SUGAR LAND, Texas — It's been more than three months since Justin Urrutia vanished.
He is the Sugar Land man who disappeared in November 2023. It's becoming increasingly clear his case has gone cold.
"It's a true mystery," said Pecos County Sheriff TJ Perkins. "We don't know what happened to him."
Two days after Justin went missing, police found his car crashed out and abandoned in Pecos County, which is about seven and a half hours from Sugar Land. Perkins and his deputies were there when the car was found.
"When the deputy looked in, there was a bible on the passenger seat and the waller in the driver seat," Perkins said.
Justin's cellphone was in the car too, as well as his keys and a little bit of money in the glove box, but there was no trace of the 41-year-old business owner. More importantly, there was no clear evidence of foul play.
"There was no blood that we saw in the vehicle," Perkins said. "No smudge marks. It was clean. A clean vehicle."
This is a different story compared to what Justin's mom, Vicki, told us in January. She said she, along with a private investigator, found blood in Justin's car using a bottle of Luminol from Amazon. When sprayed on a surface that has or had blood, it lights up.
Vicki has been trying to find answers since his disappearance, but Perkins believes Justin doesn't want to be found.
"Out there in the desert you can see, if you don't want to be found, you're not going to be found,” he said.
Vicki has credit card receipts that paint a timeline of the route Justin, or whoever was driving his car, took before it was left abandoned.
KHOU 11 reporter Matt Dougherty traveled the journey which led to a convenience store in Seguin, a 24-hour Subway sandwich shop, a Circle K and then to a pilot truck stop in San Antonio where no one remembered Justin or his car. After that, Sheriff Perkins said automatic license plate readers picked up the car in Kerrville, and then again in Fort Stockton.
The next morning, a ranch owner's fiancee noticed the vehicle on their property. It was parked against the ranch's gate.
"He just went up to it and pressed against it until the chain broke," Ed Lasater, the ranch owner said.
Dougherty traveled to Odessa to meet with Lasater. In the more than three months that Justin has been missing, Lasater and his ranch hands haven't seen any other evidence of Justin on the 6,000-acre property.
"From what I could understand, they did an exhaustive search by air and by land," Lasater said.
Because authorities said there was no evidence of a crime, Justin's vehicle and property were turned over to his mother.
When Vicki said she found blood in the car, the Sugar Land Police Department took possession of the car.
"I'm just waiting on Sugar Land investigators to let me know what they've got," Vicki said.
Until then, the question remains: Did Justin leave on his own, abandoning his car in the desert or did someone else have something to do with his disappearance?