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Parlez tout francais hablas espanol par l'? Italiano? If you've used Babbel, you would Babbel's conversation based techniques teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com wandery spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com wandery rules and restrictions may apply.
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Hi, I'm Jesse Perry. And I'm Andy Cassette. Welcome to Love Murder, where we unravel the darkest tales of romance turned deadly. Our episodes are long form, narrative driven and deeply researched. Perfect for the true crime aficionado seeking stories beyond the headlines like the chilling case of Blanche Taylor Moore, the so called black widow who left a trail of poisoned lovers. Or the shocking murders of Chad Shelton and Dwayne Johnson where family ties masked a sinister plot. Subscribe to Love Murder on Apple, podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
C
I'm brett. And I'm alice and we are the prosecutors.
Today on the Prosecutors, they call him the male Maura Murray. What happened to Bryce Lespisa?
Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my aimlessly wandering co host Alice.
B
I am aimlessly wandering from closet to closet looking for recording space. But it's not about me because we've always said that I think Brett's favorite types of cases are missing person cases. And boy do we have one for you today. Especially when you see how much aimless wandering there is. And it might just be like a meta way of all of us. Aren't we just all aimlessly wandering, trying to find our purpose in this life? And so is Bryce really lost or are we all lost?
C
Wow, that was deep. Have you been on like a spiritual retreat recently or something?
B
No, I just told you that there was literally a four foot raptor that my child put in my recording closet. So no, not exactly.
C
Yeah, well before we get started on this journey into the soul, apparently. So it's going to be. I do have a few shout outs I wanted to do, Alice, if you don't mind. Let's see, the first is to hubby and Stephie K's. They do woodworking. If you go on Facebook and you look up that. You'll find them. Those of you here just listening, you can't see this. So sorry. You'll just have to check out their Facebook page. But they sent me this awesome, like, woodworked Alabama.
B
That flag thing, it's like an American flag, but bam. It might be a little. This is like, very cool. Did they burn it in there? And it's like, it's beautiful.
C
I mean, I don't know. I don't know anything about woodworking. It's just really cool. So anyways, so if you're looking for sort of those specialized Christmas presents, because we're in that time of the year, check out hubby and Stephie K's Facebook page. Then they showed me a bunch of the stuff they had done. It's amazing.
B
Yeah, I just need them to make me a prosecutor's one now.
C
Oh, that would be cool. Yeah.
B
Because then I could people have told me I look like I'm in an insane asylum. And so maybe if there were a prosecutor's. What? It looks less insane.
C
We really need decorations behind you. We got to work on that.
B
I, you know, I kind of like the insane asylum look.
C
So the other people who reached out to us that we wanted to give a shout out to are Lifelong Friends Pet adoptions in Laga Vista, Texas. Alice, do you know where Lago Vista is?
B
I think it's Lago Vista Vista. But yes, of course I know Lago Vista and any pet adoption. I think I've talked about this before. I used to foster dogs looking for their forever homes when I lived in Texas, especially large dogs in particular. And thank you for all of you who do that type of work because especially around the holidays, a lot of people buy their kids pets and then realize that those puppies, bunnies, chicks, kitties are a lot of work and then they end up at a shelter. So thank you to those who care for them.
C
Well, with that in mind, they are a small donations based volunteer run organization. So maybe if you have an opportunity or if you're in Texas, check them out. Their website is lago vistapals.org so. And they're also on Instagram at Lifelong Underscore Friends Underscore Pet Underscore Adopt if you want to learn more. So that's enough of the business. As the captain would say, if we were on True Crime Garage. Alice, are you ready to dive in to the Bryce Les Pisa story?
B
I really am. Because, guys, when you walk through the timeline of this thing, it is just an absolute head scratcher. And also Makes me as a parent terrified because it seems like no matter what, there can be dangers around every corner and you can be left decades later with no answers.
C
It's kind of funny. I can't, you know, I'm using this fancy Apple machine because. Because we went to Apple at some point, but I still haven't really figured out how to use it. So I can't find you. I don't know where you are. Oh, there you are. I found you.
B
So if you do three fingers up, it shows you all your windows. Oh, it didn't work because sometimes if you change it, it's very customizable, which is bad if you don't know how you customized it.
C
Yeah, but I found you so.
B
Well, I'm glad you found me. Yet again, aimlessly wandering. Are we going to be found? We can only hope.
C
I'm reliably informed that people's favorite part of the podcast is our just random discussion. So this is going to be like a five star episode for everybody.
B
I mean, we're intensely one star, you know. You know, all I know is that I don't want to leave this earth mediocre. So I want people to hate me or love me because I'm not going to try to please people. I'm going to do what's right and chit chat with my best friend. If I feel like pontificating about who am I, where am I? My Zoolander thoughts.
C
Wow, Alice is some deep thoughts right now. I mean, maybe we should just turn this into an After Dark and just get.
B
I think it already is an After Dark word. And getting wasted in the chat, they're like, are we ever gonna get this?
C
Guys, this is a big case in true crime. So I know a lot of you, actually all of you who are listening for the first time. I promise it' not always like this. So anyways, let's dive in to this case and I do want to say something about this. You know, we say, we're never going to lie to you. We're going to lie to you in this case, we're going to tell you a lie now before it's over, we're going to tell you what the lie is and you can decide for yourself whether or not the lie is significant. But it's a lie that is often told in this case. So with that, let's get started. So Bryce laspisa was born April 30, 1994, the only child of Mike and Karen Les Pisa. The Lapisas lived in Naperville, Illinois, and were by all accounts a tight knit family who maintained an active presence in their son's life. And Bryce was well liked. He was funny, he was charismatic, and apparently was quite the artist. He graduated from Naperville Central high school in 2012 and decided to attend Sierra College in Rockland, California to pursue a degree in industrial and graphic design. His parents also relocated to California, moving to a home in Laguna Niguel, which was roughly seven hours from Bryce's school. And I don't know if they just were sort of at retirement age and wanted to move out to California, or if they wanted to be somewhat close to him, but not so close as to be annoying. I mean, seven hours is still quite a distance from Europe. That shows you how big California is too. Like we're about to go to Kentucky for Thanksgiving and it's about seven hours and that's across two states. But in California, hey, it's a long state anyways, so they move out there and are relatively close to Bryce's school now. By all accounts, Bryce's freshman year went swimmingly. He made friends, he did well in his classes. He met a girl who I think attended another school down the road and began dating her. Her name was Kim Sly. And everything seemed to be fine. He finishes his first year, he does great in school, he goes back home for the summer, he's sort of hanging out with people in the town that he's met, he's hanging out with his parents, and by all accounts, everything is fine. No cause for concern whatsoever. But weirdly, things began to shift almost immediately when Bryce returned to school in August of 2013 to begin his sophomore year.
B
So he goes back to school and Bryce's roommate Sean noticed that Bryce's behavior had been off. Bryce was drinking heavily. He was using Vyvanse, which is a long acting stimulant medication for adhd. But he wasn't doing it for adhd, he was using it recreationally. And he was staying up all night, which is not surprising when he's using a stimulant recreationally. Bryce had also unexpectedly broken up with his girlfriend, Kim. Despite their relationship going well, all of this combined prompted Shawn to call Bryce's mom, Karen. But regardless of his behavior, no one could have predicted what would happen. Just a few days later, on August 30, 2013, Bryce Laspiza vanished without a trace after driving his car off a 25 foot embankment in Castaic Lake, California. No one has heard from Bryce in the 11 years that have followed, and his remains have never been Found and.
C
We mentioned in the cold open Mar Murray in this case is often compared to that. And you're going to see why. This is a case where it seemed like, frankly, Mara arguably had a lot more going on with her than Bryce did. More obvious reasons to maybe strike off on her own. But in both cases you have these two people who seem to have a pretty good thing going and then very quickly something happens to them and they decide to get in their car and drive off. And then after an accident, the vehicle is found, but no trace of them is found. And it is a case that has fascinated people, I think for the same reason as Maura. I mean, look, I know some of you, you hate these unsolved mystery type cases. You like solved cases, you don't like to have questions lingering. But for a lot of you, I mean, this is your Roman Empire, right? This is the case that you think about all the time. Because as you're going to see, if you're not familiar with it, so many strange things happen, inexplicable things happen that lead to this disappearance. And I think the timeline in this case tells so much. And we're going to spend a lot of time on that timeline. This will be a two parter, no doubt, because I've. I just have a lot of things I want to talk to Alice about when it comes to this case because there are some things that happen that make me want to ask uncomfortable questions because a lot of strange things are going to happen and you're going to see that. So we're going to start the timeline in mid August of 2013. So this is when Bryce comes back to Sierra College. And apparently he gets there about two weeks before classes began. As we said, his first year in school had been typical. He'd done well, no cause for concern. And I'll just say this. I think most people, if they're going to have trouble at school, it really is that first year I was on the, we called it the student judiciary. Some of you might have like an honor board or whatever, but it's a group of kids who deal with the lower level infractions that various students will get involved in. And I did that in college. And as you can imagine going to a big state school, we saw some things. I mean, the stories I could tell were pretty wild. But I remember one kid who, he got to school and like three weeks into it, the police are like driving down the road and he's laying in the middle of the road. It was like a miracle. The cop saw him before, he just ran over him, passed out drunk in the middle of the road. And this was like in the first three weeks of school, this was like the fifth time he had gotten so drunk that he had passed out and had some interaction with the police. And so he gets sent home, you know, before the end of September, basically called his parents and said, look, your son's just not ready for college. He's not ready for that kind of responsibility. And we saw that a lot. I mean, the number of people who. The very first semester was when problems arose and they had issues so common. But Bryce, he gets through that. He gets through the whole first year and does well. Everything seems fine. And he's going back to school. So he returns to school and his friends notice pretty much immediately that he's different. Something has shifted about him. He's not the sort of happy go lucky guy he was before. He wasn't sort of a normal student. Instead, he started drinking a lot. He's drinking much more than he had his first year. His first year, apparently, he typically was like a beer guy. He gets back to school, now all of a sudden he's drinking liquor, but, like, he's drinking to get drunk. He starts taking this Vyvan stuff, which he had not done before, and he's not sleeping at all. Something seemed like it was troubling him.
B
Okay, so already, I already have so many questions. We know that he grew up in Illinois, Naperville. And then when he goes back in the summer, he's going back to where his parents moved to, which is in California, not his hometown. Do we know when he started drinking like this? Was it over the summer? Cause it seems like his roommates start noticing it almost immediately. Immediately he shows up to school and he's already been drinking. Typically you build up to it, right? So he hasn't gone for about three months.
C
The thing about these cases is, unfortunately, we don't have a trial, right? So we have less sort of solid reporting on that. But everything I've read and everything I've listened to, his friends at home notice nothing unusual about him at all. Their position was, same guy. His parents would say the same thing. Now his parents are going to narrate a lot of this. They're going to give us a lot of information. And at some point, I think it's worth questioning how reliable they are. We've talked about this before. Oftentimes parents, you know, they desperately want to find their son, but they're also very protective of their children, right? Parents are always very Protective of their children. They want them. They don't want people to think badly. Exactly. The public perception really matters.
B
And not that it matters, by the way, this is. So you see this permeate every aspect of missing person cases where the person, they don't know what happened to them. One of the big examples we've said before is when you provide a picture of your loved one who's lost, don't give like a pageant photo, like the most beautiful photo of your daughter or your son. I'm so glad that you want the world to see the most beautiful photo. But that's probably not what they look like day to day. And so that's not a super helpful photo. But you can imagine where that comes from. Well, I want the world to see the best of my children. So this is their beautiful prom photo, not their everyday at home in sweats photo.
C
And according to his parents, and maybe this is like part of that, they all said he was fine. So the sort of position of his parents and his friends. And I'll just say this, obviously it seems like his parents moved to California, more or less was at the same time as he began school. So I do wonder how many close friends he had in California. He graduated from high school in Illinois, so how close was he to people in California? So I don't know that his friends would know. Obviously he lived with his parents and they said he was fine. So let's take that for now with a grain of salt that he was fine. Because it's a great question by Alice because it's so important, you know when this started and what the trigger is for. It may tell us so much. We talked about this and look, we're going to mention Maura Murray a lot because there are a lot of similarities. We talked about this in the Maura Murray case. There are people in the Maura Murray case who were like, it doesn't matter what happened to her at UMass or what was going on, you know, in Amherst, it doesn't matter. All that matters is what happened after she got in that car wreck in New Hampshire. And I've never thought that was true. Because I think if you know why she left, why she started that drive, it would tell you a lot. I think the same thing. Here you have Bryce. What it was that triggered him could tell you a lot about why he disappeared. But what it seems like is assuming his parents are accurate or no. And that's the other thing. Parents don't always know what's going on with their kids. It's as if he left perfectly happy, gets to college, and then immediately is in this funk, which doesn't really make sense. Okay, that should be the first flag. Doesn't really make sense that everything was fine. Then he gets to college, where typically people are pretty happy, and all of a sudden he's in this funk. But he is. And for two weeks, he does really nothing but drink a lot, play video games, stay up all night, take Vyvans. He is just not himself. Classes begin August 27, 2013. And that night, according to his roommate, he stays up all night. He doesn't sleep. He's popping Vyvans. For some reason, I imagine Vyvans is like a nasal inhaler. Like, in my mind, that's what it is. I have no idea if it is or not.
B
It is not. It is a prescription drug, though. Like, I wouldn't prosecute cases that just had to do Vyvanse, but it usually was like a corollary drug. Like, they took Vyvanse and like all these other opioids, and in my cases, they. Because they were being abused along with a lot of other prescription drugs, it was just like another stimulant that would cause a lot of these behaviors. So on its own, it's not like someone popping a lot of oxycodone, but. But because it is a stimulant, especially when you're pairing it with a downer alcohol and then not sleeping, it can cause unintended consequences.
C
And I knew people in college who took Adderall to stay up and study similar. Right? Well, he's taking it apparently to stay up and play video games. That's what he's doing. And his roommates becoming concerned. And that concern is accelerated dramatically when he finds out his roommate's name, Sean. When Sean finds out that Bryce breaks up with his girlfriend Kim via text message, which was just not like Bryce. And first of all, not like Bryce number two. He and Kim had been very close. He sends Kim this message that she would be better off without him. And she's like, is this some sort of joke? Are you. Are you breaking up with me? And he's. And he basically says yes. So he breaks up with his girlfriend two weeks into getting back to school over text message. And for those of you cynics out there, no, there's no indication there was any other girl involved. He just is doing this very sort of spontaneous thing. And it's not the last spontaneous thing he will do.
B
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And of course it's also noteworthy what he says to her via text when normally he can just call her and talk to her. They are very close. But it's not that there's anything wrong with her or their relationship, but rather it's him. And we'll see this again why this is so concerning. He's saying she's better off without him, indicating that there's something wrong with him. So the next day, after he stayed up all night, broken up with Kim via text message. On August 28, 2013, Bryce texts his roommate Sean. I love you, bro. Seriously, you are the best person I've ever met. You saved my soul. Sean texts him back, I love you too, man. You have an amazing life full of love and blessings. Don't waste that. You have too many people who love you, Bryce. So obviously Sean is not treating this lightly. He's writing back honestly, like what a therapist would write back. Something that is like indicating, hey, something's wrong here. I want to remind you of all of your blessings. He's not saying, why are you being weird? He's already noticed things are weird and he is saying all the things. He's not leaving anything left unsaid. He's saying, you're wonderful, everything's great, there's a lot to live for. That's essentially what he's saying.
C
And I think this is really important because sometimes in the coverage of this, people will try and blow this off. It's somehow not significant. But no, I mean, read that response. These are 19 year old guys, okay? Not always the most mature people. But I mean, when I was in high school or college, something like this, it happened. You have the ability to be mature when it's important and when something's going on that you care about, you can get very serious and very adult very quickly and note his response. You know, it's not just wow, thank you or love you too, man. He immediately transitions into an almost like anti suicide type talk, right? This whole thing about you have all these blessings, don't waste it. You have too many people who love you. I mean, this is very much sort of the kind of thing you would say to someone who maybe is in the depths of some sort of depression. And I think this speaks to what he has seen over those last two weeks. Like I don't think you can just poo poo those last two weeks as typical maybe college behavior. Okay, fine, he's drinking more than he did before, he's taking more drugs than he did before, but whatever, that's just an acceleration. It doesn't mean anything significant. No, I think Sean is very intuitive here. He probably knows Bryce more than most people. And he sees in this not just bizarre self destructive behavior, but possibly self harming behavior and possibly some sort of depression. And I think his response tells us a lot about his mindset. And I think the thing he does next tells us even more because it's the kind of thing that you don't do unless it's really serious.
B
But before we talk about what he does there, I think these two texts also indicate that Bryce and Sean have spoken about more about what's going on in Bryce's mind. And I say this because Bryce says, you saved my soul. That won't come likely out of nowhere, right? It sounds like whether over the last two weeks, whether the night before or sometime before in the freshman year there was something, and I do actually wonder, based on these two texts, what freshman year actually was like. I know we're starting this whole premise off with freshman year was fantastic, but the you saved my soul seems to indicate. Usually that's pretty heavy. That could be hyperbole. But Bryce is in not a great place right now either. It seems to indicate to me longer conversations that have taken place over time, maybe longer than the past two weeks. He's saying it and he doesn't have to explain himself, right? Like, why? What are you talking about? My soul? Like, if I said that to Brett, apropos, nothing, I think he would be like, what are you talking about? Like, yes, we are really good friends, we've helped each other through a really dark times. But like, what exactly are you talking about? Like, is this for something specific? Whereas when we've gone through very difficult, like work situations, and if I texted something like that to Brett, like, hey, you've been there for me, you've really saved me, if we were in the midst of a conversation, Brett would know what I'm talking about. So this indicates to me that at least Bryce has maybe opened up a little bit to Sean and Sean has a little bit more insight and it's not Rosie. And it's also not short term because of the response then Sean gives which is you have too many people who love you. Bryce. That is not an automatic answer. And it doesn't.
What Bryce texted. You saved my soul. Seems like you saved my soul. All is good. No, no, no. It kind of takes a hard right into that, as you said, suicide prevention type of talk. But in a natural kind of conversation tone it. That answer doesn't follow what Bryce has said.
C
That's a really fascinating point you make there because all these cases always start with some baseline assumptions and those assumptions may be wrong. In this case is always reported is everything was rosy and perfect first year. But you're right. I mean nothing happened in the two weeks prior that I know of that would lead to the whole you saved my soul thing. You're right. That feels like that reflects back heavy. Yeah. Of something else that happened. So that's a really good point. There may be more baggage here than we're aware of. And I don't know Sean's talked about a lot of in this case. But I've never seen like an interview with Sean. I've never seen where Sean came forward. So that would be something if anybody knows of anything like that. A little bit more background on Bryce might be the kind of thing that would help once again shed light on what's happening. Because that's really perceptive, Alice. I didn't think about that. But you're right. It does not sound like the kind of thing you would just text without some basis.
B
And then what Sean does next, I know a lot of people talk about. But I think the reason he takes this next step isn't because of that one text from Bryce. It's a very concerning text. But I think it's the you saved my soul. There's some back history there. Sean knows to text back something that is also very serious. I think he has a lot more insight than just the night before or that text something maybe from knowing him for the last year that Sean knows this is beyond really your normal being down or normal sleepless night. Something is really wrong. And so a 19 year old boy does something that is basically like calling 91 1. He calls Bryce's mom, Karen Lespisa to tell her, hey, Bryce is acting really strangely. He tells her about the last evening's events, the staying up all night, the playing video games, breaking up with Kim by text message. And he notes that there's really been a shift in Bryce's behavior se feels a lot of responsibility because he's right there with him. So he calls Karen and I say that's like calling 91 1, certainly for like a 19 year old. He doesn't know no Karen because they're not childhood friends. But he's asking for help from someone who has authority over Bryce. Now, Sean wasn't sure what was causing this troubling shift in Bryce's personality, but it was significant enough to warrant a call to Bryce's mom. And again, I know that's what we always hear. And he may not know exactly what caused the shift, but I think he has a history there with him that he knows this is incredibly troubling. Bryce has also reportedly been drinking heavily over these past few weeks. He's been giving away his personal possessions, including his Xbox, which obviously we know he cares about because he stays up playing video games and he gives away a pair of diamond earrings that he got from his mom. Obviously these are concerning behaviors because people tend to give away their things of value if they are planning to not be around much longer to use these things.
C
Okay, here's where the uncomfortable criticism starts, because I know this is going to upset some people, but a lot of you out there have children. Some of you have children in college, some of you have children high school, some of you have young children. You're just trying to imagine what you would do in this situation. And it's always easy to look back and second guess people. It's always easy to have hindsight. It's always easy to say, well, I would have done this if. I mean, I'm certainly going forward after this case. If my child's roommate called me and said, hey, really weird things are going on with your son. He's not in his right mind. He gave away the earrings that you gave to him that he loved, that meant so much to him. You gave him to Sean, as a matter of fact, gave him his Xbox too. He's giving his stuff away. He just broke up with his girlfriend. He just texted me that I saved his soul. I'm really concerned. If it were me, I think I would be on the road immediately. I would be like, Sean, I will see you in seven hours. And I would be on the road heading to the school. And that doesn't happen. And you may think, wow, this is really early to start criticizing the parents, what they do. But just know this is not the last strange thing that's going to happen. And at no point does that happen. At no point do the parents Say we're on our way. And that as I read this and as I read more and more of it, was something that became stranger and stranger to me as I worked through this timeline.
B
So agree that on its face, that seems like a very strange response. And I kept thinking that because like you said, this is going to come up multiple times where you're like, why are the parents not jumping in their car, speeding towards Bryce? Bryce is clearly not okay. And then this is also informed by being a parent. Unless there's more to this story that we don't know that have to do with his parents, I'm not blaming them. I'm simply saying there was an event this weekend where my 8 year old was very, very, very upset with me because of news. I told him, I said that he had to change schools and it made him so upset. And he was heaving, crying, never seen him that upset before. And I tried to go to him and it just made him fly into a fury, like absolute fury. He was like going to break the punch a hole in the wall. And so I was like, I really want to be with him right now, but I recognize that I am making it worse because I was the bearer of those news. And so I told him, I'm not going to come. Like I'm going to let you cry. I'm not going to come. And I walked away from his room, even though I really wanted to be there with him. And by all accounts, he probably needed someone there. But I recognized in that specific moment I was going to make it worse. Until he got to a calmer place. That was a very rosy picture of the parents. Now think about if it were another situation, if it were not just because the parent is trying to do something good, but if the angst or whatever is happening existentially for Bryce is stemming from his parents. And his parents either know that they will make it worse, or they know the reason for the shift and either they can't change it or it's because of a decision they've made that they're not going to go back on. Something like that. There's just, there is something more here that we may not know and it may just be that they don't care. But by all accounts, they seem like parents who care a lot. He's their only child. They move across the country after he goes to college. They didn't move to the other coast, I'll know that. So they didn't try to go farther away. So a lot of unknowns. But I will give kind of the 180 perspective of what Brett just said, too. And neither could be right. But this shows you how in these types of stories, the narrator can affect the story so much. Because this is continues to be a question mark, I think it's worth viewing all the possibilities on the spectrum to try and get closer to the truth.
C
Well, let me just say I don't think it's that the parents don't care about him. I think there's something else going on, right? Which I think you put your finger on, and we're going to see something that's about to happen that I think helps reinforce that there's something weird here. And let me say this about this case. One of the reasons we wanted to do this case is because everyone does this case. Since a big case, everybody gotten tons of requests for this. But the other reason I want to do it is because I feel like there is this weirdness in this case that no one talks about, about the parents. And I'll tell you, I was watching, as you guys know, when we do cases, we do research on them. We read everything, listen to tons of stuff. We put a ton of time into researching these cases. I mean, frankly, sometimes we mess things up because we've heard so much from so many different people that it gets, like, around our head. But I was watching Mr. Ballin's presentation of this case. Love, Mr. Ballin. If you haven't listened to Mr. Ballin, you should. I'm watching it. My wife's like, doing one of the 50, 000 things that she does. She's just in the room with me. She's not watching it. She's not paying attention, as far as I know. She's like completely in her own world. And then all of a sudden, like, halfway through, she's like, why don't they just get in their car and drive down there? And I was like, sort of shot like, yo, you're listening to this. But. But I thought, yeah. And she's. She's not like a true crime person. She didn't care about this. But it was just one of those things.
B
So obvious.
C
Yeah, it was so obvious. Like, go down there, right? And you're gonna see. She gets this call from Sean, who's the friend, right? And then later that night, she gets a call from Bryce because he's at his ex girlfriend's house. He's at Kim's house. He's in Chico, California, which is about 90 miles away from his apartment. Because remember, she doesn't go to school. He goes to and basically, he tells his mom that they've had this disagreement and that Kim is really worried about him. And Kim's, like, on the phone with the mom, and Bryce is on the phone with the mom. It's like the phone is going back and forth between Bryce and Kim. And Kim tells her that Bryce has been acting really strange and that she didn't think he should be driving. She was worried about him driving.
B
So really quick. I know. I was just trying to give all the benefit of the doubt. Now we have the two closest people, both emotionally and physically, to their son, saying, something's not right. And now it's getting to, like, an emergent situation where his girlfriend's like, he can't drive. He should not be driving. And she's so concerned. She's talking over him onto the phone.
C
And she was so worried about him driving that she's taken his keys away from him.
B
Him.
C
And that's actually what ended up the call to his mom. And I think what happened is Kim took the keys and was like, I'm not giving you these keys back. You need to call your mom. And there's going to be multiple times throughout this story where third parties tell him, you need to call your parents. And this is another one. So Kim is saying, call your mom. Right.
B
That also, by the way, is something that I think is noteworthy in this story. This is a guy at college, seven hours from where his parents live. I'm not saying that you're not close to your parents at 19 years old, but I will say, when I was in school, in college and law school, wherever I went to schools that were very far from where my parents lived, the first person that someone would say call would be, like, a best friend, but typically not a parent. And if we entered the parent, there's two things. It could be that this is such a large problem. This is not your typical problem. And you really need to invoke, like, the largest authority that you can think of, which is usually maybe someone's parent who maybe is paying the bills. Another thing may be maybe they know more about what's going on between Bryce and his mom. You can imagine, and I don't know this is the case, but sometimes if I'm having, you know, a disagreement with someone, you need to call that person. There's just more to the story than we actually know right now. I don't have any basis for these different points of reference, but I do note that the two closest people to him are calling his mom or saying, you need to call Your mom.
C
So at this point, Bryce and his mom talk, and according to his mom, she does something which is frankly, out of step with everything else that's going to happen in this story from this point forward. She offers to come down there, and he tells her, no, there's no need. I'm fine. I don't think this happened. Let's put my cards on the table. I don't think she offered that. I just don't think it happened. I think possibly after everything else happened, she said that maybe she even remembers that. But it's just. It's not in keeping with anything else. We're going to see that she was ready to come down there. And frankly, Bryce saying, oh, no, I'm fine. After his. The two closest people. I don't think that would have stopped her from coming if she was that concerned. So to me, I don't think that.
B
Happened the next day. This seems super emergency. Like, if she's saying, should I come the next day? Like, why not that night? Why not right now? Like, this sounds like a real problem.
C
Yeah. And honestly, the bad decisions get even worse. Apparently, Bryce told her he did want to talk to her. He had some things he wanted to discuss with her, but he didn't really go into that any further. And apparently she did not press him. But whatever they talked about at this point, despite Kim calling and despite Sean calling, Karen thinks he's fine. So she gets on the phone with Kim and she says, he's fine, give him back his keys so he can drive home. And so Kim does that. She gives him his keys, and he leaves.
B
I don't know what that conversation was, but what was Kim to do but to give the keys back when the only thing, like holding, you know, the leverage, was to call your mom to keep the keys away from him?
C
The thing I'll say about Bryce, we talk about when every time somebody disappears, they light up the room or whatever. Bryce apparently just. He inspired some fierce loyalty from people who cared about him. So Sean's going all out. He broke up with Kim by a text message. Kim would have had every reason to be angry at him, to be like, get out. Why are you even here? Get away from me. I don't want to talk to you. I'm sick of you. But she doesn't do that. She takes his keys, she's calling his mom, all this other stuff. She doesn't want to give him his keys back. She only does it when mom tells her to. And we're going to see people later on who Bryce Meets for much lesser amount of time who go out of their way to try and help him. And yet we just see this where these opportunities to intervene are lost.
B
So Karen, Bryce's mom says give him his keys back. And so Kim gives the keys back to Bryce. At 11:30, Bryce leaves Kim's house in Chico, California to go back to his apartment in Rockland, California, 90 miles away. Already going to be a very late night drive. So this is going into the next morning, past midnight, August 29th. But he's just driving. At 1am 90 minutes after he left Kim's house. That may be enough time for him to be almost back to his apartment. He actually calls his mom again. They don't discuss anything particularly notable. He was just calling to check in. Okay, this is very interesting because it's 1am calling and the 11:30 call was actually pretty heated. It was a fight between whether he was well enough to drive. And so the one o' clock check in, it may be as simple as mom was like, when you get on the road, make sure you're okay. Call me. But I think that itself is notable that there's a 1am call after an 11:30 call where his ex girlfriend is trying to wrestle the keys away from him. So to say that this is not a notable call I think is again, kind of that narrative saying nothing, no big deal. I think the fact There is a 1am call at all is notable because of all the preceding events and not just because in hindsight, I think things have been heated for the past 90 minutes. Now, Karen, because it's been about 90 minutes, assumed that at this point Bryce is back in his apartment, but later his phone pings and would prove that he was actually heading south past his apartment and towards the mountains. This I think is also interesting because I guess the assumption makes sense based on the timeline. But if I'm talking to someone who's just been very heated, was worried about them driving, I guess maybe Karen wasn't worried about him driving, but at least the person who was with him. Kim was worried about Bryce driving. I wouldn't assume that he's back at his apartment. I would say so you made it okay. You back home? Everything good? At least from what I've read about this call. He told her he was at the apartment. It was just assumed. Again, if you know someone well enough, maybe you don't need to ask the direct questions. But the 1am call because of the 11:30 fight between Kim and Bryce, I think warranted more than just an assumption. So I think it's curious that it was just an assumption and clearly a wrong assumption because Bryce was not home, he was going in the opposite direction.
C
So this is a really good point because this phone call is always glossed over because according to Karen, nothing significant was discussed. So one of two things is true. Either nothing significant was discussed, he seemed like he was fine. She thought he was going to his apartment. That's what he led her to believe. Or that's not true. And this phone call is very different from the way it's described to us. And what I want you to think about is which one of those is most likely true, given what we're going to see after this and the reaction from Bryce's parents to these events.
B
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So it's 1am we now know from the phone pings not because he told anyone that he is driving south towards the mountains at 11am So 10 hours later, Karen and Mike Bryce's parents receive a voicemail from their insurance company informing them that the Toyota Highlander that Bryce drives called for roadside assistance. So they didn't hear from Bryce. They didn't hear from anyone else. They actually hear from insurance about roadside assistance. Now, the parents are now concerned about Bryce. When they can't get in contact with him, they called his roommate, Sean. Sean told them that Bryce hadn't gotten back to the apartment. He started driving almost 12 hours earlier and he had called his mom at 1am she had assumed he was back at the apartment. So this is very concerning. Now. Sean says, look, he never came back to the apartment. He's still not here. It's 11am Now. Now, at this point, the parents decide to check their credit card transactions to see if Bryce had made any charges to see what was going on. They saw that there was a charge from Castro Tire and Truck in Button Willow, California.
C
Okay, so think back to that 1am call. If the 1am call went the way Karen says it went, then at this point, she knows that Bryce was lying to her. Her right. Bryce wasn't fine. He wasn't back at the apartment. Everything wasn't cool. He had been driving much longer than they thought he had. He never went back to the apartment. And now they're having this whole roadside assistant thing. Button Willow is a small town off of Interstate 5. It's only a few hours from the Les Pisa family home in Laguna Niguel. So apparently he is heading in their general direction. And his parents think, well, maybe he's headed this way. They call Castro Tire, which was the tire shop in Button Willow, to see if anybody remembers helping Bryce. And there's a representative there, Christian. And look, we got so many heroes in this case. I mean, Sean's the friend you want to have. Kim's the girlfriend you want to break up with by text because she still apparently cares enough about you to try and like get you help. Then we got Christian, who's just some random dude who tells Karen that Bryce ran out of gas. Yes. Okay. Not only is he driving in the middle of the night, after he's had this interaction with Kim, he's had this interaction with Sean, he's doing all this stuff he shouldn't do, but he's so pre possessed with whatever else is going on that he runs out of gas while driving down the road. So Christian brings him 3 gallons of gas at around 9am and Christian doesn't stop there. Christian's like, I will go back to where I saw him and see if he is still there. So that's what he tells mom he's going to do. And at 12 o'. Clock. So an hour later he drives down there, he gets there and shockingly, it's been three hours since Christian last dropped off the gas.
B
Can we also, I know we're taking a very long time to go through this, but is it weird to you that the first place they look is the credit card? As if they know to check the credit card as opposed to anything Else, if I hear that insurance is being called for roadside assistance for my child, I immediately think, holy crap, there's been an accident. Something is wrong. I call the police department. I start calling around to be like, what's going on? He's not answering his phone. Roadside assistance. What's happening?
C
Well, do we know that they called his phone?
B
No, we don't know that he called his phone. In fact, and you're right, there were.
C
Cell phones in 2013.
B
Absolutely, there were cell phones. But it is interesting. Again, I'm not blaming them. I'm saying there's more to the story. Because what they did probably make sense if we knew more of the story where the first thing that happens. Because I will say the first thing when I hear insurance, roadside assistance is my biggest fear. There's been an accident. Or if there was a flat tire. You're in the middle of nowhere. Are you okay? Like, I've had a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. I immediately called my husband, and I'm like, oh, I'm going to get murdered out here. Right? That's my. I was fine physically, but I was afraid because I'm in the middle of nowhere with no one to help me. But where they go is the transactions, which is smart. That's exactly what you do as an investigator to try and figure out someone, where someone is. But again, that's trying to trace where someone is rather than the transaction doesn't tell you if he's okay. The fact that there is a transaction may indicate that they're alive and well. But that's a strange place to go look as a parent. That's the first place I'd go look as an investigator if I'm trying to find someone's location. But it doesn't answer the question of if they're okay.
C
No, I think you're right. I mean, I think Alice is hammering these sort of uncomfortable truth in this case. There's more going on here that we don't know. There is something going on in this case that we don't know know. There is a history we are unaware of. There are facts we don't know about. That is why this is a mystery. I mean, it would be a mystery if we knew those facts. Because the fact of the matter is, Bryce disappears at the end of this. But this is so bizarre. This is so weird. This is not a typical disappearance. And Bryce is not acting rationally. And frankly, his parents are not acting rationally, in my view. And it's only gonna get worse. So three hours have Passed. Christian drives out to where he last saw Bryce, and he's still sitting there. Bryce is sitting in his car.
B
Alive, by the way. I. I'm like, I'm sorry, but, like, he's alive and fine. He's just literally sitting there. Because when I'm like, the first time I'm reading this case, I'm like, did he find, like, Bryce not, well, not conscious, asleep, Overdosed. Right. Like, these are the questions in my mind when I think about him driving up three hours later with three gallons of gas, so able to move. My initial thought is, oh, my goodness, he found Bryce. But Bryce wasn't well. But, no, Bryce was fine.
C
Yeah, he's just sitting there. And I can only imagine what's going through Christian's mind. Christian's like, the heck? Dials the phone, calls Karen, and it's like, here you go. And hands the phone to Bryce. And according to Karen, Bryce is like, no, I'm fine, mom.
B
I'm good.
C
Nothing's wrong. And so Karen's like, well, you should get some gas and come home.
B
And Bryce is like, sure.
C
From Karen's like, well, you're about three hours away. You'll be home in three hours. And when I hear this story, I'm just like, what in the world is going on here?
B
12 hours have passed, and he's not at home or his apartment. Things are not well. And he's been sitting in his car, motionless for three hours, not getting gas. Like, he only has three gallons in his tank. You usually get gas once you've run out of gas, drive somewhere and fill up the rest of your tank. He didn't get food. This is like, he's past breakfast and lunch. He didn't drive somewhere to get food, coffee, nothing. And his parents are like, you good? We're good.
C
I mean, look, when Sean called mom, probably it would have been an overreaction to head down there at that point when Kim calls mom. Maybe it's an overreaction at that point when you hear that the phone call you had with him is a lie. Because actually, you're hearing from Button Willow that he's had some sort of car trouble. I don't know. Then you find out he ran out of gas. Then you find out that where he ran out of gas, he's still sitting three hours later. If it's me, I would be on the phone. Christian. I'd say, christian, I'll give you a thousand dollars. Stay exactly where you are. Do not leave him. I will be there in three hours. Don't Go anywhere.
B
And I'm calling the cops too, for like a wellness check, right? Like, because I trust Christian, because Christian's, you know, like employee of the year over here. But also I'm calling in backup because something is seriously wrong. He's sitting on the side of the road staring straight ahead. Like if I drove by, I'd be a little bothered thinking that's not normal. Like what's going on with that guy over there.
C
And just think about some of the other cases we've had. Like in Maurice case, as soon as it was found out she had disappeared. Her dad was on the road heading there immediately. And Jason Landry, he has his car wreck. And the cops like, oh, it's no big deal. It's probably just a dui. Walk off, he'll be fine. His dad is down there before the sun comes up, up finds the bag and like everything else, I mean, it's just on it immediately. The case that's escaping me, the young man in Minnesota who gets in a car wreck, it's not. He didn't really get a car wreck. He kind of ran off the road and he's walking, he's trying to walk to the nearest place. His parents are coming out there immediately to try and meet him in the middle of the night. And Brandon Swanson, thank you so much coffee. I mean, there's just all these cases and once again, it's uncomfortable to talk about this because his parents obviously love their son and have lost their son. And you don't want to be critical of them, but the behavior that you see reflects something. It reflects something about this case and it reflects something about what was going on in the background of this case. And at this point, the fact that with everything we've seen, the response of the parents is like, well, we'll see you in three hours. To me, given that, by the way, if he had left when he got gas, he would be there. He would already be at their parents house. But instead he's been sitting there on the side of the road for three hours.
B
And the frustrating thing, over and over we hear. Of course, we don't have transcripts of these phone calls, but there is a running theme of what he says repeatedly. I'm okay, but he's the one saying it. No one around him is saying he's okay. In fact, everyone around him, including Christian, who doesn't know him, recognizes that this guy, this boy essentially is 19, is not okay. It's like when you go to the error, like they ask you your pain level, but they're also assessing everything. They're not just going to treat you for a broken bone by asking you if you're okay, right? They're going to take the X ray, they're going to take the mri and the doctor is going to come in and make sure everything's okay. Even if you're like, I'm okay, I'm okay. And they're like, no, no, your bone's broken. Because we've done the assessment, it's clear you're not okay, so we're going to treat you that way. They don't diagnose you based on what you say and repeatedly. The reason he's allowed to just go on despite everyone around him, those who know him very well, those who've met him for two minutes say, something's wrong, you're not okay. But by him saying the magic words, I'm okay, he's allowed to just carry on. When by carrying on is going to lead obviously to devastation.
C
And I'll just say, I think Christian would have stayed. I think he probably wouldn't even had to pay anything to Christian.
B
He drove back out after three hours, right? I can imagine any other attendant just being like, like, that was three hours ago. I was not back there. And I have to man this whole store by myself. I'm not going to go out there like, she's a good guy.
C
If you're in Button Willow or environs and you have car trouble, look up Christian. Seriously, go to Castro Tire because that's where you need to go. Okay? We've said a lot about this case already. We got a lot more to say. There are stranger things that are going to happen. This is not going to be the last time that people encounter Bryce. It's not gonna be the last time Christian encounters Bryce.
B
That's crazy.
C
It's crazy. But what we're going to see is this endless drive of Bryce as he. He is now three hours away from his parents house. Many, many, many more hours are going to pass and he is not going to. To reach home. Like I said, this is going to take us a couple episodes because I'm sorry, all of this, these are things that I feel like need to be addressed in this case that just started. And we're going to continue to do so and talk through the rest of this timeline and what may or may not have happened in this case. Alice, do you have time for questions or.
B
We should definitely do a question.
C
Okay, let's do a question. All right. And this is a, you know, it's funny when, when we set up to do this case, I did not think it would be as infuriating as it is. But this is an infuriating.
B
Here's a great example of how Brett and I research cases independently and don't talk about them before talking, but. So we have not planned any of this. I did not know how Brett felt about the parents reaction at all. This was not. This is not part of our outline, let's put it that way. Yeah, but we're both picking up on the same thing.
C
Yeah. I mean, honestly, I would like to think pretty much anyone who looked at this case would think about this, but.
B
But I didn't hear it anywhere.
C
I think there are a lot of people out there who are hesitant to appear to be criticizing victims families at all. And I totally get that. And I think generally speaking, you should not criticize the victim's family unless you have like a really good reason. I don't think you should shy away from it if it's part of the story. I mean, if part of the story is the relationship with the family, the things that are going on in the background, then I think that's something that you have to be willing to discuss or you're not doing the story justice. Like you're sugarcoating things to not be controversial or to not hurt people's feelings. But at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is Bryce and where Bryce is.
B
And here's another thing. By not addressing or at least asking questions because we don't have all the answers, you turn this into a mysterious case for the wrong reasons. It's an incredibly mysterious case, but I think sometimes for reasons that are not going to lead to the answers, I don't have the answers, but I think in asking questions and looking at it without kind of a preconceived notion of where this leads, those questions will get closer to the truth. But yeah, this is a question.
C
What was that?
B
I said let's answer a question. Let's answer some questions that we might know the answers to. Unlike this case.
C
Okay, this is from Lydia and Lydia says, I'm an Irish listener and here if we want to change our constitution, a bill is proposed in parliament and then must go to public referendum, if passed, is then signed into law by our president. My understanding, in the US you don't have to have a referendum and changes are voted on by both houses and then ratified by state legislatures without ever going before the people. When we have a referendum, everyone in Ireland is given the opportunity to hear the information about the changes through literature, media, advertising, etc. What are your thoughts on the Irish process versus the US process? Is that Article 5? Is Article 5 the amendment thing?
B
I can't remember.
But you're right on the.
C
Yes.
B
Wow, look at you.
C
Yeah.
B
All right. You get to answer it if you remember. It's Article five.
C
All right, so here's the thing, Lydia, and this is not meant as an insult, because it's definitely not an insult. But let's be clear. Ireland is the size of like, New Jersey, Mississippi, I don't know. It's. It's a small country. You know, it has a few million people. And that's great. Right. The United States was always imagined to be this, what was going to be a massive country made up of states. And they were states in the way that you think of as like a nation state. Right. So the initial idea was all these independent governments are going to come together under one sort of overarching government to tie us all together. And so our initial Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, was actually very loose, and it was too loose and it didn't work. And frankly, we all need to be separate if that's what we're going to do. So it was really, are we going to be separate? Just separate nations, kind of like Europe. I mean, most of the states are about the size of European states. Or are we going to be this united country? When the decision was made to be a united country, there was a lot of respect given to the fact that the states were joining. And there was a lot of legitimate concern about democracy and pure democracy. The founders were very much believers and sort of the Platonic idea that pure democracy, that democracies are bad, that they tend to collapse into dictatorships, and there's all sorts of problems with democracy. So they're trying in designing the government to tamp down the excesses of democracy as well. So that's why we're a democratic republic. So the states all maintained a lot of control at the time. Senators, for instance, were not elected by the people. They were selected by the legislators because they represented the states. They did not represent the people. The states agreed to enter into the Constitution and to bind themselves together. So the idea was, if you're going to amend the Constitution, the states that agreed to it should be the ones who make that decision. They should be voting through the legislature to decide. And so you have the democratic aspect. It's just filtered through elections to select the legislature, and then the states themselves make the decision. That's why it is the way it is. Is that necessarily better than the referendum system? I'm not saying it is, but it is sort of the uniquely American way that reflects the history of our nation coming together.
B
Well, such a good history lesson. Thank you.
C
I'm into this stuff.
B
We just need to set it to a beat. And you could have your own Broadway musical.
C
Ah, there you go.
B
How the referendum works. Pure democracy. Dictatorship. There you go.
C
Or it could be like the I'm just a bill.
B
That was way better than how a bill becomes a law.
C
Yeah, so there you go. So, Lydia, let me know what you think.
B
It is actually surprising how many Americans don't realize that we're not a pure democracy. Democracy either.
C
Yeah. And look, the American system is very different from basically every other system in the world.
B
And that's what it was meant to be. Right. Every like civilization had collapsed in the eyes of those who wanted to build a new country. And they were trying to start something completely anew that would hopefully endure through the ages and wouldn't just be a generation success. It was supposed to last for all ages and be like the last beacon of hope because there were no more. Like there was no more west to go. This was the last opportunity. And so they were trying to dream up something that could withstand the test of time.
C
Yeah. I mean, honestly, the French Revolution in some ways was more influential than the American Revolution. I don't know if that was necessarily a positive given how the French Revolution went. It made everybody's flags boring because everybody just based their flags on France's. The track color.
B
It's like they don't look as good as your flag in the wood.
C
That's true. That was much better. Yeah. Anyway, so that's the answer to that question. Okay, we got a lot more to talk about about Bryce La Spiza. Let us know your thoughts, your complaints, your concerns. You just email us Prosecutor pod@gmail.com at Prosecutor Spot for all your social media. If you would like to leave a question like Lydia, if you leave a five star review on either the prosecutors or the prosecutors legal briefs, we will answer them eventually. If you want to see us record these episodes, join Patreon for as little as $3 a month. Somebody left Patreon because we started doing the vertical one. Now we're back side by side. So maybe they'll.
B
Did they say that's why they left?
C
They literally said that they joined Patreon to watch and they don't like the vertical. And I was like, wow, okay.
B
My goodness. Okay. Well, it truly shows you cannot please everyone.
C
They've now set it up where it records in both, so it's fine anyways. Or if you don't want to see our beautiful faces, but you do want to hear these episodes early and ad free. Once again, Patreon for only $3 a month. All right, Alice, before we sign off for today, do you have any other thoughts?
B
I was pretty unfiltered today, so I hope I don't get myself in trouble. Or you.
C
You know what? That's how we roll.
B
But I'm here. I'm not afraid. I. I'm here to comment and ask questions where I see there are questions to be asked. I don't have the answers, but I have lots of questions.
C
That's true. I'm. I'm a much better question asker than I am a question answer. All right, guys, we'll be back next week with more on this case. But until then, I'm Brett.
B
And I'm Alice.
C
And we are the prosecutors.
I.
B
So I came into my recording studio, AKA just another closet in my house today, and I found a. A four foot tall dinosaur. I don't even know which one. Some sort of raptor, a. A Native American costume with the headdress. A one glove. One singular glove. If it does not fit, you must acquit. And a Lego bazooka.
C
Oh, wow. Some sort of bizarre cosplay going on.
B
I like came in here and I was like.
Sam.
Oh, and a sleeping bag.
C
And my kids love to get their sleeping bags out. Just sleep.
B
And something from your child's birthday party. Oh, a. Oh, yeah, a fan.
C
Fans are important.
B
So anyways, it's a. It's a whole party up in here.
C
Here.
A
This November action is free on Pluto tv.
C
Go on the run with Jack Reacher. Every suspect was a train killer. Then buckle up for drive.
A
World War Z.
C
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B
Damn, I hate to fly.
C
Launch into sci fi adventure with the fifth element and laugh through the mayhem in Tropic Thunder. What is going on here? All the thrills all for free. Pluto TV stream now pay never.
In this episode, Brett and Alice dive deep into one of the most confounding cold case disappearances of recent years: the 2013 vanishing of college student Bryce Laspisa. Often called “the male Maura Murray,” Bryce’s case is a swirling mystery of mental health struggles, erratic behaviors, and interactions that left friends and family deeply concerned. Alice and Brett, bringing their prosecutor’s lens, methodically break down the tangled timeline and raise probing questions about events leading up to Bryce’s disappearance and the actions and motivations of those close to him. This is part one of a two-part examination.
[07:37] Brett:
“By all accounts, everything is fine. No cause for concern whatsoever. But weirdly, things began to shift almost immediately when Bryce returned to school in August of 2013.” — Brett [09:54]
[10:17] Alice:
“He was staying up all night, which is not surprising when he’s using a stimulant recreationally.…All of this combined prompted Sean to call Bryce’s mom.” — Alice [10:19]
“I love you, bro. Seriously, you are the best person I’ve ever met. You saved my soul.”
Sean replies:
“I love you too, man. You have an amazing life full of love and blessings. Don’t waste that. You have too many people who love you, Bryce.” [24:32]
[25:41] Alice and Brett's Analysis:
“If my child’s roommate called me...I would be on the road immediately. I would be like, Sean, I will see you in seven hours.” — Brett [32:18]
“I will give kind of the 180 perspective...Unless there’s more to this story...(sometimes) the angst or whatever is happening is stemming from his parents.” — Alice [33:56]
“She (Kim) was so worried about him driving that she’s taken his keys away from him.” — Brett [39:00]
“If the 1am call went the way Karen says it went, then at this point, she knows that Bryce was lying to her. Bryce wasn’t fine.” — Brett [51:30]
“Three hours have passed. Christian drives out to where he last saw Bryce, and he’s still sitting there. Bryce is sitting in his car.” — Brett [55:08]
Both Brett and Alice repeatedly return to the incongruity between the urgent warning signs and the parents’ lack of physical mobilization.
“When Sean called mom, probably it would have been an overreaction to head down there at that point...when you hear...he’s still sitting on the side of the road for three hours...I would be on the phone; Christian, I’ll give you a thousand dollars, stay exactly where you are.” — Brett [57:31]
“I think there are a lot of people out there who are hesitant to appear to be criticizing victims’ families at all...But if part of the story is the relationship with the family...you have to be willing to discuss or you’re not doing the story justice.” — Brett [63:32]
On Human Mystery:
“Aren’t we just all aimlessly wandering, trying to find our purpose in this life? And so is Bryce really lost or are we all lost?”
— Alice [02:32]
On Parental Inaction:
“I don’t think you should shy away from [questioning families] if it’s part of the story. If part of the story is the relationship with the family, the things going on in the background, then I think that’s something you have to be willing to discuss or you’re not doing the story justice.”
— Brett [63:32]
On Bizarre Timeline:
“12 hours have passed, and he’s not at home or his apartment. Things are not well.”
— Alice [57:02]