I've finally caught up with all the info posted here and on the FB find Bryce page. I'm 22 years old, so I feel like since I've been involved in drugs/partying/etc.. I have a different perspective of this. 1) Bryce tried to break up with his girlfriend not once but TWICE that we know of. That's just a red flag to me IMO. It also could just signal a young, immature relationship or erratic behavior, but I really don't think so.
2) 10 hours in the Armpit of California? Buttonwillow has a population of about 1,500. That's 1,500 hundred possible sightings, plus the countless others from travelers. I think Bryce met someone here and planned his new life/escape/whatever. This thing SCREAMS drugs to me, whether it be running or manufacturing, or even just dealing. College+drug history=Opportunity and connections. Add this to trying to cut ties with Girlfriend and it kind of starts to make sense. Young, wanting to break free, and the promise of money?
The second car behind him, why was it there? Maybe he was supposed to meet earlier at the first time (2:00am approx. when he was first seen) and then the meeting was delayed until 4:00. They left the car to crash and took off maybe?
Now maybe none of this was choice, but he could have had an extra cell phone, as many drug people have burner phones. Also, he could have been pressured into doing whatever it was, or perhaps even paying off some sort of accrued debt.
I'm sure that LE has explored these options, but other than being dead, it's the nly option I feel strongly about.
Are there any shady friends that anyone here knows about?
ALL just opinion
Thanks for posting here. You are :welcome5:
However, I'm not sure how a possession of pot conviction plus being a college kid equates to the kind of intense, shadowy drug underworld connections you are inferring, especially one that would enable someone to disappear without a trace. I did drugs when I was young. I also went to college. I know plenty of people who did both and I'm also familiar with actual, real life shadowy drug underworld people. None of what I have seen here points to anything connected to a serious drug underworld.
Also, the police searched his car and stayed with him for 20 minutes, in Buttonwillow. They found no drugs and nothing suspicious. And if Bryce had been involved in such things, like dealing, there would have been a time, before he acquired "bat phones" that his behavior and connections would be traceable to his regular social media, e-mail and/or phones, via strange numbers or whatever.
Finally, Buttonwillow is quite a distance from Castaic and Bryce spoke to his mom around 2:00 a.m., minutes before his vehicle was seen going toward the lake. The second car was identified (old fisherman) and nothing came of that. His vehicle was spotted a second time going toward the lake at around 4:20 a.m. or so and then it was found at 5:30 a.m., 15 minutes after police arrived in the area for training exercises. Dogs traced human scent from his overturned vehicle, to the lake and later, traced Bryce's particular scent from the lake area, across the dam and out toward a parking area near the 5 freeway.
That indicates to me that no other car picked Bryce up at the scene of the crash or near it, because no other, unidentifiable car was seen on camera during the key times.
It also indicates, I think, that Bryce was on foot around the area of the lake. I dropped a pin near the area his vehicle was found, by main Ramp Road, and got directions on my iphone, on foot, to the nearest address to where his scent disappeared, which is a parking lot area in the recreation park. (I used an address of a building right across the street form the parking area, 32132, Castaic Lake Drive - a building surrounded by police cars, BTW. so it may be LE related).
Walking directions, which only allowed me to use Lake Hughes Road, from the dam, out, show 59 minutes (1 hour) walking to get out of the area and to the parking lot where his scent disappeared. I would imagine, going the back way around the lagoon from the dam, it would be quicker - probably closer to 40 minutes or so. And he could have easily avoided arriving police if he walked in the area around the dam, toward the lagoon and parking area (the other side of the lagoon, away from lake Hughes Road).
So, if he walked for 40 minutes to an hour, certainly no one was waiting for him at the crash site, helping him to crash his car.
While I respect the opinions of other SAR individuals who have weighed in on this case, I still think that a grid search by a low level drone or light aircraft is still warranted if one or more organizations are willing to do so or if the parents wish to engage a paid service of this type.
If that comes up empty, the next logical step is to entice the media to put his face on the national news. If he is out there alive, it would be difficult to hide when the entire nation knows what you look like. The story on World News Tonight would garner a lot of attention, if even only a brief picture and blurb.
I keep thinking of all the lost and missing folks who have been found months or years later by hikers, hunters or trail runners.
I am on the other side of the country. Were I local, I would still be spending my weekends searching.
What is most frustrating is the silence by LE. If they know or suspect something and are not at least giving some signals, they risk wasting valuable man hours on what amounts to a wild goose chase. Since the family has not stated directly that they suspect his is hiding out elsewhere or have evidence that he left the area under his own power, I must assume this is still a SAR event with the cause being misadventure by his own hand or that of others.
It's true. Remains/bodies are found quite a bit by hikers, bikers and motorists. Just look at the McStay family. They were found by a random motorcyclist, who just happened to stop on the side of the highway where there is nothing to stop for, and who just happened to wander from that highway, 50 yards into the brush. There was no trail there and no reason for anyone to be there. But they were found. And it does happen.
Publicity may help people to keep an eye out for remains. But I just thought of something: I can;t really recall any body being found months or years or whatever, after a disappearance, by someone not specifically looking for the decedent, due to publicity. They either stumble across a body or they don't.
Publicity sure as heck would help the public to find a live young man however.
