Bryce Laspisa

Case background and investigation

Bryce David Laspisa was a 19-year-old student at Sierra College in Rocklin, California. In late August 2013, after breaking up with his girlfriend in Chico, he began driving south toward his parents' home in Laguna Niguel in Orange County. Over the next two days he made a series of erratic and lengthy stops and phone calls that worried his family, behavior that friends and relatives described as out of character for the normally responsible young man. He had reportedly been sleep-deprived and under stress.

On August 29, 2013, Laspisa ran out of fuel near Buttonwillow in Kern County and received roadside assistance to get gas. His parents, increasingly concerned about his state of mind, urged him to keep heading home, and his mother, Karen, spoke with him repeatedly by phone. In the early hours of August 30, at about 2 a.m., he called his mother again to say he had pulled off Interstate 5 to rest because he was tired. That was the last time his family heard from him, and his phone soon stopped responding.

Between roughly 4:20 and 5:15 a.m. that morning, his 2003 Toyota Highlander was found on its side at the bottom of a roughly 15-foot embankment near Castaic Lake, off a road near the Interstate 5 corridor in northern Los Angeles County. Detectives found his phone, wallet, laptop, and other personal belongings still inside the vehicle. The rear window had been removed, leading investigators to believe Laspisa may have climbed out through the back of the SUV after the crash. There were indications the vehicle had not simply gone off the road accidentally.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department launched an extensive search involving ground teams, helicopters, divers, and scent-tracking dogs across the lake, shoreline, and surrounding rugged terrain over several days. They found no physical trace of Laspisa and no clear indication of which direction he had gone after leaving the vehicle. In the years since, numerous reported sightings and tips have been investigated and ruled out, and his parents have kept up a public campaign to find him. More than a decade later, the disappearance of Bryce Laspisa remains unsolved, with no confirmed evidence of what became of him.