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Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. On August 30th, 2013, 19-year-old Bryce Las Pisa went missing. In the days and hours leading up to his disappearance, his friends and family noticed unusual changes in his behavior.
His Toyota Highlander was found wrecked near Lake Costaic in Southern California, with no sign of Bryce anywhere. Investigators searched the area for weeks, looking for any sign of Bryce. But it was as if the 19-year-old simply vanished into thin air. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 58.
The Disappearance of Bryce Las Pisa. ♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast that covers real, bone-chilling true crime stories with a forensic science twist. Some of the cases have been solved by the help of forensic science. Others have turned cold. The stories we cover each week send a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
If you're interested in supporting the show and getting early access to weekly episodes, bonus material, ad-free episodes, merchandise, and more, consider visiting our Patreon page, patreon.com slash Forensic Tales. Another great way you can help support the show is by leaving us a positive rating with a review. Now, let's jump right into this week's story.
Hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for a brand new episode. The case we're talking about this week is different from any story we've covered on the show so far. It's the first story that we've covered in a missing persons case where the person is still missing. It's also a story that, to be completely honest, I just can't wrap my head around. I just can't stop thinking about it.
From the moment I heard about this case, I just can't figure out where this person could be. I'm talking about the disappearance of Bryce Las Pisa. His disappearance back in 2013 is equally tragic as it is puzzling. Nothing seems to make much sense during the days and hours surrounding his disappearance.
Every answer in the case just seems to lead to more and more questions. We're going to cover every detail about this one. We're going to look at the forensic evidence we have, which, to be frank, isn't much. And we're going to see how and if forensics can help crack this one. And we're also going to explore what might have happened to Bryce. We'll cover all of the possible theories.
So buckle up because this is going to be a wild ride. Before we get to the events that took place in 2013, we have to understand everything that happened up until that point and what may have led us to where we're at now. And it starts with understanding who Bryce LaSpisa is and was.
Bryce was born on April 30th, 1994 to parents Karen and Michael Las Pisa. Growing up in the state of Illinois, Bryce was a really good kid. He was a good student. He always did well in school. He was the type of kid who could be seen playing both football and baseball, sometimes on the same day. He was described as pretty much your all-American kid.
Bryce was the type of son that any parent would be incredibly proud to raise and call their own. Bryce spent his childhood growing up in Illinois. He was a student at Kingsley Elementary, went on to Lincoln High, and then in 2012, Bryce graduated from Naperville Central High School. And his childhood was pretty much your typical childhood, nothing really out of the ordinary.
His parents, Karen and Michael, provided everything that Bryce would need to not only have a great childhood, but also set him up for a bright future. He was their only child, their only son, and as parents to a single child, they really showered him with love and support. He was really the apple of his parents' eyes.
Practically every photograph you see of this family online today shows this completely normal and happy-looking family. Nothing about any of these photos suggest that this family is about to experience one of the biggest tragedies of their lives. At the time Bryce graduated from high school in 2012, both his parents retired, and he
They figured that, well, now that their only son has graduated from high school, he's becoming an adult. This is the time they can retire from their careers and start this new chapter as a family. So the family decided to sell their home in Illinois and move out to sunny Southern California.
Of course, you guys know by now I am from Southern California, so I'm completely biased when it comes to say that this is the best place in the entire world to live. So in my opinion, they definitely made the right move. So the family settled down into the southern part of Orange County. They moved to the city of Laguna Niguel, California.
They purchased a nice home there, the three of them, and this would be where they started a new chapter. Karen and Michael weren't the only ones who were starting a new chapter in their lives. Bryce was also about to start his. After high school, he moved up to Chico, California, a place about 450 miles away from Laguna Niguel.
He moved up to Chico to attend Sierra College, where he had dreams of studying graphic design and industrial design. His decision to go to college was really his first big step at becoming the adult he wanted to become and to create the life he always dreamed of living. So in the summer after high school graduation, in August 2013, Chico
Bryce seemed to be living the dream of any young college kid. He was living in Chico, which is a little over 400 miles from his parents, which I think is something every kid wants to experience. At his age, 18, 19 years old, you want to get out of your parents' house, of course. You want to live somewhere different and on your own.
But at the same time, you still want to be close enough to be able to go home pretty much whenever you want to. And that's exactly what Bryce was able to do. He was far enough away to feel like he was living on his own, but close enough that if he wanted to, he could just make the six, seven hour drive back home down to Southern California.
So in August 2013, everything seemed to be going really well for Bryce. He was just about to become a sophomore at Sierra College. He was living with his roommate, who was also a really close friend of his, a guy by the name of Sean Dixon. And he also had a special girl in his life. He had a girlfriend, a super pretty blonde by the name of Kim Sly. Bryce and Kim had a pretty serious relationship together.
She lived nearby. They were incredibly happy together. Bryce never had anything bad to say about Kim. They were in a really good and happy relationship, which isn't always the case at their age. So in August, the summer of 2013, Bryce was enjoying his summer break before school started.
He shared with friends and family that he was excited to return to school at Sierra College. He was looking forward to continuing to study graphic design. From everyone who knew Bryce around this time, he seemed completely normal. He was happy. He was a social 19-year-old guy who liked playing video games and enjoyed hanging out with his large circle of friends.
Nothing about Bryce's life seemed out of the ordinary until the last few days of August 2013. By the end of August, Bryce started to display some unusual behavior, behavior that was completely out of character for him. Tuesday, August 27th, is when things started to, well, things started to get a little strange.
On Tuesday, August 27th, the day after Bryce started the new school semester, Bryce's girlfriend Kim thought that her boyfriend was starting to act a little weird. She remembers thinking, gosh, something about Bryce just doesn't seem right. You know what it's like when you know someone so well and something about them, their behavior, their demeanor, their aura just seems off.
Well, Kim started to have those gut feelings. And she also knew that Bryce had told her that he was starting to take some pills. He was taking pills for ADHD. And when Kim asked him why he was taking these pills when he didn't have ADHD, he had never been prescribed these pills before, he didn't really have an answer for her. And like many other girlfriends,
This bothered Kim. She didn't want her boyfriend taking drugs and pills that weren't prescribed to him. And she was worried that he was taking these pills for the wrong reasons. Now, one of the main side effects to these types of ADHD medication is their ability to keep you up for long periods of time.
Now, I'm sharing this detail because this aspect is going to come into play a little bit later on. Now, we can't overlook the fact that young people for years have been taking ADHD medication in order to stay up for long periods of time. They'll get their hands on some pills, maybe during finals week when they need to pull an all-nighter studying or writing that final paper.
Young people taking ADHD medication is not an uncommon thing. In fact, it's probably far more popular than we're even aware of. Now, it's entirely unclear exactly why Bryce was taking this medication. But one of the theories that Kim, his very own girlfriend at the time, thought was that he was taking the pills in order to be able to stay up all night playing video games.
Now, he was really into video games. He was also really young, 19 years old. We all did stupid stuff when we were younger. And whatever the truth may be, Bryce was in fact taking these drugs, taking these ADHD pills by the end of August. We don't know how much of the drug he was consuming. We don't know how often or for how long he was doing it.
But we've gathered enough information from Kim, from his roommate, and from his friends that, yes, he had been taking drugs. Now, the next thing that seemed to have stood out, according to Sean Dixon, Bryce's roommate at the time, was that on top of the ADHD pills, Bryce had also started drinking and drinking a lot.
He was said to be drinking hard liquor every single day to the excess. We're talking about to the point of passing out. He was drinking about a bottle of hard liquor every single night. Okay, so doing prescription drugs and drinking alcohol in college isn't necessarily a cause for an alarm. This information from Bryce's girlfriend and friends didn't come out till later, but
And looking back on things, right? Keep in mind that Bryce is a college kid. Many college kids do drugs and drink alcohol every single night. That in of itself isn't going to set off any alarm bells. But...
The alarm bells did start to ring when on the 27th of August, Bryce gave away some of his possessions to friends, including a pair of diamond earrings that his mom had given him as a gift. He gave away these possessions without any explanation as to why, but he
Giving away personal possessions would just be the start to a chain of events that is almost too confusing to put together. On Wednesday, August 28th, Bryce sent his girlfriend a text that basically said that she would be better off without him. He was breaking up with her. Bryce had never told Kim anything like that before during their relationship.
So this text message completely caught her off guard. It seemed completely out of the blue for him just to break up with her. They hadn't even been fighting. And it also caught his roommate, Sean, off guard. Sean thought that Bryce's behavior was so strange over the last couple days that he decided to call Bryce's mom directly. He was really concerned about his friend.
So he called Karen and told her that Bryce was acting completely out of character. And he also told her about how he broke up with Kim so suddenly. Sean told Karen that Bryce had told him that something was bothering him, but he never explained what that something was.
But Sean was pretty clear that he knew something was really, really wrong with Bryce. Around 10 p.m. that night, Bryce drove over to Kim's apartment and she remembered that he seemed agitated. He didn't seem like himself. At Kim's apartment, he once again told her that he was breaking up with her, that he wanted to end their relationship. Now, this didn't go over well with Kim.
Not just because he was breaking up with her, but because she could tell he was acting so strange. She also didn't know if he had taken any pills or if he had been drinking that night. So during this fight, Kim decided that she wanted to take his car keys away. She didn't want him getting back into his car and driving when he's clearly not thinking or acting straight.
This, of course, made Bryce furious that she took away his keys. He got so mad that he ended up calling his mom right then and there, asking if she could do something. His mom right away offered to fly him out to come back home the following day.
She knew he was upset. She knew that he just broke up with Kim. She had already spoken to his roommate, Sean, about his behavior. And as a mom, she wanted to do something to help him. She also feared that her son was in some sort of trouble. But Bryce shrugged this offer from his mom off. He told her, no, no, don't make any plain reservations. And then...
He said something that would haunt his parents for the rest of their lives. During this phone conversation, Bryce told his mom that he had something very important to tell them, that he had a lot to talk about with her and his dad. And when his mom asked him what he wanted to talk to them about, he just said, I'll tell you and dad when I come down there.
Later that night, around 11.30 p.m., Bryce was able to finally get his car keys back from Kim and left her apartment when she believed he was heading back home to get some sleep. At 1 o'clock a.m., Bryce made a phone call to his mom that she didn't pick up. Later on, Bryce's mom, Karen, said that she thought the phone call was just him telling her that he made it back to his apartment that night.
But digital forensic evidence pulled from cell phone records revealed that the call he placed to his mom at one o'clock in the morning was placed from a location about one hour away from his apartment in a remote and isolated area. He was nowhere near his apartment.
The next morning on Wednesday, August 30th at 11 o'clock a.m. is when this storm of events went from a light drizzle to a full-on thunderstorm. At 11 o'clock a.m., Karen and Michael, Bryce's parents, received a voicemail from Bryce letting his parents know that he had used their roadside assistance plan sometime around 9 o'clock in the morning.
He said he used it because he ran out of gas near the Buttonwillow Rest Station, a place just west of the city of Bakersfield. This location is just about 350 miles away from his apartment in Chico. And credit card records confirmed that about three gallons of gas were purchased for $20 and it was purchased with Karen and Michael's credit card.
Even though Karen and Michael missed this phone call from Bryce, they knew that he was near Buttonwillow. So they figured that he was just on his way down to their home in Southern California. And from the city of Buttonwillow, he was only about a three hours drive away from South Orange County at this point. Now, Karen and Michael continued to call Bryce's cell phone over and over again with no answer.
After about an hour and a half of repeatedly calling Bryce's cell phone with no answer, Karen decided to call the gas station where Bryce had used their credit card to purchase those three gallons of gasoline. So she called the Castro Tire and Gas Station and learned that a guy by the name of Christian, who worked at the tire and gas station,
was the one who delivered the gas tanks to Bryce, who had run out of gas down the road. So Karen tells this man, Christian, that she's starting to get really worried about her son. She tells him that they've been trying to get a hold of him, he's not answering his phone, and they haven't heard from him in almost two hours.
So she asks Christian if maybe he could go check on Bryce and see maybe if he's still stranded in the same spot where he delivered the gas. So this gas station employee hung up the phone with Bryce's mom and went back to the rest stop to check and see if Bryce was still there, completely thinking that this was a long shot. But to his complete surprise, he was there.
The gas station employee was shocked to find Bryce in the same exact spot he was hours ago. Bryce was inside his parked car, just sitting there at the rest stop. He hadn't even moved in hours. When Christian approached the driver's side window and asked Bryce, Hey man, what are you doing? You've been parked here for hours and your parents are worried about you.
Bryce simply turned and said nothing. Christian called Karen back and told her that her son was inside his car, parked in the same exact spot where he brought him gas all those hours before. Christian also said that other than his eyes looking a little bit red, that Bryce seemed fine to him. He didn't suspect that he was in any sort of trouble.
So Christian then handed the phone over to Bryce so she could finally speak with him. This was around 1230 p.m. And on the phone, Bryce told his mom that everything was fine, that he's on his way home to Laguna Niguel and that he should be there around 3 p.m.
So Karen hung up the phone once again with Bryce and her and Michael waited until about 3 o'clock p.m., expecting their son to arrive home any minute, just like what he said. But then 3 o'clock p.m. becomes 4 o'clock becomes 5 o'clock p.m. and Bryce still wasn't home.
Over the next six hours, Karen and Michael repeatedly tried calling Bryce over and over again, still not getting any answer. So they finally decided to try and locate Bryce's cell phone using the find my iPhone feature, thinking maybe if they tracked his cell phone, they could figure out where he was and what was taking him so long to get home. But they
What they found on the phone tracking sent them into every parent's worst nightmare. The cell phone tracker revealed that he had only moved eight miles in a nine-hour time frame. That's it. Eight miles.
Eight miles after it's been hours since he would have already made the drive from Northern California to Southern California. And hours after he told his parents he was on his way. Now, armed with this incredibly disturbing cell phone data that Bryce had only moved eight miles in nine hours,
Karen and Michael decided to enlist some help from the California Highway Patrol around 9 o'clock p.m. And within an hour, a California Highway Patrol officer spotted Bryce Carr parked right there on Lagoon Drive, still in the city of Buttonwillow, the same exact place he'd been since the morning.
The highway patrol officer approached Bryce's car and searched the entire vehicle for anything out of the ordinary. Drugs, alcohol. The officer knew about Bryce's erratic behavior in the hours before based on what his parents reported. But the search of Bryce's car led to more questions than it did answers. They didn't find any drugs. There was no alcohol in the car. There wasn't anything.
After searching the car, the highway patrol officer also questions Bryce for a good 20 minutes. The officer even performed a sobriety test on him, which he passed. After that, there wasn't really much the police officer could do. Bryce was legally an adult. He was 19 years old. He didn't have anything illegal inside of his car. He passed the field sobriety test. He didn't appear to be under the influence of anything.
So all the officer could do was basically tell him, hey, kid, call your parents. They're really worried about you. Bryce seemed incredibly reluctant to want to call his parents. In fact, he started to come up with any excuse he could think of as to why he couldn't call them. So the officer and him kind of went back and forth for several minutes over this until the officer was like, look, give me your cell phone. I'm going to dial your mom's phone number for you.
Now, this is around 10 o'clock p.m., and Bryce finally spoke with his mom again. And the first thing she said is, what are you doing? Why haven't you come home yet? And Bryce's response is a little odd. He told his mom that he was going to go hang out with some friends. Now, this is the first time that he'd mentioned doing anything other than driving home.
And he's also over 300 miles away from his apartment in Chico. But before his mom could really ask him any other questions about what he's talking about, he hangs up the phone. And because Bryce hadn't done anything wrong, he hadn't broken any laws, the patrol officer couldn't really do anything else. He had already gone above and beyond by insisting that he call his mom, but
So after Bryce hung up with Karen, the officer drove away, leaving Bryce inside of his parked car where he'd been for hours. About an hour later, at 11 o'clock p.m., Bryce stopped at a gas station in Buttonwillow and purchased a drink for $1.71. And then he also spent another $39 worth of gas.
the same exact road he was on when the highway patrol officer spoke with him. A little bit later, Bryce had used his parents' roadside assistance once again. When roadside assistance personnel responded to his call, they found him, again, in the same exact area of Buttonwillow, a place that he had now been at for a little over 13 hours.
The roadside assistance driver followed Bryce back onto the freeway, this is I-5 if you're familiar with the area, just to make sure that he was on the road and that he was headed in the right direction. According to the digital forensic data pulled later on, Bryce's GPS said that he was supposed to arrive at his parents' house in Laguna Niguel at 3.25 a.m.
This also tells us that Bryce entered his parents' address into his GPS. At 1.50 a.m., Bryce called his mom, Karen, once again and told her that he'd gotten off the freeway but had gotten right back on it.
18 minutes later, at 2.08 a.m., he called his mom yet again and this time said he'd gotten off the freeway once more, but that he was tired and he was going to sleep in his car for a little bit. At this point, he'd been awake for close to something like 48 hours straight and
So when he told her that he was going to pull off the side of the freeway and sleep in his car for a little bit before driving home, she wasn't going to argue with him. This would also be the very last time Karen ever spoke to her son. But Bryce didn't pull over. He didn't pull over to get some sleep. Instead, he drove for another hour and a half until he reached Castaic Lake.
Sometime between 4.20 and 5.15 a.m. on the morning of August 31st, police officers who were conducting a training exercise spotted a car alongside the access road to Castaic Lake Recreational Area, and the car had been completely wrecked.
The car had flipped over on its side and had gone down a 25-foot embankment off the main road. The officers quickly approached the car and noticed that the car's airbags had been deployed, and they also noticed that the back window of the car had been removed. Now, their first instinct was to get to the driver and get this driver out of the car and possibly any passengers who may have been inside.
The car was so badly wrecked that they weren't even sure if whoever was inside would have survived. But when the officers looked into the car, there was nobody inside. Inside of the wrecked car, which was a 2003 beige Toyota Highlander, police found a laptop, a cell phone, and a wallet.
They also found a duffel bag that was left partially unzipped, and they also discovered some clothes in the trunk. When police opened the wallet, hoping to make an identification as to who the vehicle belonged to, they saw a California driver's license with the name Bryce LaSpisa.
Around 8 o'clock in the morning, a California Highway Patrol officer knocked on the front door of Karen and Michael's Laguna Niguel home, about to break the news that no parent wants to hear. The police officer told the parents that Bryce's Toyota had been found wrecked down a 25-foot embankment near the Lake Castaic Recreational Park.
Officers told Karen and Michael that the car was completely wrecked, but there was no sign of Bryce anywhere. Back to where Bryce's car was found. I mentioned that even though Bryce was nowhere to be found, he wasn't inside of the wrecked car. He left behind his cell phone, wallet, and his laptop.
Police also found some clothes in the trunk of the car, and they also spotted a duffel bag that was in the back seat that had been left partially unzipped. Now, this told police that maybe Bryce had taken something from inside of that bag before he got out of the car. We also know that the back window was broken, which is likely how he was able to get out of the wrecked car.
Remember, this car crashed off a 25-foot embankment, landing on its side. It was in pretty bad shape. It's not as if he would have been just able to open the driver's side door and simply step out if he wanted to. He would have had to get back into the backseat, break the window, and then somehow get out that way. There was also forensic evidence found inside of the car.
Police spotted blood on the passenger side headrest, and there was also some blood found in the back seat. But we aren't talking about a huge amount of blood. It was a relatively small amount, which is kind of surprising given the condition of the car given the crash. Investigators anticipated that there would have been a lot more blood inside.
This evidence told investigators that Bryce was likely injured during the crash, but he didn't suffer a serious injury. Simply based on the blood evidence found inside of the car, investigators felt pretty confident that he wasn't critically injured and that he was able to walk away from the crash. But this evidence also meant that Bryce was still missing.
Within hours of the crash and the notification to Bryce's parents, investigators assigned to the crash were able to obtain CCTV footage from the surrounding area. They wanted to find out as much as they could as to not only what caused the crash, but possibly shed some light as to where Bryce may have gone. And what they found was incredibly disturbing.
Investigators found several CCTV cameras that captured glimpses of Bryce's car. In fact, they revealed that Bryce had made three separate trips to where his car was found between the time he left Buttonwillow and 3 o'clock in the morning.
One camera captured him driving along Lake Hughes Road, which is right near Castaic Lake, at 2.15 a.m. This would have been just minutes after he spoke with his mom. That same exact camera captured him driving up that same road once again at 4.29 a.m.
Investigators also enlisted the forensics team to come and look at the tire marks and impressions that were left behind from the crash. This is really interesting and also incredibly important in a case like this because tire marks and impressions can tell investigators a lot about a crash and what may have happened in the seconds before impact.
In Bryce's case, what the forensics team who specialized in tire impressions found was probably more disturbing than what investigators found on the CCTV footage. That's because they found no evidence that Bryce had made any attempt at braking prior to going off the embankment.
In fact, the forensic evidence actually revealed that the car accelerated towards the embankment. The most logical explanation that investigators could come up with at this point was that Bryce purposely tried driving his car into the lake, possibly as a suicide attempt. Case closed, right? Well, maybe not.
After the news broke about finding Bryce's wrecked car with no sign of him anywhere, a full-on search was conducted of the area. And in addition to law enforcement, hundreds of volunteers showed up to help look for him. Helicopters were brought in. Police used search and rescue dogs. Scuba divers were even called in to help search the entire lake with still no sign of Bryce.
It was like he vanished into thin air. Day after day, the divers continued to search the lake while volunteers and police swarmed the nearby campgrounds. They were looking at any possible place where maybe Bryce may have maybe taken shelter if in fact he was still in the area.
Police got a small break in the search when looking around Government Cove, which was right near the main boat ramp launch on the upper part of the lake. So police dogs, specifically two bloodhounds, had actually picked up on Bryce's scent in the area.
So investigators, with the help of dogs, were able to track a path that seemed to suggest that Bryce got out of the wrecked car and walked away near a gas station. But just like the searches through the past couple days, the dogs only picked up on Bryce's scent, but didn't lead them anywhere else. In the midst of chaos while searching for Bryce,
police were faced with another huge problem. On September 4th, a jogger reported a brush fire that had started on Lake Hughes Road, near Lake Costaic, right where Bryce was last seen. Los Angeles County firefighters quickly responded to the fire, only to find out that the cause of the fire, well, the cause of the fire was a burning body.
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News about the brush fire caused by a burning body sent shockwaves throughout the search party who were still holding out hope that they would find Bryce. Searchers were gut-wrenched to think that this could be some sort of coincidence, that in the same area where they're searching for Bryce, there's also a brush fire that's been started from a body that's been set on fire.
And this was even more devastating to Karen and Michael, Bryce's parents, who had also joined the search party. After Los Angeles firefighters distinguished the fire, the search party for Bryce was on pins and needles waiting for some information about the burned body. Was this Bryce? Unfortunately, the answer to that question wouldn't be instantaneous. That's because
The body had been so badly burned that firefighters weren't even able to determine if the victim was male or female. Karen and Michael held their breath as they waited for the coroner to conduct a DNA test in order to positively identify the body found in the brush fire, a result that couldn't come back quick enough.
So while Bryce's parents anxiously await the results of the DNA tests, friends, family, and volunteers continued to post flyers and go out and hike these remote trails in the area, still holding out hope that he was out there somewhere and that he was out there alive.
After several days of anxiously awaiting the DNA test results, they were finally given some news that they were relieved to hear. The burned body was not their teenage son. It was not Bryce. The body was identified as 35-year-old LaMondra Miles.
A man who police learned later on had been shot multiple times before being dumped and set on fire in Castaic, reportedly after getting into a fight with a man for unpaid debts. An incredibly sad murder that unfortunately had nothing to do with Bryce's disappearance. Just one day after police determined the burned body was not of Bryce,
The official search for him was called off three weeks after he disappeared. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department issued a public statement where they basically said that they searched everywhere. They had exhausted the entire area. There was pretty much nowhere left to search. Scuba divers didn't recover a body from the lake.
The bloodhounds who did pick up on Bryce's scent led nowhere except to a local gas station, and there was nothing else found in the surrounding areas on land. With hundreds and hundreds of people searching for over three weeks, including the world's best scuba divers and search and rescue dogs, Bryce was gone. He had vanished.
Even though the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department called off the official search for Bryce, the Las Pisas family and friends continued to search. Even several sheriff's deputies continued to carry out patrols of the area, still looking for any sign of Bryce. Bryce's family, his parents, and everyone who knew him still believe that the search is far from over.
that there are far too many unanswered questions about his disappearance. To this very day, the day that I'm recording this episode, Bryce is still considered a missing person. Shortly after he was reported missing, many, many tips poured in about possible sightings. And when those tips dried up, the Las Pisa family hired a private investigator to look into the case.
Over the years, they have used drones over the area of Castaic Lake. They hired a sonar boat that searched the entire lake for over the course of two days. The family themselves still regularly drive out to the area and conduct searches for any possible clues. Still, there's been nothing. This is a disappearance case that has troubled me from the very moment I heard about it.
Nothing about this case makes sense to me. And there's the burning question. Why haven't we been able to find him? After all of these years, all the advancements in forensics, as well as our search and rescue capabilities, why haven't we found Bryce Las Pisa? He simply didn't vanish into thin air.
So what are the possible theories? What are some explanations as to what really happened to him? The first theory that's been thrown around is that Bryce suffered from some sort of psychotic break or a possible head injury from the car crash. We know that blood was found on the passenger headrest as well as in the backseat of the car.
So the theory is, is that Bryce did in fact intend to drive home to Laguna Niguel, but then suffered a massive head injury as a result of the crash, causing him to become disoriented and eventually wander off. There's also the theory that Bryce was in the middle of a psychotic break, which would explain the odd behavior he exhibited in the days and hours leading up to his disappearance.
It's so important that I mention here that everyone who spoke with Bryce on the phone in the days and hours leading up to his disappearance said that he sounded lucid. Yes, he displayed some odd behavior, but even that California Highway Patrol officer who spoke with him inside of his car parked alongside of the freeway said that he was completely normal. He was lucid.
The roadside assistance personnel who helped him get back on the freeway said the same exact thing. There was no sign that this teenager was displaying any signs of a psychotic break. A second theory, which we can't overlook, is the theory that he left willingly. Although Karen and Michael have both publicly said that they don't believe their son just up and left willingly,
we still have to consider that as a possibility. And here's why. Bryce shared with his parents just before starting the drive down to Southern California that he had something important to talk to them about, but he never told them.
He also gave away personal possessions, including that pair of diamond earrings, a gift from his mom, and he also gave away his video game system just days before his disappearance. Maybe this was a clue that he was planning to leave and build a new life for himself. He also spent hours upon hours trying
sitting inside of his car at that rest stop in Buttonwillow? Was he sitting in his car debating if he was really going to go through with this? And finally, the bloodhounds who tracked his scent to a gas station. Maybe that's where he hitched a ride from there. A third theory, and the one that is most difficult to talk about, is suicide.
It is possible that Bryce did in fact kill himself. This theory is of course supported by his odd behavior in the days leading up to his disappearance. He broke up with his girlfriend completely out of the blue. Again, going back to the fact he was giving away personal possessions. And on more than one occasion, he sent odd text messages to friends saying that he loves them, something that he normally didn't do.
Mental illness can absolutely manifest in early age or teenage years. Maybe these suicidal thoughts coupled with mental illness were intensified by the drinking and drug use he was doing during that time.
And of course, we know that his cell phone and wallet were both left inside of the car, which is a really big indication that he never had the intention to return. Now, a fourth and final theory is that he initially left willingly, but then became a victim himself.
This seems to be the theory that Bryce's parents believe in, which I can't say I blame them. No parent or loved one wants to believe in a suicide theory. But the theory goes that maybe Bryce stumbled upon the murder of the victim who was found shot and burned alive in the same area.
And then maybe being a witness to this man's murder, he was killed as well. It certainly makes sense. We know that Bryce was in the same exact area where a vicious, vicious murder took place. Maybe he saw something he wasn't supposed to. It's also been thrown out there that Bryce did intend to leave, hitched a ride from someone, and then ultimately became a victim of foul play.
This theory, of course, points once again to the scent discovered from the bloodhound dogs that led the searchers to that gas station. Maybe this is the location where he hitched a ride from someone and was ultimately killed by a truck driver or someone else. There are so, so, so many other possibilities out there on the internet about what might have happened to Bryce.
You can literally go down into this rabbit hole on this one. I've left so many of them out of my show because so many of them don't even have a logical basis to them. The four theories that I presented, at least in my own opinion, seem to be the only logical and possible theories. Of course, if you'd like to read more about these different possible explanations and different possible theories, I
I'll include some of the links on my website, but a simple Google or Reddit search of this case will absolutely bring you endless theories, rumors, and speculation. In hopes that Bryce is in fact still alive, supporting the theory that he left willingly,
his DNA and fingerprints have been entered and recorded into NamUs, as well as some other databases related to missing persons. To this day, there's been no match either to DNA or fingerprints out there belonging to Bryce. This is truly a case where forensic science has the ability to finally solve it and finally provide a solid answer as to what happened to Bryce.
Forensics can help identify a body or skeleton if later on found to belong to Bryce. Forensics will also be able to identify a person who is still out there and alive who is Bryce. Sooner or later, I hope we will have some answers. And forensic science will be able to provide those answers.
Right now, Bryce's family still asks for the public's help. Any photographs believing to be of Bryce should be emailed to findbricelespisa at gmail.com. There's also a $5,000 reward being offered for any information about his whereabouts. The L.A. County Sheriff's Department has set up a tip line at 323-890-5500.
There's also been a second tip line. They can be reached at 949-292-4400. Bryce was last seen wearing white cargo shorts, a blue and white checkered shirt, and white and red Nike shoes. When he was last seen, he was described as being 5'11 and 170 pounds. He has bright red hair and blue eyes.
He also has a tattoo of a Taurus bullhead with a Roman numerical number on his left shoulder. I hold out so much hope that someday, someday Bryce's family will receive the answers they've been searching for, that they will finally receive some sort of closure. Since his disappearance, the family has started Roke Day, Random Act of Kindness.
If you'd like to support the family, as well as their efforts to continue to get the word out about Bryce's case, I highly recommend you follow the Facebook page, Find Bryce Las Pisa. Of course, if there is any update to his disappearance, I will absolutely bring it to you. To share your thoughts about what you think happened to Bryce Las Pisa, connect with the show on Instagram and Facebook at Forensic Tales.
To check out photos from the case, visit our website, ForensicTales.com. I would love to hear your possible theories about the case and whether or not you think it will ever be solved. Do you think Bryce is still alive? Thank you so, so much for joining me this week. That covers this week's episode. But the discussion doesn't end here.
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