Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / College student heads home for Christmas, never seen again. WHERE'S JASON?

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College student heads home for Christmas, never seen again. WHERE'S JASON? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace and incredible boy, an incredible boy.
0:21
Speaker 1: You know. I call my son John David my wonder boy.
0:25
Speaker 1: I call my little girl angel girl because that's what
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Speaker 1: they are to me. A wonder boy and an angel
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Speaker 1: girl fourteen now, but they're a boy and a girl
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Speaker 1: to me. That's how I'm gonna probably always see them.
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Speaker 1: I've got a father with me right now that sees
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Speaker 1: his twenty one year old son, Jason as his wonder boy,
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Speaker 1: and I want to find him. Twenty one year old
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Speaker 1: Jason Landry was driving home from San Marcus to visit
0:58
Speaker 1: his parents in the Houston area on the night of
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Speaker 1: December thirteenth, a trip that was mysteriously cut short. The
1:05
Speaker 1: Caldwell County Sheriff's Office says a volunteer firefighter found Landry's
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Speaker 1: abandoned car on Salt Flat Road in Luling. Investigators trying
1:14
Speaker 1: to find a Texas State University student after they found
1:17
Speaker 1: his car crash near Luling just after midnight last night.
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Speaker 1: Loved one say Jason Landry was on his way to
1:24
Speaker 1: the Houston area for the holidays but did not make
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Speaker 1: it home. Now they're hoping someone finds him. How do
1:30
Speaker 1: you have a crash car and you're not in it?
1:36
Speaker 1: How does that happen? Where is twenty one year old
1:41
Speaker 1: Jason Landry with me an all star panel to try
1:45
Speaker 1: to make sense of this seemingly senseless situation. Doctor Angela Arnold,
1:50
Speaker 1: renowned psychiatrists joining me out of Atlanta. You can find
1:53
Speaker 1: her at Angela Arnold MD dot com. High profile lawyer
1:58
Speaker 1: joining me out of Atlanta as well. Randy Kessler, Emory
2:01
Speaker 1: Law professor, author of Divorce, Protect Yourself, your Kids, in
2:05
Speaker 1: your Future. And you can find Randy at k S
2:09
Speaker 1: Family Law dot com. No stranger to a courtroom Professor Forensics,
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Speaker 1: Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon.
2:20
Speaker 1: Star of a brand new hit series on True Crime Network,
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Speaker 1: Poisonous Liaison Death Investigator. Joseph Scott Morgan, Senior Digital Forensic Examiner,
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Speaker 1: Counterintelligence President, CEO of National Digital Forensics WOW. Giovanni Masucci
2:38
Speaker 1: is with us Special Guests joining us. Cheryla point cousin,
2:44
Speaker 1: the victim in this case, the young man we're looking for.
2:47
Speaker 1: She's a genetic genealogist, the gene hunter at the gene
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Speaker 1: hunter dot com. And I mean ge ne not blue
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Speaker 1: Jeans very special guests joining me Landry. You can find
3:03
Speaker 1: Kent on Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash Fine Jason Landry,
3:11
Speaker 1: but straight to Alexis Torrestchuck Crimeline dot com and investigative
3:15
Speaker 1: reporter also with lead Stories dot com. Alexis, I don't
3:21
Speaker 1: understand how a young man who has finally decided on
3:26
Speaker 1: his calling. His dream was to be a sound engineer,
3:30
Speaker 1: and he was a new student at Texas State University.
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Speaker 1: Everything going on all cylinders, everything's fine. He leaves around
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Speaker 1: ten pms at night to drive home to his parents
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Speaker 1: for Christmas, and he never shows up. What can you
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Speaker 1: tell me about those facts, Alexis Treschuk. So it was
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Speaker 1: December thirteenth, just left last year, write a little bit
3:56
Speaker 1: after ten o'clock. He leaves ten to twenty five to
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Speaker 1: drive home at all, only a three hour drive to
4:01
Speaker 1: his parents. Who so, and you know, we had to
4:02
Speaker 1: finish up school. You got to wrap up stuff at
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Speaker 1: the end of the semester, and he's gonna go home
4:06
Speaker 1: for Christmas. Break gets in the car, he chats on
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Speaker 1: the phone with one of his friends. What every normal
4:12
Speaker 1: person does, he brightening suspicious. He chats on the front
4:16
Speaker 1: on the phone with a friend. Is that on his
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Speaker 1: cell phone? Yes, of course yes, And the conversation was normal, correct, Yes,
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Speaker 1: nothing wrong, going looking forward to Christmas? And what time
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Speaker 1: was that conversation, Alexis I'm trying to build a timeline.
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Speaker 1: It was shortly be four ten fifty five pm. Now
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Speaker 1: you know the reality is for a young guy, this age,
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Speaker 1: twenty one year old college stunit, hopping at the car
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Speaker 1: at ten thirty ten forty five to drive home to
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Speaker 1: your parents, that's no big deal. A lot of us
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Speaker 1: may say, wow, that's too late to be on the road,
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Speaker 1: Not for a twenty one year old guy heading home
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Speaker 1: for Christmas holidays. You just heard our friends Rebecca Thomas
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Speaker 1: at Fox seven Austin and our friends at kV U
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Speaker 1: E ABC. But take a little send to you, Jacob
5:01
Speaker 1: raskin k r PC, Houston. Jason's father, Ken, the senior
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Speaker 1: pastor at a Presbyterian church in Missouri City, as well
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Speaker 1: as Jason's older brother, and many other extended family members
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Speaker 1: and friends have been searching alongside investigators all day, many
5:19
Speaker 1: wondering why would he have left his belongings in the car.
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Speaker 1: His father tells me he believes Jason probably suffered a concussion.
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Speaker 1: Maybe he doesn't even know who he is. Maybe he's hurt,
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Speaker 1: he was in a car accident, but he's not with
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Speaker 1: the car, and we just don't know. So any help
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Speaker 1: of me greatly appreciated. Let's go straight out to this
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Speaker 1: young man. Jason Landry's dad joining us right now. It's
5:43
Speaker 1: Kent Landry, and again, please go to Facebook dot com
5:48
Speaker 1: forward slash find Jason Landry or go to crime online
5:52
Speaker 1: dot com to see photos and find out more. Kent,
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Speaker 1: tell me what happened when you knew he was on
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Speaker 1: his way home? Correct? And not that morning? Actually I
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Speaker 1: knew he was coming home. So I have three kids,
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Speaker 1: my oldest, their big sister was she worked in Chicago
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Speaker 1: and she was coming home. And the two boys, ones
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Speaker 1: at A and M and ones at Texas State, were
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Speaker 1: both waiting till their big sister gets home. Before they
6:21
Speaker 1: headed home. They were both finishing up finals and then
6:25
Speaker 1: you know, hanging out with friends and kind of finishing
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Speaker 1: up everything for the semester before they headed home. So
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Speaker 1: I knew Jason was coming home. I didn't know which
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Speaker 1: particular day because he was also waiting for another friend
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Speaker 1: to come into town first. So you knew they were coming.
6:41
Speaker 1: How far of a drive is it from Texas State University?
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Speaker 1: Did you live in a dorm or an apartment? In
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Speaker 1: an apartment? How far was it from Jason's apartment to
6:49
Speaker 1: your home? Depends on how fast you drive in traffic,
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Speaker 1: Somewhere in the range of two and a half to
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Speaker 1: three hours, okay, going leaving at about ten till eleven
7:01
Speaker 1: at night. He should have been home at least by
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Speaker 1: two thirty two thirty in the morning, and you didn't
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Speaker 1: know he was coming, so you didn't realize anything was
7:10
Speaker 1: actually wrong until when until we got a call from
7:14
Speaker 1: the highway patrol at around two in the morning. Tell
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Speaker 1: me about that call, mister Andrey. Well, um, you know,
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Speaker 1: I've gotten plenty of calls in the you know, in
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Speaker 1: the wee hours, whether when I was practicing law or
7:31
Speaker 1: as a pastor. That that comes with the territory. So
7:35
Speaker 1: wasn't that unusual. But when it's when it's the police
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Speaker 1: and they call about your child, that's you know, that's
7:44
Speaker 1: kind of the nightmare of any parent. Um, you know,
7:47
Speaker 1: to all we were told is, you know, the cars crashed,
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Speaker 1: he's not there, And we went back and forth with
7:56
Speaker 1: the officer and I got in the car and drove there,
8:00
Speaker 1: probably left with him about thirty minutes over. That was
8:03
Speaker 1: the first phone call to go see what I could
8:05
Speaker 1: find out crime stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we were
8:22
Speaker 1: talking about the phone call that no parent wants to get.
8:29
Speaker 1: That phone rings at two o'clock in the morning and
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Speaker 1: somebody tells you they found your boy's car crashed, but
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Speaker 1: he's not in it along in a two and a
8:43
Speaker 1: half hour ride that strip of road and nobody can
8:48
Speaker 1: find him. What do you do? I mean to doctor
8:53
Speaker 1: Angela Arnold psychiatrists, I will never forget. And I've told
8:56
Speaker 1: this story, Jackie can close your ears. When my son
9:00
Speaker 1: John David went missing in a big Superstar it was
9:03
Speaker 1: babies there us Superstar huge and I was look I
9:10
Speaker 1: had both of them with me and I was looking
9:12
Speaker 1: for of all things, organic suntan lotion and I was
9:18
Speaker 1: down on the very bottom. They had shelves that I
9:20
Speaker 1: felt like they went up to the ceiling and I
9:23
Speaker 1: looked and looked and looked if I said, well, Twins,
9:26
Speaker 1: I just can't find it. And I got up and
9:29
Speaker 1: turned around. There was Lucy and know John David, and
9:34
Speaker 1: in that moment it felt like the whole world just stopped. Angela,
9:38
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know, Nancy, these are the kinds of
9:41
Speaker 1: things that when they happen, they shake our They shake
9:44
Speaker 1: us to the very poor, They shake our sense of
9:50
Speaker 1: just security that we all have to live with on
9:53
Speaker 1: a daily basis. And now this poor boy is missing,
10:00
Speaker 1: and there and there it does. It sounds like there's
10:02
Speaker 1: no answer. So how can I mean? I don't I've
10:05
Speaker 1: lost my children in stores before, and you feel like
10:09
Speaker 1: you you literally think your whole life passes in front
10:13
Speaker 1: of you, doesn't it, Nancy, I just don't even have
10:15
Speaker 1: a clear recollection of thinking anything. It just felt like
10:18
Speaker 1: my whole body was. I was outside my body, but
10:24
Speaker 1: I could hear myself screaming to lock the doors, and
10:27
Speaker 1: I had Lucy under one arm like a football, like
10:30
Speaker 1: Tom Brady running for the touchdown, you know, but trying
10:34
Speaker 1: to find John David Kent Landry is Jason's dad. He
10:38
Speaker 1: gets this call to AM and here's that his son's
10:43
Speaker 1: car is wrecked on the way home. But no son.
10:46
Speaker 1: You get in the car and you take off. What
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Speaker 1: was going through your mind, Kent as you were trying
10:50
Speaker 1: to get to that location, Well, um, it's I don't know.
10:59
Speaker 1: It's it's hard to explain. It's it's a nightmare you
11:02
Speaker 1: never wake up from. Um. It was it was very surreal. UM.
11:07
Speaker 1: Driving You're trying to get there, trying to think of
11:11
Speaker 1: anything that can happen. And this is Louling is a
11:15
Speaker 1: small town, you know, between Saint Marcus. It's it's the
11:18
Speaker 1: only the reason you passed through Louling is to get
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Speaker 1: to High ten to get home. UM, and trying to
11:25
Speaker 1: figure out, okay, well what am I going to do
11:28
Speaker 1: to get there? Where was it? My wife stayed at
11:31
Speaker 1: home in case Jason called or and to find out,
11:35
Speaker 1: you know, information from from the officer and stuff like that.
11:39
Speaker 1: So it was I don't really remember. It was a blur. Um.
11:43
Speaker 1: I got there about five in the morning and it
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Speaker 1: was clear, cold, windy and dark, and trying to find
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Speaker 1: my son, trying to find anything someone to talk to.
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Speaker 1: Five am in the morning in small town there's not
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Speaker 1: a lot of people to talk to, or even trying
12:06
Speaker 1: to find where the accident is and stuff like that.
12:09
Speaker 1: How did you find the crash? Well, I knew who
12:14
Speaker 1: was the officer had told me who was going to
12:16
Speaker 1: be towing the car. The name of the tow truck company.
12:19
Speaker 1: I found their location online, put it in my phone.
12:22
Speaker 1: It said it was twenty four hours a day. So
12:24
Speaker 1: I went directly there and I found a tow truck
12:26
Speaker 1: driver there and he said he wasn't the one who
12:31
Speaker 1: towed it, but he gave me the location. He said,
12:33
Speaker 1: it's off this one of the highways that kind of
12:36
Speaker 1: runs out of out of town. So he gave me
12:39
Speaker 1: directions how to get there. And I'm running up and
12:42
Speaker 1: down this highway. My wife I have located. We have
12:44
Speaker 1: locators on her phone, you know, she can watch where
12:46
Speaker 1: I am. And I knew where Jason's car was, where
12:50
Speaker 1: his phone was. It was in the storage lot at
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Speaker 1: the parking at the tow truck place, but they couldn't
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Speaker 1: They wouldn't open it until seven in the morning. So
13:00
Speaker 1: waiting before seven, I was going to see, you know,
13:03
Speaker 1: go look for Jason, and Lisa was able to. I
13:08
Speaker 1: went down the rong road first. I knew that I
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Speaker 1: couldn't see anything, so I called my wife and said,
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Speaker 1: I don't think he's on this road. I'm almost to
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Speaker 1: another town. You know, called the officer and find out
13:18
Speaker 1: exactly what the location was. When she called him, he
13:20
Speaker 1: was already in bed Um. He gave her the name
13:24
Speaker 1: of the road. She found it on the found it
13:27
Speaker 1: on the map and was driving down that road at
13:30
Speaker 1: five am. So let me understand. The officer, the investigator
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Speaker 1: got the car towed and they went to bed Yes, okay,
13:44
Speaker 1: I wish they hadn't towed the car just that fast.
13:48
Speaker 1: Joe Scott Morgan, Professor forensic Jacksonville State University, and such
13:51
Speaker 1: a long list of credentials. I'm I'm losing you know,
13:55
Speaker 1: my voice. So, Joe Scott, why did they tow the car? Well,
14:01
Speaker 1: I guess they come upon the car, they see a crash,
14:03
Speaker 1: they're told to tow it, and they don't realize that
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Speaker 1: every tiny bit of evidence is important. What do we
14:10
Speaker 1: need to be looking at in that car? Oh? You
14:13
Speaker 1: know you have to first thing I would be looking
14:15
Speaker 1: for personally is to see if there's any any evidence
14:19
Speaker 1: of trauma that the driver may have sustained. But wait
14:22
Speaker 1: a minute, let me get another fact for you, Joe Scott,
14:25
Speaker 1: to use Alexa stress shut. There was a crash, but
14:28
Speaker 1: a crash into what was it a single car? And
14:30
Speaker 1: it's don't like into a tree or a fence or
14:32
Speaker 1: was there another car involved. So the link. They said,
14:35
Speaker 1: they don't believe that there was another car involved. They
14:38
Speaker 1: think that something made Jason swerve and he perhaps maybe
14:43
Speaker 1: hit something with the right i'm sorry, the left front
14:46
Speaker 1: tire or the driver's at the time, and then the
14:48
Speaker 1: car spun around and maybe hit something else. But so
14:53
Speaker 1: far they haven't said, you know, when all of our
14:55
Speaker 1: minds would go to like maybe somebody was chasing him
14:57
Speaker 1: in a car hit him. Because the back of the carum,
15:01
Speaker 1: the weird bumper is very damaged, as is the front.
15:05
Speaker 1: Well that's is that right can't landry. The back of
15:08
Speaker 1: the car's damaged and the front left fenders damaged. Yes,
15:13
Speaker 1: if you actually look at well, if you look at
15:15
Speaker 1: there was only There were no pictures taken by the
15:17
Speaker 1: officer at the scene of the accident. The only picture
15:20
Speaker 1: we have of the car, to my knowledge, is a
15:23
Speaker 1: picture taken by that young man who actually found the car,
15:26
Speaker 1: the volunteer fireman who was coming home. He lives down
15:29
Speaker 1: this road. He was coming home from i think from
15:32
Speaker 1: a fire call, and saw the saw the car, check
15:38
Speaker 1: looked inside. There wasn't anyone there. Um I think he
15:41
Speaker 1: said he touched the hood. It was already cold, but
15:43
Speaker 1: it was in the thirties that night, and called it
15:47
Speaker 1: in and waited, So he waited the whole time that
15:52
Speaker 1: he was there. And and the picture doesn't really show
15:57
Speaker 1: much damage. It's it's from the side of looking at
15:59
Speaker 1: the aer so I doesn't show a lot of damage
16:01
Speaker 1: to the trunk. And you can, of course look at
16:04
Speaker 1: the pictures online the car as it is sitting in
16:09
Speaker 1: the toe lot. The rear end is significantly damaged and
16:13
Speaker 1: the front left ender correct correct. Well, that doesn't even
16:16
Speaker 1: make sense. If you have a crash, how do you
16:19
Speaker 1: get damage on the front left ender and the backside?
16:23
Speaker 1: And here's the really odd part to me. To Shara
16:28
Speaker 1: La Point, genetic genealogists, founder of the gene Hunter and
16:32
Speaker 1: cousin of this family, Shara, his clothes, Nancy, there are
16:41
Speaker 1: many more questions going through my head than there have
16:45
Speaker 1: been any answers. I just cannot make sense of any
16:49
Speaker 1: of this. The clothes, Shara, Jason's clothes, where were they?
16:55
Speaker 1: They were strewn in the road. His dad is the
16:59
Speaker 1: one who found his clothes about nine hundred yards from
17:03
Speaker 1: the crash scene. Why are these clothes that obviously Jason
17:10
Speaker 1: was wearing strown nine hundred yards from the wreck. Prime
17:28
Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, for those of you just
17:33
Speaker 1: joining us, please help us. Let me give you the
17:36
Speaker 1: tip line for Corble County Sheriffs five one two three
17:40
Speaker 1: nine eight six seven seven seven repeat five one two, three, nine,
17:46
Speaker 1: eight six seven seven seven. Randy Kessler, you're the high
17:53
Speaker 1: profile trial lawyer. You've tried many a case involving crapes
18:00
Speaker 1: in your day. That doesn't even make sense. I mean,
18:04
Speaker 1: there's so many questions, as sheryla Point just said, why
18:07
Speaker 1: did the investigator go home and go to sleep when
18:09
Speaker 1: they couldn't find the victim? Why did the dad have
18:13
Speaker 1: to find his son's clothing, all of his clothes, we're
18:17
Speaker 1: off his body and nine hundred yards oh way, Why
18:24
Speaker 1: it's bizarre net him and I'm sorry. And the father
18:26
Speaker 1: should not have found any of that. It should have
18:28
Speaker 1: been whether it's a crime investigation or a civil case,
18:32
Speaker 1: an accident investigation, that kind of stuff. How do you
18:35
Speaker 1: not find that, especially when it's one that's not paper
18:38
Speaker 1: cutter kind of cookie cutter kind of case where yep,
18:42
Speaker 1: someone ran a red light and here's what happened in
18:44
Speaker 1: the three witnesses there are no witnesses at the time
18:46
Speaker 1: of day. I mean, this investigation should not have ended
18:49
Speaker 1: with the officer being in bed and the father having
18:51
Speaker 1: to go out there and find this evidence. Forget the
18:54
Speaker 1: emotional aspect of finding the stuff about a loved one.
18:58
Speaker 1: He's not an expert. That's we had extra I just
19:00
Speaker 1: don't understand how what plausible explanation is there for a
19:05
Speaker 1: crash with damage from our front, left fender and back
19:10
Speaker 1: squished in to Kent Landry. This is Jason's dad. Please
19:15
Speaker 1: go to Facebook dot com forward slash fine Jason Landry,
19:21
Speaker 1: how did you think to walk nine hundred yards to
19:25
Speaker 1: find the clothing? Well, I was, I knew where the
19:29
Speaker 1: accident was, and I'm driving up and down the road
19:31
Speaker 1: looking for my son. And I'm I'm continuing to drive
19:35
Speaker 1: down the road looking more kind of off to the side,
19:38
Speaker 1: and frankly, I expected to see Jason maybe walking down
19:44
Speaker 1: the road or someone, you know, I didn't know I
19:48
Speaker 1: was the only person out there looking. I mean, I
19:51
Speaker 1: just but I'm I'm gonna look it's it's you know,
19:54
Speaker 1: it's my son. And I'm driving down this road and
20:00
Speaker 1: as I'm driving along, in my headlights, I see clothes,
20:05
Speaker 1: and and I look at I stopped and I'm like,
20:07
Speaker 1: what is that? You know, because as I'm driving along,
20:10
Speaker 1: I was driving slow because, oh gosh, I think I
20:12
Speaker 1: had seen at least three different set of deer run
20:14
Speaker 1: in front of me. At Coyote, there's only three miles
20:18
Speaker 1: out of Louling, but lou Liegan's very quickly and you
20:22
Speaker 1: get you're in country. So I was driving slow, thinking,
20:25
Speaker 1: you know, he probably sort of to avoid a deer,
20:27
Speaker 1: and I was going to avoid him also, And I
20:30
Speaker 1: see clothes, Well, I see something in front of me,
20:33
Speaker 1: and I stopped and I look at the headlights and
20:35
Speaker 1: I'm like, those are clothes. And then I look at
20:38
Speaker 1: the clothes and I can recognize him as my sons.
20:43
Speaker 1: You know, some closes is relatively distinctive. Jason wore he
20:48
Speaker 1: loved novelty socks, so I knew the socks the minute
20:52
Speaker 1: I saw him. I think these were sin SpongeBob ones. Oh,
20:57
Speaker 1: you just spoke to me because my son's favorite pair
20:59
Speaker 1: of socks. One is bacon in the other sock is eggs.
21:05
Speaker 1: He loves crazy socks. So you see, I didn't realize
21:10
Speaker 1: the socks were there too. Yes, sucks socks, t shirt, socks, shorts, underwear,
21:20
Speaker 1: his slide, sandals, and his watch and his watch. So
21:25
Speaker 1: it wasn't a theft, you know, Joe Scott just recently,
21:31
Speaker 1: you know, my sister drove all the way from California
21:35
Speaker 1: didn't want to fly because of COVID to Atlanta to
21:39
Speaker 1: see my mom and all of us. On the way back.
21:42
Speaker 1: She's a really careful driver, like overboard, like twenty miles
21:47
Speaker 1: an hour driver. A deer jumped out in Murfreesburg, Tennessee.
21:52
Speaker 1: I think it was totaled her car. But wouldn't there
21:56
Speaker 1: have been blood or some evidence of a year That's
22:00
Speaker 1: what I just heard Kent Landry hypothesize. Wouldn't we have
22:04
Speaker 1: evidence of that? Yes? If if, if the vehicle actually
22:10
Speaker 1: impacted the animal. You know, I've worked a lot of
22:12
Speaker 1: cases actually involving deaths of individuals that hit dear and
22:16
Speaker 1: you'll find tufts of hair, you know, like in the grill,
22:19
Speaker 1: around around the light, headlight housing all this. But you
22:22
Speaker 1: know the impact on Jason's car is to the rear left,
22:26
Speaker 1: and my understanding is it was found against a tree.
22:29
Speaker 1: I think that what I'd like to ask Kent is
22:32
Speaker 1: this is a rural. I'm familiar with this area of
22:36
Speaker 1: who is it? You're familiar with every single area we
22:39
Speaker 1: ever talked about travel. I travel a lot. I've uh,
22:42
Speaker 1: you know, a true story. I've been to the Scheinerbach
22:44
Speaker 1: Brewery quite a bit. And so at any rate, Uh,
22:48
Speaker 1: it's a it's an agricultural area, isn't it kent? And
22:52
Speaker 1: so the road is paved, but are there light? Is
22:55
Speaker 1: it real gravelly on both sides like soft shoulders if
22:59
Speaker 1: you will. Where this section of sult Flight Road starts
23:04
Speaker 1: paved right outside of Blueling, but it turns into gravel.
23:08
Speaker 1: So where this accident occurred is actually all gravel. Oh boy?
23:12
Speaker 1: And this is um this scenario that is actually sitting
23:16
Speaker 1: on a oil and gas field from about the twenties.
23:19
Speaker 1: So it's not farming as much as people run cattle
23:23
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of oil field activity. It's it's
23:27
Speaker 1: out in the country. It's it's the road real like
23:29
Speaker 1: they referred to washboardy, I mean, it's like it is washboard.
23:34
Speaker 1: This is my question. I know that I know that
23:37
Speaker 1: Jason was new to Texas State. You said it was
23:41
Speaker 1: his first semester. Had he made this trip home very
23:44
Speaker 1: many times? Us coming from Saint Mark because you know
23:48
Speaker 1: salt flat road. It's well, wait a minute, we're putting
23:53
Speaker 1: the cart before the horse here. Even if he was
23:56
Speaker 1: swerving to overcorrect, if he saw a deer and hit
24:00
Speaker 1: a tree, if that's what happened, where is he. Whether
24:05
Speaker 1: there's evidence of blood from a deer or a tuft
24:09
Speaker 1: of hair from a deer or paint from another car,
24:13
Speaker 1: that still doesn't tell me where is he? Prime Stories
24:30
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace joining me right now. Giovanni Massucci, Senior
24:35
Speaker 1: Digital Forensics Examiner CEO National Digital Forensics at nat LDF
24:43
Speaker 1: dot com. Giovanni Massucci, thank you for being with us.
24:47
Speaker 1: What can we learn from any GPS in the car
24:52
Speaker 1: and from Jason's cell phone? Yes, and thanks for having me.
24:57
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Thank you. One of the one of
25:00
Speaker 1: the big things is I'm gonna look at if on
25:02
Speaker 1: the phone and so and the phone of what I
25:05
Speaker 1: understand was between your dry receiving the center council. So
25:08
Speaker 1: one of the things I'm gonna look at is the phone.
25:12
Speaker 1: But also you mentioned the GPS. Depending on the car
25:17
Speaker 1: making model, an ear what type of entertainment system was
25:22
Speaker 1: located in that vehicle? And what I mean by entertainments
25:26
Speaker 1: entertainment system is the I call that the communication center,
25:30
Speaker 1: so you can connect with it with your with your
25:32
Speaker 1: mobile device, and most people nowadays do a lot of
25:35
Speaker 1: work and talking using that entertainment system that's in the car,
25:40
Speaker 1: which also has may have a navigation system which can
25:45
Speaker 1: do your mapping, but also you can call, do text message,
25:48
Speaker 1: social media and so on. So we've got two areas
25:51
Speaker 1: to look at. Taking back to the mobile phone. If
25:56
Speaker 1: I'm going to the scene, what I'm gonna do is
25:58
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pull that into evidence, right start my chain
26:01
Speaker 1: of custody, and I'm going to look to see once
26:03
Speaker 1: I bring it back to the lab. And of course
26:05
Speaker 1: you'd have to have a warrant to actually do the
26:07
Speaker 1: analysis part of it, depending on what's happened in the case.
26:11
Speaker 1: In this case, we have a missing individual young man,
26:14
Speaker 1: and so once the law enforce and obtains the search
26:18
Speaker 1: warrant to go ahead and do the phone do the
26:21
Speaker 1: analysis on it, they're going to look for it, depending
26:24
Speaker 1: on the type of tool that they use too. So
26:26
Speaker 1: what kind of search did this law enforce and agency do?
26:29
Speaker 1: Did you do just a physical search? Okay, meaning that
26:32
Speaker 1: they just opened up the phone and start looking at it,
26:35
Speaker 1: which we typically strong against that. As a forensics individual,
26:39
Speaker 1: you want to use a forensic software or forensic tool
26:43
Speaker 1: to look at the digital data and to actually what's
26:46
Speaker 1: called to an acquisition of that phone. So your phone
26:49
Speaker 1: is much data. You can off that phone to next
26:52
Speaker 1: be able to analyze that data. So you're going to
26:55
Speaker 1: look for GPS data, You're gonna look for location data.
27:00
Speaker 1: Was the phone location data on? Is become of date stamp? Correct?
27:04
Speaker 1: It's on the phone in the same zoning period. Did
27:08
Speaker 1: he do any text messaging with anybody? You know what,
27:12
Speaker 1: I've got a little information on that to aid you
27:17
Speaker 1: in your analysis with me. Giovanni Massuchi with National Digital
27:21
Speaker 1: Forensics to Kent Landry. This is Jason's dad who's been
27:26
Speaker 1: searching for his son non stop since his car was
27:30
Speaker 1: found on a lonely stretch of road on his way
27:33
Speaker 1: home for Christmas break around eleven twenty four. I assume
27:38
Speaker 1: this is coming from the phone or it may have
27:41
Speaker 1: been coming from the car navigational system itself. Yes. Well,
27:45
Speaker 1: Jason enters Luling on Texas Highway eighty. He stops using
27:49
Speaker 1: the Waves app and opens up Snapchat. Passes through Magnolia
27:54
Speaker 1: and East Austin, and that is where his digital footprint stopped. That's,
28:02
Speaker 1: you know, that's the big question. I'm pretty comfortable saying
28:05
Speaker 1: based on everything that the last relatively certain, because there's
28:11
Speaker 1: almost no certainty here. But sitting at the light in
28:16
Speaker 1: Luling where normally you would turn right if you were,
28:20
Speaker 1: you know, heading the correct way, you would turn right,
28:24
Speaker 1: and then a couple of blocks theater you turn left
28:26
Speaker 1: and then you head out High ten. Sitting at that
28:29
Speaker 1: light at about eleven twenty four is the last kind
28:32
Speaker 1: of point in time we feel pretty certain what is
28:35
Speaker 1: going on after that point the sixty seven minutes until
28:41
Speaker 1: that young man finds his car wrecked on the side
28:44
Speaker 1: of the road. Absolutely anybody's guests. And then of course
28:50
Speaker 1: the bigger question, the one I really care about, is
28:52
Speaker 1: what happened after that and where's my son? But no,
28:56
Speaker 1: after that point in time, it could be anything from
29:01
Speaker 1: a carjacking to a road rap. I mean it could
29:04
Speaker 1: be I just you know, could he wreck and be
29:07
Speaker 1: completely gone in just sixty seven minutes? Guys, take a
29:11
Speaker 1: listen to our friend Jacob Rascar on at k r
29:14
Speaker 1: PC Houston. It was finally time for Jason Landry to
29:19
Speaker 1: come home for Christmas. He left Texas State in San
29:23
Speaker 1: Marcus Sunday night, but didn't get far. Just after midnight,
29:27
Speaker 1: the local sheriff's department got a call about a totaled
29:30
Speaker 1: sedan along Salt Flat Road. It was Jason's Nissan Ultimu
29:35
Speaker 1: with his wallet, phone and other belongings inside, but no
29:39
Speaker 1: Jason at the moment. They're using dogs to trying to
29:44
Speaker 1: search for him by scent. I'm there and he's trying
29:47
Speaker 1: to helicopter. He's in the infrared light and didn't have
29:50
Speaker 1: any luck. You can imagine Lisa Landry, his mother, is worried, sick,
29:55
Speaker 1: and in a bit of shock that this is all
29:57
Speaker 1: really happening. He's alone, he doesn't have his his phone
30:02
Speaker 1: or his wallet, and it's cold outside, and I just
30:05
Speaker 1: I don't know where it is and I'd like to
30:07
Speaker 1: find him. You were hearing Lisa, Jason's mother, to Jason
30:14
Speaker 1: Landry's dad joining me, can't Landry, what toll is this
30:19
Speaker 1: search taking on your family? Well, say it's hard is
30:27
Speaker 1: the world's greatest understatement. You know, honestly, the thing that's
30:32
Speaker 1: keeping us going is the prayers of thousands of people.
30:38
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been amazing. You know, our faith and
30:41
Speaker 1: our family we know that no matter what happened, we
30:46
Speaker 1: know God knows, and we're just continuing to hope and
30:50
Speaker 1: pray and trying to do the best we can given
30:56
Speaker 1: the circumstances. Is it correct to Cheryl a Point, the
31:03
Speaker 1: cousin of the Lantern Landry family, you know her as
31:06
Speaker 1: the gene hunter, that a small amount of blood was found. Yes, Nancy,
31:13
Speaker 1: there were spots of blood found, one believed the band
31:18
Speaker 1: of his underwear and also on a tag on an
31:24
Speaker 1: article of clothing. And I don't believe there was any
31:29
Speaker 1: blood found in the core um when it was analyzed.
31:34
Speaker 1: Two Ken Landry, this is Jason's dad. A little bit
31:38
Speaker 1: of blood found on the band of his underwear in
31:41
Speaker 1: the front the side of the back um. It was
31:44
Speaker 1: found on the tag of his two dots of underwear
31:48
Speaker 1: blood and by that I mean dot like the tip
31:51
Speaker 1: of a racer of a pen pencil um on the
31:56
Speaker 1: the tag on his shorts, which is I guess would
32:00
Speaker 1: be your probably the left hip area on those shorts,
32:05
Speaker 1: maybe right hip around your hip and then right around
32:09
Speaker 1: the waistband at the top. So probably the car came
32:14
Speaker 1: to rest on the driver's side against a barbed wire fence.
32:18
Speaker 1: If Jason pushed the door open and tried to kind
32:20
Speaker 1: of scoot along the side of the door to get
32:23
Speaker 1: out easily, the barbed wire could have um, you know,
32:30
Speaker 1: pricked him and be that small amount of blood just
32:34
Speaker 1: thinking about that was the barb wire ever tested, mister Royatree,
32:39
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to that question. I do
32:41
Speaker 1: not know. I mean the whole the whole scene of
32:45
Speaker 1: the car accident, to my knowledge, has never been accordinged
32:50
Speaker 1: because I know there were pieces of his car there
32:52
Speaker 1: for weeks on end, and probably if you went out
32:55
Speaker 1: there right now, I don't know. People have been going by,
32:57
Speaker 1: I think collecting them. I don't nothing he will be left.
33:01
Speaker 1: But there were some last time I was there, and
33:04
Speaker 1: no blood on the inside of the car, not to
33:06
Speaker 1: my knowledge. Okay to you, Jessicat Morgan. That speaks volumes
33:10
Speaker 1: to me. I think mister Landry's assessment is correct. If
33:12
Speaker 1: there's no blood on the inside, he had to get
33:16
Speaker 1: those tiny bits of dropped a bit of blood on
33:20
Speaker 1: his hip area from somewhere and that makes perfect sense. Yeah,
33:25
Speaker 1: the likely candidate like mister Landrew had mentioned, could be
33:28
Speaker 1: that barbed wire that the car was resting against. And
33:32
Speaker 1: you know, this impact that he sustained in this vehicle
33:35
Speaker 1: could have disoriented him to a great degree. And it's
33:39
Speaker 1: still very curious though for me as to wise clothing
33:44
Speaker 1: would be off of his person. My understanding was was
33:47
Speaker 1: that the shirt that he was seen wearing earlier in
33:51
Speaker 1: the evening was actually found at the scene. Is that correct,
33:55
Speaker 1: mister Landry? That's correct, and we know that because of
33:59
Speaker 1: those released photos. Is the same shirt in the photos,
34:04
Speaker 1: mister Landry? Yes, that certainly is a shirt. I know.
34:08
Speaker 1: I mean because he was snapchatting and instagramming with one
34:11
Speaker 1: of his friends while he was packing up to leave
34:14
Speaker 1: and it just changed into that shirt and watching the
34:18
Speaker 1: video and so I'm assuming that's what he was wearing.
34:23
Speaker 1: And you know it for me as a parent to
34:29
Speaker 1: you can't even imagine a red T shirt we're talking about, yes, ma'am, Yes, ma'am.
34:34
Speaker 1: Just what why? You know, it's it's an interesting intellectual
34:39
Speaker 1: exercise for a lot of people, but for me, it
34:41
Speaker 1: hurts my heart to think that my boy is and
34:43
Speaker 1: it was cold, it was cold, and Wendy, why would
34:47
Speaker 1: he take his clothes off in the middle of the
34:50
Speaker 1: road in this kind of temperature. The airbags didn't deploy
34:54
Speaker 1: on the car. There's no side impact on this car.
34:58
Speaker 1: And this is an old car. You don't get to
35:00
Speaker 1: make a lot of money, so kids get to drive
35:02
Speaker 1: old cars as the two thousand and three. So there's
35:07
Speaker 1: no And I understand mister that hundreds of hours of
35:11
Speaker 1: security videos from in and around Louling were reviewed. No
35:15
Speaker 1: evidence at Oh, what are the what's the police working
35:19
Speaker 1: theory right now, mister Landry, you'd have to check with them.
35:22
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think they the case. And just
35:26
Speaker 1: to be clear, the case was originally handled by Texas
35:30
Speaker 1: State Highway Patrol. About a week later they turned it
35:33
Speaker 1: over to the Caldwell County Sheriff's Office. The Caldwell County
35:37
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office, you know, starting late, and of course with
35:41
Speaker 1: the issues with destructure of evidence and everything else, has
35:45
Speaker 1: kind of been running a race from behind, which is
35:48
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons they've shared so much
35:51
Speaker 1: information so that they can get that one person to
35:55
Speaker 1: come forward who might shed light on something and make
35:59
Speaker 1: it make clear is this a tragedy? And in terms
36:03
Speaker 1: of you know, someone disappearing, and they've searched for miles
36:07
Speaker 1: and miles. They started with dogs, people, drones, kind of
36:12
Speaker 1: a specialized Mini Predator drone which is a new one.
36:15
Speaker 1: Helicopter's fixed wing aircraft have all been used. And horses,
36:20
Speaker 1: horse and ATV and stuff like that. Where is this why?
36:26
Speaker 1: Jason Landry twenty one years old, driving home for Christmas break.
36:32
Speaker 1: We find his car, we find his cell phone, we
36:35
Speaker 1: find his clothes, his back back, but no Jason. Take
36:39
Speaker 1: a listen to k RPC Houston. Hello. My name is
36:44
Speaker 1: Jason Landry and I'm currently a sophomore on Texas State.
36:47
Speaker 1: A few videos and hundreds of photos is all the
36:50
Speaker 1: Landry family has of their youngest child. Jason is a dad.
36:54
Speaker 1: I'm blessed, I mean because because I have memories. I
36:57
Speaker 1: have wonderful memories. It's just hard when you're sitting here
37:02
Speaker 1: thinking all you'll have of that child is memories. Jason's
37:07
Speaker 1: car was found totaled, the keys still in the ignition,
37:11
Speaker 1: but there was no sign of Jason. People ask me,
37:14
Speaker 1: what do I think happen? I'm like, I don't have
37:15
Speaker 1: the slightest idea Inside his office at Southminster Presbyterian Church,
37:20
Speaker 1: Pastor Kent Landry updates me on his son's missing person's case.
37:24
Speaker 1: The Attorney General's Office is in the process of forming
37:27
Speaker 1: a cold Case division. We would love for them to
37:30
Speaker 1: take it on, Kent says. He hopes investigators will secure
37:33
Speaker 1: a geofence warrant would kind of think help resolve the