It’s been 97 days since Tammy Haskett-Anderson last saw her twenty-eight-year-old son, Alec Jaydon Fischmann. It’s been 97 days of hell on earth for her and her family. On Wednesday, September 27, 2023, Alec, commonly called Jaydon, got on a plane from their city of Las Vegas, Nevada, and flew to Denver International Airport in Colorado to await his layover. His final destination was visiting a friend in the Bay area of California for approximately three weeks, but he would never make it there.
Instead, he disappeared
Jaydon comes from a small, immediate family, who have become his fierce advocates since he has gone missing. They’ve also become quite deft at being sleuths despite having no prior experience. Any clues or information about his disappearance have come from the family’s determination to discover what happened to him as they have struggled to get assistance from police in Las Vegas and Colorado.
Jaydon’s family did not hear from him after September 28th, and texts and phone calls from friends and family went unanswered until September 30th, which is when it is assumed that the phone battery finally died. As the family continued to try to contact him and fear began mounting, the family was able to access his phone records as he was on his father’s phone plan. Although his phone was Jaydon’s lifeline, the records indicated that the phone had no activity during the immediate days after he arrived in Colorado. Jaydon’s family now knew that something was very wrong.
Tammy and her husband Tim traveled to Denver in early October, shortly after losing contact with Jaydon. On the long drive from Las Vegas to Denver, they hung up fliers with Jaydon’s information at truck stops and also stopped at many police stations along the way to share his information.
They knew that he had arrived safely in Denver on the 27th of September and had a ten-hour layover before his final leg to California. Hence, they began their search at the Denver International Airport. Although the information is limited, Jaydon’s Mom learned from airline security staff that he was asked to leave the connecting flight before its departure because he was filming someone and had made them uncomfortable. Once off the plane, Jaydon left the airport without booking a new flight. Instead, he took Lyft car service to the Econo Lodge in nearby Aurora, a suburb of Denver with approximately 375,000 residents.
Tammy and Tim confirmed from Lyft that Jaydon had been dropped off at the Econo Lodge shortly after 2 AM. They went to the hotel to ask if security footage could be reviewed and were initially met with resistance. Ultimately, the hotel did end up sharing what was found on video.
Jaydon was captured on hotel lobby security footage arriving at 2:13 AM, and was then seen again on surveillance video checking out at 10:50 AM on the morning of the 28th of September. The video shows him wearing a black t-shirt with his army green backpack slung over his shoulder. After checking out at the front desk, he walks to the sliding door exit, steps through, and disappears. It is the last known sighting of Jaydon.
His mother notes that a male quickly followed behind Jaydon through the same door and that they were suspicious of that individual as the video made it appear that this person was following Jaydon. Tammy has asked the police to look into this individual to see if he can be identified, but her request was declined. The couple did not gain any traction with the Aurora Police Department during their visit and were left feeling like nobody was taking their concerns seriously.
Still in Aurora, Tammy and Tim worked with a non-profit organization that provided search dogs to conduct a search around the Econo Lodge property. The first dog led them to a lake a ¼ mile from the hotel. The dog sat at the lake’s edge, making it known that she had picked up his scent. The family then called the Denver Fire Department and asked if they could do a training exercise with divers in the lake. Fortunately for them, the Fire Department had more empathy for their situation and sent a slew of firemen and divers to the scene almost immediately. A search from the divers found no evidence of anything belonging to Jaydon.
The next day, two additional dogs were brought to the scene, and they also led the searchers to the spot at the lake. Divers performed a second search, which also didn’t find anything. The team concluded that Jaydon had visited the lake but that there wasn’t anything else the dogs could pick up scents from.
Feeling dejected, the couple made the long car journey back to Las Vegas. Upon arrival, they heard from the Las Vegas police department that Jaydon’s phone was pinging in Oakland, California. Although exhausted from the Denver to Las Vegas ride, the couple essentially left almost immediately to head to Oakland. Unfortunately, the Oakland trip provided no pertinent information about Jaydon, and the couple returned to Las Vegas.
Shortly after their return home, Jaydon’s phone and social media accounts began being actively used. Whoever had his phone began posing as him and requesting money through various apps. This is where the already horrible situation got even worse. The people who were in possession of the phone seemed to know a lot about the family — they knew where they lived, that Jaydon had a younger brother, knew that Jaydon was missing, and also were making up stories about how the phone ended up in their possession. Tammy informed me that these individuals would actually go onto her social media accounts and read her desperate pleas for help in finding her son, and they would taunt her instead. They also made threats to the family, all of which Tammy took screenshots of and turned over to the police. Again, nothing was investigated.
Because the family had access to voicemails, they were able to make contact with an individual who had left a message on Jaydon’s phone, not for Jaydon, but for the person who was in possession of Jaydon’s phone. A dialogue continued with this individual, who had no idea that the phone belonged to a missing person. This person retrieved the phone from the possessor and mailed it to Tammy. Unfortunately, the phone is in a locked state, and are unable to assess whether there is anything on the phone that could assist with the investigation. Tammy says that part of her frustration is that the police haven’t been very cooperative with accessing the Call Detail Record (CDR) or historical data for the phone via a warrant to look at what activity occurred before it shut off on September 30th.
Beyond retrieving the physical phone, no other clues have surfaced pointing to where Jaydon could be, leaving the family in a state of despair with more questions than answers. Tammy describes Jaydon as being friendly, outgoing, generous, and able to make friends anywhere. Did someone take advantage of his generosity? Was he too trusting and accepted a ride to California? Or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time when he crossed paths with someone who might have had ill intentions? There are so many unanswered questions.
How could Jaydon have just disappeared?
Surely, someone could/would have seen something? In today’s advanced technology-driven society, one would think it would be hard just simply to disappear. There are cameras almost everywhere. Phone pings off of cellular towers leave location clues. Traffic and red light cameras. So many opportunities to investigate.
And that’s exactly where the ideal investigative opportunities became lost ones instead. When a loved one disappears, and the family is unable to get law enforcement to immediately take the situation seriously, these opportunities virtually disappear. The world keeps on spinning, and people forget who they saw a day or two ago; they forget that they may have seen Jaydon talking to someone or getting in a car. Surveillance videos get copied over, and potential evidence gets tainted. A family can’t request access to business surveillance videos or traffic camera data, but law enforcement can if it’s done in a timely manner.
This leaves Tammy and the rest of Jaydon’s family in a state of sheer frustration. They continue pushing on law enforcement in Las Vegas and Aurora, Colorado and have made some small headway with both departments. They need much more than that to discover what happened to Jaydon. They desperately need help and support. They need law enforcement to take this case seriously and investigate the few leads — the individual who followed Jaydon out of the Econo Lodge and the individuals who were in possession of his physical phone and who made threats to the family. They need the public to put pressure on law enforcement.
Please support them in their quest by following the HELP FIND ALEC JAYDON FISCHMANN Facebook page. Share this blog and information far and wide — it could reach someone who knows something.
