184. Looks Like A Bad Meeting At The High School Auditorium - The Very Solvable Murder Of Jay Smith

Published: March 23, 2021, 4:01 a.m.

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Sometimes it\\u2019s so crystal clear that a crime was committed, who did the crime, why the crime was committed and where to go find the bad guy \\u2013 it\\u2019ll drive you nuts.\\xa0\\xa0And that is pretty much the story of the disappearance of 23 year-old Austin \\u201cJay\\u201d Smith exactly 28 years ago on March 23, 1993. when he left his home in the suburbs of Southern California\'s San Gabriel Valley and never returned.\\xa0 It\\u2019s enough to make a sane person go mad.\\xa0 Dig it:\\xa0 We know Jay went to an appointment that evening, meeting a former employer who was renting audio-video equipment at a local high school \\u2013 despite the fact that said former employer was furious with Jay for reporting him to the school for pocketing rental money for himself.\\xa0\\xa0We know that when he didn\\u2019t return at the expected time, Jay\\u2019s girlfriend drove to the auditorium where she saw Jay\\u2019s truck and the former employer\\u2019s camper parked, and that when she banged on the auditorium door, the disheveled former employer opened briefly, only to slam the door in the girlfriend\\u2019s face.\\xa0\\xa0We know that shortly thereafter, when the girlfriend drove back around to the auditorium, Jay\\u2019s truck was gone but the former employer\\u2019s camper was still there \\u2013 and that Jay\\u2019s truck was found the next day just a few blocks from the auditorium \\u2013 and that a witness states he gave the former employer a ride back to the auditorium late on the night of the 23rd when he saw him walking near where Jay\\u2019s truck was found \\u2013 and that a barrel large enough to hold someone of Jay\\u2019s size was found to be missing the day after Jay\\u2019s disappearance\\u2026\\xa0\\xa0\\u2026oh \\u2013 and then there\\u2019s the fact that after initially being interviewed by the police, the former employer left town for TWO WEEKS without letting anyone know where he went.\\xa0 In his camper.\\xa0 Which had plenty of room to carry a barrel.\\xa0\\xa0And 28 years later, the former employer has never been arrested.\\xa0\\xa0See \\u2013 Jay\\u2019s body has never been found.\\xa0 And until recently, the Los Angeles County DA\\u2019s office simply didn\\u2019t prosecute \\u201cno body\\u201d cases.\\xa0\\xa0That has changed \\u2013 and for the past 8 years a dedicated detective named Richard Lopez of the Los Angeles County Sheriff\\u2019s Homicide Bureau has been doggedly pursuing answers \\u2013 looking for that one shred of evidence or witness to put Jay Smith\\u2019s case over the top so he can make the arrest so many have been expecting for so long.\\xa0\\xa0Listen in as Melissa relates this agonizingly simple-yet-impossibly-difficult story \\u2013 and urges anyone who knows anything about what happened to Jay to contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff\\u2019s Department Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500.

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