# Lady Bird Lake mystery **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 7, 2025, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577 "2025-07-07T01:24:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![justdoit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e56c9b/32.png) [@justdoit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justdoit)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/1 "2025-07-07T01:24:55Z")
38 bodies recovered from this lake in Austin, TX, since 2022. Average of 11 per year. Mostly men. What do you think? Serial killer? Or drownings, accidents, and suicides? > **[Serial killer fears grip Texas community after dozens of bodies pulled from...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/serial-killer-fears-grip-texas-100016071.html)** > > Austin's Lady Bird Lake continues to yield bodies of predominantly male victims, raising questions about serial killer theories while officials maintain the deaths have been accidental. “The denials by law enforcement and other authorities that these cases are murders or the work of a serial killer are premature,” Dr. Carole Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist and expert trial witness, told Fox News Digital. “They don’t want the public to panic about a possible serial killer, so they are making light of all the deaths.”… “Since 2022, at least 38 bodies have been recovered in or around Lady Bird Lake, [according to data](https://www.fox7austin.com/news/lady-bird-lake-bodies-data-austin-texas) obtained by Fox 7. Of the nearly three dozen bodies found, 30 have reportedly been men, with approximately 60 percent between 30 and 49 years old”. “The fact that 30 of the 38 bodies found in and around Lady Bird Lake since 2022 are male does suggest that this could be the work of a serial killer whose preferred target is men,” Lieberman said. “If the deaths were simply due to accidental drowning or suicide, there would not be a preponderance of one gender over the other.” ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/2 "2025-07-07T01:44:05Z")
> [@justdoit](#): > > Dr. Carole Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist and expert trial witness, > [@justdoit](#): > > “The fact that 30 of the 38 bodies found in and around Lady Bird Lake since 2022 are male does suggest that this could be the work of a serial killer whose preferred target is men,” Lieberman said. **“If the deaths were simply due to accidental drowning or suicide, there would not be a preponderance of one gender over the other.”** Emphasis mine. Well, we can tell that they’re not a statistician. > [@](#): > > This chart provides the preventable injury-related death totals by sex for 2023, as well as the breakdown of fatalities by leading causes of death. > > Overall, males accounted for 67% of the 222,698 preventable injury-related deaths in 2023. The largest differences in the proportion of fatalities were: > > struck by or against (88% male) > **drowning (75% male)** > **motor vehicle (72% male)** > poisoning (72% male) > The causes with the smallest difference between the proportion of male and female fatalities were falls (51% male) and choking (58% male). I emphasized the causes of death most likely to be relevant to a lake (assuming that the rates for boating accidents are similar to motor vehicles overall). 30/38 is 78% which seems close enough that a serial killer is an unnecessary explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/3 "2025-07-07T01:46:17Z")
I would suspect cartel activities. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/4 "2025-07-07T01:49:32Z")
> [@justdoit](#): > > “The fact that 30 of the 38 bodies found in and around Lady Bird Lake since 2022 are male does suggest that this could be the work of a serial killer whose preferred target is men,” Lieberman said. “If the deaths were simply due to accidental drowning or suicide, there would not be a preponderance of one gender over the other.” Men might be on average more likely to take bad risks while swimming. The one case they go into any detail about sure reads like that to me. (Written before I saw @Babale 's post.) ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/5 "2025-07-07T01:53:00Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Men might be on average more likely to take bad risks while swimming. I agree but if these were accidents there would be no mystery and, likely, the bodies would have been recovered for burial (normal stuff). It’s weird to think all the men just went out on their own with no notice to friends or family of what they were doing and then drowned and no one bothered to look too hard. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/6 "2025-07-07T02:05:16Z")
Anecdote, so not data to be clear. An Austinite friend of mine indicates that there are a number of homeless groups residing in the area of the lake, many of which are in his words “baked out of their mind by years of neglect and self-abuse” to the point that death by misadventure is extremely likely due to lack of self care. Which would also tend towards the age range mentioned, though of course that’s not an absolute. And of course, these are _precisely_ the sort of people who are unlikely to have friends or family that are looking for them, or at least, not looking for them in that specific area. And equally “of course” they the are the sort of people that the local authorities aren’t making much effort to find or keep track of - more the opposite if anything. Again, _entirely_ anecdotal, but I too would be hesitant to jump towards serial killer when there are a lot more likely possibilities. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/7 "2025-07-07T02:10:50Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > It’s weird to think all the men just went out on their own with no notice to friends or family of what they were doing and then drowned and no one bothered to look too hard. Bodies are routinely pulled from the Willamette River that runs through Portland, OR. They are most commonly homeless or transient people, and sadly, no one is looking for them. Recently, a boater was seen going over some falls just upriver from Portland. In the search for his body, they found six other bodies before his. The others were all people that acquaintances figured “had just moved on somewhere else.” On preview, I see @ParallelLines made a similar observation. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/8 "2025-07-07T05:47:13Z")
_Hold my beer…_ ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/9 "2025-07-07T09:07:57Z")
Looking at the map, the geography seems perhaps a bit unusual. > **[Lady Bird Lake · Austin, Texas](https://maps.app.goo.gl/HSHZ2yU9hit7j1DLA)** > > Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps. It looks to be a long narrow lake that sits in the middle of a larger set of waterways. Is it possible that people are drowning upstream, and then floating or being washed down to settle here, due to eddies created by the bent path, or slower currents, or something similar? That would seem to be a much likelier hypothesis for a statistical aberration than leaping immediately to “OMG serial killer!” ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/10 "2025-07-07T12:17:26Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > weird to think all the men just went out on their own with no notice to friends or family of what they were doing and then drowned and no one bothered to look too hard. Again, in the only case for which the article gave any detail, that’s not remotely what happened. ---
**Author:** ![justdoit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e56c9b/32.png) [@justdoit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justdoit)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/11 "2025-07-07T13:24:59Z")
Good points about drowning stats for men and the lack of detail for these cases. Seems like autopsy results and investigations should be able to pinpoint what is going on. Are the victims mostly homeless people who lived near the lake? Or had they visited the same part of town recently? Did they have alcohol or drugs in their systems? If drugs which ones and how much? Did they have any signs of a struggle? If local police are clueless what is going on, they need better investigators. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/12 "2025-07-07T13:44:46Z")
The forensic scientist quoted in the story previously made the dubious claim that violent video games predispose to sexual assault. It sounds like deaths were evaluated via autopsies (glad I didn’t go into forensic pathology) and only one involved a murder. in one recent death: > [@](#): > > The teen’s family called police after he got out of his kayak without wearing a life jacket and subsequently disappeared while enjoying a day on the lake Maybe the serial killer took the life jacket as a trophy… 😱 ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/13 "2025-07-07T13:48:29Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > In the search for his body, they found six other bodies before his. Reminds me of a line from _The Wire_. “Remember, we’re looking for a _specific_ body. You go pulling in every body you find, we’ll be here all day!” ---
**Author:** ![Frosted\_Glass](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frosted_glass/32/3926_2.png) [@Frosted\_Glass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frosted_Glass)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/14 "2025-07-07T13:49:52Z")
This topic seems to make national news every now and then. I remember the last time there was a lot of buzz around it from TikTok and YT personalities posting videos and analysis. Most of the deaths are easily explained by a combination of being a body of water located right by a busy nightlife section of town and the increase in homeless encampments around the lake. The only motorized boats on [Town Lake (Lady Bird Lake)](https://www.austintexas.gov/page/lady-bird-lake) are for official use. We’re also not allowed to swim in Town Lake which makes perfect sense to any local who has seen what flows through the downtown creeks during a storm. That said, people absolutely do get in the water despite the rules and warnings. This article about “party island”, which is an informal floating hangout spot, shows people standing in a shallow part the lake: [Welcome to Party Island on Lady Bird Lake – Texas Monthly](https://www.texasmonthly.com/travel/party-island-lady-bird-lake-paddleboards/) ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/15 "2025-07-07T15:19:17Z")
> [@Frosted\_Glass](#): > > people absolutely do get in the water despite the rules and warnings Not only that, but also: people go swimming in large lakes while under the impression that this is just like swimming in a swimming pool. The Finger Lakes don’t have that many bodies turn up in any one of them over two years. But we do get a significant number of drownings, because people don’t realize the lakes aren’t swimming pools and to swim in them safely you need to know how – and when and where not to. I’ve swum in the Finger Lakes, including in places where swimming wasn’t theoretically allowed; but I knew what I was doing, and knew my ability and my limits, and had a continual eye on the weather and on how far out I was getting and a frequent foot on the bottom to check depth and to move towards shore immediately if the bottom wasn’t right there. No way I would have gone off a boat in the middle of the lake, life jacket or no life jacket, unless the boat was sinking; and I’d have kept that jacket on, in either case. (some of the Finger Lakes are also very deep. Sometimes the bodies never turn up.) ---
**Author:** ![Nightaudit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nightaudit/32/17181_2.png) [@Nightaudit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightaudit)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2025, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/16 "2025-07-08T00:40:17Z")
Lady Bird / Town Lake is within staggering distance of 6th Street, Red River and Rainy Streets…I’d wager that many of the people fished out of the lake staggered around drunk or high in that part of downtown. Then stumbled into the lake. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2025, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/17 "2025-07-08T02:22:51Z")
Any indication of, uh, “concrete galoshes”? ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2025, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/18 "2025-07-08T04:18:51Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > It looks to be a long narrow lake that sits in the middle of a larger set of waterways. AFAIK, Lady Bird Lake is from a small dam of the Colorado River. So there is a bit of a wee reservoir at one end but most of the “lake” is just a part of the river (a long segment between two dams). Personally, I always think of it as a river rather than a lake. ---
**Author:** ![Frosted\_Glass](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frosted_glass/32/3926_2.png) [@Frosted\_Glass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frosted_Glass)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2025, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/19 "2025-07-08T14:18:29Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > Personally, I always think of it as a river rather than a lake. Same here. My friends and I always refer to places and events as either north or south of the river, but I do call it a lake when I’m talking about the trail(s) around it. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2025, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577/20 "2025-07-08T14:50:20Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > So there is a bit of a wee reservoir at one end but most of the “lake” is just a part of the river (a long segment between two dams). Ah. So in addition to the possible dangers of lakes, there’s the danger of rivers. It takes surprisingly little current to take an unwary person off their feet and being swept downstream out of control. A drunk person, a weak swimmer, somebody in bad health affecting their strength and/or breathing – that’s a very dangerous situation. Lakes of course often have currents, dangerous in part because many people don’t expect them. But rivers always have currents. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lady-bird-lake-mystery/1020577.md?page=2)