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Season Six: Panther Falls
201 Plays17 days ago
We are using this episode to talk about an ongoing cold case missing persons case turned murder.
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Transcript
Introduction and Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Interest in Chad Austin's Case
00:00:25
Speaker
This is True Crime
00:00:59
Speaker
We used to cover like a lot of missing persons cases and sort of what was happening with them. And it's not that we've gotten away from that.
Media Coverage and Initial Case Complexity
00:01:07
Speaker
It's just sometimes we don't have the time to to work all of those in because they take a lot of work.
00:01:12
Speaker
But I did, i had one that kind of popped up this year again for me. i think Dateline covered it and I haven't seen the Dateline coverage, um but I wanted to talk about this case. 10 News out of Virginia has done a lot of work on this.
00:01:31
Speaker
And it's one of those cases when I look at it, I wonder like exactly what was happening there. and it It has some kind of resolutions.
00:01:44
Speaker
it's It's really strange. There is a Facebook page on this case that you can go and look at People have covered it on like different Reddit postings. And i tried to make some sense of it, and I couldn't.
00:02:00
Speaker
And after I couldn't make sense of it, I was like, you know what? Like, that's one to talk about. Because like every few years, there's a case like this that kind of stands out. Now, this one's
Details of Chad Austin's Disappearance
00:02:10
Speaker
older.
00:02:10
Speaker
it's um It's from 2019. Do you remember us like briefly talking about this one? remember it coming up. I don't know that we talked about it on the show, though. No, no. definitely have not talked about it on the show.
00:02:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah. i remember when came like when it came up yeah Okay. um So I pulled those 10 articles for us to to look at them, and I kind of wanted to go in a little bit of order, like, just to to talk about them.
00:02:42
Speaker
um I remember it pretty distinctly, like, when it happened, I remember, like, reading quite a bit about it because it happened to be covered by Roanoke Virginia News. um Irisha Jones, she had covered it in, like, little blurbs.
00:02:56
Speaker
And the first thing I remember reading was it's a police seek seeking clues to find missing Buena Vista man. um This popped up September 27th, 2019, and it kind of stuck with me.
00:03:12
Speaker
It said $1,000 reward is being offered for information that'll lead police to the whereabouts of a Buena Vista man. 31-year-old Chad Austin was last seen around the Panther Falls area of Amherst County on Memorial Day. So it's in September for something to happen in May.
00:03:30
Speaker
The investigation to date has led police to several dozen leads and investigators are still asking for help from the public as they want to question several people who may have been in the area of Panther Falls on the day that Austin went missing.
00:03:44
Speaker
Any photos from anyone in that area? If we can take a look and see if we see anything in the background that could maybe help us develop some more leads. That's according to Lieutenant Waylon Miller and police said that his parents were fully cooperating and with what they were trying to do here.
00:04:01
Speaker
Now, when a person goes missing, it's like one level of interesting. And this is gonna pop like on a Dateline much later.
00:04:14
Speaker
I noticed that some podcasts have covered this. Most of the information is is okay. whats What struck me though, was when I looked at a map of this area, um I realized a couple of things.
00:04:28
Speaker
You and I have looked extensively around the place that he goes missing. And so this is Amherst County, Virginia.
Family's Grief and Police Press Conference
00:04:40
Speaker
Panther Falls is this waterfall and swimming hole located there. It's going to be really close to some other cases we've covered, one of which is Stonewall Lily. Yeah, just vaguely.
00:04:57
Speaker
It's a hiker that went missing and it's one of those cases that like it kind of bothered me. This is like within the area of like the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest area. yeah So Panther Falls is close to there.
00:05:14
Speaker
And then we had talked about different murders that had occurred in that area. And one of the ones that we came up with a while ago was ah Heidi Childs back in 2009 and David Metzler.
00:05:31
Speaker
They're killed in Strawberry Fields or Caldwell Fields. Right, I remember that. Which is right outside of Jefferson National Forest in Virginia. And they were shot, right? They 18 and 19-year-old. They were both sophomores at Virginia Tech.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, they were shot. And so that case has always bothered me. It's on the Virginia Cold Case database. The summary of that one, for people who don't remember us talking about this before, ah Thursday, August 27, 2009, Heidi Childs and David Metzler were found murdered at Caldwell Fields, a Jefferson National Forest Rural Recreation Area located within Montgomery County, so a slightly different area, it's near the Craig County line on Route 621.
00:06:14
Speaker
The criminal investigation determined that Heidi and David had been killed the previous evening. So they're found on Thursday, August 27th, but they've been killed Wednesday, August 26, 2009.
00:06:28
Speaker
ah Both of the victims have been shot to death. This is a very long investigation that's gone on. i think at the time they put together the profile, they said 13 years. But if like you took a look at it now, just like from the perspective of dates, it's going to be 16 years.
00:06:46
Speaker
ah There was a multi-agency criminal investigation that occurred. What was interesting Caldwell Fields murders to me was like school was just about to start at Virginia Tech. Like, so you know, school would have been kicking into, like, high gear, so to speak.
00:07:02
Speaker
ah I've never seen a lot more information on that one than what we've talked about previously. It's never been solved, right? No, it's not been solved. um So we're in a slightly different area, but we're still tied to basically that same sort of national parkland in the middle ah with this Chad Austin case. He's from Buena Vista.
00:07:22
Speaker
He's missing. we Through the years, he had multiple blurbs and news conferences that are about his case.
Online Speculations and Wallet Discovery
00:07:31
Speaker
There's a live-action news conference that happens in October 2020.
00:07:37
Speaker
And when that one pops up, ah it's Nicole Del Rosario, but also still with 10 up there. And the title was Police Provide Update on the Deaths of Missing Puerto Vista Man.
00:07:51
Speaker
And it says the Virginia State Police held a press conference Wednesday afternoon regarding the 2019 disappearance of a missing Planta Vista man. ah The article continues and it says in March of this year authorities found the remains of Chad Austin and the Greater Panther Falls area.
00:08:08
Speaker
Police released on May 2019, that they had found austin silver two thousand and six Hyundai Tiburon, and it had been abandoned about two miles down the turnoff for Panther Falls Road.
00:08:21
Speaker
His dog Gunner was unharmed, but locked inside of the vehicle. so that's Memorial Day weekend. Authorities said they searched the immediate area and they located several of his personal items, including two knives that had the blade in the open position.
00:08:38
Speaker
According to police, there was forensic evidence that showed that a struggle had taken place between Austin and his unknown killer and that ultimately would ah lead to his death.
00:08:49
Speaker
His wallet, quote, turned up at Panther Falls six months after it gone missing. Special Agent Kevin Zirkle in Virginia says we especially want to hear from the individual who returned Chad's wallet to the scene more than six months after his disappearance.
00:09:06
Speaker
It was not overlooked on previous searches of that area. We know it was intentionally placed there, and perhaps there's a very reasonable explanation. We've been trying to figure out why that person, though, has not yet contacted us.
00:09:20
Speaker
I find stuff like that really interesting. I don't know about you. i found i find it to be like... very annoying. Right. Because they're not, they're not serious.
00:09:33
Speaker
Like, like when they say they have somebody that they need to talk to. yeah yeah Like we just need to talk to you. They witnessed something like what you, they don't want to give away that we really want to arrest you.
00:09:48
Speaker
Well, right. And so to me, like, that's dumb. Not to mention they're showing how little they have, right? I feel that way. i didn't know if you felt that way, but I guess you do. I get really annoyed at it, actually. Yeah. Because I've i've heard people say, like, unless somebody talks, we're not going to solve this case.
00:10:08
Speaker
Do they think that that's going to encourage the perpetrator to come forward? I think, I remember Delphi having something like that be said, and then ultimately it didn't seem like anything to do with the actual arrest in that case.
00:10:23
Speaker
So I don't put a lot of stock into it. Well, don't put a lot of stock into it. I just think it's dumb. And not to mention, so people get really, they get really hung up on things.
00:10:38
Speaker
Like, for example, this wallet. Like, we didn't miss this wallet. Right. Right. Okay, but what if you did? yeah I, you know, I'm with you on that. I look. and It seems like it was a little bit reinforced in this particular case. But like, I mean, is is it possible? I mean, did somebody find it and maybe like put it somewhere more obvious and still not having any idea what was going on?
00:11:07
Speaker
I mean, I don't know. I don't know what happened, but it's a weird thing, right? What was the point if somebody had taken it and returned it to the scene? What was the point of that? I'm like, if we don't get enough information from like what's happening here.
00:11:22
Speaker
So they give us a little more information from the press conference. The state police basically say they're able to confirm through texts that were on Chad Austin's phone that he was anticipating being confronted by people who were determined to settle a disagreement with him a few days leading up to his death.
00:11:40
Speaker
And so that same special agent says we have no reason no reason whatsoever to believe that he was looking for any kind of trouble. And we do know that he had
Theories on Chad's Last Movements
00:11:47
Speaker
a reason to suspect a confrontation was inevitable. We know there are additional people in the Buena Vista community who know certain pieces of information related to Chad's death, but are fearful to come forward for a number of reasons.
00:11:59
Speaker
Virginia police were joined by local law enforcement and Austin's family at the press conference, including his mother Ellen Austin, as Thursday marks what would have been his 32nd birthday. To have Chad missing for a year and then to find out your son is dead has been horrific. Some are saying that at least you found him, but that doesn't even begin to help us have closure because there are still so many unanswered questions.
00:12:21
Speaker
That's why we need your help, everyone's help. This is like according to Chad Austin's mom, Ellen, and something she said to the press at this press conference. So they hold this press conference in the Panther Falls recreation area where he was last seen alive and where his remains were recovered.
00:12:36
Speaker
I kind of go hunting around the internet. um People have put together bits and pieces here and there. Someone gets on True Crime Discussion, which is a subreddit, so it's on Reddit, and they throw up an article this year, which is ahead of or around the same time as the dateline.
00:12:53
Speaker
It says, May 27, 2019, Chad Austin drove to Panther Falls in Lexington, Virginia, and his mother's Hyundai Tiburon. His dog Gunner accompanied the young man Chad was a 30-year-old lifetime nature lover who frequently visited Panther Falls to hike and explore.
00:13:09
Speaker
He was last seen by two campers in the parking area that has many trails leading up to various swim sites. His cars found the next day less than a mile from the parking area out of gas and abandoned, with Gunner still inside the vehicle.
00:13:23
Speaker
This alarmed his family greatly as they knew Chad would not leave his dog behind, and they posed the question what happened to Chad Austin before they provided some background. I got to say, man, when a dog is left in a car, i always wonder what happened that this person did not expect to be gone that long.
00:13:42
Speaker
Well, but so, okay, maybe, but it was at a park, right? Yeah. Okay. So why would you have left your dog in the car at the park unless you didn't want the dog to be involved in the scuffle you're about to have?
00:13:59
Speaker
i would I would tend to agree with what you're saying. Yeah. That's what I think. and and But it also means he had every intention of coming back. I think he, yeah, he was planning on on being back there shortly. I mean, like, I think I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have left my any of my dogs in a car with, like,
00:14:26
Speaker
the idea of it being inappropriate to leave them in the car. And this is Memorial day. so it's warmer. They describe it as summer and some of what they're saying, but the truth is like, it is going to be warm.
00:14:38
Speaker
um and like the rule for me is once it's over 65 degrees, the dogs don't get left alone in the car without, uh, if I'm driving one of the Jeeps, the top has to be off, which is a whole different thing.
00:14:49
Speaker
Um, I think that is significant here that they've left the dog in the car. Plus some of the things they find are interesting. The way this goes down is says he left for panther's fall early ah ah Panther Falls in his mom's car early afternoon.
00:15:06
Speaker
he was seen by two campers at 4.30. If they saw him and confirm it, Then he was wearing gray tank top and knee length athletic shorts.
00:15:20
Speaker
The campers reported he had the dog with him. So his vehicle is found at 1230 PM on Tuesday, May 28th. So Memorial Day is Monday the 27th.
00:15:34
Speaker
This is the following day. It was two miles from the turnoff to Panther Falls Road and Gunner was locked inside. This action greatly worried the family.
00:15:45
Speaker
cause dog in the car ah during a police search on thursday may 30th partial keys for the vehicle were found a half mile away along with other personal belongings i don't know what they mean by partial keys but like i always think if i'm borrowing somebody's vehicle a lot of times i have the spare set not their full key chain you know what i mean yeah so i i realized that um the car is registered to his mom. I just wasn't sure if like it was actually his car. it's the one he's driving full time. Maybe it is. Yeah. Cause a lot of times, um, you know, kid, I mean, I realize he's 30 years old, but a lot of times, depending on situations, uh, you'll be driving a car that's yours, but it's registered in somebody else's name. Right.
00:16:36
Speaker
Yeah. I've definitely done that. Yeah. Yeah. a parent or, you know, whatever. um And so I was just, I'm not sure. ah Partial keys, it makes me wonder, like, they somebody thought he had more keys?
00:16:53
Speaker
Could be, yeah. Or something like that? Yeah, it could And that's interesting, right? Yeah. So that part of the story basically gets us caught up to the car.
00:17:09
Speaker
Well, ah according and this is still according to the Reddit post. So they don't launch a public search investigation until a family gets involved on June second So that's, we're now moving into the weekend.
00:17:23
Speaker
They're searching for him, making pleas to the public, putting up missing persons posters. They believe that foul play is involved. He
Critique of Police Investigation
00:17:29
Speaker
hasn't contacted their family. Everybody felt like that was unusual.
00:17:34
Speaker
People start talking in like full blown speculation mode where they're talking about, did he kill himself? Did he have an accident? um Ultimately don't,
00:17:45
Speaker
we don't get a lot of information in those immediate search efforts. I always think that's kind of ah strange that, you know, we we're not getting the the information that we might need. What are they holding out on Well, I don't know what they're holding back, but like, i think those text messages that they've discovered later on, I think that's something you start talking about earlier than they do here Well, I think that that puts them in the realm of just flat out blaming someone that they don't have the evidence to charge.
00:18:20
Speaker
Well, that could be, okay, I would agree with that. But at some point, you like you have to be like, ah why? are he Because you know you used to say, want to get my hands on the file or whatever. And I'd be like, why does he think he's entitled to that? And then it occurred to me,
00:18:42
Speaker
at different times ah doing different cases, like, well, I don't know that I'm entitled to the whole file or that it even matters.
00:18:53
Speaker
When you hear somebody talking about like a 30 year old case that they're holding back details that could possibly trigger somebody's brain to solve it. yeah You have to wonder what on earth they're doing thinking that like oh we can't give all the information out because one day we'll have to verify who the killer is and we'll need to have it that day's not coming yeah and so give the information out right and in this case i do think there must be a direct link uh to
00:19:35
Speaker
It's almost like in this case, they they have to have known what happened. i i think they I think they know more here than a lot of these cases that we talk about.
00:19:48
Speaker
um This one's confusing to me because what i read was... um They don't do a professional search until June 15th, 2019.
00:20:01
Speaker
So at that point in time, a lot of stuff sort of gone. They do say personal items have been found. They found some evidence. um His mom posts on the Internet and she says, I believe if you were near a phone, you would have called.
00:20:15
Speaker
because you would know the agony that we are all going through. She stated in her post that Chad loves helping others. ah She had to have warned him multiple times about picking up strangers.
00:20:26
Speaker
You know, we have a month go by, no information. ah Nine months goes by, no information. There is a slight change of information in December 2019. A father and daughter who are hiking, they find a wallet located on the trailhead of Panther Falls,
00:20:42
Speaker
next to a missing person of him. Police believe the wallet was placed there purposefully. it had not weathered. Again, nothing. But May 2020, they find his remains.
00:20:55
Speaker
So they find his remains. Which goes back to my point about like how close his remains were to where they initially searched and they didn't find them. Yeah, you and I sort of talk about this all the time where you know it I mean, they missed his remains. I feel like they could have missed the wallet as well.
00:21:17
Speaker
Yeah. that's That's kind of where i was headed with this. Like, ultimately, yeah. um They could have missed yeah pretty much all of this. But that makes it, like, less interesting of a story. Right.
00:21:32
Speaker
Not to mention, you know, they did say that the wallet had been put close to a missing poster of him. Right. Right. And so to me, like, and and it looks like a piece of, like, it looks like a tarp.
Text Messages and Criminal Record
00:21:48
Speaker
His wallet does. I don't know if you've seen a paint It's, like, silver. Yeah. I thought it was gold, too. Well, okay, yeah. It looks something like that. Like, it's a weird-looking wallet. And so they're like, oh, it hasn't been weathered. I'm like, I'm not sure that could be weathered.
00:22:02
Speaker
Right. um Because of the material. And then, like. You know, if somebody did find it and they were like, and his license was in there and they were like, oh, look, here's the missing guy's wallet. I'm not getting involved with the police. However, I will leave it here by the missing poster and somebody will find it And see, that's what i think, too. Like what you just said is exactly what I think.
00:22:25
Speaker
Because I could see why when you have your one day off of the year and you're at the park, you don't feel like spending the entire day waiting for the police to respond.
00:22:37
Speaker
I, yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, at the end of the day, then finding the remains does kick off some information.
00:22:48
Speaker
um This is gathered on the Reddit post. We can find it elsewhere on the internet. It says that, uh, yeah, The family had given up you know a a whole year praying for a safe return. This is a devastating blow to them. His death is ruled a homicide.
00:23:01
Speaker
The personal belongings that are found a half mile away from the car are revealed to have included two knives in the open position. so i assume they're talking about folding knives. um But forensic evidence would show that these knives had been used in his murder.
00:23:17
Speaker
That's interesting. They had been used in his murder? That's what this post says. I can't find. I've heard that they were his knives. That's what i have heard as well.
00:23:30
Speaker
yeah Okay, so like he had his own knives used on him? i i guess maybe he lost the fight. All right. I don't know what was happening here.
00:23:41
Speaker
um And I'm not, I don't, I don't think that, I think I'll just stick with like, there was a confrontation coming. We don't know for sure what the motivation was. It seems like a lot of people might know what it was.
00:23:54
Speaker
um And, you know, I'm going to go with probably love money or revenge. Right. ah Now it's stupid to drive out,
00:24:07
Speaker
in the middle of nowhere for this confrontation right yeah um i'm not sure why it's happening to begin with um i don't know i feel like ah it i'm just i'm not sure i'm not sure why there's such a lead up here and then you know, the fact that these people have been walking around free for six years is insane, right? A little bit, yeah.
00:24:37
Speaker
Especially since there's evidence. Now, I guess it's possible. i feel like they would have said they had cleared them if that were the case. Because, you know, you can have, you can be about to have a confrontation with a group of people and it ah not be deadly,
00:24:56
Speaker
Yeah. Right? Like it not makes sense. I believe that once his remains were found, there these they i think his death was ruled a homicide. Is that right? yes Because my thought was, well, maybe it wasn't a homicide and maybe he was so upset after the confrontation that he just went in and committed suicide or whatever, Yeah.
00:25:19
Speaker
But that doesn't seem to be the case. Yeah. The knives were found fairly early. They're found, like, in the ah the original setup, yeah. yeah Okay. And it, there's ah there's quite a few cogs at work here, I think.
00:25:40
Speaker
It seems like ah stretch.
00:25:46
Speaker
Those people would have known that they that it the road would lead right to them, right? Yeah. because they're having text messages about the situation.
00:25:59
Speaker
And it seems like if you if it is a group of people like they said, somebody would talk.
00:26:09
Speaker
Well, so what I did here for this case that I felt like I could contribute, that's not really talked about. I don't know if it's talked about in the Dateline, if it is, you know, it is what it is. um There's a couple things happening here.
00:26:21
Speaker
i think I think the court records will clear up a lot of what's happening in his life. When I went on Virginia Public Records, I was able to look through information related to Chad Austin.
00:26:35
Speaker
Usually I don't do this, but I do think it's directly related. So in this instance, I'm going to talk about it. Chad Austin has a criminal record. And in this criminal record,
00:26:45
Speaker
It goes back a number of years. It looks like he had like some of the basic stuff that's like speeding tickets and alcohol infractions, but he does get a burglary back in 2010.
00:26:58
Speaker
Now, part of the burglary ends up being indicted. not all that interesting, but it does put him on the radar as being a convicted felon to some degree. um but May gets arrested.
00:27:14
Speaker
He gets arrested for possession of marijuana and somehow pulls, in spite of the fact that he has had all these other charges, he's had some embezzlement charges, some counterfeiting charges, um kind of along the way. It looks to be all the same birth date as him.
00:27:34
Speaker
um If I'm really long wrong about all of that, I apologize. ah But it is it is a Chad Austin with the same full name and the same birthday. he has a bunch of like misdemeanor larcenies along the way.
00:27:47
Speaker
he gets a suspended sentence on this marijuana charge pretty quickly. like He literally goes to court really fast and he gets a suspended sentence sometimes that is an an indicator that potentially you've cooperated.
00:28:05
Speaker
now Well, plus, didn't marijuana get legalized in Virginia recently? It is now, but it wasn't in 2019. Yeah, okay. yeah okay go ahead.
00:28:17
Speaker
Sorry. So then the following day, he gets arrested 2019.
00:28:25
Speaker
Now, this is eventually going to be no lepros, so he doesn't get found guilty. He gets misdemeanor assault and battery and a felony malicious wounding by stabbing.
00:28:39
Speaker
That's on May 20th of 2019. So these are going to be indicted that summer, and they are going to be um rolled out in November in The way that it all looks was something had been set up where they commenced the proceedings in his absentia.
00:29:03
Speaker
Like maybe he had started a plea agreement on this, but he goes up to this area. I just wanted to point that out because an assault and battery is a pretty serious charge to have that as a misdemeanor.
00:29:18
Speaker
But this malicious wounding, this stabbing, that's a very serious charge. Okay, but he did that in... It looks like it stems from an incident in March of 2019, but they delay filing the charges until May 19th and May 20th.
00:29:37
Speaker
Those charges are filed, and it almost looks like they're triggered by his arrest for the marijuana possession. Right. And was it an indictment? He is going to be indicted. Yes. He's going to be indicted a little months later.
00:29:50
Speaker
He's going to be indicted and he's going to be prosecuted. One of the charges is Noli Prost because it looks like a plea deal had already been developed. And I don't know how they do this. And it may be a mistake in the court record.
00:30:02
Speaker
It could be that they thought he might be missing to avoid it. But he is like, he has several things on here. If you go through his criminal record where, ah They're either noliprost or he's found guilty in absentia.
00:30:13
Speaker
That includes this March 2019 wounding. Okay. And so because he he's facing charges for this issue, ah so I'm just trying to kind of switch gears here because I'm trying to think of like What is a situation where are like you do something, you get charged for it, and then like you meet up with the people so they can like get revenge on you outside of the scope of the law? Because that seems weird. Well, no. ah
00:30:50
Speaker
I don't think it's going to be the person on the other side.
Unresolved Questions and Family's Continued Search
00:30:54
Speaker
I think it's going to be someone connected to that situation or to the marijuana situation. I could go either way. and but My point is, you said you think the police know what happened.
00:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, I do. And I think they do. I think they've narrowed it down to two little groups of people. And I don't know if it's all the same people. um i did not dig through it all and go, oh, it's it's got to be this person or that person. i didn't do anything like that.
00:31:21
Speaker
Like, I didn't pull all the witness themes and everything that had happened because it is an older case now. But my guess is this is like an unadjudicated thing that the family is pushing.
00:31:33
Speaker
and Well, it should, I mean, honestly, this should be solved. It sounds like it. It sounds like if it's someone connected to these groups, then yes, it 100% should be solved.
00:31:45
Speaker
And then I wonder, like, well, is it solved but not adjudicated? Like, is it solved but they haven't charged anybody? Because literally, given the circumstances, if nobody talks, which, I mean, it's safe to say at this point, if nobody talks, nobody's going to be charged.
00:32:03
Speaker
Right. and Because they're not going to come upon some like magic forensic evidence six years later. That's not going to happen. Right.
00:32:14
Speaker
So where we get to with this first part of this, we find out that like, you know, knives have been found at the scene. His remains have been found.
00:32:26
Speaker
And, I think that's a huge deal that the remains are found. I do wonder if something here,
00:32:37
Speaker
I can't figure out a way for him to have harmed himself, if that makes sense. Yeah, I don't think he'd do that either. With his two open knives. um You know, this this case is relatively open.
00:32:49
Speaker
it kind of ends for me, ah like from the perspective of like like what you and I typically do, Until I get answers on what the police are putting together related to those other parties. Because obviously, once you go to court and you're in court for, ah like, if you're in court for misdemeanor marijuana, technically there's no other parties involved. Like, you're just there because you had marijuana in your possession. the It's the state against you.
00:33:16
Speaker
But there is, like, where did you get the marijuana? and like Which is something I wondered about, right? Yeah. And they're like, was there a dealer that was arrested? Yeah, can you find, like, you know,
00:33:32
Speaker
that Chad is also the witness in a case that was going to be a little bit bigger case and maybe that's what's causing the altercation. Clearly he's had this um confrontation in March so they're probably going to know the names of the people if he's being charged.
00:33:48
Speaker
um I doubt those people are directly involved in him going missing and coming up dead but you may find people around them um that are involved and like I don't know why like like We're here to the point that like Dateline is covering this 2025. Right.
00:34:09
Speaker
And no one is mentioning these arrests that I can see online. I had to go hunting. um That was confusing for me. I did find one Newstalk Radio article from 960 AM or 1073 FM WFIR.
00:34:24
Speaker
ah They have an article from October 2020. It says, knife, struggle, and text new information released on man's death. It says, state police have released new information surrounding the death and disappearance of Buena Vista man 17 months ago.
00:34:38
Speaker
It suggests clear signs of a violent struggle as police and the victims' parents ask for help. Chad Austin was 30 when he disappeared near the Blue Ridge Parkway on Memorial Day weekend of 2019.
00:34:49
Speaker
His remains were found in March. Thursday would have been Chad's birthday. One day ahead of that, state police divulged some new details in the case, among them two knives belonging to Chad found in that area in the open position, and there were signs of a struggle.
00:35:05
Speaker
and that text on his phone anticipated a confrontation. Police say that one person committed this murder, but others witnessed it. um it says wfir's evan jones has more there's a broadcast where you can go listen to this on wfir's website but it says october 20 22nd 2020 a buena vista family will be honoring instead of celebrating their loved one's birthday chad austin would have turned 32 on tuesday had his remains not been recovered in amherst county in may and i'm just going to point out i think that's when it was announced and they actually found that in march or it could be vice versa
00:35:42
Speaker
Like, there's something going on here where the dates of the actual police's reports and the statements are kind of mixed up along the way in various sources.
00:35:53
Speaker
um But it does say with the development of several new leads related to his disappearance and death of Virginia State Police BCI, ah Salem Field Office continues to work collaboratively with the Buena Vista Police Department and Amherst County Sheriff's Office to render an arrest in this case.
00:36:09
Speaker
Law enforcement had been alerted 12.30 p.m. on May 28, 2019, to the Silver 2006 Hyundai Tiburon that Chad was driving, being found abandoned two miles down the turnoff for Panther Falls Road. and His beloved mixed-breed dog Gunner was found unharmed and locked inside the car.
00:36:26
Speaker
Investigators confirmed Chad was last seen on Memorial Day by campers in the Panther Falls Shady Mountain area east of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Witness Intimidation Concerns
00:36:33
Speaker
A search of the immediate area resulted in several personal items belonging to Chad to include two knives being found about a half mile from his abandoned car.
00:36:42
Speaker
Both knives were found with the blades in the open position. and additional forensic evidence collected at the scene confirms a struggle took place between Chad and his killer leading to Chad's death. That sentence makes me think they had blood from two people.
00:36:55
Speaker
Saying that. Six months later, after he's reported missing, Chad's wallet turns up at Panther Falls. We especially want to hear from individuals who returned Chad's wallet to the scene more than six months later.
00:37:06
Speaker
It was not overlooked. And then he goes on through that spiel again.
00:37:12
Speaker
i feel like that's a stretch there, considering his, I mean, they're not alleging his remains were moved, right? We don't say anything about that, no. Okay, so in this situation, the way that it's laid out, if you've got a group of people who witnessed one person murder another person. Right.
00:37:32
Speaker
and Okay. There has got to be some sort of ah
00:37:39
Speaker
fear. i would say it would be fear over loyalty ah as to why nobody has come forward. For example, if you go to the police, you're next.
00:37:52
Speaker
right Right. Okay. n you know, at this point in time, it I mean, it seems like, i you know, I would be thinking, well, my death would go unsolved too, right?
00:38:08
Speaker
That's what I'm thinking of if I were a group member. Yeah. but Because he's gotten away with it so far. And, you know, there's literally um nothing, because of the circumstances, there's nothing...
00:38:22
Speaker
accept a witness that's going to ah bring closure to this. And that makes it... ah I would be very alarmed to live... to be about that age and live in that area, I think.
00:38:44
Speaker
Wouldn't you? Oh, yeah, definitely. Because you've got somebody... You've got somebody who...
00:38:55
Speaker
There's like, why was he killed? Like, I don't know the answer to that question. That's why I brought up the two incidents because, you know, his, his previous criminal record in all honesty, it kind of looks like he did the crime, did the time, got out of that, did the things that you do to kind of clean up your record a little bit. I can see all the arrests. I can't see what the convictions were exactly for, but it's not all that interesting.
00:39:21
Speaker
It looks like he was a responsible person when it you know came to his court stuff. So for him to have this burst of activity in early 2019 and go missing Memorial Day 2019, I have to think some part of this is related, whether it's the you know possession of marijuana or the previous ah assault that he's charged with.
00:39:42
Speaker
Like, was he, maybe he owed money because he, it was a lot of marijuana and that put his supplier out.
00:39:52
Speaker
i don't know. i mean, i don't know what, and what that could be. But how is that? um Because the police, like, because he's already gotten in trouble, um he's going to be, fit and you know, they move forward.
00:40:08
Speaker
with the indictments even as he's missing.
Exploration of Online Theories
00:40:12
Speaker
I guess I wonder how much that played a role in this situation. mean, it sounds like his family went out there and searched anyway, and they didn't find him, even though he was – did you go over how – he wasn't very far from where his car was found. They get tip.
00:40:33
Speaker
Oh, they do? Yeah. They get a tip. So the wallet is found by a pair of hikers. The tip comes in that they can find them at XYZ location.
00:40:45
Speaker
From what I can tell, that's not been made public, like exactly what gets us there. I've seen names um bandied about here that I don't think have anything... to do with this, one of which is an ex-girlfriend.
00:40:57
Speaker
There's this other guy that's very interesting um that appears to be sort of a local ne'er-do-well. He's flat-out named in places on the internet that, like, for some reason nobody is,
00:41:12
Speaker
what's the word, editing or moderating. um So I was able to pull, like potentially things related to this gentleman.
00:41:26
Speaker
And he is not a marijuana dealer, just so people are aware. Like the person that is named, people say, oh, he deals all the weed. He's not. He's like a major cocaine trafficker. um And somehow he appears to me to be like kind of a guy who probably is some level of informant.
00:41:47
Speaker
And that's how he gets away with things up there. um He's mentioned in some of the offhanded comments. I don't know if that's who he had the conflict with. um i did not look deep into the ex-girlfriend. but I was going to girlfriend and' or his ex-girlfriend didn't do this. No, but one of the things was i i think maybe they're implying that
00:42:15
Speaker
the ex-girlfriend was potentially a witness. And then I saw this rabbit hole that you can find pretty readily from all the sources I've talked about where there was some indications that maybe someone in this group of people was telling on a CI and Chad had a beef one way or the other.
00:42:38
Speaker
i don't know which way we want to look at that. but that the police basically needs someone to come forward and confirm which CI did it for them to be able to, um, make the right call of which person to cut loose and then arrest.
00:42:57
Speaker
Um, there was a lot of indications on the internet that he was impaired. Like people who saw Chad last, uh, believed he might've been, on some sort of substance. Nobody specifies, they bandy about marijuana, they bandy about alcohol, they talk about meth, and they talk about cocaine online.
00:43:16
Speaker
But, you know, I didn't see anything where any of that ah struck me as, like, actual, um
00:43:28
Speaker
anything beyond speculation. i Except for, I did read that someone had read a witness account of him being impaired when witnesses saw him on Memorial day and Memorial day is a place where you, um, you potentially go to the lake or you go to the Creek or the waterfall or whatever, and you maybe have some beers or something else.
Public Involvement and Parallels to Other Cases
00:43:51
Speaker
Um, that's all notwithstanding, but i do believe that to find him, he either has to engage with this person or this person had to be following him.
00:44:05
Speaker
Like, he's either going to be texting with them or talking to them, or someone's got to follow I don't know.
00:44:13
Speaker
I mean, i guess it seems like if there was, like, some ruthless, cold-hearted person in that area, and would have come up otherwise, right?
00:44:26
Speaker
Because this is a cold-blooded murder, it sounds like. um Yeah, it sounds like a cold-blooded stabbing. And... It's, I just can't really figure out like how, this is everybody's worst nightmare, right? In my opinion. This is a mother's worst nightmare for sure. Oh, absolutely.
00:44:48
Speaker
Having your child, I don't know how much they knew. About what was going on. you said that his body location, ah was his body was, or his remains was were found because of a tip. Was it a tip like Chad Austin can be found here? Or was it a tip like we were hiking and it looked like there was a skull?
00:45:11
Speaker
um I do not know the answer to that. It's not made public at this time. um I guess it could be in the dateline. So I, i at some point we'll be reviewing the dateline. hike it do you know if it was an actual episode?
00:45:27
Speaker
Um, it was, so one of these 10 things, it says this, uh, and I don't have a lot more after this, but it says Dateline but brings renewed attention to Chad Austin Coldcase. It's from the summer. A guy named Sam King is a weekend anchor. He wrote up a little blurb on it on June 10th.
00:45:46
Speaker
It says there's new national spotlight on a gold case in our area. Over the weekend, Dateline featured the disappearance of Chad Austin Buena Vista. He was last seen Memorial Day 2019.
00:45:57
Speaker
His ah remains were found near Panther Falls in Amherst County a year later. They have some quotes on here from his mom. says She speaks to 10 News about the case, and so does David Austin, her husband.
00:46:10
Speaker
more you know Kind of the typical things you expect. She says it's hard, very hard. Some days are harder than others. And he says Chad was a caring person. He really liked to talk to people. Remember several times he'd been riding around meat at Tampers or someone walking off the mountain. he would pick them up, bring them back down to the store.
00:46:28
Speaker
but Austin said they don't like the spotlight, but it's worth it to find the justice for their son. to fight justice for the son As parents, it's been almost six years, and you feel like you need to do something, and you don't know what else you can do.
00:46:38
Speaker
We want it to stay in the public's eye, and that's our main purpose, is to have it out there so we can try and get justice for Chad. 10 News reached out to the Virginia State Police, which said there's nothing new in the case.
00:46:49
Speaker
The family is hoping the attention sparks people's memories about any details they may have missed that weekend. So this article seems to indicate it was on Dateline. I'm not all caught up on my true crime television for the summertime as we're recording ourself.
00:47:03
Speaker
Well, it sounded that's what it sounded like to me, too. but ah So I guess that's when we probably saw it back in the summer, right?
00:47:14
Speaker
I think that's where it popped back up on my radar. I think I actually got a press release of some kind about it. And that's what made me go down the rabbit hole. And I sent it to you and you were like, that's an interesting case. Right. But I think I just had to see, I've got to see, I thought I looked for it and like, it was like,
00:47:33
Speaker
like the entity Dateline is saying this, but like there wasn't an episode, but that doesn't really make sense. I must've just not been able to find it. Okay. Well, I mean, I saw the stuff that you were talking about where you, at one point you described the, um, the wallet, the duct tape wallet and something else. Yeah. Um, it had like rivets on it. I saw that. Um, there were other things about it I saw and I thought I read a quote, like someone telling Dateline, this is going to be a thing.
00:48:02
Speaker
um Okay. but i Yeah, that makes sense. I saw it right ahead of it happening. And when I gathered stuff together, like for you and I to talk about it, um i had not i had not seen the episode. I had just kind of flipped through and found a few sources.
00:48:17
Speaker
The main thing I did was, and you know how I get, I'm so nosy about some things. I went through like all the court records I could find. And it took me a long time for there were several people named Chad Austin.
00:48:28
Speaker
To narrow it down, I had to find his birthday, which I found. there was I think there was like an obituary page after his remains were found. It was very brief. um I found that. And I just went through everything from the perspective of, are we missing something here?
00:48:44
Speaker
um And that's how I came across the information that he had been arrested multiple times in 2019. So in my opinion... so in my opinion all of that was like stuff that I had to wrap my head around first before I would go watching Dateline. Cause I wanted to know what I knew before they tell us.
00:49:04
Speaker
Sure. Right. Because once you, if you don't have a handle on something and somebody feeds it to you, that's what you're going to probably have. Yeah. Right. And so I didn't want to be spoon. Exactly.
00:49:16
Speaker
Exactly. And so with this case, I am interested in it. I do. I want to know what happened. Um, and, ah I wonder,
00:49:31
Speaker
like, what's the difference between, you know, where we're at now versus, like, justice for Chad Austin, right? Right.
00:49:43
Speaker
Because nothing's happened. And... ah and The outdoor setting, the time that lapsed, the torrential downpour right around the time he didn't come back home.
00:50:01
Speaker
uh all of that is what's lean i said earlier it's not like some forensic evidence is going to show up here and i wanted to clarify that because it's not the matter of time it's the it's circumstantial to what happened right that's why like they're not going to come upon something um that links anybody i just can't figure out if it's not i can't figure out
00:50:31
Speaker
And maybe the police are relying on this. Somebody in a group always talks eventually. Yeah. So if you go out there and you there's a rabbit hole for this. Justice for Chad Austin's on Facebook. There's multiple places to go and look. If you go down these rabbit holes, you're going to see some names.
00:50:49
Speaker
So in my personal experience, it's usually not those names. They could be linked to the situation and sometimes they get popped for conspiracy related to it. But typically like the, the, the name that you're given, the police already know about that person. And it's not that like, he's not involved at all. It's just that like, it's tangential, like some way, shape or fashion. It's attached to Chad that this guy and he had some kind of beef.
00:51:17
Speaker
It's not him who hurt him though. It's some guy that's in the crew. Or tangential to the crew who's mad because of, you know, whatever went down. And, like, he and his buddies are the ones they're talking about, you know, being the perpetrator and the witnesses. And while they may be two steps away from that name of a dealer or name of a person he had a beef with or name of an ex-girlfriend's dad or whatever you come across when you go on in this case, it's actually just, like, like...
00:51:50
Speaker
not enough information and the people that they know don't talk.
00:51:56
Speaker
So they got to get somebody from the other crew to talk like whoever the people that were standing around that day, because eventually they will like one of them, if they don't all die first, one of them will need to get out of trouble at some point.
00:52:09
Speaker
And that'll be the card they play. Well, right. It just, it seems like, uh, to go this long, you know, they're getting away with it, right?
00:52:23
Speaker
And I don't know. i just feel like it's crazy that that um
00:52:32
Speaker
that's been allowed to happen. I don't know. This is a crazy case. Well, several times, um the Virginia State Police that are involved, they've had special agents and other ah people who are talking about this case. So this case has not really gone away. it just never really makes the national spotlight.
00:52:49
Speaker
It stays as a regional thing. That's how I saw it. I think I was either in Virginia or North Carolina when I first heard about it. And the blurbs I've seen on it in the past were related to that kind of local media. At some point in time, I do remember seeing, I think it was this year that I saw like a, it's either the five-year anniversary from last year or something this year related to the dateline.
00:53:12
Speaker
And it made me remember that I always wondered. I knew they'd found him, but I didn't know if they had closed the case. So I
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:53:20
Speaker
went back looking. I found him in the ah Virginia State Police database, and I found all the articles that WSLS 10 was putting out there.
00:53:28
Speaker
And I remember the police saying several times, including in 2020 and 2021, we're so close. Like, we think we're close to cracking this and making an arrest. um And I just wondered why they hadn't.
00:53:41
Speaker
So that's how we get here today, you and I talking about it. um It's an interesting case that we feel like should be solved. It's definitely solvable. And you know you and I are sitting here thinking about it, and we want it to be ah like one of those cases where it's all wrapped up.
00:53:59
Speaker
I think you said it in a way that was really interesting, and that is like for local people of this age in that area, we want to not have them be in a terrible position where they could potentially have this happen to them.
00:54:22
Speaker
Which is what I would be left thinking. Right. Just, you know, off the cuff of what we've seen. Yeah. So, you know, I don't have anything else on this one right now. um the only thing, And if you go hunting down the rabbit hole, the only thing new I brought to this situation is um I did go through, i spent the time going through the court records. There's a slight misspelling of his name, but it's the same birthday and the same home address.
00:54:46
Speaker
So like I went through the court records and um I found the information that I've given you here today. I'm pretty sure I'm right on all of the different arrests and their relation to him.
00:54:58
Speaker
They're all out of Buena Vista. They all seem to have his background information attached to those charges. I think it's a little too much of a coincidence for him to have had pending criminal charges for the people involved in those criminal charge situations, whether it's people with the marijuana or the other drugs or whatever, or the people that are involved in the assault and the malicious wounding.
00:55:19
Speaker
I think that's probably going to be the rabbit hole that you go down here to find who did this. Do you have anything else on this one? Nope, not right now. I hope they figure it out. Or, I don't know, somebody takes the stuff that's necessary. Yeah, same here.
00:55:38
Speaker
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00:55:50
Speaker
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00:56:12
Speaker
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00:56:23
Speaker
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00:56:34
Speaker
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00:56:45
Speaker
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00:57:03
Speaker
Thank you for joining us.