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Jason Landry, the 21-year-old Texas State student who went missing four months ago, is still nowhere to be found.
Despite numerous search efforts, no trace of Landry has been found since his car was found crashed in the Luling area on Dec. 13.
Landry's case has been featured on Dateline and local news outlets across Texas in the months since he went missing. Most recently, podcast True Crime Chronicles released an episode dedicated to Landry this week.
The podcast features Landry's father Kent Landry, who said that Jason was getting his footing at Texas State and hoping to make it into the prestigious sound recording technology program before he went missing.
The podcast, that sits among other cold cases and stories on seriel killers, dives deep into the details surrounding that December night—including the window between when Landry's phone records stopped and his car was found crashed after appearing to hit two trees on the isolated Salt Flat Road.
Landry was on the way home from Texas State to Houston to celebrate Christmas, but appeared to make a detour along the way.
Investigators believe that Landry hit two trees and later a barbed wire fence after over-correcting on the gravel road.
Perplexingly, Landry's keys were still in the ignition, his car's headlights were still on and the passenger door was locked. His phone and wallet were found in his car, while a backpack with his laptop, gaming equipment and a small amount of marijuana were found 900 feet away. Alongside the backpack were toiletries, a baseball cap and a container of his dead betta fish, while some of his clothing including a shirt, shorts, underwear and a wristwatch were spread further along the road.
Investigators think that the clothes found were worn by Landry prior to the crash, although they could have also been packed beforehand. Despite the crash, there was no blood found in the car, but a small smear of blood was found on his shorts.
Kent Landry said that head injuries could have made him confused as he left the scene of the crash.
"It's possible that you're out of your mind and you think you're hot but you're cold," Landry said. "Did he change clothes? I don't know. I just have images of my child in the middle of the road in the country looking for help."
There are no leads on the circumstances surrounding the case, though it appears that the crash was a one-car collision. No sign of foul play has been found, KHOU reporter Grace White said on the podcast.
"It's just one of those situations where you don't know which direction to go," White said. "It's not even fair to call it a crime scene because we don't even know if a crime occurred."
Thousands of investigators and concerned citizens have pitched in to try to find Landry since he went missing. Search and rescue efforts lasted for nine days after he went missing, and a new three-day search was revamped with over 100 Search and Rescue crew members in late February.
According to the podcast, searchers found a glimmer of hope last week when cadaver dogs led them to a pond near where Landry went missing. The pond was drained, but nothing was found.
Kent Landry said that the family can only hope for more leads as they continue to search for their son.
"To think missing a turn could lead to something like this, it's beyond description," Kent Landry said. "It's a bad dream that we keep hoping we wake up from."
The requests for continued search efforts have been conducted through the Caldwell County Sheriff's Office. Anyone with tips or information regarding Landry can call 911, contact the office at 512-398-6777 or email Detective Jeff Ferry at jeff.ferry@co.caldwell.tx.us.
Popular
Miami and Austin are going head-to-head for tech transplants. (Pexels)
California expats and industry experts say Austin remains the bigger draw for Californians, especially those in the tech sector, but warn that this advantage could shift to Miami if the city doesn't address the policy challenges that prompted the migration in the first place: housing affordability.
"If Austin doesn't accommodate this influx, I think all the talent will come to Miami," said Peter Yared, a tech entrepreneur who moved to Miami from San Francisco in September. "I think Miami's going to be the one that sucks it all up."
Push factors
Both Texas and Florida promise business-friendly state tax policies, and their governors tout the relocations of companies such as Tesla and Oracle from California. But Darien Shanske, a law professor at the University of California Davis whose specialties include taxation, said this is a red herring because corporate taxes are based on where sales occur rather than headquarter locations.
This is not to say other state policies are irrelevant. "The area in which California regulatory policy has been, in my opinion, not a complete failure but problematic … is housing policy," Shanske said. Austin and Miami can offer "not cheap, just cheaper" housing than what is available in Silicon Valley. Plus, both cities are developing a critical mass of talent, which further draws Californians in. "If you're a software engineer, you want to live near other software engineers," he added.
But not every Californian is motivated to move. "San Francisco is a fantastic place to live if you can afford it," said Brandy Aven, a professor of entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. As a result, it's more common for what she called the labor—engineers, programmers and even company founders—to relocate to cities such as Austin and Miami than the monied venture capitalists. Burgeoning tech cities may find that they need to develop homegrown investor networks to support local ventures in the absence of Californian transplants, but she believes this is doable.
Pull factors
Paul O'Brien, CEO of the Austin-based MediaTech Ventures and a startup veteran, moved to Austin from California in 2009, during the Great Recession. "I'm a firm believer that the world has been seeking an alternative to Silicon Valley for a long time," he said, pointing to Austin as the natural heir for myriad reasons.
Austin has regional appeal as the epicenter of three of the country's largest cities—Houston, Dallas and San Antonio—and their respective industry niches. Tech entrepreneurs could cater to the local consumer goods industry or Houston's oil and gas sector. Plus the city has cultural appeal, thanks to the Red River District and South by Southwest, which made it attractive to job seekers. "The whole reason everyone moved to Silicon Valley is opportunity," O'Brien said. "The whole reason people are now looking beyond Silicon Valley to somewhere else is opportunity."
It's less clear what Miami's key industries are, O'Brien said, but the city offers other selling points, including the mayor's buy-in and "a tremendous depth of wealth" to support a technology and startup ecosystem.
Although Yared didn't consider moving to Austin, he is aware of its appeal to engineers, especially now that their hero, Elon Musk, has moved there, shunning California. "Austin has a lock on tech," he said, but Miami draws a different crowd, including financiers from New York. This parallel migration, coupled with the city's more outwardly pro-growth building policies, gives him hope that Miami could supplant Austin in the coming years. "In the end, communities get to choose what they want," he said.
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