Brandon Lawson 911 Tape /// Part 1 /// 85 | Forensic Files

when it comes to Quality sleep Ashley has you covered with top mattress brands at winning prices and with special
financing options available you can snooze now and pay later plus your mattress purchase helps give the gift of
better sleep to children in need and US Special Operations forces visit your local Ashley store or shop online today
and make every snooze count financing is subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for d details Rosetta Stone
is the language learning program with a lasting impact I've been using the rap to learn French and it's not just about
memorizing words but actually having real conversations and it's not just French they offer 25 languages right now
Rosetta Stone has an awesome holiday deal 50% off their lifetime membership every language unlimited access forever
for anyone keen on diving deep into a new language check out rosettastone.com it's a
GameChanger [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that turned down the lead role in la la land because
of the elementary dance moves he is the captain thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seen and it's good to
see you and I accept this Oscar on behalf of me and my [Music] co-star today we are drinking 100
million angels singing by Texas Ale Project in Dallas Texas garage grade 4 and 1/2 bottle caps out of five this
very smooth double IPA is brewed and dry hopped with copious amounts of Simco and
a blend of delicious American hops it's American baby 100 million Angel singing was brought to us by first we have Kyle
and Caroline from Wales also in the UK we have Michael from Newcastle in Somerset we have Megan and
Kar hi my name is Kar also we have Cassie and Darbyshire Darbyshire sounds like something that happens when you
don't make it to the bathroom that's a lot of people in the UK cheers to all the United Kingdom listeners she is
mates yeah next up we have Payton Performance Auto in waxah hatchee Texas [Music]
FYI I don't like to say company names during the shout out portion of the show but I couldn't resist the opportunity to
say wax a Hatchy we have the beautiful Kathy from Harvey's Lake Pennsylvania and last but not least we have a
birthday shout out we have uh Lizzy March 1st is Lizzy's birthday happy happy happy birthday so thank you to
Kyle Caroline Michael Megan ker Cassie Kathy and a happy happy birthday to Lizzy from Nick and the captain he hey
my name is Karen from wache all right the fridge is full today but it will be empty by the end of the week so if you'd
like to pitch in on the end of the week Beer Run go to True Crim garage.com and click on the Donate button B We R N beer
run and if anybody would like to follow me on untapped just look for the guy using True Crime garage as his username
you can also follow us on Facebook Twitter Snapchat Instagram definitely Instagram I got get get my numbers up I
got a bet going we did a double or nothing so check us out on Instagram @ True Crime garage that's enough of the
business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music]
[Applause] crime [Applause] [Music] Brandon Lawson an oil field worker and father of four was last seen when he
left his San Angelo Texas Home on August 8th 2013 while traveling on Highway 277 he
ran out of gas he called 911 and he has not been seen since his cell phone is also missing Brandon is a Caucasian male
he was 26 years of age at the time of his disappearance Brandon is 5' 9 in tall 230 lb with brown hair and blue
eyes he was last seen wearing a yellow shirt and camo shorts and white Nike Air Max shoes if you have any information go
to missing Brandin lawson.com [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
Brandon Lawson was last seen when he left his home in San Angelo Texas this was August 8th
2013 he left at 11:53 p.m. this is after an argument with his girlfriend Lessa Lofton so Brandon called his father and
he wants to go to his father's place for the night M Brandon's father Bradley has
said that he had told his son it would be best if Brandon just stay put he recommended that Brandon not make the
2-hour Drive to his house but I'm guessing Brandon thought different because he does decide to go for a drive
and start to make his way to his father's house I don't want to hang on this for too long but I'm guessing that
it would have had to been some kind of argument you know like some big disagreement for someone to leave in the
middle of the night and drive two hours yes possibly but it was reported that Brandon was working sometimes over 90
hours a week mhm and that he also had four children yeah so he had been with Lessa for about 10 years and they had
three children together and he had one child from a previous relationship um so not just leaving the house but leaving
his family in the middle of the night as well and that's a lot of responsibility
for a 26-year-old a lot of responsib that's a lot of responsibility for anybody now Brandon had called a little
earlier than when he had departed he called his father earlier than when he left while Brandon did not leave his
house until almost midnight he actually called his father around 11:00 p.m. so almost an hour later he sets off on this
trip while in route he is going to make some phone calls because his truck runs out of gas his first call will be to his
brother Kyle at 12:38 a.m. yeah and this is basically you know anything you would think it
would be you know I I need help I've run out of gas on Highway 277 um by this time Brandon is near
bront Texas he runs out out of gas but he is unable to get the pickup truck completely off of the highway he
basically has like the tail end of the truck sticking out onto the road a bit M uh so the Brother Kyle and his
girlfriend Audrey they call Lessa Brandon's girlfriend to tell her that Brandon had run out of gas and he needed
to borrow their gas can and a lot of time if you're looking up this case that you'll hear that Lessa is his wife or
common law wife for this episode and for this case we're going to just refer to her as a girlfriend cuz they were not
legally married right I don't like that whole common law wife thing anyway you know I guess certain States you live
with somebody for a certain amount of time and they're all of a sudden your wife I I have buddies if that were the
case I have buddies that would have been married like four or five times so Kyle
called to borrow the gas can and Lessa tells Kyle that she's going to leave the gas can on the porch because she's going
to take a shower and then go to bed because it's extremely late at night right mhm uh we should point out here
that Kyle has no money uh his paycheck is not going to clear in his bank account until Friday morning uh so Kyle
is not going to be able to fill up the gas can but he figured that once he got to Brandon with the gas can that he
would just drive Brandon to The Stripes convenient mark this is a 24-hour gas station SL store and Brandon could pay
for the gas there and then he would drive Brandon back to the truck and he and Audrey would be done for the night
and go back to their home mhm uh what is known next is that the following that following his phone call to his brother
well something happened because Brandon calls 911 telling the dispatcher that he needs
help he calls 9911 at 12:50 a.m. and we won't go through that call yet because we want to finish the timeline so we can
really really go through that call another call was made to 911 this is by a passer by a big rig truck driver calls
911 at 12:57 a.m. this is regarding Brandon's truck parked crooked on the side of the road posing a hazard uh you
know somebody could potentially hit this vehicle if they weren't paying attention
when Kyle arrived at 1:10 a.m. there is no sign of Brandon a sheriff's deputy arrived at the truck at the same time as
Kyle and Audrey now Kyle was traveling One Direction to get to 's truck and the deputy was coming from the opposite
direction this is Deputy Neil and neither Kyle nor dep Deputy Neil see Brandon walking on the side of the road
on their way to the vehicle we should also point out that at this point Kyle is unaware that Brandon has called 911
and may be in danger the officer Deputy Neil probably is unaware of the 911 call
from Brandon as well it's speculated and reported in this case that law enforcement are responding to to the
truck driver's call and not Brandon's on Brandon's 911 call it's not very clear where he's at or who he is or who he's
with yeah yeah we and we bring this up simply for the fact that Kyle probably considered that there's a chance that
Brandon may be walking on the side of the road we shouldn't assume that Deputy Neil was actively looking for someone
walking on the side of the road as he's driving in his Cruiser to the abandoned truck you know cuz a lot of times police
get a lot of these abandoned vehicle calls it's a very common call and a lot of the time well we don't know what that
call was yeah but but a lot of time when when these vehicles are abandoned the the driver and the passengers are are
long gone by the time a safety service his officer finds the abandoned vehicle to tick it tag or or tow the vehicle
away MH so at this point in the timeline we have Kyle Audrey and Deputy Neil at Brandon's Truck Yeah and once he's there
the deputy observes the following there is no visible sign of damage to Brandon's truck and his keys and his
cell phone were not inside the vehicle uh while talking with the deputy Kyle received a call from Brandon right in
which Brandon's cell was going in and out and it was very hard for him to understand what Brandon was saying uh
what Kyle understood was I'm in a field uh Kyle felt maybe Brandon was hiding in
the field due to an outstanding warrant from about 2 years ago uh that Brandon himself just learned about and was going
to to address the following week according to the family so Kyle made no mention to the deputy of Brandon being
on the phone just so we're clear that warrant was for a drug charge and he didn't pay a fee for that correct yeah
so th and let's dive into this because there's a lot of speculation regarding this drug charge or the warrant out for
Brandon Lawson the situation sounds like this right so he had this old outstanding warrant that he found out
about when he went to transfer a title on a vehicle or something they they mentioned to him are you aware that
there's a warrant out for you yeah I'm I'm pretty for sure that he's probably aware that he had a warrant but this was
just kind of a reminder well possibly yeah uh the thing here is I want to throw out my own little story here cuz
one time I did have a warrant out for me uh that I was unaware of um I get a phone call one day from my father and
he's very upset and uh he says you know there's a warn out for you I was talking
to so and so and they told me there's a warn out for you and I said you know he sounds angry at me and I'm like you know
I'm getting on the defensive because this is my dad and I'm like right I don't know anything about this I don't
know what you're talking about so what happened was I went down to the clerk of courts and asked them what's this
warrant for not knowing if they were going to arrest me that day but I wish they would have it yeah would I'd still
be in there uh but technically it was a bench warrant what had happened was and it's this sounds funny because people
were like how do you not know there's a warn out for you what had happened was I
got a speeding ticket right I had that speeding ticket and my my jacket was stolen yeah I had it in my coat it was
had the check written it was going to be paid and all that yeah this sounds pretty fishy sounds very fishy I get you
I'm sure my dad doesn't believe me either but any regardless I didn't pay the ticket and kind of forgot about it
because the stolen jacket became more of a concern to me than the ticket basically I had to go downtown and pay a
speeding ticket so they wouldn't come and arrest me apparently though this was not a huge deal right though Captain
because they weren't it doesn't sound like they were actively looking for Brandon Lawson right this wasn't
something that they were looking to lock him up for a long period of time it's exactly what you said it's something
that he was planning to pay it sounds like a fine that was needed to be paid right but to be clear those charges were
drug related at 1:18 a.m. Audrey text Brandon saying a cop is at your truck it is assumed she did such as she wanted to
warn him due to his warrant again Audrey knows nothing of Brandon calling 911 in statements giv given to police as
explained by the family they did admit Brandon's earlier call to them in which he told his brother and Audrey that he
was 10 minutes up the road and was bleeding now remind you this was the call that was going in and out so this
is the as much that they could get from from the call right so what we know about this call is that maybe he's in a
field maybe he's 10 minutes up the road which way we don't know and maybe he's bleeding yeah cuz you know how it is
when when the call is cutting in and out sometimes you have no clue what they're
saying you're just kind of fragments the important thing is this was also not reported to Deputy Neil at the scene of
Brandon's truck MH it is also understood that Deputy Neil did not report to Kyle
that Brandon phon 911 it's still again unclear if Deputy Neil even knew about the 911 call from Brandon himself right
I would guess that he did not know about the call and and we you know have said why because it doesn't sound like they
even knew who was making the call or why uh when Deputy Neil found the truck again he found it unlocked with no
damage done to the vehicle this vehicle was not in any accident keys were not in
the truck there was no cell phone no wallet Brandon left that truck and presumably went looking for gas and he
took his keys and cell phone and wallet with him Deputy Neil then turned on the flashers of the truck and then they
locked the truck and then he left the scene yeah he arranged for a toe to arrive a toe truck to arrive in the
morning and Brandon's truck to the impound lot don't you think those flashers though would make the battery
go dead very likely yes yeah but you got to do something so they're going to see
the vehicle at this time this was a very dark road too and it's it you know when
you say it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere it really feels like out in the middle of nowhere according to
reports the deputy then drove up and down the roadway to see if he could spot Brandon walking uh Kyle and his
girlfriend left the empty gas can in the bed of the truck thinking if Brandon came back he would at least have a can
that he could go retrieve some gas they went and began to look for Brandon as well when the morning came
and there was still no sign of Brandon Kyle's money was now available in his bank account it is this point where he
goes back to the truck and he gets the gas can and he fills it up and returns it to the truck at this point he was now
starting to become very concerned and he felt that Brandon may not have been hiding in the bushes from the officer
and that he might have been hiding because he was in some kind of trouble this is when they talk with
investigators and he now gives them the full account of Brandon being on the phone at the time the deputy was at the
truck it wasn't known by Brandon's family that he had called 911 until Brandon's girlfriend Lessa saw an
itemized cell phone bill right when Lessa woke up the next morning there were several Miss calls on her cell
phone three of these were from Brandon and I believe there were 10 Miss calls from Kyle because remember Kyle spent
most of the night looking for Brandon and probably reaching out to Lessa time and time again trying to to wake her or
get some input from her have you seen Brandon uh can you come help with the search something of that nature the the
speculation has been a little weird on this part of the of the story as well because we have a girlfriend friend
who's missed all of these calls however her story is that the the phone was not in the house it was in her vehicle
charging M now some people know that you have you can charge your your phone just
using a USB cord and plug it into your car yeah and with older cars you'd have to have the car turned on so it' run out
your battery if you just had it half turned and the battery was on you can charge it that way or you'd have to turn
your car fully on which would run out the gas it's believed that she had a newer car and some of the newer cars you
can just plug stuff in and'll charge even if it's not on yeah there has been no activity on Brandon's bank accounts
or his cell phone since that time uh there was a search organized by Lessa shortly after Brandon disappeared this
would have been either on that Sunday or Monday so just two or three days after I
apologize but there are several reports that differ on the exact day but there was and an extensive search conducted at
that point just so we're clear there's a lot of speculation in this case and he went missing on the eth Brandon went
missing on the eth and they're not going to receive his cell phone records to know that he called 911 for a whole
another month right and furthermore once they find out that he called 911 less is
going to request that the the tape of that 911 call and it's going to be quite some time before she gets that as well I
believe she said about four months yeah it was about 4 and a half months regarding the searches because there was
an actual professional team that came in and conducted a an extensive search but
this was not until October 24th of 2013 they searched the area around the abandoned truck now this was Texar who
brought in HR dogs and that's the Texas search and rescue team and they bring in
these basically cadaver dogs or human remains dogs the problem here though Captain is we see this situation where 2
and A2 months have have elapsed since you're since you're going to do this search that's quite a bit of time lot of
time and the other problem that we have here too is there's a lot of the like wild hogs in this area and I guess one
thing like these dogs are really well trained but one thing that can screw up these dogs are the smells that come from
these wild hogs well and I I would just assume any smell from another animal would kind of mess up their their scent
and it's been pointed out that this in particular and while they did receive some hits on some scents and smells that
they found you know these dogs went off in certain areas they think that most of
that might have been like you said from Wildlife it wasn't from actual Brandon Lawson that they they believed that the
dogs were tracking again if you have any animal dead then they would be picking up those sents as well they've done a
lot of aerial searches with with airplanes again there's some problems with this though too because when you do
these aerial searches you want to do these very soon after somebody goes missing because they're looking for
abnormal activity which that's going to disappear over any length of time sometimes they're just looking for
buzzards swarming they didn't spot anything that would that led them to Brandon obviously and furthermore they
did these these searches some of these searches were paid for by Lessa right and this is a family that that was
currently living paycheck to paycheck now the now the bread Winner's gone Brandon's gone and you know so I applaud
her efforts for paying for these searches since we've been doing the podcast it baffles me it's uh very
confusing to me that we don't take these situations as serious I mean there's tons of missing people there's tons of
people that go missing there's always this time lapse like well he'll show up or well we didn't know exactly where he
was at uh but then he missed work so then we decided it was a big deal right and then we searched days later it's
like you know if they had better communication with the cops if well and also the better cell phone reception and
all that stuff but if you started looking immediately worst case scenario right is
is you either get more answers you get more leads you know or or you find the person right you know e even if they're
dead you find them you know or they show up and you're like oh there's Brandon oh we spent 8 hours looking for
you but you don't give a [ __ ] about those 8 hours right oh I lost eight hours but I found you thanks awesome you
know yeah it it's something that we've seen time and time again and reviewing some of these cases it's it's a weird
thing though Captain because you have a situation where it's not not everything is as it appears when you're arriving at
the truck you know regardless of who shoes you're in you know if you're the deputy you think you're responding to
this abandoned vehicle and you think it's just that this is a I'm just going to bring it up we do not know what the
information was given to 911 based off the trucker from the trucker we don't know if it was abandoned uh truck call
right I would love to figure out what that call is uh but regardless like I was saying you have a situation where
people arriving at a scene may not be fully aware of what they're walking into you have the brother that just knows
that the vehicle ran out of gas we have the deputy that may just think he's responding to an abandoned vehicle they
meet up and now you're piecing two things together the depuy's probably told hey I you know I spoke to my
brother he said that the vehicle ran out of gas did you happen to see anybody walking no I didn't right when really
there this could be a much different situation than I you know than either of those two had any clue of right and I
and like I said I'm not I'm not trying to put any blame on his family or friends or anybody I'm just saying that
maybe because we've had all these situations we've had all these missing person cases maybe we should start
collectively taking these very serious from from the word go we're very connected now as a society so if
somebody goes missing you know from the word go let's let's take these a little more serious and maybe we'd have less
missing person yeah the other sad thing here too is we have a situation where you have an area
of land that's very large and a very small sheriff's department they don't have a whole lot of people on staff so
that makes it very tough to search and comb that entire area we have a man that was traveling from from a bigger town
from San Angelo and he's he's heading he's close he's reported as missing from bront Texas now the thing here is bront
is only like 3,000 people we're talking about a very small town yes I understand
that but we're also talking about a human that is not going you know he's not on in a car he's not on a motorcycle
he's on foot if Brandon's on foot he can only get so far mhm you know from that truck a mile radius you even if you
start the search in the morning and even if he if he walked uh pretty quickly we're talking he's he's not getting 20
some miles away no so the radius becomes what I'm saying is smaller yeah you're exactly right and there were only really
a couple directions to go you know you he could have walked towards Brun or he could have walked back towards you know
where he came from well yeah I would agree with you on that other than the fact that we have possibly two calls
where he's stating he's in a field so which direction he wins well what I mean by you well I get what you're saying but
what I mean by that is I'm believing that he would be in search of gas and that he would probably be heading in one
of two directions where he knows that he can get to a gas station right the other
situation that we have here too captain and I don't really want to spend too much time on it but we should mention it
because the police it's been reported that the police went under the assumption that Brandon left on his own
will right that that he left because he wanted to go off with another woman now how they arrived to this conclusion I'm
not certain um it it was stated in their local newspaper that they believe that he was picked up by a woman and drove
off you know but but we clearly we have the call to the brother that's he's looking for gas if he if he had help if
he had someone helping him drive somewhere that I don't feel like that call would be made to the brother well
and I couldn't find any information online on his cell phone records but I'd be interested to see what that cell
phone log looked like and you know as far as the family can the family identify every number that was called
right and if and if those numbers if there was one that is not identified then can we identify that now MH now we
should also point out that the McCutchen family own the local newspaper and the McCutchen has a connection to the
Sheriff's Office the head sheriff is Sheriff McCutchen his wife is the operator of this local newspaper and
she's a journalist they call them journalist well and this is where it's been reported that they believe he left
with another woman it there's been a lot of bickering back and forth between the
Lawson family and the the local newspaper well okay so my thoughts are one uh the Lawson family look this whole
idea that everything is a law enforcement conspiracy that that happens with so many cases do I think there's
and and in every case there's some gray area but let's just start with what they
could have done we have him calling that why a deputy is there mhm tell them who cares that he has a
warrant it comes down to safety right you know and this guy is saying I'm in a field he's saying to his brother I'm
possibly bleeding if I am calling my brother on the phone and he can't understand me and and I'm saying I'm in
a field and I'm and he hears that I'm possibly bleeding I don't give a [ __ ] about a warrant tell the deputy and he
can come find me we'll sort out the warrant stuff later mhm but again I would rather spend a night in jail
because of a warrant than to just go missing for the rest of my life right and so I think as far as that goes yes I
I understand where their head is coming from maybe he's hiding I don't want to turn him in but no it comes down to
safety deal deal with that later MH air on the side of caution you're saying right wow we are only about 20 minutes
into the show and you're already getting very angry I can see the steam coming out of your coming out of your ears was
tasty beer though so but hey let's get another one let's take a quick beer [Music]
break this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays maybe you struggle with seasonal Blues
this time of year can be a lot and it's natural to feel some sadness or even anxiety about it but adding something
new and positive to your life can counteract some of those feelings therapy can be a bright spot something
to look forward to to make you feel grounded and to give you the tools to manage everything going on if you're
thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it's entirely online designed
to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a
licensed therapist and switch therapist at any time for no additional charge find your bright spot this season with
betterhelp visit betterhelp.com Garay to get 10% off your first month that's betterhelp
hp.com garage Rosetta Stone is the language learning program with a lasting impact
I've been using the rap to learn French and it's not just about memorizing words
but actually having real conversations and it's not just French they offer 25 languages right now Rosetta Stone has an
awesome holiday deal 50% off their lifetime membership every language unlimited access forever for anyone keen
on diving deep into a new language check out rosettastone.com it's a GameChanger major phone carriers make
you sign contracts with rigid data plans to trap you into a kind of forced phogy
sounds pretty insecure if you ask me at Consumer Cellular we believe in a more consensual and healthy form of monogamy
free of contracts and more flexible to your data needs this way you stick around not because we force you to with
contracts and fees but because you love our phone plans like ardently love our phone plans phog
Consumer Cellular when Freedom calls we're here to answer call us at 1888 [Music]
Freedom all right cheers everybody we are discussing the missing person case of Brandon Lawson Brandon Lawson was
last seen August 8th he left his home went to go to his father's house he runs out of gas he's technically listed as
missing August 9th because we have some phone communication with him that evening when the deputy arrives they
can't find Brandon he goes up and down the road the rest of the night looking for Brandon walking somewhere and we
have the Brother Kyle who's out looking for Brandon as well and this case just keeps getting more interesting because
there's so many questions like what exactly was that fight about yeah and was he actually even heading to his
father's house I mean we have the phone call he calls says that he's coming over
over but we have almost an hour that goes by before he actually leaves the house and this is after his own father
tells him you should probably just stay home cool off don't worry about it you shouldn't come out this way it's a 2hour
drive right maybe he's driving around just to blow off steam we also have his phone records and I have not seen any
evidence maybe he called somebody else that we're not aware of and then also what was this 911 call that came from
the truck driver right what was that call about you know I'd be interested for them to release that
tape and when I first looked at it I thought it was a little strange that the trucker called 911 but then you know I
reminded myself this is a guy who's probably a longdistance driver he's not aware of the local sheriff's department
phone number because this is not an a 911 type emergency but he's probably just calling the number that he knows
will reach well you keep speculating that it's not an emergency we have no clue what that call was about if if we
take it from what it's reported as is just an abandoned vehicle call it's not a 911 emergency obviously right and then
the other question is that we have law enforcement coming out later and talking to a local newspaper saying hey this guy
probably just went off with some girl what's their evidence to prove that and furthermore we have the family that has
constantly said you know this is not this is out of character for Brandon it wouldn't be he was not of the type to
just up and leave you know we mentioned he had four kids uh it sounds like he was a devoted father um he had his
girlfriend there he was very close to his father very close to his brother seems like a lot of reasons to stay I'm
not going to lie to you Captain for being 26 having four kids and working 95 hours a week sounds like some good
reasons to leave but his family is Adam you sound like a really nice guy his family is adamant that this would be out
of character for for Brandon he would not leave his children so again a lot of questions and a lot of things we just
don't know but what we do have is the 911 tape that was released to the family about four 4 and a half months after
they' requested it yeah and there and itself is a big question right you wonder you ask for this 911 tape and
we're assuming it it was some time had elapsed before they're requesting it right but then we see a whole lot of
time go by before they released this tape you know it shouldn't take that long of a time period to get a 911 call
that brings up speculation that this tape was doctored before given to the family and that's why we thought that it
would be key to really dissect this 911 call to to try to figure out what's going on in the call what he is actually
saying uh you know the thing here Captain is we have some technology that's not readily available to to
everybody in everyone's garage you know we have some sound equipment here and we
also have a secret weapon we have the captain he's he's a legit Bonafide sound engineer and he's going to help us
dissect this baby right now we're going to we're going to bring this into the garage we're going to take it apart look
at it piece by piece put it back together and see if it runs basically this episode is for all the haters that
think I bring nothing to the show all right Captain so please play the 911 call in in its entirety at normal speed
but play it two times in a row [Music] 923 050 and 38 seconds 91 emergency yes I'm in the middle of the
field s we're just pushing guys over right here going toward Jain on both sides my truck ran out of gas there's
one car here got sh the wood please hurry okay now run that b me talking to him I ran into him ah you ran into him
okay got the first guy do you need an ambulance no I need the cops okay is anybody
hurt hello hello hello 9 [Music] 2013 050 and 30 8 seconds 911 emergency yes I'm in the middle of the
field we're just ping guys over right here going toward jaing on both sides my truck ran out of gas there's one car
here got sh the wood please hurry okay now run that by me talking to him I ran into him ah you ran into him okay got
the first guy do you need an ambulance no I need the cops okay is anybody hurt hello
hello hello so I'm trying not to alter the tape too much and as you can tell like we have these big sexy man voices
and this oh yeah and this 911 tape is a little piercing well here's a good exercise for everybody to do stop what
you're doing right now get out some paper and a pencil and we're going to go through this line by line I want
everybody to write down what they think Brandon is saying and you can submit those on our blog at truecrime
garage.com let the dissection begin Captain play this at a slower speed yeah and they have a Time code on this so I'm
not going to play the time code every time cuz that would be a little Annoying kind of like Nick an
emergency yes I'm in the middle of the field we're just pring God over right here going toward on both
sides my truck out of gas there's one car here okay now talk ran into ah you ran into
okay the first do you need no I need to call okay is anybody hurt hello now on the original tape there's
three hellos and I just cut those out for the Slowdown version just you know so we can focus on the meat and potatoes
now what happens with with the sound quality is it goes down a little bit the quality gets worse when you slow
something down because basically what you're doing is you're expanding uh you're stretching the sound wave and
then you're putting bits of Silence in there right and because of those bits of Silence it starts kind of distorting it
a little bit so that's why it's a little bit less of a quality uh at the slower speed okay let's hear that again at that
same speed I want emergency yes I'm in the middle of the field we're just preaching guys
over right here going toward on both sides my truckan out of gas there's one car
here wood okay now ah you ran into them okay the first gu do you need an ambulance no I need the C
okay is anybody hurt hello the call is chilling to say the least yeah I mean every time I hear it
it it chills me to the Bone um can we play at an even slower speed over sides gas okay
no ah he ran into okay that's the first no I need the okay is anybody hurt hello
hello hello so slowing down even more we're taking those sound files those sound waves we're stretching them and
putting even more pockets of Silence in there so you get more Distortion okay let's play it at that speed one more
time and then we'll talk about kind of our initial thoughts just some guys over on both
sides gas here okay now ah he ran into okay that's the first no I need the call okay is anybody
hurt hello hello hello okay this is a good time to use that pencil and those and paper and put
down your initial thoughts because as we start talking about this you know we might start molding your thinking as far
as what you think that you're hearing right so first off he is he sounds out of breath to me right right uh he sounds
scared to me as well not to be misleading anytime that you slow down anybody they also sound like they're
possibly intoxicated yeah which is which is something interesting you and I were
talking about earlier here because there's been some people say well maybe he was drunk you know he got in a fight
maybe he went and got drunk maybe he you know and Lessa says he was not intoxicated or had not been drinking
before he left and I think if you listen to the original and you listen at the normal speed he doesn't sound
intoxicated to me but obviously like I said once you start slowing it down everybody sounds intoxicated yeah
because especially on the first the first slow down version and proof of that is the the the person answering the
911 call she goes 911 emergency you know that's we Everybody's Got a Friend a female friend that sounds like that
after a few shots well let's talk a little bit about the 911 one dispatcher most counties will have actual dispatch
group of 911 this County was really small so when you called 911 it actually went to a nursing home correct and the
nurses on staff were trained to answer these 911 calls yeah there's been a lot of people that have said that the 911
person wasn't doing a very good job that night you know that that she never asked
for Brandon's name she never asked for Brandon's location um I don't know I I kind of I kind of have to defend the
dispatcher here in my in my opinion because first of all he's he's got a very thick accent he's out of breath
it's hard to understand what he's saying it sounds to me like she's trying to assess the situation you know asking if
he needs an ambulance is anybody hurt and obviously could they use maybe more training obviously but we all could use
more training we all could use some more training you're exactly right the the thing here is Captain I don't don't know
how how quickly are they supposed to ask for somebody's name is is his name even
that important in the beginning part of the conversation I mean does she have the ability to to carry on the
conversation and dispatch whatever he's calling for you know whether it be the cops or an ambulance right and there's
at least two or three times where she is going to say something or trying to say
something and he's interjecting oh just like the captain you know stepping all over somebody else's words I've been
trying to get better at that my first thoughts here Captain are that after hearing it those three different speeds
you know there's obvious signs that there there are certain words and certain lines that he is saying that are
much clearer than others and much more precise what I think we could do you know since we have the tools maybe we
look at this thing line by line and try to pick apart the ones that are that are
tougher to hear because some of the lines almost sound like he's rolling into the next sentence mhm well so what
you're going to hear now is the first line and we'll play that at normal speed and I'm going to actually put it on a
loop yes I'm in the middle of the Fielding over yes I'm in the middle of the field
we're just over yes I'm in the middle of the field we're just pring guys over yes I'm in the middle of the field
or we're just pring guys over so that the very first half of that sounds very clear to me I think I'm hearing yes I'm
in the middle of a field the second line is much less clear to me it sounds like
he's saying ster just pushed but I also hear ster just pulled some guys over I'll play that clip again
on a loop and slow it down yes I'm in the middle of f just over yes I'm in the middle of the field
just over yes I'm in the middle of the field just over so we both agree that we think he's
starting off by saying yes I'm in the middle of the field mhm or yes I'm in the middle of a field right right
something like that yeah he's he's not on the road he's trying to give a a general description to the dispatcher of
where he is yes I'm in the middle of a field and it almost like the yes is like you know when you're waiting when you're
urgently waiting for somebody to pick up you know she 911 emergency yes I'm in the middle of a field right and then it
it's weird cuz it sounds like a ster a ster just when it's slowed down it sounds
more like pushed you're exactly right but again because you're creating those pockets of
Silence it distorts things so it could be making more of a sound would somebody say pushed somebody I mean you would if
you were talking about okay ster first of all what the hell is a ster what is a ster we don't we don't know I mean but
it but it's you know I when we first listened to it I thought maybe you know I heard stapler uh because I'm trying to
not think about what his situation is I'm trying not to think about this guy being out in the middle of nowhere it's
midnight it's very late he's calling I I'm trying to the adrenaline's going yeah I'm trying to push all of that out
and just write down what I did you say push or pull I said push I'm trying to I'm trying to clear all
that out and just just write down what I hear yeah and ster is really what I hear
I mean I I wanted to I wanted to it to make sense so like Escape her you know or you know was it two words rolled
together stap her that's what it sounds like to me yes I'm in the middle of field stier now again so so the big
speculation there has been with ster is that they doctored the tape right that you know they had what four and a half
months to alter the tape and so the here now here's the problem so I'm taking this recording and I'm putting it into
our recording uh program and normally when there's a edit if there's a bad edit there's a pop when
I'm when I was looking at these wave files I could not see any visual sign of a bad edit that doesn't mean that there
wasn't an edit it just means that there wasn't a bad edit so we're both pretty convinced of what we think he's saying
in that first phrase right so let's uh let's just solo out that first phrase here's that first phrase at original
speed looped yes I'm in the middle of field yes I'm in the middle of the field yes I'm in the middle of the field so as
you hear at the end of each Loop there's a little pop mhm now like I said if you
if there's a bad edit you'll hear a pop that edit that bad edit is on my part that you created that so well I yeah I
didn't create it I just sent because I'm cutting to I'm cutting the wave in half
so by doing that when it gets the end it pops every time it sounds like something
like shutting off or a click or or like you said a pop right so that's edit not theirs play that next section for me but
slow it down and loop it okay ster just pushed some guys over or possibly ster just pulled some guys
over yeah when when you play it in the original speed I hear ster just pulled some guys over that slower speed sounds
ster just pushed some guys over you know the ster is very clear uh but there's been a lot of speculation
regarding that word um right yeah and I'm just talk about this theory that was left on a message board yeah so and this
this will kind of change the whole thought of the first two lines that we hear right M so I read a comment that
someone had said that ster is actually a slang term you know if you if if I asked
Siri for the definition of ster she tells me what the definition of steeper is when I type it into Google search I
get the definition for stapler because there's no ster word right the thing here is this commenter said that ster is
a slang term for like an oil worker and the the just of his comments or her comments I don't know who this
person is but they're saying that that he's saying ster just pushed some guy over meaning that
that an oil worker pushed some guy like into an oil tank or oil you know right and then the other idea is that he
starts off by saying I'm in the middle of a field and so now it's not just some arbitrary field but you know I'm in the
middle of a oil field and a ster just push some guy over or push some guys over and I I got to be honest with you I
know nothing about oil fields I I you know I know I've been to Texas a couple times I love the state you might hear us
do our little Texas twang on on some of these we mean no disrespect love Texas but you know if there are people in the
area or people that are familiar with oil work um I would love to hear their comments is ster a word is that an
actual term that people use um because again it it does it changes that first line from the middle of a field to the
middle of an oil field and a ster just push some guy over and the other speculation or the kind of conspiracy
theory out there is that ster is actually where an edit was made before the you know the it took four months to
release the tape so within that four months then they made this edit now so what we're going to do is it's the the
ster edit moment right okay so I'm going to present a way you can make this edit and create this new word
ster so you got to start by what word do people think they're covering up and it's state trooper so a lot of people
believe he's saying I'm in the middle of a field and a State Trooper just pulled
some guys over mhm so the word is state trooper now I want you to say the word state trooper okay now I'm going to make
this edit and then Nick's going to tell you how long it took me to make the edit
okay State Bur Stater Stater that took 4 months no no it took maybe 4 seconds now
now the problem here is Nick is talking in a very clean room well it's kind of dirty but uh dirty garage but because
the audio quality is clear it's a lot easier to make that edit okay so it took 4 seconds it's not that hard to make
that edit it's also not hard to make a clean edit so therefore you don't hear a pop
the problem is with the phone call there would be so much static it' be a lot harder to make a clean edit without a
pop let let me see if I understand you completely okay so you're saying that if there were uh you know when you look at
the wave file you don't visually see an edit point however which you would not see if it's clean edit okay but however
you're saying in this situation um it it obviously was very easy for you to create the word ster from state trooper
so in your expertise is this is it an edit I mean clear that up for me I don't visually see an edit but it's definitely
possible that they made a clean edit okay so let's let me just I'm going to hang on this for a second because this
word has been of much speculation right and it changes everything because if if it wasn't edit than what he is clearly
stating is I'm in the middle of a field and a State Trooper just pulled some guys over and that is why people would
believe that the tape was held on to for so long that they had some things they wanted to take out remove from the the
the voice message and they wanted to clean it up for their purposes whatever whatever they're covering up or whatever
they're trying to hide right that would be the conspiracy theory can we compare those two clips side by side so the One
Clip would be of me which you created of me saying ster compared to Brandon saying ster ster ster
sterer I here's the thing Captain I feel like I'm saying it slower than he is so
maybe if we compared it to the the slower version here's an even slower version it sounds very much the same to me right
the ster right and the other thing that people have to kind of wrap their head around is we have a guy that's 230 some
pounds out of breath full of adrenaline and this word he might have slurred over
so it possibly is not even an edit yeah he's just not clearly stating whatever word he's trying to say and again I
think that falls as far as logic I'm in the middle of a field a State Trooper just pulled me over yeah pull well a
State Trooper just pulled some guys over sorry if it's not an edit okay then I kind of hear stay Trooper stay Trooper
you know almost like he's rolling you know he never gets to the second te of state and it goes right into Trooper
which which I wonder now that if I've gotten too hung up on the word ster and I just really quickly assume the next
word is ster just pulled this guy over ster just pulled these guys over right because if
if just is not if just is not the word there right if it's actually some weird way of saying state trooper pull some
guys over yeah and and the yeah I mean I think like I said I just think logically
it goes towards some kind of version of state trooper yeah then the question then becomes is he in his right mind
because if he's not in his right mind then everything he's saying you know and when I say not in his right mind
intoxicated or on drugs or maybe sleep deprived if you have if you're sleep uh if you're sleep deprived long enough you
could possibly hallucinate I've I've actually had that happen once and sorry to break from this for a second here but
this is going to sound crazy I worked a 36 and a half hour shift one time all right and at some point so I came in
around like 6 in the morning and I didn't leave until the following afternoon but sometime around 6:00 in
the morning after right around that 24 hour mark right I'm drinking coffee again and other people start coming back
into work to to do their their next day shift I'm still on my my one shift and I
swear there was probably about 5 to 10 minutes where I I was hallucinating but but I was still of enough mind to
realize that I was hallucinating and it was just little things like I thought thought people were saying things that
they might not have been saying uh and people looked looked a little weird to me well yeah I I've seen some of the
people you worked with they looked weird anyways but um tell me that you weren't salary tell
me you were hourly no I was a that was a salary position they got their money's worth that week um I here's the thing
though captain and I hate to keep having you pull little things and and play it but that's what we're doing but now what
I want to know is having talked about is this stay tro stay Trooper if that's if
he's rolling it or if he's out of breath and that's how it's coming out and coming through I really want to hear
those next four or five words again you know because because now I'm concerned is if I go with it state trooper or
state trooper is the next word just pulled this guy just pulled these guys just pulled some guys you see what I mean and
I want to hear is it guy or guys we just play it a couple times slow from that part guys
over over the pushed is weird it's you know um have you ever heard like older folks
say push you know rather than push um again that part right there is is a conundrum
for me because I I tell you you play it once I hear pulled you play it a second time I hear pushed um just yeah but you
got again I got to push on through here right yeah but you got to keep in account that there is Distortion and so
sometimes when you do slow something down where definitely when you slow down that word it definitely sounds more like
pushed than pulled yeah uh but also we got to remember um people misspeak yeah so one little slip you know pushed some
guys or pulled some guys again at the end of the day to me it starts coming more around to this idea of I'm in the
middle of a field and a state and a State Trooper just pulled some guys over it's it's definitely some guys over I
I'm 100% on that some guys over right so now part of the story is we we have Brandon we have a state trooper and we
have some guys yeah yeah and here I'm right down as we go okay and this is where I have it I actually removed the
word just from the second line I I just I feel like it's not there I have yes I'm in the middle of a field stay
Trooper pulled some guys over that's what I got all right I'll play the next phrase on both sides now from the
comments that I've read Captain you know because and I'm going to keep going back
to these comments CU I got on a bunch of different websites regarding this Brandon Lawson mystery and I wanted to
hear what other people thought they were hearing because you know because you don't trust yourself well and ideally
you would get many people many ears into one room and play it and get a general consensus it seems to me that the
general consensus on this line is that he's saying they're out here going to aberline on both sides have you have you
seen that um what sounds like right here well let's hear that slowed [Music] down on both sides see that's you know
when I when I type in list of Texas cities right there is an aberline and there's an Aberdine as well um which
would sound very similar I think to one another given his accent and how fast and out of breath he's you know right to
me it sounds like a g sound though and and I I hear you too because when we slowed it down it sounds like the word
starts with a g how about yeah how about I just solo that section and and go real
slow with it sometimes when you slow things down they become almost inaudible well
looking at at the list of names of cities in Texas if we go with a G there uh the ones that sound similar to maybe
what he's saying would be galeston there's also uh goson and groverton or Groveton sorry but the the
thing here is Captain I have to ask you this because what there are certain letters
right that are pronounced a certain way that that are more prominent than others
like are there some things that we should be listening for when we're going through these as far as P's are usually
very pretty pronounced yeah um G I would think a g or a j might be a harder um letter like that yeah I think it's
confusing I think at the end of the day it it it sounds like it's you know going
towards something mhm on both sides so I you know I think it would be nice to have every word be audible but I don't
think it's necessary in order to get the picture of what's Happening well and there's that famous paragraph out there
where the author purposely jumbled up the words well not the words but the letters of each word and when somebody
reads through it you can actually read and tell what it's supposed to say even though when you look at the words
individually they make no sense right so we don't maybe know what word that is we
don't know if that's a city or not but we kind of have the framework around it so what do we have so far um what I have
so far is the I'm convinced on the first two lines that we have yes I'm in the middle of a field stay Trooper pulled
some guys over I'm I can't say what I'm hearing on the third one for certain yet
I think we got to go through the third line a little more the thing here is though Captain we try to put out these
episodes Tuesday evening and it's getting very late here in the garage and if we don't take a break now this
episode won't come out until Wednesday morning and we're not going to do that to anybody so let's let's stop it now uh
you stop it now we'll take a quick beer break and we'll get back at it to record
the next episode and what do you think put these out a little closer in in time yeah so people don't have to wait so
long gotcha gotcha because we're kind of I feel like we're stopping halfway through right here thank you Captain and
we will see everybody right here back in the garage in a couple of hours and until then be good be kind kind and
don't [Music] [Applause] [Music] Litter Angie list is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I
thought it was an Eco move fewer words less paper no it was so you could say it faster no it's to be more iconic must be
a tech thing but those aren't quite right it's because now you can compare upfront prices book a service instantly
and even get your project handled from start to finish sounds easy it is and it makes us so much more than just a list
get started at angie.com that's ngi or download the app today

Brandon Lawson 911 Tape /// Part 1 /// 85

TrueCrimeGarage.com (http://www.truecrimegarage.com)

August 9th - 2013, Bronte, Texas- A young father of four left his home in the middle of the night. While driving his truck to his father's house he runs out of gas. Brandon Lawson is on a dark highway in the middle of nowhere. Armed with only his cell phone Brandon goes walking in search of gas. Something happened that scared Brandon because just before 1 am, he calls 911. I'm in a field... I need the cops... Please hurry...Are these Brandon's last words? Tonight we go through the timeline of Brandon's disappearance and we try to dissect the now famous 911 call.Beer of the week - One Hundred Million Angels Singing by Texas Ale ProjectGarage Grade - 4 and a half bottle caps out of five

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com (https://pcm.adswizz.com) for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Brief Summary

Brandon Lawson vanished in 2013 after running out of gas, leaving behind unanswered questions and a chilling 911 call.

Key points

Language Learning with Rosetta Stone. Discover how Rosetta Stone helps you learn languages beyond just memorization.
True Crime Garage Introduction. Join hosts Nick and the Captain as they dive into true crime stories.
Brandon Lawson's Disappearance. Brandon Lawson, an oil field worker, vanished after running out of gas on Highway 277.
The Missing Person Case of Brandon Lawson. Brandon Lawson went missing after running out of gas on his way to his father's house. His family insists he would never leave his children behind.
The Dispatcher Dilemma. The dispatcher’s performance during a critical 911 call raises questions about training and response.
The Mystery of 'Ster'. Speculation arises about the meaning of the word 'ster' in the call recording.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Brandon Lawson was last seen when he left his home.

Introduction to Brandon Lawson's case

4:43WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.