Something is Happening on Rainey Street Part 1

In Austin, TX, bodies are being pulled from Lady Bird Lake with alarming frequency; four bodies in the past month, eight bodies in less than a year, and 25 bodies in the past eight years. Several of the victims suddenly vanished in the middle of the night after going out with friends on Rainey Street. But the similarities do not stop there. Not even close. This has sparked speculations on social media that a serial killer is targeting Rainey Street revelers in Austin, TX but Austin PD states there is no indication of foul play and the deaths are unrelated. Chris reviews the list of deaths and weighs in with her experienced perspective. Are the social media rumors overblown or could there be a Rainey Street Ripper?  

Transcript

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People just want to know what it's like to be me. How does it feel to see a dead body, tell a family their loved one has been murdered, talk to a rape victim, catch a killer and get them to confess, hold on tight, my friends, get ready for the journey. And welcome to murder with Mannina. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of murder with,mannina we have a fascinating probably two parter story that we're going to get into but first I want to give a shout out to to Indianapolis police officers that were shot this week they are going to survive. But again, we're in such a violent world with all of these shootings, they were doing surveillance on a bad guy and he had an assault rifle. And I think from that, you know, not wrong, they weren't even able to get out of their vehicles. So the gun was such a high powered rifle that went through the doors of the cars at the police cars and shot to two officers but they're going to be okay. So I just always want to mention that and and was the shooter arrested now he was killed. He was killed by us so but you know, it's just seems to be happening more and more. We're in such a violent world right now. But anyways, I gotta give kudos to my partner calling here who has found a fascinating story that we believe is going to be a two parter. So hang with us for two episodes on this, we think and hopefully you will be intrigued as much as Colleen and I have been so I'll let you cue this up a little colleague. Okay, first of all, I want to thank Jessica Yang, because she listened Austin right now I met her in San Diego, she moved to Austin, she brought this to my attention. So big shout out and thank you to Jessica. It's a situation that's happening in several cities across the country, where because of social media theories have popped up and kind of gone viral with social media posts and Tik Tok videos talking about a string of deaths being related to serial killers. And so I thought it would be really interesting, Chris, for you with your your all of your vast experience and knowledge to look at these cases in a couple of different cities. We're going to do Austin first and then Chicago. And for you to weigh in on what you think is happening there. Could it be the work? Could these be at the hand of a serial killer? Are these deaths connected, etc. So I've just typed up a list of the deaths they've all been bodies pulled from water bodies of water, and you know and then you you let you tell us what you think might be going on? Okay. Okay, so, here we go and listen closely. Not that you don't. But to kind of follow along because, you know, we're always up for listenership opinions. And then of course, if anybody's got any information that would be cool. Do so. Here we go. Okay. There are fears of a Rainey street Ripper serial killer in Austin after the eighth body in less than a year was pulled from Lady Bird Lake last Saturday. Seven other people have been found dead at the same location over the last year. 25 bodies in the past eight years have been pulled from Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas. So right there, you have to think okay, I mean, obviously the first thing that comes to my mind and of course, social media and the people that know about this is obviously a serial killer, more than likely, right because you've got all of these bodies that have been pulled from this leg. So okay, we're all on the same page there. Several the victims had been seen on Rainey street, a short strip on the eastern edge of downtown, and it's known for its vibrant bars, food trucks and restaurants. Lady Bird Lake is about 1.8 miles or 35 minute walk away from the street. There are no cameras around the lake. The prevalence of this occurrence and the commonalities has sparked the speculations of a serial killer targeting Rainey street revelers Okay, so then we've got Tiktok videos about this that have gone viral Redditors have posted theories in a private Facebook group called Lady Bird Lake serial killer slash rainy St. Taylor were created in February this year and it has blown up with over 70,000 followers and counting. So with that, and I've always been a proponent of theories. I've always been a proponent of people getting involved. But like everything, there's always there's a good side to it and a bad side to it. Okay, so I I think when cases haven't been solved, I'm always up for the people that you know, get on social media. And they really dig deep into these cases, and they start to give their opinions. And of course, theories always come. Because I figure it's not been solved. You know, they're giving good information. So, but with tick tock cottage just changed the whole landscape of everything. It's so crazy. But in 70,000 people following this reference Facebook and tick tock, that's just nuts. Yeah, so that's crazy. And so in, we've talked about this before, people are intrigued by crime, people are absolutely intrigued by serial killers. So it's kind of a perfect storm. And on the law enforcement side, you know, you have so many tips coming in, and so many theories. And I hear a lot of times when police departments do press conferences, on high profile cases, they're like, oh, gosh, keep your opinions to yourself. We don't need all the extra work. But I kind of flipped on that a little bit. Because I'm like, if it's not solved, I'll take information from anywhere. And that's just part of the of the game of law enforcement, solving these cases, you have to weed through valid information and kind of get rid of the stuff that isn't good. And it takes a lot of work and time, but you know, it's worth it. You've got all these people that have died. But Chris, I feel like why don't they just have interns? Train interns? How to vet tips, and have interns do it? So 1000s of tips come in? I know, it's so funny. I feel like that could be a full time job. Like, you could hire a great one for interns. Well, yeah, especially justice interns. Yeah, just say especially people that say criminal justice, and even even people that don't, because so many people come up to me and go, Oh, my gosh, you know, I'm 50 right now, but you did exactly what I wanted to do. You know, so I have all these people that wanted to do, you know, be a detective or whatever. And they could get into the game as well. So yeah, we've talked about that idea for a long time. So Austin police so far say there's little evidence of foul play, claiming that while each incident occurred at the lake, the circumstances, exact locations and demographic surrounding these cases very. Furthermore, the autopsies have not revealed any trauma to the bodies. Okay, so I'm going to stop right there. I've said it a million times, if you followed my career, the autopsy gives you a ton of information, right, it will give you the cause, and manner of death are really, really important. And so when the autopsy, and this is just kind of comes down to work ethic to work ethic, personnel, supervisors, everything, but when the autopsy reports that there isn't any trauma to the body, and there, it doesn't seem to be foul play. You can kind of stop investigating it, you can absolutely you roll it as an accident, or you roll it is undetermined, but as far as law enforcement side, if I can get an autopsy that tells me there's no foul play, there's no, there's no trauma to the body, this was not a murder, this was not a, an assault, whatever, then we can actually stop, right. And a lot of you know, and I'm not, you know, I've done that, you know, they tell you how the person died. And if it's not a crime, and then it's no longer the law enforcement, responsibility. However, you know, if you look, get the story behind the story, and you start linking these things, and you're seeing all of these bodies, you have to have pause and say, Wait a second, I guess I don't have to as an attractive look at this any further. But II, you know, something doesn't feel right, because we have all of these bodies, but just Yeah, I just wanted to clarify that as far as what we have to do, as far as what we're responsible to do, as law enforcement detectives when the autopsy report is given to us so and list of the bodies found in the lake, since 2008. has been circulating on the internet. We're going to go over the victims on this on this list. But for many of the deceased on the list, there couldn't find a lot of the articles, you know, stating their identity. Some of them are but not everyone. So I don't have all the information other than dates that they were found. And then of course, we'll talk about, you know, my opinion and different strategies and speculations about foul play. And then of course, where are these cases connected? And I can already kind of tell like from the beginning, and calling did a lot of research on this. And I'm I looked at this briefly, but I thought I would wait until we're actually doing the podcast. So you kind of get my first instincts on it. So just based on this, it's like how could they not be connected in some form? I don't I'm not a person that believes that a lot of coincidences. Like I just think that. I don't know. I do sometimes, but not when you get into the number that we're looking at. So here we go, everyone 2023 So folks so far in 2023 four bodies have been found and Lady Burke Lake the most recent one was recovered on April 15 of 2023. He was identified as a 30 year old is as 30 year old Christopher Hayes Clark Austin And police department is investigating his death but said preliminary findings indicate no foul play or suspicious circumstances are involved adding no other information is available at this time. So preliminary findings and that's preliminary. When you walk to the scene, I can look at a body and see if they've been shot, you know or not, or if they had been stabbed and so they're saying like, hey, when we found this body, there was no gunshot. There was no stabbing the the body looked fine. Okay, so that's what that means when you hear preliminary a lot earlier. In the month though, 33 year old Jonathan honey was found dead honey was visiting Austin from the DC area to attend a friend's bachelor party and honeys case he went missing after a night with friends on Rainey Street, and was last seen at a food truck after the bars on the street closed. He was reported missing on March 31 and found dead the following day. And just to be clear, all of these bodies were pulled from Lady Bird Lake Yes, to be clear, not found dead on a street not found dead in different parts of Austin all found dead in ladybird Lake and that's what makes it like, that's what makes you stop and go we're dealing with a serial killer cause I gotta take pause. Okay, so on March 5, the body of 40 year old Clif X still was found after he went missing near stubs on Rainey Street. The body of 30 year old Jason John was found on February 13th, after he disappeared on February 5, while out on the town with friends, like honey. Jason John was also last seen walking along Rainey street after 2am. John was described as a jokester, and someone who made everyone happy. Following his disappearance, John's family began calling for better security around the lake, including the installation of lighting along the trails and security cameras on Rainey street. So victim's family got involved, saying something's up, we need to get some lights, you know, and that's, that's what happens, you would think that the police department would, you know, say, you know, maybe we need to look at this a little bit deeper, or at least get some lights out there. Alright, so now we're gonna jump to two or not jump go back to 2022. Where unidentified bodies were recovered on July 14 to 2022, December 11, December 25, and December 28. Please haven't released details, but have asserted that there was no evidence of foul play. And the deaths were unrelated. There was a fifth body recovered from the lake in December, the victim had been shot and his killer was promptly arrested. So we have all of these link, you know, we have a link with all of these and then they throw in that this victim had been shot and the killer was arrested. You wonder, though, is he? Was he arrested? Or was he questioned about all of these other ones, you know, did they go even though the other bodies were intact and had not been shot? You know, you have to ask this person that was quickly arrested. If he was involved in the other ones. I did read about that case. And even to me, it seemed completely unrelated. It was a truck went off the bridge into the water. The driver was dead. He had been shot in the head and they fight and they quickly found the killer. And then they arrested the killer but that killer none of the other bodies had been shot. There was no trauma. So it does seem like this is a completely separate circumstance. It is on the list of bodies pulled from Lady Bird Lake. It isn't it is included in that number, but it couldn't possibly i to me even that couldn't possibly be connected. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't feel like it now that you kind of explained that a little further. Okay, so. All right. So we're now in 2019. All right. In 2019, two bodies were found and man swept away from floodwaters was found dead on May 9 2019. And another body was found August 4 of 2000. And it please said the deaths were not considered suspicious. All right, a man swept away from floodwaters. Okay. The other body though that was found in May 9 2019. I wonder what the circumstances were of that or, but still we have a link right? Well, I'm not going into ladybird Lake. Are you ever are going near it? Jesus? I mean, I'm not a rocket science, but okay. So November 16 2019 21 year old Christian pew was last seen on Rainey street shortly after 1:37am On a Sunday. So we're talking about a few of the bodies are late night after the bars, you know, 132 I'm seeing he had parked his car on slaughter lane and took an Uber to Rainey Street. The last charge on his card was at Clive bar on the corner of Davis Street and Rainey Street. However, surveillance video that police reviewed showed Christian dancing at container bar next door or his car was untouched, so he didn't make it back to his vehicle. He left his cell phone inside the car, and there was no activity on his phone or his credit cards. On November 18, Christian was found alive, but in very rough condition with serious head injury and bruises. Deep in the brush in the lake, he was transported to ICU. And I do need to interject so he was alive. You'll see further down, Chris, that he gave an interview and talked about what happened that night. Of course, he has no memory of it. But I wasn't clear, but it seems as though he was in a coma for several weeks. But it again, a lot of details around these cases are I couldn't I dug and dug and dug and I couldn't find anywhere. So I don't have all the information because most of it hasn't been released. Right? Well, and somebody like that, who, you know, may have been in a coma, I'd still keep interviewing him every six or so months, because that's, you know, memories. Interesting. Sure. What I just thought of Yeah, absolutely. So he would be someone that I would love to talk to, and continue to talk to right. Alright, so in 2018 four bodies were found in lady Burke Lake on June 12 of 2018. The body of a 61 year old Rafe euro was found floating in the water and the body of a man in his 40s was found on August 15 2018. Austin PD says evidence from the scenes did not indicate that the deaths were suspicious for of homicidal nature. I'm wondering if they and maybe you'll know those sorts later on. Are they doing toxicology on these guys that I also couldn't find? I would imagine they they would have to see if there was the date rape drug in any buddy system. However, the medical examiner's office didn't publicly specify one way or another of those were being done. Okay. So October 8 of 2018 a body found in the lake was identified as a missing Minnesota man Christopher White White was last seen at the rental house his friends got by Austin City Limits musical Festival on October 6, his death was ruled an accidental drowning but he had drugs in his system. So okay, they are doing some toxicology obviously because now they're reporting that his was a drowning, but he had drugs in his system. It's funny though, like, how are they? I guess what the everybody up to this point? I mean, they're able to rule this is an accidental drowning. How are they rolling all the other ones? I if if I could find a cause of death if it had been? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just thinking kind of a little bit out loud. Like it's like, yeah, this is so crazy. Okay. All right. On November 27 2018, the body of 25 year old Martin Guterres is found good arrest was a recent graduate of Texas Tech University. After graduating he moved to Austin. He and his brother Mitchell were roommates along with Mitchell's girlfriend, they all live together in Austin. They had gone out for dinner together hours before Martin disappeared. Martin disappeared in the early morning hours of November 19. After going out with friends on Rainey Street. Mitchell spoke with media outlets and organized dozens of volunteers and posted flyers and asked for surveillance video all around downtown Austin 20 APD personnel and around 10 Travis County Search and Rescue team members also helped in the search for Martin. His brothers described him this way he was a good kid, and if he was gonna come up to you, you'd fall for him and second, his personality swallows you Wow. If you if you look up his picture online listeners I mean, it's just heartbreaking. This kid was obviously so tremendously charismatic, you could just feel it off of his pictures on the internet. helicopters and boats were deployed by law enforcement for several hours on Wednesday to search for Martin however, none of those resources were deployed again in the search after the date. Austin police said money they didn't send out boats or helicopters again, because surveillance video showed Martin leaving on foot in a direction that wasn't to the water and there wasn't any evidence that indicated he was in the water. His family member said he had gone to Lester Pearl and purchased one drink according to his bank records family members say and then what with his friends to the alibi, a bar next door the alibi staff at the bar refused to serve Martin alcohol because he seemed to talk skated in was acting strangely. The manager of the alibi washed all the surveillance video of Martin alongside and Austin police detective. In the videos, they did see Martin hanging out with friends and leaving the bar at 115 in the morning running south down the street. This account lines up with what Martin's family had been seen that Martin was seen on video leaving the alibi at 115. running south down Rainey Street. Family members said Martin separated from his friends and was looking for a ride home at the time. Mitchell Guterres had also seen the surveillance video said the way Martin was acting doesn't add up. He said it was out of character for Martin to be intoxicated like that and run out of the bar down the street. But you'll notice that all noted that it almost appeared as though his brother was frolicking in the surveillance video which was totally unlike him. Police ultimately ruled Martin's death to the accidental and the autopsy report revealed Guterres was was intoxicated when he died of drowning. But for Martin's family questions still linger about what exactly exactly happened to him the morning he disappeared. So they're going to rule a lot of these I feel like as a drownings, this is so nuts. Anybody that's listening that's from this area, and that knows about this lake I would love to have on an interview and talk to and get your opinion on especially if you've been following it. Right? Like we can have Jessica we'll have Jessica like I just in Austin, such a great city. Remember, we were going to go and then we did it. I was fabulous. I love it. I love to go to the lake, but I'm gonna say it now if I don't come back, look for me there. In 2017 Two bodies were recovered from ladybird lake on June 16, the body of a man in his 30s and on June 3 2017, the body of a man who jumped into ladybird lake from a bridge never resurfaced. So that could have been a suicide, right? The guy that jumped from a bridge. So anytime you have a body of water, you're going to have you're going to have the people that commit suicide, you are gonna have accidental drownings. I mean, you are 2016 at least four people disappeared or had been found dead in the lake near Rainey street that included a woman in her 60s found on February 29. Her case was investigated as a possible homicide. And on February 14, the body of a man in his 50s he was fully dressed and had his phone and wallet in his pocket. So what does that tell you? Oh, my Lord. To me, it just tells me those two are unrelated. Others because they weren't in the section, they weren't the same profile. They're not the profile. As you'll notice, Chris on the list, I highlighted the cases that have Yeah, commonality. Yeah, but I and I love that but I just never not. I feel like everyone's got to be highlighted to a degree because we're talking about the same frickin body of water. You know, true. But yeah, no, I see your point. Right? Absolutely. Okay. Um, wow. All right, so 2015 At least four bodies were pulled from the lake. In June 2015 22 year old Julio Santos the third went missing. Santos had just graduated from North Texas State University and was home in Austin for a week before starting a new job in Seattle. He was last seen on the east six and Red River streets. His body was found a week later and Lady Bird Lake shocking. Here we go. toxicology report showed no illicit drugs enroll his death as an accidental accidental drowning. His older sister Melanie Raman always had a gut feeling that the circumstances surrounding her 22 year old brother's death were off. And I'm telling you gut feelings are exactly that they're probably on. She says the toxicology report only showed alcohol in his system. But of all things his belt was missing. Everything else was intact. While his death certificate says drowning Raman doesn't agree Raman believes that her brother and other victims are being drugged. I think it's something toxicology isn't looking for on a Basic panel. I think there are alerts somewhere I think that's when they go missing and they subsequently are found Raymond said that makes the most sense. I mean, that makes the most sense. You know, absolutely makes the most sense at this point. Wow. Okay. And and and unidentified body was found in July, and the body of a man was found on September 7 teeth. another man's body was discovered on November 29 of 2015. Police identified him as Santiago Gonzalez. Becerra, a 23 year old graduate business student in in the accounting professional program, but Kara was reported missing by his sister on Thursday and was found dead in the lake Sunday morning. Police said it did not appear suspicious and I hate that they keep saying that on an individual basis. These are not overly suspicious, okay, I'll just leave it at that. But as a group, and when you really start to dig in, and this is what Cold Case detectives do, and this is what my partner Colleen does, and what I do, you know, we can research all of this stuff. And we can kind of put links and things together, right, but you just can't like, it's so time consuming as you as you saw to do all this and put this together. But what, what is one thing that is the same in all of them, where the bodies are recovered? Okay, and you can't, you can't take that. So we will do part two of this crazy case next week on murder with menina. But in the meantime, any of your listeners that have any information about this, or can describe to me a little bit more about the lake, and how you would even, you know, you just walk into a body of water, is there a parking lot like give me the landscape of kind of what this lake looks like? I would love to hear from you. And we'd love to have you on as a guest because I think this case is really intriguing. Also, if any of the locals or visitors to Austin have been around Rainey Street are on Rainey street and have witnessed either been refeed themselves know somebody who's been refeed or witness somebody who was extremely intoxicated after one or two drinks and acting funny and blacking out disoriented. The whole thing. We want to hear those stories because that's evidence and wow, thanks to the person that gave you the case. Jessica. This is this is good stuff. So yeah, Jessica, thank you so much. So guys, thanks again for listening. And stay tuned for part two of this case. keep reviewing and writing us and sharing the podcast with your friends and family. We appreciate you and we will see you next time on murder with mannina if you have a cold case you'd like Chris to review submitted through our website at murder with mannina.com and follow us on Instagram and Facebook at murder with mannina and Twitter at murder W mannina. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode of murder with mannina,