Out of Gas

I think part of the reason why the story remains so mysterious is because there's this really unsettling audio recording

“that sort of confounds the whole mystery and really forces you to take a stance about what you think really happened.”

So, I'm gonna tell you that story and then, at the end, I will share that audio recording and then you can be the judge about, you know, what really happened here. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious, delivered in story format, then you come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload four times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Fridays.

So, if that's of interest to you, please offer to do the dishes for the follow button. But instead of cleaning them, just smash them on the ground. Okay, let's get into today's story. (Music) At 12.30 a.m. on August 9, 2013, a man named Kyle Lawson was asleep in his bedroom with his wife

at their home in San Angela, Texas when his cell phone rang and it woke him up. Kyle looked at the caller ID and saw that the call was coming in from his 26-year-old brother, Brandon. And so, you know, Kyle picked it up, but before he could even say hello, his brother said he needed help. And then he launched into this big story that really sounded completely insane. He told Kyle, he was currently driving north on Highway 277, which is this totally desolate,

two-lane country road that runs through West Texas, and that three men were chasing Brandon. And on top of that, Brandon told his brother that, you know, he's trying to get away from these men, but his truck was about to run out of gas. And so what he wanted Kyle to do was to right now in the middle of the night, come meet him secretly to hand off a gas tank. So, Brandon could officially escape these three men.

But as Kyle listened to this, he was not really actually concerned, at least in terms of Brandon being in any sort of real danger with regards to these three men that were chasing him. In reality, Kyle's reaction to this was just being so annoyed at Brandon. Because after hearing this story, this frantic story, Brandon's telling him in the middle of the night, he was sure that really there were no three men.

That instead, his brother, Brandon, was just high again, and he was hallucinating.

He was basically having an episode that was substance-induced.

So, Brandon had a history of methamphetamine use. He'd been clean for the last six months or so, and he'd been working on, you know, being a better partner to his fiance, Ladessa, and also a better father to his four children. But just two days ago, Brandon had also called Kyle, but it had been to ask Kyle if he knew where he could get some drugs.

Now, Kyle did not immediately say, "Oh, here's where you go to get drugs."

“Instead, he tried to tell Brandon like, "Don't do it, like you should not get high.”

You're clean, like you're doing good." But he was pretty sure Brandon had not listened. Because ever since that phone call, even though Kyle didn't give him any resources for drugs, Brandon must have gone and gotten drugs anyways, because his behavior had just been completely crazy in general.

In fact, right now, Kyle knew, from having spoken to his parents earlier, that the whole reason Brandon was even driving on highway 277 right now, was because he got into a big fight with his fiance, and was supposed to be going to his parents house to chill out,

like he was basically going to time out for bad behavior.

That's why he was out right now. Kyle knew Brandon was very likely high, and so this was not going to be a good time to reason with Brandon and tell him to just come home or just go to your parents house, because there's no such thing as these three men, like you're just high. You know, he's not going to listen to that.

So instead, Kyle just focused on trying to calm Brandon down. Because again, Kyle is not thinking Brandon is actually in danger. He's thinking this is just a hallucination. But as Kyle tried to do that, Brandon did not calm down. He got more and more anxious, and he's continuing to talk about these these three men

“that are gaining on him, and finally, Kyle just said, "Dude, Brandon, have you relapsed?”

Is that what's going on here?" But as Kyle expected, Brandon swore up and down that he was not high, and he just kept on begging Kyle to come help him fast before these men caught up to him, like, "Come give me the gas I need so I can escape, come on, man." At this point, Kyle felt like there was no point even talking to Brandon,

and in some ways, he just wanted to hang up and forget about this whole thing. This was crazy. He has his own life and his own responsibilities, like he shouldn't be babysitting his younger brother. But at the same time, Kyle was very close with his brother, even if he presented it, he did love his brother very much.

And even though he did feel like there is no imminent danger here, other than maybe Brandon to himself, Kyle decided, "You know what? I'm just going to go out on Highway 277. I'm going to find Brandon and just get him back home."

About 45 minutes later, Kyle drove north on Highway 277,

“along with his wife and his passenger seat and their four-year-old son in the back.”

Kyle's wife had not wanted him to be out in the middle of the night, dealing with his crazy brother all alone, so she insisted that she and their son come along. And so as Kyle drove down the road, he kept an eye out for Brandon's truck. Now, to set the scene for you, this really is like a desolate highway.

There's no real traffic and really an either direction. It's just kind of open planes and some shrubs and small trees. Like this is a big wide open area. It's pretty easy to see way out in front of you. And so he's got a great view, even though it's nighttime.

But he can't see any vehicles. Like there's no truck, there's nothing like his brother is nowhere to be seen. But Kyle just kept on driving and kept on looking out. He was even just sort of looking out into the fields. In case, you know, his brother had veered off the road somewhere, which seemed entirely possible.

But eventually, after driving for some time, way up ahead sort of parked half on the road half off was a truck. It's lights were off, you know, it's just sitting there. It's not even idling. It's clearly turned off.

But as Kyle got closer, he realized it was Brandon's truck.

So he had found Brandon. And so Kyle, he pulls over to the opposite side of the road. He parks his car and he tells his wife and his son to stay in the car. And he's going to go talk to Brandon, who at this point, Kyle is assuming is sitting in his truck, you know, waiting for Kyle.

And also keep in mind at this point, Kyle's thinking, well, there's nobody else out here. There's no three men chasing my brother. He's probably just sitting here. Hi, as can be.

And I'm going to talk to him. And he's just going to go home. And we're going to move past this. But when Kyle walked over to the vehicle, there was nobody inside of it.

Brandon's gone. And he's thinking to himself, this really doesn't make any sense. Because on the ride to the truck as they were on highway 277, Brandon kept repeatedly calling Kyle over and over and over again. Being like, come on, you got to hurry up.

You got to get here. They're gaining on me. Like, I'm in trouble. Bring that gasoline. You got to get here.

And now that he's here, he's finally reached clearly.

Brandon's truck. It's right here. And Brandon's gone. He's gone from his truck. He didn't tell him that on the phone.

Like, where is he? What's going on here? And so Kyle, he's like looking under the vehicle. He's searching the vehicle now for his brother, which is totally crazy. Like, what's his brother doing here?

But as he's searching the vehicle for his brother and looking around the area for his brother, Kyle's phone rings. And it's Brandon. And so Kyle, who at this point is feeling really annoyed,

“he answers the phone and he's like, Brandon, where are you?”

And Brandon goes, bro, I'm right here. And Kyle's like, no, you're not. Like, I don't see you. There's no one here. Your truck is here.

You're not here. But just then, Kyle looked out and there was a car coming towards him. So he saw the headlights. And he realized it was a cop car. And so he's on the phone with Brandon.

He's looking out at this cop car that's coming up this road towards him and clearly slowing down. Like, the police officer is going to stop and talk to Kyle, presumably. And so as this cop car is coming in and slowing down right in front of him, Brandon on the phone says to Kyle, run away from that cop. Now think about this.

That meant Brandon had to be somewhere nearby because he can clearly see the cop car approaching Kyle. He's watching the scene. Even though Kyle has not found his brother, Brandon is clearly actually nearby. But Kyle, he's sort of quickly interpreting this and he's thinking, like, where is Brandon?

Because he's looking out. And it's just open fields in either direction on either side of this highway. It's like this barren wasteland out in the middle of Texas. Like, where is he hiding? There's nowhere to hide.

There's a couple of shrubs and really small trees sort of off in the distance. But like, there's really nowhere to hide. So where is Brandon? And Kyle, he's just feeling furious at this point. Confused.

“But furious, it's like, what are you doing Brandon?”

He knew the reason Brandon won in Kyle's run also is because Brandon had an act of warrant out for his arrest that had to do with a drug charge. And so he's just protecting himself. Like, don't get involved with the police. Like, keep me out of it.

And it's like, Kyle, he's already out here in the middle of the night. Doing this crap for his brother, who's completely off his rocker. Like, he was so annoyed. But again, it's like, what does he even do? He has no idea where Brandon is.

And so, Kyle, he was about to say something to Brandon to demand, you know, where are you come out here, but Brandon hung up? Now, by this point, the police officer had arrived on scene. He had parked his car and he walked over to Kyle, who now is standing right next to his brother's vehicle.

And, you know, he's put his phone back in his pocket. And the officer, when he got close enough, he introduced himself as deputy Neil of the Coke County Sheriff's Department. And he told Kyle that he was responding to a 911 call from a trucker about a stranded driver on the road.

And so he asked Kyle, if, maybe that was him. Is this your truck? Are you the stranded driver? You know, pointing to Brandon's truck? But Kyle said, no, it was not his.

It belonged to his brother.

brother.

So we couldn't tell the deputy that, well, you know, the reason my brother left his car

here is because he's probably high on meth. And he's somewhere nearby hiding. And also he has a warrant out for his arrest.

“So instead, Kyle said, well, you know, I think he went off to get some gas because he”

called me and he said he'd run out of gas. So he parked his car here. So he probably has walked on and, you know, I just got here. Is it okay with you if I get back in the car with my wife and son and just drive up and down the road here to find Brandon?

Because I'm sure he's fine, but he called me to help get him gas. So do you mind if I do that? And surprisingly, the deputy was like, yeah, that's fine. Go ahead. And so Kyle, he got right back into his car with his wife and his son.

And he did fire up his car and he drove farther down the highway. And as he did, he kept looking over shoulder to see what the cop was going to do. And the cop was just still parked next to Brandon's car. And eventually, when Kyle drove far enough that he knew the cop couldn't see him anymore, he pulled over to the side of the road and he began really angrily calling his brother

over and over and over again to get him back on the phone.

But Brandon never answered the call.

And so at this point, Kyle has no idea what's going on with Brandon.

“I mean, he didn't before, but now especially he's out of contact with his brother.”

And so Kyle and his family would sit there for a little bit longer, like continuing to try to get in touch with Brandon, but to no end. And eventually, Kyle's four-year-old son began crying and complaining because it's so late and he's tired and you know, Kyle's wife is tired. It's two in the morning and Kyle, he's just so over it.

He's like, you know what, Brandon is an adult. I tried to come out here and get him out of this mess, but if he doesn't want to be in touch with me, and he wants to hide off the side of the highway, that's on him. I'm taking my family and I'm going home. And so that's what he did.

He turned around, he drove right back the way he came, and he actually passed by his brother's truck that was still there, so Brandon clearly is still in hiding. And standing next to his brother's truck is still deputy Neil. He presumably was waiting for Brandon to show back up.

He drove right past them, went back to his home, and they went to bed. And they went to bed and he figured, you know what, tomorrow I will likely hear from Brandon, and he'll tell me some crazy story explaining what really happened, but you know what, whatever, that's on him. Not long after Kyle had driven past deputy Neil on his way back home,

Neil decided, you know what, like, I'm not just going to sit here all night waiting for Brandon. He had searched Brandon's truck and there was nothing concerning inside of it. There was no phone, no wallet, no keys, things that people would not leave behind if they ran out of gas and decided to go walk to get gas. So it seemed very much like that is what happened.

Brandon had pulled his car over, got now, and began the walk, and then his brother showed up, and the whole thing was playing out here. And so Neil figured, okay, well, I have other calls to go to. It doesn't seem like this is a huge emergency, and so he just reached inside the truck.

He turned on the hazard lights, then he locked all the doors and shut them, and then he got in his own vehicle, and he took off. Because again, he had other calls to attend to that night. The next morning around 8am, Deputy Neil was back out on Highway 277, just to make sure Brandon had eventually come back and claimed his truck.

But no, the truck was still sitting there, hazards on. Now, at this point, Deputy Neil was starting to get a bit concerned about Brandon, because, you know, he's out on foot, walking to get gas for his truck, and even though it seemed like the risk was sort of low for him, it is possible something could have happened to him,

“and that's why he had not come back to his truck.”

You know, maybe he was hit by a car, or, you know, got lost or something, who knows, like anything could have happened. Or, you know, maybe Brandon decided not to claim his truck yet, maybe he just went home, and he's gonna get it later. But regardless, it just seemed like Neil really had to go follow up personally

with Brandon, just to make sure he was okay. And so Neil drove back to the Sheriff's Department to see if he could find the contact information for Brandon. But when he walked in the door, he didn't have any time to do any digging, because another employee told him that while he was out, the department had gotten a call

from Brandon's fiancé, Ladessa. And Ladessa had given them a very different story than the one Brandon's brother Kyle had told Neil the night before. According to Ladessa, she and Brandon had been fighting for the past few days, and last night, so on the night that this whole truck thing happened,

Brandon was supposed to be on his way to his parents house to cool off from the fight he was having with Ladessa.

But he never arrived at his parents house, and he never came back to Ladessa's house.

And so Brandon was totally unaccounted for. And on top of that, nobody could get in touch with Brandon. They were calling and texting him no response. After hearing this, Deputy Neil was surprised and also pretty angry. Because clearly Brandon's brother, Kyle, had acted like everything was totally fine

the night before, but that had to have been alive. You know, because Ladessa is saying this totally different story. And so the first thing Neil did is he went and spoke to Kyle, and also to the rest of Brandon's family to get the story straight here. And very quickly it became clear to Deputy Neil that any omissions

or even lies were not because the family was hiding something. I mean, they were kind of trying to protect Brandon, but it was because they didn't understand how serious the situation really was.

the family was very forthright, that they really didn't know what had happened to him

“and that yes, maybe he was on drugs, we don't know,”

but he really is missing and you gotta go look for him. And so that's what Neil did. Over the next four days, there was this huge search that Neil led all around Highway 277, where the center of the search was where Brandon's truck had been found.

But despite using canines, helicopters and these huge search teams, some of which had thermal cameras which would allow you to see body heat, like despite covering this vast area, all around where Brandon clearly had been,

there was absolutely no sign of him.

And they also spoke to the homeowners and the property owners sort of roughly in the area to see if maybe they had seen something strange,

“maybe seen Brandon or those three men that apparently had been chasing him”

on the night he went missing, but nobody had seen anything. And so basically Brandon was definitely not here. And there was no sign he had been here other than his truck. That was it. And so deputy Neil and the rest of the authorities who were involved in the search

ultimately came to the conclusion that based on the fact that Brandon had clearly been fighting with his fiance, that he had an active warrant out for his arrest, and that he had not been seen in days. And there was no sign of him anywhere. Nothing that must have happened here is Brandon fled.

That he's not here because he chose not to be here.

That he was never in any danger.

“He fled the area and looking here is going to do nothing.”

We basically have to wait for Brandon to show up at some point. And so for the most part, this seemed like a pretty open and shut case. Until Brandon's fiance, Ladessa, came into the station in person with a bombshell. On August 13, 2013, so four days after Brandon went missing, this is right around the time the search has been called off.

The officer on duty at the Coat County Sheriff's Department sat across from Ladessa. And Ladessa looked extremely upset. And she said that she got so worried about Brandon that she'd started searching through their cell phone records. And she'd found something really concerning. She pulled out a piece of paper and she handed it to the officer and she pointed at a specific section.

And this officer, he realized quickly that this was a printed out copy of Brandon's call locks. And what Ladessa was pointing to was a call that Brandon had made at 1250 AM on the night he disappeared. In between a flurry of calls to Kyle and also to Kyle's wife, Brandon had also placed a call to 911. Ladessa told the officer that the fact that Brandon himself had called 911 actually terrified her. Because Brandon would have done practically anything to avoid the police, he was terrified of the police.

In fact, she knew from talking to Kyle that Brandon had even suggested to him that he should run from the police on the night he went missing when he saw the cop approaching him. And so she said, "Look, like he would only ever call the police if he truly had to." But she's like, "Why then, after calling the police, did he presumably run away? It just doesn't make any sense." And all of this came as a total surprise to this officer and to the Sheriff's Department. Because until this moment, the belief had been that a trucker had called 911 about a stranded driver.

And that was how deputy Neil got involved and really this whole thing started. But nobody knew there had also been this other 911 call from Brandon himself. The 911 dispatch in the area was tiny, underfunded, and understaffed. And at some point someone must have just dropped the ball when it came to informing the Sheriff's department about Brandon's 911 call because they really didn't know about it. But now that they did, they needed to hear that call for themselves.

The Sheriff's Department would contact that 911 dispatch and they would send them an audio recording of Brandon's call. And when they listened to it, they were shocked. Because one, Brandon 100% sounded like he was an imminent danger. This was not like a low stakes call from a stranded driver. This was someone who thought they were in real peril here.

And then too, if you listen closely, you can hear the sound of somebody else's voice in the background on Brandon's side of the call shortly before it cuts out. [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause]

[Applause] [Applause] [Applause]

This might be a murder.

“I mean, they didn't have a body, but the idea that there's another voice, and he's talking about being chased through the woods, and there's these men coming after him.”

I mean, this audio recording gave a lot of legitimacy to that. And so, the search which had just ended was quickly resumed and expanded dramatically, and for the next year, with all these additional resources being poured in, there was this massive effort to find Brandon Lawson. But they didn't find him. There was no other sign of him. He was just completely gone.

They looked everywhere around that highway to 77. All over the place, near where his truck was, there was no evidence he was just gone.

And so, ultimately, Brandon's case went cold.

And for the most part, authorities just kind of moved on, but Brandon's family did not move on. His fiance, Ladessa, would go on to hire two private detectives, and they would both conduct these big searches multiple times over around the area where Brandon left his truck and also across the state. But they too also just came up empty. And as the years passed by without answers, Brandon's disappearance captured more people's attention, and it started being featured on TV shows and podcasts. People had all kinds of theories about what had happened.

You know, maybe Brandon really was just high and hallucinating, and he wandered off somewhere and got attacked by wild animals. Or maybe he really was, being chased by these three men, and they kidnapped or killed him, and maybe that voice you hear on the recording was one of those three men. Or maybe he really had just fled the area on purpose, like the Sheriff's Department originally thought. Nobody really knew. And so for nine years, Brandon's case was full of questions, and zero answers.

But then, in January of 2022, a small group of volunteers went out to Highway 277 to the area where Brandon had disappeared, which had been searched so many times over.

They, the small group of volunteers, would make the biggest breakthrough in Brandon's case in nearly a decade.

While they were combing through this field off the side of the highway, again, a field that had been searched numerous times by hundreds and hundreds of people. These volunteers came across an old pair of shorts and pieces of two white shoes. They called the Sheriff's Department, and very quickly, a team of deputies arrived and cordoned off the area, and they continued the search. And in that same field, not far from the shorts and the shoes, they found a fragment of a human skull. And DNA testing confirmed the skull fragment belonged to Brandon Lawson.

Now, you would think that finding some of Brandon's remains would answer, at least some of the questions about his disappearance. But actually, it just made the whole thing more baffling. Because the area where Brandon's skull was found was right near his truck. It had been searched so many times. There were thermal cameras and canines and helicopters and hundreds of searchers, and nobody found it.

“Remember, off the side of the highway, this is not some thick forest.”

It is like this huge, flat field in West Texas with nothing but grass and short cactus plants and scattered trees. Like, this is an easy place to find stuff. Yet this skull fragment was not found, nor were the shorts or the shoes. It just seems so improbable. So where does that leave us?

While we basically have two options here.

Option one is despite the enormous manpower, helicopters, K9 units, the thermal cameras that were used, the hundreds of volunteers and searchers that combed this area for years. Either they just didn't see the grown man and bright white sneakers who was in this barren strip of West Texas, where it's easy to see anything, they just didn't see him. So that's option one.

Or two, he wasn't there. Brandon was not in the search area when they were looking for him. He was somewhere else.

“But if you believe option two, the question becomes, well, where was Brandon?”

Where was he? Why did he call 911? And then run away and go somewhere else. Why? Where was he? And then also, even if you answer that, how did his skull fragment and his clothes wind up back in the search area nine years later? It is one of the most profound mysteries on the internet, and to this day, we still don't have a good answer. [Music]

A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. [Music] The Mr. Ballem Podcast, strange dark and mysterious stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballem. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bohn and Cole Casio, research and fact-checking by Shelley Xu, Samantha Van Huss, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fassiano.

Research and fact-checking supervision by Steven Ear, audio editing and post-produced by Whitlicasio and Jordan Stitham.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballem Podcast, and just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballem Podcast,

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So, that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support, until next time. See ya. [Music]