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Hi, I've been a lurker. Just wanted to put my two cents in. I've been involved in two search for missing people within the past 3 years. My husband's niece and my husband. I was the one who found my husband's niece body and almost found my husband's body, but thankfully turned around very close before I reached it. Both were from suicide. Both very different cases. The niece was 19, bipolar and had just broke up with her boyfriend. my husband at age 30 was completely a shock. Never seemed depressed. We didn't have any marital or financial problems. My only theory that makes sense to me is that he had some sort of mental breakdown or onset of mental illness that he was hiding. I found a podcast on his phone, the last thing he downloaded which was about schizophrenia. I know I'm starting to ramble but it should be pointed out that schizophrenia does have onset around Bryce's age, and is often linked to marijuana abuse, and could explain BL's odd behavior.
As far as the search, in both cases, both bodies were found between a half mile and a mile from the car they left. Both searches were sending people very far from the car sites to places that seemed very unlikely to me. Both bodies were found close to visible trails, but were a few feet off kind of hidden off the trail. Helicopters and LE both failed to find the bodies, how I have no idea, they were not far from the cars and were in fairly obvious areas, but were missed by both volunteers, LE, dogs, and helicopters initially. It also should be noted that I used search dogs and they picked up scents in locations that do not make sense at all in terms of where the bodies were found.
I live very close to Castaic and have been wanting to help but don't know if it would be an emotionally healthy thing for me to do. I did drive up there Wednesday afternoon and found the crash site, watched hawks and buzzards, tried to sense where he would go, but felt very odd and not very safe physically or emotionally by myself there. The lake is also so big and all the places and trails he could be quite overwhelmed me. Has the mile radius from the crash site been searched thoroughly? I also am interested about the other side of the dam across from the crash site. I did see a few vultures fly that way, but had no idea how I could get across there safely. It was also frustrating that the lake wanted to charge me when I said I was helping so I had to park up off Lake Hughes and spend most of my time walking just to get to where I wanted to start searching. I also drove by the crash site yesterday but did not see any search teams out.
I don't know if any of my rambling helps at all, but I just wanted to put out there that I think a very thorough search from the crash site should be performed. And that as they are searching they should be looking with the eyes of someone who may be suicidal or have had a psychotic break. Anywhere he could have hidden, maybe OD'd, anywhere he could have gotten stuck or hurt from, ie jumping from the dam to the lower lagoon. I know this is morbid, but it just seems like it should be ruled out. These were all things that LE seemed to dismiss and rule out in both my husbands and nieces case, but were unfortunately untrue and the search they performed just wasn't thorough enough.
So sorry to hear about what happened to your loved ones. My heart breaks for you and what a brave strong person you are to have survived this terrible tragedy. I will pray for you.
My oldest handsome, smart son who is now 30 was diagnosed with schizophrenia/ bi-polar at age 20. He was a straight A student all through HS with high honors and lots of friends. He went off to college in Sacramento and never came back the same. It all started going downhill when he started self medicating with the Adderrall that he was introduced to by his Fraternity and would take off alone on trips and would go missing for weeks and just stopped going to college. He has been in and out of jail and psych hospitals ever since. He was athletic, an avid baseball, pop warner football player, snowboarder, skateboarder, and on the college wake-boarding team. He was amazing. This has been a living hell for our family for 10 years and continuing as this is a life-time illness there is no cure. He has refused taking his monthly antipsychotic injection and lithium meds because it makes him feel lethargic, sleepy like jello 24/7 so his mental health is declining rapidly. It's like my son has a brain tumor because he is not that same wonderful fun loving guy I raised through HS. It breaks my heart that so many young people are lost to mental illness. Nobody in my large network family has ever had any signs of mental illness. My son is the first case. We denied it was this in the beginning but the behavior continued with increasing episodes so eventually with enough Drs diagnosing him we came to terms with it.
Thank you so much for posting this. You are not alone and are a blessing to pass on the word!!!
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