On a December night in 2020, 21-year-old Jason Landry left San Marcos, Texas, expecting to make a routine drive home to Missouri City.
He never made it.
Instead, shortly after midnight, Jason’s Nissan Altima was discovered abandoned on a remote gravel road near Luling in Caldwell County. The vehicle had crashed, its lights were still on, and the keys remained in the ignition. But Jason was nowhere to be found.
Even more puzzling, personal belongings had been scattered around the crash site, including clothing and other items belonging to him. Despite extensive searches involving law enforcement, trained search teams, technology, and volunteers, Jason has never been located.
More than five years later, his disappearance remains unsolved.
The Night Jason Disappeared
Jason had grown up in Missouri City and was attending Texas State University in San Marcos in 2020.
On the evening of December 13, 2020, he planned to drive from his apartment in San Marcos to his parents’ home in Missouri City. It was a familiar journey, and there was no known reason to believe that night would be any different from an ordinary trip home.
At approximately 10:55 p.m., Jason left his apartment and began driving south.
Investigators later reconstructed much of his route using digital information and surveillance.
Around 11:05 p.m., Jason was traveling along Texas 80 after passing beneath Interstate 35 in San Marcos. He continued through the rural communities along the route, including Fentress, Prairie Lea, and Stairtown.
At approximately 11:24 p.m., Jason reached Luling.
That was when something changed.
Investigators determined that Jason stopped using the Waze navigation application and began using Snapchat. A short time later, his vehicle appears to have left the expected route.
Around 11:30 to 11:34 p.m., Jason traveled through the intersection near Magnolia Avenue instead of continuing along the expected road. His vehicle eventually entered Salt Flat Road, a rural gravel roadway.
Somewhere along that stretch, the Nissan Altima crashed.
The Abandoned Car
At 12:31 a.m. on December 14, a volunteer firefighter noticed Jason’s damaged vehicle on Salt Flat Road.
The circumstances immediately raised questions.
The Nissan was sitting abandoned on the rural road with its lights still illuminated. The keys were still in the ignition, and the front passenger door was locked.
But Jason was gone.
Texas Department of Public Safety troopers arrived approximately an hour later.
The initial theory was that Jason may have lost control on the gravel road and overcorrected, causing the vehicle to spin out.
At first, there was nothing obvious to explain why the driver had disappeared after the crash.
Jason’s father, Kent Landry, arrived at an impound facility around 5:30 a.m. He discovered Jason’s phone inside the vehicle.
When he returned to the crash location, he found more of Jason’s belongings scattered along the roadway.
Among the items were Jason’s backpack, clothing, and shorts that appeared to have blood on them.
Jason himself was nowhere in the immediate area.
Later that day, he was officially reported missing.
A Search That Produced Few Answers
The discovery of Jason’s abandoned vehicle triggered a major search operation.
Authorities and volunteers searched the surrounding countryside using a wide range of resources. Search teams deployed drones, tracking dogs, infrared-equipped aircraft, and side-scan sonar, while volunteers combed areas around the roadway.
The nonprofit organization Texas EquuSearch also became involved in the search.
Teams spent days looking through the surrounding terrain, but no confirmed trace of Jason was found.
The landscape around the crash site presented its own difficulties. The area included rural roads, wooded sections, fields, and other terrain that could make a search challenging.
Despite the effort, investigators could not establish what happened to Jason after he left the vehicle.
Did he become disoriented after the crash?
Did he walk away from the scene?
Was he injured?
Or did something happen to him after he left the vehicle?
Those questions have remained unanswered.
The Digital Timeline
One of the most important pieces of the investigation has been the reconstruction of Jason’s movements during the final hour of his known journey.
Investigators were able to establish that he left San Marcos shortly before 11 p.m. and traveled south along Texas 80.
His activity later showed a change in how he was using his phone.
After reaching Luling, he stopped using Waze and began using Snapchat.
Not long afterward, his vehicle left the anticipated route and eventually reached Salt Flat Road.
The short period between Jason’s last known movements and the discovery of his vehicle has therefore become a central part of the mystery.
Yet knowing where his vehicle traveled did not answer the most important question:
Where did Jason go after the crash?
Years of Searching
Jason’s family and supporters refused to let the case disappear.
Additional searches and community efforts continued after the initial operation ended. Family members and volunteers organized efforts to locate information that might explain what happened.
The case also attracted regional media attention, keeping Jason’s disappearance in the public eye.
Several years later, the Texas Attorney General’s Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit reviewed the investigation.
The review found that investigators had pursued the credible leads available at that time, while emphasizing that the case remained open and that credible information from the public was still welcomed.
The review did not provide the family with the answer they had been waiting for.
Jason was still missing.
A Mystery With No Final Chapter
Jason Landry left his apartment expecting to make a normal trip home.
Instead, his journey ended on a dark rural road with his vehicle damaged and abandoned.
His phone was inside.
His belongings were scattered nearby.
And Jason himself had vanished.
There has been no confirmed sighting of him since that night and no discovery of remains that would explain his disappearance.
The years have passed, but the central questions remain the same.
Why did Jason leave his planned route?
What happened in the moments surrounding the crash?
Why were his belongings scattered along the roadway?
And most importantly, what happened to Jason after he left his vehicle?
As of 2026, Jason Landry remains missing.
For his family, the case is not simply an unsolved mystery. It is the absence of a son whose story has never received an ending.
Until Jason is found or investigators learn what happened to him, the December night he disappeared will remain one of Texas’s enduring missing-person mysteries.
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