What Happened to Brandon Lawson?

There is something inherently creepy about the last known moments of someone’s life being recorded. The audio of the Jonestown murder/suicides, Elisa Lam in the elevator moments before her death, and the 911 calls that marked the last known moments of Brandon Lawson (and which can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Nr0qdc624&feature=youtu.be).

Late at night on August 8, 2013, Brandon Lawson, a 26-year-old father of four and oil field employee, got into an argument with his girlfriend, Ladessa. He got in his pickup truck and left his home in San Angelo, Texas, and what happened to Brandon after that is a mystery.

The Timeline

@11:54 p.m. – Brandon leaves the home he shares with Ladessa and their children, reportedly in an agitated state of mind

@12:10 a.m. – Brandon’s brother Kyle and Kyle’s girlfriend Ashley visit Ladessa after the argument.

@12:34, 12:36, and 12:48 a.m. – Brandon attempts to call Ladessa but gets her voicemail.

@12:38 a.m. – Brandon calls his brother, Kyle, and says he ran out of gas. Kyle informs Ladessa and then Kyle and his girlfriend leave to find and assist Brandon on Hwy 277 near the town of Bronte.

@12:54 a.m. – Brandon calls 911 and asks that police be sent to his location. The person who answered the phone was not a trained 911 dispatcher and failed to ask questions about who was calling or what was happening. It is worth noting that Brandon knew he had a felony warrant out for his arrest and called for assistance anyway.

@12:58 – A passing trucker calls 911 to report a vehicle posing a hazard in the roadway

@1:10 a.m. – The police and Kyle and Ashley arrive at the truck simultaneously. Brandon’s car was parked still partially in the roadway. Brandon was not there and the vehicle was unlocked. Kyle and Ashley try to get in contact with Brandon by phone and text, warning him that there is a police officer at the vehicle.

@1:19 a.m. – Brandon calls Kyle again, saying that he is ten minutes up the road, in a field, and bleeding, but before they can get any further information, the line goes dead. After 15 minutes or so, the police officer leaves. Kyle and Ashley continue to call Brandon, but the phone rings several times and goes to voicemail. They drive around and look, but find no trace of Brandon and can’t reach him. Not knowing that Brandon had called the police, they thought he was out of sight hiding from the officer, and would come out from concealment once the cops were gone.

@3:30 a.m. – Brandon’s phone stops ringing and instead goes straight to voicemail, presumably because the battery had died.

@4:30 a.m. – Kyle calls Brandon’s girlfriend to inform her that they haven’t been able to locate him.

@8:30 a.m. – The sheriff’s department tows Brandon’s truck.

In the following days and weeks, family and law enforcement searched the area, but nothing was found of Brandon. No one has heard from him since, and his phone and bank accounts haven’t been used.

Interesting Information:

The area where Brandon disappeared is sparsely populated, and people pull double duty. Just as a nursing home employee answered 911 calls, the county sheriff and his wife owned the local newspaper. After Brandon’s disappearance, the sheriff’s wife published a great deal of speculation about what happened to Brandon without citing any sources. Her claims were inflammatory and didn’t paint Brandon in the best of light, saying he had drug issues and intentionally abandoned his family. The official case status according to Coke County is that Brandon is intentionally missing.

There is much speculation as to what Brandon is trying to describe in his 911 call. Who was pushing people on both sides? Who is the first guy he is referring to? Is the “Yeah” response said by a second person near Brandon? Is it possible, given his past drug conviction and argument with Ladessa, that he used a substance that made him paranoid? Did he meet foul play? Did he abandon his life to start a new one?

What happened to Brandon Lawson?

I got my information from

https://truenoirstories.wordpress.com/2016/06/14/brandon-lawson/

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?239446-TX-Brandon-Lawson-26-San-Angelo-8-Aug-2013-TIMELINE-MEDIA-ONLY-NO-DISCUSSION

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/l/lawson_brandon.html

The Disappearance of Brian Shaffer

Brian Shaffer was a man facing big life changes. The 27-year-old Ohio State University medical student had just lost his mother to cancer weeks earlier, and was planning to propose to his girlfriend during a trip to Miami the first week of April, 2006. He never made that trip, and exists in history as Ohio State Police Case MP#1709.

The Day of Disappearance – March 31^st/April 1^st, 2006

• Brian met his father, Randy, for a steak dinner. The elder Shaffer reports that his son seemed worn-out.
• 9 p.m. – Brian meets his friend and former dorm-mate William “Clint” Florence, and a bar near the college campus called the Ugly Tuna Saloona
• 10 p.m. – Brian calls his girlfriend, Alexis Waggoner, to tell her that he loves her.
• 10 p.m. – 12 a.m. – Florence and Shaffer bar hop, taking shots at several bars in the area. Brian is believed to be intoxicated.
• 12 a.m. – The men meet up with Meredith Reed and return to the Ugly Tuna to finish their night out with one last round.
• 1:15 a.m. – Security camera footage show the trio arriving at the Ugly Tuna and riding the escalator up to the bar’s second floor location.
• 1:55 a.m. – Brian is again seen on camera outside of the bar talking to two young women. He moves off-camera in the direction of the bar, as if he is going back in.
•  2 a.m. – Closing time at the bar, and Reed and Florence make their way out of the bar along with the large crowd. They search the area and wait for a while out front, but assume that Brian left without them.

Friends and family attempted to call Brian in the days that followed, but his phone went to voice mail. When he didn’t make his flight with Alexis for their trip to Miami, his family filed a missing person’s report. Everything at his home, just six blocks away from where he disappeared, looked as it always did. Brian had his wallet, and since the day of his disappearance his bank accounts, credit cards, and cell phone were never again used. The resulting investigation was extensive, with police searching streets around the bar for miles with search dogs, and the city granting access for the police department to search the sewer system. The monitored entrance to the bar was the only public entrance to the bar, but it is possible that Brian somehow gained access to the freight elevator and left another way. 

The Ugly Tuna was located in an area with a high crime rate, and several surveillance cameras in the area failed to capture images of Shaffer. Many people who knew Brian took polygraph tests during the investigation, but Florence refused. Members of the Shaffer family felt that Clint may have known more than he let on. Clint’s attorneys claim that the police believe Brian left of his own free will. Brian’s girlfriend, in an interview, claimed that a few days before the disappearance Brian told her that she should move on and find someone else, and later asked if she would just run away with him.

No trace of Brian was ever found, and nine years later, another man disappeared from almost the same place under similar circumstances and was never heard from again.

What happened to Brian Shaffer?

I got my information from –

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Brian_Shaffer

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/shaffer_brian.html

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/04/01/unsolved-mystery-10-years-later-brian-shaffer-still-missing.html

https://melmagazine.com/a-guy-walks-into-a-bar-53c784e7369b#.cu13ujka8