Ep. 165: TEXAS - There Is An Active Serial Killer In AUSTIN, TEXAS (Pt. 2) 01:48:34

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Warning. The following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned.

In last week's episode, we walked you through the mysterious deaths occurring in Austin, Texas. Since 2008, young men keep washing up in Austin's Lady Bird Lake. And a number of those men were last seen at the popular bar district called Rainy Street. Year after year, the Austin Police Department is adamant that these deaths are all accidental drownings. But the victims' family members and the public disagree.

With the rise in deaths over the past few years, there's a wide belief that someone out there is preying on the young men of Austin, Texas, and they've named that person the Rainy Street Ripper. In part one of this series, we left off on the death of Martin Gutierrez, and his brother Mitchell was kind enough to speak with us about what happened.

And for this episode, we have another victim's family member who agrees that these deaths are not accidents. So this is part two. I'm Courtney Browen. And I'm Colin Browen. And you're listening to Murder in America. ♪♪

So just to bring you guys back up to speed, like we were talking about last week on the show, there have been a number of what the Austin Police Department calls accidents in Austin, Texas, surrounding Lady Bird Lake.

The man-made body of water that cuts through the center of Austin. Bodies have been appearing in this lake for close to two decades now, but this problem is only exacerbating. And what you're about to hear next is deeply disturbing. But back to our story. About a week after Martin Gutierrez was found floating in Lady Bird Lake, another victim would be found.

This time, it was 48-year-old Randy Allen Lexvold, who was born on January 29th, 1970. Randy had been a successful software engineer for 27 years. He was married, had three daughters, and was known as a devoted family man, friend, and work colleague. He was also extremely athletic and enjoyed running, hiking, and cycling, and had even competed in numerous marathons and triathlons.

At the time of our story, he was living in Irvine, California, but in December of 2018, he came to Austin to watch his daughter compete in the USA Junior Nationals Swimming Championship that was held at the University of Texas. But sadly, this joyous occasion would soon take a dark turn. On the night of December 6th, Randy went to the rooftop bar on 6th Street, where his credit card information showed he purchased one alcoholic drink that

at around 10:30 p.m. And that was the last time anyone heard from him. One day later, at 8:30 a.m., someone was looking out of their apartment window when they saw a body floating in Shoal Creek, which is a body of water that's fed by Lady Bird Lake, just below West 6th Street. Shoal Creek is also about a mile from the bar he was last seen in.

Now, when police arrived, they noticed that Randy's face had been fully submerged in the water, and what they found in his autopsy was shocking.

Randy had suffered extensive injuries to his body, including a broken collarbone, broken ribs, and a broken femur bone. He also had numerous bruises, lacerations, scrapes, and cuts. The injuries were so significant that investigators were unable to determine his age and race when they pulled him from the water. They later determined that Randy had gotten these injuries after falling from the 6th Street Bridge.

but the autopsy stated it's unclear whether he simply fell was pushed was hit by a car and knocked over or whether he jumped thus the manner of death is undetermined in addition to his injuries randy's lungs were also filled with fluid which led the pathologist to believe he had drowned toxicology reports would confirm that randy had trace amounts of alcohol in his system as well as diphtahydramine which is the main ingredient found in benadryl

The circumstances surrounding his death are unclear, but investigators don't believe robbery was a motive as Randy was found with his valuables on him. Although his official cause of death was listed as drowning, the manner of death to this day is still undetermined.

So keep in mind with that, a man's body is found covered in serious grave injuries, cuts, scrapes, bruises, broken bones, and it's accidental. Hmm, makes you think. For the next nine months, no one else was found in Lady Bird Lake. That is until August 14th, 2019.

The only information we have on this death is that it was a male and that he was found face down in Lady Bird Lake near the Sehome Power Plant. Then, about a month later, 8-year-old Jake Waltrip decided to go to a bar on 6th Street. However, afterwards, he disappeared. Two days later, on Saturday, September 28th, 2019,

Two kayakers were in Lady Bird Lake when they came across a man floating in the water. These kayakers actually pulled the body to the shore, but it was too late. The man was dead. And can you guess where he was found? Right next to that Holiday Inn, where several other victims had been found.

Now, according to Jake's loved ones, he grew up in Midway and, quote, enjoyed riding, driving the golf cart, and shooting at the gun range with his dad at Uncle Paul's house. He also loved being outdoors and running, kayaking, and camping out in his tent and chilling in his hammock.

After high school, Jake went to college at the University of Arkansas. Then he lived in Orange County for a few years before coming back to Texas in 2018. At the time of our story, Jake was living in Austin going to a computer coding school at the Austin Coding Academy. And he even had a good job lined up, which he was really excited about.

The news of his passing was devastating for his family. They would later write, quote, Jake was an intelligent, fun, and loving son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin, and friend. Words can't begin to express how much we love him and how much we will miss him. And just like all the victims before, Jake's death was ruled as an accidental drowning. The next victim of Lady Bird Lake, it's pretty close to home for me.

Because I was actually with him in the hours before he disappeared. This is my personal connection to the case. This is a 100% true story. And this is the reason why I have been talking about a serial killer in Austin for years now.

All the way back in 2019, I was talking about this to my friends and family. And it's now 2024 and the rate of these deaths has been multiplying and nothing's being done. So, it was Saturday, November 16th, 2019.

At the time, I was still living in Austin. I dropped out of film school at around that time earlier that year to follow my dreams on YouTube. And actually, my friend Daniel asked if I wanted to go out to Rainy Street that night with him and a few of his friends. Funny enough, one of his friends was a fan of my YouTube channel, so Daniel invited me out because he thought his friend would love to meet me. And I will say, I'm sober now. We talked about this on the podcast, how I went to rehab in

You know, eight months ago, I've been sober for eight months. It's been the best, most rewarding journey I have ever been on. But back then, I was not sober. So I agreed to go. Later that night, I showed up to my friend's apartment. I can't remember whose place we were at. And there were about eight people there that were going to go out with us.

One of those people being 21-year-old Christian Pugh. Now, I found out later that night that Christian had come to Austin to see Tom Segura play a comedy show that weekend and that he was mutual friends with the people that were there. Now, I'd never met Christian before that night. He wasn't an old friend of mine. He was just a new acquaintance that I happened to go out with. But over the evening and the drinks, we got to talking and from what I could tell on the outside, he seemed like...

an amazing guy and after pre-gaming for a while eventually we all ordered some ubers and before we knew it we were out on the infamous rainy street ready to have a good time so the first bar that we went to that night was called the container bar i vividly remember kind of exactly what was happening in that bar how our night was going down where we were drinking even inside of the bar we

We spent some time there drinking, hanging out, and everything was going well. Now, one observation that I made that night that I've thought about many, many times over the years was that nobody was significantly more drunk or fucked up than anyone else. I mean, back then, you guys have to understand, I was a full-blown alcoholic. So when I was drinking, I wasn't just having two beers. Every single time I would start to drink, there would not be a stop.

I drink 25, 30 beers in a night. So I was drinking to get blacked out. But still, Christian didn't seem like he was way more hammered than me. He didn't seem like he was acting strange or doing anything bizarre. He seemed like we were just completely normal, like we were all hanging out together.

Nothing really stuck out to me that said, oh, this guy is going to end up in the river. Now, other people in our group were kind of drunk, but Christian from the outside, I could tell, seemed like he could handle his alcohol pretty well. And I would say most likely, based on myself and my history, I was probably the most fucked up person there that night.

Now, after the container bar, our group made our way over to Clive, which is another bar on Rainy Street. I should add in here, the container bar does not exist anymore. And something eerie to me personally that I've went back and reflected on was that Christian, and I can't remember the names of the other people that were with us besides my friend Daniel, but I remember Christian was there and this girl was hanging out with us.

And she wanted to take a picture with Christian. I believe it was in the container bar. And so I grabbed their phone. I was taking the pictures for them. I took probably 10 to 15 photographs. And those pictures ended up, at least to my knowledge, what I was told being the last photographs of Christian before what ended up happening happened. So I was the one who took those photos. I remember seeing them on posters and posted online and

So yeah, that's always just haunted me a little bit. After we were at Clive though, it was a little bit after 1am and some people in our group were ready to call it a night. So somebody in our group ordered an Uber to get us back home. Keep in mind, I was there and I only really knew one guy, so I wasn't keeping tabs on who's where, who's staying out, who's coming back. And by then, I guess Christian had somehow separated from our group. I

I didn't notice this. Like I said, I had just met Christian that night. It was a large group of us, but most of us in the Uber, I can attest to, were extremely drunk on the borderline of blackout. So I just went home. I got a ride back to my apartment and went to sleep. And at the time, I was completely unaware of the horrors that had happened that evening to Christian Pugh.

That next morning, I remember I woke up hungover, extremely hungover. I remember that. And I checked my phone. There was a message on my phone from my friend Daniel. I believe it was multiple messages, actually. I wish I still had them, but he was basically asking, have you heard from Christian? So obviously I texted him back and said, no, I hadn't. And right after that, Daniel called me on the phone, which was strained. So I picked up the phone.

I'm talking to Daniel and my jaw just dropped. Christian didn't make it home that night. No one had seen or heard from him after the night out on Rainey. Christian's car had been found. He hadn't been back in his car. His phone was in his car. I can't remember if he had his phone out on Rainey with him that night. I genuinely can't remember because it was, you know, such a long time ago and I was blackout drunk.

But, I mean, everybody knew immediately that this was just beyond not coming home.

Soon afterwards, Daniel told me that I was going to have to speak with somebody from law enforcement. They were conducting some basic interviews to try and figure out what might have happened to Christian. And later that day, I got a call from somebody in law enforcement. Now, I want to say it was a detective, but I don't want to speak in absolutes here. That's why I'm calling it somebody in law enforcement. But this was either a detective or a police officer calling me to get some information.

And that call went a little bit like this. My memory might not serve me the best, but to the best of my memory, this is what happened. Hi, this is a detective from the Austin Police Department. I got word that you were with Christian Pugh last night. Yes, I was. Can you tell me what bars y'all went to? Well, first last night, we went to the container bar.

And then we went to Clive, which is another bar, I don't know if you know, down on Rainy Street. Okay, and after Clive, you went home? Yeah, after that, I got in the Uber with everybody else. I didn't physically call the Uber or anything. I just hopped in because I went out with these guys. But I guess everybody is saying now that Christian wasn't around when they were all leaving. And around what time was that? Well, this would have been a little bit before 1.30 a.m.,

Okay, did Christian seem intoxicated last night? No, he was completely normal. Actually, he didn't seem that drunk at all to me. I was probably the one that was a little more fucked up than he was, so I was probably the drunkest out of everybody. Do you remember what he was wearing?

No, but I did take some pictures of Christian and I can't remember the girl's name, but it's some photos of Christian that I believe were at the container bar. Yeah, that would be great. Send me the picture and we will be in touch if I have any more questions. So from there, I hung up. I was honestly just shocked. I mean, I didn't really know what to think in that moment. It was a very bizarre, sobering, deeply disturbing feeling.

Thinking that the guy I was hanging out with all night that I'd actually bonded with, that I really liked kicking it with, was gone. And pretty soon, that photo that I had taken of Christian...

was all over. People had sent it to friends and family. It was on some posters. I remember looking at news reports and thinking, that's so crazy that I took that picture of him and he's still missing. And when word got out that another young man had disappeared off of Rainy Street, everyone in Austin feared the worst. I know that I did.

Christian's family quickly made their way to Rainy Street and began posting missing person flyers all over. Now, strangely enough, his family would find his car parked on Slaughter Lane. Like I said before, that's where we had taken the Uber to and from that night. So it was clear that he had never made it back home from Rainy Street that night. And seeing this, his family knew that something had happened to him.

His dad, Christopher, told KVU News, Now, Christian's family was also able to look through his credit card statements and found that his last charge was at Clive, the last bar that we went to that night.

So they went to Clive and looked at the surveillance footage. And there they saw Christian and the group of friends that I was with dancing and having a good time. It's eerie to me because in a lot of these reports and videos about what happened and these Austin murders and killings, they always reference this CCTV footage that showed Christian and the group of friends that night dancing and having fun.

And it's just bizarre to me to consider that I am actually in that group of friends that people are referencing from that night. You know what I mean? I mean, it's just really bizarre. When I was watching another documentary about this, they were talking about that CCTV footage. And I'm like, dude, that's me. And I remember that whole night so well. It's like hearing these people narrate stories.

Anyways though, in that surveillance footage, Christian's parents saw that all of us had left the bar. Like I said, there was a big group of us, we got into our Ubers, and Christian had never come out.

And that's something that I've grappled with ever since. Now, like I said before, Christian and I had never met before that night. I was only good friends with one person out of the large group of people we were with. And I was nearly blackout drunk, a former alcoholic, by the time that we left Rainy Street that evening.

But since then, I've always made it a point to always leave with people that I came with. I mean, I don't know how anyone could have ever expected somebody to actually go missing in this way after the night that we had. I mean, everybody's had those nights where you go out, everybody's hammered drunk, somebody makes it home, other people, you know, go and do this, the group splits off, other people want to stay out, other people want to go to bed. I mean, I've lived that same night a million times.

But it's never ended like this. So I do feel bad about that. But obviously, I don't blame myself because nobody could have expected what was going to happen.

This man's family is desperate to find him tonight. Christian Pugh's family says no one has seen him since early Sunday morning after he'd been on Rainy Street downtown. Our Patrick Perez spoke with Pugh's father about their frantic search. Christian's family knew something was wrong last night. They planned to go to a comedy show together, but they hadn't heard from him. And now they just want to know what exactly happened here.

Something's happened, something's wrong, and I don't know what it is, but we need to find it. Christopher Pugh is desperate to find his son Christian. The 21-year-old disappeared on Rainey Street early Sunday morning after a night of fun with his friends. We found his car down in Slaughter Lane yesterday, untouched, so he didn't make it back to his car.

Christopher says his son took an Uber from Slaughter Lane to Rainey Street. The last charge on his card was at the Clive Bar on Davis and Rainey. Surveillance video from the container bar next door showed Christian dancing. His father says Austin police also told him of another video of Christian's friends waiting outside the bar for him, but he never came out. He's not here. He's not called. There's been no activity on his phone. There's been no activity on his cell phone or on his credit cards.

His bank card, nothing. The search comes nearly a year since 25-year-old Martin Gutierrez disappeared on Rainy Street. Crews found his body in Lady Bird Lake a week later. It's a memory that crossed Christopher's mind Monday. We already went and looked at the lake today. No sight, none of the homeless people have seen him, nothing.

Christopher says he and his family will keep looking for Christian and sharing these flyers until they get answers. At this point, we're looking for anybody that might have some kind of information on what has happened to our child and where he might be at. Now, Christian's father tells me Austin police will be out near Rainy Street tomorrow morning with search and rescue crews and some divers. If you know anything about where Christian may be, please call 911. In the studio tonight, I'm Patrick Perez, KV News. So, over the next few days, there were still no signs of Christian.

And just like all the other victims' families, his loved ones feared, like I did, that he would be found in Lady Bird Lake.

Since Christian's disappearance, there had been no activity on his credit cards, on his phone, so it wasn't looking good. But shockingly, three days after he vanished, Christian was found alive. It was the morning of Tuesday, November 19th, and right along the Congress Avenue Bridge, where Martin Gutierrez's body was found, Christian Pugh was located hidden under a bush along the hiking trail.

Now, surprisingly, Christian was indeed alive, but he had, quote, incapacitating life-altering injuries, end quote. Here's some video footage of his parents finding out that Christian was indeed alive. I'd like to hear more from you. Thank you so much, Detective Faithful. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll wait to hear from you. Thank you. They found him. He's alive. Yes! He said apparently he wandered off the roadway and that he's in some tall brush. Oh, my God! They said don't go down there because they're putting him on a gurney right now to take him to the hospital. I'm going to come to my office and let people know. They said he's breathing, but he's kind of slipping a little bit in and out of consciousness.

- They don't know what hospital he's going to yet. We've gotta wait just a little bit longer. - He's got a whole week of to be sick. - To be found at the hospital, but he's okay. He's alive. - God is on our side. - He's alive, he's alive. - Oh my God, honey. Oh my God. - We're gonna get him. - Oh my God.

So, Christian was transported to the Del Seaton Medical Center, but he was in extremely rough shape. In fact, Christian was in a coma for the next month. And when he finally woke up, he didn't remember a thing about what happened to him that night. And keep in mind, Christian, from what I could tell, wasn't even that drunk. I mean, none of us were.

So it's not like he wouldn't remember any of this because he was blacked out. He had been beaten so severely that he lost all memory of what had happened. Based on Christian's injuries, it's commonly believed now that as Christian was walking on Rainey Street, someone attacked him. Then, following the attack, he was thrown from a bridge into Lady Bird Lake.

Now, interestingly, both he and Martin Gutierrez were found near each other, about a mile away from where they were last seen. And somehow, they both ended up on the complete opposite side of the lake. So many people want to know, how did they get there? Well, one thing we know for sure is that Christian Pugh was assaulted and left for dead. But of course, just like in every other case in the story, the

The Austin Police Department doesn't agree with that. Like all the other victims, they were quick to say that Christian must have been drunk and accidentally fell. Once again, this was ruled as an accident. And this is egregious to me. I mean, I said this in my documentary. I don't know how that excuse can be used here. I don't understand how the authorities can actually go along with that narrative.

I mean, who in their right mind is going to get absolutely, completely blacked out drunk and then go walk miles by themselves and somehow trip, fall over a bridge and end up in a coma? I mean, it's just, when you say it like that, it's absurd. And yet that's what they're saying happened. They're ignoring the bruising on his hands, some of his other injuries that are inconsistent with the fall.

They don't think he was drugged. I believe he was probably drugged. The whole thing just does not sit right with me because, I mean, I get it. Maybe in a very, very, very rare situation, something like that could happen. But this isn't the first time this has happened here. And I know. I just have a feeling. I just know that that's not what happened. Especially if you guys would understand the layout of Austin, the

If you understand where he was on Rainy Street with us and where his body was found, it's across a river. It is so far away. There's just no way. There's just no way. And Christian's dad agrees. He would actually later tell CBS Austin, I've said this multiple times. Christian got hit in the head. His hands were bruised. He was assaulted. There's no question about that. And I have no way of proving it. And it was closed as an accident.

More than two days missing now found. He was in rough shape, but we were able to work with law enforcement and get the ambulance requested immediately. Christian Pugh was reported missing around 1:30 Sunday morning after hitting up Rainey Street. His fliers filled the area as the hours he was last seen continued to grow. Multiple agencies like the volunteer group Travis County Search and Rescue assisted in eventually locating Pugh Tuesday morning alive.

We deployed a variety of teams throughout the entire area and as one of the teams was beginning their search they spoke to some local people that were in the area who reported having seen something. According to police, Pugh was last seen here at Clive on Rainy Street when he was reported missing but this is nowhere near where he was found. He was actually found south of Lady Bird Lake

near the south end of the Congress Avenue Bridge, a drive that took us about five minutes. According to those who found him, Pugh was deep embedded into this brush right here in between the water and the hike and bike trail.

How he managed to get from one to the other, who knows? According to Casey England with Travis County Search and Rescue, Pugh was found conscious but in very bad shape and was rushed to the hospital. It would have been difficult for a casual passerby to come upon him. It really took that combined effort with talking to some of the locals that were in the area.

and those combined search skills to make sure that that all came together. Last year around this time a similar incident happened on Rainey. 25-year-old Martin Gutierrez was reported missing after going to the popular bar district. Crews spent days searching for him, eventually finding his body in the lake near the hike and bike trail. England says this incident helped prepare them in finding Pugh. On that one we came out and searched for a while

And Christian was found right on the water's edge.

If he would have gone in the water, like all of the other victims, he wouldn't have been able to get out with the injuries he sustained. And he likely would have been another accidental drowning victim of Lady Bird Lake.

Luckily, Christian would survive and make a full recovery, but the year 2022 is when we really started to see an increase in the amount of men found dead in Lady Bird Lake. On July 14th, 2022, the body of a male was found floating on the 9th and East Avenue portion of Lady Bird.

The body would later be identified as 59-year-old Ricky Parks. Immediately, APD released a statement that there was no foul play involved, and they

they closed the case. Then in December of 2022, three different bodies were found. Now there isn't a lot of information on them, but the first was found in Lady Bird near South Pleasant Valley Road on December 11th, 2022. The victim would later be identified as Christopher Gutierrez. The next victim would be found on Christmas Day near the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge in Lamar.

And from what we could tell, they have never been identified. Then three days later on September 28th, another body was found near Congress Avenue where many of the other victims were found. This time, investigators were able to identify him as 56-year-old Kyle Thornton. But once again, his case was quickly closed after APD ruled it an accident.

Soon enough, 2022 would turn to 2023, and more bodies would wash up on Lady Bird Lake. The first of that year was the day before Valentine's Day, February 13th.

Jason John was 30 years old, and most of his friends called him JJ. Born on November 25, 1992 in New York, Jason received his bachelor's degree in business administration from New York University, and then moved around the country until 2021, when he settled in the Austin area with his precious pup, Ruffles. He was described as a jokester, and one of the most loving, caring, giving, and empathetic persons anyone could meet.

Things had been going well in Jason's life and he was extremely happy. He had just been promoted from director to senior director at his place of employment. He was financially stable and had a large group of close friends. Not to mention, his family members and girlfriend cared for him deeply. The weekend of February 4th started out like any other.

In that evening, Jason and some friends decided to go out to Rainy Street for a night of fun. They mostly hung out at a bar called Cantina 152. And then at around 2 a.m., Jason got separated from his group and never came back home. By that next morning, his roommates knew that something was wrong. According to them, Jason would have never left his dog Ruffles alone for that long. His brother said, quote,

The key thing is, okay, maybe he went out. He stayed at a friend's place. His phone died. That's all possible. But as soon as we knew that Ruffles was at home for hours on end and Jason wasn't back then, we knew something was wrong. While investigating his disappearance, surveillance video showed Jason outside of a bar shaking hands with a bouncer.

Then after that, he started walking down Rainy Street by himself for about 10 minutes. His brother Renju would later tell Fox 7 Austin, quote, "'We have footage of him until the end of Rainy Street. At that point, once he takes a turn, we don't know which direction he went.'"

Renju admitted that John's walk home should have taken him about 18 minutes, but only 10 minutes were accounted for on surveillance footage. So no one knows what happened during the last eight minutes of his walk. According to Law and Crime's YouTube channel and their documentary titled Dead Bodies Keep Washing Up in Austin, Texas, John texted his girlfriend Tara that night.

And in the messages, he mentioned that he met a man who claimed to be a DJ. The text read, quote, Now, we weren't able to find if investigators were able to look into this DJ. So we don't really know what happened with that.

But later that next day when Jason didn't come home, his family was very worried about him, especially when it started getting dark on Sunday. According to them, Jason always called his family every single Sunday without fail.

But that day came and went with no phone call from Jason. So from there, his family immediately came to Austin to try and find him. Now, Mitchell Gutierrez, Martin's brother, said in our interview with him that when he heard of Jason's disappearance, he immediately dropped everything to help in the search.

Jason, you know, Jason John went missing last year. I saw the number. I got out of a 12-hour shift at the hospital, man. Grabbed my jacket, a beanie, and went and searched for Jason for, I don't know, a few hours, you know. And I put on Instagram, like, if anyone wants to help, you know, like, I'll be around here in this area. Just call me, you know, if you want to search. I called the number that I saw, and by the next day, I was sitting in a room with his family and his closest friends.

telling him everything that I went through with Martin, with the police, what to look for, what questions to ask, all the things I could do to help. He has an absolutely wonderful family and great friends who were just not going to stop no matter what. When Martin died, my family and I were a mess. My sisters, my brothers, we were all, and my mom, we were a mess.

Jason's family was so different because they were able to push that pain aside and they came at the city immediately. It's been reported that when Jason's family would try and get in touch with the police department, they were given phone numbers that they would call over and over again, but no one would even pick up. So feeling like they had no help from the police, they started searching themselves.

Eventually, they were able to get in contact with a city council member who finally helped them get the search going. According to the law and crime documentary during the search, an officer even told Jason's mom, quote, you're lucky you're getting all of these services. There are still people under these waters that never got any help.

But day after day would pass and there was still no sign of Jason John. Then on the eighth day, the day before Valentine's Day, their search would come to a tragic end. Near the location where Jason was last seen alive on Rainey Street, his body was found floating in Lady Bird Lake. According to the medical examiner's office, Jason had no internal or external injuries to his body.

and they determined that his cause of death was an accidental drowning. Toxicology reports indicated that Jason had alcohol in his system, but no illegal drugs. One of Jason's friends who was with him on the night he disappeared recalled one of the last things he said to him. According to Charles Hood, Jason told him, quote, "'I love Austin.'"

I never want to leave Austin. So when his family heard this, they decided to bury him there instead of bringing him back to New York. They wanted to grant his wish of never leaving. But Jason's girlfriend, Tara, admitted that there was no closure, saying, quote, Unfortunately, I will have to live with the mystery for the rest of my life, not knowing how or why my partner fell into the water and drowned to his death. End quote.

Although Jason's death was ruled an accidental drowning, his mother admitted that Jason was not fond of the water. He wasn't a good swimmer. So to them, he just wouldn't have gotten close to the water on his own free will. She would later say, quote, on the death certificate, it said accidental drowning.

But I'm having a difficult time believing that because Jason doesn't swim and he doesn't go near the water. I know that for sure. So for him to go near the water, someone had to have pushed him in or someone would have had to get him and throw him in there." To this day, she believes that her son was murdered, which is what many of the victim's families believe.

Now by this point, there had already been a lot of whispers around town about a potential serial killer on Rainy Street. Someone who was lurking in the shadows near Lady Bird Lake, just waiting for a drunk young man to walk by. And with all of these drownings occurring in the same places,

the rumors started to make sense. I mean, what are the odds that all of these men are accidentally falling into the water after a night of drinking? And again, it's not like they're walking on these narrow paths where you can easily fall in. Something wasn't adding up here and the people of Austin were catching on. People were so convinced a serial killer was operating in the city

They even named him the Rainy Street Ripper. Here is Mitchell Gutierrez talking about the media attention these cases were getting. We made enough noise to where people were talking about a serial killer like the Rainy Street Ripper and all this other stuff. And, you know, they were like, do you think there's a serial killer out here? You know, in my heart, I know that there's something going on. You can't ignore the obvious telltale sales of all.

like all male, all, you know, dark features, you know, all off a rainy street, all these, you know, ruled as accidental. Like you just can't ignore this man. Like it's, it's ridiculous, you know? And so do I personally think so? I, yeah, I think there's maybe someone or a group of someone who are coordinating this and,

But, you know, the city just continues to, you know, deny, deny, you know, but that's what they do, right? They got to protect their city. But after the death of Jason John, the community wanted answers. Many of the victims' families even got together to demand justice from the city.

They urged city officials to improve safety near Rainy Street by putting up more lights, surveillance cameras, and emergency police call buttons on the trails that surrounded the lake. Here is some audio from that city council meeting, starting with Chris Pugh's father. What is going on and why can we not find any answers about what happened to our children? I mean, how would you like it if your children went out on a Friday night

Saturday night and didn't come home for three or four or five days, maybe eight days. And then you find them dead or you find them with huge injuries that they're going to live with for the rest of their lives that you cannot repair and you cannot fix. And the police department cannot tell you anything about what happened with your child. Nothing, nothing, nothing. They have no answers other than they walked off and it might be their fault that they went off this bridge or they went off into the lake or they went off into wherever. Multiple people have gone missing with no change.

No progression into the cases, rolling everything is accidental. And it's not something's going on. Something is. And I got to meet Jason's family and it was like staring in a mirror with my family four years ago. There's so much pain coming back every day. I saw everything that they're going through.

So many families go together on this day to confront the city of Austin about these deaths. And they were demanding change. My name is Tara. I'm the partner of Jason John, whose body was pulled out of Lady Bird Lake two months ago. I'm also a friend of Jason John's. I'm calling to speak about the safety measures on the trail. Mitchell Gutierrez talked to us about what it was like seeing all of these other families go through what he went through.

To have these people like, you know, just look at you in the eye, man. And just like, oh, well, yeah, we should have done that. You know, it's heartbreaking, man, because, you know, I know what my family went through. And I'm just seeing another family go through it and another and another and another. And then finally, we made enough noise and we were told to make noise.

But sadly, the media attention wouldn't be of much help, because it wasn't long until Lady Bird Lake claimed its next victim.

Hey guys, a really quick pause in the middle of the show. If you are infuriated by this story, if you think that the Austin Police Department is failing these family members and these victims, if you want to be a part of this change, Courtney and I have started a petition on change.org that you can go sign today.

You can even leave the podcast app that you're listening on. The show will keep playing and you can go sign the petition and come back to the show. It'll take you 10 seconds to fill this stuff out. The link to this petition is going to be posted on our Instagram. It'll be in the show notes of this episode. So it should be very easy to find. So

But please help us make this series actually worth something. Help us to enact this change ourselves. Because no one's listening, no one's doing anything, and something has to be done. Anyways, let's get back to our story.

Twelve days after Jason John was pulled from the water, 40-year-old Cliff Axtell went to Rainey Street with a few of his friends, but never came back home. Born on September 29, 1982 in Plano, Texas, Clifton Andrew Axtell was a successful land specialist for Veritas Commercial Properties in Austin. In addition to his knowledge in commercial real estate, Cliff was also in his senior year at Harvard Extension School.

and a leader of Celebrate Recovery at the Southwest Bible Church. He'd been married to his wife Megan since 2016, and the couple had two children. He was described as creative, intelligent, and compassionate. One week after his disappearance, on March 5, 2023, Clifton's body would be found floating in Lady Bird Lake, near the 1100 block of West Riverside Drive.

According to the medical examiner's autopsy report, unfortunately, there are often no specific findings at autopsy to confirm drowning as the cause of death. Which is surprising because in many of the others, they were quick to rule these deaths as accidents. But not this one.

Ultimately, Cliff's manner of death was ruled undetermined. According to Kazan, Cliff's medical records were obtained and it's stated that on February 23rd, two days before he was reported missing, that he had visited the doctor for severe depression, though he denied suicidal ideation. That's led many people to believe that he did not go into the water on his own free will.

Less than a month later, on March 31st, 2023, 33-year-old Jonathan Honey flew to Austin from Washington, D.C. for his friend's bachelor party.

He and his group were partying on Rainy Street when at 2:00 a.m. Jonathan separated from them so he could grab a bite to eat at a nearby food truck. Jonathan was born on February 23, 1990 and had a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master's degree in System Engineers. According to his family, he was an outdoorsman at heart.

who loved fishing, skiing, hiking, running, and rock climbing. His love for the outdoors started when he was in Boy Scouts as a child, and it followed him throughout his life. In 2023, Jonathan was really looking forward to his future. He was currently working as an engineer at Washington Gas, but he could have never expected that he would never come home from his bachelor's trip. That night, after getting a taco from the nearby food truck,

Jonathan got separated from his group. And after a while, they started to get worried when they couldn't get a hold of him. That night, his friends would report him missing. And just 15 hours later, on Saturday, April 1st, his body would be recovered from Lady Bird Lake. And once again, his autopsy report stated that he died from an accidental drowning.

APD says that after getting his taco, he somehow wandered all the way over to the water, fell in. Another story that just doesn't make sense. Now, the previous victim, Jason John, his parents heard about Jonathan's accidental drowning and they were shocked. Here is what they had to say.

Since the last time we spoke, once again, another body has been pulled out of Lady Bird Lake. I don't know how we can speed this up to put in the requests to get these to stop. Now, exactly two weeks after Jonathan Honey was pulled from the water, another body would be found dead in Lady Bird Lake. This body belonged to a man named Christopher Clark. And we had the opportunity to interview the mother of his son. Her name is Regan, and this is her story.

We grew up together. We met in 2009. We met in high school. And then shortly, I want to say probably like six months after, I became pregnant with our son, his only son. And then we had a relationship for about...

10 years on and off. The last couple of years after we separated, we just still remained friends because we have a kid and, you know, there's just, you know, two different people on two separate paths. But Chris's life hadn't always been so easy. He did have an addiction problem. He was addicted to PCP, that, and he also had mental health issues. I know like a lot of that

played a part of them not wanting to investigate what happened to him because at the time he was listed as what Austin Police Department call a transit, which is homeless.

The past couple of years had been rough for Christopher. He had fallen deeper into his addiction, which had made his mental health even worse. But years prior, things weren't as bad. Two years prior, before his death, I let him stay with me because he was trying to, you know, get better, trying to change his life. And he did. He was working. And he just addiction is a hard thing to deal with. Despite trying to do better for himself, addiction had a hard grip on Chris's life and wouldn't seem to let go.

Before long, Chris was back out on the streets and things were hard. But for his friends and family, they knew the good person that he was at heart.

He wasn't a bad person. Not only did he take care of my son, you know, when he was able to and he was around, but he also did a lot of babysitting for our close friends. He loved the kids. He worked for the city of Austin at the Austin Park and Recreations. You know, everybody loved Chris. Super funny, outgoing, always joking around. He didn't care if you were crying about somebody's funeral. He was going to make a joke. Like, he was going to laugh. He didn't care. And

He was just a good person all the way around. He just, everybody has their own problems and their own issues that they're dealing with. And unfortunately, addiction and mental health was one of his. Now, even though Chris was homeless, his family still kept up with him. I saw him April the 9th, which was Easter Sunday. That was the last time I saw him. He was at the Walgreens on Airport here in Austin.

And we didn't really talk briefly because we just hadn't been on the right page recently. And so we just kind of, you know, hey, goodbye, whatever. And then we just kept going. That was the last time I saw him. So I already knew he was fine.

Even though Regan and Christopher hadn't been on the same page lately, she still checked up on him all the time. In fact, when she would drive to work every day, she would often see Christopher in the spot where he was known to hang out. And every time she saw him, she would feel a bit of comfort knowing he was safe. But on this morning, Regan drove by like she normally did and Chris wasn't there. Now, she didn't panic right away.

Worst case scenario in her mind was that he got arrested. But then the next day came around and when she drove to work, she still didn't see him. And the next day and the next. And that's when she started to feel unsettled. Then Monday came around.

That whole week actually came around and I didn't see him. Normally when I'd be on my way to work, you know, I didn't see him out hanging around or anything. But I didn't think nothing of it because he also had some run ins with the police department just because of his issues that he was dealing with. But anytime he'd go to jail, he'd always call.

So I already knew like something was up because he didn't call. He always calls and nothing happened, but I still really didn't think because

I'm like, "Eh, you know, it could be anything." - But despite knowing that something was off, Regan would have never expected what would happen next. After a week of not seeing Christopher, on April 15th, APD came across his floating body in the water. Following the discovery, they called Christopher's mom to give her the devastating news. And after that, Regan was told that the father of her son was dead.

They found him Saturday, but I didn't find out until that Sunday when they contacted his mom.

And his mom contacted his best friend to call me and let me know. And they just said that they found him in Lady Bird Lake. When I found out, I immediately went to his mom's house because I didn't believe it. Like I, I still talking to you right now. I'm talking about it, but I still really, I can't believe like, you know, it just doesn't seem real. So I went there, you know, of course it was very, very, I was shocked.

I want to say I was crying. It was a lot going on. I had to figure out how am I supposed to tell my 12-year-old son that his dad is dead in the worst possible way. In that moment, Regan's life changed forever. The father of her child was dead.

And they still didn't have any answers. So like many people in her situation, her mind started racing, trying to find some explanation on why this happened. It was just a lot of things going through my mind, like who could he have been with? Why was he there? Was he there? And sadly, the police weren't doing much to investigate.

Regan and Chris's family wanted the police to look into his last known whereabouts. But because he was transient, they weren't putting a lot of effort into finding that out. So Regan had to do some investigating of her own. Immediately I started like trying to do my own investigation because no one was trying to help. They were just like, he was homeless. How could we tell? That's exactly what the detectives say. Like, how can we find out what happened to a person if they were homeless and we had no trace of them?

And hearing this was very discouraging. Just because Chris was homeless doesn't mean his life was any less valuable. Regan also knew that they could simply go around and ask other people in the streets if they knew anything. That alone would give them a lot of answers. So Regan took matters into her own hands to find out what happened to Chris. She started talking to people around where he went missing.

She figured out how to find records on him. And little by little, she started getting more answers. And to her surprise, Chris had an encounter with law enforcement just hours before his disappearance. So I instantly started finding out how to request records, things like that. And then I came about the ticket that he got a supposed to be he got a trespassing ticket.

This would have to been either that Monday or Tuesday. I have to go back in my files to give you the exact date, but it was either that Monday or Tuesday. He had an encounter with the police at the same place where I saw him last.

which was on airport, except he wasn't at the Walgreens. It's a plaza actually there. And in that plaza, there's a food, a restaurant, fast food, Golden Chick. So he was at the bus stop at Golden Chick and he had issues for him not to go on the Golden Chick property because he was panhandling.

So Regan had to pay to get this ticket in her possession. But she quickly found out that he wasn't actually given a ticket because by the time the police got there, he was already off the property near the bus stop. And she was actually able to get the body cam footage from this interaction. In the video, it just shows like three or four officers approach him.

Before I even watched the video, I knew that they already knew who he was. And of course, the video played and they knew exactly who he was. He was sleep on the bus stop. They approached him and told him like, you know, he knows he's not supposed to be there. He was very aware. So they can't say that, you know, he was so drugged out or whatever they want to say that he didn't know. He knew because his response was, but I'm not I'm at the bus stop. I'm not a golden chick. So I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm literally laying here.

The officers did go away from him and they discussed amongst each other. This is on the footage. And they basically, one of them, I guess he was new, a rookie. And he asked about him and one of the officers knew exactly who he was. They knew where his grandma used to stay. They said exactly that, you know, all the issues that he had and that he constantly gets calls when he was living with his mom. They would get police calls when he'd be at his mom's house. So once the police left...

Without actually issuing Chris a ticket, the police had no record on what happened to him. And they also didn't seem interested in finding that out. I asked some of the homeless people that he would hang out with that I knew of, like, where did they see him last? And of course, I don't, I can't really believe, you know, everyone because there wasn't any valid info, but

One thing in particular stuck out to me, one lady said that she saw him with a Caucasian man that they had never seen before. And then another person said the last time they saw him was on East 7th Street near the HEB. Now, as for why Chris would have been at this HEB, Regan said that he would usually go around that area to find work. He would go do day labor work. There's a day labor on East 7th Street, literally right past the HEB. And I know he would go there.

So Regan assumes that Chris was over there to work. She even contacted the day labor place, but they were unable to give her the list of names of people who worked that day. So that kind of led to a dead end.

But either way, she believes that Chris went over to that area to work. But after that, there were no known sightings of Chris. So it's assumed that after he visited that HEB, he somehow made his way down Pleasant Valley to the lake. And what happens from there is still unknown to this day. Nobody knew where he was. Nobody knows where he went. Nobody knew where he was. Nobody's seen him.

Now, while Regan was doing all of this investigating on her own, she was also trying to plan Chris's funeral. It was just a whole big deal. And then at that time, I was trying to plan his funeral, you know, doing all that by myself and trying to raise the money and...

It was a lot going on, but I kept in contact with the pathologist. That's who I started with next. When the detective, he kept ignoring me. She basically, when they gave me the autopsy report, basically she said a lot of stuff they couldn't evaluate on him because they kept blaming, blaming the water about him being in the water too long.

They couldn't do certain things because he had been in the water too long and, you know, all this and that. And I was like, OK, but you can't tell me, like, if he had a heart attack, did he have a stroke, did he overdose? Regan did consider the fact that maybe Chris took some drugs and got a little too close to the water and drowned.

The pathologist also told her that there was water in Chris's lungs, so he was alive when he went in. But Regan also knew that Chris was a great swimmer,

He did Boy Scouts and he liked to be outdoors. He actually was one of the people that taught my son how to swim. They go canoeing all the time. We went as a family, no matter the relationship between me and him, all the time to South Padre. He loved being in the water, beach. He was more outdoorsy, like really outdoorsy. But frustratingly, the pathologist couldn't tell her what led him into the water.

She didn't know if there was a medical emergency, if he had overdosed or what. But Regan knew it had to be something because if Chris just fell into the water, he could have gotten himself out. And what was more frustrating than ever was that after speaking with Regan a couple of times, the detectives completely stopped answering her calls. And because Chris was transient, they didn't want to look into things any further.

He basically said that what I told you he doesn't know and how can he know because he was homeless and they were going to do what they can, but they never investigated. So Regan continued to seek answers for herself. She even went to the lake around where Chris was found every single day, hoping to find something that was out there. And on one of the times she went, she had a strange encounter.

One particular thing that stood out to me one time when I went, I encountered a man, a Hispanic man. And I did call the police and let them know that this happened. They seemed to not care. I went to the lake to just ask, you know, like, have y'all seen this man? Has he been around here? And there was a Hispanic man. He didn't seem to be homeless, but I couldn't really tell. He was walking. And I said, hey, do you know this man? And I had a picture of

And he came really close to my car and he said, that's Chris. And everybody, you would have to know Chris to know to call him Chris. So I'm like, I didn't even have to say his name for him to say who this was. And I said, yeah, have you seen him? And he said, who's asking?

And this is after he's been dead. And I'm like, I just want to know, have you seen him around here? Like, I'm looking for him. And he goes, but why? Why? And then he started to back up and get kind of antsy. And I was like, well, I'm his baby mama. I'm looking for him. I've been looking for him. And he actually died here. So I'm trying to see what happened. The man ran. We're at the lake. And I'm at the spot where they found Chris in my car. So he takes off running. I immediately parked.

Don't ask me why I did it because I was alone and I probably shouldn't have been doing that, but I followed him. And because I wanted to know, like, why are you running? Like, you must know something.

And you're just running away. And so I ran. There's like a bridge down there. The Ann Butler, I guess, is what they call it. The green one. He ran in that direction. But I guess you would have to know the lake to be knowing the ins and outs, which I don't. I just know you can get on the bridge and then go around. So I got on the bridge and we weren't far and he was gone. The guy was gone. So I was like, dang, where did he go that fast? Like, I know he didn't jump in the water. Like, what?

Where did he go? So I walked the trail and I had my taser and I was by myself and my adrenaline was up. So I guess that's why I kept going. And when I got halfway to the trail, the guy was on the opposite side because there's you can go in there, I guess, if you want to walk in the woods.

And he was on the opposite side already. And I heard him. He changed his shirt. He had a muscle shirt when I had the first encounter and he put on a black T-shirt. And you can see across the lake where he ended up at. And he was on the phone. There was really no one around because it was when I want to say like evening time when I went. And he the only thing I heard him say on the phone was they're walking around, they're walking around and they're asking questions.

So by the time I walked all the way around, which probably led me to Canterbury Street for me to enter where he was, he was gone.

And I never seen the guy again. I went multiple times after that and I never seen the guy again. Regan tried to tell the police about this encounter, but they only responded with, you shouldn't be doing this kind of stuff, putting your life in danger. But she felt like she had to because they weren't investigating Chris's death at all.

Regan even went as far as to go to the homeless camps in the woods by the lake. And while she was there, she started taking pictures of everything. She knew it was really dangerous to be out there, but she felt like she had to. And one of the things she was looking for was Chris's shoes. Regan said he was wearing Crocs around the time of his death, but when his body was found, his Crocs weren't on his feet.

She also knew that he died in the same clothes he was wearing when he had that police encounter. So when she went to search the homeless camps around where he died, she wanted to see if she could find his shoes.

I was doing dangerous things. We were in places there that we probably shouldn't have been. Didn't find the Crocs. Crocs were missing. The only items they were able to give me from the funeral home after it was investigated was headphones and a lighter. Nothing else.

Regan also asked the funeral home for the clothes that Chris was found in. She obviously knew that his body wasn't in good condition, but she wanted to have the clothes that he was last seen in. However, when she asked the funeral home for them, they told her that they had given over the clothes to the police as evidence. So from there, Regan then asked the police for the clothes.

but they said they couldn't find them. She also said that the funeral home kept pushing her to cremate Chris. And then after they did cremate him, they told her that the clothes of his she was wanting, they were actually burned with his body.

So before they closed the case, because I kept, I kept bugging the detective. Like he wouldn't always, he wouldn't answer, but I would leave message, email, leave message. I kept calling, kept calling until he finally basically talked to me and he said like,

He asked me, like, what was I trying to do, basically? Like, what was I trying to gain from all of this? Because they didn't have any information. And I told him, like, if you really say that you don't know what happened to him, you really say that y'all say that he put himself there, this and that, y'all really don't know, y'all can't find out, then show me. Show me the crime scene photos. Show me those photos. But the investigators didn't want Regan to see the crime scene photos. They thought it wouldn't be good for her mental health.

but she didn't care. And before they even cremated Chris, they only let his family be with his body for two short minutes. Now, for months after Chris's death, Regan kept asking the detectives to meet with her. And in August, they finally set up a meeting right before they were supposed to close the case.

Now, for this meeting, the detective told Regan that he would bring the crime scene photos so she could look through them. Apparently, there were almost 100 photos, but when he showed up to this meeting, he only brought about nine. And when asked why, he said that his printer wasn't working, so these were all he could bring.

But keep in mind, they had this meeting set up for about three weeks. So it's not like it was this last minute thing. Regan and the detectives start looking through the crime scene photos. And in them, she saw something that shocked her. In one of those photos, he had a mask. So he died clutching a mask. They never mentioned this to the public. Literally until that day when I was in the room with the detective. And I was like, so where is the mask?

Because if you're telling me that he died...

and he put himself in the water, why would he be clutching a mask? Is a good point. If Chris accidentally fell into the water and drowned, like the police said, you would think he would have let the mask go so he could try and swim. So it was beginning to look like he was incapacitated by the time he went into the water. And even more strange was that this wasn't just a COVID mask that people wear out in public.

It was a ski mask. And Regan said it definitely wasn't Chris's. She also said it looked expensive.

a kind of mask that he wouldn't have been able to afford. So when she saw these pictures, she wanted to know where that mask was, but the detective told her that he didn't know where it was. They didn't think it was important to keep it because they just assumed the mask was his, which is yet another strange part of this story. The fact that they are making assumptions and just throwing evidence away is crazy. So then that was it. They closed the case.

The detective left it at that. You know, I didn't really want to keep talking to him because he wasn't going to give me anything. So there was nothing for me to say. He just showed me whatever he wanted and then he let it go. From there, they closed Christopher's case, marking his manner of death as undetermined. Since then, Regan has tried to continue investigating as much as she can. But being a single mother makes it hard.

Every once in a while, she will see a homeless person on the street that Chris used to hang out with. But a lot of the time when she tries to get more answers, they don't remember anything. So she's stuck. But ever since his death, she's had this question that continues to haunt her. And that's whether or not the Austin police know more than what they're saying.

Regan thought it was very suspicious that detectives never once mentioned the fact that the police had an encounter with Chris just hours before he died. Why did she have to dig for that information? Why did they get rid of evidence that could have gotten her more answers? Nothing was making sense, and those unanswered questions have left a deep void in her life.

It really sucks. I'll tell you just like I tell everybody else, it's heartbreaking because this happened. There's nothing that I can do about it. My son, I mean, he's a kid. He was literally 12. And him and his dad, they were really close, super close. And it just sucks that he doesn't have that anymore. His dad can't come see him play. He doesn't get that. He doesn't get to have that. And it just sucks. I don't want to cry right now because...

My son's there. But like every day, like I literally cry because like, what is my son supposed to do? It's in the public. It's not just because it's Chris. It keeps happening.

My son's 13. He's on the internet. He's been on the internet. You know, they play games, stuff like that. Like he keeps seeing it. He Googles what happened at the lake. He Googles his dad's name because he wants answers. And that's what I kept telling the police department. Like, I just want to know, like, he's not coming back. There's nothing that nobody can do, but like, we want to know. And from the crime scene photos, I personally think that he was beat up and put in the lake.

The detective, when we met in person, he said Chris was dead before he entered the water. And then they even tried to say, like, maybe he was walking and...

on high on drugs and that he fell. But I'm like, Chris started his addiction when my son was two. My son's 13 now. I've seen him at his worst. And I'm talking about his choice of drug. And I'm going to just say it straight. It was PCP. I've seen him at his highest and he can function. He was a functioning person that was on drugs. Like you could tell when he was high, obviously, but it wasn't to where he never had control of himself.

So now I'm just, I'm left with the unknown. And honestly, like this year has been rough for myself and my son because his dad passed away last year. So we just went over that. And then his birthday was, Chris's birthday is in November on the 23rd to be exact. So he would have been 31 this past year. So we dealt with that. And then my grandpa passed away in February. So those are,

And him and Chris are actually very, very, they were really close, honestly. And so it just sucks that my son has to endure like, and you know, that's not into this, but it's just like a lot going on. So I just not giving up. I just don't know where else to go. And that's why I've been on a pause because I literally don't know what else to do. Like I've done every single thing. I've tried every single thing. And to me, I just feel like if you don't have certain connections, you can't get certain stuff. And yeah,

Like I said, I feel like Austin Police Department felt like because of who Chris was, like, who's going to actually care? Who's going to actually keep fighting for him? But that's where they're wrong because he had someone to actually care, like, and we want to know. His family wants to know. We want to know. Regan believes that Chris's death is connected to the other deaths around Austin, whether the police are responsible or someone else on the loose.

After all, she has lived in Austin her entire life and nothing like this has happened until recently. I mean, Chris's death was the fourth accidental drowning that year and it was only April, four months in. How can that be a coincidence? After Chris's body was discovered, the talk of a serial killer in Austin really started to ramp up and people all over social media were talking about the Rainy Street Ripper.

Is there a serial killer in Austin? People from across the country are asking that question after four bodies have been found in Lady Bird Lake during the last two months, even more over the last decade. Police say there is no serial killer and they don't suspect fall play.

But internet sleuths are hard at work. Well, a body was pulled out of Lady Bird Lake this morning. Austin police say homicide detectives are investigating, but the case is not being called a homicide. Austin police have confirmed there has been no foul play in all of the cases, but residents say they believe there's a connection and there could be a suspect. This can't be a coincidence. I was born and raised here in Austin. I've

Spent my whole life here and it's never been an issue like this until the last few years. This is not the first time a body has been found in the lake. Last year, there were multiple bodies found, renewing fears of a serial killer. Once the news of a possible serial killer hit the media, the Austin Police Department had to respond. Here's the official response from Police Chief Joseph Chaconne.

Nothing has come to light that would indicate that there is a serial killer in Austin. I realize that there is a rampant rumor about a potential serial killer here in Austin. We found no evidence of that. It's tragic.

But it didn't seem like the public was convinced, especially since more bodies kept showing up in Lady Bird Lake.

On June 27th, 2023, another dead body was pulled from Lady Bird Lake. Five bodies pulled from Lady Bird Lake in just six months. Jason John, Clifton Axtell, Jonathan Honey, John Christopher Hayes Clark, and now an unidentified man. If there was any immediate public safety concerns, we would release that information, right? Sergeant Lee Nows with APD says the incidents cannot be

be tied together. All these death investigations occur independently. Around 10:30 Tuesday morning, Austin officials responded to a check welfare urgent call off West Caesar Chavez. We're west of Lamar and we're east of Austin High School just for kind of reference. When officials arrived they found a body in the water. The victim is

is a male. Police say they don't have any information on a name, race, age or if the person was homeless. Too early for me to say anything about the manner of death, homicide, suspiciousness, anything like that. APD is encouraging people to stay safe while out on the water.

That body was later identified as Maga Dogale, but there's no information about his age or race, and there's been no update on his cause of death. But it's safe to assume that APD ruled it as another accidental drowning.

Which leads us to the year 2024. I wish I could tell you that the city of Austin has taken more precautions to ensure that their community is safe.

But sadly, that's not the case. This year alone, four bodies have been found in Lady Bird Lake. The first was on February 5th, near 300 West, Saves Street. But this one was actually an unidentified female, something we haven't really seen here. APD quickly informed the public that they were not investigating her death as a homicide.

Then on April 9th, an unidentified body was discovered on Lady Bird Lake shoreline near the Lamar Boulevard Bridge. And just days after that, on April 13th, another unidentified body was found in Lady Bird Lake near the 100 block of South Pleasant Valley Road. According to the Austin American Statesman, the death was not being investigated as a homicide.

And then we have the most recent body, which was found on July 5th, 2024. Here is what APD had to say about it. On July 5th, at approximately 5:30 p.m., officers responded to the Waller Beach at Town Lake Metro Park, located near Rainey Street and Cumming Street, in reference to a Czech Welfare Urgent Call for Service, which is a high priority call for service that requires an immediate police response. This call for service was responded to in a timely manner.

Call attacks advised the complainant located a white male with apparent life-threatening injuries to his body. The Austin Fire Department, Austin Travis County EMS, and the Austin Police Department arrived on scene and unfortunately the victim was pronounced deceased at approximately 5:45 p.m. Now we still do not know the identity of this victim, but according to witnesses there was a lot of blood at the scene. Apparently the blood was located on the shoreline.

And when APD was asked about that blood, they said that the victim's body had signs of blunt force trauma.

But strangely enough,

Two days after APD released this statement that the victim had died from blunt force trauma injuries, they tweeted a correction stating that the victim actually didn't have blunt force trauma. Instead, quote, "The deceased suffered from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound." Now, when this came out, the public had a lot of questions like, how do you mistake a gunshot wound for blunt force trauma?

Wouldn't the gun have been lying right next to the victim if he shot himself? And why did it take them two days to finally make this correction? But now that we've covered all of the bodies that have been found, we want to talk about a man named Jeff Jones who said he was drugged while partying in Austin. On June 22nd, 2023, 38-year-old Jeff Jones came to Austin for his friend's bachelor party. And while there, the group decided to go to 6th Street to celebrate.

But no one could have expected how that trip would end. Here's Fox 7 Austin and their coverage on what happened to him.

Good evening. Thanks for joining us. I'm Mike Warren. And I'm Rebecca Thomas. Tonight, a man is speaking out after he says he was drugged while bar hopping with friends on West 6th Street in downtown Austin. He was found under a bridge with serious injuries. And as he continues to recover nearly a year later, he has a warning for others heading out on the town at night. Fox 7 Austin's John Krynchak joins us live along West 6th with his story. John.

Yeah, Rebecca, Mike, Jeff Jones went off this bridge. He landed down there next to Shoal Creek below. He says he doesn't believe he fell. He's pretty sure he was pushed, but he's not positive. One thing that is for sure, he doesn't remember any of it.

38-year-old Jeff Jones of Boston was visiting Austin with some friends for a bachelor party in June of last year. They arrived on Thursday the 22nd, had dinner, and headed to some bars on West 6th. It hadn't felt strange at all. It hadn't been...

drinking heavily. The next thing he remembers is waking up in the hospital a week later. Yeah, I had no idea. Jones' friends say he disappeared around 1 a.m. after talking to some women at a bar. I don't really know if specifically people had led me away. Three hours later, he was found in a ravine next to Shoal Creek under the 6th Street Bridge. It's a three or four foot wide old stone bridge, so for me to actually somehow understand

Falling over it would have been almost impossible. I would have either had to have been pushed or been climbing on it myself. Whoever found him called 911. He was apparently conscious at the time, but doesn't remember a thing. I broke a number of vertebrae, also my left scapula.

and two ribs and there was a puncture wound through my elbow. - Medics rushed him to Delcete Medical Center where he tested positive for benzodiazepines, which include the date rape drug Rohypnol. - There's no reason why I would have had that in my system.

I was having drinks and very easily could have gotten drugged by someone. He was put into a medically induced coma as he underwent back surgery. Doctors implanting metal rods. And then also they went into my chest area to remove my spleen and stop some hemorrhaging in my back.

kidneys and liver and lungs. So quite a mess. After initially being revived, he had to have fluid drained from his lungs. He then spent a month recovering at his sister's house in New Hampshire. What did the doctors tell you about how serious this was? I mean, incredibly lucky. If I had landed up, obviously, on my head or my neck, I think that would have been

Much worse. Looking back, Jones urges people to keep a close eye on their drinks, given recent cases of people being drugged, as well as bodies found in Lady Bird Lake, which police don't believe to be suspicious, but which have left bar goers looking over their shoulder. I don't know if it's a serial killer. I don't know if it's

Criminal behavior, people just trying to take advantage of others. Nearly a year later, Jones is still doing occupational therapy and will soon get those rods removed. But he's doing much better, looking forward to running a five-mile race this weekend. Trying to live life to the fullest now and just feel really lucky that I have kind of a second shot at things.

So, while drinking at the bars in Austin, Jeff Jones was drugged with the date rape drug GHB, and then he was thrown off a bridge into Shoal Creek, where other victims had been found dead. Luckily, Jeff nearly missed the water, or else he would have drowned as well. His story sounds eerily similar to that of Christian Pugh, the guy I was with in 2019. Which makes you wonder, how many other victims were drugged before their deaths?

Mitchell Gutierrez, for one, believes his brother Martin was drugged, especially after finding out that he only had two drinks that night.

Martin's autopsy also said that because he was in the water for so long, some substances wouldn't even be traced. So is that what is happening here? Is someone drugging people at these bars and then following them out to the water to kill them? We don't know, but there is a Facebook group that has been created called Lady Bird Lake Serial Killer. And there are so many people that have posted about being drugged

while out at the bars in Austin. One read, quote, "I was drugged at Barbella on September 1st, 2013. It was early in the night and I was only on my second drink. In fact, the drink was a replacement after I spilled my first. My friend and I remember the person in detail. I knew I had been drugged the instant I tasted the drink. There was a slight blue coloring to my vodka water that was slowly disappearing as I held it.

Another reads: "I was definitely drugged on 6th Street when I was 18. Ended up in the hospital as a Jane Doe. Here's a picture of me from that night. Happened on 9/5/15.

Another reads, "Fairly certain my husband was drugged at Stubbs in 2016. I say fairly certain only because we didn't go to the hospital for confirmation, but after only one beer he blacked out, was disoriented and vomited a lot. We also weren't sure if he was the intended target because I had purchased his drink and I brought it to him so I could have been the target but I just didn't drink the beer.

Now, this next part is extremely concerning. But apparently this past April, a bartender was working on Rainy Street when a man started talking to him about how he was the Rainy Street Ripper. And apparently he was going on and on about how he liked to prey on drunk gay men who were walking around Rainy Street. The bartender said that the man seemed agitated and he was apparently white, tall, muscular, and in his 40s.

Now, normally this would just be some sort of bar talk or something that really comes up and people don't even bat an eye at. But this man's disposition was so off, so disturbed that the bartender felt like they needed to share the story because they felt like it was genuinely very suspicious.

So to wrap this story up, let's just do a quick recap of everything we have gone over. Since 2008, dozens of men have been found dead in Lady Bird Lake.

But just in the past two years alone, from 2022 to 2024, there have been at least 13 bodies. Most of the victims are men in their 20s and 30s. They have dark features. And many are last seen partying in downtown Austin, either on 6th Street or Rainy Street. A lot of these men are getting separated from their group.

And according to APD, they are wandering near Lady Bird Lake when they somehow get into the water and drown. The public is claiming that it's the act of a serial killer, while APD is saying that these men are dying due to a mix of alcohol and close proximity to the water.

But if that's the case, one would think that the city of Austin would immediately go to work improving the safety around these waters. But they really aren't. They've put up a couple more lights, maybe a small fence here and there. But men are still dying, and the public is fed up. Here is audio of civilians confronting the city of Austin.

I've been bartending on Rainy Street since I moved here. There have been limited lights put up, no cameras, no efficient patrolling, limited fencing around the problematic areas around the lake. When I went by the trail at night, right where Jason would have been last seen, it was still extremely dark. Please expedite the processes of cameras and emergency blue lights.

Promises are being made and measures are being passed, but it's really just taking too long. I would really advocate for progress over perfection because the more time that's spent figuring out what the right solution is and analyzing and getting everything in order is just more time for another life to be lost.

Colin actually went to these locations a couple of weeks ago and it was still dark along the trails. But even more than lights and fences, the main thing that would clear all of this uncertainty up is surveillance cameras. The public has been calling on the city to install cameras along Lady Bird Lake for years. That alone could provide so many answers on what's happening, but they still haven't.

After all of these quote-unquote accidents, why won't they add cameras? Well, some people believe that it's because APD doesn't want to capture what's going on out there because it's one of their own. Now, this is all speculation, but there are a lot of people out there that believe the Rainy Street Ripper is a police officer.

And that APD doesn't want to alert the public because they don't want to tip them off that they're onto them. Now again, this is all just rumors and speculation, so take what we say with a grain of salt. But there's an interesting rumor that Colin heard a few months back.

So my tattoo artist, who is a great friend of mine, lives and works in Austin. And just last month, I was in Austin filming my documentary about these crimes and I was getting a tattoo. And while I was there, one of her employees, another girl who tattoos for her at the same shop, who has actually done a couple tattoos for me, she told me something that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since. She told me that she's friends with an Austin police officer.

And that at one point she actually asked her friend, is there a serial killer in Austin? She just flat out asked her. Now, according to this woman, the Austin police officer said, you want the official story or the off the record story?

Now, according to her, and you have to keep in mind, this is just essentially hearsay. This is what I heard from somebody, but I don't know why this person would lie. The tattoo artist that told me this also was a criminal justice major, so she's got connections in that world. But apparently this Austin police officer said, on the record, no, no.

These are accidents. Off the record, the Austin Police Department believes there is an active killer in Austin and that they might be an Austin police officer. And that's allegedly coming from someone within APD. For years, people have been wondering why these men are even getting close to the water. It's definitely something I've wondered. And with Rainy Street and all these bar districts having been popular for decades, it's

Why was this never as big of a problem as it is right now? Well, there's speculation that there might be someone luring these men to the water's edge and then killing them. But to me personally, the only person that could really lure me anywhere while I was intoxicated would be somebody with authority. These men, in my mind, aren't just going to follow some random creepy guy hiding in the shadows.

I mean, it's a clever way for a predator to seek its prey. Like, let's say there's somebody or a network of people at bars in Austin that are drugging drinks with these date rape drugs that are unable to be detected on autopsy and toxicology reports. Let's say this bartender sees a potential victim.

Maybe somebody's paying them to procure victims for them. Maybe they're in on it and some sort of sick twisted shit that I don't even want to imagine. I don't know what that situation would be, but they get this guy who's at the bar. He seems to be alone. He's ordering a drink. Maybe it's his last drink of the night.

you drug him he starts to act funny he's intoxicated heavily intoxicated making a scene you tell him up the police are here they're gonna need you to go with them disorderly conduct blah blah blah yada yada yada but the police officer that shows up isn't actually from the austin police well they might actually be from the police is what i'm trying to get at but they're not an officer working on the clock it could be a killer

And in my mind, that does make a lot of sense that if these people were threatened by a police officer or told they need to do this, they're under arrest, it would easily get with somebody who could then victimize or target them. But again, this is all just speculation. All parties are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. These are just my thoughts.

Another interesting thing to note is that I'm sure APD is told that if anyone asks about a serial killer, they're supposed to deny it. After all, the last thing they want is panic spreading throughout the city. But I came across a post on Reddit that caught my eye. It read, quote,

But since then, there have been a couple more deaths. I asked an APD officer about it once and they were like, "Uh, it's just best not to walk down there alone." End quote. Now again, this is just a Reddit comment so they could just be making it up.

But if it is true, then that means that some officers within APD probably think that there is some credibility to the idea of a serial killer. Mitchell Gutierrez himself thinks that some of the officers believe it.

We also asked Mitchell if he thought the deaths were related, and he said this.

I do. I do think that in some form or manner that they are related. Like I said, all the similar characteristics that each person had, like all male, all male, all off the rainy street or somewhere very close to it, all up in the water or near it. Like you just can't ignore the signs that, I mean, they're doing the exact same thing with each person that goes missing.

So whoever's doing this has a, I don't know, like a calling card or whatever the hell you would call it. Like they're doing the same thing. So maybe it's a police officer. Maybe it's a random person who is drugging people on Rainy Street.

and then killing them once they near the water's edge. Or maybe they are just all accidents. But for the people who believe the latter, I want to leave you with a few questions. If all of these deaths are truly accidental drownings, why is it only men? If it's that easy to just fall into the water and drown, then statistically, there should be more women who have drowned as well.

And why did these men all have similar characteristics? Even further, a number of the victims are reportedly good swimmers. Even if they had fallen into the water, they should have been able to get back out. Another interesting point I want to make is that I actually physically went out to the location where a number of these men are said to have fallen into the water.

And it's not like you're walking on this super narrow path where at any moment you could slip and fall into the water. In fact, first, you have to physically walk off of the trail. Then you have to walk through some brush. In some cases, it's a lot deeper brush. In other cases, it's just, you know, some patches of grass. And then you get to the water's edge. And it's not like a steep drop into the water. There's some shallow water in some areas. It's

It's not like these men are like falling off of a cliff into the water or a big hill. It's literally just a path. And then the water's right over there. But in a lot of these areas too, there are big trees. I mean, there's spider webs. There's no lighting out there. It just makes no sense to me. It makes no sense. If you're still questioning this...

I highly would encourage you to go even watch the last 35 to 40 minutes of my documentary on my YouTube channel so you can see for yourself. It is pitch black out there. Keep in mind, this was filmed in June 2024 after all of these families have been making all this noise for years, begging the Austin City Council to not only install cameras, but to install some sort of barricades, some sort of lights, whatever.

They've done nothing. I was down there. I got the footage of it. It's pitch black and it's actually crazy how dark it is out there when you consider that you're right next to downtown Austin. This is a huge metro area with millions of people in it and it's pitch black. If we didn't have flashlights that night, it would be complete darkness, which is a whole nother thing that leads me to why I question all of this.

If these men are really getting so drunk and walking down to the river area and then falling in,

I mean, I just don't see how that's possible. Who in their right mind gets absolutely blackout drunk and says, hey, let's go walk down to the pitch black river and jump in with all of our clothes on at four in the morning when I'm super drunk. It just doesn't make sense. I mean, you could not pay me to get into that water completely sober at night. It's dark and just kind of spooky looking like I just don't see how somebody when they're by themselves can

Would want to go do that. And I don't see how that's a viable explanation. For all this stuff. Because genuinely right now. Austin Police Department doing nothing about this. Even if these are. Let's just go with the theory that these are all accidents. By not installing cameras and lights and barricades. And actually doing something about this.

They're just letting more people die and it's going to keep happening. I mean, it's truly infuriating when I spoke with the actual family members of victims and people that are crying out for justice and the police are just refusing to even acknowledge the possibility that these are not accidents. So I don't know. I'm not going to endorse any theory myself. I think the police officer theory is

Makes a lot of sense. I also think something that should be mentioned is that a lot of these men toxicology reports were done far after the time when date rape drugs would have been detectable in their bodies.

So let's say it's not an actual guy or group of guys or girls who's murdering these men. Let's say it's just people that are going out to these bars with nefarious intentions and they're just drugging these men. Either way, the people that are drugging these men before they end up in the water dead, they should be imprisoned. They should be caught. They should not be out walking free. And it's very clear hearing the testimony of these people and reading these stories and doing this research that

that most of these people in my mind were given something and were drugged. Then afterwards, they ended up dead. So at minimum, at bare minimum, Austin needs to look into this because that is considered murder. If you give someone a drug and you drug them and they die, that is a prosecutable case. And yet it's all accidents. Those are my two cents. And something I can't seem to look past is the survivors.

Men who go out to Rainy Street only have a couple of drinks and then wake up weeks later in the hospital with no memory of what happened. Some of these men have been beaten and left for dead. Others have date rape drugs and their system. What is APD's explanation for those cases? Many people believe that there is someone lurking around Rainy Street in the dark shadows where no one can see them.

Then, when they see someone walking all alone, they come out and take advantage of their vulnerability. Maybe there's some sort of a struggle. As we saw, some of the victims had blunt force trauma. Then, once they are overpowered, they're put into the water and drown.

From there, the bodies sink to the bottom of those murky waters where they will remain for days while their family members frantically run around town trying to find them. Then after several days, they will resurface.

Someone will call 911 and APD will come to the scene to retrieve them. But by then, any evidence that was on or in the bodies will likely be gone. Because as we know, water is a great destroyer of evidence. APD will rule the death as an accident. And it won't be long until we see the cycle repeat itself over and over again. Now we aren't claiming to have all the answers here.

But one thing we do know for sure is that Lady Bird Lake is dangerous. That's why they banned swimming there back in 1964. But is it so dangerous that it can claim the lives of over a dozen men in just a few short years? Men who are all similar in characteristics

some who are good swimmers. Is that the case? Or is there someone in Austin who is far more dangerous than those murky waters? Some say the true monster of Austin, Texas is Lady Bird Lake, but others call him the Rainy Street Ripper.

Hey everybody, it's Colin here. Thank you for listening to today's episode. So obviously I'm passionate about this story and I know that this episode, this series is going to be controversial because I've already had a ton of messages on my YouTube.

As a lot of you probably know, Courtney and I's time is already really stretched thin. We have multiple projects that we're working on. I'm working on a documentary. We're posting a video every week on YouTube, a podcast, a second podcast. So we don't have a lot of extra time in our lives, especially when it comes to cooking. I know that for myself at the end of a long workday, the last thing that I want to do is get in the kitchen and cook myself something. And meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking can be a huge hassle.

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And I understand that everybody is okay to have their own thoughts on this case. We are presenting the theories. You are free to think whatever thought you desire to. But in our opinion, this is something more nefarious than just accidents. So yeah, go on our Instagram. Let us know what you think about all this stuff. I would love to have a discussion with y'all to figure out

exactly what's happening here but until austin police do something or city council members nothing's going to happen we're just going to keep talking and talking and talking and nothing's going to change and people are going to keep dying

Anyways, if you want to help support the show, definitely check out our Patreon. You can get bonus episodes of Murder in America, full-length bonus episodes that are never going live on any of our media sites like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. You can get early ad-free access to every episode of the show.

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