Shutterstock / Kelly Jobe
At least 10 bodies have been pulled from Lady Bird Lake over the past 20 months, leading some online to speculate that a serial killer dubbed the 'Rainey Street Ripper' is on the lose in Austin.
The report comes as a string of deaths around Austin's Lady Bird Lake has fueled online speculation about the presence of a serial killer in the state's capital city. However, police and experts argue the deaths are the result of out-of-towners being unable to hold their liquor and drowning in the centrally located body of water.
At least 10 bodies have been pulled from Austin's Lady Bird Lake in the past 20 months.
Boston resident Jeff Jones, 38, told The Daily Mail he was barhopping in Austin in June 2023 as part of a batchelor party trip when he woke up nearly two weeks later in a Central Texas hospital with severe injuries.
Jones said he'd been drinking at the Iron Cactus then headed to the Rustic Tap and Play on East 6th Street before becoming separated from pals at around 1 a.m.
He told the Mail he doesn't remember anything after that. However, he somehow managed to fall 25 feet from the West 6th Street Bridge. A passerby made an anonymous 911 call at about 4 a.m. to report that a body was lying motionless at the bottom of the bridge, according to the Mail.
Jones was rushed to Dell Seton Medical Center shortly before 5 a.m., where medics discovered that he had severely damaged vital organs and had broken seven vertebrae. He also broke his shoulder, elbow and two ribs.
What's more, a drug test showed that he tested positive for Benzodiazepine, a strong sedative used to treat severe anxiety, the tabloid reports.
Even more bizarre, Jones was discovered in the same spot as the body of Randy Lexvold, which was retrieved in 2019. Lexvold was also visiting from out of town when his body ended up at the bottom of the West 6th Street Bridge, Austin's KVUE reports.
After being placed in two separate medically induced comas and undergoing several surgeries, Jones was discharged from the hospital 17 days later, The Daily Mail reports.
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