don't think that's completely out of the question at all. I think that's actually super plausible, because that's why we haven't seen him. Oh, definitely. Yeah. and I mean, this goes back to like, you can talk about the Keith Jesperson case who was a truck driver who picked up women and killed them. I mean, it's just so easy for a truck driver to abduct people and they have long stretches of highway

that they drive, so it could be easy to dump a body in a different state or what have you. I think that it's a very interesting point that you made, Daphne, where you were talking about the potential to have a killer in this area. I mean, there was a body found burned. So who's to say that that killer was not active in that, you know, in that time frame? And who's to say that that killer didn't kill Bryce? I think that fact is so widely ignored that there was literally a homicide victim found in the area within days of Bryce's disappearance. So clearly there is a murderer

in the area or at least had been in the area that we know of for sure. How is that not valuable? And so much so that police actually originally thought that this burned body was Bryce. That is a great point. So obviously homicide is not completely out of the question, but I just wonder why his family believes that it was a head injury and that he just doesn't know who he is. I don't know how that is their most likely scenario, but I guess it's just wishful thinking in a way because then they know he's alive. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm not trying to make any judgment towards the family, but I also believe that them thinking that Bryce trying to talk to his mom, saying that he had something very important to talk to her about, saying that that holds no relevance. I mean, to me, if I was a parent, that would be

one of the number one things. I would be thinking about that all the time. What did he have that was on his mind that he needed to talk to me about? So no judgment, but in my opinion, I think that whatever Bryce had on his mind that he needed to talk to his mom about, I think that that is very relevant in this case. I definitely agree.

I think he had to have been met with some kind of mysterious situation that just happened to occur after he was acting very strange. It all seems like a weird coincidence, but none of this makes sense anyway. Yeah, and definitely, you know, this case leaves you with more questions than answers,

for sure. Numerous vigils have been held in order to keep Bryce's case in the public eye. On his 20th birthday, his parents went to Castellac Lake to mark the occasion. In order to help bring in new leads, the list pieces set up the Find Bryce List Pisa Facebook page. Currently, his case is classified as endangered missing. If alive he would be 25 years old. If you have any information regarding the case you can contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office at 323-890-5500 or

tips can be submitted through email via findbriceluspisa at gmail.com. Thank you everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much everyone and next week we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. Make sure to follow us on Instagram at Going West Podcast. We will be posting photos about this case on our Instagram and make sure to go over to our Twitter at GoingWestPod. Remember, if you're not a member of the GoingWest Gang, check out patreon.com slash GoingWestPodcast for awesome special content and phone and services.

And also remember, we still have some key fobs in our store, which you can find on our website at goingwestpodcast.com. So for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you. you