Going West: True Crime - Jason Landry // 153

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

In December of 2020, a 21-year-old man headed home from college for the holiday's to see his parents in Texas. During his drive over, he was involved in a single-car accident, and the bizarre clues left behind turned his disappearance into a real mystery. This is the story of Jason Landry. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast  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 host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Again, hope everyone had a lovely holiday, Hope everyone got to see their family or their friends and had a nice little break. Heath and I were in Oregon, it was very nice. Yeah, it was lovely. Got to spend some time with family. Miss Oregon so dearly.

And yeah, this case that we have for you guys today is one we've been wanting to cover for a little while. And we've been suggested it by a few different people. Yeah, I mean, this just happened last year, but ever since we heard about it, we have gotten a lot of recommendations. Finally, we're doing it. So thank you guys so much for everybody

who has suggested it. And thank you guys for tuning in today. Yeah, we're actually coming up on the one-year anniversary of Jason's disappearance. So it's very, very important for you guys to share this episode. His family is still looking for answers. So please, please help his you guys to share this episode, his family is still looking for answers, so please, please help his family out and share this episode. Absolutely, so thank you guys for

listening, thank you for sharing, we appreciate you guys so much. Alright guys, this is episode 153 So let's get into it. New images in the search for a Texas State University student who went missing while driving home from college 10 months ago. Caldwell County investigators found Jason Landry's crash car in Luling last December. Investigators say they found Jason's car with the lights on, keys in the ignition, and his phone let by. We believe that Jason Landry is still somewhere here. He just hasn't been discovered yet. Jason Landry went missing on December 13, 2020, while on his drive from San Marcus,

back to his home in Houston for Christmas break. A volunteer firefighter found Jason's car crashed and abandoned near this field close to Luling, according to the Calville County Sheriff's Office. The thing is apparent, you visualize your child walking down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, not knowing anyone, looking for help. And that's. So that's, that's, that stays with you. Jason David Landry was born on July 29, 1999 to parents Kent and Lisa Landry in Augusta, Georgia,

but his family lived in South Carolina at the time before moving to Austin, Texas, Mississippi, and then officially moving to Missouri City, Texas, where Jason would grow up. Missouri City is located just outside of Houston in the South-Eastern part of the state, with a population of around 75,000 residents today. Jason was the youngest of three siblings, which included his brother Kyle and his sister Jessica, and he grew up in a very, very loving family. Jason's father Kent was a retired attorney who eventually became a pastor at their local church, which was

in Missouri City, Texas, and Jason's mother Lisa worked as a CPA. She always said that Jason had a smile that he could use to get away with pretty much anything, and he was described as the creative one of his siblings. He loved to play music, especially the guitar and the trumpet, and he loved to skateboard and play video games. Some describe Jason as a bit shy, but always ready for a new adventure because he was more of a free spirit than his other siblings as well. Jason attended Ridge Point High School in Missouri City before graduating in the spring of 2018. And after graduation, he began attending Sam Houston University,

which is located in Huntsville, Texas, in the fall. Sam Houston wasn't Jason's first choice for college, but he was glad that he got in, but he spent the first year of college fully embracing his new freedom, and what I mean by this is he went out and partied quite a bit. As they do. Yeah. And so he also spent a lot of time with his girlfriend. This caused his grades to drop and after that first year, Jason made the decision to transfer and attend college closer to home at a local junior college. And at this point, you know, it was kind of a point of reflection and planning for Jason

because he really wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do with his life. But after doing some research and thinking about it some more, he decided that he wanted to attend Texas State, located in San Marcos, which is about a three-hour drive west of Missouri City, and 53 minutes south of Austin, Texas. The reason Jason chose this college was because he loved music, as Daphne previously mentioned, and he found out that Texas State had a really great audio engineering program that he could apply for after finishing his first year there. And Jason was accepted into Texas State and was all set to start his first semester there in the fall of 2020.

His parents moved him into his apartment, which was nearby campus. And just as classes were beginning to set in, Texas State actually shut down its class courses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And they moved everything to an online setting, which we know, I mean, just remembering from last year, pretty much everybody did that. Yeah. And that was a huge, huge struggle for students because you're first year at this new college and you don't even get to meet anybody, you're basically just stuck in your apartment. My younger brother graduated from Berkeley in 2020.

So it's like, I know that for students, this was a really hard time because nothing was normal as it was for everybody anyway, but yeah, so he transferred to online classes. So Jason pretty much just sat in his one bedroom apartment and as described by his father Kent, Jason just kind of fell into a slump and, quote, began self-medicating with pot. Jason felt so isolated during this quarantine time on campus that he decided to get a job at a local Jimmy John sandwich shop in San Marcos because it was really the only way for him to be around other people.

He had previously worked at the Jimmy John's in Missouri City so he already knew the job well and this was a good opportunity for him to kind of save some money until classes started up again in person. Jason's first fall semester at Texas State was finally coming to an end, and he had finished his finals and he was excited to come home for the holidays to see his family back in Missouri Texas. Jason's brother Kyle was attending Texas A&M University, which is actually located in Austin, so pretty close to where Jason was, and he had also planned to be home at the same time as Jason. It was now December 13th, 2020, and Kenton-Lisa Landry weren't exactly sure when their

boys were set to arrive home, but they just figured that it would be some time that week. Jason's friends from high school, who were all, you know, spread out at different colleges and various states had planned a big meetup back in Missouri City that night, where they were going to hang out and, you know, play video games like Call of Duty. Jason originally planned to stay at his apartment that night in San Marcos, but then at some point he just kind of changed his mind and he was like, well, I, you know, all my friends are meeting up, I want to be there too. So he had planned to leave that apartment at 8 p.m. on Sunday, December 13th from San Marcos, but that time ended up being about 10.55 p.m. So a few hours later.

Jason's parents were already in bed at this time, but Kent, his father, later stated that if he knew that Jason was going to drive in the middle of the night, he would have just told him to hold off, especially knowing that Jason had only made that drive two times previously. At approximately 11.05 pm, 21-year-old Jason made his way onto Texas Highway 80, heading south toward Caldwell County in his gray-colored Nissan Ultima. We have this information because Jason was using the Waze app, which is that navigation app. And at 11.07pm, Jason entered Caldwell County and passed through the towns of Ventress

and Stairtown, and eventually into the town of Lulling, which is a jump-off point to get on to another highway that would lead him to Interstate 10, then Interstate 10 would take him almost all the way back to Missouri City. Sorry, I know that was kind of confusing, but basically he's en route to his parents' house. Yeah, so he's passing through this small town of Lulling, and for those of you who live in central Texas, you probably know exactly where that's at. Which I do not, but anyway.

The thing is, is that when Jason got into Lulling at around 11.30pm that night, he was approaching the stoplight where he needed to make a right-hand turn, which would lead him to the interstate. But at this time, he received a Snapchat notification that for whatever reason, momentarily shut off his Waze app. This made Jason miss his turn on Magnolia Avenue, which again would have led him to interstate 10, and that's the way he needed to go home. So instead, Jason drove through that light that led him to a street called East Austin Street that eventually turns into Spruce Avenue and then into Salt Flat Road, also known as Highway 128,

which would take Jason North instead of East where he should have been heading. And after that, Jason never turned his ways app back on. And that's the weird thing here. His mom mentions that, you know, maybe he dropped his phone in between the seat. And we're going to talk about this later, but where his dad Kent found Jason's phone was in that really hard to reach spot, you know, the one that's in between the console and your driver's seat. Right. So maybe he was either looking at the Snapchat notification or he was like, oh shoot, I missed my turn. I need to figure this out. I do know that ways would have

rerouted him. So he wouldn't have needed to pick up his phone to do that, you know. So I guess I just wonder when he dropped his phone. But anyway, I mean, again, you know, this is the third time that he's making this drive, so he doesn't know where he's going on his own. Exactly. And there is a sign for Interstate 10 at that stoplight that Jason missed, but I have two comments about this.

One, the sign is pretty small and may have been a lot less visible at night. And two, Jason hadn't made this journey very many times, just like Daphne had just said, so he probably wouldn't have automatically known to turn for that highway without his ways apt-telling him. An hour after Jason had passed through Lolling and missed his turn, a local volunteer fireman found Jason's car crashed in the 2300 block of Salt Flat Road at approximately 1231 AM.

And just for reference, Jason had about two more hours to drive from Lolling to Missouri City, Texas. But the strange thing here is that no one was found inside of Jason's vehicle. So when this firemen approached, no one was in there. And the authorities were called immediately. Now this road isn't paved. It's more like a packed gravel road, so it's kind of loose gravel. And it's easy to see how a car could have spun out here, especially in the dark. And obviously Jason didn't know where he was, so that makes it even more understandable.

It appeared that Jason's car had fish-tailed on the shoulder of the road, causing him to over-correct, and in turn, crash into a tree and barbed wire fence on the opposite side of the road. Before you continue, let's kind of elaborate on what this means to fishtail on the shoulder. Sure, yeah. So basically, you know, it's when the back end of your car starts to get a little bit loose and squirrely kind of moves side to side.

And essentially, you're trying to correct your car to stay straight, but in turn, that kind of makes you spin out. So that's essentially what happened on this gravel road. Great job, great explanation. Thank you. Sorry, you're kind of hard to, like, you know, detail fish tailing, but there you go. You did it.

That's essentially what it is. Yeah. So when local law enforcement finally made it to Jason's car, his headlights were on, the keys were in the ignition, his passenger door was locked, and no airbags were deployed, but Jason was nowhere to be found. Kenton Lisa received a phone call at 1.30am on December 15, so that morning,

from police explaining that their son had been in a car accident, but they thought that it wasn't a very serious car accident, well at least not enough to cause fatal injuries. At first, Lisa thought that the crash had to do with her son Kyle instead of Jason, because police mentioned that it occurred in Caldwell County, which is where Texas A&M is located. But after they explained the description of the vehicle, they quickly realized that Jason had been the one involved. Ken could see where Jason's phone was due to the fine my friends app on his phone. So without hesitation, he jumped into action and hopped in his car making his way towards

lulling. The officer who originally called the landries mentioned that they found Jason's black backpack at the crash site about 100 feet from his car. And inside it was his wallet, which they actually left in Jason's car when it was towed to the impound lot. Kent arrived in Lulling between 4.30 and 5am, so a few hours after the crash occurred. But when he finally reached the crash site, he realized that he was the only person on the road searching for his son. Yeah, and this is really strange because police will later say that, you know, this kind of thing happens all the time.

People, you know, crash their car or they get in a, like a DUI accident and they wanna walk away from the scene cause they don't wanna get caught and go jail. Totally get that, totally. And then they come back, usually come back for the car like two or three days later or something, you know? Right, oh, I totally see that.

And I think from their point of view, they're probably like, he's not missing nothing happened. That's probably what they were thinking. Exactly. But, you know, obviously to Kent, he's like, why is nobody looking for him? Because he doesn't, he's not, his head's not going there, you know. So the highway patrolman who had informed the Landry's of Jason's crash had apparently gone home and went to bed without telling anyone else on duty that night about the crash, nor that a 21-year-old kid was still missing. And in fact, during Ken's search of the area for Jason, he found a shirt with a Christian Camelogo on it, shorts, spongebob socks, underwear, slide sandals, and a wrist watch that all belong to

Jason, and they were just lying in the road yards away from where the crash occurred. So Ken of course knew right away that these items were his sons and what are they doing off his body just chilling on the ground. Yeah, I think that's the most interesting part about this case is the fact that all of Jason's clothes are found right there next to his car, including his wristwatch, which is interesting too. Yeah. Back at the impound lot, the clear and visible damage to Jason's car was on the front driver's side area and the back driver's side area, and his back window was also smashed out during the crash. Inside the vehicle was his backpack

which police had previously put in there. A plastic bag containing toiletry items, a baseball hat, a tumbler with a dead bait of fish in it that belonged to Jason. What's that about? I don't know if maybe he was just taking his pet fish home with him. And then it just died? Well, I'm assuming maybe after the crash it froze or something,

because it was pretty cold out that night. So, anyway, inside the backpack was a laptop, gaming equipment, Jason's wallet, and a small amount of marijuana, as well as a few personal items, and his cell phone was found between the center console like we mentioned earlier in the driver's seat. Which is as you said a very tough spot to have to fish it out.

Exactly. You have to dig your phone out of there and his father can't actually mention this in an interview as well. He's dropped his phone there many times. He can understand why Jason didn't immediately grab his phone from that spot because it's hard to get your hand in there. So anyway, all of Jason's personal belongings were released to his father Kent, but Kent turned over Jason's phone and laptop to police in order to be analyzed. The strange thing here is that no blood was found at

the scene of the crash or inside Jason's car, but there was blood found on the elastic band of Jason's underwear, and there was small blood spots found on the inside of his shorts. Police theorized that the blood may have come from either the barbed wire fence next to the crash or possibly the rough foliage in the area. next to the crash, or possibly the rough foliage in the area. Jason's brother Kyle woke up that morning, the morning of the 15th, to his slew of text messages and missed calls from his mother explaining the situation that occurred much earlier that morning, and he knew that he needed to be there with his father Kent to help try and locate his brother Jason.

Everyone was really just helping that Jason had found a ride either to Houston or back to his apartment in San Marcos, but no one expected what was too unfold. Caldwell County Sheriff Sergeant William Miller told the family and the press that this kind of scenario quote, happens all the time. That they often find abandoned cars on the side of the road and usually the owner will come back a few days later to retrieve it, like Heath brought up. The officer who first notified the landries that Jason was missing said that the temperatures were very low that night, and the wind was immense, making it even colder than usual. And we did look this up in that area. It would have been around 36 degrees,

like late at night when the crash would have occurred. We also read something that said that it got to be 19 degrees, but we couldn't figure out exactly what time that happened. And if it for sure happened, because the average of that night was around 36 degrees Fahrenheit. And Lulling is a particularly small town with a population of just 6,000 residents, and a majority of them working in the nearby oil field, so it's not a bustling city, and if you didn't live there, it would most likely just be like a gas stop on your way to another

destination, no offense Lulling. By the time Kyle arrived in Lulling that afternoon, his mother Lisa, his father Ken, and his cousins as well as aunts and uncles were already there speaking with law enforcement about Jason. And I want to give you guys some geographies on where this crash occurred, so it happened only 37 miles from Jason's apartment in San Marcos, and just 4 miles outside of Lulling, so this was definitely a back road. The first day, police spent trying to locate Jason's friends and acquaintances, who may

have had some knowledge as to his whereabouts, because he was pretty active on social media, as we've already mentioned, as well as social apps like Snapchat and other things. And they also focused on retrieving information from his phone, but sadly the first day yielded no clues. Investigators were worried that the weather was going to be even colder that night than, you know, what we have already previously mentioned. So they were worried that, you know, that was going to be a big factor in finding Jason. So they knew they had to work fast. But again, that

first night and second night nothing was found. The next day, which was December 16th, a team of search dogs was sent to the area surrounding the crash site, and those canines led police to a small pond located nearby. It was believed that Jason may have hit his head during the crash and possibly fell into this pond, so the help of Texas Equisurch was acquired by law enforcement to help in the search. And we have talked about Equisurch before in previous episodes, but for those of you who don't know, it's essentially a non-profit organization created by a man named Tim Miller,

whose daughter Laura was abducted and murdered in 1984 in Texas. Tim created this resource in the year 2000 to help the families of missing persons find their loved ones through whatever means necessary. And those resources include divers, drones, sonar equipment, boats, and more, and all of those things were used to try and locate Jason. The pond that law enforcement was searching was eventually drained, but nothing was found in the bottom.

For nine whole days and nights, helicopters, drones, ATVs, canines, infrared cameras, and volunteers on foot and even horseback were used to try and find Jason, but the hope of finding him alive was now starting to really diminish. Overall, 31 square miles was searched in just 9 days. And many rumors started to transpire about what could have possibly happened to Jason. You know, of course, I mean, it seemingly makes no sense, so people, they don't want to talk about it. Exactly.

Some actually explained that the area where Jason's car was found was known as a drug trafficking area. Other speculated that Jason may have been carjacked at the stoplight in Lulling, and that his attackers may have disposed of his body after killing him. Of course, these are like full-on speculations. There's no proof of any of this. Yeah, there's no evidence to show that any of that occurred or that area is run by drug traffickers. Right, it's just people talking, which I think is good in some ways to have people talking and kind of, you know, because somebody might know something.

Sure, yeah. So another theory is that Jason was picked up by a passerby with ill intentions and that he was possibly killed that way. But one interesting detail about the scene of the crash that has us really questioning so many things is the fact that Jason's clothes were found near the crash and that night, as we said, temperatures were below freezing in that part of central Texas. But there may be an explanation for this.

There is a condition called paradoxical undressing, which may have occurred in Jason after the crash. So, it's essentially this phenomenon in which a person who suffers from hypothermia becomes so cold that their body responds as if they're burning up or as if they're on fire. The thought is that when Jason crashed his car, it may have knocked among conscious anywhere from maybe half an hour to 45 minutes, and upon waking up, he was already suffering from the effects of hypothermia, again total speculation. This would cause Jason to strip his clothes off, which would eventually be found by his father

Kent. And again, this has not been confirmed, but it's definitely an interesting thought, and it's been proven in other cases of life-threatening hypothermia. We also know that the clothing found by Kent was the outfit that Jason was wearing the night that he was traveling, because photos from that night confirm this fact, so we know that they weren't clothes like from a suitcase or something. Exactly, yeah, we know that those were the clothes that were on Jason's body when that crash occurred. So along with the effects of paradoxical and dressing comes the phenomenon of terminal

burrowing, also known as hide and die syndrome. And just like paradoxical and dressing, terminal burrowing occurs at the height of hypothermia and is essentially known as the final stage. A person suffering from hypothermia may seek shelter in order to protect themselves in their final moments. Researchers in Germany claim that this is

an autonomous process of the brainstem, which can actually be seen in animals when hibernating. It's a primal instinct that takes over when our brain is trying to process near death. And if this was the case in Jason's disappearance, it would make finding him so much harder. I do think this is definitely an interesting angle, but I will say, with the canines, with the equisurge, I just feel like, you know, to me, if Jason did go unconscious in his car, and then it was really cold that night so the inside of the car got cold as well, which brought down his body temperature and made him enter hypothermia, I would understand a little bit more of him leaving the vehicle and taking off his clothes and then maybe burrowing himself.

But it still doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either because I would figure if that was the case, if he got out of his car and he was walking down the road, trying to find like a house or something so that he could get some help, to me, maybe he would have suffered hypothermia further away from the car, and that's maybe where he would have

undressed. But then where did the cuts come or the blood come from on his underwear and the underwear? The band. The band, yes. And the inside of his shorts. Like, where would that come into play with hypothermia? Yeah, I don't really know.

Again, you know, police believe that maybe he ran into the barbed wire fence, and that's how he kind of cut up his stomach. But we don't know. We actually don't know if that's the case, because I don't think that any barbed wire fence was tested for any blood or any DNA. Yeah, I just feel like, of course, the hypothermia aspect is important, but the fact that his body has not been found, and again, there were canines out there searching. There was equa-search out there, and they have all this fancy equipment.

I don't see him never being found. Yeah, and we're going to also talk about that as well, some other resources that were used in this search. Exactly, and one of the most infuriating theories of course is that Jason staged his own disappearance to run away, but I mean this honestly doesn't make any sense. So first, Jason's own father mentioned that he wasn't much of a planner, and also that he and his wife don't believe that Jason would ever do that to his family. Another reason that doesn't hold any weight is because Jason was set

to meet his friends that night, and his belongings found on the side of the road kind of tell us that he was prepared to do so. Yeah, he would have never packed all those things if he was just like, I'm gonna leave now. You know, this is, it's important to bring this aspect up because it comes up in every disappearance case, but come on, he didn't have any freaking clothes on. So, he didn't have anything with him and it was cold, so where would he have gone? I mean, come on. You know, his gaming equipment, toiletry items, etc. help us understand that he did intend

to make it back home. And I also don't believe that he would have left his cell phone and his wallet at the crash. And I honestly don't believe he would have crashed his car in that way and staged the event because there would be no real reason to do this. This is something that, you know, I never understand with people saying, oh, they probably just left on their own

and started a new life as if that's something that people do all the time. Like, yeah, that's like a very rare thing that happens. Right, but to me, I'm always like, you need money and you need a car or a mode of transportation. You're not just gonna crash your car in the middle of nowhere

and leave everything including the literal clothes on your back. Right, and he could have just easily left his car anywhere if this was his plan to like start a new life. Right, and I know people probably bring this up because of quarantine and he was kind of going through this rough patch as many people were during 2020, of course, that's super valid, but this doesn't make any sense to me.

And law enforcement doesn't believe this is the case either. And if they don't think that, which I feel like is usually kind of a cop out for law enforcement, like, oh, he probably started a new life. Right. Yeah. They don't even think this. So. And also, an officer described the trains surrounding the crash site on Salt Flat Road

saying that that part of Texas is prone to significant weather that includes flooding. He mentioned that near Jason's car is a creek called Plum Creek. And he goes on to say that there aren't many homes in this area and it's rural because of this flooding. He does admit that the train isn't very difficult to navigate, aside from some brush and some miskeet, but there are many wells in this area that could pose a threat if you're walking alone, you know, at night.

So there's also that possibility. We briefly talked about this possibility in our very first going west episode on the tragic case of Brandon Swanson. There was also wells in that area where Brandon Swanson disappeared and so that was kind of a possibility. Yes and for anybody who is wondering and asking where first seven episodes are they got lost. So I'm so sorry about that. We do want to recover them, especially Brandon Swanson's case because that one's crazy And I do know a lot of people compare his case to Jason's case. So Carry on. Yeah, and in fact, Jason's case is extremely reminiscent of Brandon's case, which is still unsolved to this day. The terrain in central Texas is very flat, dry, and pretty unremarkable cattle land, but also very vast.

So if Jason did leave his car that night to find help, I'm curious how far he would have had to walk to go find this help. And we have to remember as well, his car was stuck, so he wouldn't have been able to drive out. He would have had to have taken off on foot or just sit in his car. And again, like Keith said earlier, this is a very rural area, So probably not a lot of people driving by. Yeah. And the fact that the keys, his keys were found in the ignition, I'm wondering if it was possible for him to turn the car over because he could have potentially turned the heat on that way. Yes, I was thinking that too. But the fact that that didn't happen, I'm wondering if maybe that

wasn't, you know, like a plausible thing. I wonder too, and I just, I wonder, we'll get into this, but I wonder why he left his car in the first place, because your car is your safe spot. Again, of course, you can only sit there for so long before you're like, I need to go search for help, but I don't, I just don't really know why he would leave. The interesting thing to me is that if Jason crashed somewhere around 1130, just an hour later is when this volunteer firefighter found Jason's car. Right, so that's the thing too, is it's not like this was an absolutely deserted area.

You know no one is driving on this road. Like people were, so that's why I'm saying not to blame him at all for leaving, but I do wonder why he left his car. And you know, why was that fireman out there? I read some reports that, you know, he was just like checking the area or walking the area, which is kind of concerning because. It's so late at night.

Why is he doing that? Yeah, it's so late at night and it's also four miles outside of lolling. You gotta wonder, kind of strange. So Texas State criminology expert, Dr. Kim Rosmo, has been working with law enforcement on drone imaging to try and find Jason and or his remains. And basically a drone will take thousands of images

and those are scanned through a computer system that is able to detect color. For example, if a person's wearing like a red shirt when they go missing, the computer will scan the images taken by the drone to find only red colored items. Well, in Jason's case, we know that his clothes were found by his car, which makes the search harder. But police, as well as Jason's family,

believe that at this point, sadly, Jason is deceased, so the computer is scanning for white items in order to find bones. Once the computer hits on the location of bones, investigators would move to the spot, and then determine if the bones are human or animal. And then another resource being used in the search is called Geofencing. So essentially it's a perimeter search set up by a GPS software program that can detect cell phone locations in a specific geographical area. A cell phone tower can dump previous information on a specific date and time in order to see who may have been in that area. And we obviously know that Jason's phone was in the area, as well as the volunteer firefighter,

who made the call that night between 11.30 pm and 12.30 am. But if another cell phone is detected in the area at that time, the person may be looked at as a person of interest. And this is really important with what Heath is about to go into if somebody else is potentially involved in Jason's disappearance. Yeah, and I love that they're doing geofencing because it's, you know, kind of revolutionary and new technology where they're able to see how many cell phones were in that area who used those cell phones. So that's really important because we know that Jason and the volunteer firefighter, as you just said, were in that area. But if there's a third person, it's like, okay,

who's this third person? It's amazing. And here's another theory that police believe may have been a possibility. They think that it's possible that after Jason's crash, he was walking along the road looking for help, and either a drunk driver, or just possibly someone who simply didn't see Jason, may have hit him with their vehicle, killing him, and then they disposed of his body to cover their tracks. You know, and it's pretty dark on those back roads, especially when you consider that not very many houses are in that area producing light. A law enforcement officer confirmed that the moon was also not very visible that night,

making it even harder to see. So you can imagine, if Jason's walking along this road, it's pretty much pitch black. If someone did hit Jason on accident, they may have stripped his clothes so that if his remains were found, it would make it a lot harder to identify. Which I get, but I also feel like that's really quick thinking instead of being like, oh shit, I just hit this guy, he's dead, I gotta throw him in my car.

Like to be like, let me just take off all of his clothes, including his watch, which by the way, if you hit him, maybe a little paint chip from your car was on his shirt or something, you know? That's not very smart. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I see this as a possibility, but also I can see how it might not be. Well, I definitely see, sorry, before you continue, that, like, why this would happen,

and that it could happen, you know, of course, he gets into an accident, he gets out, tries to flag someone down. That is super probable, and it's super probable that he would have been hit. So I'm not saying that's not possible because it totally would make sense. Absolutely, but I do think one thing that we can rule out here is probably robbery, given the fact that all of Jason's personal belongings were found including his wallet. Of course, this is only speculation, but at this point, it's all the investigators have to go on. The fact in this case that I have to keep coming back to is that Jason's clothes were

found so close to his crashed vehicle. If hypothermia wasn't the case, then what else could explain his clothing being there? Which to me, I still just am not sold on the hypothermia thing. And really quick too, I know his phone was stuck in that crevice, but obviously, when you crash your car, you want to call for help. So I also wonder why he didn't just go down there and fish out his phone, because you can't get it out. It's not like, oh, it's just lost forever. You can get it out there, it's just kind of hard. Also, it's a possibility that there was no reception, so using his phone would have been obsolete. He couldn't you know But wouldn't he have not known that unless he got his phone to check for service?

Very true and in this day and age you can make an emergency call when you're at a service, right? I think you can in some instances. I don't know how far You could do that like outside of town. I don't I don't know I again the whole phone thing is such a mystery because we're like, when did he drop it? Was he in his right mind when he got out of his car? Because if he was, why didn't he grab his phone? There's just so many questions.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point though. Why not grab your phone to see if maybe it's possible that you have reception and try to make a call? That's like the first thing you do before you flagged on help. I feel like you would want to call for help, especially a 21-year-old kid in the year of 2020. Yeah, exactly. A private investigator working Jason's case named Abel Pena, who previously worked for the FBI, believes that Jason may have not been alone that night. His nonprofit called Project Absentis says that there may have been a second or even third person in the car with Jason that night. He hopes that circumstantial evidence that a crime was committed may allow him access to

a warrant that will allow him to look at cell phone records. He also came to this conclusion due to quote extensive interviews, so that's really interesting. That is really interesting, but I think as well with the geofencing that this would tell us as well if anybody else was in the area, so I hope that those results will come fairly quickly because that would be huge. Yeah, and I think they're still working on that right now. It's now been almost a year since Jason disappeared, and seven full-scale searches have been conducted, with police targeting 86 points of interest where they believe Jason may be located.

Overall, 31,000 acres have been searched, and currently there is a $10,000 reward put into place for any information leading to Jason's whereabouts. If you have any information, please call 726-7771359 or call the Caldwell County Sheriff's Office at 512-398-6777. There's also a Facebook page, which is facebook.com slash Find Jason Landry, as well as an official Twitter page at Find Jason Landry,

where you can find more information. Jason's family has been desperately seeking answers for an entire year, and they need all the help they can get. So please share this episode or visit Jason's website, which we will link on our social media account as well as the description of this episode to learn how of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this case, and on Friday, we'll have another

case for you guys to dive into. Yes, cases like this just really stumped me because when there's just this little information, you can't do anything but just completely take ideas out of thin air. Yeah, and I know a lot of people hate speculation, and we don't like it either if it's not going to lead to anything. Well, especially if it's kind of off base where it is pulled out of thin air. It kind of sucks because you're like, I have nothing to back this up, but it kind of needs to be done in these cases when there's really no information because we just need to figure out what the hell happened in.

Exactly. And it's been, you know, like we said, almost a year since Jason went missing. So his parents haven't had answers. And I know a lot of people, you know, a lot of families with missing loved ones have suffered for many, many years. But if you can, please share this episode. It may help in some small way.

Yeah, and as we all know, the more time that passes in a case, the harder it is to solve. So let's get this case out there. Thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you for everybody who has suggested it to us, and we really appreciate you guys so much. And we will keep you guys updated if any new information comes in on this case. Alright guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh

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