Updates: Theories about Serial Killer right here in Austin.

You don’t need to be an APD or an FBI to figure this out,” says Elsie John, mother of 30-year old Jason John, whose body was recovered from the lake on February 13th after being missing for 8 days.

In fact, in 2023 alone, four bodies have been found in in Lady Bird Lake, and “according to local reports, as many as eight in the past 10 months.” The latest body was just found on April 15, closer to the Longhorn Dam, about 2 miles down river from the others.

The more the police insist there is no evidence of foul play, the more it seems exactly the opposite. And this longtime Austin resident, who has biked the trail with her husband for decades, feels there is something up.

The British tabloids, often better sources for what’s happening in America, are on to it as well. And they don’t spend half their articles regurgitating the local police claims that “they have found no signs of trauma on the victims or evidence of foul play.”

But many of these writers live across the pond (i.e. England) or are natives of New York, Chicago and the like. Different Drummer lives in the thick of it, or “in the eye of the hurricane” as her husband started referring to their quaint tree-lined streets across the lake from a now glittering Austin Skyline.

We both can still remember the old Rainey Street, an eclectic neighborhood of bungalows almost as old as our 101-year-old abode just blocks away. I remember one place housed a monkey who used to cavort in what is now Banger’s Sausage House and Beer garden

These are still our stomping grounds, and your two Cycling Sleuths will be chronicling where our path crosses those who did not return home to their loved ones.

We say explore rather than solve these mysterious drownings, and we will certainly use help from several others who are working toward that goal, too. Some of the theories circulating now talk of a serial killer cult, perhaps one related to the infamous and unsolved Smiley Face Killers in New York from more than a decade ago.

We will also explore links to similar drownings in Chicago and Houston as well as theories about drugging with so-called roofies and emptied bank accounts, as well as a recent theory about fake Uber drivers involvement. Not to mention rumors about torture and enforced captivity.

One innovative theory suggests a woman behind some of these deaths, hypothesizing that men might let their guard down if a woman offered them a ride or assistance. The Uber/woman theory fits at least one body found across the Lady Bird Lake as well as one person found barely alive, 21-year-old Christian Pugh, 21, who was found in 2019 after two days on the south shore, alive but in bad shape having been hit on the head with bruised hands.

Stay tuned as we explore these deaths and hopefully chronicle efforts to stop them.