15: Special Edition: Is There A Serial Killer In Austin Right Now?
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Welcome to a special edition of Heart Starts Pounding.

If you're new to the podcast, you're in good company. This is a place for people who follow their curiosity into the dark corners of the internet, into the strange and unknown, and into their personal experiences and communities, hoping to turn up a little light. We'll be back on our regular weekly programming May 6th with a bunch of exciting new episodes. And right now, we're releasing The Timekeeper, a horror audio drama on its own channel.

Thank you all for the support. It's been on the top 20 fiction charts for the last few weeks now. Though Heart Starts Pounding is technically on a short break, I felt like I had to put this episode out. What's going on in Austin has been weighing heavy on my mind, and I wanted to put a lot of the information we have all in one place. I don't have any answers. I'm just going to tell you what's been going on. On April 15th, a body was pulled from Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas.

While this was a tragedy that deeply impacted the Austin community, it seemed to increase a fear that many locals had. See, this was the fourth body pulled from Lady Bird Lake this year. And while each death report keeps coming back with a stamp from police that reads "No Foul Play," some people claim they can see a pattern in the bodies being pulled from the lake this year. Others think that this is an issue that goes back much farther.

Looking more into these deaths, I came across an article titled, "No Connection in Deaths Near Downtown Austin Waters," police say. It reads like a headline ripped out of a recent paper. Everywhere I turned, the police were repeating this same exact sentiment.

But this article was from 2018. Five years ago, the police were trying to quell the growing fear that something malicious was behind the back-to-back drownings in downtown Austin. And today, the response is the exact same. The new uptick in deaths has gained national attention, though the police are steadfast in their convictions that nothing strange is going on. But many are wondering, is there a serial killer in Austin?

To start this story, we need to look at the geography of the lake. Austin is a city in central Texas. It's long been known for its nightlife and music scene, and is popular amongst local college students and for weekend getaways with groups of friends. A lot of what you'll hear me talk about in this episode focuses on Rainy Street and 6th Street, two neighborhoods on the north side of the lake that are flanked with bars and restaurants.

They're a short walk from each other, and Rainy runs right into the lake. The lake itself is part of the Colorado River, which flows east to west through Austin. And it's gorgeous. On a sunny day, you can bike around the 10-mile perimeter and hear the music echoing from bars, past locals doing early morning kayaking. The lake is six miles long, and it splits Austin into north and south.

The lake has an average depth of 14 feet and a width ranging from about one football field to nearly half a mile across. Swimming hasn't been allowed since the 1960s, but other activities such as kayaking and boating are permitted. But what is typically a leisurely spot for locals has recently become a tragic reminder of what's happening. Let's go back to 2018, when the police felt like they needed to reassure the public.

The men whose deaths were referenced in the 2018 article, the one where police stated there was no connection, were Randy Lexfold, Chris White, and Martin Gutierrez. In December of 2018, 49-year-old Randy Alex Lexfold was in Austin with his family for his daughter's swim meet. His body was found floating in water below Shoal Creek Bridge, a bridge just off of 6th Street, around 8.30 a.m. one Friday.

Randy's wife told investigators that he ate on 6th Street around 10.30 p.m., and police believe that he made it onto Shoal Creek Bridge between 1.30 a.m. and the time he was found. Shoal Creek Bridge is a long bridge that runs over a creek that's just a few inches deep. The bridge has a knee-high railing, but Randy was 6'1", meaning it wouldn't have been difficult for him to go over it.

Police believed that Randy's injuries were consistent with the fall and ruled out any foul play. By the time Randy was found, the article mentioned that he was the sixth body in Austin to be found in water since May that year. One of the other men that was found was Chris White, who was found in a different part of the Colorado River. Another was Martin Gutierrez.

Mitchell Gutierrez, brother of the 25-year-old Martin Gutierrez, whose body was found in Lady Bird Lake in November of 2018, just two weeks before Randy's, still feels like the case isn't closed on his brother's death.

Video surveillance taken inside the Alibi, a bar on Rainey Street, shows Martin behaving strangely the night he died. According to Mitchell, Martin was out with a group of friends but was keeping mostly to himself in a corner, when all of a sudden he ran outside of the bar. Other surveillance footage shows Martin making strange movements that were not consistent with his typical behavior.

His brother believes that someone may have drugged Martin and that the deaths this year are likely related. A toxicology report showed that Martin was intoxicated but had no illicit drugs in his system. His cause of death was ruled as accidental drowning, but Mitchell, who works in the medical field, never believed that. So what could have been happening to Martin the night of his death?

Well, in February of 2019, just a few months after his death, an article titled "Something is Happening on Rainy Street" was published. In the article, ER director Dr. Christopher Zeebo of Dell Seton Medical Center said that they'd seen a recent wave of patients exhibiting strange symptoms after a night out on Rainy.

He said, quote, And so the thought is that maybe something else is getting slipped into their drinks.

He also acknowledged that, quote, "Some of the more common date rape drugs, though, are not detectable on our routine drug screens. So sometimes we do drug screens and everything turns out to be negative, but we still have suspicion that something may have happened."

Not much information is being revealed by police currently on the bodies being found. For many of them, the public does not have access to autopsy and toxicology reports. And even if they did, these are drugs that are not detectable in your system. And bodies are being found in states where toxic substances may have already leaked out of them. So painting a whole picture is difficult. But in 2018, the deaths were all ruled as accidental.

So, let's look at what's been happening this year, because many claim they can see similarities between today and what happened in 2018.

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So on April 15th, the body of 30-year-old John Christopher Hayes Clark was found near Longhorn Dam on the far east side of the lake.

The investigation is ongoing, but initial reports say police do not suspect foul play. Again, at the time of this recording, this is the information I have. I'm sure more will come out in the following weeks. The news of John's death came just two weeks after the body of Jonathan Honey, 33 years old, was also found in Lady Bird Lake. Jonathan was in town from D.C. for a bachelor party and was last seen at a taco truck on Rainy Street at 2 a.m.,

His friends reported him missing on March 31st, and he was found the next day. The police have also put out a statement claiming that there is no reason to believe there was any foul play. His family is asking for privacy at this time and has not made a statement. A month prior, on March 5th, at around 10 a.m., the body of 40-year-old Cliff Axtell was recovered in Lady Bird Lake near Auditorium Shore. He was last seen at Stubbs, a barbecue joint just a short walk from 6th Street.

Authorities have not confirmed the identity of Cliff, but Cliff's sister shared a touching memorial of her brother on Facebook where she revealed that Cliff had been recovered from Lady Bird Lake. She also said that he was "wildly creative, passionate, brilliant, daring, and full of life." Cliff was the father of two children. Two weeks prior to Cliff's discovery, on February 13th, the body of 30-year-old Jason John was pulled from Lady Bird Lake.

Jason was reported missing a week prior. He had been last seen also on Rainy Street after a night out with friends. According to Jason's brother, the medical examiner said Jason had no visible damage or scars. Jason's AirPods are still missing. Looking at the profile of the identified men, both recent and past, people have commented on some similarities.

These were adult men, mostly in their 20s and 30s, with cropped, dark brown hair, and a large majority of them were seen out on Rainy or 6th Street the night before they disappeared.

I will note, there doesn't seem to be a profile for skin color, though a number of victims were Hispanic. But maybe it's this profiling that led so many to believe that there is someone behind this. The police are not convinced. On April 13th, just a few days ago, during a town hearing to address the drownings, Austin Police released a statement that read, "...the Austin Police Department is aware of speculations regarding the recent drownings in Lady Bird Lake."

Although these cases are still under investigation and evidence is being analyzed, at this time, there is no evidence in any of these cases to support allegations of foul play. While each incident has occurred at the lake, the circumstances, exact locations, and demographics surrounding these cases vary.

Our investigators approach every case with an open mind and objectively examine all available evidence. We work closely with the Travis County Medical Examiner's Office, which conducts a parallel investigation into all deaths.

The medical examiner performs autopsies in each of these types of death investigations. The results of these autopsies have not revealed any trauma to the bodies nor indication of foul play. One common theme in the drownings in Austin this year is the combination of alcohol and easy access to Lady Bird Lake, which has numerous access points. Many of the access points can be challenging to see at night.

The parks in which most of these drownings have occurred are park areas that close at 10 p.m. and occur after the park closes. We advise the public to follow the rules on park closures. Sure, the bars and restaurants are very close to the lake, and alcohol and bodies of water hardly ever mix.

One person suggested, too, that men are more likely to pull over for a bathroom break while coming home from the bars, and being intoxicated increases the risk that you'll fall in. But this does seem to be a high number of falling-related deaths. For reference, Lake Tahoe in California sees about seven deaths in the lake every year. And that's mostly from recreational lake activities like swimming and boating. So four bodies in just a few months from falling

isn't outside the realm of possibilities, but it does raise a flag. If the police keep claiming no foul play, however, that doesn't give families much to go off of. So much information is missing from these men's stories because so many of them were separated from their friends or families at the times of their deaths. We don't know if they felt weird after a drink, if they had been lured somewhere, if they just happened to run into the wrong person while making their way home.

But there is one person whose story we do know. Or at least, some of it. Because he was found alive.

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21-year-old Christian Pugh was in Austin to see a comedian perform in November 2019 when he went missing. Christian has very little memory about what transpired that night, but he's been able to put together a timeline of events based on what friends have told him and video footage that he's watched of himself.

So Christian went out with a group of friends on Rainy Street for a friend's birthday party. The last thing Christian remembers that night was arriving to a pregame for the party. He has no memory of anything after that, and he left his phone in an Uber when the pregame was heading to the bars, so he can't track his movements. Video surveillance footage shows Christian leaving the bar on Rainy Street where his friend's party was happening and heading north towards 6th Street.

The last camera to pick him up was a bank in the area. After that, he wasn't seen for three days. Police waited 48 hours before dispatching a search team, and it was a homeless man who alerted police to Christian, who lay in a heap under Congress Street Bridge, which runs over the lake. Christian had injuries consistent with the 30-foot fall he likely faced—broken ribs, a dislocated leg—

But he also had a welt on the side of his head, a traumatic brain injury, and bloody knuckles that he felt were more consistent with a fight.

He was induced into a month-long coma, after which he needed to relearn how to write. But the circumstance of Christian's disappearance and condition were never fully investigated, so what caused him to go over the side of the bridge is unknown. According to Christian, he felt brushed off by the police, as if they felt that because he was alive, it didn't really matter what happened that night.

Pieces of Christian's story feel incredibly important in the current moment, though. Like the wounds found on his knuckles that were inconsistent with a fall. Were those self-defense wounds? And is the memory loss from a brain injury or from being drugged? Nothing definitive has been said about what's going on, but we know that men in their 20s and 30s are separating from their groups after nights out and being found in Lady Bird Lake.

These are the reported cases, but a Facebook group and Reddit dedicated to civilian sleuthing is full of personal anecdotes of men being drugged on Rainey and Sixth. And these aren't even all the bodies being pulled from the lake in similar conditions over the last few years. Whether it's a serial killer, a serial drugger, or just an issue with the lighting near the lake remains a mystery. But pressure is mounting on Austin police to figure out if the deaths are more than accidental.

Some families have called for more protective measures to be taken near Lady Bird Lake. More lighting was put up in February after Jason John's death and a fence was put around part of the lake. However, there are large gaps in the fence and it seems that the lighting may only be temporary. Plus, three more bodies were found after these measures were put in place. Even if it's a problem where people are accidentally falling into the lake because of confusion or poor lighting, that's still a problem.

It's frustrating to watch this happen, but I've also felt inspired reading about community members stepping up to do what they can. People are watching out for each other and strangers at bars, and many men are starting to come forward with their stories about being drugged in the area. I've read so many stories about men who thought they were drugged near Rainy Street a few years ago and just shook it off.

They were embarrassed or they thought it would look weak if they made a big deal about it. But it is a big deal and it's not embarrassing or weak to share your experiences. It could save someone's life.

In the meantime, be extra vigilant about safety measures. Stay with your friends, check in on them throughout the night, make sure you and they have safe transportation home, and be mindful of your drinks. I've seen people recommend the Test My Drink strips on Amazon, though they are not fully comprehensive of all drugs.

When in doubt, go for something you can open yourself. And keep your phone charged and on you. If you or your loved ones live in Austin, I'm sure you know all of this already. But if you know someone traveling there soon, make sure they're aware of the situation. It could really help. I'll see you all on May 6th when we're back with our weekly episodes. And until then, stay safe, everyone. Amazon One Medical presents Painful Thoughts.

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