The father of a 27-year-old Mississippi woman who vanished without a trace spent months pleading with her boyfriend for answers, only to discover the man was lying to him the entire time while his daughter’s body lay decomposing in a garage just steps away. Gary Bardwell’s desperate search for Jessie Bardwell ended in a nightmare that no parent should ever endure, as police eventually found her remains dumped in a muddy field 35 miles from the apartment she shared with Jason Low.
Jessie Bardwell was described by her family as a beautiful, silly, and fiercely independent young woman who had a passion for life and a maverick streak that sometimes led her into dangerous territory. She was daddy’s little girl from the moment she was born, and her father Gary cherished the bond they shared, often recalling how she would jump into his arms even as a six-year-old wanting to be carried. As she grew older, Jessie remained close to her brother Brandon, always having each other’s backs like two peas in a pod.
But when Jessie moved from Pascagoula, Mississippi, to Richardson, Texas, 500 miles away, everything changed. She dropped everything for a new boyfriend named Jason Low, a fast-talking young man who immediately raised red flags for Gary Bardwell. When Gary finally met Jason, he described him as “a piece of work” who was “full of crap.”
Jason tried to impress Gary by claiming he had been a Navy SEAL, but Gary rolled his eyes, knowing there was no way this guy had ever even thought about being a SEAL.
Gary’s fatherly intuition only grew stronger when Jessie’s daily texts and phone calls slowed to a trickle. When she first moved to Texas, she had been diligent about checking in, but soon the contact stopped almost entirely. Gary traveled to Texas to visit, and Jessie claimed she was happy, but her father sensed something deeply wrong.
He pleaded with her to come home, but she refused, saying there was nothing he could say or do to make her leave Jason.
The mind control Gary suspected only intensified over the following months. Every time he called, Jason answered Jessie’s phone, claiming she was upset and missing her father but unable to speak. Gary wasn’t buying it for a minute.
He had a nightmare that Jessie had been killed, and that haunting feeling never left him. He would threaten to drive out to Texas, but Jessie would beg him not to come, insisting everything was fine.
After Christmas 2015, something shifted dramatically. Jessie stopped answering her father’s calls entirely. Gary and his family set a deadline: if Jessie didn’t call on Mother’s Day, they would know something terrible had happened.
Mother’s Day came and went with no contact. Gary was freaking out. When Jason again answered Jessie’s phone, Gary’s concern exploded into anger.
He told Jason he was coming to Texas, and Jason warned him not to come with an attitude.
Gary loaded his truck and drove 11 hours straight to Richardson. When he arrived, he went directly to Jason’s apartment, but Jason refused to come to the door. Gary could hear footsteps inside but could not get a response.
He had told his wife to hide his gun from him because he was so furious. He then went straight to the Richardson Police Department and filed a missing persons report.
Officers immediately went to Jason’s apartment with audio recorders rolling. Jason told them the same story he had been telling Gary: he had no idea where Jessie was. He claimed the last time he saw her, she was driving away in her Acura on Mother’s Day morning.
But police quickly discovered that Jessie no longer owned that car. They contacted the people who were driving the vehicle, who said they had purchased it from Jessie and Jason about a month earlier. The lies were beginning to unravel.
When police returned for a second visit, they found Jason in a compromising position. He had cocaine on his countertop, and officers arrested him on 𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔 charges. But what they really wanted was to search the rest of the apartment.
Jason was hesitant and tried desperately to keep them out of the garage. When they finally entered, they were hit by an overwhelming odor of decaying flesh. The smell permeated every corner of the garage.
In the garage, police found Jason’s truck covered in mud with a smashed front end. Scattered around were bottles of air freshener. When they opened the hatch on the cargo area, the smell was strongest there.
Forensics detectives sprayed the truck with luminol, a chemical used to detect blood traces. The interior of the cargo compartment lit up brightly, revealing evidence of blood everywhere. More blood was found dripping from the undercarriage of the truck, forming a pool of dark liquid on the garage floor.
During his interrogation, Jason was guarded, agitated, and angry. He denied knowing what police were talking about and refused to cooperate. He became so hostile that he ended the interview by saying he was done talking.
Without Jessie’s body, prosecutors knew they had a difficult case, but they charged Jason with her murder anyway. The evidence of foul play was overwhelming.
As prosecutors dug into Jason’s history, they uncovered a pattern of violence. A former girlfriend named Chrissy Chambers told police that Jason had tried to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 her. She described a brutal attack where he pushed her down, shoved her, and pinned her on her back with all his weight.
She blacked out and only regained consciousness long enough to call 911 from a convenience store. She told the dispatcher that Jason had tried to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 her, and when asked to rate the strength of his grip on a scale of one to ten, she answered eleven. She dropped the charges but lived in constant fear that Jason would come back for her.
While in jail, Jason was recorded speaking with a friend named Tommy Jordan. In that recording, Jason made a 𝓈𝒽𝓸𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 confession. He claimed that Jessie’s death was a terrible accident.
He said they were having 𝒔𝒆𝒙 in the shower when Jessie slipped and hit her head. He said they went to bed that night, but Jessie never woke up. He admitted to criminal negligence but insisted there was nothing he could have done differently.
He said he was sorry but was confident that it was a split-second accident.
The jailhouse recording gave prosecutors the evidence they needed, but they still lacked Jessie’s body. Jason faced life in prison, so he offered to cut a deal. He would lead investigators to Jessie’s remains if prosecutors agreed to limit his sentence to 50 years.
They accepted. Jason led heavy-hearted investigators to a muddy field about 35 miles away in Farmersville, Texas. He pointed to a spot about 250 yards down a fence line, referring to Jessie as “it,” not “she.”
There was no emotion, no remorse.
At the scene, police found Jessie’s body wrapped in a bed sheet. The decomposition was severe, one of the worst cases investigators had ever seen. An autopsy could not determine exactly how she died, but authorities were certain she was murdered.
For Gary Bardwell, the discovery brought a new wave of guilt. He kept saying he should have gone to Texas sooner, that he could have prevented this.
At Jason’s trial, the details of Jessie’s final days were laid bare. Prosecutors revealed that in the hours after Jessie’s death, Jason was trying to hook up with other women. He was sending explicit 𝓷𝓾𝓭𝓮 photos of himself and receiving 𝓷𝓾𝓭𝓮 photos from women.
All of this happened while Jessie’s body sat rotting in the back of his Audi. Gary Bardwell listened in anguish, barely able to restrain himself from jumping over the bar and lunging at Jason.
The most painful revelation came when Gary learned that he had been only a few feet away from his daughter when he went to Jason’s apartment that day. Jessie’s body was still hidden in the back of Jason’s car in the garage. Gary had knocked on the door, but Jason ignored him.
Jessie was there, dead, while her father stood outside, helpless.
Jason continued to push his accident defense, even acting out the scenario in front of the jury with chairs. He claimed they lost their footing in the shower and fell. But the jury was not convinced.
They found Jason Low guilty of Jessie Bardwell’s murder and sentenced him to the maximum allowed under the plea deal: 50 years in prison. He will be eligible for parole after serving half of that sentence, starting from his arrest in May 2016. At that time, he will be 51 years old.
Gary Bardwell now lives with a deafening silence in his life. He has a brand-new break in his heart every day. He has devoted himself to keeping Jessie’s voice alive, writing a song for her and speaking out against toxic relationships.
He wants every girl in a dangerous situation to see Jessie’s story and get out before it is too late. For Jessie’s father, the pain is relentless. He said, “I get pissed off when I see somebody happy.
He took my world away.” The trial may be over, but the nightmare for the Bardwell family will never end. Jason Low, the man who lied to a grieving father while his daughter’s body rotted in the garage, will spend decades behind bars, but for Gary, no punishment will ever bring his little girl back.