AUSTIN, TX — The Rainey Street Ripper: Monster or Myth?
Austin’s famous Sixth Street, known locally as the “Dirty Six,” is a wonderland of music, good vibes, copious amounts of alcohol, and wild nights — but is there something more sinister lurking in the shadows of Rainey Street, waiting for the perfect moment to strike?
Over the past two years, a total of 16 bodies have surfaced in Austin’s Lady Bird Lake, fueling whispers of a serial predator stalking intoxicated male bar-goers between the ages of 25 and 40, luring them to their demise.
Some call him “The Rainey Street Ripper,” a phantom who haunts the streets at night and preys on the vulnerable under the cover of darkness.
Despite the locals’ concerns over a potential serial killer in the city, the Austin Police Department maintains that “At this time, there is no evidence in any of these cases to support allegations of foul play,” and chalks up the numerous deaths in the area to “accidental drownings.”
APD also dismisses the skepticism of their assessment as “internet-fueled paranoia” and views the 16 individuals losing their lives within a two-year time span as a “coincidence,” despite no evidence to support the claim.
But with growing fears, unanswered questions, and chilling survivor accounts, the real question remains — is there a killer on the loose, or is the city chasing ghosts?
A local Sixth Street bartender who wished to remain anonymous argues that the numerous deaths are more than a coincidence, and there is more to the story than APD is letting on.
“The amount of people who have been found dead is huge,” the bartender told The Sun in a 2024 interview, “It’s an odd place for people to go, too. I find it hard to see how people could leave Rainey, and end up at the lake. You have to walk blocks to get there.”
The persistence of these incidents and the lack of concrete explanations from authorities have led to various theories, including potential connections to other unsolved crimes occurring in the area.
One notable unsolved case fueling the rumors involves a potential victim of the “Ripper,” Jeff Jones, a 38-year-old visitor from Boston.
In June 2023, Jones was in Austin for his friend’s bachelor party and went missing after a night out on West Sixth Street.
Jones was later found under the West Sixth Street Bridge with severe injuries, including internal hemorrhaging, broken vertebrae, and broken ribs.
Authorities determined Jones had plummeted roughly 25 feet from the West Sixth Street Bridge to sustain his injuries.
But questions on how he received those injuries remained — Was he the latest target of this elusive killer?
Did the Rainey Street Ripper strike again?
Medical tests revealed the presence of benzodiazepines, commonly associated with the “date-rape” drugs Rohypnol and GHB in Jones’ system, which he denies taking himself.
“I hadn’t felt strange at all. I hadn’t been drinking heavily,” Jones said, “There’s no reason why I would have had that in my system, I was having drinks and very easily could have gotten drugged by someone.”
According to Jones, the next thing he remembered after the alleged drugging and attack was waking up in the hospital a week later.
He had been put into a medically induced coma so doctors could implant metal rods in his back and remove his spleen to stop the internal hemorrhaging in his kidneys, liver, and lungs.
Jones maintains that he couldn’t have injured himself in this way and believes wholeheartedly that he was targeted, drugged, and subsequently pushed off the bridge in an attempt to end his life.
“It’s a three-or four-foot-wide old stone bridge. So for me to actually have somehow fallen over, it would have been almost impossible,” Jones said.
“The things that lead to it being a serial killer is that it’s a very specific type of victim, which I fit, they don’t have anything stolen from them, they drown in the water, and they disappear in the middle of the night.”
With the alleged attack in Jones’ recent past, he is continuing to recover from his injuries and surprisingly says that he’s open to returning to Austin one day.
Jones even appears to have a new lease on life, saying he’s “Incredibly lucky,” and “Trying to live life to the fullest now.”
While one victim may be grateful for a second chance, another potential victim of the Ripper—then 23-year-old Connor Deserly—looks back in horror at a night meant for celebration that turned into a nightmare.
In February 2024, Deserly and a group of friends relocated to Austin for temporary sales jobs with a local pest control company. Two days after arriving, they decided to celebrate by hitting the city’s well-known Sixth Street district, not far from Rainey Street.
The night quickly became a haze for Deserly.
He had disappeared from his group early in the night, stating he had to use the restroom, with only a brief sighting of Deserly by his friends at a different bar later on in the night.
After that, no one in Deserly’s group knew where he was or if he had even made it through the night. They frantically looked for him all night and all over to no avail.
The next morning, his friends were already putting up missing person fliers for Deserly, desperate to find their lost friend.
The previous night, however, Deserly had already been discovered in an alleyway behind a dumpster by a passerby who noticed his legs sticking out and immediately called the police.
Deserly had been seriously injured, and by the time APD got there, he was “completely unresponsive.”
But just like Jones, the next thing Deserly recalls after that fateful night is regaining consciousness after spending multiple days in the hospital, alone.
“I only drank like one drink, like maybe one or two drinks, and I felt crazy, like, F***** up, you know? And then I remembered we talked to this one group, and they were weird.” Deserly said.
In the toxicology report performed on Deserly at the hospital, he was found to have had fentanyl, ketamine, and methamphetamines in his system, claiming that he had no idea how he had ingested the drugs.
“I was on life support for, like, I think, three or four days, like, all the, you know, the tubes in the mouth, and it was pumping my lungs for me and all this other stuff,” Deserly said.
Nearly a year later, Deserly is still recovering from the injuries he sustained that night, still no closer to knowing the truth about what happened to him.
“I don’t know how they helped my friends, but APD, yeah, they never reached out, nothing, tried to open an investigation, nothing like that,” Deserly said.
Unfortunately, the alleged killer would get away, joining back into the murky shadows, just like he had many times before. And with little help from APD, and no memory to aid Deserly, all he could do was be grateful he did not end up as the 17th body found in the shallow waters of the lake.
To this day, the identity of the supposed killer remains a mystery. But in a now-deleted post from 2024, Reddit user u/whatdid-it posted on the subreddit r/Bartenders, claiming to have encountered the Ripper while working as a bartender with a complete confession from the alleged perpetrator.
“Suddenly, [the customer] started talking about ‘killing homos’ from LAKE A that he found from STREET B,” the user wrote in a Reddit post titled, “Have you ever had someone tell you they murdered someone/people?”
At first, the user avoided explicitly specifying which part of Austin they were referring to, but later confirmed they were referring to Rainey Street and Lady Bird Lake.
One user responded to the original poster, urging the OP to “Get the f*** off Reddit and call the cops.” Unfortunately, u/whatdid-it didn’t bother to contact the authorities directly after the patron’s confession, leading to mass frustration online.
User u/whatdid-it claimed that management at their workplace showed little concern. They also stated that after contacting the Austin Police Department directly, they were redirected to the homicide hotline, where they left a voicemail.
As of this writing, neither the APD nor the user has provided any follow-up concerning the possible sighting of the supposed killer, leaving us all with more questions than answers.
In response to the public outcry for more safety measures in their community, the city has implemented various safety measures, including the “Safer 6th Street Initiative.” This initiative includes improved lighting and surveillance systems around Rainey Street, and the “Sip Safely” program designed to educate the public about drink spiking.
Despite official assurances, the changes made, or the knowledge of the supposed Ripper, the debate over the possibility of a serial killer stalking the streets of Austin continues.
But one thing is certain: Something sinister lurks in the dark corners of one of Austin’s busiest streets. And until the question of who is stalking Rainey Street is answered, the deaths will remain a chilling mystery, a cold case that casts a long shadow over the still waters of Lady Bird Lake.
Sources:
- Was He Targeted By the Rainey Street Ripper in Austin, Texas?
- Austin Lady Bird Lake drownings: No evidence of foul play | kvue.com
- Fears of ‘serial killer’ dubbed ‘Rainey Street Ripper’ surge after two more bodies found in a week in Lady Bird Lake | The US Sun
- I Survived the Rainey Street Ripper — Different Drummer: Movie Reviews for Film-Loving Foodies
- Daily Dot: Deserly, then 23, remembers is waking up alone in a local hospital. Nobody knew where he was or if he was dead or alive.
- Was He Targeted By the Rainey Street Ripper in Austin, Texas?
- [deleted by user]: r/bartenders
- Post where Austin bartender claims to have spoken with ‘Rainey Street Killer’ goes viral | San Antonio | San Antonio Current
