Denise Anette Huber was 23 years old in the summer of 1991, living in Newport Beach, California, and working as a waitress. Friends and family described her as energetic, social, and responsible—a young woman in that liminal space between early adulthood and a fully settled life, with plans but plenty still unwritten. She loved music, and that passion set the stage for the last night anyone saw her alive.

On a cold December night in 2020, 21-year-old Jason Landry left his apartment in San Marcos, Texas, and started the drive home for winter break. He was a Texas State University student, headed toward Missouri City, where his family lived. It should have been an ordinary trip across familiar Texas roads. But Jason never made it home.