Houston's Bayou Serial Killer: 13 Bodies, Police Say Nothing

0:10 The following story contains descriptions of a young woman's death, discussion of intoxication, and unresolved investigative questions. Listener discretion is advised. This is no Tears for Black Girls prologue, a path lit by neon, ending in water. 3rd Ward after midnight. Neon over LA burgers and decoris hums against a humid Houston sky. Laughter spills into the parking lot and fades toward N McGregor Way. Traffic whispers along Scott St. The campus is close. Home is closer. It's the familiar corridor every student knows by heart. A camera catches the door swing.

0:58 A young woman steps out alone, no phone in her hand. She turns toward a gas station. Fluorescents bloom. She buys a drink. She steps back into the night. Another camera watches her shape move toward the trees, toward the dark ribbon of Bray's Bayou. Four days later, the water gives her back. No signs of trauma, police say. No immediate foul play. A family says. Look again. A campus says this corridor is ours. A city of bayous says nothing at all. Part 1. The victim promise in a city of water.

1:41 Jade Sage Mckissick, 20 years old. University of Houston junior in strategic communications and advertising. A campus resident. A student, employee orientation team, church and school groups. A connector by nature, showing new Cougs where to go, how to belong, what comes next. Friends call her bright, family calls her cherished. Faculty call her engaged. She is promised as routine, future as daily habit. Some of her posts read like the notebooks of a mind growing up, reflective, honest, turning the world over. Family and friends reject the idea that reflection equals intent. Around her, there is love.

2:28 Around her there are plans. And then there is the walk, the ordinary route that becomes a boundary line. Part 2. The corridor where student life meets the city. North McGregor Way and Scott St. a student artery. Food, friends, bars, a late night gas station at the edge of Braise Bayou. It's a familiar loop. Last call, one more drink, a slushie, a breath of air under the lights. Campus is right there. This is the geography of risk layered over routine late hours, dim corners, divided attention, and the steady pull of the waterway that stitches Houston together. 3rd Ward breathes history, community and change.

3:17 It also holds the uneven edges every city reveals after midnight. Part 3, the night minutes that refuse to explain themselves. September 11th around one AM, 2025, Jade leaves LA burgers and daiquiris near North McGregor and Scott. She'd been out at local bars with friends. She leaves without her phone. Surveillance captures her in the gas station. She purchases a drink, described as a slushie, then exits into the parking lot. Another camera records her moving toward Bray's Bayou. She steps out of frame.

4:00 September 15th, 2025. Responders recover a body from Bray's Bayou near the 4900 block of Spur 5, less than a mile from campus. The medical examiner confirms the identity. Jade Sage Mckissick Police say there are no visible signs of trauma and no immediate indications of foul play. Autopsy and toxicology will tell the rest. Part 4 The announcement statements and silence university leadership rights to students. The loss is profound. Counseling resources are available. Police say the investigation is open.

4:42 The words are careful, procedural correct. Family and friends counter the quiet. She had plans. They say. She was loved and knew it. She did not go toward water to end anything. They question the absence of a phone, the late walk alone and the convenience of a conclusion before the science is in. They ask for thoroughness, not shortcuts. Part 5 The count How a city starts telling ghost stories by late September, Local media tally bodies recovered from Houston's bayous in 2025. At least 13, including multiple within one week.

5:26 The number grows loud online. The word serial appears in captions and comments. Fear fills the spaces between official statements. Law enforcement offers procedural caution. Investigations are separate unless evidence connects them. Bodies are recovered from waterways for many reasons. The Bayou system is vast. The work is methodical and slow, between public dread and procedural caution. Students ask for patrols, lighting and cameras that see farther than the last frame Jade walked through. Families ask for transparency. Everyone asks whether a familiar walk can be safe again.

6:07 Part 6 The investigation What is known, What is not known Jade was last seen around 1:00 AM. September 11th at North McGregor and Scott without her phone. Surveillance shows a gas station purchase and a walk toward Bray's Bayou. Her body was recovered September 15th near 4900. Spur 5. Police publicly stated no signs of trauma and no immediate indication of foul play. Autopsy slash Toxicology pending investigation ongoing. Not publicly known. Exact cause and manner of death. Whether any witness observed an interaction after she left the gas station lot. Whether additional cameras captured more beyond the last frame.

6:53 Whether any person of interest has been identified. The absence of a phone removes A lifeline and a data trail. The presence of cameras does not guarantee closure. At 1:00 AM you walk under your own light. Part 7 The system Safety, intoxication and the edge of campus. College towns learn this lesson over and over. Ordinary routes hold extraordinary risk at night. National data show increased vulnerability when alcohol is involved, especially for women in late night, low visibility corridors. Environmental risk multiplies when a waterway borders the path home campus adjacent safety is a system, not a sign.

7:39 It's lighting, call boxes, late hour shuttles, escorts, cameras that overlap, patrols that match the route students actually walk. It's friend systems that keep people together past the last drink. It's the simple check in. You good? You got your phone? Text me when you're in Part 8. The family love as evidence. Families are not laboratories. They are memory. Witness the living proof of context that doesn't fit neatly into press releases. Jade's family speaks in the present tense longer than most. She is, she loves, she plans. It takes time before she was can be said out loud. They reject easy narratives.

8:28 They ask for dignity and thoroughness. They ask why a well walked corridor can become a Cliff. They ask how often we must learn the same lesson. That no signs of trauma is not the same as no harm. That water covers more than bodies. That a city of bayous requires a city of guardians. Part 9. The message? No tears for black girls. This is a story about a black woman whose life intersected with systems not designed around her safety. A campus corridor meets a city of water. Student freedom meets late hour risk. An investigation meets a grieving family asking for more than minimal answers.

9:11 We center her not rumor, not content cycles. We sent her a daughter who walked a familiar path and did not come home. We sent her a campus that must decide what shared responsibility looks like after the candles go out. We say her name because names are anchors. Jade Sage Mckissick, 20 years old, Part 10. Latest updates as of October 29th, 2025. Identification confirmed as Jade Sage Mckissick, 20, University of Houston junior. Timeline last seen approximately 1:00 AM September 11th at North McGregor and Scott. Surveillance shows gas station purchase and walk toward Bray's Bayou.

10:01 Body recovered September 15th near 4900. Spur 5 Police position. No signs of trauma. No immediate indication of foul play. Investigation ongoing. Pending autopsy. Slash toxicology. Family community publicly call for a thorough investigation. Highlight Jade's promise and support system Students expressed concern about late night routes near campus. Broader context Media counts note 13 plus bodies recovered from Houston bayous in 2025. Law enforcement has not publicly linked cases or confirmed a serial perpetrator. Epilogue The last frame.

10:48 There is a moment where the camera stops seeing and the city keeps going, where the store light narrows behind you and the water takes the reflections for itself. In that gap between frame and fact, families wait. Campuses choose whether safety is a statement or a web. Cities decide whether corridors are lit for leaving or lit for coming home. We do not fill gaps with fear. We fill them with work. We ask for the footage to be read as carefully as grief requires. We ask for the walk from neon to water to be redesigned until it ends with keys and a door and not tape along a bank.

11:29 Jade Sage Mckissick, a student, a daughter, a life underway. May her memory be the policy. We write the patrol. We fund the phone. We remember the arm. We loop through a friend's at 1:00 AM on North McGregor Way. Author's Note and Resources This episode reflects publicly reported information as of October 29th, 2025 from KHOU 11, FOX 26 Houston Click to Houston KPRC 2, the Houston Chronicle, and University of Houston Communications. Law enforcement stated there were no signs of trauma and no immediate indication of foul play.

12:15 Final cause and manner depend on medical examiner findings. Claims of a linked series of Bayou deaths remain unverified by police. Counts of Bayou recoveries in 2025 are media tallies and social discourse unless confirmed by official statements. If you have information relevant to this case, contact the Houston Police Department Homicide Division or Crime Stoppers of Houston Support and Crisis Resources 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988 RAIN the sexual assault hotline 800-656-4673 National Domestic violence hotline 800-799-7233 University of Houston CAPS for students 713-743-5454 for families seeking advocacy and unresolved cases. Black and Missing Foundation.

13:16 Texas Center for the Missing. Thank you for tuning in to No Tears for Black Girls. We're excited to announce a double feature from the No Tears for Black Girls story universe by JC Reedberg, Roofied and Dead Mike. Get your copies on Amazon today. The digital editions are available with Kindle Unlimited. These titles are the 6th and 7th installments in the series. Also on October 31st, we're dropping a new song from the No Tears for Black Girls soundtrack, Truth Teller by Jada Truth. A powerful record about speaking your truth and surviving trauma. Sometimes our biggest enemy is our family.

13:57 Please stream, pre, save and share Truth Teller across your socials after release from anywhere you stream music. Stay loved, stay blessed, and stay safe. Until next time, hopefully, I'll see you there. This is Samantha Paul. They always ask me. Do you regret? It regret telling the truth Never Mama wasn't there when I needed a most let me searching for love chasing girls 15 years old looking for oh in the arms of a man who should've let me alone promised me safety why he planted a sea a dependency rather than false cafe.

14:45 While my family acted like they weren't aware they knew. But I learned to play the game he taught aren't quit, turn his lessons into what I saw with money in my pocket, power in my hand even when I didn't understand. True Teller. True Teller. That's what I became as me when I spoil the light. Destroyed his game. Through Teller, True Teller found my power, found it in that moment I drew my finest hour, my moment he thought he would sleep, thought he had controlled our own. But I was learning how to save my soul, save myself every dollar that he gave to me. Everyone was buying back my future. Save me my freedom. I want some love face every night, every night. And when I had the power to make it right, I had the power. I'll make it wrong depending how you see how you see the reckoning that was building inside of me building up so I get into my courage and my red all this time I burned down this day burning down in this chapter of my stolen you stolen from nothing but the burning truth.

15:43 Truth. That's what I became when I exposed the lies. Watching him everybody chose a soul buddy soul just a surf cold on a silver plate.

16:30 Sometimes the truth just cannot wait can't wait. His word in ashes myself for me free as was speaking true differently differently true teller true teller. That's what I became what I when I explore the light just God is graceful teller the truth teller. That's my power. And.

17:15 By the way, it was my aunt's husband, the man at every family dinner, the one they all trusted. They trusted him. Family don't always mean family. The truth will set you free. Set you free.