On the night of August 8th, 2013, a man named Brandon Lawson disappeared somewhere off of US-277 between San Angelo and Bronte, TX. There’s very little evidence of what could have happened to him outside of a 911 call that he made, and as with most missing persons cases, the possibilities are almost endless.

Folks who follow my work know that when I approach a case, I like to strip away theory, unverifiable fact, and start at the basics. In this case, we have a haunting 911 call from the subject himself on the night that he disappeared, and while several talented folks have poured over it looking for clues and debating interpretations, the one thing that we can all agree on is that there’s still valuable information left to be found in this call.

To that end, I enlisted the services of an audio specialist to help make sense of this call. Not only did he provide some cleanup and a transcript, but he provided several files that show a breakdown of the work that he did. I’m happy to share them here with you all, and I hope that some portions of the call are now clearer. Simply click on the links found within the transcript to hear the related enhanced portions of the call, and look below the transcript for more files. Please note that these are lossless WAV files, and if you’re on a laptop or desktop, they might not play in your browser (right click and use “Save As” to get them onto your device.

“You there.” That’s what it sounds like the background voice seems to be saying after the dispatcher asked Brandon if he needed an ambulance. “No, I need the cops” Brandon told her. If Brandon met with foul play that night, it’s possible that we’re hearing the voice of his attacker.

While some headway has been made here, there’s still more to do. The specialist continues to work with the first part of the call in hopes that the unintelligible part at the beginning can be deciphered. If progress is made, I’ll be sure to update you.

Thanks for reading, and I hope that one day Brandon’s family can receive closure. If you have any feedback, please contact me at coldcase.earons@gmail.com.

Possible Transcript

Dispatcher: 911 Emergency.

Brandon: Yes I’m in the middle of a field with (unintelligible). Right here goin’ towards Abiline on both sides. My truck ran out of gas. There’s one car here, a guy chasin’ me, through the woods. Please hurry.

Dispatcher: Okay, now run that by me one more-

Brandon: There’s a guy talking to him. I totally ran into him.

Dispatcher: Ah, you ran into him, okay.

[unintelligible background voice(s)]

Brandon: Just the first guy.

Dispatcher: Do you need an ambulance? [background voice talking at the same time, might be saying “Watch out (unintelligible)”]

Background voice: You there.

Brandon: No I need the cops.

Dispatcher: Okay. Is anybody hurt? (pause) Hello? Hello? Hello?

Listen to the original version without any enhancements.

Listen to the full enhanced version.

A file containing only the isolated background segments.

A closer analysis of “there’s a guy”

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