Jason Landry /// Part 1 /// 860

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Speaker 4 There is now a cash reward being offered in the case of a missing Texas State student. It's been a painful six months for his family, who is now asking anyone who knows anything to come forward.

Speaker 4 Janelle Baluta spoke to Jason's father.

Speaker 5 Jason's dad says they're still physically searching for his son every week, but says this reward is another tool. Hopefully it will entice someone who might know something to come forward.

Speaker 5 He's counting the days.

Speaker 6 Today's day 156, so we're over five months.

Speaker 5 As any father would.

Speaker 6 They've done extensive physical searches. They've interviewed, I don't even know how many witnesses and different possible scenarios.

Speaker 5 156 days since his son Jason Landry went missing without a trace.

Speaker 6 His car was found at about 12.30, engine running, lights on.

Speaker 5 For the first time since Jason was last seen back in December, the family is offering a reward, $10,000 to anyone who has information that helps find him.

Speaker 6 A reward is a tool like any other to hopefully motivate the one person who might know something.

Speaker 5 Reward money that's being offered by Jason's family and friends.

Speaker 6 I would like nothing better than to be able to reward that money for the person who comes forward and helps us locate our son.

Speaker 5 He says there's so many theories into what happened that night. Jason left Texas State University in San Marcus on December 13th.

Speaker 5 He was on his way to his parents' house for Christmas break, but crashed his car on the way near Luling. That's where he vanished.

Speaker 5 Cell phone records show Jason's actions up until an hour before his car was found.

Speaker 6 But after that, there's no cell phone activity. We don't know, frankly, what happened in the next hour.

Speaker 5 He's hoping this reward will entice someone to fill in the blanks.

Speaker 6 He was a great kid and he wouldn't run away. That's just not, that's not him.
He would not stay away willingly. So until we know something, we're going to keep hoping and praying.

Speaker 5 If you or someone you know have any information on where Jason might be, you're asked to call authorities or go to the missing person Jason Landry Facebook page and submit a tip.

Speaker 5 There is an expiration on the reward. We have all the information on our website, khou.com.
Guys, back to you.

Speaker 2 Jason Landry was born on July 29th, 1999, to parents Kent and Lisa Landry. Having two older siblings, Jessica and Kyle, Jason was known to be outgoing and charismatic.

Speaker 2 He was the goofball of the family. He's the baby and the goofball.

Speaker 2 From his early childhood to his adult years, Jason enjoyed cars, anything involving the outdoors, animals, and he always could be counted on for three things: wearing silly socks, having a cookie cake every year for his birthday, and having a deep love for Swedish fish candy.

Speaker 2 Now, Jason's mom, Lisa, says, quote, Jason had the best smile. He could get away with anything.
He loved music, he loved playing all sorts of instruments, and he gave the best hugs, end quote.

Speaker 2 Good looking kid. Yes, when we catch up with Jason here in his life, he had just recently managed to complete his first semester at Texas State University, even though this was the COVID year.

Speaker 2 So, regardless of the effects of COVID-19 and what a pandemic can do to a school year, Jason had one semester down, one under his belt at the Texas State University.

Speaker 2 And by all accounts, he was eager and excited to get back to his hometown of Missouri City, Texas, to spend some time with family and friends over the long winter break.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there's something exciting about coming back home when you're on your right path. If you're not on your right path, you're like, I'm dreading seeing my friends.
I'm dreading seeing my family.

Speaker 2 I'm going to have to answer all these questions. But when you're on your right path and you're feeling good about life, you kind of want to show yourself off a little bit to your family.

Speaker 2 I love getting back together with the old gang, regardless of the situation. I think it's the best for me anyway.
So Jason packs up his Nissan Ultima. He's putting some of his belongings in there.

Speaker 2 And the reports are that he left his apartment around 1055 p.m. on December 13th, ready to begin his destination home.

Speaker 2 So this is like a two to three hour drive to his parents' home in Missouri City, Texas. Yeah, so not too crazy of a drive.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So the plan was to drive back home, stay at his folks' place, and added bonus.

Speaker 2 Actually, the best bonus, you get to see a bunch of your buds from back in the day and hopefully, get some rad Christmas gifts as well.

Speaker 2 But none of that cool stuff is going to happen because Jason does not make it back to his parents' place.

Speaker 2 In fact, there is every indication that he didn't make it very far on his nighttime journey at all.

Speaker 2 He disappeared between point A, which was his apartment in San Marcos, Texas, where he was attending school, living, and working,

Speaker 2 and point B, Missouri City, Texas. This is approximately a 165-mile drive, working out to be roughly...

Speaker 2 There's three very common routes that one would take, and they all

Speaker 2 take about two hours and 45 minutes to closer to three hours drive time. That's enough time to listen to two, maybe three True Crime Garage episodes.
Yes, or three Motley Crew albums.

Speaker 2 But while he sets out on this three-hour tour, he unfortunately he never makes it. This is a disappearance of a young man.
His vanishing is surrounded by mysterious circumstances.

Speaker 2 It's almost as if he drove off into the dark, cold night and then decided to step out of his vehicle and into a black hole.

Speaker 2 And if that's not an overall consuming picture, this case, this true crime story, Jason's vanishing, his disappearance has consumed many of those. who have come looking for answers.

Speaker 2 Yeah, out of all the missing person cases we've looked into, this one, I would rate probably in my top five as far as just bizarre. How bizarre, how bizarre.
It's a true mystery.

Speaker 2 So let's fill in and fill out that night. What was the timeline? What were the details? And do we have any evidence as to what happened to this young man or really any clue at all?

Speaker 2 Where did he go?

Speaker 2 And listen carefully because your guesses are going to be probably just as good, if not better, than ours from one of the truly greatest magazines of all time and one of the few great magazines that's still in existence to this day this is from texas monthly and it reads the day before he went missing meaning jason landry he was thinking about socks socks a colorful pair that featured a monkey in a suit and a tie holding a briefcase in one hand and a banana in the other with the words monkey business stitched across each ankle.

Speaker 2 They were the highlight of an extensive Christmas list he texts to his mother on December 12, 2020.

Speaker 2 So this text, according to Texas Monthly, came about a day before Jason sets out on his trip back to Missouri City, Texas. This was kind of coincidental for us here, Captain, as you know.

Speaker 2 We had every intention of covering this case and it was already on our calendar.

Speaker 2 And it just so happens that a publication that does fantastic reporting and very underrated reporting on true crime stories, Texas Monthly, just so happened to include this story in their most recent publication.

Speaker 2 So it very much coincidence that this sort of lined up. for us and them all around the same time.
Texas Monthly goes on to tell us that normally Jason was the opposite of a list maker.

Speaker 2 He wasn't a planner. He started Sam Houston State as a clean-cut kid.
This is a couple of years earlier.

Speaker 2 After leaving home, he embraced his inner slacker and he really, according to the magazine, didn't take much interest in classwork. So after,

Speaker 2 it looks like after two years at Sam Houston State, he decided to transfer to Texas State University and he was going to buckle down, have more focus, and focus on getting better grades.

Speaker 2 But remember, this was the COVID year. It was weird for all kinds of reasons, of course, right?

Speaker 2 And according to the publication, the impact of a semester of remote classes and isolation with COVID-19 was toxic for Jason Landry.

Speaker 2 In the long-form Brilliant Think piece put together by Peter Holly for Texas Monthly, Jason Landry is described by his father.

Speaker 2 So his dad's name is kent as we had said i think we may be talking a good deal about kent as we go through this true crime story but his dad describes his boy as quote pure extrovert full of pure optimism someone who had been making friends with strangers since he was a toddler to cope jason retreated into a cloud of pot smoke quote given His personality, isolating him was one of the worst things you could do to him, said his father.

Speaker 2 He was stuck in a small apartment in a small room on an empty floor. It was like solitary confinement for him.
And I am not surprised that he self-medicated.

Speaker 2 I have a lot of thoughts on this, but this is brought up a lot. And I don't know what effect or what the thoughts are as far as his emotional state on his disappearance.

Speaker 2 Because, yes, it's the COVID time. So if you are isolated and you're heading back to see your family and friends, well, guess what? You're going to be kind of happy.

Speaker 2 You're probably going to be out of that funk the day before he goes missing. I mean, he's talking about these goofy monkey socks.
Seems like my kind of, my kind of guy, right?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 this is brought up a lot. I don't know what

Speaker 2 a level of effect this might have had on him going missing. That's

Speaker 2 insightful, and I appreciate the the extra thought there.

Speaker 2 One thing that I will say that I'm very concerned with, and it's not just isolated to Jason's case, it really goes to, and look, I'm no square.

Speaker 2 When COVID hit here, out of boredom, my drinking increased straight up out of boredom. So I'm not immune to any of this stuff.
And I have some experience with some of these things, good and bad.

Speaker 2 And one thing that was concerning of me, me the more I was learning about Jason in this time period in his life

Speaker 2 was his age mixed with that amount of

Speaker 2 recreational drug use is always very concerning to me, regardless of the person. Every situation can be unique, obviously, but it also like

Speaker 2 you know, we're not fully formed at that age. And that really,

Speaker 2 that really scares me with anybody. Again, not just Jason's case, but with anybody.
Yeah, but I also think there's a thing here. There's something at play.

Speaker 2 And I think you see this throughout the investigation. I think you see this throughout the interviews with Jason's father.

Speaker 2 I think his father, which once was a lawyer and now a pastor, I believe, he's going to have a set of ideals for this world and how people live them.

Speaker 2 And I think some of this conversation is him trying to justify his son's actions

Speaker 2 and part of his lifestyle because it just doesn't line up with his.

Speaker 2 And so,

Speaker 2 and I think there's a lot of people that can identify with this out in the communities where you go,

Speaker 2 like, take my father, for example, great guy. He was a detective.

Speaker 2 You know, he lives by a certain set of rules. Those set of rules, I don't live by.

Speaker 2 So, some of my actions don't make sense to him, and some of his actions don't make sense to me. And I think that's the sum of this.

Speaker 2 And I think sometimes his father is a little too concerned with trying to clean up a reputation that almost implying that, like,

Speaker 2 people are smearing his son's name by just stating how he was living his life.

Speaker 2 I don't think most people look down on or ruin Jason's legacy by saying, Well, he smoked some pot and he and he probably drank some beers.

Speaker 2 Okay. Well, yeah.
And I see what you're saying. I will say my takeaway from it was very different.

Speaker 2 One, one thing that I, before we get too far into this, no doubt, and I know you're saying the same, Kent and Lisa fighting very hard for their son.

Speaker 2 The one thing that was

Speaker 2 adding to the sad factor of the story for me was Jason looks a lot like his dad. Like if you have a picture of 20 people

Speaker 2 in it, you can point to the kid and go, yeah, that kid is that guy's son. Absolutely.
That's how much they look like each other,

Speaker 2 in my opinion. So it's December 13th.
It's nearing the holidays. Jason just finished up his first semester at the University in San Marcos, Texas.

Speaker 2 There he was working toward getting accepted into their prestigious sound recording technology program. So think about Jason's to-do list for that year.

Speaker 2 And remember, we had said he transferred with the idea that he was going to buckle down and start taking school seriously. And this is not uncommon.

Speaker 2 Most college kids that I knew, they did a whole lot of screwing around their freshman year. So this is pretty on par for just life in general, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 But Jason's to-do list would be wrapping up

Speaker 2 before heading home for the holidays. So he's got to complete his finals check, finish the first semester, check, and wrapping things up at work so he can go home for a while.
Check.

Speaker 2 He worked at Jimmy Johns. I freaking love Jimmy Johns.
Yes, earlier that week, he had completed his final shift before heading home. Jimmy's Johns, as they like to say.

Speaker 2 Get the number nine in the Italian nightclub. We're starting our timeline on that night, of course, December 13th, 2020.

Speaker 2 And the reports are that Jason Landry was last seen after having packed up his car, leaving to go home around 10.55 p.m.

Speaker 2 All of the best reporting on this case has him leaving or just starting out, starting to hit the road by 11 p.m. that night.
But before Jason leaves, it's late. That's too late, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 I wish he would have slept and

Speaker 2 left the next day. Before he leaves, he does some FaceTime with one of his buddies.
And this is where, this is the part that we start to stray from the short version of the narrative about this case.

Speaker 2 Right. See, while it's true that Jason was going home for the holidays, his folks were not technically expecting him.

Speaker 2 This, for me, at least makes sense because the strange hour, like you're pointing out here, Captain, the strange hour of departure. Because remember, he's last seen leaving at 10.55 to 11 p.m.

Speaker 2 I'm sure mom and dad wouldn't love Jason rolling into their place at the very convenient time of 2 in the morning. Yeah, this makes me think that he was going to meet some friends back home.

Speaker 2 We actually know that to be the case.

Speaker 2 So he's FaceTiming with the buddy who lives in Missouri City that he's actually going to drive to that night.

Speaker 2 And at some point, hanging out with friends will transition into him going to mom and dad's house. They are expecting him for the holidays.

Speaker 2 That date and time of when they were expecting him is is a mystery to me. But even if it's a little early, then he's being a cool son and surprising his mom and dad.
Hey, came home a little early.

Speaker 2 Here I am. So, as I understand it, Captain, Jason was heading home, but the plan was actually to meet up at a friend's house and play video games.

Speaker 2 So, Jason's on FaceTime with this friend who he plans to meet up with later. This is about an hour before he leaves his place.
This is documented. We know that this happened for a fact.

Speaker 2 The friend actually recorded the video for the conversation, but there's no audio. No audio was recorded.
No audio exists, but the video still does. And I watched the video.

Speaker 2 In the video, to me, Jason appears to be very happy. He smiles multiple times.
He seems obviously excited about whatever he's talking about.

Speaker 2 I'm assuming he's talking about hanging out and some of his recent experiences at college, but he seems excited and, like the captain said, seems excited about going home.

Speaker 2 The best I can tell with no audio. Now, in the video, he's also rolling joints.

Speaker 2 He is very obviously discussing the weed that he has. And he is

Speaker 2 very talkative

Speaker 2 in this video, even though you can't hear the sound. I can see his lips moving constantly.
So he's very talkative. And that...

Speaker 2 rings true with what we've been told about his personality. So this is all right on par with his personality.

Speaker 2 Based off of what little I know about him, but what the family and friends and everybody has said about him, this video, nothing about it seems strange to me at all.

Speaker 2 If anything, it seems positive, right?

Speaker 2 When you're looking at pieces of information to try to lead you down whatever rabbit hole you're going, I can look at this video and based on it, I agree with everything you just said about the video.

Speaker 2 But to me, I go, well, this is a positive reinforcement as far as what his mental state could be at that time.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and we have a good solid list of Jason's confirmed or, in some cases, believed movements and actions for the night in question.

Speaker 2 Before we go down that road, San Marcos, where Jason was living at the time, is a city in Hayes County, Texas. The city is a part of the greater Austin metropolitan area.

Speaker 2 San Marcos city limits extend into Caldwell County and Guadalupe County, which we will be talking about Caldwell County quite a bit during this true crime story.

Speaker 2 San Marcos is on the Interstate 35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio. Its population was just over 67,000 people in 2020.
And of course, it's the home of Texas State University.

Speaker 2 So this is a 160-mile trek eastbound as Missouri City is right near Houston.

Speaker 2 This timeline of confirmed or, in some cases, believed movements and actions for the night in question is a mashup from a few different timelines that are out there.

Speaker 2 So, for more detail, and this is from Fox 7 out of Austin, Jason Landry FaceTiming his friend. The friend was in Missouri City approximately one hour before leaving his San Marcos apartment.

Speaker 2 Caldwell County Sheriff's Department, Captain Jeff Ferry,

Speaker 2 said Landry's friend screen recorded the conversation because, quote, Jason was so messed up that he didn't think he was going to remember it later. Now, that's not a good sign.

Speaker 2 No, and so the way I take this is that the friend's like, oh, I'm going to show this to him later. We'll all have a big laugh about it because I don't think he's going to recall the conversation.

Speaker 2 Right. This report, too, says Jason spent 45 minutes talking to the friend on FaceTime.
Texas Monthly says at some point that night, Jason decided to drive home.

Speaker 2 He packed a bag of toiletries, a PlayStation game console, a laptop, and a handful of joints hidden inside a pill container because the police never look inside the pill container.

Speaker 2 He stuffed all of this into a black backpack. He placed his Siamese fighting fish Sparky into a plastic tumbler that he used as a pet carrier, and then he was going to be on his way.

Speaker 2 I mean, does this crack you up at all?

Speaker 2 He packed up his fish. That tells me he's going to be gone for an extended period of time.
Yeah. That's, you know, somebody needs to feed the fish and take care of the fish.

Speaker 2 So he's just going to take his pet with him back home. Well, but let me tell you what concerns me a little bit is some people think, well, you can't drive drunk, but you can drive high.

Speaker 2 And that's not always the case. I would just say, if you're impaired, you're impaired.
I mean,

Speaker 2 I've taken allergy medicine that's made me sleepy, and I was probably just as dangerous if I would have been driving drunk or high. So, I don't like this, and I don't like him leaving so late.

Speaker 2 And I understand he's going to a friend's house, but this is very late. But again, he's in his early 20s.
We all make stupid mistakes. Another thing that should be of concern as well, and does,

Speaker 2 depending on who you talk to, play a big role in this mystery. Is that a cold front was moving into the area? In fact, it already moved in earlier.

Speaker 2 There were high winds, and the temperature plunged into the 30s that night. So it was particularly cold for this area.
Jason set out on his trip back to Missouri City.

Speaker 2 He was dressed for the car ride, but not dressed for being out in the elements.

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Speaker 2 all right, we are back. Cheers, mates, to the windows, to the walls.
Cheers to you, Colonel. Cheers to you, Captain.
Raise them high and raise them proud.

Speaker 2 Talk hands in the air to everybody out there listening. As we said earlier, 10:55, Landry leaves his San Marcos apartment for his parents' home,

Speaker 2 home city of Missouri City, where he is expected to spend the holiday break. From my understanding here,

Speaker 2 and this seems to be the general consensus, Captain, Landry had driven home only twice

Speaker 2 prior to this trip, which makes a lot of sense because he's in his first semester there at Texas State. Right.

Speaker 2 At 11.05 p.m., this is according to the Caldwell County Sheriff's detectives.

Speaker 2 They say that Jason is driving his Nissan Altima on Texas Route 80 and passes under Interstate 35 in San Marcos, and then he continues south on Texas 80 into Caldwell County, and he is in the Martindale area around 11.11 p.m.

Speaker 2 Four minutes later at 11.15, Landry continues on Texas 80, passes Texas 130, and goes through several small towns, including Stair Town, Prairie Leah, and Fentress.

Speaker 2 Texas Monthly tells us that Jason spent some portions of this drive communicating with a friend and also communicating with an ex-girlfriend on FaceTime and on Snapchat.

Speaker 2 Just pointing out the obvious here, if his friend was correct about filming the FaceTime, Jason was so messed up he wouldn't remember it.

Speaker 2 We now have a guy that is potentially driving impaired, communicating on both FaceTime and Snapchat with at least two other individuals. That's what's been reported.
And he's also using his Ways app

Speaker 2 to guide him on his route. I hate distracted driving.
Switch your damn phone down and just drive the damn car.

Speaker 2 Yeah, not to criticize, but there's a lot of shit going on in this car, a lot of stuff going on in this car.

Speaker 2 And not all of it has to do with focusing on on the road driving safely where we're going we don't need no roads now i will say regarding his outfit i'm the kind of guy if i know i'm driving a three-hour trip i like to travel comfortable as well so i didn't find anything strange about his his outfit while it's not great for being out in the cold to me that tells me either a he's not thinking clearly which could be the case according to his friend or B,

Speaker 2 he has no intention of leaving his vehicle until he gets to a warm, comfortable place, i.e. his friend's house at the other end of his trip.
Yeah, I'm not saying it's a negative thing.

Speaker 2 I'm just saying that it's a sign of his age. I mean, you know you're approaching your midlife crisis when you start making sure that your car has a spare jacket in it the whole time.

Speaker 2 At 11.24 p.m., he's about well, so he's roughly a half hour into his drive. Jason enters Lawling from Texas 80.
As he moves through the intersection, this is one of the key points here.

Speaker 2 This is something that's always highlighted in every story about this case.

Speaker 2 And it states, as he moves through the intersection of Hackberry Street, where Texas 80 becomes Austin Street, he turns off the Waze app.

Speaker 2 and begins using the Snapchat app. This is according to the police.
Well, one of the things that's fascinating about this case is how much

Speaker 2 data that we have from his cell phone. So we know a lot about his movements.
Yes.

Speaker 2 And the reason why I said that leading into our timeline in that kind of weird fashion is what we're tracking here, we're getting a lot of this information from his phone. That to me, I can't.

Speaker 2 I won't say that we can definitively say that these are every one of his movements. And I will not definitively say that he is alone during all of this.
I think

Speaker 2 to do either would be irresponsible. I think the probability, I think it's most likely that, yes, these are his movements and most likely he was alone during most of this trip, if not all of it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't believe we have any evidence that there was a second person.

Speaker 2 According to the information from police, Jason then continues on Austin Street to Magnolia Avenue, where his digital footprint ends.

Speaker 2 Authorities believe that instead of turning right on Magnolia, Jason drove straight through the intersection on East Austin Street to Spruce Street, which turns into Salt Flat Road.

Speaker 2 Okay, we'll go back to Salt Flat Road here in a second, but to hone in on this part of our timeline a little bit, this is where we can really start to throw in a lot of speculation.

Speaker 2 He's turned off the Ways app. Was this an accident? He's only made this drive twice before, or was this intentional? That's a very good question.
Texas Monthly says basically the same thing.

Speaker 2 Instead of turning right, he goes straight for several blocks. The street eventually bends to the left and turns into Salt Flat Road, leading him further away from his destination.

Speaker 2 And he continued on that road for five miles. Regarding that Snapchat information,

Speaker 2 this is what I love about Texas Monthly so much.

Speaker 2 They're only going to cover Texas cases, but when they dip their toes into true crime and it's a Texas case, you get some very complete and thorough reporting on a story here. And so

Speaker 2 Texas Monthly says that that Snapchat communication was a selfie that Jason sent of himself inside the vehicle that he sent to his ex-girlfriend.

Speaker 2 And in that picture, she says, and the other people that have seen it say that he looked calm and confident so it doesn't it doesn't appear that if whenever things started to go wrong for Jason on this trip at 1128 it appears based off of the evidence of that picture that everything is fine at this time yeah but my concern and and I want to know what your expert opinion is because to me If you look at where his school was and where he's heading to, this doesn't seem to be in the right direction.

Speaker 2 Well, that's what they're saying.

Speaker 2 this seems like a detour and then then my question becomes well if he's rolling a bunch of joints and you know spoiler alert where they find these joints later in his car you go was he heading there for some other reason i mean because this is very late at night was he stopping by to pick up some more marijuana or pick something else up well and it would seem that if he knows anybody in this area or was communicating with anybody in this area that either that information

Speaker 2 is being kept back for some reason, or there's no information telling any of the investigators or his family that he knows anybody or was communicating with anybody in this area.

Speaker 2 So it's really tricky, right? You look at

Speaker 2 this very big question mark on his trip and you go, okay,

Speaker 2 instead of turning right, he just continues to go straight and then he's veering off of his route to his destination.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. Was that just pure accident

Speaker 2 or was that intentional? Now,

Speaker 2 what, as far as reporting goes and what his family has reported, what the detectives are reporting, there doesn't seem to be anything telling them that he intentionally was going off of his route.

Speaker 2 But again, he turns off the,

Speaker 2 this is where I'm going to show my age a little bit and my lack of experience on some some of these social platforms. I've never used Snapchat.

Speaker 2 I said this probably 100 times throughout the time we were covering Delphi. I don't know.

Speaker 2 Are you required to shut off another app to go into Snapchat? My guess would be no. Again, he's trying to navigate a lot of things, right? You're trying to stay on track.

Speaker 2 You're trying to check the Waze app. You're trying to drive.
And you're also communicating on social media or FaceTime with friends. Right.

Speaker 2 Again, was shutting off the Waze app intentional or was that just an accident?

Speaker 2 Just happenstance. What we do know is, regardless of what's going on, according to the information, at 11:28, he appears calm and confident in that picture that he sends to his friend.

Speaker 2 Then the authorities are telling us that they believe that Jason crashed his car

Speaker 2 or experienced a vehicle accident at 11.34 p.m. So six minutes after he appears calm and confident.
But there's a whole lot of question marks here because

Speaker 2 if he did crash the car or there was an accident with the vehicle at 11.34, it's not, this vehicle's not spotted by anybody until 1231.

Speaker 2 A.M. So we got a bunch of time that goes by where we don't really know what's happening.

Speaker 2 and again his digital footprint had ended at this time and then it appears that if he was driving and if he was traveling by himself he was in a one-car vehicle accident yeah it seems like his car hit a tree but it makes you wonder was it the distractive driving that caused that Was he impaired to the point where, you know, he just lost control of the vehicle.

Speaker 2 Because if you look at the footage of this road, it's a very rural road. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 again, some of the speculation that I think you could, again, it's just a guess, but it's like, okay, he gets off the freeway.

Speaker 2 Is he just trying to turn around because he was heading in the wrong direction?

Speaker 2 And so I'm just going to turn off the waves app and then try to head back to the freeway. But then this wreck happens.
And then we have now this crime scene, and we have his car.

Speaker 2 It's not like a little fender bender, man. He messed this car up, and now he's in this location.
And it could be that he crashed for another reason.

Speaker 2 A

Speaker 2 animal ran out into the middle of the road.

Speaker 2 Maybe he got into some kind of accident with another car, and they drove off. Who knows? The report is this, that at 12.31 a.m., Jason's Ultima was found crashed and abandoned.

Speaker 2 The lights were still on, the keys in the ignition, and the front passenger side door was locked. The vehicle was found in the 2300 block of Salt Flat Road.

Speaker 2 A local volunteer firefighter driving through the area is the one that spots the vehicle and reports it. According to Texas Monthly, the car was wedged against a tree and facing the wrong direction.

Speaker 2 The airbags did not deploy significant damage to the body of the vehicle and rear window was shattered. The engine was shut off.
Keys are still in the ignition. The headlights were shining.

Speaker 2 Texas Monthly states that at 1:15-ish a.m., police arrive. This is the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Speaker 2 Later, we would hear investigators say that they think that the car crashed into a tree and barbed wire fence after Jason overcorrected on the gravel road and spun out of control.

Speaker 2 The rear window of the vehicle was broken as a result of the impact with the tree.

Speaker 2 This one part of this case was frustrating for me. I saw plenty of pictures of the pic of the vehicle, but none of the spot.
I couldn't confirm the exact spot where this accident took place.

Speaker 2 Going off of what my eyes tell me looking at his vehicle, and actually i think had i seen the scene i might have in a different i might have a different opinion so take this with a grain of salt but looking at the car man

Speaker 2 this to me looks like there's two impacts right a rear impact to the vehicle and then a front driver side impact to the vehicle i it's hard for me to imagine regardless of terrain, how you could do that amount of damage to these parts of the car in the same impact.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's why I think the speculation that it could have been an accident with another vehicle and they took off makes some logical sense.

Speaker 2 I would like to have seen pictures from the rear of the vehicle to see what the so what I can see here is the trunk is damaged beyond all get out, my friend. Like it, like the bumper is off,

Speaker 2 the rear of the vehicle is all smashed in like a like a crushed crushed beer can, the back of this car. And

Speaker 2 the rear window is.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I get what you're saying because, I mean, had he stopped abruptly and some it if this was an impact with another car, he either very at a high rate of speed backed into somebody or backed into that tree

Speaker 2 or

Speaker 2 he slams on his brakes and somebody smashes into the back of him. Right.

Speaker 2 I say all that to say this, that that police are adamant that they're saying we found no evidence of another vehicle at this accident scene.

Speaker 2 And I think what we can, without having to be too imaginative, I think we all can agree that if the other car looked like his car, we should be seeing parts or pieces of that car at the scene as well.

Speaker 2 Yes, I agree, but a couple things. One,

Speaker 2 when they do the investigation initially, I mean, one of the smart things, and you can actually see this online, but the law enforcement keep their body cams going so you can actually see footage of them going through items.

Speaker 2 But there was a bunch of items of Jason's that people found later down the road and what have you. So was there pieces of another vehicle that they just didn't collect?

Speaker 2 That I guess that could be a possibility. And that's where it gets very strange.
You look at his car, you look at the

Speaker 2 wreck, the wreckage of his car, and you go this doesn't make a lot of sense unless he hit multiple things and then his final landing point was that tree and it smashed the back end up but it makes you wonder too like did he hit uh an animal or something

Speaker 2 but it doesn't seem like we have any evidence of that either If he hit an animal, he hit several things after hitting that animal because an animal didn't do this damage to that car unless it was maybe the front driver's side, if it was a Sasquatch.

Speaker 2 But other than that, so what it looks like to me is it's not uncommon for people to back into something, especially at a high rate of speed, because

Speaker 2 it's difficult to see anything behind you, right? Especially at night,

Speaker 2 this area is not well lit.

Speaker 2 And sometimes you even have situations where you might smash into something that is tall enough to smash up your bumper or maybe even the trunk of your car, but you can't visually see it from the rear window view because it's just not tall enough.

Speaker 2 Right. And it's kind of in that dead spot, that blind spot where you can't see it in your rearview mirrors either.
And so the way I kind of visualize this potentially going down is that he's driving.

Speaker 2 Remember, they say he continued for several miles in the wrong direction after failing to turn right. And a lot of times, where do people, how do people get lost and turned around?

Speaker 2 It's not necessarily you got turned around. It's you missed a turn and you just keep going straight and straight and straight.
At some point, I think the terrain tells him, I'm lost.

Speaker 2 I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I don't know if in a fit or

Speaker 2 just trying to hurry along, he's like, slam it into reverse, boom, doesn't see something, smashes into something at a high rate of speed. It had to be.

Speaker 2 If the impact of this, and I believe it was the impact, is what shattered his rear view, the rear window, it was a high rate of speed, either hitting him or he was traveling.

Speaker 2 And I just wonder, had he slammed it into reverse to turn around,

Speaker 2 smashes into something, and it's the natural reaction for most people when you slam into something going into reverse is to very quickly go forward. Right.

Speaker 2 And it almost looks to me like he smashed into something at a high rate of speed and then

Speaker 2 I'll use the detective's words here, the police officer's words, overcorrected and tried to go forward and wasn't really looking,

Speaker 2 you know, still trying to figure out what happened when he was going in reverse and then hits something when he goes forward.

Speaker 2 We're going to find a lot of his belongings outside of the vehicle, but yet

Speaker 2 the vehicle, the lights weren't turned off, the keys were in the ignition. That doesn't make any sense to me.
No. And then there's a trail

Speaker 2 heading in a direction. And I've seen different reports.
And I think sometimes you get these different reports, and it's not nefarious. It's just people making a mistake.

Speaker 2 But it seems to me like they say at some point, well, all the digital evidence of his movements stop at a certain point. But I've I've seen people where they say, oh, well,

Speaker 2 his cell phone last pinged in this location, which was a different location than his car. But I believe his cell phone was found in his car.

Speaker 2 So it makes you wonder,

Speaker 2 is he disoriented from the crash, which we've seen this in the past. We've seen other cases where somebody gets in a bad wreck and they go missing.
He's heading down this path. He leaves his book bag.

Speaker 2 He starts leaving

Speaker 2 clothing behind. And what I want to know, and I don't know this, maybe you know this, maybe you can fill us in.

Speaker 2 Those pictures that he's sending to his ex-girlfriend through Snapchat, what shirt is he wearing? And do we find that shirt on the side of that road? Let's go back to Texas Monthly here.

Speaker 2 They say the wreck might have seemed unremarkable to the trooper had it not been for something else. that the volunteer firefighter who called this in, right?

Speaker 2 Calls this to his attention and says about 800 feet from the vehicle, Jason's black backpack was sitting on the side of Salt Flat Road.

Speaker 2 Inside was his wallet, laptop, as well as his marijuana stash and his Ziploc bags full of the toiletries that he had packed up.

Speaker 2 The plastic container, the tumbler that we had mentioned earlier that was holding his pet fish,

Speaker 2 had been placed on the ground nearby, and the fish, unfortunately, was dead inside this container.

Speaker 2 His clothing, Jason's clothing, was lying in the middle of the road, dropped neatly into small piles as if someone had casually stripped down to get into a shower.

Speaker 2 There was a faded red t-shirt from a Christian summer camp where he had worked, one of the armholes facing upward, and beneath it was his wristwatch that was facing up. Nike shorts, followed by

Speaker 2 gray underwear with a small bloodstain on the waistband, a pair of black slide sandals, and two socks resting nearby.

Speaker 2 So every article of clothing this dude was wearing is not on his body at this time and was found lying on the ground. And it seems like that shirt that you referenced is,

Speaker 2 again, with some of the details of this case, I think we would be irresponsible to say we can definitively say, 100% say,

Speaker 2 but everybody seems to agree that that was the shirt that he was wearing that night. Right.

Speaker 2 I've not seen anybody say in pictures he wasn't wearing that or, you know, everybody, everybody that knows this, knows Jason

Speaker 2 and had interactions with him believe that to be the shirt that he was

Speaker 2 wearing that night. Now,

Speaker 2 none of this from from the way I understand it, none of the first responders

Speaker 2 that are responding to this vehicle accident, this abandoned car, none of them entered the vehicle, from my understanding. And the vehicles then towed to an impound yard.

Speaker 2 But again, I think one of the reasons why this case is so fascinating, but also bizarre, is think about how many missing person cases we have where there was a car wreck or something.

Speaker 2 But we can only speculate of what the cops were finding and what the cops cops were thinking at the time.

Speaker 2 You can watch the footage because law enforcement decided to release this information to the public.

Speaker 2 And again, one thing that seems very, there's a lot of things that are strange and odd and bizarre about this case. And maybe we won't ever fully understand everything.

Speaker 2 Let's pretend he was traveling by himself. Let's pretend there was no other vehicle there.
There's no other person there in this area.

Speaker 2 I can, on the one hand, go, oh, he, he, maybe he hit his head or he was, he was all messed up from the accident. That wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.

Speaker 2 And that's why he didn't take the keys with him or he didn't turn off the lights to the car. Right.

Speaker 2 But then

Speaker 2 the flip of that is

Speaker 2 he

Speaker 2 removed his backpack, his personal belongings, and his fish from the car. So the two don't go hand in hand for me.
It's, it's, why would you do one without the other?

Speaker 2 Unless he gets in this wreck, he's disoriented, he tries to gather his items, he starts heading down the road. And you know how sometimes you

Speaker 2 slip and fall, and you get right back up, and you start walking, and you think you're fine. And then that fifth or sixth step, you go, oh, nope, I really did something to my ankle, right?

Speaker 2 Maybe that's a possibility here. Or I just wonder if there was a collision again with

Speaker 2 another vehicle, which doesn't make a lot of sense because we don't have evidence of it. It's like, did somebody else go through his belongings? That's right.

Speaker 2 And as we said, remember, Jason packed up a bag of toiletries, a PlayStation game console, a laptop, a handful of joints hidden inside a pill container, all stuffed into his black backpack.

Speaker 2 He's got his Siamese fighting fish Sparky in a plastic tumbler that he used regularly as a pet carrier. All of these items were found either in the vehicle or near the crash scene.
It's like Jason

Speaker 2 is the only thing that was missing.

Speaker 2 So much more to get to in the bizarre missing case of Jason Landry. Join us here in the garage, back here in the garage for part two.
Until then. Be good, be kind, and don't worry.

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