On August 30, 2013, Bryce Laspisa called his mother to tell her he was pulling off the road to get some sleep before continuing his journey home — but he was never heard from again.
In the early morning hours of August 30, 2013, California Highway Patrol officers discovered the damaged remains of a car near Castaic Lake, in the mountains northwest of Los Angeles. The car, they soon learned, belonged to a 19-year-old by the name of Bryce Laspisa – who was mysteriously missing from the scene.
Meanwhile, back in his hometown of Laguna Niguel, 100 miles south, Bryce Laspisa’s parents Michael and Karen were awaiting their son’s arrival home from college. Karen had last heard from Bryce at around 2 a.m. that morning, when he called her to let her know that he was pulling off to the side of Interstate 5, up in the Sierra Pelona Mountains. Bryce told his mother that he was too tired to drive anymore and would get some sleep before making the rest of the journey home in the morning.
Finally, a knock came at the door, and the Laspisas were ready to greet their son. Instead, they were met by an officer from the California Highway Patrol, who informed them that they had found Bryce’s car. The rear window was shattered, and his phone, laptop, and wallet were all inside, yet Bryce himself was nowhere to be found.
Suddenly, the strangeness of the past 24 hours dawned on the Laspisas.
At around 11 a.m. the day before, Michael and Karen discovered that their son had just used their insurance to call for roadside assistance while driving home from Sierra College, north of Sacramento. Bryce Laspisa’s car had apparently run out of fuel, so he called a local service station owner to deliver three gallons of gasoline to him around two hours earlier.
Hours passed, but Bryce, for some reason, still hadn’t driven away. His parents, concerned about the insurance notification, called the service station owner and asked him to go back and check on Bryce.
Find Bryce Laspisa/FacebookMichael, Karen, and Bryce Laspisa.
He did so at around 3 p.m., but he found Bryce Laspisa in the exact same spot. He then convinced Bryce to get a move on and drive the remaining three hours home to his parents’ house. Hours later, however, Bryce Laspisa still hadn’t arrived home.
In fact, he had only made it a few miles down the road, where police found him by tracking his phone. They let Bryce know that his parents were concerned and convinced him to give them a call. They noted that he seemed lucid and friendly, showing no signs of intoxication, and that no drugs or alcohol were found in the car.
Finally, after some urging, Bryce Laspisa was back on the I-5 and heading home.
Then came that 2 a.m. phone call when Bryce told his mother that he would pull off the road to sleep. Security camera footage captured 15 minutes later did show Bryce pulling his car off the highway – and onto an access road. But from there, no one knows where he went or what happened.
Divers dredged Castaic Lake and found no trace of him. Police dogs tracked his scent across a bridge to a nearby truck stop, but then the trail went cold.
To this day, the mystery of what happened to Bryce Laspisa remains unsolved.
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