Into Thin Air: The Mystery of Jason Landry's Disappearance
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In December of 2020, 21-year-old Jason Landry was a student attending Texas State University. Despite the various setbacks he faced as a result of attending college during the COVID-19 pandemic, including mandatory self-isolation and virtual classes, Jason was feeling optimistic and excited for the future. After a few months of feeling lost and unsure of what he wanted in life,

Jason's future had just started looking clearer as he had recently applied for Texas State's prestigious sound recording technology program. At nearly 11:00 PM on December 13th, after saying goodbye to some friends and classmates, Jason loaded up his belongings into his car and began the nearly three hour drive home to his parents' house to celebrate the holidays and enjoy his break between semesters. However, not long into his drive,

Jason closed the GPS app on his phone, briefly opened Snapchat, and was never heard from again. He left no digital footprint after this, and his car was later found crashed on an unpaved rural road. But Jason was nowhere to be found. All that was left at the scene was his scattered belongings and the clothes he had been wearing that day. Rumors as to what happened to Jason continue to swirl.

was Jason attempting to meet someone down this rural road. Someone who had nefarious intentions. If that was the case, why didn't they steal his valuable electronics from the scene? Was this instead a simple car accident that left him confused after hitting his head, causing him to wander away from his car and get lost? But why would he remove his clothing? Three years after the crash, these questions and more remain.

as neither Jason Landry nor his body have ever been found. Part 1: Jason's Background Jason Landry was born on July 29, 1999 in Augusta, Georgia to his parents Kent and Lisa Landry. He was the youngest of three children after his brother Kyle and his sister Jessica.

His father Kent was a former attorney who had recently become a Presbyterian pastor, and his mother Lisa was a CPA. Jason was known to be a creative person who excelled at music, playing piano, and joining the school band in middle school, where he played several different instruments. His latest musical endeavor was teaching himself to play the guitar.

His mother Lisa recalls Jason's special, mischievous smile that allowed him to get away with anything, from preschool even into adulthood. She describes Jason as very positive, always completing a mission he set forth to do, no matter how long it took him. Lisa says that Jason was kind-hearted, extroverted, and was always willing to speak to people and help them when they were in need.

Jason's dad Kent describes him as the more happy, free-spirited one of his siblings. His older brother Kyle, who was around 18 months old when Jason was born, described him as a rambunctious and adventurous, yet kind-hearted child who loved music, skateboarding, and video games. As a child, Jason attended Camp Cho-Ye every year and eventually began working there once he was old enough.

After five years of attending the camp, campers had a tradition of receiving a cross necklace, which they added beads to each year that they attended or worked there afterwards. And it is often seen around his neck in photos. Once Jason began driving, he moved the necklace to his rear view mirror, where he could always see it.

After graduating high school, Jason briefly attended college at Sam Houston State University. Kent claims this wasn't Jason's first school of choice, but he was in a serious relationship with the girl who he wanted to be close to.

After spending some time deliberating on what he wanted to do, Jason decided to transfer to Texas State University in San Marcos, which has one of the top 10 programs in the country for sound recording technology, which incorporated both the creative side of music and the geeky side of technology that Jason loved.

Admittance into this program required one year of prerequisites at Texas State in order to build up a music portfolio. So Jason had just applied and auditioned for the program in December of 2020. In order to help with his feelings of isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jason decided to get a job while away at school to get out of his apartment and meet new people.

He began working at a Jimmy John's near campus, since he had worked for the company before at a location back home. On December 12th, Jason texted his mom his Christmas list, which she found amusing since it was so detailed. He even gave details for the specific type of socks he wanted and the brand he liked. He asked Lisa to get him socks with fun patterns on them, just like his aunt had gotten for him last Christmas.

On December 13th, 2020, a day or two after Jason finished his midterm exams, he planned to head home to his parents' house for the holiday break. His parents lived in Missouri City, Texas, which is about 30 minutes southwest of Houston.

Jason and his brother Kyle, who attended Texas A&M, spent a couple days after midterms hanging out with some friends at college while they waited for their sister Jessica, who lived in Chicago at the time, to also arrive home to Missouri City.

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Though Jason planned on leaving at around 8 to 8:30 that night, he didn't end up leaving his apartment until 10:55 PM. His dad said that it was not abnormal for Jason to leave later than planned, but he wished that Jason would have let him know he was leaving later so that he could have encouraged him to just leave the following morning, since the drive could take anywhere between two and a half to three hours.

When Jason began his drive, he put his parents' address into his Waze app to get directions, since he had only driven this route about two times before, and both of those times were during the day. According to Waze, at 11:05 PM, Jason was driving south down Highway 80 to eventually merge onto Interstate 10, passing under Interstate 35.

At 11:07 he entered Caldwell County and continued to pass through several small towns that sat along Highway 80. At 11:15 he drove through Martindale, passing under Highway 130.

He continued down Highway 80, passing through Fentress at 11:17, Prairie Lea at 11:19, and Stairtown at 11:21. At 11:24 PM, Jason reached Luling, Texas, the last town before he would get on the I-10 on-ramp. Luling is a small town that only had about 5,500 residents in 2021, but it was more populated and busier than the other rural towns he had previously been passing through.

In order to continue to I-10 from Luling, Jason would have to make a few turns from the highway, as it was not a straight shot from where he came from on Highway 80 to the I-10 ramp. About a block before Jason reached the intersection of North Magnolia Avenue and Highway 183, where he was supposed to make one of these turns to reach I-10, he received a Snapchat, which caused him to close the Waze app and open Snapchat. This was around 11:30 p.m.,

And it is the last digital record we have of Jason's whereabouts. Instead of making the turn, Jason continued down the road, which led him into a rural part of town. Highway 180 became East Austin Street, which he followed to Spruce Avenue, which eventually became Salt Flat Road, a gravel, unpaved road.

Not long after this, in the early morning hours of December 14th at around 12:30 AM, Jason's Nissan Altima was found crashed five miles down Salt Flat Road, just outside of the town of Luling by an off-duty volunteer firefighter who was driving down the road. The part of Salt Flat Road where Jason's car was found is extremely rural. It is surrounded by mostly cattle ranches and oil fields, with only a couple of residential houses in the nearby area.

This part of town was so rural, in fact, that just a few miles down the road was a skydiving facility. Jason's car was crashed in a small ditch. When it was found, it was still running, with the keys in the ignition and the lights still on. The driver's side door was slightly ajar, but all of the other doors were locked. The off-duty firefighter stopped by the scene to make sure everyone was okay, but he didn't see anybody in or around the car, so he alerted the authorities.

Based on some swerving tire tracks found leading to the crash, it appears that Jason lost control of his car and overcorrected with the steering wheel in an attempt to regain control and get back on the road. He was not successful, however, and rear-ended a tree with the back driver's side, since his rear windshield was completely shattered. His car then bounced off the initial area of impact and was pushed forward, hitting a barbed wire fence.

Though the car was not able to be driven when it was found, police believed that the crash was completely survivable and the airbags were not deployed. Part 3: The Investigation Sometime between 1:30 and 2:00 AM, Jason's parents received a phone call from the police informing them that their son had been in an accident.

Police told them that Jason's car was found, but that they could not locate him. His parents said that they were scared and confused by the phone call, but they assumed that there was some misunderstanding and that everything would work out. They never imagined that the situation would turn out the way it did. Lisa stayed home in case Jason was able to get a ride from someone and showed up at their house eventually. But Kent drove to Luling to check out the scene.

He expected to be driving into a crime scene with police cars and ambulances, flashing lights and crime scene tape, but instead arrived at a completely unoccupied, pitch black gravel road. In fact, the police didn't even give him the exact location of the crash because the highway patrolman had gone home and gone to sleep.

Instead, Kent had to get better directions from the towing company that had towed away the car, who directed him to the 2300 block of Salt Flat Road. Kent was shocked that there was no one out there searching for Jason besides him. According to the police, when the responding officer arrived on the scene, he smelled alcohol. He assumed it was a DUI runaway, so he left.

However, the only evidence of drugs in the vehicle were a few joints in a pill bottle, which were zipped up in Jason's backpack in the backseat of the car. There was no evidence of him smoking, drinking, or consuming any other substances while he was driving. During Kent's investigation of the scene, he found some debris from the crash, including a side mirror and some broken taillights. But he also found something even stranger.

Kent found Jason's wristwatch lying face down on the ground with his T-shirt, slides, shorts, underwear, and socks lying on top. According to a picture taken earlier that day, these are the same clothes that Jason was wearing during his drive. On the waistband of his underwear were a few small droplets of blood, which are suspected to be from Jason attempting to crawl over the barbed wire fence that the driver's side of the car had crashed into.

Aside from this, the clothes appeared to be in good shape and they had not been ripped or torn off. Kent was shocked by these circumstances to say the least. He expected that any minute he would see Jason walking down the side of the road. Instead, he found a pile of clothes that he had instantly recognized as his son's. Jason was known to wear socks with fun designs and patterns. And the socks that Kent found lying in the road had SpongeBob on them.

The t-shirt was definitely Jason's as well, as it was from Camp Cho-Ye, where Jason had attended and worked for so many years. As if it wasn't strange enough that Jason would remove his clothes after the crash. It is especially noteworthy considering that this night was especially cold, with the wind blowing at around 20 mph and a wind chill below freezing.

The following day at 7 a.m. when the towing company opened, Kent retrieved Jason's cell phone and jacket that had been in the car. He handed the phone and laptop over to local law enforcement, which helped them to nail down a timeline of the day using Jason's GPS and cell tower pings.

This same day, the morning of December 14th, just a few hours after Jason's car was discovered, his brother Kyle woke up to multiple frantic text messages and missed calls from his mother, informing him that Jason had been in an accident and was missing. Kyle immediately hopped in his car and began heading home to be with his mother. But not long into the drive, he decided that he would instead stop in Luling to help his father search for Jason.

Kyle recalls thinking over the course of his two-hour drive that it would be just a matter of time before he would get a call from his parents saying that the situation was all figured out and everything was okay. He had no idea that his brother's disappearance would turn into such a complex mystery. Later that morning, a professional search began and scent dogs were brought in. The dogs kept alerting to a small pond in the area. The pond was searched thoroughly, even completely drained.

but nothing was ever found in or around it. Kent believes that, since the area is surrounded by cow fields and petrochemical plants, some chemicals may have been mimicking decomposition scents and confusing the dogs, since many scent dogs are only trained with a chemical that is similar to human decomposition, not with actual bodies.

Texas EquiSearch later got involved and conducted a search of the area, including nearby rivers and creeks. They held a three-day aerial search that covered 39.5 square miles, which is equal to over 31,000 acres. They also conducted a ground search, with volunteers on foot, horseback, and ATV, which covered a 10-mile radius of the crash site. After 10 days of searching, still nothing was found.

The next February, Texas Search and Rescue came to conduct another search and brought 100 volunteers to help. Again, they found nothing. Kent continues to visit the area occasionally to search, and he notes that the terrain is so dense and difficult to navigate that it would be very easy to miss evidence, especially if Jason burrowed down under some brush to keep warm. Part Four: What Happened to Jason?

The Landry family is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to answers, and they are working with a private investigator to follow any and all leads that come in. Kent has been told that the crash site is not in the best part of town, and that locals often visit to buy and sell drugs. He has heard rumors that Jason was carjacked and fought back, only to be shot and have his body hidden.

He has heard other rumors that Jason was abducted and taken to another location where he was robbed and killed. Kent finds these rumors hard to believe considering Jason was driving a 2003 or 2004 Nissan Altima that still had all of his valuables either inside of it or at the site. Kent believes it is more likely that Jason noticed he was lost and reached down to find his phone, which had fallen while he was driving.

He then crashed and became disoriented after the accident, possibly experiencing a head injury. After this, he began walking, trying to find help. But in such a remote area, he soon got lost, laid down to rest and bundle up in the cold, and never woke up. Lisa believes that the fact that he's never been found means that there's a higher likelihood of foul play, but she ultimately cannot make sense of the situation at all.

Authorities put out a plea to the public for anyone who may have had private security footage in the area to come forward with information. They also looked through as much public footage from Luling as they could, but found nothing that could give them any leads. The Landry family and local law enforcement are pushing to get a geofence warrant, which would allow them to see which other phones were in the area at the time of Jason's disappearance.

This technology would allow investigators to pinpoint a specific time frame and geographical location and see which cell phones were pinging off the nearby cell towers during the respective time frame. While the family waits for permission to conduct a geofence investigation, Dr. Kim Rossmo, professor of criminology at Texas State University, is personally assisting on Jason's case.

Dr. Rosmo is the director of the Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation at Texas State, and he is using GPS data from the search teams to create a heat map of which specific areas the searches have and have not covered. He is using this data to create targeted search strategies based on terrain, geographical features, and previous searches. They are also utilizing a program which uses drone footage to pick up on color anomalies.

Since it has been so long since Jason's disappearance, investigators are using this program to detect bone from the drone imaging. Despite the lack of answers, the Landry family remains hopeful that one day they will know what happened to their son and be able to lay his body to rest. In the meantime, they believe that they have been given the opportunity to use Jason's case to help others.

They are using Jason's story to help advise parents of young adults how to practice safety when they're on the road and away from home.