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that's greenlight card dot-com slash garage [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever
00:01:16
you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is the music man the
00:01:22
host and taco connoisseur he is the captain it is Taco Tuesday [ __ ] it's good to
00:01:28
be seen as good to see you thanks for listening thanks for ton of friends [Music]
00:01:37
this week we are drinking anheuser-busch's Budweiser and American lager and an American classic this may
00:01:44
seem like an odd pick but hear me out we've been discussing the disappearance of brandon swanson and brandon loved the
00:01:51
Minnesota Twins and was known to always be wearing a Twins hat anyone that has been to a Twins baseball
00:01:58
game knows you can grab a beer at the Budweiser roofdeck located in the left-field corner of the ballpark it's
00:02:05
the ultimate Minnesota Twins outdoor experience it's the king of beers that's right so to all the listeners tuning in
00:02:12
from the great state of Minnesota we say this Bud's for you garage grade 3 big bottle caps and we would also like to
00:02:19
thank and send a big cheers to Jill in Columbus Ohio and a big shout out to de Nez in Forney Texas next up we have a
00:02:27
shout to Michelle in San Juan Capistrano California and a big shout-out to tiffany him Buford Georgia and next a
00:02:34
big long-distance cheers and big thank you to Tim from Seattle and last but certainly not least we have Stevie and
00:02:42
Bay City Michigan everybody we just mentioned went to true-crime garage calm and donate it to this week's beer fund
00:02:50
and for that we give you a big thanks yeah make sure after you donate become and be patient cuz we're gonna get to
00:02:57
you it might take a little time but when you hear you're know yourself kill yourself kill yourself out it's gonna
00:03:05
take a little bit of time but once you hear your name you're gonna get excited so excited that you we in your pants and
00:03:10
that is enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab
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a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] we covered the details in some of the speculation regarding the night in early
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morning hours of 19 year old Brandon Swanson's last known whereabouts last week now we need to cover the search
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that ensued for Brandon after the discovery of his abandoned green Chevy Lumina which was found hung up in a
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ditch on the side of a gravel road and reminder this was approximately 20 miles from where Brandon thought he was the
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searches have been exhaustive thorough and in my humble garage opinion highly professional investigators brought in
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search dogs which started at the vehicle the dogs led investigators up and down some country roads and then to a woods
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by the banks of the yellow medicine River the descriptions of this river are really all over the shop here captain
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while the depths of the river range from anywhere from just knee-deep up to 15 feet in certain areas this particular
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area meaning parts of the yellow medicine River within walking distance of where Brandon's vehicle was found
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several people have stated that this part of the river is much more like a creek sized waterway but we should also
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keep in mind that like with most waterways the yellow medicine rivers depth can vary greatly depending on the
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time of year at the time Brandon disappeared it's reported that the river was flowing high and fast with spring
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runoff still impacting the flow so by most reports we are talking about a very strong current at the time according to
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Sheriff gazecki quote there are two miles of the river in that area and it took six hours for deputies to walk it
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he said he personally walked the river every day for 30 days quote at the time the dogs indicated and it was believed
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that he must have fallen in the river in that area end quote the sheriff then added so we searched
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that area on the premise that he had been washed downstream but the dogs didn't just track Brandon sent to the
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river's edge according to Brandon's mother and net Swanson one bloodhound followed a scent
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from the stranded car down a gravel road to a farm she said this was a long trail
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it was about three miles this long trail is what led to the yellow medicine River
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and net says when the dog walked them up to the river's edge the dog jumped in the river but then jumped back out after
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jumping out of the water the dog continued to walk following a trail up to another gravel road this was a road
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that separates Lyon and Lincoln counties and then at some point the dog loses the
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scent she says now because the dog actively jumped in - and then back out of the river and then continued along a
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scent path that ended into nothingness investigators are not convinced that Brandon drown in the river Sheriff
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gazecki pointed out that had Brandon fallen into the river he should have been found in
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the river or downstream somewhere no trace of Brandon has been found anywhere but if he was washed away in the yellow
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medicine river you'd think that something like a you know a shoe his jacket anything would have been found as
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the river dried up later in the season this exposed more of the land along its banks more searches were done during
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this time but still again nothing turned up the area of the river that is in question that was searched it was
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searched over 50 times all with no results absolutely no evidence other than the dog leading them to the river
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that Brandon you know that he was ever even in the river that he drowned in the river or remains in the river to this
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day were there multiple dogs because sometimes they'll have multiple dogs and sometimes they have one dog and they do
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multiple tests with that one dog so throughout the years what gets a little difficult with in this case when we're
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reporting on it there have been so many searches and I'm certain that throughout the
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years there's probably been a search or two that only contained one dog but a lot of the stuff that I was reviewing
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they're referring to dogs plural so I believe that we're talking about multiple dogs now I don't know that
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using the searchers words and the sheriff's words it's a little conflicting because at times they say
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the dog led us to the river's edge and then other times they say the dogs led investigators to the river so I don't
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know if in this exact point if it was just one dog or multiple dogs the other thing we need to keep in mind too is
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sometimes we're dealing with different kind of tracking dogs dogs that are trained to look for different things
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right you know sometimes when you're looking for search and rescue you're you're tracing a scent and other times
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they're they've actually brought in cadaver dogs dogs that are looking for human remains
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the problem here is again captain the the yellow medicine River I think could hold some secrets but the problem with
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that is other than the dog or the dogs leading the investigators to the river there's never been any other evidence
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that Brandon went into the river or drown or you know and remains in the river to this day right but the problem
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is we have we have no evidence that we have no evidence of a lot of things so I want to go to a comment that I saw by
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his mother and NAT Swanson and this seems to be backed up or at least a shared feeling by other family members
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they don't seem to be 100% convinced that Brandon drowned that night and then I think you have to go back to this
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because if in fact if you believe the search dogs accuracy brandon entered and then exited the river yeah so look I
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want to try a little exercise if you will captain this but hold on a second it's it's difficult because we don't
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know how the dog track let's say the dog jumped into the river jumped out of the
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river and then walked the the river's edge for you know a quarter mile or whatever and
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then veered off into this other path that would make me believe more likely that he went into the river and went
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down the river for a time period enough for the dog to follow the scent the problem with some of these reports is
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that we don't have this great detailed report or we don't have a video footage of what actually happened so to
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speculate too much either way you might as well pull out your crystal ball and and make a guess because you don't know
00:10:46
well of course nobody knows and that's why this is a an interesting case and that's why it's still talked about so
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much to this day but ok so you say detailed description detailed report I I want to try a little exercise here ok
00:11:02
and this will be quite helpful I believe especially to those who are either familiar with the area or for those who
00:11:10
did look up a map of this area like we mentioned last week I want to go through a detailed description of the part of
00:11:19
this search ok there's a lot of searches throughout the years but I want to go through this one in in very good detail
00:11:26
here because again I believe with with the dog information the dog tracking information if we believe the accuracy
00:11:36
of the dogs this is really one of very few pieces of possible evidence that we have to go on right mm-hmm
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so ok here's what we do know dogs tracked Brandon from his abandoned car remember his car was found in a lion
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Lincoln County Road one and a half miles north of route 68 so on the map if you're looking at a go north of route 68
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and continue north past 3 90th Street on my map I placed a pin on lion Lincoln Road at the halfway mark
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right between 390 a--the Street and one hundred and sixtieth Avenue so we know from the conversation he had with his
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folks Brandon thinks he is near Lynde and he eventually comes up with the idea to
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meet them inland via him walking there he says he sees the town of land or the Linda town lights from his car right and
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he's going to walk towards the light so there are two things we can deduce from his statements here one Brandon is
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basically heading in a Northwest walking direction so he believes he is southeast
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of Lynde well northwest of Brandon's car is the town of Porter so he is very likely seeing the lights coming from the
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town of Porter so number two he thinks he is southeast of land so again if the dogs are right from his car Brandon
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walked half a mile south on lion Lincoln Road and then turned right onto 390 a--the Street he walked on 390 ahthe
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westbound for about a mile then he makes another right onto County Road 16 walking northbound he walks for about a
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half a mile and then he decides to go off of the road and make a left now walking westbound on a private driveway
00:13:46
of what has been described by at least three sources that I could find this is a driveway belonging to a an abandoned
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farm right he continues westbound for approximately a quarter of a mile and then veers off
00:14:01
the driveway and continues on roughly following the course of the yellow medicine River traveling Northwest well
00:14:09
again we also have to be clear about these driveways because a lot of these back roads are rough right they're not
00:14:16
not every single one is paved nicely a lot of them are gravel roads yes so you have to you you can't assume at this
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point that that he knows if he's going on a road or a driveway right that'd be safe to say right and again he may not
00:14:35
even care as long right believe that he's making his way in that direction that he wants to go so
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now he's he's kind of very roughly following the course of the yellow medicine River traveling Northwest but
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but how how much is the distance between the car and in the river like if you had
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to yes well it's difficult because there it's very different between where the you know how the crow flies to the route
00:15:07
that he is taking because he's taking a very roundabout way of getting there he's he's going we see him going south
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and then he's going west and then he's going north and then he's going Northwest right so he's traveled a few
00:15:23
miles once you add this all up but again he's not taking a direct cut right to where we have him now no one I think
00:15:33
this is important because we do have a little bit of a time gap from when his when his father decides to take his mom
00:15:43
home to come back out and we have a time gap and then they're back on the phone and and do and I know that time gap is
00:15:52
kind of blurry but I think the key thing here is what I'm what I want to point out to everybody if they are following
00:15:58
along on the map you can you can really see where about he would be based off of
00:16:04
the information of the dogs and it's once he starts doing this this route that that roughly follows the yellow
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medicine river they're traveling Northwest this is approximately where the bloodhound jumped into the river and
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then jumped back out now the the handler as we said interpreted this behavior as
00:16:25
possibly indicating that Brandon might have fallen into the river at that point but then Brandon traveled onward walking
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heading north toward a gravel road it is here that the trail ends the dog where dogs lose the scent really any number of
00:16:43
things could have happened here to make this trail end the descent vanishes he starts off in a very round of
00:16:52
way of walking Northwest with the idea that he is walking into town this obviously regardless of what town
00:16:59
it may actually be or what town he thinks he's walking into I want to point out some things here too that are kind
00:17:06
of working against Brandon if that is his exact movements remember we talked about this is a route you know route 68
00:17:16
would be a route that he would have taken from school to his house I think rather than assuming that he knows the
00:17:24
area well I would debate that quite heavily I question that that off of anything off of Route 68 he may not know
00:17:33
at all you know he may have just take the simplest way to and from school into his house day after day after day and
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never veering off of that route 68 which he is clearly off of at this point right
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and anybody that knows these country roads or not not exactly these country roads but
00:17:52
country roads in general he might be able to deal wha III go down this main path and then I head down one country
00:17:59
road and that gets me to another town all right and then that's your path but once you jump onto these you know other
00:18:06
country roads that you're not familiar with they could take you anywhere you want to know right you know I mean so
00:18:12
and again so I think there's also evidence that backs up that he doesn't know the this area so well because we
00:18:22
have evidence that he's not where he thinks he is 100% we know he's not where he thinks he is and and what I think's
00:18:29
working against him here in the situation alcohol no I think that there are things there are indicators that to
00:18:37
to tell him that he is where he thinks he is meaning if I if I'm looking around and I go oh northwest of me there's the
00:18:45
lights coming from behind right should be Lind oh but it's not lend its porter but in something yeah yeah it's it's an
00:18:53
indicator to him that he's he's right even though he's clearly wrong and then on top of that the direction he's taking
00:19:00
from his vehicle to walk into town traveling Northwest let's pretend he does know the area very well this
00:19:08
would work against him even more because to walk into Porter he would need to cross a major road and there's a river
00:19:19
that runs into Porter okay that's the red wood I'm sorry the the north branch of the yellow medicine river runs into
00:19:29
Porter now if he were to walk Northwest into Lind again he would have to cross a
00:19:35
major road 23 instead of 68 hmm there's another river that runs that direction into the town of Lind
00:19:44
that's the red wood River right that's if he knew the area so well if he knows this area really well he's gone well
00:19:50
she'll go meet him for you he's going [ __ ] I'm right hmm there's the town of Lind I know it
00:19:56
because here's the river backing my feelings up and here's the road that I have to cross backing my feelings up as
00:20:02
well I still think he's impaired he could be he could be and and I think we can we can debate that here in a little
00:20:09
bit but I I want to go through saw the same ish now I want to go through some of the search efforts here captain but
00:20:15
to go through all of them would be ridiculous if you want to to dive into that even further that stuff is
00:20:22
available online and specifically I want to point out some of the sources for our
00:20:28
research here we have footprints at the river's edge blogspot.com mm-hmm that site has been
00:20:35
raising awareness for specifically for missing young adult males since 2002 and then there's a really interesting thing
00:20:44
regarding this case we have Jeff Cassie who has really been the one that's led these these searches and there is a
00:20:56
website the search for Brandon dot blog spot.com this website who's this guy he he's in charge we'll get into him in a
00:21:05
minute but okay one thing I want to point out while I'm telling people if you want to look into it yourself
00:21:10
check out that the search for Brandon blog spot.com that is basically a website that reads like individual juror
00:21:19
entries for each search that took place and they have journal entries listed for
00:21:26
searches that were conducted over a three-year time period right so very detailed information there the areas
00:21:35
around Brandon's car where his car was found they were searched using ground searchers ATVs horses and helicopters
00:21:43
yeah a company that we've talked about many many times Texas Equusearch did come in to help bringing in underwater
00:21:51
sonar devices a remote-controlled plane and other high-tech equipment to help the search efforts and still nothing was
00:21:59
found before you have to raise a bunch of money to get somebody to go up in a helicopter now with technology we can
00:22:06
use these these drones to cover so much area in detail right and then by July of
00:22:13
the year that he went missing the Lincoln County Sheriff acknowledged that he personally believed
00:22:20
that Brandon Swanson was likely deceased by this time and they're still searching
00:22:24
at this and this is where we have the if you review the the sheriff's statements
00:22:31
throughout the years I think he's just really kind of perplexed by this whole situation because you will see you
00:22:38
statements where they say he can't be in the river we've searched it so many times but then here in July of the year
00:22:45
that we went he went missing we have the sheriff saying we believe he's deceased
00:22:50
in and he likely fell into the river yeah now within a few months after the quote-unquote official search for
00:22:58
Brandon stopped which was actually about ten days after he went missing a new private search company took over the
00:23:06
search for Brandon this was and this is going to answer your question this was search rescue and recovery resources of
00:23:14
Minnesota which was headed up by a man named Jeff Hasse Hasse is not your amateur civilian search organizer he
00:23:25
uses scientific methods in mathematical calculations such as theoretical maximum
00:23:31
distance traveled equations probability studies and statistics to come up with the search areas and likely
00:23:39
scenarios besides his work for the SRR RM n that's that's a handful there so we should call the show yeah hassey is the
00:23:52
founder of midwest technical rescue training associates a nonprofit organization that teaches technical
00:23:59
rescue skills to public safety providers well they're gonna do some kind of scientific in mathematic equations as
00:24:06
far as you know the average human can walk a mile in 15 minutes things like that mm-hmm had to kind of
00:24:14
narrow down the search a little more you'd Thank You captain and I want to talk about this because we talked so
00:24:20
much about criminal profiling on this show well when you think about it Jeff and his team are using similar
00:24:28
techniques to try and find and rescue or return lost persons basically taking whatever evidence they have here we got
00:24:37
the car the scent trail the phone call with dad saying old [ __ ] and then the car call drops they're going to take
00:24:46
that information and layering layering that with information and statistics collected from previous search efforts
00:24:53
you throw that algebra equation into a blender and boom now you have prioritized search areas you have a game
00:25:01
plan one of these statistics is quite interesting hassey says and this was to the independent where he said this he
00:25:11
says quote retrospective studies based on the International search-and-rescue incident database found that in these
00:25:19
circumstances involving abandoned vehicles the subjects were found within five point six miles from the last known
00:25:27
position this is 95 percent of the time this yielding a total search area of 98.5 square miles the median distance is
00:25:39
1.3 miles so 5.3 square miles search area there's one statistic used to help prioritize the search
00:25:47
areas and also you might use this equation as well the average person as you pointed out and this is what they're
00:25:55
going to use in Brandon situation walks one two three miles per hour yielding a one two three mile search
00:26:03
ring or three point one two twenty eight point three square miles this is based off of he's in the car he's walking for
00:26:13
forty seven minutes while talking on the phone to his father right and then he says old [ __ ] and the call drops you
00:26:20
would use this information in regards to what you know by the information provided by Brandon's mother and father
00:26:28
what time he started walking from where he left his car and ending with the ol [ __ ] moment that's the indicator for his
00:26:37
disappearance or demise if that's the thinking now I think that that's some fascinating stuff and we will get back
00:26:44
into that in a bit when when we get to the theories and our thoughts but that's what they're kind of working with here
00:26:51
look he points out ninety eight point what did we say six square miles so roughly a hundred square miles that's a
00:27:01
huge area to try to search and anybody that knows this area we're dealing with farmland that's difficult especially
00:27:10
when you we're talking about when the the crops are high yeah very much so and then also like you said there's multiple
00:27:16
water sources yeah yeah so you you have to use this information to profile where
00:27:24
you think he may be to prioritize your search areas and your search efforts [Music]
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00:32:20
mateys cheers to you camp oh I want to give a another Cheers here I got a fantastic message from a very longtime
00:32:29
friend of the show remember Gina private investigator down in Texas who helped us
00:32:34
out with the dark past episodes yeah Deena Deena badass yeah regarding serial killer
00:32:42
Felix Vale so she had some kind of thing to go to at one of her children's schools or one of their classes she wore
00:32:51
the band the van t-shirt to school she said that the teachers loved it and the kids were very confused she's hoping
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it's a life lesson for four I guess that class we're gonna start a sponsoring police police departments to go into the
00:33:10
schools just like the DARE program we're starting to band the van program the van
00:33:14
program so regarding the searches captain there there were multiple searches as we said over a number of
00:33:21
years parts of the river were even drained now on the five-year anniversary of Brandon's disappearance Twin Cities
00:33:29
dot-com discussed the scale of the search for Brandon saying more than 500 volunteers including 34 dog handlers
00:33:38
from nine different states spent more than 120 days searching for Brandon and covered part of 120 square miles we have
00:33:52
Jeff Hasse who says it's by far the biggest search that he has ever been involved in in terms of length of time
00:33:59
or a number of missions and number of searchers involved remember he's the search manager a search in October of
00:34:08
2013 focused on the Mud Creek area this is a few miles northwest of the town of Porter
00:34:16
the cadaver dogs consist gently hit on the creek leading searchers to believe that the waters
00:34:23
from wherever Brandon's body is located somewhere in the watershed we're possibly washing into this Creek and
00:34:33
that's why the dogs are hitting on this area again in 2015 searchers searched farm fields northwest of Porter where
00:34:44
the dogs were hitting on a scent this included an area that they had not been able to search for several years and
00:34:52
this is because of harvest schedules and bad weather ken Anderson president of emergency
00:34:59
support services in Minneapolis who partnered with Jeff Hasse said searchers concentrated on the area northwest of
00:35:08
Porter because search dogs were quote still getting the scent that says there are remains of a human in this area and
00:35:15
quote so we're again we're assuming those are cadaver dogs to not send dogs that they used before correct yes this
00:35:25
is according to cadaver dogs they are hitting on areas northwest of the town of Florida so it may be likely that
00:35:33
Brandon's remains are somewhere in that area again this is a large area right and it's my understanding that these
00:35:42
dogs when they hit on this scent because of winds and such they can be hitting on
00:35:48
this even for miles away mm-hmm now another search was conducted just last year in May of 2018 and this was just
00:36:00
another search where they really they found nothing now I do want to point out here too something that I think is
00:36:06
important to this case is that back in March of 2010 the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension the BCA they
00:36:17
became the lead investigating agency on this case the BCA has said that the case
00:36:23
remains open and leads continue to trickle in in fact last year in 2018 Derick Woodford BCA special
00:36:33
agents said quote the case is open and just last week I got another leader too sometimes you need a break in the case
00:36:40
all it takes sometimes is one thing so we're not giving up and quote and we talked about this a little bit on off
00:36:47
the record recently where if you are working a case and the trail has gone cold for you you
00:36:57
may trade it off to another investigator you may hand it off to somebody else put
00:37:02
some new eyes on this thing to see if I missed anything and we also see situations with these cases where they
00:37:11
will hand it over to a whole nother agency completely and that's what happened here in 2010 March of 2010
00:37:19
let's start to get into some of the theories here captain uh-huh there's a lot of them right because Brandon's
00:37:27
disappearance is it's very frustrating and it's mysterious he was on the phone with his dad and then he wasn't and now
00:37:35
no trace of him has ever been found well not just that I mean he says oh [ __ ] and then the phone gets
00:37:42
disconnected right right and and so the internet is just rife with rumors and theories about what could have happened
00:37:50
to Brandon right I think we big topic on reddit yeah and and there's so many so much so out there that we can't list all
00:37:59
of them but we're going to try to go through some of them yeah you could read stuff about you know possible abducted
00:38:07
by aliens that was first on my list alien or some other strange abduction or disappearance hmm possible Sasquatch
00:38:16
right I think I think if that were to be the case it would be better recognized on some other show right yeah unless you
00:38:27
feel different no I don't think there's any evidence of that I'm not saying I'd rule down as out as a
00:38:34
possibility on a case if if there was like some sightings that night oh well we we had 300 sightings of a UFO and
00:38:43
then this kid went missing maybe I have a little wait to it but I think sometimes in
00:38:48
these missing-person case they go he's probably walking down the road and in Bigfoot got him you know or the aliens
00:38:55
took him or the Mothman or he he went into a time portal you know just have some kind of evidence of this you know
00:39:07
what I thought there were a ton of theories out there I think you just added two more to to the possible
00:39:13
theories but there's no evidence of those so they're not well and you know what I one sad thing well I mean this
00:39:20
this whole case is tragic and sad but when I was doing research for Brandon's case our old friends thinking sideways
00:39:30
covered the case oh yeah and it brought a tear to my eye Devin I listened to the thinking sideways in and
00:39:38
basically what they said in Brandon's case regarding alien abduction that this was kind of funny they were saying that
00:39:46
Joe and Steve there was no crop circles if if he were abducted by aliens there would have been crop circles and I'd
00:39:53
obviously I don't know that to be true but I found I found that to be funny on their show and I missed their show and I
00:39:58
missed those those guys yeah so let's get into some of the much more likely theories here's one that that is
00:40:09
constantly in this case it says Brandon tried and some of this is ripped straight off of the Internet Brandon
00:40:17
tried some bad meth that night and had a bad reaction to drugs and/or alcohol that he have he consumed and he got so
00:40:26
disoriented enough so that he got totally lost well we know he was lost we have evidence of that so this one I
00:40:35
think they mean lost for good right so phone gets disconnected he says the old [ __ ] maybe those [ __ ] isn't that big of
00:40:43
a deal he keeps walking he goes further it gets even more lost that's a possibility
00:40:50
mm-hmm I think the difficult thing here is I don't think you'd be so impaired or so
00:40:58
unhealthy that by the time and yes this is a rural area but by the time that the
00:41:07
the Sun would come up up I would think that Brandon would get to a road and at least see somebody pass him by
00:41:17
and possibly could get help mmm so that's the only reason that's the only problem I have with this theory you know
00:41:24
in this theory in itself almost seems cut and pasted from Brandon Lawson's case right Brandon same first name tried
00:41:33
some bad meth that night mm-hmm that's that's a theory in both of those cases and what I want to just like
00:41:40
scream from from the top of the mountain is this shouldn't be any news flash for
00:41:46
anybody it's all bad math good math all right just don't do math that's what we should call our band good math well
00:41:55
here's a right band the van campaign was was this year maybe next year's campaign
00:42:03
is don't do math bad math right so again this is ripped straight off of the Internet it's total speculation but
00:42:14
here's some things here it's been thrown out there that Brandon maybe tried drugs
00:42:19
that night possibly meth and then behaved just as Brandon Lawson did disoriented and confused possibly even
00:42:28
seeing things now we referenced a pipe that was found in Brandon Swanson's car the pipe found in his car is of unknown
00:42:38
origin these are the words of sheriff doll that I hope I'm saying that right it's da HL he said that it is not known
00:42:46
whether the pipe even belonged to Brandon police in my opinion must not have given it much weight because they
00:42:53
have publicly stated that they do not believe that Brandon was impaired that night the problem here though meth is a
00:43:02
real possibility apparently this area of Minnesota is so it's no stranger to meth troubles in
00:43:09
fact the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension website contains two options for public access one search
00:43:17
public criminal history the other one is search methamphetamine offender registry
00:43:23
it's there's so much of it that they have to give a whole category to it on its website so hourly there there is a
00:43:32
problem in that area well it's 2019 there's a problem in this whole country so rekt so yeah we don't
00:43:40
have to worry about that that's that's a possibility and again you could have done something at one of these parties
00:43:47
because we assume that he went to two different parties so there's two different accounts of possibly where he
00:43:52
was at and is in you know and his party Ness of his his level part enos then that that night but we have a situation
00:44:02
where he's a little lost he's a little confused tries to call some of his friends they don't answer I think if he
00:44:09
is on something he wasn't so messed up that he wasn't afraid to call his parents right or so messed up the that
00:44:19
there's no there's nobody inside there's nobody involved in this case that is saying we believe he was so messed up
00:44:27
that that's what led to his demise yeah and think about the everybody on the outside is going
00:44:32
he probably just did some meth and ended up hallucinating but we have the father
00:44:37
we have the mother we have the sheriff we have friends around of none of them are going yeah he was so effed up that
00:44:44
he ended up God knows where and we can get into that right now because like I said we have these two accounts of these
00:44:52
parties yes maybe the first 60 days or so or maybe even less than that but what was he drinking not really for sure I
00:45:03
don't think he was drinking too much maybe you didn't want to get in trouble maybe he smoked some weed maybe they did
00:45:09
some more than that I think if they would have done more than that as time would have went on I think his friends
00:45:17
would have came out and said you know what we didn't want to get him in trouble first but it's important for us to let
00:45:24
you know that he he smoked meth that night right right that has not happened and then I think the other thing that
00:45:32
has not happened is with the Brandon Lawson case for example we have a nine one one call that makes zero sense right
00:45:40
and that be and we have a we have a situation here with Brandon Swanson where he's talking not only to his
00:45:48
father but also to his mother and both of them are saying that he sounded fine right now he now that could be he
00:45:56
sounded fine for it being that late at night and being a little confused on where he was at but I don't think
00:46:05
there's really any any indication that he was on some psychotic well that he's hallucinating he's totally off his
00:46:14
rocker here right it sound like he's cuz he talked to his father for forty seven
00:46:19
minutes that's after other phone calls with his mom and dad right forty seven minutes
00:46:24
that's a tough time to try to play the sober game but and look I think you and I could agree that he's probably
00:46:30
somewhat impaired I mean it's late at night we know he's had a couple of drinks but
00:46:37
right the thing I want to really point out here I would say and I'm just gonna put this out there I would say he's as
00:46:43
impaired from the alcohol as he is from just being tired and well and here's one
00:46:52
thing that I want to I want to really go into and maybe not stay on it too long but one thing that I really looked at
00:46:58
when looking at this case was okay I go into a lot of these with with the idea that there may be foul play so let's at
00:47:08
least look at that angle okay if there was foul play who had the means in the opportunity to be involved in that foul
00:47:16
play well in this situation we have mom and dad who are saying they spoke to this boy there there boy shortly before
00:47:25
he vanished forever so one thing I did and I apologized the family but when I went into this case looking into it I
00:47:33
wanted to know as much as I could find out about mom and dad in their search efforts and what
00:47:39
took place the night that he went missing and since then regarding mom and dad yeah I mean but that's what you have
00:47:46
to do right and what I can tell you from from what I've spent two weeks on looking at mom and dad I can tell you
00:47:53
they only have one agenda in this entire huge story and that is to find their son
00:47:59
they have at no point I don't I've never got the feeling at any point that these
00:48:04
are parents that are going well yeah he was really messed up but we don't want the memory of Brandon to be that we want
00:48:12
the memory of him to be good and wholesome no no I'm telling you his parents the vibe I get captain is that
00:48:19
if whatever would help them find their son they will say it they will do it right they don't care about public
00:48:27
opinion these people have spent years they've spent time they've spent money lots of money some of these searches
00:48:34
were volunteers and a lot of this stuff they they spent their own hard-earned money trying to find their son and we
00:48:43
all know somebody that has struggled with addiction of some level and you know their parents and most of the time
00:48:52
those parents do not shy away from their kids problems so I don't think it's like
00:48:59
you said you're gonna have these overly concerned parents on trying to find their kid but they're not willing to
00:49:04
tell the truth I just doesn't make a lot of sense right and the other thing too which is you know people compare this
00:49:12
case to Brandon Lawson but they also the the meth believers or the people that state that he did some bad drugs on this
00:49:21
night they often point to the case of Michael Wamsley and Jenelle hor nickel this was this was a very famous case in
00:49:30
Nebraska the two were very high on meth again all methods bad meth they suffered
00:49:37
delusions and they were calling 911 some snow they ended up freezing to death just within two miles of their truck
00:49:51
again though this kind of points back to me that mom and dad don't think he's messed up this sheriff doesn't think
00:49:59
that he's messed up the friends don't think that Brandon's messed up and what happened in this other case that
00:50:04
everybody keeps pointing to they found the bodies they don't find Brandon we don't know where Brandon Swanson is have
00:50:12
a issue though with with the whole car thing and again I don't know the road that well and so getting to the point
00:50:19
where your car is stuck that concerns me and again I think that leads to being impaired somewhat with just tiredness
00:50:29
and then also being someone impaired by the alcohol maybe enough to just go yeah
00:50:36
I don't I can't get out of this mess right now so I gotta I got to start walking take off on foot mm-hmm but
00:50:45
again I don't know the road that well so it could be just you know happenstance where here's this kid that wanted to
00:50:52
turn around or when to do something with this car and it just so happened to be the wrong place to do that at and that
00:50:59
yes even if you're sober you'll get hung up on it yes I would think so in looking at pictures that I
00:51:07
found of the site and of the area that's what it looks like to me did okay so these are these are long country roads
00:51:15
where there's not much turnoff you there's not like a spot where you're like oh I'll just pull in here and back
00:51:20
out and turn around right this is the in especially not a lot of houses on these
00:51:25
on these roads and especially think of think of yourselves out there right okay we've all been in a situation where I'm
00:51:34
handsome where we're frustrated where we might be in a hurry or we're lost or turned around or whatever and we're
00:51:40
frustrated and and we do something out of haste that in the end we realized was just a dumb stupid move from right and
00:51:48
the thing that I think here is looking at these pictures it appears to me there's not any turn offs and he's like
00:51:55
you know what I got to turn around I think he just made a bad turn I think I think there's ditches on both sides of
00:52:01
this road and maybe a little dust off it so he had a little too aggressive yeah it's a
00:52:07
narrow road and I think he thought he could make the turn but he didn't and also if your drive is taking a little
00:52:15
bit longer or it's such a frustrating thing to be going and I going the right way what the hell's going on and like
00:52:24
you said that maybe just a little too aggressive and that stops you from being able to drive your car we rollin another
00:52:37
theory captain is that Brandon could have been hit by a car mmm many people like this theory and
00:52:44
believe that possibly the oh [ __ ] that he uttered was in response to an approaching vehicle for this to be the
00:52:53
case obviously whoever hit Brandon had to take his body and the body was taken away to hide after this accidental death
00:53:04
okay so the the reason why I like this is that we have evidence that the dog goes to the river get gets out of the
00:53:11
river goes down another path kind of in ends its search or ends the scent kind of in the road mm-hmm so that would make
00:53:20
you leave you know that's evidence to show that this theory makes some sense correct uh you know I've heard this I
00:53:28
found this to be quite strange some of the searchers were saying you know the the dogs can only follow the scent for
00:53:35
so long yeah I believe that I believe that too but I don't fully comprehend it and in what I'm getting at is so so what
00:53:46
they're pointing out is that at this spot on the road where the dog lose the scent where the dogs lose the scent
00:53:52
right is because they've been following it for so long they they point out that that doesn't actually mean that the
00:53:59
scent went away or right that they branded that something happened to Brandon in that spot the problem with
00:54:07
with look there are several holes in this theory I like this theory too at first but when I really started thinking
00:54:14
about it I I I distance myself from this theory because because of the holes one if
00:54:21
something happened to Brandon at that spot it's not like they can't find that spot they were fled to that spot by the
00:54:27
dogs there should be some you would think there would be some indication that something happened there possibly
00:54:33
blood or anything else right and we know like let's just we can assume that these
00:54:39
people searching okay well here's roughly or the scent stops we're gonna look you know before that and after that
00:54:45
again we have no blood evidence we have no we also have no evidence of the hem telling his father all there's this car
00:54:54
coming up on me there's none of that there's gnats where that's where the theory falls apart okay he's saying to
00:55:02
his father just before he says all [ __ ] he's describing that he's walking along a
00:55:06
fence line that he's off of the road he's going through a field and that he can hear water so this doesn't sound
00:55:15
like an area that you're going that a car would be driving through car would be on the road if this was an accident
00:55:23
this car is not driving in the middle of the field this is between are driving on
00:55:28
top of a fence right so so if if that in fact is true then that part that makes the theory impossible now let's pretend
00:55:37
go back to what you were saying let's pretend that Brandon was walking on the road if here's the problem with that his
00:55:49
father is driving around looking for him there is no way in hell that Brandon does not say to his father oh I see you
00:55:58
you just turned I'm right up here do you see me I see your headlights he would if
00:56:03
he saw a car he would very likely assume it to be his father first or even if he
00:56:09
didn't assume it to be his father he would say wait there's somebody coming or he would these are things he would
00:56:15
say to his father we could have evidence of that the same scenario is that we have evidence that he's telling his
00:56:21
father I'm walking along this fence line I hear water oh [ __ ] and maybe that ol [ __ ] is I fell into
00:56:29
water I get out of the water I keep going down the path I'm not on the phone with my
00:56:34
father that's where I get hit by a car that's a that's very likely to the reason why I don't like this serie is we
00:56:41
have no evidence of tire treads no like a sign of a vehicle trying to stop no sign of a vehicle trying to speed up no
00:56:53
blood evidence and this would be dark so yeah to be able to clean up that blood evidence would be nearly impossible the
00:57:03
other thing I don't like is we know that he had a cell phone on him we don't have
00:57:08
you know a broken cell phone somewhere well in some people regarding this theory even point out what would be the
00:57:15
probability that if you hit a total stranger in the middle of the night of it on an accident that you even decide
00:57:23
to take the body with you and clean up the this is like you would just drive away right a lot of people point out
00:57:28
that that there is a certain percentage that would just continue along their way
00:57:33
so I it's an interesting theory to ponder but I put the probability level not very high because yeah right right I
00:57:43
know as as armchair detective or even just a law enforcement it has to put this on the list of things that we have
00:57:51
to dive into and rabbit holes we need to go down it's with any missing person case when we have nothing at the end of
00:57:57
the day you have to go did this person run away did this did this you know did this person want to start a new life we
00:58:05
these are questions that we have to keep asking ourselves over and over and and and I think this is an important
00:58:11
question to ask I think that there's just zero evidence of this the other another theory is that Brandon met with
00:58:19
foul play now this theory encompasses several possibilities but but most likely two possibilities mm-hmm one
00:58:27
Brandon fell victim to a random killer or that someone who knew him followed him and there was some type of
00:58:34
confrontation or ambush and Brandon was killed let's address these in turn okay first the random killer
00:58:43
this theory is that Brandon was unlucky enough to stumble upon a opportunistic killer who murdered him and disposed of
00:58:51
his body we have to consider what are the chances that Brandon would encounter some random psycho killer in rural
00:59:00
Minnesota on farmland in unused roads in the middle of the night right this is remote desolate area with rugged terrain
00:59:09
at 3:00 in the morning now an offshoot of this theory of the random killer theory is that and this is probably well
00:59:19
definitely more plausible in my opinion is that Brandon was on private land and maybe stumbled upon a pissed-off farmer
00:59:28
yeah killed him and hit his body right or this is an area that you shouldn't be out in it's like it's like my
00:59:37
neighborhood right at 3 o'clock in the morning I know all my neighbors you shouldn't be driving down my road right
00:59:45
yeah it's it's not good so in this case you got a kid that's lost maybe the farmer doesn't know he's lost but you're
00:59:55
on my property if you're on my property at this time of the day I think you're a
01:00:00
bad hearse is nothing but bad right so therefore you know you're gonna be met with my shotgun right the farmer doesn't
01:00:09
have to be a psycho the the farmer might be scared and assume that you are a psycho yeah your your your outside of my
01:00:17
house creeping around in the middle of the night now that the thing here is this this is a pub scene another
01:00:25
offshoot of this theory that I have seen very rarely discussed so I do want to point this out as well this is an
01:00:32
interesting one that possibly Brandon fell into an illegal booby trap intended for poachers or for thieves or for you
01:00:41
know any number of reasons right and then eventually was was killed trapped there or was killed by the
01:00:48
person that set the trap yeah again you'd think well illegal booby-trap I don't know how that works well the
01:01:01
booty track yeah what that what their set what this is suggesting is that somebody has set some type of traps on
01:01:09
their property these could be for animals they could be for against people anything it's I wouldn't throw it out of
01:01:18
the realm of possibility it does lead to the idea of why they've not found any evidence because this theory would
01:01:27
suggest that somebody then later covered up whatever took place yeah but again it
01:01:33
doesn't have to be illegal it could be you know if somebody's coming through this field it's nothing but bad right so
01:01:42
he gets hurt by one of these things they go out there they go again the only reason why you'd be out here is bad they
01:01:50
take care of Brandon they kill Brandon and then find out later it was just a lost kid and then right and when you
01:01:57
have to be kind of psycho to to come up with those two want to do that mm-hmm the other thought here captain is
01:02:07
hunters maybe somebody's out there hunting either he's in yeah we talked about on boys of boys on the tracks
01:02:16
they're out spotting for animals so yeah but you should know that this I mean if it's accidental shooting you should
01:02:24
know it's not an animal because this person was talking to somebody on the phone see that's where I think an
01:02:32
intruder thought you know like protecting your land makes a little more sense because you would hear this kid
01:02:38
talking and so maybe you would start assuming that he's talking to somebody else that's with him which would get you
01:02:47
you'd raise your suspicions a lot higher you know I do want to go back to the idea that maybe this wasn't a stranger
01:02:59
that it wasn't that there was foul play but the offender is not a stranger because we really should address
01:03:07
that there are several message boards online containing post where they're talking about local rumors regarding
01:03:14
what took place in this case and people suggesting that Brandon either owed some
01:03:20
people money for vehicles or drugs it varies depending on the posts that you see and that he was actually targeted
01:03:28
and killed as a result of these debts yeah it's an interesting theory and an interesting rumor but do we have
01:03:35
evidence that he owed anybody money other than those rumors no there doesn't seem to be anything that's backing that
01:03:43
up and again what's confusing about those rumors and why I think they may just be rumors is they're citing two
01:03:52
different things that he has a debt for right right it's not like you know in some of the posters stating that he had
01:04:00
a debt because of drugs other posts are stating he had a debt because of vehicles
01:04:05
I think the vehicle thing would be if there was any truth to that it seems like mom and dad would be like yeah he
01:04:11
was have some different vehicles and all these strange trucks and cars and whatnot so and the other problem with
01:04:19
that too is if you in fact believe that he's he's going all [ __ ] because he sees
01:04:25
somebody that he's afraid of then you have to believe why wouldn't he say anything to his father about seeing
01:04:32
headlights seeing a vehicle coming toward him that did not take place so again that doesn't it makes it not ring
01:04:40
true I don't think either of those rumors are true I think it's just people trying to come up with some rationale of
01:04:46
what happened and and even if you could prove that he owed somebody you know bought a little weed from somebody and
01:04:52
owed him 20 bucks or something like that I don't think there's any evidence of Brandon you know being a hardcore drug
01:04:58
user but again you know history back up quite a bit of debt before somebody wants to kill you yeah
01:05:06
so if you're buying from the captain you owe me ten bucks it's ten bucks I'm coming after ya no I just don't think
01:05:15
there's a lot of evidence of that and again like how how much money would you have to owe somebody on a car it seems
01:05:22
like it's almost like somebody came up with this idea and yes it's possible but it's also possible that you owe somebody
01:05:29
money you know your buddy a thousand bucks and he didn't come after you and you just happen to go missing huh
01:05:36
well there are two things that I believe do tend to point to Brandon being the victim of foul play one Brandon is
01:05:47
listed in ViCAP as a missing person as we brought up in Episode one ViCAP stands for the violent Criminal
01:05:54
Apprehension program there is not a long list of missing persons on ViCAP last time I checked ViCAP there were 64
01:06:06
missing persons listed on there and what people will point to in this case is that they believe that there is a reason
01:06:17
why he would be on there on this short list right meaning that someone whoever put him on there believes that violence
01:06:28
was involved in his disappearance people point to this because they wonder if the
01:06:33
FBI in fact has reason to believe that Brandon was the victim of a violent crime
01:06:38
the other thing regarding this too is that the ViCAP entry for Brandon contains one interesting tidbit of
01:06:47
information that we did mention earlier his vehicle the Chevy Lumina was found with the doors open and the keys missing
01:06:56
we can presume that Brandon took his keys but then why would he leave the doors open that it seems very strange to
01:07:04
me was somebody else actually in the vehicle or did someone come along later perhaps the following day and open up
01:07:13
the car you know looking for things to steal or for whatever reason we also have Sheriff Vacek
01:07:20
hee-hoo definitely considered and left open the possibility of foul play saying quote the only thing would have
01:07:28
been if someone was in the shadows and they got him that way he said he said he can't say that there wasn't someone else
01:07:37
out there but adding that he can't find any evidence of it stating that cadaver dogs and searchers he explained should
01:07:44
have found a body or some evidence if Swanson had succumbed to the elements adding I can't explain why clothing
01:07:53
belongings wouldn't surface after all these searches and after all this time now in episode 3 captain we will tear
01:08:01
through some of these theories get into some more but before we go I want to leave you with Brandon's mother and NAT
01:08:09
Swanson what she told the st. cloud times she said her greatest fear is that people will forget Brandon
01:08:17
she says talk about Brandon Brandon is a real person he touched a lot of lives and don't forget him he has a smile that
01:08:25
lights up his whole face he is big hearted and kind and he really believed in doing the right thing
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[Music] so much more to get to stick around for part three tomorrow in the garage thanks
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for listening thanks for telling your mother thanks for telling your brother thanks
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for telling your sister thanks for sharing on social media all right and everybody make sure you be
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good be kind and don't let [Music] [Applause] [Music]