This just feels eerily similar to the Brandon Lawson case to me.
For anyone unfamiliar, this case happened in 2013 in rural Texas. Brandon ran out of gas on the side of the road at night, called his brother to ask for help, then called 911 a few minutes later claiming state troopers had pulled some guys over and he was being chased by someone through a field. Then he asked for police and hung up on the 911 operator. A few minutes later Brandon's brother showed up at the truck, couldn't find him, and called to ask where he was. Brandon said he was in a field and he was bleeding, then the phone went dead.
Brandon was missing for nearly a decade, and in that time there were all kinds of wild theories about abductions, human trafficking, wild boar chasing him, or him stumbling on something nefarious on the side of the road and being murdered. Those were just *some* of the theories.
However, it was later disclosed that Brandon had purchased meth that very same day, and he was essentially in the middle of a meth-incduced psychosis and seeing things that weren't there. That's what caused him to run into the woods. His remains were found in February of last year not far from where he ran out of gas, but have not been identified and it's presumed he died from exposure/dehydration.
I don't think you necessarily need meth or drugs to have a mental break like this either, but I've seen several cases like this where people are cooking up all kinds of theories that just don't make sense given the facts, when Occam's Razor can pretty easily explain what happened. JMO.