The Skeleton Key Chronicles

18 hours ago

Nearly six years after 21-year-old Jason Landry vanished on his way home for Christmas, his remains have been found only a few miles from where his car was discovered on a rural Texas road.

And if you don’t remember Jason’s case, this one has puzzled people since the night he went missing.
Jason was a student at Texas State University in San Marcos. On the night of December 13th, 2020, he packed up and started the roughly three-hour drive home to Missouri City, outside Houston, where his family was expecting him for Christmas break, but Jason never arrived.

Sometime after midnight, his Nissan Altima left Salt Flat Road near Luling, about 30 miles southeast of Austin. This wasn’t an interstate or a busy road through town. Salt Flat Road runs through rural Caldwell County, surrounded by fields, brush and large stretches of open land, and when Jason’s car was discovered, he wasn’t there.

His cell phone, wallet, backpack, clothing and other belongings were found in and around the area. Investigators believed Jason had survived whatever happened on the road, gotten out of the car and continued on foot into a cold December night, which left search teams trying to figure out where he could possibly have gone from there.

Over the years, they searched the countryside surrounding Salt Flat Road using dogs, drones, helicopters, infrared technology and repeated searches on foot. Investigators examined his phone and digital information, followed tips and even had oil tanks in the area checked.

The Texas Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit joined the investigation in 2022. The following year, specialists in digital forensics, geospatial science, data mapping and criminal intelligence were brought together with other investigators to go back through the case and see whether anything had been missed, but Jason still wasn’t found.

Then, on September 8th, 2026, a local resident came across skeletal remains east of Salt Flat Road, between Soda Springs and Biggs Road. It was close to where Jason had vanished nearly six years earlier and, according to current reporting, just outside the established area that had previously been searched.

DNA testing was needed to know whether the remains belonged to him, and earlier today, the Texas Attorney General’s Office announced that testing through the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification had confirmed they did. After nearly six years, Jason had finally been found.

And after everything that went into looking for him, the location is difficult to get past. Current reports differ slightly on the measurement, but Jason was only about three-and-a-half to five miles from where his car had been discovered in 2020. After years of searches involving dogs, aircraft, technology, volunteers and investigators, he had remained in the same general area all along.

There are still questions about what happened during those final hours. Officials say the condition of Jason’s remains has not provided additional information about his cause or manner of death, and investigators say they have found no indication of foul play.

His family may never have every answer about what happened after Jason left that road in December 2020, but after nearly six years of searching, they finally know where he is and that he's coming home.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

22 hours ago

Five weeks have gone by since 36-year-old Courtney Reese was dropped off at a laundromat in Donelson, Tennessee, and now the private investigators hired by her family say they have reason to believe she may still be alive and somewhere in the Nashville area.

Courtney’s uncle dropped her off at a laundromat near Lebanon Pike and McGavock Pike at around 1 p.m. on August 18th. She planned to do a small load of laundry while waiting for a friend to get off work. Courtney did her laundry, even changing from the black T-shirt she arrived in into a red shirt, and stayed in the area for several hours.

At 5:52 that evening, Courtney texted her mother, Bonnie Oliver, asking if someone could pick her up from the laundromat. Her mother wasn’t able to get her at the time, and that would be the last communication Courtney’s family received from her. Surveillance footage later captured Courtney walking away from the laundromat alone in the direction of a nearby Domino’s. She was alone and on foot, and at one point she was seen using her phone. And that’s where the timeline becomes a little less clear.

Courtney had apparently planned to meet up with a friend after he got off work, but according to her family, they didn’t know who he was. Her friend Ashlee Torbett has also said Courtney wouldn’t tell anyone who she was meeting. By 5:52 that evening, though, Courtney was texting her mother asking for a ride from the laundromat, so whatever she originally had planned for that afternoon doesn’t appear to have gone the way she expected.

Her family has spent the weeks since searching, following tips and trying to piece together where Courtney went after she was captured on camera. Courtney had also recently become a mother. Her son was born in May, just a few months before she went missing, and her sister Chasity DeSimone is now caring for him.

This week, Chasity announced that the family has hired Covert Results Private Investigators to help with the search. According to WKRN, the investigators now believe Courtney could be alive and somewhere in the Nashville area. Chasity was careful not to present that as confirmed. She said they do not have proof yet, but people from multiple places have contacted the family believing they have seen Courtney in a particular area. Metro Nashville Police are still following leads as well and said that, at this point, detectives do not believe anything nefarious surrounded Courtney’s disappearance.

There is still a lot that isn’t clear about what Courtney intended to do that afternoon, particularly after she began asking her family for a ride home. Five weeks later, though, her family finally has something they’ve been hoping for, a reason to believe Courtney may still be okay.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

1 day ago

It has been just over a week since 24-year-old Vanessa Bautista and 23-year-old Alexa Navarro headed out to celebrate a birthday, and there are still some unanswered questions about how their night ended with a Jeep at the bottom of the St. Joseph River.

The two South Bend mothers were found inside Vanessa’s gray Jeep Grand Cherokee in Niles, Michigan, on September 15th, two days after their families realized something was wrong. Police believe the Jeep left the road at around 4 a.m. that Sunday and traveled roughly 60 to 70 feet down a steep embankment toward the river.

But back up about half an hour, because that’s where things get a little less clear. Vanessa and Alexa had spent Saturday night celebrating Vanessa’s birthday at The Arena Nightclub in Elkhart. Between them, the two young moms had three little kids, and this was supposed to be a girls’ night out and a little R&R. After dropping a friend off in South Bend at around 3:30 Sunday morning, they said they were going to grab something to eat. The last known contact came at about 3:41 a.m.

When neither woman came home, their families started trying to piece together where they had gone. One of the few clues came from Vanessa’s phone, which had placed her in Niles, across the Michigan state line. That didn’t immediately make sense to the people looking for them. Alexa’s family said she knew only one person in Niles, and they weren’t sure what would have brought the women there that morning.

The search was further complicated by the fact that Vanessa and Alexa lived in South Bend, had spent the evening in Elkhart, and now the phone was pointing to Niles. Their families said they found themselves going back and forth between police departments in three cities and two states, still trying to determine which agency was actually in charge of the search.

Two days later, the search led to the St. Joseph River in Niles, where the missing 2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee was located in the water with Vanessa and Alexa inside. But the discovery left their families with questions about those final minutes, particularly why the women were on that road in the first place.

The father of Alexa’s child has since questioned the route she was traveling, saying it wasn’t the way she normally went. Police have also acknowledged hearing accounts that the women may have been followed or chased before the Jeep left the road.

Investigators are checking out those claims, but so far they have not established that another vehicle forced the Jeep off the roadway. Police, however, have explained why they believe the women may have headed north toward Niles saying perhaps they were looking for something to eat, or there was also a personal connection to the area. What remains less clear is how they ended up on the residential road along the river where the Jeep ultimately went over the embankment.

Detectives are still working through that short stretch of time between the women’s last known contact and the Jeep leaving the road. Niles Police Chief James Millin said this week that investigators were continuing to run down leads and hoped to release more information soon.

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