The Blue Ridge Parkway is a 469 mile drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains, stretching from North Carolina to Virginia.
There are beautiful views, and beautiful spots to explore along the way. One hidden gem is Panther Falls — a local swimming hole and waterfall on the Pedlar River, east of the parkway.
It’s a peaceful area. One that 30-year-old Chad Austin loved to frequent.
Which is exactly what he did on Memorial Day in 2019.
But this time, Chad didn’t come home.
Ellen and David Austin remember their eldest son as a light in their family. They raised Chad and his younger brother, Michael, in Buena Vista, Virginia. “He was a happy, cute, energetic little boy. He grew to be a handsome young man,” Ellen told Dateline. “He was a good student through school. He always had honor roll. He was very athletic.”
Growing up, Chad played soccer, basketball and football. “Football was his true love. He was number 33,” Ellen said.
David says his son was always there to lend a helping hand. “Every time that I needed help mowing grass or something like that, Chad was always there to help me,” he told Dateline.
Cousin Crystal Floyd says there was a big age gap between her and Chad — but that didn’t stop them from being close. “He picked on me a lot, especially during the holidays. My grandmother made the best cheesecakes and Chad and I would fight to get to the cheesecake first, ‘cause if he got there first, he was gonna eat it all,” she told Dateline. “He was so kind and loving. And he always treated me with the utmost love and respect — always.”
Chad also had a great love of animals. “The last job he had, he was working at the local zoo and he would send pictures and videos where he was talking to the animals,” Ellen said. “He was, pretty much, an outdoors person.”
“As a family, we loved going to summer vacations to Smith Mountain Lake. It’s a lake that’s not too far from us here where we live, and he loved catching the biggest catfish you could find,” Ellen said. “He loved going hiking and fishing. He did that locally and then he would often go to the Blue Ridge Parkway and to Panther Falls area.”
“He loved waterfalls and there’s a beautiful falls — fall there and he liked the peace and the serenity of it,” Crystal said. “No cell service.”
Chad had a big heart — and according to Ellen, never met a stranger. “He would run into hikers all the time on the mountain. He would give them rides off of the mountain, he would feed them, he would get drinks for them,” she said. “He always told me he loved talking to them, hearing their adventures and stories.”
On Memorial Day — Monday, May 27, 2019 — Chad left home with his dog, Gunner.
Ellen told Dateline she was having a girls day with some of the women in the family, including Chad’s cousin Crystal. She last saw Chad as he was leaving the house. “He was getting in a car and I was asking if he wanted to get anything from Taco Bell, ‘cause we were ordering,” Ellen said. “He kind of, like, shook his head ‘no,’ and was backing out of the driveway.”
And when Ellen didn’t see Chad later that day, she wasn’t immediately concerned. “Well, with a 30-year-old, he pretty much come and go as he chose,” Ellen said. “It wasn’t a worry if I didn’t see him right away.”
Chad didn’t come home that night. The following day — Tuesday, May 28 — it was business as usual for the Austin family as Ellen and David headed off to work, so no one was home when the police called their house around 12:30 p.m. “We weren’t home to get the message,” Ellen said. The police were able to contact her that afternoon.
She says an officer told her they had found a car out at Panther Falls. “It was registered in my name, so they knew to call me,” Ellen said. “And I said, ‘Well, my son had it.’” They also told Ellen that they had found a dog.
“Chad’s dog, Gunner, was actually locked inside the car,” Crystal said, adding that the car was off and locked. Gunner was OK.
“We knew that Tuesday at five o’clock that something was wrong,” Ellen said. “We didn’t think the worst though.” They simply thought Chad had run out of gas or something.
“We just started searching immediately, and calling family and friends and calling people and saying that he was missing,” Ellen recalled. Chad was officially reported missing to the Buena Vista Police Department on Wednesday, May 29, 2019.
“It was like a torrential downpour that day. It was — it was awful,” Ellen said. Police conducted a search on Thursday, May 30, once the weather had improved. “The police did do an official search with police personnel,” Ellen said. The family provided some of Chad’s belongings for a dog to follow his scent.
They didn’t find Chad and, according to NBC affiliate WSLS, police called off their search on Friday, May 31. But that didn’t stop the family. They went out the next day. “We went out there that morning on our own,” Crystal said. “We went out there and we walked that road.”
It was on that search that they found a couple of knives. “We actually collected them and gave them to the police,” Crystal said. “We had gloves and baggies with us.”
By June 5, the family decided they needed to take it a step up, so they created a Facebook page. “‘Bring Chad Home’ is what it originally was,” Crystal said.
They spent months posting about Chad’s case online and searching. “We — every day — [were] up there at some point. Couldn’t keep us away,” Ellen said.
In December 2019, there was a small break in the case. WSLS reported that a wallet was found on a trail in the Panther Falls area and authorities believed it belonged to Chad, due to several items found inside. WSLS also stated that authorities believed the wallet had not been on that trail the entire time, because the area had been searched multiple times and it was “not weathered, damaged or destroyed in any way when it was found.”
In March 2020, remains were found by a fisherman at Panther Falls.
Chad’s father explained where the unidentified remains were found. “[It] was about a half a mile above where the car was,” David Austin said. “And to get to the creek, you had to walk down inside — down the mountain, literally, probably two or three hundred yards.”
In May, the family learned that the remains had been positively identified as Chad.
Ellen Austin told Dateline the medical examiner was unable to determine a cause of death for her son due to the condition of his remains and the length of time that had passed. “It was very devastating,” she said. “It was really difficult.”
Crystal was upset — worried she had failed her younger cousin. “I felt like I failed him because how many times did I maybe walk past him? Did I miss him?” she wondered. She says she spent 10 months searching those woods for Chad. “Four to seven days a week. I had two friends who were fantastic and if I wanted to go look for Chad, they would jump in the car with me and we would go. I never went alone.”
Even though they brought Chad home, Crystal says she still can’t mourn her cousin. “I can’t, until I know what happened.”
Since Chad’s remains were located in Amherst County, outside of Buena Vista city limits, the Virginia State Police got involved with the case. They have his case listed in their Cold Case Database, where they detail the main facts of the case. The website states that Chad’s case type is a homicide and it is an active case. But there are no additional details listed to explain why it is classified as a homicide.
Dateline reached out to the Virginia State Police to request an interview and get an update on the investigation into Chad’s death, but has not been successful in scheduling a time to speak.
In October 2020, NBC affiliate WSLS reported that investigators at the time believed they were “close to cracking the case.” During a press conference, Virginia State Police Special Agent Kevin Zirkle said, “I believe there is a group of people who knows what happened to Chad Austin the day he went missing and they were there when his death was caused.” WSLS reported that state police said “forensic evidence shows that a struggle between Austin and his killer took place that ultimately led to his death.” They would not go into further detail.
“We are getting closer. You have not gotten away with anything. We are making progress every single day,” Zirkle said during the press conference.
The family’s Facebook group name is different now. “We changed it to ‘Justice for Chad Austin,’” Crystal said. Because at this point, that’s what the family is hoping for.
It’s been more than five years since Chad’s remains were found. “I prayed and prayed that we would get answers,” Ellen Austin said of the investigation into her son’s death. “I’m more upset now about the length of time — and the no answers.”
The passage of time hasn’t made it any easier for Crystal to handle, either. “My anxiety has gotten worse,” Crystal said. “You see his face everywhere you look. You hear his voice. It’s hard.”
“I mean, we still miss him. We miss him so much every day,” Ellen said.
The Austin family is hoping that keeping Chad’s name out there will help bring them answers.
“The town is small. Somebody knows something,” Ellen said. “We still want people to look at the case and — and see if they knew of anybody that could have been up there that day. I mean, Memorial Day is a big, busy day. Panther Falls was busy that day.”
“We would just like to stress that it’s important — still even at this late date — that anybody could come forward and– and give us information,” Ellen said.
If you have any information about Chad’s case, please contact the Virginia State Police at 804-674-2000 or submit a tip online.
If you have a story to share with Dateline, please submit it here.
