Shownotes Transcript
What is going on, true crime fans? I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello, everybody. If you are wondering if we already covered this case, we did. But we covered it just over five years ago in episode 13.
30 of Going West, which was nearly 400 episodes ago. Yeah, I'm sure that some of you guys probably don't even remember this case, but it has stuck with Daphne and I for a very, very, very long time. And it's one of our pet cases. It's one of the ones that we constantly go back to.
because we just want to know what happened. It's so true. And even more so like re-researching this, cause it's not, it's not the same notes as we used before we did a major refresh and just diving into all the details again. Like I forgot how absolutely maddening this story is and how, how many small pieces of it don't make a lick of sense.
It's just one of those insane cases. But yeah, we really just wanted to highlight his story again and give you guys any updates since our original coverage in 2019. Because again, yeah, that was five freaking years ago. Five years ago, people. And he disappeared 11 years ago. So last year was the 10-year anniversary of
So yeah, we just want to push this story again. So thank you for anybody who is listening to this for a second time. But hopefully you guys don't mind because again, it's absolutely wild. Completely agree. Well, without further ado, my friends, this is episode 426 of Going West. So let's get into it. ♪♪♪
In August of 2013, a 19-year-old man drove down the state of California, allegedly heading to his parents' house.
After speaking to his mom numerous times throughout the day, it was determined that for much of that time, he wasn't driving at all, but instead, sitting on the side of the road in his car, rarely progressing, with an incredibly eerie timeline. The next morning, his car was found to have been driven into Castaic Lake, but he was nowhere to be found.
This is the story of Bryce LaSpisa. Bryce LaSpisa was born on April 30th, 1994 in Naperville, Illinois, which is a Chicago suburb, as the only child of Karen and Michael LaSpisa.
Bryce spent most of his life right there in charming Naperville, but after he graduated from Naperville Central High School in 2012, his parents decided to relocate the family to Laguna Niguel, California, due to them being able to retire earlier than most.
Now, even though Bryce was in his first year of college, he made the choice to move to California with his parents instead of staying back in Illinois. But instead of moving to Laguna Niguel, he applied to Sierra College in Rockland, California, which is just southeast of Sacramento in Northern California. So it's about an eight hour drive from where his parents would be living. You know, obviously, give or take some time due to traffic or no traffic.
And Sierra is a community college, so we are not sure why he chose to move.
to move all the way to Northern California just to attend community college. Because for those who don't know, community college is a lot more casual than a university and a lot more affordable. And many people attend for two years to get their associate's degree before transferring to a university. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know why he did that. Maybe he just liked the area or what. It's possible that maybe he wanted to be in the same state as his parents, but not be...
too close to where he could feel like he had like a little bit of his independence. Right, exactly. And also for those who don't know, there are no dorms at community college. So Bryce moved into an apartment in the area with a guy named Sean who would become his very close friend.
And more on where his parents lived, since it does play a small role in this story. Laguna Niguel is a beautiful beach town located in Orange County, so Bryce could definitely visit them and vice versa. Again, roughly an eight-hour drive or a non-stop hour-and-a-half flight.
Now, Bryce was known as a very outgoing and charismatic guy, and he had a ton of friends. He was described as being incredibly funny, and according to his buddies, he was an overall positive and happy young man. Bryce was also a very talented artist and enjoyed drawing and building, so he pursued industrial and graphic design at college.
Also, while in college, he started dating a fellow classmate named Kim, and they developed a very loving and happy relationship by all accounts. Well, we're going to jump forward a little bit to August 28th of 2013. So when Bryce was entering his sophomore year of college.
So around this time, Bryce's friends started noticing that his behavior was kind of changing. You know, he started drinking very heavily and using prescription drugs, mostly Vyvanse. And for those of you who don't know, Vyvanse is basically Adderall, so it's supposed to be used for those who have ADHD, but as we know, a lot of college students use it to stay awake for longer periods of time.
So yeah, with this drug use and change in behavior, those who were close to Bryce watched him slip into a depression and start acting really strange and pretty much just not like himself. So much so that one of his friends was worried about how it would affect him. So they called his mom Karen to tell her that he was acting weird and that he had been abusing drugs and alcohol.
Also around this same time, Bryce tried to break up with his girlfriend Kim via text message, telling her that she would be better off without him. But the two ended up meeting in person to talk about it at her apartment in Chico, California, which is roughly 90 miles or 150 kilometers away from his apartment. So about an hour and a half drive, roughly. And this is kind of strange because...
It's strange how they got together in the first place because she lives like an hour and a half away from him. But I guess, you know, maybe it was kind of close enough. I don't know why she went to his school if she didn't live in the Rockland area. I mean, so many questions here. Yeah, definitely. But yeah, but apparently, again, they had a really great relationship. So this was so weird that he's saying...
But it also doesn't sound like he wants to break up with her necessarily, but more so, you know, him saying you're better off without me. It sounds like he's having some internal battles personally. Yeah, possibly some mental health issues as we're going to get into. We'll discuss a little bit here. So that night, which again was Wednesday, August 28th, 2013, Kim
Kim said that he was acting so odd and didn't appear to be in any position to drive. So she took away his car keys in order to keep him from getting behind the wheel. Then Kim called Karen to let her know what was going on and Karen talked to Bryce herself. She then told Kim to give him his car keys back with Bryce telling his mom, quote,
And this is really eerie considering what is going to happen next in this story. Well, by the time Bryce left Kim's house that night, they had officially broken up. So alongside this unusual behavior, he's telling his mom that he needs to talk to her, you know, seemingly about something very important, and then randomly ended things with his girlfriend, leaving her apartment at 11.30 p.m.
And that same night, Bryce also texted his roommate, again, Sean, saying, quote,
A couple hours later, at around 1 a.m., Bryce called his mom, Karen, who thought that he was back at his apartment at Rockland. So while they're on the phone, she's not asking where he is or what he's up to, really, but she's assuming that he's home. However, cell towers would show that he had been heading further south.
past Sierra College, the school he went to, and toward the mountains, and that he was just about an hour south of his apartment. And keep in mind, again, his girlfriend Kim, or no, his ex-girlfriend Kim, lived about an hour and a half, again,
give or take with traffic, north of him. So now he's suddenly roughly an hour south of his own apartment, which, you know, yes, you would say that's like a two and a half hour journey. This is only an hour and a half later. So give or take some of the timeline. I will say again, even as we were diving into this once more, the timelines are very inconsistent. Like some articles will say this happened at this time, whereas others will say it happened at a different time. But
Either way, it seems that after he left Kim's apartment, he didn't go home and he just went straight down the state of California on this little journey of his. But this was kind of confusing that he was going on a trip because when he had talked to his mom the night before, again at Kim's, she had offered to fly up to see him, but he told her to wait until they talked the next day.
So it seems like after talking to her at Kim's house and breaking up with Kim, he decided to drive down to his parents' house without letting them know.
Now, if he had headed straight to his parents' house, he probably would have gotten there around or by 8 a.m. But instead, at 9 a.m. on Thursday, August 29th, 2013, Bryce arrived in Buttonwillow, California, which is an unincorporated community near Bakersfield. So Buttonwillow is still roughly three hours from his parents' house in Laguna Niguel. And since he was driving down there at night,
There wouldn't have been any traffic and Bryce absolutely should have made it there that morning unless, you know, he stopped to take a little nap or something like that. Yeah, because remember again, he's driving basically all night. Well, that's what we assume he was doing. Yeah, and it doesn't really seem planned. You know, again, nobody knew about this trip. He had told his roommate Sean that he was going somewhere, but nobody knew exactly what his plan was for that weekend yet.
So it definitely makes sense if he hadn't planned to be driving all night and he was tired and stopped somewhere. But that's not even the weird part. Because the reason that it's notable that Bryce was in Buttonwillow around 9 a.m. is because that's when he ran out of gas near a rest stop.
And we can speculate on why it's a little weird that he ran out of gas because there are so many gas stations on the I-5, which is what he would have taken down California. And he wasn't in a hurry. So there's no reason why he couldn't have stopped for gas. Like to get to the point where you're completely out of gas, like, you know. Yeah, you would have to be probably...
Either you didn't have the finances to put gas in your car or perhaps you're just completely not thinking about it or not even looking at your gas gauge. And which kind of goes along with the fact that he may have been going through a mental episode. Like if,
If he is going through something, he may not be paying attention to how much gas is in his car as he's traveling. But yeah, you're right. There are so many gas stations along the way that he could have stopped at. Yeah, and it's definitely not a money thing in this case because, as we're going to talk about as well, he did pay for things on his drive after this. But yeah, it's just weird that he ran out of gas. But again, that's not even the weirdest part. So yeah.
When he ran out of gas, a roadside assistant serviceman named Christian delivered three gallons of gas to Bryce's car, which was purchased for $20 on Bryce's credit card. So that's not a lot of gas. Three gallons is just going to get you to the next gas station. Yeah, probably, depending on where that next gas station is. And the gas was delivered to Bryce again at around 9 a.m. that morning, but...
Bryce's parents received a message two hours after this at 11 a.m. from their car insurance provider who informed them that Bryce's 2003 Toyota Highlander needed roadside assistance, you know, for those three gallons of gas. So Karen tried to call Bryce multiple times to ask him what was going on, where he was, what he was doing, but with no luck, he wasn't responding to any of her calls.
So Karen then decided to call Bryce's roommate, Sean, and ask if he knew anything. But all he said was that Bryce hadn't come home the night before and that he didn't know where he was. Yeah, so this is really confusing again. He's not telling anybody what his plans are. He's not even telling his parents that he's, you know, driving down to go see.
So, Bryce isn't picking up his phone, his parents know that he's having car trouble somewhere, and his roommate doesn't have any idea where he is. So, Mike and Karen looked at Bryce's bank charges and noticed the gas station charge in Buttonwillow, California. You know, at this point, they're kind of starting to put the pieces together that he's on his way to Laguna Niguel.
Well, Bryce's father, Mike, traced the credit charge to Castro Tire and Truck, which was a repair shop near the freeway, again, I-5, that Bryce would have been traveling on.
At about 12:30 p.m., they called the shop and asked the man if he saw or spoke with their son Bryce. And that's when Christian, who is reportedly the owner of the shop and the guy who delivered those three gallons of gas, told them that he had been called by Bryce after he had run out of gas. And since his parents seemed extremely worried,
Christian actually offered to go back to the spot that Bryce had run out of gas to see if he was still in the area. And of course, you know, hours later, they're not expecting him to still be there. He had his gas. He should have been on his way right after receiving it or shortly after receiving it. But he also would have reached their home by then. So they're taking any help that they can get. Absolutely. So when Christian headed back over to that spot...
He called Karen back and put her son on the phone because guess what, guys? Bryce was in the exact same spot that he had been at at 9 a.m., despite having enough gas to leave that area. That's so weird. Yeah, I mean, it really is so strange that he would still be in that area.
And by the way, I also want to mention some reports say that this call took place three and a half hours after Bryce got his gas, while others state that it was five hours. But either way, Bryce was in that same spot hours later, unmoving, just sitting in his car while it was over 80 degrees outside. So Christian handed Bryce the phone and Karen asked him what he was doing and what was going on.
Well, Bryce said nothing was wrong. And without prying, Karen told him to just come home. You know, she's kind of over these antics. She's like, listen, just get yourself home, please. Christian watched him drive away, believing that Bryce was on his way to his parents' house.
But little did he or Bryce's parents know, this was just the start of a very confusing long day. And I want to talk about this for a moment. You know, why Bryce would be sitting in his car, especially with Christian reporting that Bryce seemed fine. Like he didn't appear to be under the influence or upset or.
But obviously, with the text sent the previous day and just Bryce's overall behavior, he did seem to be in this deep depression. And then it makes you wonder...
And I think that's the saddest thing about this case is that we'll probably never know...
what he wanted to talk to his parents about. You know, it could have been his alcohol abuse. It could have been anything. Well, either way, there was clearly a lot going on. So maybe he was just sitting in his car thinking or planning, and it's not anything really weird, but I mean, this is just the start, like you said. So when 3.30 p.m. came around and Bryce still hadn't arrived home in Laguna Niguel,
Karen began to reach out to him, but again, received no response. She kept trying to contact her son for the next several hours until she and Mike finally decided to file a missing persons report with the Orange County Sheriff's Department at around 6 p.m.
Because they already, there's already red flags in their head. They're like, why was he sitting there for hours in Buttonwillow? He doesn't know anything about Buttonwillow. He's probably never been to Buttonwillow. And now he's still not home. He was supposed to be home hours ago. He's not answering the phone. Like something is wrong. Yeah, and you're probably questioning why they decided to file this report with the Orange County Police Department. But it's because they probably assumed that he was at this point,
to home. Right. You know? Yeah. And yeah, I mean, it's probably the safest bet because that's where they live as well. And they don't know where the hell he is. Yeah. They have no idea. So when the police heard about what was going on, even though he was 19, they thought this was very strange and disturbing as well. So the police contacted AT&T to do an emergency ping on Bryce's cell phone just to see where he was at and get this.
Bryce was only 8 miles or 13 kilometers away from where he ran out of gas 9 hours earlier. It blows my mind. It blows my mind. It's so scary. It's so scary and so eerie. Seriously. So after he got off the phone with his mom, he basically drove for a few miles and then stopped again.
Also, by the way, for anybody wondering, his car at this point was about 10 years old. So his parents don't have any real reason to believe that it was broken down, but instead that for whatever reason, he stopped driving it purposefully. So now that the police had his location, they drove there. And when they found him, he was just sitting in his car.
So the detectives performed a sobriety test and searched his car for any kind of paraphernalia or alcohol just to see if he was under the influence. And they found no evidence of alcohol or drugs and thought that Bryce was acting completely normal as he was very polite, talkative and alert. And these are cops, you know, they're going to err on the side of caution and they're talking to him and they're...
And they're, you know, giving him the sobriety test and looking at his car. They're like, this guy is not under the influence. Yeah, they're getting these reports that something strange is going on. And then they get there and he's just chilling. Well, luckily, they did ask Bryce why he had been sitting in his car all day. And he apparently told them that he was just trying to blow off some steam, which they didn't think was abnormal for a 19-year-old college student. But I do want to say, as with much of this case...
There are some conflicting reports about this. I did read as well that he told them that he was meeting a friend and that's why he was waiting. So if this is true, it makes you wonder if he was meeting maybe a dealer, but there is no evidence of this, nor of him actually meeting up with any friends because he
why would he be in Buttonwillow meeting up with a friend? Yeah, seems pretty weird and out of the way, right? Yeah, I mean, seriously. So I think that his comment about blowing off steam is probably more accurate because also, you've been driving, you've been in a car for so many hours. You haven't had a proper night's sleep in a while. And you're talking to your parents. You know they're waiting for you. You're not going to sit for nine hours waiting for a friend. Yeah, yeah, definitely not.
So, after Karen spoke to Bryce, she talked to the cops again and asked them if they thought that he was okay to drive. They told her that they were confident that he was now on his way home and that he was totally fine. They spent about 20 minutes with him and didn't note anything strange. So, again, his parents were kind of expecting him to arrive within about three hours. But a few hours passed and Karen hadn't heard from Bryce. So, again...
She called Christian at the auto repair shop to see if he had seen him. And she probably did this because Bryce had still been in that general area the last time that she had spoken to him. And again, she's kind of grasping at straws because she really has nobody else to call about this. She already called the police. They already assessed him.
So she's saying, well, maybe Christian can go back and check for me. Right. So basically, Christian said that he hadn't seen him, but decided to drive to Bryce's last known location. And guess what, guys? He was still sitting there in the same place the police had visited him at. Exactly. So let's kind of break this down. Just really quick recap. So Christian goes, delivers gas to him. He's sitting there, right?
And then his parents call the police. He's about eight miles further, right? Yeah. They call Christian again. He comes back to the same spot.
Christian sees that Bryce is still there. And how many hours are we in now? Like around 12 hours later. Yeah, 12 hours. He's still in the Budwillow area. So insane. So Christian decided that he was going to follow Bryce onto the freeway to make sure that he was actually driving home. He's like, you know, we got to get this kid moving. And by the way, this is believed to have happened around 9 p.m. or so. So after the sun had already set for the day.
Now, Christian followed Bryce for a few miles before he got off the freeway and turned around to go back to work while Bryce carried on driving. Long day for Christian. Yeah, very long day for Christian. Well, a couple hours later, around 11 p.m., Karen called Bryce and asked him what he was doing. And he said that he was buying a drink from a gas station. And it's known that he spent about $1.71 on this beverage every day.
And then got $39 worth of gas. So this is him finally getting to a gas station. And again, though, this is what's so weird is we know that hours and hours and hours and hours earlier, he only had three gallons in his tank. And now he's just finally getting gas. That means he has gone nowhere. Yeah. And this is going to be really, really confusing to you guys because it was later discovered that this gas station was in the
It's like a haunted town. Yeah, the same town that he had run out of gas 14 hours earlier and where he had supposedly left two hours earlier.
Now, after getting back in the car, Karen kept asking Bryce to describe landmarks to her so that she knew where he was. But he would just say that it was too dark to see anything, and he wasn't giving her any information about where he was. You know, she's asking, what signs are you seeing? Are you seeing any monuments? And he's just like, it's a little too dark. Again, though, a really eerie...
point is that he's not saying what he's seeing, which makes you wonder if he's actually driving or not. Exactly. Well, after a little while, they hung up the phone and then at 1230 p.m., Karen called Bryce because once again, he should have been to their house by this time. It was roughly three hours since he had supposedly left Buttonwillow. And that's how long it takes to get to Laguna Niguel, as we mentioned earlier. And
And all he said was that his map stated that he would arrive to their house just after 3 a.m. Which is two and a half hours later. It's like he's in a maddening time warp. Like, it makes no sense at all. And I think his parents weren't trying to upset him by asking, you know, too many questions or getting upset at him.
And they were just grateful when he would speak to them. So I think with him not giving landmarks or saying specifically where he was, you know, from our point of view, we're like, how are they not hounding him? But they probably just didn't want to, you know, screw it up. Yeah, absolutely. Because they're thinking that if they screw up this situation by getting mad at him, maybe he'll turn around and go the other way. Or maybe he'll go in some other different direction. You know what I mean? Yeah. And of course, because...
This whole journey already makes no sense to them. They just want to know that he's driving, that he's on the way. But the fact that three hours later, he's still two and a half hours away from a three hour distance. Like it's what? Well, at 2 0 8 a.m. Bryce called his mom, Karen, and told her that he was pulling over for the night because he was too tired to continue driving. Even though he was supposedly just 50 minutes away from her house.
He told her that he had gotten off the I-5 freeway and was in a suburban area. And by the way, the I-5 does connect all the way from Rockland where he lived to Laguna Niguel. Like Laguna Niguel is right along the five. So that wouldn't be weird for her to hear that he's getting off the five because that is the freeway he's taking the entire way. Exactly. It's just a straight shot.
Well, he explained that he was going to sleep in his car for a little while and call her when he got back up, or when he woke up, I mean. But hours and hours passed, and the Laspisas hadn't heard anything from Bryce. Then, at 8 a.m., they got a knock on their door. Relieved, they thought that Bryce was finally home. But when Karen opened her door that morning, to her surprise, it wasn't Bryce on her front doorstep. It was the police. ♪
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So as Heath was just telling us, at 8 a.m., the doorbell of the Las Pisas home rang. And when they opened the door, a California Highway Patrol officer asked if they owned a 2003 beige Toyota Highlander.
When they told the officer that their son was driving it, he informed them that at 5.30 a.m. that morning, so over three hours after they had spoken to him and under three hours from when they're hearing this news, the vehicle had been found abandoned in Castaic Lake off an access road to the state recreation area,
Two hours north of Laguna Niguel. So what the hell is he doing in Castaic Lake? Well, his car had been crashed and was found on its side at the bottom of a 25-foot embankment adjacent to the lake's main boat access road.
Yeah, now he doesn't have any identification either.
So Bryce's blood was found on the passenger headrest and on the back seat, but there was no evidence that he had sustained serious injury. Like it seemed like he did definitely injure himself in this crash, but not severely enough to where...
he would have died or, you know, suffered from something really intense. Yeah, absolutely. Because they would have found some sort of evidence of that occurring. Right. More blood or more damage. So an examination of the scene suggested that before dawn, for unknown reasons, Bryce drove off the service road into a rest area along a cell tower and toward the lake, accelerating as he did so.
So right off the bat, in a way, this isn't too shocking. I mean, this is super shocking, but it's not because we know that he was tired. So maybe, you know, you're thinking he accidentally drove off an embankment because he fell asleep at the wheel, right? Yeah. But then there are some really strange details that we're going to unpack that could lead us to believe otherwise. And then, of course...
there's the fact that he was much further away than he said he was. And that for whatever reason, he spent the entire day not driving, but sitting in his car doing nothing. And when he's supposed to be 50 minutes away from his parents' house, he is over two hours away. And now he's nowhere to be found. Yeah, they can't find him anywhere near this car crash. And given the scene, police were convinced that this was a failed suicide attempt.
But that didn't explain where Bryce went. And like I mentioned earlier, his roommate and close friend Sean got a text message from Bryce the night before his road trip when he didn't come home. You know, the one that read, "I love you bro. Seriously, you were the best person I've ever met. You saved my soul."
And to this, Sean responded, quote, And Sean was probably referring to the fact that, you know, Bryce had been seemingly depressed and that he had been abusing drugs and alcohol since this text was sent before he disappeared.
But these texts, obviously, on their face look pretty suspicious to police when they're, you know, looking at a suicide angle. And before Bryce disappeared, he'd also begun giving away some of his personal items, including his much-used Xbox, which he absolutely loved, uh, you know, he was playing video games with his friends all the time, and a pair of diamond earrings that his mom had given him.
While his parents don't understand why their son would do this, this discovery again led police to believe that Bryce wanted to commit suicide or run away to start a new life. But Mike and Karen disagreed on this, saying that while their son, you know, experimented with drugs as teenagers do, he hadn't been struggling with substance abuse and that he'd been completely normal during the summer. And, you know...
I don't know how credible that is. And I'm not trying to say that against his parents, but all of his friends who are around him were worried and so worried that they called his parents to explain what they were witnessing him go through. So I just want to kind of mention that because I do think it seems more likely that he was struggling with drug use or alcohol use in some way. I mean, his friends said that he was drinking hard liquor every day.
And that he was drinking about two fifths. So two standard bottles worth of alcohol every weekend. Yeah, that is a lot of alcohol. I mean, he is a college student. I get it. But that's still on on its face is a lot of alcohol. And there are two scenarios here.
Obviously, one is that his parents possibly don't want to believe that their son could have issues like this. And on top of that, the next thing is that it's very possible that Bryce was hiding these things from his parents, as most teenagers do. Right. So maybe they just don't know the real and true extent of it. Or I also wonder if they were saying this to the police so that they didn't.
towards the suicide angle and weren't looking at his behavior as if it was self-destructive because they want the police to look for their son. And of course, there's the possibility that his potential substance abuse or drinking or mindset has nothing to do with his disappearance.
So after Bryce's car was found, a large-scale search was conducted consisting of hundreds of deputies and volunteers, as well as search and rescue teams, cadaver dogs, and divers. Since his car was found at Castaic Lake or in Castaic Lake, just an hour and a half south of Buttonwillow, they did an extensive search of the lake to make sure that he hadn't died by drowning.
Using ATVs and helicopters, they also searched the hills, the lake, the shoreline, but the weekend-long search brought up no evidence. Also, no witnesses reported seeing Bryce in the Santa Clarita Valley around the time of the accident. Now, during the initial days of his disappearance, Bryce's parents received numerous tips and possible sightings from across the West Coast, but none of it led to Bryce's discovery.
His dad, Mike, created missing persons flyers and Karen was able to get a hold of the media to try to push Bryce's face out across the entire United States so that the general public could be on high alert for him.
Also, Bryce has a pretty specific look. So he had really bright red or orange hair and it was shaved into a buzz cut when he went missing. And he also had bright green eyes. So when he went missing, he was wearing a blue and white checkered shirt with white cargo pants and Nike shoes. And he stood at five feet, 11 inches tall and weighed about 170 pounds.
He also had a tattoo of a Taurus bullhead and his birthday in Roman numerals on his upper left arm. So yeah, he would kind of stand out a little bit to people, which is why it was amazing that they were getting his face out there so much. But despite their efforts, no lead surfaced. And when they were asked about Bryce's mindset before his disappearance, his parents said that he spoke clearly when they talked on the phone and
and they really didn't believe that he would willingly walk away from the car crash without taking any of his things. They also said that he wasn't an outdoorsy person and he wasn't one to hitchhike, so it's very unlikely that he would have just walked off, especially because he wasn't at all familiar with the Castaic Lake area.
On September 4th, 2013, so five days after Bryce crashed his car, a jogger called 911 to report a brush fire just three miles from where his car had crashed. When first responders arrived, they discovered a burning body. So of course, police were convinced that this body was the body of 19-year-old Bryce Lespisa.
But after forensic testing was done, it was proven to be a Los Angeles man who had been the victim of a homicide. Which you have to admit is pretty weird. Like, that is one of the most interesting pieces of this case to me, that three miles away, shortly after Bryce disappeared from this area, like days later, a
A different man was met with homicide and a man at that. It's not like it was a woman who was met with foul play by some creep. Like this is a deceased man met with homicide. Yeah. So that obviously makes you wonder if there was somebody out there with bad intentions that was trying to, you know, take young men's lives.
So after this, police quickly discovered that there was in fact surveillance footage of the area where Bryce's car was found. And when they looked at the footage from the night that Bryce drove off that embankment, they found something strange.
It showed stills of his car driving that same road on two separate occasions, nearly two hours apart. The camera had taken pictures of his license plate at 2:15 AM, so six minutes after he told his mom that he was in a suburban neighborhood and that he was gonna sleep for a while.
The next time that Bryce's car was caught on this same exact camera was two and a half hours later at 4:29 AM. So was he circling? Like, is he just aimlessly driving around in the same area instead of to his parents' house? And if so, why? Like how, how, why would this happen? Like he made the decision to make this very long drive down to Laguna Niguel
But now it's like he's just kind of avoiding like making the last step. Like he's avoiding actually making it there. But weirdly in this same general area, like obviously this is an hour and a half ish away from Buttonwillow, but he's not progressing past this general area. And it's so bizarre. Yeah. And on top of that, Castaic Lake is definitely not a suburban area at all. Yeah, there's there are. I'll try to post a map so you guys can see. But.
there are some suburban areas right off the freeway in Castaic, which is what the town is called. And then up a small ways is the lake, but there's not like a suburban neighborhood against the lake and surrounding the lake. That's not how this area is. Yeah, definitely. And you know, if he was going to be pulling off to take a little nap before heading home, uh,
It would not be... I don't understand why it would be in that particular area, like near that lake. Well, also, that's a good point to make because, yeah, again, he had not been progressing like he was leading his parents to believe that he was. And then did he take a nap after passing this area at 2.15 and then...
Yeah, I mean, it's very possible. Well, nine days after Bryce disappeared, bloodhounds were used to try to track his scent in hopes of figuring out where he went after the crash.
The dogs caught his scent and followed it to a dam on the lake, then trailed it across the dam and down south toward the west side of the lake. The scent then led them toward the truck stop on Castaic Road, and after that, the scent just stopped.
So investigators were pretty confident that this proved that he had either gotten to a car or a truck that had driven by within the single hour that he crashed and the police showed up to investigate. So maybe he, it seems to me that he did hitch a ride from somebody and then from there something happened.
According to the evidence that investigators have, there were no indications that he was met with foul play or that he died by suicide. There's just no evidence of it. And they believe that if he had taken his own life, they would have found him at the lake. Within days of Bryce going missing, his friend Sean stated, quote, I think that he's trying to find himself right now. He doesn't want to be found.
So he didn't believe that foul play was involved initially either or that Bryce tried to take his own life because Bryce apparently told him that he would be coming back that Monday, which was Labor Day. But when he didn't come back, his friends really started questioning his whereabouts.
After three weeks, all search efforts were called off because police were confident that Bryce, a 19-year-old adult, was just off doing his own thing. But his loved ones weren't convinced.
Months passed with no new leads, so the Laspisas hired private investigator Denise Savastano, who specializes in missing persons cases. And Denise actually offered her services pro bono because she was on the side of the Laspisas and believed that Bryce had disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Based on the coordinates plugged into Bryce's GPS, she also believed that Bryce had wanted to go home to Laguna Niguel.
This led her to speculate that he could have suffered a head injury from the car crash and that he had become disoriented. She also theorized that he could have suffered a psychotic break as a result of his drug use, which is why he had been acting so erratically.
In August of 2015, so two years after his disappearance, Denise Savastano and the La Pisa family hired a sonar specialist to search the lake, using sound waves to generate images of the lake bottom. Although Castaic Lake was searched, it's 330 feet deep and it's about 29 miles long, so searching this entire lake was nearly impossible.
They believed that if Bryce had been suicidal, he could have entered the deep water at Government Cove. But two 12-hour days of searching brought up absolutely no new evidence. And to this day, nearly 11 years after he went missing, there have been no confirmed sightings of Bryce LaSpisa, and no evidence pointing heavily towards any particular theory.
I mean, I do kind of understand that. I do kind of believe that maybe during this car crash, he could have been disoriented in some way. You know, the scent dogs tracked him to a truck stop. It's very possible that he hitched a ride with a trucker or something. And then maybe something nefarious happened to him. Or maybe something didn't. And he is just out there in the world and doesn't really know what's going on. It's hard because...
I feel like if somebody had picked him up and he did suffer from some type of head injury and he was out there and to this day doesn't know who he is and none of the true crime fans out there have been able to recognize him. I just feel like it's suspicious to me that then whoever would have picked him up would
hasn't come forward and said, oh my God, I gave him a ride to this place. You know, it's definitely possible that whoever that was has no idea anything about this case, has never heard the name Braceless Pisa. But it is just a little weird to me that that person never would have come forward when it really does seem like he hitched a ride from somebody. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's not concrete that he hitched a ride from somebody. But also one thing I wanted to point out
Is it possible that he had been trying to take his own life when he went off this embankment, realized that, "Oh shit, that actually wasn't, you know, a far enough fall to actually take my life,"
out of that window and then maybe took his life elsewhere. Right. Like maybe if he, it just seems kind of weird to me that he would, I mean, I'm no expert on the topic, but that he would leave the area and then continue, you know, that failed. And so then he's going to go off to some place and take his life somewhere else when he has nothing to do it with. And he's,
To this day, his body hasn't been found. It's just so weird, all of it. Well, I guess one of the reasons why I'm saying this is I want to bring up the thought of why wouldn't he have taken his laptop or his wallet if he was planning on, you know, hitching a ride and continuing on with his life? Well, one thing I wonder about that is we know that he would have crashed...
right after, you know, between 4.30 and 5-ish a.m. because his car was found at 5.30 a.m. So it still would have been dark.
and it's definitely possible that he's just in this black water. He can't see. He's able to get himself out, and then his car is kind of in the water, and he can't get inside to retrieve his belongings, you know, or at least do so safely. So that's definitely possible, but again, so many questions. Yeah, and I also think it's very interesting that
if, you know, we, we know, basically we know that he got out of that car because of the window being smashed from the inside. Right. So is, you know, another possibility, the fact that he crawled out of the window, he,
He was, you know, kind of injured. And then he maybe hiked because this is a rural area, right? Yeah. So you have to walk away as if you're going to get to somebody to help you. It's not a forested area, by the way. We'll post photos. It's a very dry, mountainous area. You know, think of Southern California. Right. So it's definitely possible that he could have succumbed to his injury somewhere. But I think with all the searching they did...
It just doesn't seem likely that he is in the vicinity of where his car was. And that's why I think personally, I am most suspicious of who, in my mind, likely picked him up from that rest stop. Yeah. I mean, again, like you said, there's just so many questions. This is why this case is so baffling for so many people. It's one of those Brandon Swanson cases, right? It's a long, it's in that group. It's in that group. What the hell? Right. Right.
On the 10-year anniversary of Bryce's disappearance, which was last year, his mother Karen wrote on the Find Bryce Less piece of Facebook page, quote, "'August 30th, 2023 marks 10 years of Bryce being missing. Every day a loved one goes missing. We share the pain with parents who have a missing child. We grieve while having hope for a miracle that Bryce will be found.'"
They also shared an age progression photo, which we will share on our socials in case Bryce is still somehow out there alive, which his family believes is possible. And a lot of people over the years have posted photos of houseless men that, you know, they've come across that look like Bryce and they've shared them in this group. We've been a part of this group for many years, so I see them cross my timeline sometimes.
And many of them have been questioned by locals or Bryce's family. And it's been determined that none of these men have been Bryce. But it does seem like a lot of people are out there on the lookout for a young man in his late 20s, now almost early 30s, that has red hair and looks like Bryce. So the more that we share his photo and his story, the more that we share his story.
the higher the chances are that maybe someone will come forward or somebody will see something. Yeah, absolutely. You know, there are so many people that are involved in these priceless piece of groups on either Facebook or wherever, even Reddit and stuff. And they do a really great job. But to this day, there has been no evidence found of
Yeah, and as of just a couple months ago, Bryce would officially be 30 years old. But when he went missing, Bryce Lespisa was 19 years old, and he was last seen again wearing white cargo pants, a blue and white checkered shirt, and size 12 red and white Nike shoes.
At the time of his disappearance, he was 5'11 and weighed approximately 170 pounds. He had bright orange hair and green eyes and a tattoo of a Taurus bullhead and his birthday in Roman numerals on his upper left arm. His ears were pierced as well. Currently, his case is classified as endangered missing.
If you have any information regarding Bryce's case, you can contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office at 323-890-5500 or the official tip line at 949-292-4400. Tips can also be submitted through email via findbricelesspisa at gmail.com. ♪
Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. And please make sure that you share, share, share. It has been over 10 years since Bryce went missing, and it is a truly baffling case. So, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Going West.
So please head on over to our socials, check out the photos of Bryce and share the pictures. Share this episode. Yes. And thank you guys so much for revisiting this story with us. We don't plan to do this too often, but, you know, like he said in the intro, this case has stuck with us so consistently over the years. And I know it's done the same for a lot of you guys because of how consistent
just mind bending it is. Like I said, it's a, it's a maddening story. So thank you guys so much for tuning in and we will see you on Friday. All right, guys. So for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Bye.
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