CA CA - Bryce Laspisa, 19, Castaic, 30 Aug 2013 - #7

[Sopranofan]

I feel the same, Amanda, but I still think there was a suicide attempt (drive car off what looks like a cliff in the dark). With all due respect to the family, is it possible BL was micro managed and just plain wanted to be free? He also may have had cash or a second cell phone (the kind you buy minutes for) that he removed from the duffle bag. And is it really impossible that there could be a boyfriend in the picture? It wouldn't be the first time a young man breaks up with a girlfriend and has a lot to talk about with his mom....Maybe he couldn't go through with telling his parents. It would explain a lot of his behavior prior to his disappearance. Just a theory.

 

[Jo in Calif]

I feel the same, Amanda, but I still think there was a suicide attempt (drive car off what looks like a cliff in the dark). With all due respect to the family, is it possible BL was micro managed and just plain wanted to be free? He also may have had cash or a second cell phone (the kind you buy minutes for) that he removed from the duffle bag. And is it really impossible that there could be a boyfriend in the picture? It wouldn't be the first time a young man breaks up with a girlfriend and has a lot to talk about with his mom....Maybe he couldn't go through with telling his parents. It would explain a lot of his behavior prior to his disappearance. Just a theory.

A boyfriend defiantly is a possibility, but we aren't allowed to talk about that.

 

[nikb]

Did he have his own ATM/bank account or was it tied to his parents? Did he have any way to get cash without his parents seeing every transaction? If not, that would be extremely frustrating for an adult, even if a student, IMO.

From what Dragz described earlier he had an ATM card. I'm not sure if it was tied directly to his parents' account, but they gave him an allowance in that account and have full access to all transactions. I think that's what led to some of the speculation early on that perhaps he was involved with some other way of getting spending cash. We can't go too far down that path due to TOS. I know his latest roomie said Bryce had been upset about having a hard time finding a job, so maybe he was seeking some financial independence too. (yet another stressor!)

 

[cluciano63]

From what Dragz described earlier he had an ATM card. I'm not sure if it was tied directly to his parents' account, but they gave him an allowance in that account and have full access to all transactions. I think that's what led to some of the speculation early on that perhaps he was involved with some other way of getting spending cash. We can't go too far down that path due to TOS. I know his latest roomie said Bryce had been upset about having a hard time finding a job, so maybe he was seeking some financial independence too. (yet another stressor!)

Seems like they had the details of his spending that day pretty quickly, which is I wondered if the account was his parents.

 

[Sopranofan]

I apologize if I've posted something wrong. Still learning the rules.

 

[nikb]

Now that I rethink all of this. The police didn't follow protocol. Protocol is 24 hours for someone to be missing. I wonder if they used the retired cop uncle (not dragz) to gain this leverage?

If he thought they wouldn't be able to consider him missing for 24 hours and therefore he wouldn't get pinged for at least 24 hours im actually inclined now to believe he thought it was LoJack and not his phone.

Why did police agree to create a missing persons report when he had only been "missing" for 5-6 hours from when Christian checked on him. The more and more I think about it the more and more I feel I would have been furious if it was me. <snipped for space and clarity>

You know this is a really good point. And weren't there two missing persons reports? One, then he was found in Buttonwillow and then another one after they found the crashed SUV? I can see the crashed SUV leading to an expedited missing person's report, but not so much the one leading LE to check on him in Buttonwillow. Scratching my head once again...

 

[McSpy]

If he was trying to disappear, or if he was becoming increasingly agitated with his mom "tracking" him, then it certainly seemed to center on that SUV. The roadside assistance, the police when he was napping, etc etc. There is no telling what that SUV symbolized to him in terms of his relationship with his parents. If he was trying to disappear I can see trying to roll it into the lake. If he was angry, I could also see trying to destroy it as a symbolic act. I still think rolling it was accidental, whatever the circumstances. Get rid of the phone, laptop and car and you're free. Especially if there was any added paranoia...

I don't know. I think he rolled it accidently, but I have no idea what was going through his head. I also wonder why he was breaking up with his girlfriend. Was he hurt or was he sick of her and moving on? If he was emotionally hurt, then maybe it was eating at him in some way. Who knows? Maybe he was paranoid and everything was in his head? His friends probably have some insight, especially the friends he made in college (recent). We could be way off base thinking he wanted to get away from his parents. Yet, maybe he was trying to escape it all (girlfriend, parents, school, etc.). Hard to tell.

 

[nikb]

Seems like they had the details of his spending that day pretty quickly, which is I wondered if the account was his parents.

Agreed, I'm pretty sure they've got full access to this account even if it's not technically theirs. I was just looking back at the timeline and they knew almost immediately about the fuel purchases and even the extra-large soda at the convenience store.

 

[McSpy]

This case has similarities to the Maura Murray case. She left college to go up north to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. She told no one of her plans. She had an accident there and hasn't been seen since. This happened in 2004.

 

[docbh]

Have you looked at the map where the SUV was found?
To me it doesn't look like a vehicle would make it all the way into the lake if it started down the slope from the tower thingy the way peeps think it was.

There's a whole other grassy area, parking lot, possibly a structure iirc before a vehicle would end up landing in the lake. I'm going by memory here and aerodynamics is way above my head but, to me, I don't think anyone would say, let's let the SUV loose here so it ends up submerged in the lake.
The SUV's landing was affected by a drop-off though. Even if the drop-off wasn't visible, the lake is still a good distance from that spot even if the SUV had kept going/rolling unobstructed.

Right. I guess when I talk about rolling, I'm talking about the SUV accident. I think he was trying to get around the locked gate to drive down to the boat ramp next to the dam or the dam itself, who knows, when he crashed. There also appears to be a washed out dirt road down to the water but that looks like it'd be tough to drive down. Honestly if you were trying to crash down a slope as a suicide, there are plenty of steeper and more accessible places to do it from, like the church on the hilltop close by...

 

[cluciano63]

Generally, or often, if a guy this age breaks up with a girl, there is another one IMO.

 

[nikb]

I don't know. I think he rolled it accidently, but I have no idea what was going through his head. I also wonder why he was breaking up with his girlfriend. Was he hurt or was he sick of her and moving on? If he was emotionally hurt, then maybe it was eating at him in some way. Who knows? Maybe he was paranoid and everything was in his head? His friends probably have some insight, especially the friends he made in college (recent). We could be way off base thinking he wanted to get away from his parents. Yet, maybe he was trying to escape it all (girlfriend, parents, school, etc.). Hard to tell.

When I try to put myself in his shoes and think of a scenario in which he's alive, I picture him saying to himself in essence "eff it" and escaping it all. Unfortunately my other most likely scenario has him saying "eff it" and not being alive anymore. I know there are numerous other possibilities, those two just seem the most likely to me.

From the early interviews, it didn't sound like he had any major issues with his girlfriend leading up to all of this. Here are the things I think could've been stressing him out, JMO:

- Girlfriend's distance? She had just transferred to Chico a few hours away I believe. Or something more happened to make him want to break up with her, but we know he was in the midst of some kind of relationship stress. I'm curious what their summer was like before all this - how much time they spent together etc. If they were super close maybe lost time or connection with her was bothering him.

- Money/job: his roommate said that he was stressed about not being able to find a job. We know his parents have tight control over his spending and money. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, I'm saying we know it to be the case, and of course he does too.

- School: roommate said he was stressed about school even though he was doing well and did good work in his classes. School had started very recently.

- Moving: maybe it's just me but I find moving extremely stressful. In recent years/months he had the move to California, then the move to the dorms, then to his new apartment.

- Friends: his new roommate seems to be pretty close to him but apparently there was some sort of bad blood with his former dorm roommate. Plus friends (different ones I think?) trying to 'control' him by taking his keys. I'm not saying anything bad about the friends and admire them for being bold enough to take his keys, but that could be another layer of stress, "even my friends don't trust me!" kind of thing.

- Vyvanese (sp??) (ADHD drug) that he said he took possibly messing with his mental state.

- Other drugs? Possibly MJ based on his previous drug charge. I know we can't and shouldn't go too far in this direction per TOS, but we know he's been known to smoke it. No judgement from me, but also possibly messing with his mental state.

- Lack of sleep either due to the Vyvanese (sp?) or staying up all night playing his new game.

- Parents: it sounds like he's close to his parents, but I wonder if the tight rein bothered him.

- LE wellness check: I'd be pretty PO'd if I just wanted to take a nap and I got woken up/found and searched for drugs and alcohol.

With all of the above I can picture "eff it," he goes to take a nap or ??? and then you have...

- Crash. Injuries, confusion, upset about wrecking the car, who knows, but the crash alone is a huge stress inducing incident.

That's not even figuring in dozens of other possibilities that I know we've thought about and talked about before. It's enough to darn near give me a panic attack and it's not even my life. Makes me sad for Bryce. I seriously want to hug him and tell him it gets better.

 

[cluciano63]

I still think money would be a factor. If he had cash, why use the card for such small amounts that could track his movements? Especially if he left phone and computer behind to avoid being tracked? (Which he brought with him..why?) i guess I don't see bringing the stuff in the first place, if he was going to run away, and then leave it, especially if he did not use the phone to call his "friend". Okay I can see taking the phone for emergencies, but why the laptop?

And if did NOT have a plan when he set out...then how the heck is he managing to stay so hidden?

Again...all too complicated for me.

Also...if he went away to start a new life...does anyone even really have the right to try to find him if he does not want to be found? I often wonder about that. Of course his loved ones want to know, but maybe he does not want them to know where he is or even if he is okay.

JMO

 

[Wondermom]

I just keep going back to the interview with the roomate and the texts that Bryce sent him. You saved my soul? What did he mean by that exactly? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

http://fox40.com/2013/09/04/roommate-hoping-for-the-best-after-sierra-college-student-goes-missing/

 

[Voice4theSilent]

I don't know. I think he rolled it accidently, but I have no idea what was going through his head. I also wonder why he was breaking up with his girlfriend. Was he hurt or was he sick of her and moving on? If he was emotionally hurt, then maybe it was eating at him in some way. Who knows? Maybe he was paranoid and everything was in his head? His friends probably have some insight, especially the friends he made in college (recent). We could be way off base thinking he wanted to get away from his parents. Yet, maybe he was trying to escape it all (girlfriend, parents, school, etc.). Hard to tell.

BBM
I definitely think he was trying to escape it all. He broke up with his girlfriend twice, wasn't contacting his parents or returning their phone calls, stopped going to his classes just one day into the semester, didn't go back to his apartment as planned or expected, and was sitting in (what has been reported as) a stinky town in the middle of nowhere. The question is, how long did he want to escape for? A few days? A long weekend? A month? Permanently?

 

[143MRL]

Hmm I hadn't thought about it that way before. You're right, he could basically hide out for at least the rest of the week and long weekend if he told everyone slightly different stories and they all thought he was somewhere else or with someone else. And IF that's the case you're probably right about him not being sure how they found him. If it were me and in my right frame of mind I would've assumed it was the roadside service call, but I also wouldn't have expected my Mom to find out about that so quickly. In a stressed out frame of mind or if I was doing something I didn't want people to know about (even something completely innocent but maybe embarrassing or whatever), I might get a little paranoid about being tracked down, talked to by LE, etc. I still don't think he probably crashed intentionally, but I can see him trying to ditch the car and then accidentally crashing in the process.

I never thought about it this way before either!!! If he was already paranoid then the fact that his mother knew where he was would have definitely tripped him out even more.

 

[143MRL]

Agree completely Amanda. Not only did Mom have him pinged and sent LE to check on him, she also asked them to search his car for drugs/alcohol. After that (as a 19 y/o) he more than likely decided it was time to fly under the radar and whatever his initial plan was travelling south took on a whole new dimension.

Completely agree as well amanda!

 

[SCV_EagleJ]

I read that they are doing another search this weekend and were asking if individuals wanted to search on their own. They seem to be focusing on the east side of the lake and continue to focus on the east side of the lake.

Do we know why? Is there a reason they are doing more searches at the lake? Do we know why they are focusing on the eastside of the lake even though the dogs tracked him to the westside of the lake?

I still believe he's near the lake. I would love to believe he ran off and he's out there somewhere but I just don't

I've experienced the withdrawal from adderall and its horrible. I was emotionally and physically irritable. I layed in bed for hours just thinking about my options. I thought about crashing my car or popping a few too many pills. I thought about what I could do to make things better because at that moment in time everything was wrong and it was all my fault. My goal wasn't nessasarly to kill myself but I wanted to hurt myself really bad so that someone else might notice how much pain I was feeling. Doesn't mean I wouldn't have accidentally gone too far. I felt like everyone was suffering because of me. Walking away would not have been an option for me. I have too many people I love and too many people that love me. I could have never lived with myself knowing what I would be doing to my loved ones.

Im not saying this is what BL did This is just my experience. I believed I've posted about it before but there are lots of new people and I thought I would share again. Stress, anxiety, depression is not joke and adderall/stimulants can intensify that especially when your coming down.

I hope something turns up soon. I still think about BL and his mom everyday

 

[gitana1]

One the thing that really freaks me out about this case is how the mom seemed to be able to get people to go right up to his car without Bryce even being aware of it. I mean WOW. One thing for sure, if I was in Bryce shoes, and I had people (like LE, the Service Man, etc.) come up to my car window and I was just trying to either sleep OR just be on my own for the week, I would totally freak out and probably get pissed off. It sounded like at least 2 occasions or more, this happened to him. I mean that is just incredible and like something out of James Bond with how he was tracked.

It really makes me wonder if Bryce was maybe fed up with how tight a leash he felt he was under. Even the mention about flying up there and stuff.
wow.

I think the accident was an accident in the sense of that he didn't mean to roll it. I think he was trying to sink it into the lake.

I also agree and totally think it was all the tracking and following tactics that made him freak out. I wouldn't be happy if someone was following my every move either especially not at 19.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Totally agree.

I also wonder if when Bryce said something like "we really need to talk". It may have been more like "We really need to talk about how things need to change to allow me to be my own person".

I kind of think maybe we should take something learned in the situation with Caron and her daughter and apply it here. There is nothing to suggest these parents had a tight leash on their son, but a lot to suggest something was happening with Bryce's behavior that began to worry them and eventually got to the point where they felt a critical emergency could be occurring.

We do not know everything that was happening at the time that made the mom ask people to check on her son and send LE to find him.

I think if they were that controlling, she wouldn't have allowed Bryce to move away, Bryce would not have had a girlfriend the family seems close to and Karen would not have said to give Bryce's keys back.

Also, both police and the roadside assistance guy reported that Bryce seemed in good spirits, not "angry".

It could be true, though, that Bruce became paranoid and felt he was being watched and thus tried to escape that, but Bryce was not being tracked or surveilled or hunted like a James Bond character.

You know, I have three brother in laws who I helped raise because they have no dad and mom is mentally ill. They are just dumb as stumps sometimes. They range now from 17 to 21, and to me, still lack significant maturity. They are still babies in many ways when it comes to the world, despite having a rough upbringing.

If one of them spontaneously began a road trip on a path and at a length they had never taken before, and started acting oddly before or during the trip, I would be sending the cavalry out after them if they didn't arrive on time. I'm not into helicoptering but this just sounds like a justifiably concerned parent.

Now that I rethink all of this. The police didn't follow protocol. Protocol is 24 hours for someone to be missing. I wonder if they used the retired cop uncle (not dragz) to gain this leverage?

If he thought they wouldn't be able to consider him missing for 24 hours and therefore he wouldn't get pinged for at least 24 hours im actually inclined now to believe he thought it was LoJack and not his phone.

Why did police agree to create a missing persons report when he had only been "missing" for 5-6 hours from when Christian checked on him. The more and more I think about it the more and more I feel I would have been furious if it was me.

He's not answering the phone. He doesn't want to talk right now. Instead of giving him his distance she pushed harder and harder for answers and he pushed further and further away.

More than ever I believe he left intentionally. However like I said previously this DOES NOT mean he shouldn't be looked for as a missing person. He's 19 years old and probably made a huge mistake because of all these events and the fact at the time he wasn't of sound mind.

I'm going to try and focus now on maps and such and geotag every picture of where he has been previously and see where he could have gone. I think this theory makes the most sense based on the events that took place the 15 hours or so before the car was found.

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I think this proves what I said above. Kern county LE clearly found that something was alarming enough that they better try to locate and then question a young man who was just a bit late in arriving after a road trip home. They don't tend to jump at the commands of nervous moms. There has to be something more.

But what of all the people who stop at the rest stops along I5 who are not involved in any incident what so ever. I suspect the probability of encountering the above situation is very low.

Well Bryce is missing under odd circumstances so now the low odds become significant.

I just keep going back to the interview with the roomate and the texts that Bryce sent him. You saved my soul? What did he mean by that exactly? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

http://fox40.com/2013/09/04/roommate-hoping-for-the-best-after-sierra-college-student-goes-missing/

My 19 year old BIL just described a friend of his to me saying, "Everuthing good about being a human, that's Mikey, in one person.".

Kids that age can be passionate, feel intensely about their problems and view their friends as their saviors.

 

[zwiebel]

http://www.lapdonline.org/lapd_adult_missing_persons_unit/content_basic_view/1883

No waiting period to report a missing person in CA.

This crops up again and again and it's so sad. Not so much with young, missing children, because even parents who think this is the rule will ignore it if their child goes missing. But with adults and teenagers, it still seems to be a problem. I've even heard of police departments refusing to take a missing person's report, though I think there is a law against that, that applies in all states.