The Disappearance of Jason Landry

On the evening of December 13, 2020, twenty-one-year-old Texas State University student Jason Landry left his apartment in San Marcos, TX headed in the direction of his parents in Missouri City. Several hours later, just after midnight, a firefighter discovered Jason’s wrecked car along the side of a rural road several miles from his destination—the lights were still on and the keys still in the ignition, but there was no sign of Jason anywhere.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Ash Kelley?

  The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ Sunny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his, but with one exception, his mom. Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nivola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface. Watch the Hulu original series Phony, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 0:31Ash Kelley?

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• 1:11Ash Kelley?

  Chilling crime cases are mysterious, but finding coverage shouldn't be. With the State Farm Personal Price Plan, you have options and can personalize your plan to help create an affordable price so you can get back to cracking all of life's bigger cases. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Head to statefarm.com to get a quote. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  And I'm Alina.

• 1:49Ash Kelley?

  And this is Mobid.

• 2:06Ash Kelley?

  This is Mobid.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Mobid.

• 2:08Ash Kelley?

  What's up, Big Red?

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Nothing. We were just saying that we were hoping it would be a little spookier outside today.

• 2:14Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, it's a little too sunny for my liking.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Still pretty fall, though, which I kind of love.

• 2:18Ash Kelley?

  The foliage is on another level this year.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  It is.

• 2:22Ash Kelley?

  I love it. It's probably for some horrible reason, but it is gorgeous this year.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  I'm sure there's some absolutely catastrophic reason for the foliage.

• 2:31Ash Kelley?

  Isn't that the worst when you're like, oh my god, Google, why are the leaves so beautiful this year? And it's like, because thousands of environments are dying.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're like data centers.

• 2:40Ash Kelley?

  That's why.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  And you're like, damn.

• 2:43Ash Kelley?

  Cool.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 2:45Ash Kelley?

  Love the foliage. Thanks so much. Just find like six articles about the worst things in humanity.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  But you know what? Right now, I'm gonna enjoy the foliage.

• 2:53Ash Kelley?

  I like it. I like it a lot.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Cause yeah, cause I feel like October's going too quickly.

• 2:58Ash Kelley?

  You know, that's so funny. I was literally just doing a little scrollly-oly, and it says we need to romanticize November.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  I love that. I mean, I love November.

• 3:07Ash Kelley?

  I love November too, but if you think about it, we don't do as much in November, like

• 3:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:12Ash Kelley?

  decor-wise, like, and I'm saying like us, like me.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:15Ash Kelley?

  Decor-wise and like tradition-wise, that's outside of Thanksgiving.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 3:20Ash Kelley?

  I think we can't just sliv for Thanksgiving.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:22Ash Kelley?

  You know?

• 3:23Speaker 01

  We gotta sliv for November.

• 3:24Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  As a whole.

• 3:26Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, we need to put like some leaves places.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's the bermans. We gotta get it together.

• 3:30Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, we should celebrate turkeys more, I think.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love turkeys.

• 3:33Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, they're great.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  We have so many turkeys around.

• 3:35Ash Kelley?

  There's a lot.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  At all times.

• 3:37Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, I've seen like 600 turkeys in the last couple of weeks.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Romanticize them.

• 3:40Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. Just yell out the window, "I love you!"

• 3:42Speaker 01

  "I love you, turkeys!"

• 3:43Ash Kelley?

  "Your neck is so weird and cute!"

• 3:45Speaker 01

  And then they puff up like, "I'll bite you."

• 3:47Ash Kelley?

  And they will.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Are not friendly.

• 3:50Ash Kelley?

  I like that they're not friendly.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  I'm not like, "Good for you. We eat you on Thanksgiving. You shouldn't be friendly to us."

• 3:54Ash Kelley?

  I kind of aspire to have a turkey attitude.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:57Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  I mean, according to some, I have a turkey attitude.

• 4:00Ash Kelley?

  You have a turkey attitude, and I'm not mad at it. I aspire to have that.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  You gotta puff up to get out of here.

• 4:06Ash Kelley?

  I can't wait for your turkey this year.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 4:10Ash Kelley?

  I'm like, "Romanticizing turkeys. Alina cooks it." And it's so good.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  I can't wait for that.

• 4:16Ash Kelley?

  And the mashed potatoes.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  The mashed potatoes.

• 4:18Ash Kelley?

  And the strusel.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  And the strusel.

• 4:20Ash Kelley?

  And the bread.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  And the bread.

• 4:23Ash Kelley?

  She makes this bread that she puts the pesto in.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I gotta make the pesto swirl bread.

• 4:27Ash Kelley?

  I'm gonna gain 800 pounds that night.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  It's gonna be all worth it.

• 4:30Ash Kelley?

  Can't wait.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 4:32Ash Kelley?

  See you there.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Let's go.

• 4:34Ash Kelley?

  I saw a recipe for, um, what was it? Caramelized onion, caramelized onion, uh, scalloped potatoes.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Oh, I think I saw that recipe.

• 4:46Ash Kelley?

  I bought us that cookbook. Let me shout it out.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 4:49Ash Kelley?

  Because I literally just bought it. And I subscribe to this guy's Substack, too.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  You say caramelized onion.

• 4:55Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  I'm in.

• 4:57Ash Kelley?

  I'm obsessed with caramelized onions, and I love the process.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:01Ash Kelley?

  Even though it does take 672 years, I'm here for it.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Ma used to do that when I would get home from school and she put them on crackers.

• 5:10Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  And they were so good.

• 5:12Ash Kelley?

  So freaking good. So this cookbook is called Dinner at My Place by, I hope I say his last name right, Ryan Nordheimer. And it has a bunch of good recipes in it.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Ryan.

• 5:23Ash Kelley?

  Um, and one of those is the mashed potato one. And then I also got us, um, I meant to tell you this. I'll tell you live on air. Teeny is releasing a cookbook, and I got it for us.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Teeny, I'm so excited. Oh, that is, I hope she, that's gonna blow up.

• 5:39Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, it's called Today We Are Cooking.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Today we are cooking.

• 5:42Ash Kelley?

  And you can preorder it now, and you can preorder the other one that I mentioned.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they have, I mean, Teeny, I've used so many of her recipes.

• 5:50Ash Kelley?

  Same. She makes a mean everything.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:53Ash Kelley?

  Apple, apple crisp, her recipe for apple crisp.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  I love an apple crisp.

• 5:58Ash Kelley?

  I don't really have a way to transition into the episode.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Um, no.

• 6:01Ash Kelley?

  Do you?

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Uh, delicious food makes us happy and full, enough to sit down and appreciate an interesting tale.

• 6:14Ash Kelley?

  Okay.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  That's how I.

• 6:16Ash Kelley?

  That was, that's what we call an attempt.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  I gave it a shot. All right.

• 6:20Ash Kelley?

  It's more than I did. It's more than I did. Well, today I have a disappearance for you.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 6:27Ash Kelley?

  And, um, Aiden actually told me about this case. I hadn't heard of this case before, and it's strange. And then weirdly enough, Aiden told me about this case like two weeks before it got somewhat solved.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 6:41Ash Kelley?

  So it's like, I want to say it's somewhat solved, but there are still lingering questions, I will say.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, there's a little bit of resolution, but I don't think there's full resolution.

• 6:50Ash Kelley?

  There's enough for the family, and that makes me happy. Like, they're happy, so, you know, obviously, they're still sad, but, but they're, they got answers, sort of. So let's get into it. So we're gonna be talking about the disappearance of Jason Landry today. Uh, Jason was born July 29th, 1999 in Missouri City, Texas, the third of three children born to Kent and Lisa Landry. According to his parents, he was a lovable goofball, exact words, who preferred to take life as it came. He tried not to sweat the more like stressful aspects of life. He was kind of just go with the flow.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  He didn't sweat the small stuff.

• 7:23Ash Kelley?

  No, you can't.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Good for him.

• 7:25Ash Kelley?

  After he graduated from high school, Jason enrolled at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. But school wasn't always easy to manage, especially when it came to the shift of higher ed, which I think a lot of people can relate to.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:38Ash Kelley?

  His parents definitely had their concerns that Jason wasn't living up to his full potential. But also, at the same time, they assumed that he was going through that adjustment phase of kind of learning how to manage your studies on your own as an adult. Like, it's so, college is so different from high school, obviously.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  It's such an adjustment for everybody.

• 7:55Ash Kelley?

  So they were like, okay, he's gonna find his way sooner or later. Now, it turned out that their, their faith in their son was well-placed. By the time he reached his third year at Sam Houston, uh, Jason was starting to take his education and his future more seriously. He transferred from the relatively small Sam Houston University then to Texas State University. His grades went up, and his interest in general in school seemed to, seemed to get a little more like nose to the grindstone.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was like focusing a little more.

• 8:23Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. Unfortunately, though, his newfound serien- seriousness about his future was profoundly and very unexpectedly interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Ooh, that happened to a lot of people.

• 8:36Ash Kelley?

  For Jason, who was described by his father as a pure extrovert, full of pure optimism, social distancing and quarantine practices were very, very frustrating for, for Jason.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  I felt bad for extroverts during that whole time.

• 8:51Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Cause I myself am not an extrovert, so. I did not feel that way, but like I can imagine that that would have been not just really annoying, but like truly detrimental to your mental health.

• 9:03Ash Kelley?

  Absolutely.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Someone who very much loves socializing.

• 9:07Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, and Jason was one of those people. His dad said, given his personality, isolating him was one of the worst things you could do.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, some people just do not thrive in that.

• 9:15Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Situation.

• 9:16Ash Kelley?

  I think I found out during the pandemic that I'm an introverted extrovert.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I always kind of knew that about you.

• 9:22Ash Kelley?

  I thought I was just a straight up extrovert.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:24Ash Kelley?

  But I much prefer being like by myself or just with my people, but I can extrovert when necessary.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Are you like an introvert in the case of like the natural case where like an introvert is somebody who socializes, but they recharge a lot?

• 9:40Ash Kelley?

  Yes, very much.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Like you don't get a charge from extroverting?

• 9:44Ash Kelley?

  No, not at all. I think I used to, but I think the older I get.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you used to for sure.

• 9:48Ash Kelley?

  I don't at all anymore.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I get, I get genuinely drained.

• 9:52Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  By extroverting like to a point of like migraine.

• 9:56Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Like it'll tap me dry for days.

• 9:59Ash Kelley?

  Well, you're also autistic, so.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  So there's, so there's.

• 10:02Ash Kelley?

  Like you're, you're masking when you're being an extrovert. So it makes sense.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:05Ash Kelley?

  So isolated in his apartment away from all his friends, his peers, everything like that. Jason turned to smoking weed a little bit more as a coping mechanism and kind of like half-heartedly continued his studies. Cause then everything went to like Zoom and he had already had a hard time in the beginning managing his studies. And then when he moved to Zoom, I like in college, I wasn't in college during the COVID like outbreak. But if I took online classes, I learned very quickly that I couldn't manage those myself.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. A lot of people learn that very fast.

• 10:36Ash Kelley?

  And to have that be your only option.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 10:39Ash Kelley?

  That's tough. And he was struggling with that. Then to make matters worse, the building that he lived in was mostly empty anyways. So he didn't even have neighbors to say hello to or wave to on his way in and out of the building. So he was like deeply, deeply isolated and really starting to feel terribly alone. Now, in the weeks leading up to his disappearance, family and friends, they did start to notice these small changes in his attitude. Despite his social media posts about getting his life on the right track, and that's a quote. His diet had deteriorated to mostly fast food and takeout. He was smoking a lot more than he ever had before. And he was even now going so far as to avoid sleeping and eating for long periods of time.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Oh geez.

• 11:21Ash Kelley?

  To try to intensify the potency of the pop that he was smoking. And that's a quote. I didn't know that you could do that. At the same time, he told a handful of friends and family that he had finally found God for the quote, first time ever. Which was interesting because he was the son of a Presbyterian minister and like came from a pretty religious family.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 11:41Ash Kelley?

  But maybe it was just like the first time he had found God on his own.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:45Ash Kelley?

  You know?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Or like his interpretation of God.

• 11:47Ash Kelley?

  Exactly. But the most noticeable change in his behavior was definitely his increased drug use. There was other changes though in, including like the budding interest in religion, mysticism, the occult. Jason's friend, Jack Frank, said, it seemed more and more apparent that our conversations weren't making sense anymore. Jason would talk about the rapture coming, aliens, Jesus, Elon Musk, and all these things that he would tie together somehow.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Huh.

• 12:13Ash Kelley?

  Which is like, that's a vast array of things.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. Yeah.

• 12:16Ash Kelley?

  Now, even with his new interests and the psychological toll isolation seemed to be taking on him and his well-being. Nobody thought there was any reason to be like super alarmed by these changes. Obviously it seemed a little bit weird to everybody, but they weren't gonna, you know, what are you gonna do?

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't like concerning, like something's gonna happen.

• 12:35Ash Kelley?

  Right. Especially because everyone around the world was kind of going through that same once in a lifetime crisis. And there was not really like a right or wrong way to deal with it necessarily.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Everyone was just dealing with it how they could.

• 12:46Ash Kelley?

  Even his parents who knew him the best saw no reason to be super concerned. His mother said on Saturday, which was two days before he went missing. He sounded just like Jason to me. He was very excited about the next semester. And I remember rolling my eyes because he was talking, talking, talking, but still hadn't got to his point. And that was pretty typical for him. Like he was a high energy person.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:07Ash Kelley?

  Now, on the evening of December 13th, 2020, Jason was at home on FaceTime chatting with a friend while he was rolling a few joints. And his friend actually ended up recording the call because he said he thought Jason seemed messed up, and that's a quote. And he seemed so messed up, he said, that he probably wouldn't remember what they'd been talking about.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  And that's why you recorded it.

• 13:27Ash Kelley?

  So he recorded it because they were meeting up later and I think he was gonna be like, do you remember saying this?

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Like what the hell?

• 13:33Ash Kelley?

  Now, there's no audio that is available to the public, but there is video and you can watch it.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 13:39Ash Kelley?

  Some online sleuths and actually even Caldwell County Sheriff's Office Captain Jeff Ferry himself saw the video. And they point to some visible sweat marks under the arms of Jason's shirt on the call. They are pretty significant for somebody who's just sitting down and just like talking and had been on the phone for 30 minutes. Just in that one spot. And viewers interpreted the amount of sweat as a quote, potential sign of anxiety. And Captain Ferry says, it certainly seems relevant, knowing that in less than an hour, Jason is going to be disrobing in a very cold, austere environment.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  That is valid. And I think it's valid considering what happens next. Taking it on its own, I will say, we'll sit in this room and have like an hour long podcast episode. And I am sweating like a pig.

• 14:24Ash Kelley?

  We sweat a lot.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Cause I'm nervous. It's just because of like talking.

• 14:29Ash Kelley?

  The way it is. Yeah. Yeah. We sweat a lot. I agree with you. And when I first read that, I was like, okay, like he has some pit stains.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  But taking it.

• 14:35Ash Kelley?

  Been there.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  With.

• 14:37Ash Kelley?

  They're very significant.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Are they? I didn't see them. So.

• 14:39Ash Kelley?

  I'll show you the video.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:41Ash Kelley?

  It's a lot.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:43Ash Kelley?

  But again.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Then that, that does make you wonder.

• 14:46Ash Kelley?

  It's a little weird, but then also I don't know what he was doing before he got on that FaceTime call.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Or if the heat was up.

• 14:51Ash Kelley?

  Or what the.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:53Ash Kelley?

  What was going on.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Definitely variables for sure.

• 14:55Ash Kelley?

  But given every, like given context, it is a little strange. Now, on top of that, the subject matter of the call is pretty interesting, at least based on Jason's friend's memory that he reiterated to the captain here. Uh, he said they were talking about spiritual enlightenment, opening your third eye and how drug consumption plays into all that.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:13Ash Kelley?

  And we're gonna get a little bit more into that.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Seems like a deep conversation.

• 15:16Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. But remember, his friend was like, he was, he seemed super messed up. So I think he may have been like rambling a little bit.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:24Ash Kelley?

  You know?

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Just going into different subjects.

• 15:27Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. And a previous friend had said like he'd talk about like Elon Musk, the rapture and aliens and somehow connect that all together. Like even his friends were like, it's getting a little strange, bro.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 15:37Ash Kelley?

  So the call ended after about 45 minutes. And at that point, and this was, this seemed to be like a quick decision, like this wasn't planned. Jason decided to drive home to see his parents and they didn't know he was coming. Before leaving, he packed a bag of clothes, toiletries, he packed a gaming console and even put his fish into a plastic tumbler so that he could take the fish to. Which obviously intended that he was, or obviously suggests he intended to stay with his parents, at least for a few days.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:04Ash Kelley?

  Cause he like, wasn't gonna be home to feed his fish.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:07Ash Kelley?

  So he left the apartment wearing a T-shirt, shorts and sandals, like slides. And at the time, a cold front had just passed through and the nights were especially cold. So it didn't seem like he was planning to spend any significant amount of time outside that night. And he set off on his trip at about 10:55.

• 16:34Ash Kelley?

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• 17:17Ash Kelley?

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• 17:49Ash Kelley?

  The Hulu original series, Phony, is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Sunny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his, but with one exception, his mom. Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nivola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface. Watch the Hulu original series, Phony, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 18:18Ash Kelley?

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• 18:54Ash Kelley?

  Now, the drive to Missouri City was about 165 miles from school and should have taken around like two and a half hours to get there.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  And this is at like, what time at night?

• 19:03Ash Kelley?

  He left at 10:55, which was abrupt because also remember the friend that he was FaceTiming? It sounds like they were meeting up. I don't know if it was later that night or

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:13Ash Kelley?

  or like within that week, but they had plans together.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  And he wouldn't be arriving home at his parents' house till like 1:30 in the morning.

• 19:21Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, it'd be, it'd definitely be late.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  And it's like, why bother? Why wouldn't she just leave in the morning?

• 19:25Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  To go to their house.

• 19:27Ash Kelley?

  It's abrupt, for sure. Now, along the way, he was chatting with several friends and his ex-girlfriend on FaceTime and other apps like Snapchat, each being logged into the phone, which provided actually a pretty good, like accurate timeline of his trip. And according to those he spoke to that night, he was in a good mood and he didn't exhibit any signs of distress or dread, but he was rambling a little bit.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:50Ash Kelley?

  From the sounds of it. Now, from the moment he got in the car, and apparently he was well-known to always do this, he always relied on Waze, like the app, to navigate his route. But at 11:24 PM, the app went dark, like he shut it down. Later, when the car was recovered, a check of the internal navigation system showed that instead of turning onto Interstate 10, which would have brought him to his parents' house, he kept driving straight for several, several more blocks, which took him further from home. Now, he continued on that path for five more miles and then pulled off to the side of the road to send a snap to his ex-girlfriend. In the picture, he seems calm, he seems happy, he doesn't look distressed, confused, anything like that. And that was the last time anyone saw or heard from him. That one photo.

• 20:36Ash Kelley?

  Now, a few hours later, a volunteer firefighter in Luling, Texas, was driving along Salt Flat Road when he spotted what looked like an abandoned vehicle, like left in a ditch just off of the gravel road. And this is like a pretty like isolated area.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:52Ash Kelley?

  Now, pulling over to investigate, the firefighter discovered that the car's headlights were still on, the doors were locked, the rear window was smashed, and the keys were still in the ignition.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  That's weird.

• 21:04Ash Kelley?

  There was no sign of a driver or any passengers anywhere. So suspecting obviously that there was some kind of accident and the driver might be in some kind of need of emergency assistance, he called the accident to local dispatch and officers arrived a short time later. Now, aside from the fact that there were no people to be found, everything about the scene suggested, at least to the officers, that it had been a fairly routine accident that had caused the car to skid off of the road. And the theory at that time was that Jason had been driving along the gravel road, made a small error, overcorrected, and then the car skidded off the road. According to the Luling Police Department, the rear driver's side corner made initial contact with a tree on the east side of the roadway,

• 21:46Ash Kelley?

  propelling the front driver's side into another tree and a barbed wire fence.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 21:51Ash Kelley?

  So the car was towed away and officers called Jason's parents to report that the vehicle had been found.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:58Ash Kelley?

  Weird.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:00Ash Kelley?

  Because there's also like clothing that was discovered that we'll find out.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Huh.

• 22:04Ash Kelley?

  And a backpack that was just like strewn in the road.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:07Ash Kelley?

  So it's a little weird to me.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:10Ash Kelley?

  Now, at the time, nobody suspected that he was like missing in any alarming sense, I guess. But when Kent Landry went to the impound lot to look at the car after getting the call that his son had been in an accident, everything changed. When the car was picked up, the most anybody really did at the scene was put it in neutral so that it could be towed. So that meant that Kent Landry was the first person to actually look inside of the car since his son went missing. And in the console between the front seats, he found Jason's cellphone.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  That's weird.

• 22:42Ash Kelley?

  And he was like, I know he wouldn't have left that behind.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Why would he have left the car with that, without that?

• 22:48Ash Kelley?

  That's the thing. I mean, he's like, he's a young kid.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:51Ash Kelley?

  So the discovery of the phone was concerning enough that Kent decided to visit the scene of the accident in case anything else might have been missed by local officers. And standing on the side of the road, he scanned the fence along the ditch, and as he did, his eye caught something colorful. About 900 feet from where Jason's car was found, which is about like three football fields, he saw the clothing that Jason was wearing when he left the house, right down to his watch, the sandal slides that he was wearing, and even his underwear.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, like what the fuck?

• 23:23Ash Kelley?

  And it was neatly piled by the side of the road.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  And the police just didn't see that?

• 23:29Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. Or, no, no, they did. They saw that there was clothing. There's a video of when they arrive on the scene and they are going through a backpack, and I'll get into what they find. And they take some stuff from the backpack to be processed, but the officer who's collecting everything says he's not getting the clothing. They're just gonna get it. And then one of the other officers is gonna like drive in a certain direction and see if he sees anybody. I don't know.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Are you good?

• 23:58Ash Kelley?

  No.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Like, what do you mean?

• 24:00Ash Kelley?

  I don't know.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  What the fuck?

• 24:01Ash Kelley?

  I don't understand it.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  That makes zero sense.

• 24:05Ash Kelley?

  Because the discovery of the clothing implied one of two things, which were both very confusing.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:10Ash Kelley?

  Jason drives off the road, walks for a few minutes, and then for some reason decides to change his clothes? Or he got into an accident, walked into the night, at some point strips all of his clothing off, and continues into the night completely naked?

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, why, why would, why would we just leave the clothes?

• 24:28Ash Kelley?

  Ring alarm bells?

• 24:29Speaker 01

  No, that's crazy.

• 24:30Ash Kelley?

  And like, you don't think he's missing in any significant sense?

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:34Ash Kelley?

  He's either changed an outfit, which is like a little bit strange after an accident, or he's naked. And one of the responding investigators says like, oh, is he like walking off naked into the night?

• 24:47Speaker 01

  And it's like, yeah, so you should check into that.

• 24:50Ash Kelley?

  Cause for concern, bro.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, like what, wouldn't that make you think something's desperately wrong if he's walking off naked into the night?

• 24:57Ash Kelley?

  One would think.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 25:00Ash Kelley?

  If the discovery of Jason's phone was cause for concern, the discovery of his clothing was downright alarming.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:05Ash Kelley?

  So Kent called the police to report it, like found out that they had seen it or that, like, I don't know. But what they, so they, they found that clothing and left it there. They said like, we're not touching that. And they confiscated marijuana that they had found in his backpack. But just straight up was like, no, we're gonna leave the clothes. Like, we are gonna have to post a link to the video because I was watching it and I was like, what?

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:31Ash Kelley?

  And some of the handling of certain things, I just thought was a little, that was a little strange.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  That's wild.

• 25:37Ash Kelley?

  But that's, that's enough on that. So now that Kent had called to report the clothing and also the fact that there was still no confirmed sightings of Jason, they finally bagged up the clothing as evidence in what was now considered a missing persons case.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, finally.

• 25:50Ash Kelley?

  But it's like, why did his dad have to go to the scene and do your job?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:55Ash Kelley?

  Like, seriously?

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Make that make sense again.

• 25:59Ash Kelley?

  Now, at the lab, technicians did find a small smear of blood on one of the items of clothing, but apparently it was nothing so substantial that it suggested a serious injury. And it seemed like it might have been left behind when Jason possibly got hung up on the barbed wire on that fence or got scratched by a branch, who knows? But that theory is supported by the fact that when they processed the car, investigators didn't find any blood evidence inside the vehicle.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:25Ash Kelley?

  Which is interesting to me.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:26Ash Kelley?

  Now, not far from where Jason's clothing was found, detectives also found his backpack, like I mentioned, that contained everything he packed that night, his wallet, joints that he'd been rolling as he talked with the friend on FaceTime. And a few feet away, they also found the tumbler that he had put his fish in for the trip, and it was overturned and the fish was dead next to it.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Oh, the poor fish.

• 26:49Ash Kelley?

  So it's like, that's weird.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is weird.

• 26:51Ash Kelley?

  Everything is just scattered.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:53Ash Kelley?

  And you like, you're just gonna, because what happens is they find the weed in the backpack and they're like, oh my god!

• 26:59Speaker 01

  And it's like, here's other stuff that we should be concerned with here.

• 27:02Ash Kelley?

  And the officer's like, I'm taking this, but I'm not getting the clothing.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Like, come on.

• 27:05Ash Kelley?

  It's like, but why? And what about the fish? So, everything was pretty baffling to detectives. When the clothing was discovered, it seemed like it had just been cast off, like, almost like what you would do at home when you're like taking off your clothes before getting into bed and like, or like changing into PJs, like, it's neat.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not like just thrown everywhere.

• 27:25Ash Kelley?

  It's not strewn, exactly. And there was no indication that it had been removed under any kind of duress or in a particular hurry, like, you know, like he was being held at gunpoint or something.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:35Ash Kelley?

  Then there was the fact that the car was completely locked when it was discovered, and the keys were still in the ignition. So that meant that rather than open the door and step out, Jason had climbed into the backseat and out the rear window, which is where I would think maybe some of that blood came from.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would absolutely think that, yeah.

• 27:55Ash Kelley?

  Now, sometimes, obviously, if somebody's gotten some kind of head injury in an accident, they might do something bizarre or out of character, like removing all their clothing and walking into the desert. But with a low temperature of just 36 degrees that night, Jason wouldn't have made it very far on foot without any protection from the elements. And if there had been some sort of foul play, like robbery or carjacking, something like that, why wasn't anything missing from the scene? Nothing was missing.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  That's the thing, like, like his wallet was right there.

• 28:24Ash Kelley?

  I was gonna say, and you even said like his watch he was wearing was there.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:28Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. It's so strange. Now, this is the other thing. According to his father, Jason relied almost exclusively on the Waze app anytime he drove anywhere. 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. He told a reporter, I don't know why my son was down this road, but my best guess, he'll follow Waze wherever it sends him. Don't know if he was trying to avoid a deer or what, swerved and hit some trees on the side. 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.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, you're right.

• 29:05Ash Kelley?

  And so we don't know why he ended up on this road. This like rural gravel road that's away from his destiny, like completely away from his destination, which is home.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Which is leading me to believe that there's some kind of event happening.

• 29:20Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Like, like a psychological event or something happening.

• 29:23Ash Kelley?

  Right.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  You know?

• 29:24Ash Kelley?

  Now, later that day after the scene was processed, scent dogs were brought to the scene and they started tracking his scent from the accident site back in the direction of Luling. Unfortunately, after about a quarter mile, though, the scent disappeared and the dogs couldn't continue. In a statement to the press, Sergeant Dion Cockerell said, "Right now, we have no indication of any foul play at all. 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." So the initial search for Jason went on for several days. Local authorities called in scent dogs, dive teams, helicopter teams, drones, like all of the above.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Full court press.

• 30:02Ash Kelley?

  Full court press, yeah. But unfortunately, days passed without any sign of Jason or any clue as to where he'd gone. Investigators even had the marijuana in the joints tested to see if it had been altered with like any additional substances, like maybe hallucinogens, but that was also a dead end. So

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 30:20Ash Kelley?

  Within a few weeks, the investigation pretty much went cold and without any new leads or evidence of foul play, the case was sadly moved to the back burner to allow enforcement officials to focus on other more pressing matters.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 30:34Ash Kelley?

  I always feel like such an asshole saying that.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Well, just because that's how they word it, but it's like, I can't imagine being a family who has, and it happens to them all the time.

• 30:43Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Like all the time.

• 30:45Ash Kelley?

  And it's like, it's the way it works.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  And then they must feel like super helpless.

• 30:49Ash Kelley?

  But it's awful.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:50Ash Kelley?

  So weeks turned into months, and then before anybody knew it, the first anniversary of Jason's disappearance had arrived, and his family was no closer to finding him than they were on the day he went missing. His father said, "Being left a year later without any answers has been difficult. We just want answers. We want to know what happened to our son."

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 31:08Ash Kelley?

  Now, the best theory that detectives could come up with was that Jason was under the influence when he left his apartment, which they believed explained any peculiarities with the case. Captain Jeff Ferry said, "All signs point to us that he's under the influence, and we know that he's going to get in the car and try to navigate his way to Missouri City, where his parents are not expecting him. He was not due home. He was going to hang out with buddies, play video games, and get high." That was his theory.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:32Ash Kelley?

  But when it came to what happened after the crash, he didn't really have a theory.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  It could be any number of things.

• 31:39Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  It really could.

• 31:40Ash Kelley?

  Well, like, that's a family's worst nightmare, though, is the fact that, yeah, it could be anything.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Open-ended, like, I don't know what happened here.

• 31:48Ash Kelley?

  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 worst possible conclusions. I feel so bad for them.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  I know.

• 31:57Ash Kelley?

  Now, while the evidence collected at the scene failed to provide any insights into the disappearance, new theories were emerging from amateur detectives, of course, who are following the case online. A lot of people noted that Jason's newfound spirituality might have had something to do with the disappearance, and that theory actually was strengthened by evidence collected from his computer and his phone. Caldwell County Sheriff's Office Captain Jeff Ferry told reporters, "And apparently, this is, some of these Google searches are happening in the minutes leading up to the crash."

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:26Ash Kelley?

  Uh, he said, "Jason is Googling, 'How long can you live in the woods without food? How long can you go in the wilderness?'" He's looking up some spiritual enlightenment practices. He's looking up different strains of marijuana and how to combine those. He's talking about psychedelics and how they have impacted his life and his perception of spiritual awakening. There are communications with individuals where he talks about his intent of reaching the spiritual enlightenment through use of narcotics. So does that play a factor into his disappearance? We think so.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  The fact that he was Googling, "How long can you live in the woods?" and like all that stuff?

• 33:00Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  And he's in this rural area. He turned off Waze, which he tended to rely on.

• 33:05Ash Kelley?

  Yup.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  That tells a different, a little bit of a different story there, for sure.

• 33:11Ash Kelley?

  It does. But then, on the flip side of things, his dad was saying, like, "What if you were reduced to your strangest Google searches in the hours before you went missing?"

• 33:19Speaker 01

  That is such a valid thing to say.

• 33:22Ash Kelley?

  That would suck for me.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Honestly, because there's times when I will literally just be like, "I have a weird random question." And I just randomly Google it. And I, and I have thought before, like, not if this was my last one, but I'll think like, "Damn, if somebody looked at my Google search history right now and saw that, they'd be like, 'Why did you think of that question?'"

• 33:41Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. No, I think a lot of people can relate to that. So like, with context that he is, like you were just saying, in a rural area, and it is a little strange.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:48Ash Kelley?

  Like, that feeds into that.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Think about.

• 33:51Ash Kelley?

  And it's a theory, but on the flip side of things, I think it's important to look at it both ways.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, my search history is insane.

• 33:58Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, we would be, we're on a list somewhere.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 34:01Ash Kelley?

  But just because of like what we do.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Well, and also just my random curiosity.

• 34:05Ash Kelley?

  Honestly, same.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  And my kid's random curiosity.

• 34:18Ash Kelley?

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• 34:55Ash Kelley?

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• 35:38Ash Kelley?

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• 36:20Ash Kelley?

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• 37:36Ash Kelley?

  Now, by the time the third anniversary arrived, the case had been handed off to the newly formed Texas Attorney General's Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 37:44Ash Kelley?

  I hope they use an acronym.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:46Ash Kelley?

  But at that point, there wasn't a lot of hope for new developments, or, you know, any like promising leads that they had to go after.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  There's not a lot to go on.

• 37:55Ash Kelley?

  So meanwhile, on social media, the case found new life with thousands of users hoping to solve this mystery. There was like a dozen Facebook groups dedicated solely to Jason's case, and there were roughly 50,000 active users who were just regularly going through every single detail, trying to figure something out.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  And sometimes that can be really helpful.

• 38:15Ash Kelley?

  I think in this case, it it actually was helpful because it like kept the case alive.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:20Ash Kelley?

  In a way, you know what I mean?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  And some, in sometimes fresh eyes, man.

• 38:22Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. Now, in a lot of cases, the online sleuths put their enthusiasm for the case into action. People were spending weekends researching, participating in searches. One resident from Houston, Jim West, and others interested in helping even invested their own money in the search activities. Jim West alone invested more than $50,000 of his own money into the search.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Jim.

• 38:46Ash Kelley?

  Jim's a real one.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 38:48Ash Kelley?

  He said, "It's as if a UFO came down, sucked him up into a beam of light and flew away. The deeper you go, the stranger it gets."

• 38:55Speaker 01

  It is a strange case.

• 38:56Ash Kelley?

  It is.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  It's not cut and dry.

• 38:58Ash Kelley?

  No, it's not at all. Now, each new piece of information that was released to the public only seemed to fuel speculation online, with a lot of people feeling like there was something more nefarious going on than just a missing college student. For example, a few years after Jason went missing, investigators disclosed that the scent dogs had tracked Jason's scent to a small pond on a private property. And they showed no, and this is a quote, "No deviation whatsoever on a hot, hot trail." But when the pond was drained and the muddy pit was searched by detectives, there was no sign of a body or any kind of remains whatsoever.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  That's so weird.

• 39:37Ash Kelley?

  When it raised the question, why would the dogs be so convinced that there was a target in a pond when there was nothing there?

• 39:43Speaker 01

  Did he go there first?

• 39:45Ash Kelley?

  Well, the explanation could actually even be simpler than that. The handler, Sean Hahnstrider, said, "We've talked to a scientist that has suggested something in the oil production process when mixed with water is creating the illusion of human decomposition."

• 39:59Speaker 01

  What?

• 40:00Ash Kelley?

  It's almost like a chemical kind of reaction.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  That mimics human decomposition?

• 40:05Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 40:08Ash Kelley?

  Or at least the smell of it.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  That's gnarly.

• 40:11Ash Kelley?

  So with not a lot of places to go, eventually, the Caldwell County Sheriff's Office reached out to Kim Rossmo, a former homicide detective from Vancouver. And this investigator's insights and work actually led to the capture of serial killers like Robert Pickton.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 40:26Ash Kelley?

  And also the identification of Banksy.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  What?

• 40:30Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, so I'd say if you're gonna call in anyone, this is the guy to call.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:35Ash Kelley?

  So his first step was to recreate the scene where Jason had gone missing. Start right at the beginning. He waited until the night when the temperature was pretty similar to the night that Jason disappeared. And then he removed his own shoes and started walking on the gravel road that Jason was believed to have traveled down. And he said, "I made it 10 steps before I said, 'Fuck this. It was too painful.'"

• 40:55Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, it makes sense.

• 40:58Ash Kelley?

  It's interesting. Now, it turned out that the unforgiving environment was not the only hazard that Jason might have encountered that night. The area where the car is abandoned, was abandoned, is essentially miles of privately owned oil fields.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 41:12Ash Kelley?

  I don't know if you know anything about like, oil folks?

• 41:14Speaker 01

  About oil?

• 41:15Ash Kelley?

  They'll fuck around.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I've heard.

• 41:18Ash Kelley?

  So when Rossmo tried to speak with some of the oil workers, he was, he met with varying levels of disinterest and even hostility.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 41:26Ash Kelley?

  Especially from one landowner in particular, Stuart Cardo, who literally threatened him with a shotgun.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Get it together.

• 41:33Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Like, get it together.

• 41:35Ash Kelley?

  It's just somebody asking questions because somebody disappeared near your property.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Get off my property vibes.

• 41:40Ash Kelley?

  That's wild.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Behavior.

• 41:42Ash Kelley?

  Well, Rossmo asked around at the sheriff's office and found out that Carter had quite the reputation for violence in the area.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  I'm shocked.

• 41:49Ash Kelley?

  He shot a man's dogs.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  What?

• 41:52Ash Kelley?

  For being on his property, I guess.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Again, I say, get it the fuck together.

• 41:56Ash Kelley?

  There was also an incident where he shot his own son during an argument.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Nah, I'm out.

• 42:01Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  I'm out on him.

• 42:02Ash Kelley?

  Not, not the guy's, uh, not, not the guy you want to stumble onto his property.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  I don't think he's gonna help you with this.

• 42:08Ash Kelley?

  Later on, Carter himself denied pointing a gun at Rossmo and claimed that he thought the man was a drunk trespasser.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:14Ash Kelley?

  I was like, okay.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Okay, whatever you say.

• 42:17Ash Kelley?

  The confrontation really didn't lead to anything, but it did raise new questions about whether Jason might have stumbled onto somebody's land in the middle of the night and was possibly shot and killed as a result.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Because if you're willing to do that.

• 42:27Ash Kelley?

  Yeah. Even Stuart Carter himself agreed that that was a distinct possibility.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  I mean, here you go.

• 42:33Ash Kelley?

  He himself said, "If it was a woman, people would probably think she was in distress. If it was a naked man, I think it's safe to say he could wind up dead."

• 42:41Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah.

• 42:42Ash Kelley?

  Which is like.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Knowing what you know about that.

• 42:45Ash Kelley?

  And that to realize that, though, in the middle of this investigation, that's so horrifying.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:51Ash Kelley?

  So after reviewing all the evidence, considering all the possibilities and applying a little deductive reasoning, Kim Rossmo eventually came to a similar conclusion as local investigators, though. He figured Jason Landry had almost certainly died of hypothermia. And he believes that after the accident, where Jason could have sustained injuries, like a head injury, he got out of the car, eventually started walking back toward town for assistance. And given the way he was dressed, because remember, he was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and like slides.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Slides, yeah.

• 43:21Ash Kelley?

  It wouldn't have taken long for hypothermia to set in. It was between like mid 30s to low 40s that night Fahrenheit. During hypothermia, we've talked about this before, blood vessels in the extremities constrict to keep the body's core from losing heat, but they can't do that for long periods of time. So eventually, the blood flows back into the extremities, and that causes hot flashes. I think we talked about this specifically when we covered the Diet Love Pass incident.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, we absolutely did.

• 43:50Ash Kelley?

  And it leads to what's called as paradoxical undressing, where the hypothermic person attempts to combat the hot flashes by removing all of their clothes. And you're not in a typical state of mind as well.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 44:05Ash Kelley?

  So he noted, Rossmo, that the process of paradoxical undressing is often followed by what's referred to as terminal burrowing, which is a primitive behavior in which warm-blooded animals seek out small enclosed spaces to help keep them out of the cold.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, which, I mean, like, they tell you to do anyways if you're in like an avalanche or something like that, like to burrow, essentially.

• 44:26Ash Kelley?

  Exactly.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:28Ash Kelley?

  It's a pretty strong theory.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:30Ash Kelley?

  And if the theory was correct, Jason easily could have wandered into the dark. If his, his brain was likely becoming increasingly numb and fogged, then maybe he found some hidden space to hide in and was still there, and they just hadn't found it yet.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 44:44Ash Kelley?

  Once he stopped moving, it wouldn't take long for his body to succumb to the cold, though. And if he was in some remote location, like in a section of brush or bushes, it was more than likely that animals could have consumed his remains and maybe scattered whatever was left, which could explain why they hadn't found any bones up to that point.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 45:03Ash Kelley?

  It's a horrible conclusion.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  I mean, there's no good conclusion here.

• 45:08Ash Kelley?

  I was just gonna say that. Now, the thing that drew so many people to Jason's case, or the things, are the things that drew them to Jason as a person himself.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:17Ash Kelley?

  He was bright, he was warm, he was inviting. According to everybody who knew him, he was, quote, "Not afraid, always making friends with people, just a good dude." And he was somebody that, who, no matter what, found himself in an awful situation. And everybody kind of knew someone like Jason, so it wasn't difficult to imagine something similar happening to someone they knew.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:40Ash Kelley?

  And that's what drove people to want to help the family and figure this out. And of course, there were also just people who were drawn to the mystery of the case. In November 2023, just before the third anniversary of the disappearance, the key investigators on the case met for what they called a roundtable case review. And after a lengthy discussion and a thorough review of the case, they collectively concluded that, quote, "All credible leads and investigative steps have been pursued." 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.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  That's hard.

• 46:16Ash Kelley?

  And for his family, that announcement was exactly devastating. Now, after years of waiting for answers, they pretty much resigned themselves to the near certainty that Jason wasn't alive anymore. But there was a small part of them that held out hope that they would someday receive some kind of information.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Anything.

• 46:34Ash Kelley?

  Now, that day finally came just recently.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:36Ash Kelley?

  In September 2026, when a Luling resident, or Luling resident, discovered human remains about five miles from the crash site.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  That is crazy to me.

• 46:49Ash Kelley?

  Five miles. On September 23rd, 2026, the Texas Attorney General's Office released a statement confirming that those remains were Jason Landry's remains.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  That's unbelievable.

• 47:00Ash Kelley?

  Now, I said at the beginning of this, and I think I said it throughout, like, there's still questions. Because unfortunately, the degree of decomposition and decay made it pretty much impossible to determine a cause of death.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, skeletal remains are tough.

• 47:16Ash Kelley?

  But at the same time, the coroner didn't indicate any evidence of foul play. Because they can't.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  That, yeah, cuz even like anything on the bones, you could trace back to an animal.

• 47:27Ash Kelley?

  Exactly. And after six years, I mean, come on.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:31Ash Kelley?

  And also, obviously, my first thought, and probably some of you listening, how were those remains sitting there for six years and nobody found them after all those extensive searches? Drones, helicopters, dogs?

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 47:43Ash Kelley?

  That was my first response. I was like, no, that makes no sense.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:47Ash Kelley?

  But there's also an answer for that. Gene Robinson, a drone pilot with Texas EQ search, I think it's called. Uh, he assisted in the search and he told reporters that the site where Jason's remains were ultimately found was just about a mile outside of their established site.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  That is.

• 48:07Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, that's, oh, yeah.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  That's so close.

• 48:13Ash Kelley?

  It's so.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  And to know that like the whole time.

• 48:16Ash Kelley?

  For six years, he was likely right there.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 48:19Ash Kelley?

  Like, that's awful. When asked for comment, Kim Rossmo said, I think this is a case we have much to learn from. I think for me, one of the most important things about this case is how crazy it got with all the wild tangents and theories. Everything from Mexican cartels to other types of nonsense to there could have been vultures. It just got to the point where that might have damaged the ability to find him sooner. And I think that's important to remember.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 48:44Ash Kelley?

  Jason's mother Lisa said, I never thought we would be here. I never thought we would have so much support and I never thought that support would be so strong. Now, six years after their son went missing, they're final, the family is finally able to lay him to rest, which is at least partially due to the communities of people online and the people in person who showed up to support them.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Which, that's a good example of what can happen.

• 49:08Ash Kelley?

  Exactly. So that is unfortunately the end of the disappearance of Jason Landry.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  I'm so glad that they have some kind of closure, anything.

• 49:20Ash Kelley?

  And a place where they can go visit him.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  That's the thing.

• 49:23Ash Kelley?

  Like they have his body.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, not having his body must have been.

• 49:27Ash Kelley?

  Torturous.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Horrific.

• 49:28Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  And it's like, but I, I just like, you wonder what actually happened, you know, like that. It's, it must be, I imagine it must be a little hard to not know what those final moments were.

• 49:40Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, I can't imagine.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  But I'm really glad that they have some kind of.

• 49:43Ash Kelley?

  Personally, I do feel like the hypothermia theory is a pretty strong one. Especially if you think that, uh, like if you're open to the possibility that he could have sustained a head injury. Cuz I think that would make it that much worse.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  And it could be something as simple, and I mean, simple in the, in the way that it's not like cracking your head open. As like a concussion.

• 50:04Ash Kelley?

  Exactly.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Obviously, a concussion is not simple, but it can be as, as easy to get as your head banging into something or just your head whipping forward.

• 50:14Ash Kelley?

  Right.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Could cause a concussion.

• 50:15Ash Kelley?

  Right. And then he's like, already disoriented. Then he's going out into the elements where he's gonna become more disoriented. And then you have like the paradoxical undressing. It makes a lot of sense to me.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  And it's still, and it's strange that he was going to his parents' house unannounced at that time at night.

• 50:34Ash Kelley?

  It is weird. That's the thing.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Strange to me, but again, I don't know if this was something that they would look back on and go like, yeah, it's just kinda.

• 50:41Ash Kelley?

  I don't know.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  He would have done.

• 50:42Ash Kelley?

  I don't know if they've ever commented on that. I didn't see anything.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do wonder if that's something they've ever been like, huh, I wonder why he was doing that.

• 50:48Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Cuz like that just, the timing, like leaving at 11:00 PM and it's like two and a half hours away.

• 50:54Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  I was like.

• 50:55Ash Kelley?

  And it sounded like he had plans with a friend.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, why wouldn't you have just waited for the morning? If you wanted to go stay with your parents for a little bit.

• 51:02Ash Kelley?

  I don't know.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  And he obviously planned to stay there for a little bit.

• 51:06Ash Kelley?

  Yeah, I mean, maybe he liked a nighttime drive. Who knows?

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Maybe. I mean, I like a nighttime.

• 51:10Ash Kelley?

  I like a nighttime drive too, so that's why I thought of it.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't really.

• 51:13Ash Kelley?

  But I don't know.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:15Ash Kelley?

  He was planning to stay for a couple of days. It seemed like, at least with like, yeah, packed, like bringing his fish.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, the fish and everything, you know? Yeah, cuz otherwise you could just kind of feed the fish and leave.

• 51:24Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  If you're going for like the day or the night.

• 51:26Ash Kelley?

  No, there's, there's definitely questions that are, that are strange.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  But I'm just glad that there's some kind of cap for the family.

• 51:34Ash Kelley?

  I agree.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  You know?

• 51:35Ash Kelley?

  And I think we need a fun fact after that cuz it's a sad case no matter what.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:40Ash Kelley?

  Did you know that the ancient Romans used to drop a piece of toast into their wine for good health? And that's why we raise a toast?

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 51:49Ash Kelley?

  I've never thought about why it's called a toast.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  I've never thought of that either.

• 51:53Ash Kelley?

  It's because they.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  And I certainly never thought it was legitimately just toast.

• 51:57Ash Kelley?

  Straight up toast.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 52:00Ash Kelley?

  How fun is that?

• 52:01Speaker 01

  That's cool. I like that. Oh, I can't wait to tell my oldest about that.

• 52:05Ash Kelley?

  Oh, honey.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  Very into Greek mythology and all things like that. So.

• 52:10Ash Kelley?

  I like it.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  She'll be impressed.

• 52:12Ash Kelley?

  I like it a lot.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 52:13Ash Kelley?

  I do wonder, did they then eat the toast that was wine soaked?

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Might be good.

• 52:19Ash Kelley?

  Hey, as a child, I used to dip my saltines into water.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  That's the thing. So you really can't, and it's, it might be, you know, you dip bread into sauce and stuff.

• 52:27Ash Kelley?

  It's almost like tomato soup.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 52:29Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Good wine.

• 52:30Ash Kelley?

  Grape soup.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  I guess. I don't know.

• 52:32Ash Kelley?

  Yeah.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Worth a try.

• 52:33Ash Kelley?

  That's why we call it that, though.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 52:35Ash Kelley?

  The more you know.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 52:37Ash Kelley?

  Well, people, we hope you keep listening.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  And we hope you.

• 52:40Ash Kelley?

  Keep it weird. That's weird that you don't put some toast in your drink.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, do that.

• 52:47Ash Kelley?

  Keep it that, uh, keep it that weird.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:49Ash Kelley?

  Bye.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 54:22Ash Kelley?

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• 55:06Speaker 03

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• 55:52Speaker 03

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