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GameChanger [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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00:01:52
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[Applause] crime [Applause] [Music] Brandon Lawson an oil field worker and father of four was last seen when he
00:04:47
left his San Angelo Texas Home on August 8th 2013 while traveling on Highway 277 he
00:04:56
ran out of gas he called 911 and he has not been seen since his cell phone is also missing Brandon is a Caucasian male
00:05:06
he was 26 years of age at the time of his disappearance Brandon is 5' 9 in tall 230 lb with brown hair and blue
00:05:16
eyes he was last seen wearing a yellow shirt and camo shorts and white Nike Air Max shoes if you have any information go
00:05:26
to missing Brandin lawson.com [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
00:06:00
Brandon Lawson was last seen when he left his home in San Angelo Texas this was August 8th
00:06:07
2013 he left at 11:53 p.m. this is after an argument with his girlfriend Lessa Lofton so Brandon called his father and
00:06:17
he wants to go to his father's place for the night M Brandon's father Bradley has
00:06:22
said that he had told his son it would be best if Brandon just stay put he recommended that Brandon not make the
00:06:28
2-hour Drive to his house but I'm guessing Brandon thought different because he does decide to go for a drive
00:06:35
and start to make his way to his father's house I don't want to hang on this for too long but I'm guessing that
00:06:42
it would have had to been some kind of argument you know like some big disagreement for someone to leave in the
00:06:47
middle of the night and drive two hours yes possibly but it was reported that Brandon was working sometimes over 90
00:06:54
hours a week mhm and that he also had four children yeah so he had been with Lessa for about 10 years and they had
00:07:03
three children together and he had one child from a previous relationship um so not just leaving the house but leaving
00:07:10
his family in the middle of the night as well and that's a lot of responsibility
00:07:14
for a 26-year-old a lot of responsib that's a lot of responsibility for anybody now Brandon had called a little
00:07:21
earlier than when he had departed he called his father earlier than when he left while Brandon did not leave his
00:07:27
house until almost midnight he actually called his father around 11:00 p.m. so almost an hour later he sets off on this
00:07:34
trip while in route he is going to make some phone calls because his truck runs out of gas his first call will be to his
00:07:42
brother Kyle at 12:38 a.m. yeah and this is basically you know anything you would think it
00:07:49
would be you know I I need help I've run out of gas on Highway 277 um by this time Brandon is near
00:07:57
bront Texas he runs out out of gas but he is unable to get the pickup truck completely off of the highway he
00:08:04
basically has like the tail end of the truck sticking out onto the road a bit M uh so the Brother Kyle and his
00:08:11
girlfriend Audrey they call Lessa Brandon's girlfriend to tell her that Brandon had run out of gas and he needed
00:08:19
to borrow their gas can and a lot of time if you're looking up this case that you'll hear that Lessa is his wife or
00:08:26
common law wife for this episode and for this case we're going to just refer to her as a girlfriend cuz they were not
00:08:34
legally married right I don't like that whole common law wife thing anyway you know I guess certain States you live
00:08:40
with somebody for a certain amount of time and they're all of a sudden your wife I I have buddies if that were the
00:08:45
case I have buddies that would have been married like four or five times so Kyle
00:08:49
called to borrow the gas can and Lessa tells Kyle that she's going to leave the gas can on the porch because she's going
00:08:55
to take a shower and then go to bed because it's extremely late at night right mhm uh we should point out here
00:09:01
that Kyle has no money uh his paycheck is not going to clear in his bank account until Friday morning uh so Kyle
00:09:09
is not going to be able to fill up the gas can but he figured that once he got to Brandon with the gas can that he
00:09:15
would just drive Brandon to The Stripes convenient mark this is a 24-hour gas station SL store and Brandon could pay
00:09:23
for the gas there and then he would drive Brandon back to the truck and he and Audrey would be done for the night
00:09:29
and go back to their home mhm uh what is known next is that the following that following his phone call to his brother
00:09:37
well something happened because Brandon calls 911 telling the dispatcher that he needs
00:09:43
help he calls 9911 at 12:50 a.m. and we won't go through that call yet because we want to finish the timeline so we can
00:09:52
really really go through that call another call was made to 911 this is by a passer by a big rig truck driver calls
00:10:01
911 at 12:57 a.m. this is regarding Brandon's truck parked crooked on the side of the road posing a hazard uh you
00:10:10
know somebody could potentially hit this vehicle if they weren't paying attention
00:10:14
when Kyle arrived at 1:10 a.m. there is no sign of Brandon a sheriff's deputy arrived at the truck at the same time as
00:10:24
Kyle and Audrey now Kyle was traveling One Direction to get to 's truck and the deputy was coming from the opposite
00:10:32
direction this is Deputy Neil and neither Kyle nor dep Deputy Neil see Brandon walking on the side of the road
00:10:40
on their way to the vehicle we should also point out that at this point Kyle is unaware that Brandon has called 911
00:10:48
and may be in danger the officer Deputy Neil probably is unaware of the 911 call
00:10:54
from Brandon as well it's speculated and reported in this case that law enforcement are responding to to the
00:10:59
truck driver's call and not Brandon's on Brandon's 911 call it's not very clear where he's at or who he is or who he's
00:11:07
with yeah yeah we and we bring this up simply for the fact that Kyle probably considered that there's a chance that
00:11:14
Brandon may be walking on the side of the road we shouldn't assume that Deputy Neil was actively looking for someone
00:11:20
walking on the side of the road as he's driving in his Cruiser to the abandoned truck you know cuz a lot of times police
00:11:28
get a lot of these abandoned vehicle calls it's a very common call and a lot of the time well we don't know what that
00:11:35
call was yeah but but a lot of time when when these vehicles are abandoned the the driver and the passengers are are
00:11:42
long gone by the time a safety service his officer finds the abandoned vehicle to tick it tag or or tow the vehicle
00:11:50
away MH so at this point in the timeline we have Kyle Audrey and Deputy Neil at Brandon's Truck Yeah and once he's there
00:11:59
the deputy observes the following there is no visible sign of damage to Brandon's truck and his keys and his
00:12:06
cell phone were not inside the vehicle uh while talking with the deputy Kyle received a call from Brandon right in
00:12:15
which Brandon's cell was going in and out and it was very hard for him to understand what Brandon was saying uh
00:12:23
what Kyle understood was I'm in a field uh Kyle felt maybe Brandon was hiding in
00:12:29
the field due to an outstanding warrant from about 2 years ago uh that Brandon himself just learned about and was going
00:12:37
to to address the following week according to the family so Kyle made no mention to the deputy of Brandon being
00:12:44
on the phone just so we're clear that warrant was for a drug charge and he didn't pay a fee for that correct yeah
00:12:50
so th and let's dive into this because there's a lot of speculation regarding this drug charge or the warrant out for
00:12:57
Brandon Lawson the situation sounds like this right so he had this old outstanding warrant that he found out
00:13:05
about when he went to transfer a title on a vehicle or something they they mentioned to him are you aware that
00:13:11
there's a warrant out for you yeah I'm I'm pretty for sure that he's probably aware that he had a warrant but this was
00:13:18
just kind of a reminder well possibly yeah uh the thing here is I want to throw out my own little story here cuz
00:13:24
one time I did have a warrant out for me uh that I was unaware of um I get a phone call one day from my father and
00:13:32
he's very upset and uh he says you know there's a warn out for you I was talking
00:13:36
to so and so and they told me there's a warn out for you and I said you know he sounds angry at me and I'm like you know
00:13:42
I'm getting on the defensive because this is my dad and I'm like right I don't know anything about this I don't
00:13:47
know what you're talking about so what happened was I went down to the clerk of courts and asked them what's this
00:13:54
warrant for not knowing if they were going to arrest me that day but I wish they would have it yeah would I'd still
00:13:59
be in there uh but technically it was a bench warrant what had happened was and it's this sounds funny because people
00:14:06
were like how do you not know there's a warn out for you what had happened was I
00:14:09
got a speeding ticket right I had that speeding ticket and my my jacket was stolen yeah I had it in my coat it was
00:14:18
had the check written it was going to be paid and all that yeah this sounds pretty fishy sounds very fishy I get you
00:14:23
I'm sure my dad doesn't believe me either but any regardless I didn't pay the ticket and kind of forgot about it
00:14:31
because the stolen jacket became more of a concern to me than the ticket basically I had to go downtown and pay a
00:14:37
speeding ticket so they wouldn't come and arrest me apparently though this was not a huge deal right though Captain
00:14:44
because they weren't it doesn't sound like they were actively looking for Brandon Lawson right this wasn't
00:14:49
something that they were looking to lock him up for a long period of time it's exactly what you said it's something
00:14:54
that he was planning to pay it sounds like a fine that was needed to be paid right but to be clear those charges were
00:15:00
drug related at 1:18 a.m. Audrey text Brandon saying a cop is at your truck it is assumed she did such as she wanted to
00:15:10
warn him due to his warrant again Audrey knows nothing of Brandon calling 911 in statements giv given to police as
00:15:20
explained by the family they did admit Brandon's earlier call to them in which he told his brother and Audrey that he
00:15:29
was 10 minutes up the road and was bleeding now remind you this was the call that was going in and out so this
00:15:35
is the as much that they could get from from the call right so what we know about this call is that maybe he's in a
00:15:42
field maybe he's 10 minutes up the road which way we don't know and maybe he's bleeding yeah cuz you know how it is
00:15:49
when when the call is cutting in and out sometimes you have no clue what they're
00:15:54
saying you're just kind of fragments the important thing is this was also not reported to Deputy Neil at the scene of
00:16:01
Brandon's truck MH it is also understood that Deputy Neil did not report to Kyle
00:16:07
that Brandon phon 911 it's still again unclear if Deputy Neil even knew about the 911 call from Brandon himself right
00:16:14
I would guess that he did not know about the call and and we you know have said why because it doesn't sound like they
00:16:21
even knew who was making the call or why uh when Deputy Neil found the truck again he found it unlocked with no
00:16:29
damage done to the vehicle this vehicle was not in any accident keys were not in
00:16:34
the truck there was no cell phone no wallet Brandon left that truck and presumably went looking for gas and he
00:16:41
took his keys and cell phone and wallet with him Deputy Neil then turned on the flashers of the truck and then they
00:16:47
locked the truck and then he left the scene yeah he arranged for a toe to arrive a toe truck to arrive in the
00:16:53
morning and Brandon's truck to the impound lot don't you think those flashers though would make the battery
00:17:01
go dead very likely yes yeah but you got to do something so they're going to see
00:17:05
the vehicle at this time this was a very dark road too and it's it you know when
00:17:10
you say it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere it really feels like out in the middle of nowhere according to
00:17:16
reports the deputy then drove up and down the roadway to see if he could spot Brandon walking uh Kyle and his
00:17:23
girlfriend left the empty gas can in the bed of the truck thinking if Brandon came back he would at least have a can
00:17:30
that he could go retrieve some gas they went and began to look for Brandon as well when the morning came
00:17:38
and there was still no sign of Brandon Kyle's money was now available in his bank account it is this point where he
00:17:46
goes back to the truck and he gets the gas can and he fills it up and returns it to the truck at this point he was now
00:17:53
starting to become very concerned and he felt that Brandon may not have been hiding in the bushes from the officer
00:18:02
and that he might have been hiding because he was in some kind of trouble this is when they talk with
00:18:07
investigators and he now gives them the full account of Brandon being on the phone at the time the deputy was at the
00:18:13
truck it wasn't known by Brandon's family that he had called 911 until Brandon's girlfriend Lessa saw an
00:18:22
itemized cell phone bill right when Lessa woke up the next morning there were several Miss calls on her cell
00:18:30
phone three of these were from Brandon and I believe there were 10 Miss calls from Kyle because remember Kyle spent
00:18:37
most of the night looking for Brandon and probably reaching out to Lessa time and time again trying to to wake her or
00:18:44
get some input from her have you seen Brandon uh can you come help with the search something of that nature the the
00:18:51
speculation has been a little weird on this part of the of the story as well because we have a girlfriend friend
00:18:58
who's missed all of these calls however her story is that the the phone was not in the house it was in her vehicle
00:19:07
charging M now some people know that you have you can charge your your phone just
00:19:12
using a USB cord and plug it into your car yeah and with older cars you'd have to have the car turned on so it' run out
00:19:19
your battery if you just had it half turned and the battery was on you can charge it that way or you'd have to turn
00:19:25
your car fully on which would run out the gas it's believed that she had a newer car and some of the newer cars you
00:19:31
can just plug stuff in and'll charge even if it's not on yeah there has been no activity on Brandon's bank accounts
00:19:39
or his cell phone since that time uh there was a search organized by Lessa shortly after Brandon disappeared this
00:19:47
would have been either on that Sunday or Monday so just two or three days after I
00:19:53
apologize but there are several reports that differ on the exact day but there was and an extensive search conducted at
00:20:00
that point just so we're clear there's a lot of speculation in this case and he went missing on the eth Brandon went
00:20:07
missing on the eth and they're not going to receive his cell phone records to know that he called 911 for a whole
00:20:13
another month right and furthermore once they find out that he called 911 less is
00:20:19
going to request that the the tape of that 911 call and it's going to be quite some time before she gets that as well I
00:20:26
believe she said about four months yeah it was about 4 and a half months regarding the searches because there was
00:20:33
an actual professional team that came in and conducted a an extensive search but
00:20:39
this was not until October 24th of 2013 they searched the area around the abandoned truck now this was Texar who
00:20:48
brought in HR dogs and that's the Texas search and rescue team and they bring in
00:20:53
these basically cadaver dogs or human remains dogs the problem here though Captain is we see this situation where 2
00:21:01
and A2 months have have elapsed since you're since you're going to do this search that's quite a bit of time lot of
00:21:07
time and the other problem that we have here too is there's a lot of the like wild hogs in this area and I guess one
00:21:15
thing like these dogs are really well trained but one thing that can screw up these dogs are the smells that come from
00:21:21
these wild hogs well and I I would just assume any smell from another animal would kind of mess up their their scent
00:21:29
and it's been pointed out that this in particular and while they did receive some hits on some scents and smells that
00:21:36
they found you know these dogs went off in certain areas they think that most of
00:21:41
that might have been like you said from Wildlife it wasn't from actual Brandon Lawson that they they believed that the
00:21:47
dogs were tracking again if you have any animal dead then they would be picking up those sents as well they've done a
00:21:54
lot of aerial searches with with airplanes again there's some problems with this though too because when you do
00:22:00
these aerial searches you want to do these very soon after somebody goes missing because they're looking for
00:22:06
abnormal activity which that's going to disappear over any length of time sometimes they're just looking for
00:22:12
buzzards swarming they didn't spot anything that would that led them to Brandon obviously and furthermore they
00:22:19
did these these searches some of these searches were paid for by Lessa right and this is a family that that was
00:22:25
currently living paycheck to paycheck now the now the bread Winner's gone Brandon's gone and you know so I applaud
00:22:33
her efforts for paying for these searches since we've been doing the podcast it baffles me it's uh very
00:22:40
confusing to me that we don't take these situations as serious I mean there's tons of missing people there's tons of
00:22:47
people that go missing there's always this time lapse like well he'll show up or well we didn't know exactly where he
00:22:56
was at uh but then he missed work so then we decided it was a big deal right and then we searched days later it's
00:23:04
like you know if they had better communication with the cops if well and also the better cell phone reception and
00:23:11
all that stuff but if you started looking immediately worst case scenario right is
00:23:18
is you either get more answers you get more leads you know or or you find the person right you know e even if they're
00:23:25
dead you find them you know or they show up and you're like oh there's Brandon oh we spent 8 hours looking for
00:23:33
you but you don't give a [ __ ] about those 8 hours right oh I lost eight hours but I found you thanks awesome you
00:23:42
know yeah it it's something that we've seen time and time again and reviewing some of these cases it's it's a weird
00:23:48
thing though Captain because you have a situation where it's not not everything is as it appears when you're arriving at
00:23:55
the truck you know regardless of who shoes you're in you know if you're the deputy you think you're responding to
00:24:01
this abandoned vehicle and you think it's just that this is a I'm just going to bring it up we do not know what the
00:24:08
information was given to 911 based off the trucker from the trucker we don't know if it was abandoned uh truck call
00:24:16
right I would love to figure out what that call is uh but regardless like I was saying you have a situation where
00:24:24
people arriving at a scene may not be fully aware of what they're walking into you have the brother that just knows
00:24:31
that the vehicle ran out of gas we have the deputy that may just think he's responding to an abandoned vehicle they
00:24:38
meet up and now you're piecing two things together the depuy's probably told hey I you know I spoke to my
00:24:43
brother he said that the vehicle ran out of gas did you happen to see anybody walking no I didn't right when really
00:24:50
there this could be a much different situation than I you know than either of those two had any clue of right and I
00:24:57
and like I said I'm not I'm not trying to put any blame on his family or friends or anybody I'm just saying that
00:25:04
maybe because we've had all these situations we've had all these missing person cases maybe we should start
00:25:10
collectively taking these very serious from from the word go we're very connected now as a society so if
00:25:19
somebody goes missing you know from the word go let's let's take these a little more serious and maybe we'd have less
00:25:26
missing person yeah the other sad thing here too is we have a situation where you have an area
00:25:33
of land that's very large and a very small sheriff's department they don't have a whole lot of people on staff so
00:25:39
that makes it very tough to search and comb that entire area we have a man that was traveling from from a bigger town
00:25:46
from San Angelo and he's he's heading he's close he's reported as missing from bront Texas now the thing here is bront
00:25:54
is only like 3,000 people we're talking about a very small town yes I understand
00:25:58
that but we're also talking about a human that is not going you know he's not on in a car he's not on a motorcycle
00:26:05
he's on foot if Brandon's on foot he can only get so far mhm you know from that truck a mile radius you even if you
00:26:13
start the search in the morning and even if he if he walked uh pretty quickly we're talking he's he's not getting 20
00:26:21
some miles away no so the radius becomes what I'm saying is smaller yeah you're exactly right and there were only really
00:26:28
a couple directions to go you know you he could have walked towards Brun or he could have walked back towards you know
00:26:33
where he came from well yeah I would agree with you on that other than the fact that we have possibly two calls
00:26:39
where he's stating he's in a field so which direction he wins well what I mean by you well I get what you're saying but
00:26:45
what I mean by that is I'm believing that he would be in search of gas and that he would probably be heading in one
00:26:50
of two directions where he knows that he can get to a gas station right the other
00:26:55
situation that we have here too captain and I don't really want to spend too much time on it but we should mention it
00:27:02
because the police it's been reported that the police went under the assumption that Brandon left on his own
00:27:11
will right that that he left because he wanted to go off with another woman now how they arrived to this conclusion I'm
00:27:18
not certain um it it was stated in their local newspaper that they believe that he was picked up by a woman and drove
00:27:27
off you know but but we clearly we have the call to the brother that's he's looking for gas if he if he had help if
00:27:35
he had someone helping him drive somewhere that I don't feel like that call would be made to the brother well
00:27:41
and I couldn't find any information online on his cell phone records but I'd be interested to see what that cell
00:27:47
phone log looked like and you know as far as the family can the family identify every number that was called
00:27:55
right and if and if those numbers if there was one that is not identified then can we identify that now MH now we
00:28:03
should also point out that the McCutchen family own the local newspaper and the McCutchen has a connection to the
00:28:10
Sheriff's Office the head sheriff is Sheriff McCutchen his wife is the operator of this local newspaper and
00:28:18
she's a journalist they call them journalist well and this is where it's been reported that they believe he left
00:28:24
with another woman it there's been a lot of bickering back and forth between the
00:28:29
Lawson family and the the local newspaper well okay so my thoughts are one uh the Lawson family look this whole
00:28:40
idea that everything is a law enforcement conspiracy that that happens with so many cases do I think there's
00:28:48
and and in every case there's some gray area but let's just start with what they
00:28:52
could have done we have him calling that why a deputy is there mhm tell them who cares that he has a
00:29:01
warrant it comes down to safety right you know and this guy is saying I'm in a field he's saying to his brother I'm
00:29:08
possibly bleeding if I am calling my brother on the phone and he can't understand me and and I'm saying I'm in
00:29:15
a field and I'm and he hears that I'm possibly bleeding I don't give a [ __ ] about a warrant tell the deputy and he
00:29:23
can come find me we'll sort out the warrant stuff later mhm but again I would rather spend a night in jail
00:29:29
because of a warrant than to just go missing for the rest of my life right and so I think as far as that goes yes I
00:29:35
I understand where their head is coming from maybe he's hiding I don't want to turn him in but no it comes down to
00:29:43
safety deal deal with that later MH air on the side of caution you're saying right wow we are only about 20 minutes
00:29:50
into the show and you're already getting very angry I can see the steam coming out of your coming out of your ears was
00:29:56
tasty beer though so but hey let's get another one let's take a quick beer [Music]
00:30:06
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Consumer Cellular when Freedom calls we're here to answer call us at 1888 [Music]
00:32:10
Freedom all right cheers everybody we are discussing the missing person case of Brandon Lawson Brandon Lawson was
00:32:18
last seen August 8th he left his home went to go to his father's house he runs out of gas he's technically listed as
00:32:26
missing August 9th because we have some phone communication with him that evening when the deputy arrives they
00:32:32
can't find Brandon he goes up and down the road the rest of the night looking for Brandon walking somewhere and we
00:32:39
have the Brother Kyle who's out looking for Brandon as well and this case just keeps getting more interesting because
00:32:46
there's so many questions like what exactly was that fight about yeah and was he actually even heading to his
00:32:52
father's house I mean we have the phone call he calls says that he's coming over
00:32:57
over but we have almost an hour that goes by before he actually leaves the house and this is after his own father
00:33:03
tells him you should probably just stay home cool off don't worry about it you shouldn't come out this way it's a 2hour
00:33:09
drive right maybe he's driving around just to blow off steam we also have his phone records and I have not seen any
00:33:16
evidence maybe he called somebody else that we're not aware of and then also what was this 911 call that came from
00:33:23
the truck driver right what was that call about you know I'd be interested for them to release that
00:33:29
tape and when I first looked at it I thought it was a little strange that the trucker called 911 but then you know I
00:33:36
reminded myself this is a guy who's probably a longdistance driver he's not aware of the local sheriff's department
00:33:44
phone number because this is not an a 911 type emergency but he's probably just calling the number that he knows
00:33:49
will reach well you keep speculating that it's not an emergency we have no clue what that call was about if if we
00:33:57
take it from what it's reported as is just an abandoned vehicle call it's not a 911 emergency obviously right and then
00:34:04
the other question is that we have law enforcement coming out later and talking to a local newspaper saying hey this guy
00:34:13
probably just went off with some girl what's their evidence to prove that and furthermore we have the family that has
00:34:21
constantly said you know this is not this is out of character for Brandon it wouldn't be he was not of the type to
00:34:28
just up and leave you know we mentioned he had four kids uh it sounds like he was a devoted father um he had his
00:34:34
girlfriend there he was very close to his father very close to his brother seems like a lot of reasons to stay I'm
00:34:40
not going to lie to you Captain for being 26 having four kids and working 95 hours a week sounds like some good
00:34:48
reasons to leave but his family is Adam you sound like a really nice guy his family is adamant that this would be out
00:34:56
of character for for Brandon he would not leave his children so again a lot of questions and a lot of things we just
00:35:01
don't know but what we do have is the 911 tape that was released to the family about four 4 and a half months after
00:35:10
they' requested it yeah and there and itself is a big question right you wonder you ask for this 911 tape and
00:35:17
we're assuming it it was some time had elapsed before they're requesting it right but then we see a whole lot of
00:35:25
time go by before they released this tape you know it shouldn't take that long of a time period to get a 911 call
00:35:34
that brings up speculation that this tape was doctored before given to the family and that's why we thought that it
00:35:39
would be key to really dissect this 911 call to to try to figure out what's going on in the call what he is actually
00:35:48
saying uh you know the thing here Captain is we have some technology that's not readily available to to
00:35:55
everybody in everyone's garage you know we have some sound equipment here and we
00:35:59
also have a secret weapon we have the captain he's he's a legit Bonafide sound engineer and he's going to help us
00:36:07
dissect this baby right now we're going to we're going to bring this into the garage we're going to take it apart look
00:36:12
at it piece by piece put it back together and see if it runs basically this episode is for all the haters that
00:36:18
think I bring nothing to the show all right Captain so please play the 911 call in in its entirety at normal speed
00:36:25
but play it two times in a row [Music] 923 050 and 38 seconds 91 emergency yes I'm in the middle of the
00:36:38
field s we're just pushing guys over right here going toward Jain on both sides my truck ran out of gas there's
00:36:45
one car here got sh the wood please hurry okay now run that b me talking to him I ran into him ah you ran into him
00:36:56
okay got the first guy do you need an ambulance no I need the cops okay is anybody
00:37:09
hurt hello hello hello 9 [Music] 2013 050 and 30 8 seconds 911 emergency yes I'm in the middle of the
00:37:31
field we're just ping guys over right here going toward jaing on both sides my truck ran out of gas there's one car
00:37:38
here got sh the wood please hurry okay now run that by me talking to him I ran into him ah you ran into him okay got
00:37:51
the first guy do you need an ambulance no I need the cops okay is anybody hurt hello
00:38:11
hello hello so I'm trying not to alter the tape too much and as you can tell like we have these big sexy man voices
00:38:19
and this oh yeah and this 911 tape is a little piercing well here's a good exercise for everybody to do stop what
00:38:25
you're doing right now get out some paper and a pencil and we're going to go through this line by line I want
00:38:31
everybody to write down what they think Brandon is saying and you can submit those on our blog at truecrime
00:38:37
garage.com let the dissection begin Captain play this at a slower speed yeah and they have a Time code on this so I'm
00:38:45
not going to play the time code every time cuz that would be a little Annoying kind of like Nick an
00:38:52
emergency yes I'm in the middle of the field we're just pring God over right here going toward on both
00:39:00
sides my truck out of gas there's one car here okay now talk ran into ah you ran into
00:39:22
okay the first do you need no I need to call okay is anybody hurt hello now on the original tape there's
00:39:48
three hellos and I just cut those out for the Slowdown version just you know so we can focus on the meat and potatoes
00:39:55
now what happens with with the sound quality is it goes down a little bit the quality gets worse when you slow
00:40:01
something down because basically what you're doing is you're expanding uh you're stretching the sound wave and
00:40:07
then you're putting bits of Silence in there right and because of those bits of Silence it starts kind of distorting it
00:40:14
a little bit so that's why it's a little bit less of a quality uh at the slower speed okay let's hear that again at that
00:40:22
same speed I want emergency yes I'm in the middle of the field we're just preaching guys
00:40:30
over right here going toward on both sides my truckan out of gas there's one car
00:40:38
here wood okay now ah you ran into them okay the first gu do you need an ambulance no I need the C
00:41:06
okay is anybody hurt hello the call is chilling to say the least yeah I mean every time I hear it
00:41:23
it it chills me to the Bone um can we play at an even slower speed over sides gas okay
00:42:06
no ah he ran into okay that's the first no I need the okay is anybody hurt hello
00:42:54
hello hello so slowing down even more we're taking those sound files those sound waves we're stretching them and
00:43:01
putting even more pockets of Silence in there so you get more Distortion okay let's play it at that speed one more
00:43:08
time and then we'll talk about kind of our initial thoughts just some guys over on both
00:43:29
sides gas here okay now ah he ran into okay that's the first no I need the call okay is anybody
00:44:22
hurt hello hello hello okay this is a good time to use that pencil and those and paper and put
00:44:45
down your initial thoughts because as we start talking about this you know we might start molding your thinking as far
00:44:53
as what you think that you're hearing right so first off he is he sounds out of breath to me right right uh he sounds
00:45:02
scared to me as well not to be misleading anytime that you slow down anybody they also sound like they're
00:45:08
possibly intoxicated yeah which is which is something interesting you and I were
00:45:12
talking about earlier here because there's been some people say well maybe he was drunk you know he got in a fight
00:45:18
maybe he went and got drunk maybe he you know and Lessa says he was not intoxicated or had not been drinking
00:45:25
before he left and I think if you listen to the original and you listen at the normal speed he doesn't sound
00:45:31
intoxicated to me but obviously like I said once you start slowing it down everybody sounds intoxicated yeah
00:45:37
because especially on the first the first slow down version and proof of that is the the the person answering the
00:45:45
911 call she goes 911 emergency you know that's we Everybody's Got a Friend a female friend that sounds like that
00:45:52
after a few shots well let's talk a little bit about the 911 one dispatcher most counties will have actual dispatch
00:46:00
group of 911 this County was really small so when you called 911 it actually went to a nursing home correct and the
00:46:07
nurses on staff were trained to answer these 911 calls yeah there's been a lot of people that have said that the 911
00:46:16
person wasn't doing a very good job that night you know that that she never asked
00:46:20
for Brandon's name she never asked for Brandon's location um I don't know I I kind of I kind of have to defend the
00:46:29
dispatcher here in my in my opinion because first of all he's he's got a very thick accent he's out of breath
00:46:36
it's hard to understand what he's saying it sounds to me like she's trying to assess the situation you know asking if
00:46:43
he needs an ambulance is anybody hurt and obviously could they use maybe more training obviously but we all could use
00:46:51
more training we all could use some more training you're exactly right the the thing here is Captain I don't don't know
00:46:56
how how quickly are they supposed to ask for somebody's name is is his name even
00:47:02
that important in the beginning part of the conversation I mean does she have the ability to to carry on the
00:47:08
conversation and dispatch whatever he's calling for you know whether it be the cops or an ambulance right and there's
00:47:14
at least two or three times where she is going to say something or trying to say
00:47:19
something and he's interjecting oh just like the captain you know stepping all over somebody else's words I've been
00:47:24
trying to get better at that my first thoughts here Captain are that after hearing it those three different speeds
00:47:31
you know there's obvious signs that there there are certain words and certain lines that he is saying that are
00:47:38
much clearer than others and much more precise what I think we could do you know since we have the tools maybe we
00:47:46
look at this thing line by line and try to pick apart the ones that are that are
00:47:51
tougher to hear because some of the lines almost sound like he's rolling into the next sentence mhm well so what
00:47:58
you're going to hear now is the first line and we'll play that at normal speed and I'm going to actually put it on a
00:48:04
loop yes I'm in the middle of the Fielding over yes I'm in the middle of the field
00:48:10
we're just over yes I'm in the middle of the field we're just pring guys over yes I'm in the middle of the field
00:48:18
or we're just pring guys over so that the very first half of that sounds very clear to me I think I'm hearing yes I'm
00:48:25
in the middle of a field the second line is much less clear to me it sounds like
00:48:30
he's saying ster just pushed but I also hear ster just pulled some guys over I'll play that clip again
00:48:40
on a loop and slow it down yes I'm in the middle of f just over yes I'm in the middle of the field
00:48:52
just over yes I'm in the middle of the field just over so we both agree that we think he's
00:49:03
starting off by saying yes I'm in the middle of the field mhm or yes I'm in the middle of a field right right
00:49:11
something like that yeah he's he's not on the road he's trying to give a a general description to the dispatcher of
00:49:18
where he is yes I'm in the middle of a field and it almost like the yes is like you know when you're waiting when you're
00:49:24
urgently waiting for somebody to pick up you know she 911 emergency yes I'm in the middle of a field right and then it
00:49:32
it's weird cuz it sounds like a ster a ster just when it's slowed down it sounds
00:49:41
more like pushed you're exactly right but again because you're creating those pockets of
00:49:47
Silence it distorts things so it could be making more of a sound would somebody say pushed somebody I mean you would if
00:49:55
you were talking about okay ster first of all what the hell is a ster what is a ster we don't we don't know I mean but
00:50:02
it but it's you know I when we first listened to it I thought maybe you know I heard stapler uh because I'm trying to
00:50:12
not think about what his situation is I'm trying not to think about this guy being out in the middle of nowhere it's
00:50:18
midnight it's very late he's calling I I'm trying to the adrenaline's going yeah I'm trying to push all of that out
00:50:25
and just write down what I did you say push or pull I said push I'm trying to I'm trying to clear all
00:50:32
that out and just just write down what I hear yeah and ster is really what I hear
00:50:39
I mean I I wanted to I wanted to it to make sense so like Escape her you know or you know was it two words rolled
00:50:47
together stap her that's what it sounds like to me yes I'm in the middle of field stier now again so so the big
00:50:56
speculation there has been with ster is that they doctored the tape right that you know they had what four and a half
00:51:06
months to alter the tape and so the here now here's the problem so I'm taking this recording and I'm putting it into
00:51:14
our recording uh program and normally when there's a edit if there's a bad edit there's a pop when
00:51:23
I'm when I was looking at these wave files I could not see any visual sign of a bad edit that doesn't mean that there
00:51:31
wasn't an edit it just means that there wasn't a bad edit so we're both pretty convinced of what we think he's saying
00:51:39
in that first phrase right so let's uh let's just solo out that first phrase here's that first phrase at original
00:51:47
speed looped yes I'm in the middle of field yes I'm in the middle of the field yes I'm in the middle of the field so as
00:51:55
you hear at the end of each Loop there's a little pop mhm now like I said if you
00:52:00
if there's a bad edit you'll hear a pop that edit that bad edit is on my part that you created that so well I yeah I
00:52:08
didn't create it I just sent because I'm cutting to I'm cutting the wave in half
00:52:14
so by doing that when it gets the end it pops every time it sounds like something
00:52:19
like shutting off or a click or or like you said a pop right so that's edit not theirs play that next section for me but
00:52:28
slow it down and loop it okay ster just pushed some guys over or possibly ster just pulled some guys
00:52:46
over yeah when when you play it in the original speed I hear ster just pulled some guys over that slower speed sounds
00:52:54
ster just pushed some guys over you know the ster is very clear uh but there's been a lot of speculation
00:53:02
regarding that word um right yeah and I'm just talk about this theory that was left on a message board yeah so and this
00:53:10
this will kind of change the whole thought of the first two lines that we hear right M so I read a comment that
00:53:18
someone had said that ster is actually a slang term you know if you if if I asked
00:53:24
Siri for the definition of ster she tells me what the definition of steeper is when I type it into Google search I
00:53:32
get the definition for stapler because there's no ster word right the thing here is this commenter said that ster is
00:53:39
a slang term for like an oil worker and the the just of his comments or her comments I don't know who this
00:53:47
person is but they're saying that that he's saying ster just pushed some guy over meaning that
00:53:56
that an oil worker pushed some guy like into an oil tank or oil you know right and then the other idea is that he
00:54:06
starts off by saying I'm in the middle of a field and so now it's not just some arbitrary field but you know I'm in the
00:54:13
middle of a oil field and a ster just push some guy over or push some guys over and I I got to be honest with you I
00:54:20
know nothing about oil fields I I you know I know I've been to Texas a couple times I love the state you might hear us
00:54:27
do our little Texas twang on on some of these we mean no disrespect love Texas but you know if there are people in the
00:54:35
area or people that are familiar with oil work um I would love to hear their comments is ster a word is that an
00:54:42
actual term that people use um because again it it does it changes that first line from the middle of a field to the
00:54:51
middle of an oil field and a ster just push some guy over and the other speculation or the kind of conspiracy
00:54:59
theory out there is that ster is actually where an edit was made before the you know the it took four months to
00:55:07
release the tape so within that four months then they made this edit now so what we're going to do is it's the the
00:55:14
ster edit moment right okay so I'm going to present a way you can make this edit and create this new word
00:55:25
ster so you got to start by what word do people think they're covering up and it's state trooper so a lot of people
00:55:33
believe he's saying I'm in the middle of a field and a State Trooper just pulled
00:55:39
some guys over mhm so the word is state trooper now I want you to say the word state trooper okay now I'm going to make
00:55:49
this edit and then Nick's going to tell you how long it took me to make the edit
00:55:53
okay State Bur Stater Stater that took 4 months no no it took maybe 4 seconds now
00:56:03
now the problem here is Nick is talking in a very clean room well it's kind of dirty but uh dirty garage but because
00:56:12
the audio quality is clear it's a lot easier to make that edit okay so it took 4 seconds it's not that hard to make
00:56:19
that edit it's also not hard to make a clean edit so therefore you don't hear a pop
00:56:25
the problem is with the phone call there would be so much static it' be a lot harder to make a clean edit without a
00:56:34
pop let let me see if I understand you completely okay so you're saying that if there were uh you know when you look at
00:56:43
the wave file you don't visually see an edit point however which you would not see if it's clean edit okay but however
00:56:52
you're saying in this situation um it it obviously was very easy for you to create the word ster from state trooper
00:57:01
so in your expertise is this is it an edit I mean clear that up for me I don't visually see an edit but it's definitely
00:57:11
possible that they made a clean edit okay so let's let me just I'm going to hang on this for a second because this
00:57:18
word has been of much speculation right and it changes everything because if if it wasn't edit than what he is clearly
00:57:26
stating is I'm in the middle of a field and a State Trooper just pulled some guys over and that is why people would
00:57:34
believe that the tape was held on to for so long that they had some things they wanted to take out remove from the the
00:57:42
the voice message and they wanted to clean it up for their purposes whatever whatever they're covering up or whatever
00:57:51
they're trying to hide right that would be the conspiracy theory can we compare those two clips side by side so the One
00:57:58
Clip would be of me which you created of me saying ster compared to Brandon saying ster ster ster
00:58:10
sterer I here's the thing Captain I feel like I'm saying it slower than he is so
00:58:16
maybe if we compared it to the the slower version here's an even slower version it sounds very much the same to me right
00:58:29
the ster right and the other thing that people have to kind of wrap their head around is we have a guy that's 230 some
00:58:36
pounds out of breath full of adrenaline and this word he might have slurred over
00:58:44
so it possibly is not even an edit yeah he's just not clearly stating whatever word he's trying to say and again I
00:58:52
think that falls as far as logic I'm in the middle of a field a State Trooper just pulled me over yeah pull well a
00:58:59
State Trooper just pulled some guys over sorry if it's not an edit okay then I kind of hear stay Trooper stay Trooper
00:59:08
you know almost like he's rolling you know he never gets to the second te of state and it goes right into Trooper
00:59:16
which which I wonder now that if I've gotten too hung up on the word ster and I just really quickly assume the next
00:59:24
word is ster just pulled this guy over ster just pulled these guys over right because if
00:59:31
if just is not if just is not the word there right if it's actually some weird way of saying state trooper pull some
00:59:37
guys over yeah and and the yeah I mean I think like I said I just think logically
00:59:43
it goes towards some kind of version of state trooper yeah then the question then becomes is he in his right mind
00:59:53
because if he's not in his right mind then everything he's saying you know and when I say not in his right mind
00:59:59
intoxicated or on drugs or maybe sleep deprived if you have if you're sleep uh if you're sleep deprived long enough you
01:00:09
could possibly hallucinate I've I've actually had that happen once and sorry to break from this for a second here but
01:00:15
this is going to sound crazy I worked a 36 and a half hour shift one time all right and at some point so I came in
01:00:22
around like 6 in the morning and I didn't leave until the following afternoon but sometime around 6:00 in
01:00:30
the morning after right around that 24 hour mark right I'm drinking coffee again and other people start coming back
01:00:36
into work to to do their their next day shift I'm still on my my one shift and I
01:00:42
swear there was probably about 5 to 10 minutes where I I was hallucinating but but I was still of enough mind to
01:00:50
realize that I was hallucinating and it was just little things like I thought thought people were saying things that
01:00:56
they might not have been saying uh and people looked looked a little weird to me well yeah I I've seen some of the
01:01:02
people you worked with they looked weird anyways but um tell me that you weren't salary tell
01:01:09
me you were hourly no I was a that was a salary position they got their money's worth that week um I here's the thing
01:01:16
though captain and I hate to keep having you pull little things and and play it but that's what we're doing but now what
01:01:22
I want to know is having talked about is this stay tro stay Trooper if that's if
01:01:29
he's rolling it or if he's out of breath and that's how it's coming out and coming through I really want to hear
01:01:35
those next four or five words again you know because because now I'm concerned is if I go with it state trooper or
01:01:45
state trooper is the next word just pulled this guy just pulled these guys just pulled some guys you see what I mean and
01:01:54
I want to hear is it guy or guys we just play it a couple times slow from that part guys
01:02:10
over over the pushed is weird it's you know um have you ever heard like older folks
01:02:18
say push you know rather than push um again that part right there is is a conundrum
01:02:26
for me because I I tell you you play it once I hear pulled you play it a second time I hear pushed um just yeah but you
01:02:34
got again I got to push on through here right yeah but you got to keep in account that there is Distortion and so
01:02:41
sometimes when you do slow something down where definitely when you slow down that word it definitely sounds more like
01:02:47
pushed than pulled yeah uh but also we got to remember um people misspeak yeah so one little slip you know pushed some
01:02:57
guys or pulled some guys again at the end of the day to me it starts coming more around to this idea of I'm in the
01:03:04
middle of a field and a state and a State Trooper just pulled some guys over it's it's definitely some guys over I
01:03:13
I'm 100% on that some guys over right so now part of the story is we we have Brandon we have a state trooper and we
01:03:20
have some guys yeah yeah and here I'm right down as we go okay and this is where I have it I actually removed the
01:03:28
word just from the second line I I just I feel like it's not there I have yes I'm in the middle of a field stay
01:03:34
Trooper pulled some guys over that's what I got all right I'll play the next phrase on both sides now from the
01:03:50
comments that I've read Captain you know because and I'm going to keep going back
01:03:53
to these comments CU I got on a bunch of different websites regarding this Brandon Lawson mystery and I wanted to
01:04:00
hear what other people thought they were hearing because you know because you don't trust yourself well and ideally
01:04:06
you would get many people many ears into one room and play it and get a general consensus it seems to me that the
01:04:13
general consensus on this line is that he's saying they're out here going to aberline on both sides have you have you
01:04:23
seen that um what sounds like right here well let's hear that slowed [Music] down on both sides see that's you know
01:04:42
when I when I type in list of Texas cities right there is an aberline and there's an Aberdine as well um which
01:04:51
would sound very similar I think to one another given his accent and how fast and out of breath he's you know right to
01:04:58
me it sounds like a g sound though and and I I hear you too because when we slowed it down it sounds like the word
01:05:06
starts with a g how about yeah how about I just solo that section and and go real
01:05:10
slow with it sometimes when you slow things down they become almost inaudible well
01:05:18
looking at at the list of names of cities in Texas if we go with a G there uh the ones that sound similar to maybe
01:05:27
what he's saying would be galeston there's also uh goson and groverton or Groveton sorry but the the
01:05:37
thing here is Captain I have to ask you this because what there are certain letters
01:05:44
right that are pronounced a certain way that that are more prominent than others
01:05:49
like are there some things that we should be listening for when we're going through these as far as P's are usually
01:05:56
very pretty pronounced yeah um G I would think a g or a j might be a harder um letter like that yeah I think it's
01:06:07
confusing I think at the end of the day it it it sounds like it's you know going
01:06:14
towards something mhm on both sides so I you know I think it would be nice to have every word be audible but I don't
01:06:23
think it's necessary in order to get the picture of what's Happening well and there's that famous paragraph out there
01:06:30
where the author purposely jumbled up the words well not the words but the letters of each word and when somebody
01:06:37
reads through it you can actually read and tell what it's supposed to say even though when you look at the words
01:06:43
individually they make no sense right so we don't maybe know what word that is we
01:06:49
don't know if that's a city or not but we kind of have the framework around it so what do we have so far um what I have
01:06:57
so far is the I'm convinced on the first two lines that we have yes I'm in the middle of a field stay Trooper pulled
01:07:06
some guys over I'm I can't say what I'm hearing on the third one for certain yet
01:07:11
I think we got to go through the third line a little more the thing here is though Captain we try to put out these
01:07:17
episodes Tuesday evening and it's getting very late here in the garage and if we don't take a break now this
01:07:24
episode won't come out until Wednesday morning and we're not going to do that to anybody so let's let's stop it now uh
01:07:31
you stop it now we'll take a quick beer break and we'll get back at it to record
01:07:36
the next episode and what do you think put these out a little closer in in time yeah so people don't have to wait so
01:07:42
long gotcha gotcha because we're kind of I feel like we're stopping halfway through right here thank you Captain and
01:07:47
we will see everybody right here back in the garage in a couple of hours and until then be good be kind kind and
01:07:54
don't [Music] [Applause] [Music] Litter Angie list is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I
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thought it was an Eco move fewer words less paper no it was so you could say it faster no it's to be more iconic must be
01:08:35
a tech thing but those aren't quite right it's because now you can compare upfront prices book a service instantly
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and even get your project handled from start to finish sounds easy it is and it makes us so much more than just a list
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get started at angie.com that's ngi or download the app today