December 4, 2023 • 14 mins
In 2021 Ryan Larsen walked out of La Vista Elementary. His whereabouts remain a mystery today. Join us for our second MYSTERY MONDAY bonus episode, and visit mysteriesandmimosas.net to connect with us!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome back to Mysteries of Mimosa's for our exclusive Mystery Monday episode.
(00:13):
We just wanted to take time to thank everybody for listening and encourage you to hit the
follow button on whatever platform you're listening to us on.
And you can also find us on Instagram where we have pictures, we interact with you, and
don't forget about our website mysteries of mimosas.net where most of our episodes have
exclusive information.
(00:34):
All right.
So yeah, so I'll get us started for our Mystery Monday.
This week we are discussing the case of Ryan D. Larson out of La Vista, Nebraska.
So on May 17th of 2021, Ryan went missing from his elementary school in La Vista, Nebraska.
(00:55):
The missing juvenile, Ryan D. Larson, walked away from his elementary school in La Vista,
Nebraska around noon on May 17th of 2021.
Ryan was seen near his apartment shortly after he walked away from the school.
There have been no confirmed sightings since this time.
Ryan has high functioning autism and has a history of running away and hiding.
(01:16):
However, he has always been found shortly afterward near the location where he left.
Ryan is described as being five feet, eight inches tall, around 125 pounds with brown
hair and hazel eyes.
Ryan was last seen wearing a black hoodie, blue jeans, an old Navy shirt, and had a polka
dotted umbrella.
(01:36):
So when Ryan went missing, he was 11 years old, which makes him now 14 years old.
Okay.
So he walked away from the elementary school?
Yeah, he walked out the front doors in the middle of the school day and has never been
seen since.
Why did that happen?
That's crazy.
That is something that his mom is taking up with the school district currently as to why,
(02:00):
because she notes in the Omaha World Herald, his mom notes that he has been diagnosed with
generalized epilepsy, Tourette syndrome, ADHD, and he is on the autism spectrum.
And that he did have a tendency to wander off and hide.
He was on an IEP at the school, which did note all of these things, including his tendency
(02:25):
to wander off.
So nobody really knows why he was able to just walk out the front doors of his school
that afternoon, but it did happen.
I found another article from WOWT6 News out of Omaha.
Police say the case is still open and an active investigation, although tips have been more
(02:47):
infrequent than when Ryan first went missing.
They have actually followed up on tips all the way to the East coast of the United States.
Unfortunately, there's been no success and no confirmed sightings of Ryan since that
time.
Interesting.
So he's already being watched by the school because he has a tendency to wander away.
(03:09):
Yet for some reason, he still is able to wander out of the school.
And this is only in 2021, you said?
Yes, it was May 17th of 2021.
That's kind of crazy to me because, you know, I could see this happening in the nineties,
even the early 2000s and previously.
But with the increase in school security, you know, because of school shooters and different
(03:33):
things that happen, I find it really interesting that he's able to just walk out.
That's crazy.
Yeah, I agree.
I don't know what the circumstances were surrounding that.
Like I said, that's all the that's reported.
I don't know if that school has cameras that actually saw him walk out the front doors.
I don't know.
I assume that's how they know that he walked out around noon that day.
(03:55):
But like I said, he was seen shortly after near his apartment.
So it looked like he went home.
But after that, nobody has seen him since.
And I don't know the details as far as how long it took the school to realize he was
missing before they reached out to his mom and reported that and to police.
I don't know those details.
(04:15):
There's very limited information out there.
Yeah, that's crazy.
You would think the mom would have a lawsuit, you know, just having having her son walk
out.
Yeah.
And actually, the family did attempt to bring litigation against the school district as they
felt they were responsible for allowing him to walk out the doors that day.
(04:36):
It looks like so generally there is a two year statute of limitations to where someone
can file a lawsuit like that against the school district.
But they need a death certificate, apparently.
And it's usually a five year time span from when a person goes missing to when they can
request that a judge issue a certificate of death.
(04:58):
So Ryan's family went ahead and asked the judge to do that earlier than would you would
find typically so that they could pursue that litigation.
The judge did grant that death certificate and the family did pursue that litigation.
But I read in that newspaper article that I referenced earlier that the judge actually
dismissed their lawsuit against the school district in November of this year.
(05:22):
Did it give any information as to why it did not?
Okay.
So, you know, I don't think obviously, I mean, this is stating the obvious no teacher, no
administrator wants to allow any kid to walk out and become missing.
Of course.
Is that, you know, excuse any negligence?
I don't think so.
I mean, we trust these teachers and administrators in the school to care for our children when
(05:46):
they go to school when we're not there to do it.
Right.
And so we put a lot of trust in coaches, teachers, and all these people who are in a position
of trust over our kids to make sure that they're safe and make sure they're not leaving.
So I'd really like to know more about why that judge dismissed that because I definitely
see just from the information we have an extreme negligence on the school's part.
(06:10):
Right.
I agree.
But again, we only have very limited information.
I don't know a lot of the details surrounding that.
I mean, from the face of it, yes, it looks like how can a child that has a noted IEP
in place saying, hey, you know, he has these conditions, he does have a tendency to wander
off and hide.
(06:31):
So you want to keep an extra eye on him.
I don't know how he's able to walk out the front doors in the middle of a school day
and nobody noticed.
But again, we don't know all the details either.
Sure.
I'm actually really curious to know who saw him over by the apartment, who saw him there?
What does that witness like?
(06:52):
You know, was he wearing the same stuff?
Was it just some there's a whole lot that goes into that because I can tell you from
some missing persons that I've been involved in, you get a lot of false leads.
You get people that just I think just want to be involved and just want to be helpful
when really it's a detriment.
And I've actually had people say, oh, yeah, I've seen this person.
(07:14):
They're a regular customer, for example, and they're in here every Tuesday.
Great.
Can I get your survey, you know, security surveillance footage?
And then they start ghosting you.
And I think it's I don't know what it is exactly, but it's a little bit upsetting from a law
enforcement standpoint because you spend a lot of energy going down these rabbit holes
that pan out to be nothing.
(07:35):
But you know, it's that one that you ignore that pans out to be something.
So you can't, you know, just look the other direction.
You can't just ignore those leads that come in.
So anyway, I say that because I'd be really curious what this witness saw, you know, how
credible the witness is. And at the end of the day, it doesn't really do anything to
(07:55):
bring him home.
I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I think it's worth mentioning that child
abuse, child neglect and child abductions, the statistics lean heavily towards a known
suspect, a known family member, a known person who actually knows this child.
Most of the time when kids become missing, you immediately have to look at, you know,
are the parents divorced?
(08:17):
Is there a custody dispute?
You know, is it a case of parental kidnapping?
That's kind of where your focus initially goes before you expand to other suspects.
So I'm kind of curious in this case, if that has any bearing on it.
Yeah, you're right.
Stranger abductions are actually pretty rare.
It's generally somebody that knows the person.
(08:37):
But yeah, I don't have the statistics in front of me either.
The information that I got on the witness that said they saw him near his apartment
that came from the NamUs website.
It's actually part of their missing persons information in their file.
So I would like to say that's probably a pretty reliable source.
But that's the only place that I saw that.
So I'm not sure.
(08:58):
Yeah.
And the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has the same information as NamUs,
but they have more pictures of Ryan.
So we're going to take those photos and post them on our website so you can take a look
at those as well.
I know that I mentioned that most of the time, abductions are family related.
It's very rarely ever a stranger.
(09:20):
But at no point in time are we ever saying or do we mean that we think his family is
involved, right?
There's nothing to indicate that.
Absolutely.
And I should clarify that too, because I know I said, I worded it that way.
I said he was seen near his apartment, so he went home.
That's not what I meant.
What I meant is that he was headed in that general direction, or that's where he was
last.
(09:41):
Even if that witness statement is accurate.
Exactly.
So I would like to clarify that.
There is nothing saying that he actually went home.
There was a reported sighting of him near his apartment.
Yeah.
And there's nothing in this information to indicate that any of his family had anything
to do with it.
I think it's just important to mention those statistics and how they lean.
(10:04):
So when we were young, we always heard the term stranger danger.
I think it's a really good point right here to talk about this.
So everybody knows stranger danger.
You teach that to your kids.
Don't talk to strangers.
And we do that to kind of safeguard our children.
But what we don't teach our kids is to be aware of tricky people, right?
(10:28):
The people that are closest to us, such as, hey, it's not okay for any adult to make you
keep a secret, for example.
If an adult starts buying you things, you need to let your parents know right away.
Because those are grooming behaviors that are often displayed by the people close to
children who want to harm them.
(10:48):
And it actually really starts with not only grooming the child, but grooming the parents
as well.
And I see that a lot.
And it's unfortunate because you don't see it or parents don't see it initially when
it's happening.
But once something bad is discovered and they look back, they can say, oh my God, this is
what he was doing all along.
(11:09):
He was grooming me.
He's grooming my kids.
He's taking advantage of this situation.
Yeah, they basically get in there and gain your trust is what that's all about, is building
that trust and that relationship.
Right.
And it starts with promising things, keeping secrets, all these strategies to isolate children,
to make them feel as though they've done something wrong when they do finally harm them.
(11:33):
And they kind of test that out too.
They'll start with kind of just a small thing that doesn't really matter to keep secret
between themselves and the child.
And then kind of just test it to see if that information comes out anywhere else to know
if that child spoke about that.
But they start out with something minuscule that doesn't really matter.
And then they move on to bigger things to keep secret.
(11:54):
Right.
I'm not saying that's the case here, but I think it's really important that we mention
that and talk about that for those parents who haven't even thought about it, or even
those parents that might have had kids that went through something to kind of look back
and think of those things.
Really the important message here is we need to do everything we can as parents and as
(12:16):
adults who are involved in our friends' kids' lives to make sure we take those steps to
protect them.
Yeah.
The children are our most vulnerable, innocent parts of our population.
And I think we all have a duty to protect them and make sure they're safe.
100%.
(12:36):
So anybody that's listening, if they know anything about Ryan, where can they make a
tip?
Yeah.
Reach out to the La Vista Police Department in Nebraska by calling 402-331-1353.
Okay.
Any other, anything else?
No, I think that's all the information we have.
(12:58):
Again, don't forget to check out our website at mysteriesandmimosas.net to see all those
photos of Ryan.
Right.
And if you want to suggest an episode, you can do it through mysteriesandmimosas.net.
I run the website, frankly, because you don't know what you're doing.
Wow.
It's accurate, but did you really have to just put it in a blast like that?
(13:18):
It's the truth.
I'm not a technological person.
But to be fair, I don't know what I'm doing either because there's a little box when you
visit mysteriesandmimosas.net that lets you message me and it goes directly to your cell
phone.
It goes to mine?
Yeah.
And so if anybody wants to just bug you, they can get on there and I don't know how to turn
it off.
Oh wow.
I didn't know that.
So if anybody wants to bother Aria or just submit a case that you want us to do or even
(13:42):
just something that you think is helpful that we should be mentioning in our episodes, that's
where you do it.
So Aria will probably not respond because she doesn't know what she's doing, but she'll
tell me and we'll make that work.
I know how to operate a simple text message.
If that's how it comes through, I can handle that.
I don't know how it comes through, but we'll test it.
Why don't we test it?
(14:03):
You can send me a message and I can respond.
Please blow up her phone and we will respond.
So yeah, you could do it there.
And then also on Instagram, please like us, please follow us at mysteriesandmimosas podcast.
If you have anybody else that you know likes true crime and wants to listen, send our show
over to them.
We really appreciate everything that you do.
(14:25):
Yes, we appreciate everyone's support as we start out on this podcasting journey.
Okay.
Put a fork in it.
Wow.
It's done.
Mystery Monday.
It's done, son.
Okay.
Yeah.
No.
Yep.
Nope.
We're not doing that.
All right.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Hello and welcome back to Mysteries of Mimosa's for our exclusive Mystery Monday episode.
(00:13):
We just wanted to take time to thank everybody for listening and encourage you to hit the
follow button on whatever platform you're listening to us on.
And you can also find us on Instagram where we have pictures, we interact with you, and
don't forget about our website mysteries of mimosas.net where most of our episodes have
exclusive information.
(00:34):
All right.
So yeah, so I'll get us started for our Mystery Monday.
This week we are discussing the case of Ryan D. Larson out of La Vista, Nebraska.
So on May 17th of 2021, Ryan went missing from his elementary school in La Vista, Nebraska.
(00:55):
The missing juvenile, Ryan D. Larson, walked away from his elementary school in La Vista,
Nebraska around noon on May 17th of 2021.
Ryan was seen near his apartment shortly after he walked away from the school.
There have been no confirmed sightings since this time.
Ryan has high functioning autism and has a history of running away and hiding.
(01:16):
However, he has always been found shortly afterward near the location where he left.
Ryan is described as being five feet, eight inches tall, around 125 pounds with brown
hair and hazel eyes.
Ryan was last seen wearing a black hoodie, blue jeans, an old Navy shirt, and had a polka
dotted umbrella.
(01:36):
So when Ryan went missing, he was 11 years old, which makes him now 14 years old.
Okay.
So he walked away from the elementary school?
Yeah, he walked out the front doors in the middle of the school day and has never been
seen since.
Why did that happen?
That's crazy.
That is something that his mom is taking up with the school district currently as to why,
(02:00):
because she notes in the Omaha World Herald, his mom notes that he has been diagnosed with
generalized epilepsy, Tourette syndrome, ADHD, and he is on the autism spectrum.
And that he did have a tendency to wander off and hide.
He was on an IEP at the school, which did note all of these things, including his tendency
(02:25):
to wander off.
So nobody really knows why he was able to just walk out the front doors of his school
that afternoon, but it did happen.
I found another article from WOWT6 News out of Omaha.
Police say the case is still open and an active investigation, although tips have been more
(02:47):
infrequent than when Ryan first went missing.
They have actually followed up on tips all the way to the East coast of the United States.
Unfortunately, there's been no success and no confirmed sightings of Ryan since that
time.
Interesting.
So he's already being watched by the school because he has a tendency to wander away.
(03:09):
Yet for some reason, he still is able to wander out of the school.
And this is only in 2021, you said?
Yes, it was May 17th of 2021.
That's kind of crazy to me because, you know, I could see this happening in the nineties,
even the early 2000s and previously.
But with the increase in school security, you know, because of school shooters and different
(03:33):
things that happen, I find it really interesting that he's able to just walk out.
That's crazy.
Yeah, I agree.
I don't know what the circumstances were surrounding that.
Like I said, that's all the that's reported.
I don't know if that school has cameras that actually saw him walk out the front doors.
I don't know.
I assume that's how they know that he walked out around noon that day.
(03:55):
But like I said, he was seen shortly after near his apartment.
So it looked like he went home.
But after that, nobody has seen him since.
And I don't know the details as far as how long it took the school to realize he was
missing before they reached out to his mom and reported that and to police.
I don't know those details.
(04:15):
There's very limited information out there.
Yeah, that's crazy.
You would think the mom would have a lawsuit, you know, just having having her son walk
out.
Yeah.
And actually, the family did attempt to bring litigation against the school district as they
felt they were responsible for allowing him to walk out the doors that day.
(04:36):
It looks like so generally there is a two year statute of limitations to where someone
can file a lawsuit like that against the school district.
But they need a death certificate, apparently.
And it's usually a five year time span from when a person goes missing to when they can
request that a judge issue a certificate of death.
(04:58):
So Ryan's family went ahead and asked the judge to do that earlier than would you would
find typically so that they could pursue that litigation.
The judge did grant that death certificate and the family did pursue that litigation.
But I read in that newspaper article that I referenced earlier that the judge actually
dismissed their lawsuit against the school district in November of this year.
(05:22):
Did it give any information as to why it did not?
Okay.
So, you know, I don't think obviously, I mean, this is stating the obvious no teacher, no
administrator wants to allow any kid to walk out and become missing.
Of course.
Is that, you know, excuse any negligence?
I don't think so.
I mean, we trust these teachers and administrators in the school to care for our children when
(05:46):
they go to school when we're not there to do it.
Right.
And so we put a lot of trust in coaches, teachers, and all these people who are in a position
of trust over our kids to make sure that they're safe and make sure they're not leaving.
So I'd really like to know more about why that judge dismissed that because I definitely
see just from the information we have an extreme negligence on the school's part.
(06:10):
Right.
I agree.
But again, we only have very limited information.
I don't know a lot of the details surrounding that.
I mean, from the face of it, yes, it looks like how can a child that has a noted IEP
in place saying, hey, you know, he has these conditions, he does have a tendency to wander
off and hide.
(06:31):
So you want to keep an extra eye on him.
I don't know how he's able to walk out the front doors in the middle of a school day
and nobody noticed.
But again, we don't know all the details either.
Sure.
I'm actually really curious to know who saw him over by the apartment, who saw him there?
What does that witness like?
(06:52):
You know, was he wearing the same stuff?
Was it just some there's a whole lot that goes into that because I can tell you from
some missing persons that I've been involved in, you get a lot of false leads.
You get people that just I think just want to be involved and just want to be helpful
when really it's a detriment.
And I've actually had people say, oh, yeah, I've seen this person.
(07:14):
They're a regular customer, for example, and they're in here every Tuesday.
Great.
Can I get your survey, you know, security surveillance footage?
And then they start ghosting you.
And I think it's I don't know what it is exactly, but it's a little bit upsetting from a law
enforcement standpoint because you spend a lot of energy going down these rabbit holes
that pan out to be nothing.
(07:35):
But you know, it's that one that you ignore that pans out to be something.
So you can't, you know, just look the other direction.
You can't just ignore those leads that come in.
So anyway, I say that because I'd be really curious what this witness saw, you know, how
credible the witness is. And at the end of the day, it doesn't really do anything to
(07:55):
bring him home.
I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I think it's worth mentioning that child
abuse, child neglect and child abductions, the statistics lean heavily towards a known
suspect, a known family member, a known person who actually knows this child.
Most of the time when kids become missing, you immediately have to look at, you know,
are the parents divorced?
(08:17):
Is there a custody dispute?
You know, is it a case of parental kidnapping?
That's kind of where your focus initially goes before you expand to other suspects.
So I'm kind of curious in this case, if that has any bearing on it.
Yeah, you're right.
Stranger abductions are actually pretty rare.
It's generally somebody that knows the person.
(08:37):
But yeah, I don't have the statistics in front of me either.
The information that I got on the witness that said they saw him near his apartment
that came from the NamUs website.
It's actually part of their missing persons information in their file.
So I would like to say that's probably a pretty reliable source.
But that's the only place that I saw that.
So I'm not sure.
(08:58):
Yeah.
And the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has the same information as NamUs,
but they have more pictures of Ryan.
So we're going to take those photos and post them on our website so you can take a look
at those as well.
I know that I mentioned that most of the time, abductions are family related.
It's very rarely ever a stranger.
(09:20):
But at no point in time are we ever saying or do we mean that we think his family is
involved, right?
There's nothing to indicate that.
Absolutely.
And I should clarify that too, because I know I said, I worded it that way.
I said he was seen near his apartment, so he went home.
That's not what I meant.
What I meant is that he was headed in that general direction, or that's where he was
last.
(09:41):
Even if that witness statement is accurate.
Exactly.
So I would like to clarify that.
There is nothing saying that he actually went home.
There was a reported sighting of him near his apartment.
Yeah.
And there's nothing in this information to indicate that any of his family had anything
to do with it.
I think it's just important to mention those statistics and how they lean.
(10:04):
So when we were young, we always heard the term stranger danger.
I think it's a really good point right here to talk about this.
So everybody knows stranger danger.
You teach that to your kids.
Don't talk to strangers.
And we do that to kind of safeguard our children.
But what we don't teach our kids is to be aware of tricky people, right?
(10:28):
The people that are closest to us, such as, hey, it's not okay for any adult to make you
keep a secret, for example.
If an adult starts buying you things, you need to let your parents know right away.
Because those are grooming behaviors that are often displayed by the people close to
children who want to harm them.
(10:48):
And it actually really starts with not only grooming the child, but grooming the parents
as well.
And I see that a lot.
And it's unfortunate because you don't see it or parents don't see it initially when
it's happening.
But once something bad is discovered and they look back, they can say, oh my God, this is
what he was doing all along.
(11:09):
He was grooming me.
He's grooming my kids.
He's taking advantage of this situation.
Yeah, they basically get in there and gain your trust is what that's all about, is building
that trust and that relationship.
Right.
And it starts with promising things, keeping secrets, all these strategies to isolate children,
to make them feel as though they've done something wrong when they do finally harm them.
(11:33):
And they kind of test that out too.
They'll start with kind of just a small thing that doesn't really matter to keep secret
between themselves and the child.
And then kind of just test it to see if that information comes out anywhere else to know
if that child spoke about that.
But they start out with something minuscule that doesn't really matter.
And then they move on to bigger things to keep secret.
(11:54):
Right.
I'm not saying that's the case here, but I think it's really important that we mention
that and talk about that for those parents who haven't even thought about it, or even
those parents that might have had kids that went through something to kind of look back
and think of those things.
Really the important message here is we need to do everything we can as parents and as
(12:16):
adults who are involved in our friends' kids' lives to make sure we take those steps to
protect them.
Yeah.
The children are our most vulnerable, innocent parts of our population.
And I think we all have a duty to protect them and make sure they're safe.
100%.
(12:36):
So anybody that's listening, if they know anything about Ryan, where can they make a
tip?
Yeah.
Reach out to the La Vista Police Department in Nebraska by calling 402-331-1353.
Okay.
Any other, anything else?
No, I think that's all the information we have.
(12:58):
Again, don't forget to check out our website at mysteriesandmimosas.net to see all those
photos of Ryan.
Right.
And if you want to suggest an episode, you can do it through mysteriesandmimosas.net.
I run the website, frankly, because you don't know what you're doing.
Wow.
It's accurate, but did you really have to just put it in a blast like that?
(13:18):
It's the truth.
I'm not a technological person.
But to be fair, I don't know what I'm doing either because there's a little box when you
visit mysteriesandmimosas.net that lets you message me and it goes directly to your cell
phone.
It goes to mine?
Yeah.
And so if anybody wants to just bug you, they can get on there and I don't know how to turn
it off.
Oh wow.
I didn't know that.
So if anybody wants to bother Aria or just submit a case that you want us to do or even
(13:42):
just something that you think is helpful that we should be mentioning in our episodes, that's
where you do it.
So Aria will probably not respond because she doesn't know what she's doing, but she'll
tell me and we'll make that work.
I know how to operate a simple text message.
If that's how it comes through, I can handle that.
I don't know how it comes through, but we'll test it.
Why don't we test it?
(14:03):
You can send me a message and I can respond.
Please blow up her phone and we will respond.
So yeah, you could do it there.
And then also on Instagram, please like us, please follow us at mysteriesandmimosas podcast.
If you have anybody else that you know likes true crime and wants to listen, send our show
over to them.
We really appreciate everything that you do.
(14:25):
Yes, we appreciate everyone's support as we start out on this podcasting journey.
Okay.
Put a fork in it.
Wow.
It's done.
Mystery Monday.
It's done, son.
Okay.
Yeah.
No.
Yep.
Nope.
We're not doing that.
All right.
Cheers.
Cheers.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.