Show full transcript 0:38 State Farm can help you choose the coverage you need, whether it's for your home, car, 0:43 boat, or even RV. 0:45 With so many options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you, 0:49 so you can get back to solving all of life's bigger cases. 0:52 Go to statefarm.com or use the award-winning app to connect with a local agent and get a quote. 0:59 Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. 1:01 Here's one holiday mystery officially solved. What to get the man in your life? 1:06 The Old Space Holiday Gift Pack is that perfect gift that he's actually going to use. 1:11 It's also a great value since each ready-to-gift pack includes four, one, two, three, four, honey, full-size products. 1:19 There's a deodorant, body wash, body spray, and a shampoo. Choose from scents including 1:25 swagger's cedarwood scent and Fiji's palm tree and coconut scent. 1:30 Old Spice makes holiday shopping easy, leaving more time for building that epic backyard snow 1:34 fort. I'm obsessed with that. I will absolutely be putting this in Drew's stocking. 1:39 Buy Old Spice holiday packs for a limited time to give the gift of scent this holiday season. 1:45 Hey weirdo's, I'm Ash. And I'm Alaina. And this is Malvin. 1:50 It's Malvin. Malvin, dude. It's up big red. Nothing. We were just saying that we were 2:10 hoping it would 2:10 be a little spookier outside today. Yeah, it's a little too sunny for my liking. Still pretty fall, 2:15 though, which I kind of love. The foliage is on another level this year. It is. I love it. 2:21 It's probably for some horrible reason, but it is gorgeous this year. I'm sure there's some 2:26 absolutely catastrophic reason for the foliage. 2:29 Isn't that the worst when you're like, 2:30 oh my God, Google, why are the leaves so beautiful this year? 2:33 And it's like, because thousands of environments are dying. 2:37 Yeah, they're like data centers. 2:39 That's why you're like, damn. 2:42 Cool, thank you. 2:44 Love the foliage, thanks so much. 2:46 Just find like six articles about the worst things 2:48 in humanity. 2:49 But you know what, right now I'm going to enjoy the foliage. 2:51 I like it. 2:52 I like it a lot. 2:53 Because, yeah, because I feel like October's going too quickly. 2:56 You know, I that's so funny. 2:58 I was literally just doing a little scrollie only and it says we need to romanticize November. 3:03 I love that. I mean, I love November. 3:05 I love November, too. 3:07 But if you think about it, we don't do as much in November. 3:10 Like, no decor, why? 3:11 Like what I'm saying, like us, like me. 3:13 Yeah decor wise and like tradition wise. 3:16 Yeah, outside of Thanksgiving. 3:18 It's true. 3:18 I think we can't just live for Thanksgiving. 3:20 No, you know, we got to live for November. 3:22 Yeah, as a whole yeah, we need to put like some leaves places. Yeah, I mean, it's the Burmans 3:27 We got to get it together. Yeah, we should celebrate turkeys more. I think yeah, I love turkeys. Yeah, they're great 3:32 We have so many turkeys around there's a lot at all times. Yeah, I've seen like 600 turkeys in the last romanticize 3:39 Yellow the wood. I love you. I love each other 3:43 And then they puff up like I'll bite you and they will are not friendly. Yeah, I like that they're not friendly 3:49 I'm not like good for you. We eat you on Thanksgiving. You shouldn't be friendly to us 3:53 I kind of aspire to have a turkey attitude. Yeah. Yeah, I mean according to some I have a turkey 3:58 attitude. You have a turkey attitude and I'm not mad at it. I aspire to have that. 4:02 Got puffed up. Let's get out of here. I can't wait for your turkey this year. 4:08 Hell yeah. I'm like romanticizing turkeys only to cook them and it's so good. 4:13 I can't wait for that. And the mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes. 4:16 And the streusel. 4:18 And the streusel. 4:19 And the bread. 4:20 And the bread. 4:21 She makes this bread that she puts the pesto in. 4:23 Oh yeah, I gotta make the pesto swirl bread. 4:25 I'm gonna gain 800 pounds that night. 4:27 It's gonna be all worth it. 4:29 Can't wait, hell yeah. 4:30 See you there. 4:31 Let's go. 4:32 I saw a recipe for, what was it? 4:38 Caramelized onion scalloped potatoes. 4:43 Oh, I think I saw that recipe. 4:44 I bought us that cookbook. 4:45 Let me shout it out because I literally just bought it and I subscribe to this guy's sub-stack too. 4:51 You say caramelized onion. Yeah. I'm in. I'm obsessed with caramelized onions and I love the process. 4:59 Even though it does take 672 years, I'm here for it. I used to do that when I would get home from 5:06 school and she put them on crackers. Yeah. And they were so good. So freaking good. So this 5:12 The cookbook is called Dinner at My Place by, 5:14 I hope I say his last name, right? 5:16 Ryan Nordheimer, and it has a bunch of good recipes in it. 5:21 Ryan's. 5:22 And one of those is the mashed potato one. 5:24 And then I also got us, I meant to tell you this, 5:27 I'll tell you live on air. 5:29 Teeny is releasing the cookbook, 5:31 and I got it for us. 5:32 Oh, Teeny, I'm so excited. 5:33 Oh, that is, I hope she, that's gonna blow up. 5:37 Yeah, it's called Today We Are Cooking. 5:39 Today We Are Cooking. 5:40 And you can pre-order it now, 5:41 and you can pre-order the other one that I mentioned, so you can pre-order them. 5:44 I mean, Teenie, I've used so many of her recipes. 5:49 Same, she makes all mean everything. 5:51 Apple, apple crisp, her recipe for apple crisp is so good. 5:54 Love an apple crisp. 5:56 I don't really have a way to transition into the episode. 5:59 No, do you? 6:01 Delicious food makes us happy and full enough to sit down and appreciate an interesting tale. 6:13 OK, that's how I that was that's what we call an attempt. 6:16 That's I gave it a shot. 6:18 All right, it's more than it is. 6:21 It's more than I did. 6:22 Well, today I have a disappearance for you. 6:24 Oh, and Aiden actually told me about this case. 6:28 I hadn't heard of this case before and it's strange. 6:31 And then weirdly enough, Aiden told me about this case 6:34 like two weeks before it got somewhat solved. 6:38 Oh, yes. So it's like, I want to say it's somewhat solved, 6:42 But there are still lingering questions. 6:44 I will say that there's there's a little bit of resolution, 6:46 but I don't think there's full. 6:47 Yeah, there's enough for the family. 6:50 And that makes me happy like they're happy. 6:52 So, you know, obviously they're still sad. 6:55 But yeah, but they got answers sort of. 6:57 So let's get into it. 6:59 So we're going to be talking about the disappearance of Jason Landry today. 7:02 Jason was born July 29th, 1999 in Missouri City, Texas, 7:07 the third of three children born to Kent and Lisa Landry. 7:10 According to his parents, he was a lovable goofball, exact words, who preferred to take 7:15 life as it came. 7:16 He tried not to sweat the more stressful aspects of life, he was kind of just go with 7:20 the flow. 7:20 He didn't sweat the small stuff. 7:21 No, he can't. 7:22 Good for him. 7:23 After he graduated from high school, Jason enrolled at Sam Houston State University 7:27 in Huntsville, Texas, but school wasn't always easy to manage, especially when 7:32 it came to the shift of higher ed, which I think a lot of people can relate to. 7:36 Oh, yeah. 7:37 His parents definitely had their concerns 7:38 that Jason wasn't living up to his full potential, 7:41 but also at the same time, 7:43 they assumed that he was going through that adjustment phase 7:45 of kind of learning how to manage your studies 7:48 on your own as an adult. 7:49 Like it's so, college is so different from high school, 7:52 obviously. It's such an adjustment for everybody. 7:54 So they were like, okay, 7:55 he's gonna find his way sooner or later. 7:57 Now it turned out that their faith 7:59 and their son was well-placed. 8:00 By the time he reached his third year at Sam Houston, 8:03 Jason was starting to take his education 8:05 and his future more seriously. He transferred from the relatively small Sam Houston University 8:10 then to Texas State University. His grades went up and his interest in general in school seemed to 8:18 get a little more like nose-to-the-grads. Yeah, he was like focusing a little more. 8:22 Yeah. Unfortunately though, his newfound seriousness about his future was profoundly and very 8:29 unexpectedly interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. I happen to do a lot of people 8:34 For Jason, who was described by his father as a pure extrovert, full of pure optimism, 8:40 social distancing and quarantine practices were very, very frustrating for Jason. 8:46 I felt bad for extroverts during that whole time, because I myself am not an extrovert, 8:51 so I did not feel that way. 8:54 But I can imagine that that would have been not just really annoying, but truly detrimental 9:00 to your mental health. 9:01 Absolutely. 9:01 if you were someone who very much loves socializing. 9:06 Yeah, and Jason was one of those people. 9:08 His dad said, given his personality, 9:10 isolating him was one of the worst things you could do. 9:12 Yeah, some people just do not thrive in that situation. 9:14 I think I found out during the pandemic 9:16 that I'm an introverted extrovert. 9:18 Yeah, I always kind of knew that about you. 9:20 I thought I was just a straight up extrovert, 9:22 but I much prefer being like by myself 9:25 or just with my people, 9:26 but I can extrovert when necessary. 9:29 are you like yes very much like you don't get a charge from extroverting no 9:43 not at all I think I used to but I think the old yeah I think you're used to for 9:46 sure I don't at all anymore yeah I get I get genuinely drained yeah by 9:52 extroverting like to a point of like migraine yeah like it'll tap me dry 9:56 it makes sense well you're also autistic so there's like you're 10:00 masking when you're an extrovert so it makes sense yeah so isolated in his 10:05 apartment away from all his friends, his peers, everything like that. 10:09 Jason turned to smoking weed a little bit more as a coping mechanism 10:13 and kind of like half-heartedly continue to studies because then everything 10:16 went to like zoom and he had already had a hard time in the beginning 10:20 managing the studies. 10:22 And then when you moved to zoom, I like in college, I wasn't in college 10:26 during the COVID like outbreak, but if I took online classes, I learned 10:30 very quickly that I couldn't manage those myself. 10:33 Oh yeah. 10:33 A lot of people were not very fast. 10:35 And to have that be your only option, that's tough, and he was struggling with that. 10:40 Then to make matters worse, the building that he lived in was mostly empty anyways, 10:45 so he didn't even have neighbors to say hello to or wave to on his way in and out of the building. 10:51 So he was like deeply, deeply isolated and really starting to feel terribly alone. 10:56 Now in the weeks leading up to his disappearance, family and friends, 10:59 they did start to notice these small changes in his attitude. 11:02 despite his social media posts about getting his life on the right track and 11:06 that's a quote his diet had deteriorated to mostly fast food and takeout he was 11:11 smoking a lot more than he ever had before and he was even now going so 11:15 far as to avoid sleeping and eating for long periods of time oh jeez to try to 11:19 intensify the potency of the pot that he was smoking and that's a quote I 11:24 didn't know that you could do that at the same time he told a handful of 11:28 friends and family that he had finally found God for the quote first 11:31 time ever, which was interesting because he was the son of a Presbyterian minister and like came 11:37 from a pretty religious family. Interesting. But maybe it was just like the first time he 11:42 had found God on his own. Yeah. Or like his interpretation of God. Exactly. But the most 11:47 noticeable change in his behavior was definitely his increased drug use. There was other changes 11:52 though in including like the budding interest in religion, mysticism, the occult. Jason's 12:00 apparent that our conversations weren't making sense anymore. Jason would talk about the rapture 12:05 coming, aliens, Jesus, Elon Musk, and all these things that he would tie together somehow, 12:11 which it's like that's a vast array of things. Now, even with his new interests and the psychological 12:18 toll isolation seemed to be taking on him and his well-being, nobody thought there was any reason 12:22 to be like super alarmed by these changes. Obviously, it seemed a little bit weird to 12:28 but they weren't gonna, you know, what are you gonna do? 12:31 Yeah, I wasn't like concerning 12:32 like something's gonna happen. 12:33 Right, especially because everyone around the world 12:36 was kind of going through that same 12:37 once in a lifetime crisis. 12:39 And there was not really like a right or wrong way 12:41 to deal with it necessarily. 12:43 Everyone was just dealing with it how they could. 12:45 Even his parents who knew him the best 12:47 saw no reason to be super concerned. 12:49 His mother said on Saturday, 12:50 which was two days before he went missing, 12:52 he sounded just like Jason to me. 12:54 He was very excited about the next semester. 12:56 And I remember rolling my eyes 12:57 because he was talking, talking, talking but still hadn't got to his point and that was 13:01 pretty typical for him. Like he was a high-energy person. 13:04 Yeah. Now on the evening of December 13th, 2020, Jason was at home on FaceTime chatting 13:11 with a friend while he was rolling a few joints and his friend actually ended up recording 13:15 the call because he said he thought Jason seemed messed up and that's a quote and he 13:20 seemed so messed up he said that he probably wouldn't remember what they'd been talking 13:23 about. And that's why he recorded it. So he recorded it because they were meeting up later 13:27 and I think he was going to be like, do you remember saying this? Now there's no audio 13:32 that is available to the public but there is video and you can watch it. Some online sleuths 13:38 and actually even Caldwell County Sheriff's office captain Jeff Ferry himself saw the video 13:44 and they point to some visible sweat marks under the arms of Jason's shirt on the call. 13:48 They are pretty significant for somebody who's just sitting down and just like talking and had 13:53 been on the phone for 30 minutes just in that one spot and viewers interpreted the amount 13:59 of sweat as a quote potential sign of anxiety and Captain Ferry says it certainly seems relevant 14:05 knowing that in less than an hour Jason is going to be just roving in a very cold austere 14:09 environment. 14:10 That is valid and I think it's valid considering what happens next taking it on its own 14:15 I will say we'll sit in this room and have like an hour long podcast episode and 14:21 I am sweating like a pig. 14:23 It's not because I'm nervous, it's just because of, like, it's just the way it is. 14:29 We sweat a lot, I agree with you. 14:30 When I first read that, I was like, okay, he has some pit stains like who hasn't been 14:34 there. 14:34 But taking it with... 14:35 They're very significant, too. 14:36 I didn't see them, so... 14:37 I'll show you the video. 14:39 Yeah. 14:39 It's a lot. 14:40 Okay. 14:41 But again... 14:42 Then that does make you wonder. 14:44 It's a little weird, but then also I don't know what he was doing before he 14:47 got on that FaceTime call. 14:48 Or if the heat was up. 14:49 Or what the... 14:51 Yeah. 14:51 Yeah. 14:51 What was going on here. 14:52 There's definitely variables for sure. 14:53 But given context, it is a little strange. 14:56 Now on top of that, the subject matter of the call is pretty interesting, at least based 15:00 on Jason's friend's memory that he reiterated to the captain here. 15:04 He said they were talking about spiritual enlightenment, opening your third eye and 15:08 how drug consumption plays into all that. 15:11 Okay. 15:11 And we're going to get a little bit more into that later on. 15:13 It seems like a deep conversation. 15:14 Yeah. 15:15 But remember, his friend was like, he seemed super messed up, so I think he may have 15:20 and like rambling a little bit, you know? 15:23 Yeah, just going into different subjects. 15:25 Yeah, and a previous friend had said like he'd talk about like Elon Musk, 15:30 the Rapture and Aliens and somehow connect that all together. 15:32 Like even his friends were like, it's getting a little strange, bro. 15:36 So the call ended after about 45 minutes. 15:38 And at that point, and this was this seemed to be like a quick decision. 15:42 Like this wasn't planned. 15:44 Jason decided to drive home to see his parents 15:46 and they didn't know he was coming before leaving. 15:48 leaving, he packed a bag of clothes, toiletries, he packed a gaming console, and he even put 15:53 his fish into a plastic tumbler so that he could take the fish too, which obviously 15:57 intended that he was, or obviously suggest he intended to stay with his parents at least 16:02 for a few days because he like wasn't going to be home to feed his fish. 16:05 So he left the apartment wearing a t-shirt, shorts and sandals like slides, and at the 16:10 time a cold front had just passed through and the nights were especially cold, 16:14 So it didn't seem like he was planning to spend any significant amount of time outside that night and 16:19 He set off on his trip at about 1055 16:31 A home break-in leaves a mark even if nothing is taken because it marks the moment home stops feeling safe and 16:39 Simply safe gets that while other security systems react once a break-in has begun 16:43 Simply safe is built to keep threats away from your door in the first place when an intruder even steps foot onto your property 16:51 SimplySafe's AI-powered cameras detect the threat and alert a live US-based 16:55 agent who intervenes to stop them before they ever even get to your door. 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Simply Safe ahead of crime in real time. 17:46 somewhere in a run things get fun you stop counting you stop trying you're 17:51 just here weightless wide open more alive than you've been all day that's 17:56 the run doing what it does clearing the noise loosening the grip the day had on 18:00 you reminding you what your body is capable of when you finally let it go 18:04 there and now that feeling fits wherever you need it to the new 18:08 Peloton tread flex is designed to fit your life movable and foldable so 18:13 So you can run, walk, or hike when you need to and roll it away when you don't. 18:18 With instructors worth showing up for and workouts that meet you where you are, you've 18:22 got the freedom to move on your own terms. 18:25 That's what running gives you back. 18:26 Let yourself run. 18:28 Explore Treadflex at OnePeloton.com. 18:32 Chilling crime cases are mysterious, but finding coverage shouldn't be. 18:36 With the State Farm Personal Price Plan, you have options and can personalize your 18:40 plan to help create an affordable price so you can get back to cracking all of life's 18:45 bigger cases. 18:46 Talk to a state farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with 18:51 the personal price plan. 18:53 Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. 18:55 Head to statefarm.com to get a quote. 18:57 Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state, coverage options are selected 19:01 by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility 19:05 vary by state. 19:11 Now the drive to Missouri City was about 165 miles from school and should have taken 19:16 around like two and a half hours to get there. 19:19 And this is at like what time at night? 19:21 He left at 10.55, which was abrupt because also remember the friend that he was FaceTiming, 19:27 it sounds like they were meeting up. 19:29 I don't know if it was later that night or yeah, or like within that week, but they 19:33 had plans together. 19:34 And he wouldn't be arriving home at his parents house till like 1.30 in the morning. 19:38 Yeah, it'd be it'd definitely be late. 19:40 And it's like, why bother? 19:41 Why wouldn't she just leave in the morning? 19:42 Yeah, to go to their house. 19:44 It's abrupt, for sure. 19:47 Now, along the way, he was chatting with several friends 19:50 and his ex-girlfriend on FaceTime and other apps, 19:53 like Snapchat, each being logged into the phone, which 19:55 provided actually a pretty good, like, 19:57 accurate timeline of his trip. 19:59 And according to those, he spoke to that night. 20:01 He was in a good mood, and he 20:03 didn't exhibit any signs of distress or dread, 20:05 but he was rambling a little bit from the sounds of it. 20:08 Now, from the moment he got in the car, and apparently he was well known to always do this, 20:13 he always relied on ways like the app to navigate his route. 20:16 But at 11.24 pm, the app went dark, like he shut it down. 20:21 Later, when the car was recovered, a check of the internal navigation system showed 20:25 that instead of turning on to Interstate 10, which would have brought him to his 20:29 parents' house, he kept driving straight for several more blocks, which took him 20:34 further from home. 20:36 Now, he continued on that path for five more miles, and then pulled off to the side of 20:40 the road to send a snap to his ex-girlfriend. 20:43 In the picture, he seems calm, he seems happy, he doesn't look distressed, confused, anything 20:47 like that. 20:48 And that was the last time anyone saw or heard from him. 20:52 That one photo. 20:54 Now, a few hours later, a volunteer firefighter in Luling, Texas was driving along Saltflat 20:59 Road when he spotted what looked like an abandoned vehicle, like left in a ditch 21:03 which just off of the gravel road. 21:06 And this is like a pretty like isolated area. 21:10 Yeah. 21:10 Now pulling over to investigate the firefighter discovered 21:13 that the car's headlights were still on, 21:15 the doors were locked, the rear window was smashed 21:18 and the keys were still in the ignition. 21:20 That's weird. 21:21 There was no sign of a driver or any passengers anywhere. 21:25 So suspecting obviously that there was some kind of accident 21:27 and the driver might be in some kind of need 21:30 of emergency assistance. 21:31 He called the accident to local dispatch, and officers arrived a short time later. 21:36 Now aside from the fact that there were no people to be found, 21:39 everything about the scene suggested, at least to the officers, 21:42 that it had been a fairly routine accident that had caused the car to skid off of the road. 21:47 And the theory at that time was that Jason had been driving along the gravel road, 21:51 made a small error, overcorrected, and then the car skidded off the road. 21:56 According to the Luling Police Department, 21:58 the rear driver-side corner made initial contact with a tree on the east side of the roadway, 22:03 propelling the front driver-side into another tree and a barbed wire fence. 22:08 Dang. 22:09 So the car was towed away and officers called Jason's parents to report that the vehicle had been found. 22:15 Okay. 22:16 Weird. 22:17 Yeah. 22:18 Because there's also like clothing that was discovered that we'll find out. 22:21 Huh. 22:22 And a backpack that was just like strewn in the road. 22:24 Okay. 22:25 So it's a little weird to me. 22:27 Now, at the time, nobody suspected that he was missing in any alarming sense, I guess. 22:36 But when Kent Landry went to the impound lot to look at the car after getting the call 22:40 that his son had been in an accident, everything changed. 22:43 When the car was picked up, the most anybody really did at the scene was put it in neutral 22:47 so that it could be towed. 22:49 So that meant that Kent Landry was the first person to actually look inside of 22:53 the car since his son went missing. 22:55 And in the console between the front seats, he found Jason's cell phone. 22:59 That's weird. 23:00 And he was like, I know he wouldn't have left that behind. 23:03 Why would he have left the car without that? 23:05 That's the thing. 23:06 I mean, he's a young kid. 23:08 So the discovery of the phone was concerning enough that Kent decided to visit the scene 23:12 of the accident in case anything else might have been missed by local officers. 23:16 And standing on the side of the road, he scanned the fence along the ditch and 23:20 as he did, his eye caught something colorful. 23:22 about 900 feet from where Jason's car was found which is about like three 23:27 football fields he saw the clothing that Jason was wearing when he left the house 23:32 right down to his watch the sandal slides that he was wearing and even his 23:38 underwear yeah what the fuck and it was neatly piled by the side of the road 23:43 and the police just didn't see that yeah or no no they did they saw that 23:50 there was clothing. There's a video of when they arrive on the scene and they are going 23:56 through a backpack and I'll get into what they find. And they take some stuff from the 24:00 backpack to be processed. But the officer who's collecting everything says he's not 24:05 getting the clothing. They're just going to get it. And then one of the other officers 24:09 is going to like drive in a certain direction and see if he sees anybody. I don't know. 24:14 Are you good? 24:15 No. 24:16 Like what do you mean? 24:17 I don't know. 24:18 What the fuck? 24:19 I don't understand it. 24:21 That makes zero sense. 24:23 Because the discovery of the clothing 24:24 implied one of two things which were both very confusing. 24:27 Yeah. 24:27 Jason drives off the road, walks for a few minutes, 24:31 and then for some reason decides to change his clothes, 24:34 or he got into an accident, walked into the night, 24:37 at some point strips all of his clothing off 24:40 and continues into the night completely naked. 24:42 Yeah, why would that not ring alarm bells? 24:47 No, that's crazy. 24:48 And like you don't think he is missing in any significant sense. Yeah, he's either 24:53 Changed an outfit, which is like a little bit strange after an art that after an accident or he's naked and one of the 24:59 Responding investigators says like oh, is he like walking off naked into the night? It's like yeah 25:05 So he's that check into that cause for concern 25:08 Yeah, like what wouldn't that make you think something's desperately wrong if he's walking off naked into the night one would think 25:16 So if the discovery of Jason's phone was cause for concern, 25:20 the discovery of his clothing was downright alarming. 25:23 Yeah. 25:23 So Kent called the police to report it. 25:26 Like found out that they had seen it or that you like, I don't know. 25:30 But what they, so they, they found that clothing and left it there. 25:33 They said like, we're not touching that. 25:35 And they confiscated marijuana that they had found in his backpack. 25:39 But just straight up was like, no, we're going to leave the clothes. 25:41 Like we are going to have to post a link to the video. 25:45 because I was watching it and I was like, what? 25:48 And some of the handling of certain things I just thought 25:52 was a little strange. 25:54 That's wild. 25:54 But that's enough on that. 25:56 So now that Kent had called to report the clothing 25:59 and also the fact that there was still 26:01 no confirmed sightings of Jason, 26:03 they finally bagged up the clothing as evidence 26:05 and what was now considered a missing person's case. 26:07 Yeah, finally. 26:08 But it's like, why did his dad have to go to the scene 26:11 and do your job? 26:12 Yeah. 26:13 Yeah. 26:13 Like, seriously. 26:14 Make that make sense again. 26:16 Now at the lab, technicians did find a small smear of blood on one of the items of clothing, 26:21 but apparently it was nothing so substantial that it suggested a serious injury and it 26:27 seemed like it might have been left behind when Jason possibly got hung up on the 26:30 barbed wire on that fence or got scratched by a branch, who knows. 26:35 But that theory is supported by the fact that when they processed the car, investigators 26:39 didn't find any blood evidence inside the vehicle, 26:42 which is interesting to me. 26:44 Now, not far from where Jason's clothing was found, 26:48 detectives also found his backpack, like I mentioned. 26:51 That contained everything he packed that night, 26:53 his wallet, joints that he'd been rolling as he talked 26:56 with the friend on FaceTime. 26:57 And a few feet away, they also found the tumbler 27:00 that he had put his fish in for the trip 27:02 and it was overturned and the fish was dead next to it. 27:07 So it's like, that's weird. 27:08 Yeah, everything is just scattered yeah, and you like you're just gonna because what happens is they find the weed in the backpack 27:14 And they're like oh my god 27:16 And it's like no like I'm gonna be taking stuff that we should be concerned with and the officers like I'm taking this 27:21 But I'm not getting the clothing like come on like but why and what about the fish? 27:26 So everything was pretty baffling to detectives when the clothing was discovered 27:31 it seemed like it had just been cast off like 27:33 like almost like what you would do at home 27:35 when you're like taking off your clothes 27:37 before getting into bed 27:38 and like changing into PJs, like it's neat. 27:41 Yeah, so like just thrown everywhere. 27:43 It's not strewn, exactly. 27:45 And there was no indication that it had been removed 27:47 under any kind of duress or in a particular hurry, 27:49 like he was being held at gunpoint or something. 27:52 Then there was the fact 27:54 that the car was completely locked when it was discovered 27:57 and the keys were still in the ignition. 28:00 So that meant that rather than open the door 28:02 and step out, Jason had climbed into the back seat and out the rear window, which is where 28:07 I would think maybe some of that blood came from. 28:10 Yeah, I would absolutely think that. 28:13 Now sometimes, obviously, if somebody's gotten some kind of head injury in an accident, they 28:17 might do something bizarre or out of character, like removing all their clothing and walking 28:21 into the desert. 28:23 But with a low temperature of just 36 degrees that night, Jason wouldn't have made 28:27 it very far on foot without any protection from the elements and if there had been some 28:33 sort of foul play like robbery or carjacking something like that, why wasn't anything missing 28:38 from the scene? 28:39 Nothing was missing. 28:40 That's the thing. 28:41 Like his wallet was right there. 28:42 I was going to say and you even said like his watch he was wearing was there. 28:45 Yeah. 28:45 Yeah. 28:46 It's so strange. 28:48 Now, this is the other thing according to his father, Jason relied almost exclusively 28:52 on the Waze app anytime he drove anywhere. 28:54 So he thought maybe it was possible that the app malfunctioned instead of taking Jason to the highway and took him to that isolated road where the car was found. 29:03 He told a reporter, I don't know why my son was down this road, but my best guess, he'll follow ways wherever it sends him. 29:09 Don't know if he was trying to avoid a deer or what, swerved and hit some trees on the side. 29:14 And that's a good theory, but then from the data on his phone, we know that he closed the Waze app, so he wasn't directed here. 29:21 Oh yeah, you're right. 29:22 and so we don't know why he ended up on this road, this like rural gravel road that's 29:29 away from his destiny, like completely away from his destination, which is whole. 29:33 Which is leading me to believe that there's some kind of event happening. 29:37 Yeah, like a psychological event or something happening. 29:41 Right, you know. 29:42 Now later that day after the scene was processed, scent dogs were brought to the scene and 29:46 they started tracking his scent from the accident site back in the direction of looing. 29:52 Unfortunately, after about a quarter mile though, the scent disappeared and the dogs couldn't continue. 29:57 In a statement to the press, Sergeant Dionne Cockrell said, 30:01 Right now we have no indication of any foul play at all. 30:03 We don't know if maybe somebody picked him up or if he just wandered to an area we haven't searched or found yet. 30:09 So the initial search for Jason went on for several days. 30:13 Local authorities called in scent dogs, dive teams, helicopter teams, drones, like all of the above. 30:19 Like full court press. 30:20 Full court press, yeah. 30:21 But unfortunately days passed without any sign of Jason 30:24 or any clue as to where he'd gone. 30:27 Investigators even had the marijuana and the joints tested 30:30 to see if it had been altered 30:31 with like any additional substances, 30:33 like maybe hallucinogens, but that was also a dead end. 30:36 So, damn. 30:37 Within a few weeks, the investigation pretty much went cold 30:41 and without any new leads or evidence of foul play, 30:44 the case was sadly moved to the back burner 30:46 to allow enforcement officials to focus on other more pressing matters. 30:51 I was feeling such an asshole saying that. 30:53 Well, just because that's how they word it, but it's like, 30:56 I can't imagine being a family who has, and it happens to them all the time. 31:01 Yeah. 31:01 Like all the time. 31:02 And it's like, it's the way it works. 31:05 And then they must feel like super helpless. 31:07 But it's awful. 31:07 Yeah. 31:08 So weeks turned into months, and then before anybody knew it, 31:11 the first anniversary of Jason's disappearance had arrived, 31:14 found, and his family was no closer to finding him than they were on the day he went missing. 31:18 His father said, being left a year later without any answers has been difficult. 31:22 We just want answers. 31:23 We want to know what happened to our son. 31:24 Yeah, of course. 31:26 Now, the best theory that detectives could come up with was that Jason was under the 31:29 influence when he left his apartment, which they believed explained any peculiarities 31:33 with the case. 31:34 Captain Jeff Ferry said, all signs point to us that he's under the influence, 31:38 and we know that he's going to get in the car and try to navigate his 31:40 way to Missouri City, where his parents are not expecting him. 31:43 He was not do-home. He was going to hang out with buddies play video games and get high. That was his theory 31:49 Yeah, but when it came to what happened after the crash, he didn't really have a theory 31:54 It could be any number of things. Yeah, and that's it could well like that's a family's worst nightmare though 32:00 Yeah, that it could be that it's such an open-ended like I don't know what happened here 32:05 And then like we always say your brain's gonna fill in the blank space and it's like you're gonna come up with the 32:10 worst possible conclusions. I feel so bad for them. 32:14 I know. 32:14 Now while the evidence collected at the scene failed to provide any insights into the disappearance, 32:19 new theories were emerging from amateur detectives, of course, who are following the case online. 32:24 A lot of people noted that Jason's newfound spirituality might have had something to do 32:28 with the disappearance, and that theory actually was strengthened by evidence collected from 32:33 his computer and his phone. Caldwell County Sheriff's Office Captain Jeff Ferry told reporters, 32:38 And apparently this is some of these Google searches are happening in the minutes leading up to the crash. Yeah 32:43 He said Jason is googling how long can you live in the woods without food? How long can you go in the wilderness? 32:49 He's looking up some spiritual enlightenment practices. He's looking up different strains of marijuana and how to combine those 32:56 He's talking about psychedelics and how they have impacted his life and his perception of spiritual awakening 33:01 There are communications with individuals where he talks about his intent of reaching the spiritual enlightenment 33:06 through use of narcotics. 33:08 So does that play a factor into his disappearance? 33:11 We think so. 33:12 The fact that he was Googling how long can you live 33:15 in the woods and like all that stuff? 33:17 Yeah. 33:18 And he's in this rural area. 33:20 He turned off Waze, which he tended to rely on. 33:23 Yup. 33:24 That tells a different, 33:26 a little bit of a different story there. 33:27 It does. 33:28 For sure. 33:28 It does. 33:29 But then on the flip side of things, 33:31 his dad was saying like, 33:33 what if you were reduced to your strangest Google searches 33:35 in the hours before you went missing. 33:37 That is such a valid thing to say. 33:39 Yeah, that would suck for me. 33:41 Honestly, because there's times when I will literally just be like, 33:45 I have a weird random question and I just randomly Google it. 33:49 And I have thought before like, not if this was my last one, 33:52 but I'll think like, damn, 33:54 if somebody looked at my Google search history right now 33:56 and saw that, they'd be like, why did you think of that question? 33:58 Yeah, no, I think a lot of people can relate to that. 34:01 So like, with context that he is, 34:03 like you were just saying in a rural area 34:04 and it was a little strange. 34:06 Like, that feeds into that. 34:08 It's something to at least think about. 34:09 And it's a theory. 34:10 But on the flip side of things, I 34:11 think it's important to look at it both ways. 34:13 Yeah, I mean, my search history is insane. 34:15 Yeah, we would be. 34:17 We're on a list so much. 34:18 Yeah, exactly. 34:19 But just because of what we do. 34:21 Well, and also just my random curiosity. 34:23 Honestly, same. 34:24 And my kids' random curiosity. 34:36 Getting a good night's sleep 34:37 can start well before your head hits that pillow. 34:40 I take my nighttime routine very seriously. 34:42 Honestly, I need a cup of tea honey, I gotta go upstairs, I gotta do my skincare routine, 34:48 and then I need to lay in bed and maybe do a little meditation on my hatch alarm clock. 34:52 The hatch sleep clock is a different kind of sleep tracker, designed to help make sense 34:56 of sleep without adding more stress. 34:58 Contactless tracking works right from the nightstand. 35:01 No ring or wristband required, nothing to wear, and nothing to recharge. 35:05 Honestly, checking in on my sleep score all the time and wondering if I slept well 35:09 enough kind of makes like sleeping an anxiety inducing activity for me, so I love that hatch 35:15 sleep clock, skip sleep scores, and score chasing. 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And there were roughly 50,000 active users who were just regularly going through every 38:00 every single detail trying to figure something out. 38:02 And sometimes that can be really helpful. 38:05 I think in this case it actually was helpful 38:07 because it like kept the case alive in a way, 38:10 you know what I mean? 38:10 And sometimes fresh eyes, man. 38:12 Yeah, now in a lot of cases, 38:14 the online sleuths put their enthusiasm 38:16 for the case into action. 38:17 People were spending weekends researching, 38:20 participating in searches, 38:22 one resident from Houston, Jim West, 38:24 and others interested in helping 38:26 even invested their own money in the search activities. 38:30 Jim West alone invested more than $50,000 of his own money into the search. 38:35 Holy shit! Jim. 38:36 Jim's a real one. 38:37 Wow. 38:38 He said it's as if a UFO came down, sucked him up into a beam of light, and flew away. 38:42 The deeper you go, the stranger it gets. 38:45 It is a strange case. 38:46 It is. 38:47 It's not cut and dry. 38:48 No, it's not at all. 38:49 Now, each new piece of information that was released to the public only seemed to 38:53 fuel speculation online, with a lot of people feeling like there was something 38:57 more nefarious going on than just a missing college student. 39:02 For example, a few years after Jason went missing, 39:05 investigators disclosed that the scent dogs 39:07 had tracked Jason's scent to a small pond 39:10 on a private property and they showed no, 39:13 and this is a quote, no deviation whatsoever 39:15 on a hot, hot trail. 39:17 But when the pond was drained 39:19 and the muddy pit was searched by detectives, 39:22 there was no sign of a body 39:23 or any kind of remains whatsoever. 39:25 That's so weird. 39:26 When it raised the question, why would the dogs be so convinced that there was a target and a pond when there was nothing there? 39:33 Did he go there first? 39:34 Well, the explanation could actually even be simpler than that. 39:37 The handler Sean Honstrider said, 39:40 we've talked to a scientist that has suggested something in the oil production process when mixed with water is 39:45 creating the illusion of human decomposition. 39:49 What? It's like a chemical kind of reaction. That mimics human decomposition? Yeah. 39:57 or at least the smell of it. 39:59 That's gnarly. 40:01 So with not a lot of places to go, 40:03 eventually the Caldwell County Sheriff's Office 40:05 reached out to Kim Rosmo, 40:07 a former homicide detective from Vancouver. 40:10 And this investigator's insights and work 40:12 actually led to the capture of serial killers 40:14 like Robert Pickton. 40:16 And also the identification of Banksy. 40:19 What? 40:20 Yeah, so I'd say if you're gonna call in anyone, 40:23 this is the guy to call in. 40:24 Yeah. 40:25 So his first step was to recreate the scene 40:27 where Jason had gone missing. 40:28 Start right at the beginning. 40:30 He waited until a night when the temperature 40:31 was pretty similar to the night that Jason disappeared. 40:34 And then he removed his own shoes 40:36 and started walking on the gravel road 40:38 that Jason was believed to have traveled down. 40:40 And he said, I made it 10 steps 40:42 before I said, fuck this, it was too painful. 40:45 I mean, yeah. 40:47 It makes sense. 40:47 It's interesting. 40:48 Now, it turned out that the unforgiving environment 40:51 was not the only hazard that Jason might have encountered that night. The area where the car 40:56 is abandoned, was abandoned, is essentially miles of privately owned oil fields. I don't know if 41:02 you know anything about, like, oil folks? About oil? They'll fuck around. So I've heard. 41:08 So when Rosimo tried to speak with some of the oil workers, he was met with varying levels 41:13 of disinterest and even hostility. Awesome. Especially from one landowner in particular, 41:18 Stuart Cardo, who literally threatened him with a shot gun, get it together. 41:23 Yeah. 41:24 Like, get it together. 41:25 It's just somebody asking questions because somebody disappeared near your property. 41:28 Get off my property vibes. 41:29 That's wild. 41:31 So may fear. 41:32 Well, Rosmo asked around at the sheriff's office and found out that Carter had quite 41:36 the reputation for violence in the area. 41:38 I'm shocked. 41:39 He shot a man's dogs. 41:41 What? 41:42 For being on his property, I guess. 41:44 Again, I say get at the fuck together. 41:46 There was also an incident where he shot his own son during an argument. 41:50 Nah, I'm out. 41:51 I'm out on him. 41:52 Not the guy you want to stumble onto his property. 41:56 I don't think he's going to help you with this. 41:58 Later on, Carter himself denied pointing a gun at Rosmo and claimed that he thought the man was a drunk trespasser. 42:04 I was like, okay. 42:05 Okay, whatever you say. 42:06 The confrontation really didn't lead to anything, but it did raise new questions about whether Jason might have stumbled onto somebody's life in the middle of the night 42:13 and was possibly shot and killed as a result. 42:16 Because if you're willing to do that. 42:17 Yeah, even Stuart Carter himself 42:19 agreed that that was a distinct possibility. 42:22 I mean, here you go. 42:23 He himself said, if it was a woman, 42:25 people would probably think she was in distress. 42:27 If it was a naked man, 42:28 I think it's safe to say he could wind up dead. 42:31 I mean, yeah. 42:32 Which is like, 42:33 knowing what you know about that. 42:35 And to realize that though, 42:37 in the middle of this investigation, 42:38 that's so horrifying. 42:40 So after reviewing all the evidence, 42:42 considering all the possibilities and applying a little deductive reasoning, 42:46 Kim Rosmo eventually came to a similar conclusion as local investigators though. 42:51 He figured Jason Landry had almost certainly died of hypothermia, and he 42:55 believes that after the accident where Jason could have sustained injuries 42:59 like a head injury, he got out of the car, eventually started walking back 43:04 toward town for assistance. And given the way he was dressed, because remember 43:08 where he was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and like slides. 43:10 Slides, yeah. 43:11 It wouldn't have taken long for hypothermia to set in. 43:14 It was between like mid-30s to low-40s 43:17 that night Fahrenheit. 43:19 During hypothermia, we've talked about this before, 43:22 blood vessels in the extremities 43:24 can strict to keep the body's core from losing heat, 43:27 but they can't do that for long periods of time. 43:30 So eventually the blood flows back into the extremities 43:32 and that causes hot flashes. 43:35 I think we talked about this specifically 43:36 when we covered the Diet Love Pass incident. 43:38 Yeah, we absolutely did. 43:40 And it leads to what's called as paradoxical undressing, 43:43 where the hypothermic person attempts to combat the hot flashes 43:48 by removing all of their clothes. 43:50 And you're not in a typical state of mind as well. 43:53 Yeah, exactly. 43:54 So he noted that Rosmo, 43:56 that the process of paradoxical undressing is often followed 43:59 by what's referred to as terminal burrowing, 44:03 which is a primitive behavior 44:04 in which warm-blooded animals seek out small enclosed spaces 44:08 to help keep them out of the cold. 44:10 Yeah, which I mean like they tell you to do anyways 44:12 if you're in like an avalanche or something like that, 44:14 like to burrow, essentially. 44:16 Exactly, it's a pretty strong theory. 44:19 And if the theory was correct, 44:21 Jason easily could have wandered into the dark. 44:23 If his brain was likely becoming increasingly numb and fogged, 44:27 then maybe he found some hidden space to hide in 44:30 and was still there and they just hadn't found it yet. 44:33 Damn. 44:34 Once he stopped moving it wouldn't take long for his body to succumb to the cold though 44:38 And if he was in some remote location like in a section of brush or bushes 44:42 It was more than likely that animals could have consumed his remains and maybe scattered whatever was left 44:48 Which could explain why they hadn't found any bones up to that point. Damn. It's a horrible. Yeah 44:54 conclusion 44:56 I mean, there's no good conclusion here 44:58 I was just gonna say that now the thing that drew so many people to Jason's case 45:02 Or the things are the things that drew them to Jason as a person himself. Yeah, he was bright. He was warm 45:08 He was inviting according to everybody who knew him 45:11 He was quote not afraid always making friends with people just a good dude 45:15 Oh, and he was somebody that who no matter what found himself in an awful situation and 45:23 Everybody kind of knew someone like Jason so it wasn't difficult to imagine something similar happening to someone 45:29 they knew. And that's what drove people to want to help the family and figure this out. 45:34 And of course, there were also just people who were drawn to the mystery of the case. 45:37 In November 2023, just before the third anniversary of the disappearance, 45:43 the key investigators on the case met for what they called a roundtable case review. 45:48 And after a lengthy discussion and a thorough review of the case, they collectively concluded 45:52 that quote, all credible leads and investigative steps have been pursued. 45:56 And although they still publicly expressed their commitment to closing the case, it was being completely shelved at that point for all intents and purposes. 46:05 That's hard. 46:05 And for his family, that announcement was exactly devastating. 46:10 Now, after years of waiting for answers, they pretty much resigned themselves to the near certainty that Jason wasn't alive anymore. 46:18 But there was a small part of them that held out hope that they would someday receive some kind of information. 46:23 Now, that day finally came just recently in September 2026 when a Luling resident discovered 46:31 human remains about five miles from the crash site. 46:36 That is crazy to me. 46:39 Five miles. 46:40 On September 23rd, 2026, the Texas Attorney General's office released a statement confirming 46:46 that those remains were Jason Landry's remains. 46:49 That's unbelievable. 46:50 Now, I said at the beginning of this, and I think I said it throughout, like, there's 46:54 still questions. 46:55 Because unfortunately, the degree of decomposition and decay made it pretty much impossible to 47:02 determine a cause of death. 47:03 Yeah.
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