The Disappearance of Jimmy Farenthold Part 3: Running Out of Road
Gone Cold - Texas True Crime
Vincent Strange
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jimmy wasn’t just anyone. He was the youngest son of one of Texas’s most prominent dynasties, a family bound by oil, politics, and power. But behind the legacy was a private story of grief and dysfunction. Jimmy had been born a twin—and when his brother Vincent died suddenly, Jimmy became the “one who lived,” carrying scars that shaped the rest of his life.
Charming yet reckless, Jimmy drifted through addiction, rehab programs, and cities across the South. In April 1989, he promised a fresh start. Bags packed, ticket in hand, he was set to enter a Florida treatment program. Instead, he disappeared. His car, his passport, even his clothes—left behind.
What followed was not the frantic search you’d expect for the son of a famous family. Instead, his disappearance became another fracture inside an already divided household. A father chasing rumors. A mother haunted by silence. A family dynasty unraveling.
Part 3 of 3 of our series follows Jimmy’s apparent final days, the dead ends that followed, and the generational weight of a name built on both power and tragedy.
If you have information about the disappearance of James Robert “Jimmy” Farenthold, please contact the San Antonio Police Department at 210-207-8939.
Sources: The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, The Port Aransas South Jetty, The Houston Chronicle, The San Antonio Express-News, Texas Monthly, Texas Observer, texashistory.unt.edu, The Los Angeles Times, The University of Texas School of Law – Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold Archives Project
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Gone Cold Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter. Listener discretion is advised. |
| 0:08.7 | Most disappearances come with noise, police reports, searches, and families begging for answers in front of cameras. |
| 0:17.6 | But when Jimmy Farrenthold vanished in the spring of 1989, there was none of that. |
| 0:23.7 | No bulletin, no headlines, just silence. |
| 0:28.5 | Jimmy was the youngest son of one of Texas's most powerful families, a dynasty built on oil, |
| 0:35.5 | money, and politics. |
| 0:37.8 | From the outside, the Farenth old name meant privilege and influence. |
| 0:42.8 | But for Jimmy, it meant living in the shadow of grief. |
| 0:46.9 | He was a twin, and his brother Vincent's sudden death, |
| 0:50.6 | due to the combination of the family's inherited blood disorder and a late-night |
| 0:55.5 | fall marked him forever. |
| 0:58.5 | Jimmy carried that absence like a scar, telling friends half ingest that in his family's |
| 1:04.7 | eyes, the good one died. |
| 1:07.6 | As an adult, he tried to outrun that pain. |
| 1:12.0 | He was charming but reckless, sensitive and self-destructive. |
| 1:16.9 | He fought addiction and drifted from one city to another, always chasing change, but never |
| 1:23.1 | catching it. |
| 1:24.7 | And then, in April 1989, he promised a new beginning. A Florida rehab program was going |
| 1:31.9 | to be a fresh start. His ticket was booked, and his bags packed. But Jimmy never got on the plane. |
| 1:40.1 | In fact, he was gone. His car, his passport, his clothes, all abandoned. |
| 1:47.8 | What followed wasn't the frantic search you'd expect for the son of a famous family. |
| 1:53.8 | Instead, his disappearance was met with hesitation, division, and decades of unanswered questions. |
... |
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