Correction: A previous version of this story included a typographical error that referred to Chase being missing since Jan. 13, 2020. It has been corrected to reflect that he has been missing since Jan. 13, 2021.
Thirteen months after he was last seen, the family and friends of Austin Chase are still searching for answers. But Chase is no typical missing person case.
Chase has been missing since at least Jan. 13, 2021, when someone driving his silver Ford Escape led Buckley Police and Pierce County sheriff’s deputies on a chase through Buckley and down Highway 165.
While police initially believed Chase, then 36 and living in the Tacoma area, was driving the vehicle, Pierce County sheriff’s sergeant Darren Moss says that detectives can’t say for sure: “I think our detectives are not really going to lock it into one way or another yet, until they can prove something.”
Officers backed off when the driver sped across the Fairfax Bridge, and the car was ultimately found over the side of a steep embankment on a gravelly part of SR 165 near the Evans Creek ORV Park. A search and rescue mission hampered by lousy weather and difficult terrain didn’t turn Chase up. Searchers went out again Jan. 31 but still weren’t able to find him, Moss said.
Chase was a quiet, reserved guy who spent a lot of time with his three kids, his mother Karen Heide said. Standing about 6’1” tall and weighing 180 pounds with brown eyes and shaved brown hair, he was last seen wearing light blue jeans, a black or blue zip-up hoodie and a white T-shirt.
“He was a beautiful person and an amazing friend,” Chase’s friend Gina Rose Van Ausdal said. “I wish the ways of the world didn’t take him from us.”
Chase loved sports, like football, skiing, biking and waterskiing. He’d worked in construction and other fields but was unemployed at the time of his disappearance, though Chase was often working with his dad.
“I don’t think he’d really found his knack,” Heide, 62 said. “But if you’re 18, not going to school or anything, you gotta work.”
Chase fell into drug use and got into some trouble as he got older, and Heide eventually sent him to live with his dad for a while. Chase managed to kick his meth use and had been clean for about 10 years up until just before his disappearance, Heide said, when a few people who knew him said he may have started using again.
Clues in the case are scant, largely because Chase’s body still hasn’t been recovered. But in the meantime, Heide and other loved ones who have been looking into Chase’s disappearance believe Chase may have been murdered.
Heide believes Chase may have been killed sometime after he unintentionally witnessed a crime scene, which roped him in with a few rough characters.
“He was doing fine until Dec. 23 (2020), is when we noticed a change,” Heide said. “He was doing a lot of driving all over. … He just looked guilty.”
One of those characters, Heide suspects, was driving Chase’s car during the Jan. 13 police chase.
The case is still under investigation and it’s too soon for deputies to be able to comment on the validity of those theories or say exactly what happened to Chase, Sgt. Moss said in recent interviews. He said that the way Chase disappeared is “very suspicious.”
“We’re not brushing it off,” Moss said. “We’d hate to say, ‘Oh, he was involved in this crash after he fled from us. Good luck to him. If a dog finds him, we’ll recover the body.’ We’re not going to do that. That would be irresponsible of us.”
At this point, what would bring relief to the family is also what would most help detectives crack the case: Finding Austin.
“If he doesn’t turn up, or a body doesn’t turn up, it’s really hard to figure out what actually happened,” Moss said. “The hard thing with this investigation is that he was never found.”
Heide has spent the last year digging into Chase’s disappearance. She said she even consulted a psychic, who cautioned Heide against getting too involved in the investigation for her own safety.
“But it’s hard to do when it’s your kid, and nobody else is doing anything,” Heide said. “I’m not really concerned. I’ve got weapons. I’m going to protect myself and my grandkids.”
Anyone with information about Chase can contact the Sheriff’s Department’s detectives division at (253)
A year after Chase disappeared, Heide remains hopeful.
“I think all truth comes to light,” Heide said. “You just can’t put a time on it.”
