Will Jayson Artis Ever Get Justice?

This case centers around 22-year-old Jayson Artis. Jayson had just made the move from his home in Virginia to Los Angeles so that he could attend college there. Before starting his classes, Jayson decided to enjoy his new home. In July of 1998, he brought his brother Steven to Los Angeles for a visit. The two took a trip to Tijuana, Mexico for some partying. On August 1st, Jayson’s friend Michael met them at Avienda Revolucion. Jayson supposedly had a reputation for being a more rowdy person when he would drink, which made this night of partying a potentially bad combination. That was starting to show itself when Jayson became upset with a bartender. He was annoyed that the tequila he was drinking was $6 a shot and he initially didn’t want to pay for it. Michael was able to convince him to pay it and leave — which is exactly what happened.

The group continued to party at a different bar until late in the night (or technically early in the morning). At around 1:00 am, Jayson and Steve decided to leave the bar while Michael stayed. As the brothers were walking back to their car, Jayson accidentally bumped into a police officer. The streets were extremely crowded and hard to navigate. Jayson was put in handcuffs immediately and had to give the police $40 and his gold watch in order to go free. Jayson wouldn’t part with his watch, but the police told them that they would take the $40. Steve went to the car to go and get the money.

When he returned, Jayson and the police were gone.

During this time, Michael took to the streets to find Jayson and Steve after he was done partying. He saw Jayson in the back of a police car occupied by four officers. He finally found Steve and told him what he saw. The pair decided to go to a different group of police with that information. They were told that Jayson would most likely be in jail if he were picked up by their officers. Then, at 3:40 am, Jayson’s body was found on the side of a road in a bad area of Tijuana. His badly beaten body was discovered just three blocks from where the police picked him up.

Curiously, The American Consulate told Jayson’s family that his death was caused by a hit-and-run accident. His family — who is aware of the beaten state in which his body was found — suspected that they were not being told the truth. They believe that he was beaten to death by the Tijuana police and that the hit-and-run story is their attempt at a coverup (which included running over Jayson’s dead body with a car). An autopsy report showed that his injuries were not consistent with being hit by a car.

During the Unsolved Mysteries segment on the case, they asked three forensic pathologists to review the autopsy report. There was one pathologist who agreed that his injuries were consistent with a hit-and-run. The other two were of a different opinion. They were specifically skeptical about a discrepancy in the Tijuana coroner’s report. The Tijuana coroner said that Jayson’s chest had ruptured his heart due to the force with which it was hit by the car. However, pathologist Jacob Turner noted that there were no injuries to his chest that would have been present had his heart been ruptured. Both pathologists also found head wounds that were indicative of Jayson having been beaten with a blunt object.

Due to the Unsolved Mysteries broadcast, the American consulate was given a binder by the Tijuana police. The binder contained 205 photographs of Tijuana municipal police officers. Steven and Michael were asked to look through the photographs in the hopes of finding the officers that had handcuffed Jayson. Steven was able to pick out the officer Jayson had initially bumped into.

Then…nothing.

Nothing was done with that information. In fact, the investigation into Jayson’s death ended in 2000. His family has been looking for answers ever since.