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n [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
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crime now at 11 this is something every parent fears getting the news their child has been killed for one Northeast
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Ohio mother that unimaginable grief is made even worse by a lack of news or updates in the police investigation into
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the crime now she's lived without her son for nearly 10 years now and it was July 26th of 2011 that he was killed in
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his Cleveland apartment this mother tells news5 Jesse Schultz she's doubtful the killer will ever see the inside of a
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prison cell for ly calone July 26th 2011 is a date she'll never forget my son's name is Brandon Michael calone it's the
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day her world stop turning this is an event that changes you forever the day her creative and loving son Brandon
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died it was a horrific crime 21-year-old Brandon was brutally beaten and strangled in his Treemont apartment a
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crime so violent in a neighborhood so vibrant Lynn was confident that Justice would be swift we thought how important
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those first few hours were we thought the police were on it I wish I would have known then what I know now but this
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isn't about what happened to Brandon that night it's about what happened after the weeks turned into months that
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turned into years with no answers or updates from detectives you feel alone in the process you feel abandoned what
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is Justice and while Lynn's world stopped turning once Brandon was no longer in it the outside world kept
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going it's been almost 10 years since she buried her son and she believes his case File is also buried as newer
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investigations continue to pile up I've given up calling and trying to speak with someone because they refuse
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to talk to me since 2011 Cleveland saw more than 1,000 criminal homicides 76 this year alone and as violent crime
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continues to rise the city's homicide unit is underst staffed budgeted for 25 detectives but police Union president
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Jeff Fulmer estimates there's only about 15 detectives that they start a homicide
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one day and then within 24 hours of getting another one you got to you got to jump around last year the US
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Department of Justice said in order to keep up with the growing case load Cleveland needed at least 38 detectives
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it's been almost 10 years since she buried her son that news clip that you heard in
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today's trailer is from the good hardworking folks over at news5 Cleveland you can check out their good
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workor at news5 cleveland.com and in that news clip you heard the frustration of our victim's mother her
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name is Lynn she has had this frustration for many years her son's case has remained unsolved all of these
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years later and she is expressing her frustration with the Cleveland Police Department with what she believes is
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their lack of Competency and effort into her son's case you hear the rebuttal from Cleveland Police Department saying
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we are underfunded we are underst staffed and that certainly is a problem that many large cities are facing today
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well let's dive into the case details on July 26 2011 Brandon cleone was murdered his
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body was found in his apartment at approximately 1:00 a.m. on July 27th Brandon was a 21-year-old industrial
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design student at the Cleveland Institute of Art he was was in his junior year and was top of his class by
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all accounts Brandon was a hardworking talented funloving young man with a large circle of friends he had been
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working at a pizza shop and doing side design work and had a paid internship at a business called a peace of
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Cleveland today's case just like last week and the week before these are all rough and difficult cases he was found
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bound and strangled to death slumped not over but sort of half on half off of his
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couch in the living room of a small second floor apartment this is in the neighborhood of Treemont which is just
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minutes from downtown Cleveland Ohio Treemont is an otherwise great vibrant Urban Village Brandon lived in a second
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floor apartment by himself there were four apartments on that second floor at the time this was above a bakery and
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an art gallery unfortunately I think what we have here is some kind of what would typically be referred to as a
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pushin crime or a home invasion he was found bound at the wrist and ankles badly beaten and manually strangled to
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death I think we are dealing with a clear motive here as well maybe a touch foggy but a greed murder murder for
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profit situation and I think that it is quite possible that the victim here this
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dude was set up to be robbed likely because of someone he knew and even possibly by someone he thought that he
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could trust persons in Northeast Ohio who know this case and have followed this case know from the news reports
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Brandon had also been selling weed leading up to this there has been a lot of focus on that small part of his life
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but I'm not going to gloss over any of that because it would appear to me that there is little question that that small
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part of his life didn't play a big role in his death we're going to go through a
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timeline here starting with July 26 2011 and then the early morning hours of July
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27th when Brandon is found this is a Tuesday and a Wednesday just for reference this is what we know about the
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timeline of his day on 726 July 26 in the morning hours Brandon was working at the internship with a
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piece of Cleveland this is a Woodworking and very cool design shop they design tables Furniture custom work and he's an
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art guy and he's a design guy so this is a perfect fit for him and this is a paid
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internship for Brandon around 300 p.m. that day Brandon met with his buddy Alex for coffee Brandon asked to use the
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phone at the coffee shop while he was there this should stand out to investigators and his family as odd
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because Brandon had a cell phone all right it's 2011 so we're going back in time here a little bit it wouldn't be
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completely out of the realm of possibility that he simply forgot his phone or did not have his phone on his
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person asked to use the phone at the coffee shop that he had frequented but to me knowing what's going on and as
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we go through this timeline I think that people are going to want to put a big question mark and circle this detail in
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the timeline why did he use the coffee Shop's phone when there were or should have been other options yeah did he not
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want the person he was calling to know it was him or did he not want them to have his phone number now he and his
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friend after coffee rode around town on their scooters for approximately 2 to 3 hours that day after words Brandon went
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back to his apartment this is at 2173 Professor Street he's in apartment number one on the second floor it's
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above two businesses as we said I believe there was also a fifth apartment that was at ground level but the way to
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access his apartment there was for my understanding Captain a front entrance and a rear entrance to the building
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where it was simply a locked door a door that would automatically lock tenants would use their key to get into that
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door go up a set of steps and then there was a hallway that would lead to the doors of each of those four Apartments
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did they have an intercom system where he could Buzz somebody in no and some have cited that that might be why some
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of the details in this case are as such the key here that I really want to point
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out to individuals listening to this case you hear the Cleveland Police Department
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they will site and when they spoke with Brandon's mom and other persons about this case they they constantly bring up
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the obstacles and the problems with this case but the thing that I want to point
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out is that if I'm a detective and I'm looking at this case at least I'm going into it going okay the potential for
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Witnesses eyewitnesses and ear Witnesses is very likely here I should be able to
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build something on this case so a quick description here as said you would go up
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a flight of stairs whether you entered this building from the front from the street side or from the rear you would
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go up a set of stairs and then you would have the hallway four doors each one going to individual apartments from my
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understanding here Captain once you entered Brandon's apartment you were it was a small apartment but these These
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are Rel relatively nice apartments in a in a very cool area of town so you walk walk in and you're immediately in the
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kitchen of this apartment and from the kitchen there's two walkways some have described them as
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doors but I don't I don't think they were actual doors I think it was just you you could walk from the kitchen into
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one room which would be the living room and then you could walk another Direction out of that kitchen and you
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are in the bedroom remember Brandon was found in the living room okay so I got a
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little sidetracked there but now we are at approximately 5:30 6:00 on July 26th and Brandon is back at
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his apartment at 2173 Professor Street you are going to hear us use the term friend several times throughout this
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timeline but truly that is for a lack of understanding on our part and others part as to the exact nature of these
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relationships so we have a person we have a friend of Brandon's his name name is David he came to Brandon's apartment
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around 6: or 700 p.m. that day with the purpose of purchasing marijuana from Brandon then we have a friend named Matt
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who claimed to have hung out with Brandon at the apartment that evening between the hours of 7 and 8:00 p.m.
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after this we have Rachel another friend was there at the apartment around 8:00 p.m. she is there for the purpose of
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purchasing marijuana from Brandon she says that she hung out there at the apartment for approximately 30 to maybe
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45 minutes now we know that Brandon was on his phone okay that cell phone that we referenced earlier he's on his phone
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with a friend named Meg and this call takes place just before 900 p.m. I have here in my notes that the call ends
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sometime before 9:30 question mark question mark so that is what has been provided to me I've not been able to
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confirm and back up what time that phone call ended and the the end of that phone
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call whatever time that call ended may be incredibly important to this case because according to Meg and her
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statement and from the activity on Brandon's phone it would appear that at that time 9:00 to whenever that phone
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call ended he's alive he's well he doesn't feel threatened he doesn't he's not distressed there's nothing crazy
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going on everything's as it should be yeah it seems like everything is hunky dory now another friend of his this is
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also a man that he a young man that he worked with at some point his name is Deonte he texts Brandon at
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9:28 p.m. but phone records do not show Brandon using his phone after the call with Meg ends so his friend Deontay
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texts him and his friend is saying he's texting him saying hey I'm coming over but what we know is that Brandon never
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responds to this he doesn't call Deontay he doesn't text Deontay back so if we are starting to look for flags of where
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there should be concern of where things start to go wrong it might be sometime between 9 and 10 p.m. likely around the
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time of reing this text just prior or a little bit after yeah it seems like this
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is the first red flag we have Brandon's girlfriend she calls him all right so she's on her cell phone she is nearby
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and as The Story Goes she's driving in the neighborhood she looks up she sees the light to Brandon's apartment on and
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she gives her boyfriend a call this is at 10: p.m. approximately she says that Brandon's phone cell phone picks up she
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hears some voices when the call is answered but the phone the call they quickly hang up the
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call quickly ends she calls back and gets no answer now later she would tell police she's
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trying to describe this because again this is a pivotal point in our timeline here well when you call your boyfriend
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you're expecting him to pick up when you hear voices that maybe you don't recognize or just commotion that's going
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to lead you to be concerned that when the phone picked up when when she thought Brandon her her boyfriend were
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was answering the phone and she heard the voices she could not discern if it was actual voices in his apartment
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people talking or or doing something in her his apartment or if it was just noise from the TV yeah that would make
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sense the call was that quick the pickup hang up it's that quick she calls back Brandon doesn't answer
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well it would be nice if this was a good investigation but it wasn't just fact of
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the matter because when you have this short call could it be a conversation that he was having was there people over
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at his apartment was he out at a bar was it just the sound of the TV we don't know and what would tell us that cell
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phone ping technology but guess what we don't have that or if we do have it in this case it hasn't been released to the
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public yeah and I don't want to harp on this for too much in today's episode because we got a lot to get through but
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it would appear right our our view from 10,000 ft it would appear that this investigation early on was not conducted
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in the best manner maybe not the most thorough of Investigations at times I would even question the efforts of the
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detectives and I hate to do that because I love the city of Cleveland but today when you look at the
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and you try to get some information on this case we're simply told hey look we got to keep some of this information
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close to the vest and it it it gets you look at it and you go well is that because the guys early on didn't do a
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great job and so you don't have any of that information and you don't want that to be public that that you are limited
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on your knowledge of the case or is it you have been able to go back and clean up their mess collect proper information
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and fill out gaps in the timeline and add details to your time frame and now you know those details are important and
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we cannot release those to the public but this call from Brandon's girlfriend is not just important because it it
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fills in our timeline here I am of the belief and would be working this case unless something told me otherwise that
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Brandon was in his apartment when the the girlfriend attempted to call him at approximately 10: p.m. that night I'm
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basing that off of the light being on I'm basing that off of Prior activity of people coming and going from the
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apartment and that he's going to be found just a couple of hours later murdered in that same apartment so
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unless something is telling me otherwise I believe he was in that apartment from
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the time that that we said when he would return between 5: and 6:00 p.m. that night and he was there and never left
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that apartment un unfortunately because it will end up being the same person who
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attempted to call him at 10: p.m. the girlfriend that would find Brandon dead she says that she grew concerned when
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she attempted to reach out to him and never heard back from him it wasn't like him they stayed in contact this was a
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long-term relationship and so at some point she decided you know what I should I'm just going to head over there knock
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on the door they did have some not so concrete plans for that evening right to hang out that was the purpose of her 10
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p.m. call well he's a college student when you're a college student and you got an internship and you're working on
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all these different things and look he's selling weed on the side this guy has a
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lot going on it's hard to make solid plans yeah you're you're 21 you require about 4 hours sleep or at least that's
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how I was or 4 minutes she comes over to the apartment and this is really unfortunate because I
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this plays in my opinion and and until anybody can prove otherwise this plays a major role in this case Brandon had the
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Habit not trying to victim blame here had the bad habit of the captain asked earlier was there an intercom system
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could he Buzz people in no there was not this is an old school building so he had
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the habit of using a brick to prop open the door to to keep it open just enough for a person to open the door on their
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own the door's not locked it locked automatically behind the person when when people would come and go but he
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would put the brick in especially if he knew someone was coming over right like deante who had textt him earlier to say
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hey buddy I'm coming over Deontay says he never hears back from him if he heard from somebody if he heard from his
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girlfriend she says hey I'm coming over I'll be over in 5 minutes 10 minutes Brandon might run down there and put the
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brick in the door and so the person could just make their way up walk into the hallway knock on
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his door which I'm sure this habit annoyed his neighbors as well I was going to point that out like yeah I know
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we do a true crime show so we are hypervigilant about our personal security but if if I lived in a building
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like that and and I'm guessing he probably wasn't the only one in the building that had that habit but that
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would annoy me beyond belief well I'm the dumbest boy in school and left my garage door door open all last night she
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gets to the apartment she goes up the stairs to the building to the second floor walks to Brandon's door knocks I'm
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a little unclear if the door was just a touch open but what is perfectly clear is the door was not locked because
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girlfriend did not have a key and she says that she entered the apartment she walked in she's now in the kitchen she
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turns looks through one of those walkways to the living room and she says that she spotted brenan's
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knees and it's difficult for me to describe the way that he was positioned he's kind of half on half off of the
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couch his his wrists and ankles have been bound with belts and his arms his hands are up over
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his head a cord wrapped around his neck now he was manually strangled and it's been suggested to me by more than one
00:23:32
person that that cord wrapped around his neck is not what what strangled him I maybe it was an attempt to strangle him
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with that cord and unsuccessful but that's been the statements to me so what you're saying is somebody tried to
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strangle him with his cord but was unsuccessful so they probably used their hands I've reviewed the autopsy and it's
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it's difficult for me to say you know the the the cord wrapped around his neck would be the obvious answer to me but
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again not a doctor do we have marks around his wrist and where he was bound was he putting up a fight he's most
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certainly put up a fight so he's found in his one description indicates that he's wearing a t-shirt and boxer shorts
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and another description says that he's wearing boxer shorts but it doesn't say he's not wearing a shirt it just doesn't
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say anything about a t-shirt right well this isn't one killer you're exactly right thank you for saying that this one
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we we there are certain cases where you can take a look and it screams multiple persons
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involved and I feel like here this is one that you do not have to be Sherlock Holmes to take a look at the the the
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brief details The Limited details of this case and go you know what this is a two-man job at least at least then it
00:25:01
makes you wonder why don't we have eyewitnesses why don't we have ear Witnesses we do and we'll Circle back to
00:25:07
that but at the scene here's what what we're talking about he's got a good amount of injuries to the face area the
00:25:15
head the neck shoulders all which would be indicative of him putting up a fight or them trying to maybe beat something
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out of him beat some information out of him once he was already bound and tied up there is duct tape across his
00:25:36
mouth uh so they were attempting to silence him this is just very bizarre though because we got this young college
00:25:42
student you know he's getting pretty good grades he's he has an internship paid internship okay so he's selling a little
00:25:50
bit of weed whatever I think he was selling a lot of weed and there is nothing anywhere to suggest that he was
00:25:58
selling anything else in fact there are persons that knew him well that said he strongly was against that I'm just
00:26:07
saying that you've known guys that sold pot and almost all those guys could get you something else if they wanted to
00:26:15
right but I'm having a trouble making a connection here I'm I'm going to go to this guy's apartment this pot dealer's
00:26:22
apartment and try to beat it out of them where I can get something stronger those
00:26:27
those types can find people to get something stronger no I understand that but what I'm saying is there could have
00:26:34
been assumptions by people possibly look again not to to sound like someone who's
00:26:40
victim blaming this is a big part of the case so if you think I'm being rude sorry but I think this was a half-baked
00:26:48
plan by an otherwise very smart hardworking individual that figured out hey I'm a college student in an area
00:26:58
with a whole bunch of friends who probably all of my friends have a whole bunch of friends too and through my
00:27:04
several workplaces college and my big Social Circle of Friends I can move a good deal of marijuana and make a whole
00:27:11
lot of money doing it and he's doing it out of his apartment that takes the risk
00:27:16
level from about a four to about a nine now you're inviting persons in who you may not fully know what they're up to
00:27:26
you may not know what they do after you sell them a a bag of weed or an ounce of pot or or a quarter pound or
00:27:36
however much you're moving with some of these individuals one one thing I believe is going on here too which I've
00:27:42
been told no we don't think that that's what was happening and I say uh uh no like these circles I've moved Within
00:27:50
These circles I know how these things work within these circles if you got one dude he's buying from a guy that's
00:27:57
moving way more than he's moving then Brandon's moving a lot in my opinion that means
00:28:04
that there are persons under him that are buying from Brandon that are also moving product as well what I think that
00:28:11
we're seeing here is a guy that got thought that he would do something that was casual harmless and make some good
00:28:18
money wouldn't hurt anybody and he could profit from it and unfortunately his apartment became a
00:28:26
Target he became a Target persons were going in and out of that apartment with ease and all it takes is somebody that
00:28:34
he knows somebody that he's regularly selling to to either set his ass up to be robbed and this whole thing went
00:28:41
horribly wrong or for somebody that frequents his apartment to buy that tells that accidentally tells
00:28:52
the wrong person or persons where they get their weed from who they get it from what the protocol is or like you said
00:29:00
he's selling a bunch of weed making a bunch of money and not paying the people that he's supposed to pay it's not like
00:29:06
we have bus I don't think that's going on at all I do not think that's going on at all because we're not talking about
00:29:13
we're not talking about Philadelphia uh New York City 1980s where we're fronting
00:29:23
junkies product and then coming and killing them when they don't pay us later no we're talking this is
00:29:30
Suburban College kid movement here this is you want this amount of weed to sell within the course of the
00:29:40
next week or two cool it costs this much and if you ain't got it we'll sell you a
00:29:46
little bit less that's how that works and he had a regular supplier and we know that based off of several persons
00:29:55
close to this case and I think he had a pretty pretty casual setup here where he
00:30:03
is the his main supplier is showing up to his apartment and it's a quick it's a quick
00:30:11
deal this is how much you want this is how much you cost cool here's the money here's the product boom
00:30:27
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00:35:01
all right we are back talk hands in the air cheers to you car cheers to you and cheers to the people in the mosh pit
00:35:10
have good mosh pitting with this case here we have Brandon's girlfriend who she's the one that finds him and again
00:35:18
there's no interaction between the time period of 10 p.m. and approximately 1:00
00:35:22
a.m. when she goes to the apartment to check on her boyfriend so that that would appear that in our timeline we
00:35:31
have about 3 hours approximately of Silence from our victim we don't know what's going on with inside of those
00:35:37
four walls during that time we know approximately the start of it and we know the end result she arrives she
00:35:46
calls 911 First Responders get to the scene we actually have paramedics arrive before police one thing that we get a
00:35:54
statement from both paramedics and from the the girlfriend is that when they were in the apartment when they arrived
00:36:02
at the apartment the the place have been tossed clearly somebody was was looking
00:36:06
for something and we know that our victim was tied up bound it it appears that that beaten but I I think a lot of
00:36:15
those injuries Captain are probably due to the struggle this is a 21-year old man he I don't think that he's just
00:36:21
going to willingly allow you to bind his wrist and ankles and put duck tape over
00:36:28
his mouth I think that's going to require a little bit of force uh maybe a lot of force on someone's part we also
00:36:35
have a situation where one thing that that a few people that have seen the autopsy note as a question mark there is
00:36:44
a small puncture wound and the the way that it's described in the autopsy report it would seem that it is uh on
00:36:52
one of his hips now it's very small but people wondered what this could mean I I
00:37:00
don't want to get hung up on a small detail like this because I think I think there was a a large a good deal of a
00:37:08
scuffle let's say right between Brandon and some others and I think that if he's
00:37:14
just wearing boxer shorts it's late at night there it's conceivable that he simply answered the
00:37:19
door in a t-shirt and boxers at 9:30 10:00 10:30 at night with if he wasn't playing it on going
00:37:27
anywhere that makes sense to me so I don't think that we have a situation where he's confronted by some people and
00:37:35
they're like all right strip down tie them up right I think that there I think that he he answers the door because
00:37:42
while the brick might be holding the door open at the bottom of the stairs his door is closed to his
00:37:50
apartment he likely had to answer that door and we have an eyewitness one of his neighbors says
00:37:58
that when she left her apartment she saw Brandon he's his door is slightly open and he's talking to two
00:38:09
individuals and this neighbor said in her opinion that Brandon looked like he was nervous maybe even scared well
00:38:19
there's your Killers startled now here's here's one thing that's missing from our timeline and
00:38:27
from are details about this casee the witness claims to have seen Brandon holding like protecting the door
00:38:39
preventing it from being open further by having his foot holding it tight with his foot my
00:38:46
question here was when when we've had people who've looked at this case and they they get very concerned about what
00:38:52
he was wearing and what he was not wearing when he was found if the eyewitness if the neighbor walks by and
00:38:58
there's two people try try to put yourself in the shoes of the eyewitness here Captain cuz what I hate about this
00:39:05
case is a lot of the statements out there they just don't make any damn sense and sometimes it's just bad it's
00:39:11
just bad reporting sometimes it's just bad recordkeeping by the person taking the
00:39:18
statement or other times I wonder if you're giving a statement that doesn't make sense what are you withholding from
00:39:25
that statement or what do you know that you're not telling us or are you making this up because if I'm walking down a
00:39:31
hallway I see a neighbor who's blocking the door with their foot talking to two individuals and you've described it as
00:39:39
such that you were close enough to observe the look on his face of distress to to observe the foot holding the door
00:39:48
closed and where's the description of what Brandon's wearing I I just want to make sure that I'm understanding this ey
00:39:57
would report she's saying that the two individuals she saw are they're in the hallway correct he has his door cracked
00:40:05
open but is blocking it from going completely open with his foot or with his body correct and so she can the door
00:40:15
is open enough where she can see his facial expression correct we should have a pretty good description of these
00:40:23
individuals at least roughly how tall they were roughly what they're wearing What ethnicity are they well and that's
00:40:31
where you you question like the record keeping with the statements or the statement given right like if so with
00:40:38
with some of this you you want to go well did you see his foot blocking the door from preventing the door from being
00:40:44
opened further or was that just an assumption you made right you know briefly observing and walking by so the
00:40:50
neighbor is an older woman and I'm going to purposely leave her name out of it if
00:40:57
you dig deep enough you might be able to find it I don't know but this is an older woman that lived on the second
00:41:03
floor in another apartment here's what she describes this this is directly from my notes she says that she saw two
00:41:10
well-dressed darkskinned guys at Brandon's door the night of the murder they were arguing with him and when she
00:41:17
walked past they stopped talking she told Brandon's mother Lynn that Brandon had a look of Terror on his face and had
00:41:27
the door propped open only a little bit with his foot against it so it could not
00:41:32
be opened more she walked to the corner grocery store and they were still there still arguing when she came back she
00:41:43
said they did leave but returned 30 minutes later I I that part of the statement I have a hard time wrapping my
00:41:50
head around she said they did leave but returned 30 minutes later that one of them had something in his hand and they
00:41:56
both went and inside the problem with this eyewitness statement too that that that I get hung up on is what time was
00:42:05
this right what time did she first see these guys yeah arguing with with our victim what
00:42:12
time did did they come back well I'm going to be nice to police because maybe we have a lot more details on this and
00:42:21
this is look I'm not a I'm not a mind Hunter but if you have two guys arguing at his door
00:42:31
and then they come back and then enter the apartment during the time frame in which we believe and again we don't have
00:42:39
the statement from the eyewitness but we can just assume that this is within the
00:42:43
time frame of when he was murdered oh yeah so these are your Killers so I believe so too so you have to probably
00:42:51
hold back some of this information and and I have no reason to believe that this eyewitness is just making crap up
00:43:00
because also anybody that's lived in an apartment complex if your neighbors arguing with somebody you're checking
00:43:07
out your window you're looking you you're I become a nosy Parker very quickly well and this is an older woman
00:43:15
I'm guessing that is why she didn't intervene I didn't know Brandon okay I didn't have the privilege of knowing him
00:43:24
but from everything that's described to me about him and the persons that I've talked to I believe that I had friends
00:43:31
that were that I grew up with that were very much like him remember we were looking at pictures of him before we hit
00:43:38
record and both of us are like don't you get the feeling like you kind of know this guy like he looks familiar yes and
00:43:44
so if he's the guy that's described to me he was probably friendly with his neighbor he's a smiling face he's a joy
00:43:54
and I this is where you just you wish and you wish you could have a a Marty McFly Doc Brown moment go back in time
00:44:02
and and and replace this older woman neighbor with with a with a male neighbor or or a garage neighbor that
00:44:09
goes Brandon is everything okay man is everything all right here yeah because or or a gun carrying neighbor I'm not me
00:44:18
too I'm not a mine hunter but I play one on the radio yeah a little a little better than this Joker
00:44:25
and here's the thing what been told by the experts who are mind Hunters are that you profile everything you don't
00:44:32
just profile the offender you profile the victim you profile the location you profile the city you profile the
00:44:39
scenario and the situation but I get we know the situation we can profile the situation very well very easy based off
00:44:47
of The Limited information we have from that timeline we have persons coming and
00:44:50
going freely from his apartment that night and a lot of them are buying marijuana from Brandon what do we have
00:44:58
here in this scenario that is very different from every one of those scenarios leading up to this this moment
00:45:04
he's not letting these people into his apartment right he does he either doesn't know them or he knows them and
00:45:10
he's afraid of them and he knows that they're bad guys he's not letting them come willy-nilly into his apartment like
00:45:17
everybody else that night he does not want these guys in his apartment he has a look of Terror on his face he does not
00:45:24
want to be talking to these guys and then we have a situation where the crime scene and the way that the victim is
00:45:30
found tells us 100% this is a Twan or more job and guess what you got two guys standing at his apartment door well I
00:45:38
get so tired too because just take out the weed equation which I'm sure the weed equation has something to do with
00:45:45
his death but 100% I'm sorry to say that but it does but it's a fact okay and but
00:45:51
we have this young goodlooking uh hardworking college student guy has an internship very talented he's
00:46:00
artist Champion artist we all we need more artists in this world and so he's selling some drugs on the side marijuana
00:46:09
big freaking deal but but that's what's so sad is to probably make his ends meet
00:46:16
or maybe to try to get a little ahead or live a little more comfortably he decided to do this and that was his
00:46:23
fatal flaw he he was a everybody told me that he was a saver he was really good at saving money and I kind of believe
00:46:31
that he had uh the entrepreneur bug and I think that he saw that he he analyzed the situation his he's 21 he's a dude
00:46:42
he's a young dude he's got a bunch of friends he's got he's at College he's living in his own apartment he's working
00:46:48
like three jobs some of them are internships and whatnot but think about how many people he has access to and how
00:46:54
many of those persons are probably 19 20 21 22 but that's the problem there's a lot of pot smokers in that group and so
00:47:03
he's probably able to move a whole lot of stuff and guess what happens when that gets out on the street that this
00:47:09
dude has a whole bunch of marijuana in his apartment oh he's got a bunch of money up there too cuz he's cuz he's
00:47:16
making money you don't even have to know that he's a good saver to know that there's probably a bunch of money in
00:47:20
that apartment when when somebody that's coming and going from his apartment knows that observes that sees that going
00:47:27
on that person can set him up to be robbed or tells the wrong person or wrong persons and they see an
00:47:34
opportunity there's a reason why the old cliche loose lips sink ships Still Remains to this day because
00:47:42
it's true and what happens here is we get people that show up at this dude's door this is my opinion show up at his
00:47:50
door with the intent of taking all of his product that they can sell themselves and taking whatever cash that
00:47:57
he has in the apartment because guess what happens after you rob that dude what's he going to do call the
00:48:04
police and say hey guys you got to come over here somebody came in here and stole my drugs and my drug money you
00:48:09
can't you can't phone that in you can't oh no and that and that's and I think that's the the issue
00:48:18
here and I think it's possibly that it's his loose lips because he could have found himself in a situation this is
00:48:27
just hypothetical but I'm just saying he could have found himself in a situation
00:48:31
where he feels well I've sold pot to this guy for the last year he's my buddy and the guy goes man you're selling a
00:48:39
lot of pot and you're working this extra job and you're doing all this stuff man
00:48:43
you must have uh a lot of money because you're in a small apartment unless he has like 10 TVs unless he's driving some
00:48:52
fancy car you're like where's this money going and all he has to say is to the wrong person oh you know I'm actually
00:49:00
been saving a bunch of money I I and then they go well but you can't save it in the bank oh no no I just I just save
00:49:08
it here and just casually says to somebody and and that's all it takes then some idiots at a party going hey I
00:49:16
I know where we could get a bunch of money so inside of his apartment one of the items that police found and and here
00:49:23
here's a few things that that are difficult so it's been reported we got two we got multiple I to
00:49:31
say two would be a very big understatement multiple reports that come out that all vary they all have
00:49:39
variables within them so and I'll keep it short and sweet here but at the apartment whether what was
00:49:47
found or what wasn't found the reports are this he had a very expensive camera the we know he had a cell phone
00:49:56
so the cell phone goes bye-bye it's that every report says the cell phone was not
00:50:02
in his apartment when Brennan was found the expensive camera there's conflicting reports that
00:50:10
the police collected it as evidence and they still have it or it was stolen it's
00:50:15
to me those reports are inconclusive his computer was still there and retrieved and confiscated by
00:50:23
police likely they probably thought that they could find some interaction with somebody that might lead present a good
00:50:29
lead to them what this is curious though what else was found and this is 100% was
00:50:36
found it's just the amount of money is in question so there was an envelope that was found inside his
00:50:45
apartment kind of just sitting out in plain sight the envelope was labeled car and remember he was said by all to be
00:50:53
great at saving money so he likely was saving up money for a car he had a car uh his car was found parked in its usual
00:51:01
spot and police processed that car but that envelope depending on what report you read contained anywhere from $6,000
00:51:11
cash to $8,000 cash now it is believed by most people that take a look at this case that this
00:51:20
envelope would have been taken by The Killers but it was just simply overlooked that the they they toss the
00:51:27
place looking for I believe hidden marijuana a hidden stash of marijuana and a stash of cash
00:51:37
that would have been hidden and so because they're looking for something hidden at haste they
00:51:44
overlooked an envelope that just happens to be sitting there in plain sight and what one thing that is believed to have
00:51:51
been missing and again this is different reports some Reports say that a the people that bought weed from him say
00:51:58
that Brandon would typically use a large shoe box and in that shoe box he may keep
00:52:07
product but at the very least he was keeping a stash of cash that he made from selling weed some Reports say that
00:52:16
that shoe box was missing some Reports say that the shoe box was found open with nothing in it right either way it
00:52:26
looks like whatever The Killers went there looking for they believed that they got it and they got
00:52:34
out of there now one thing I do want to point out too that I found strange people point to that that puncture wound
00:52:40
it was such a small puncture wound I think that that's a little bit happen stance I think that these three guys
00:52:45
were probably fighting and happened in the struggle yes and that that he he sustained some kind of injury during the
00:52:51
course of that unfortunately Brandon was not a a large dude um he was about 5 foot 6 or seven and
00:53:01
about 165 lbs I don't that's the other thing that's missing from the description from the neighbor right that
00:53:09
H H how big were these guys right again I think that's information that law enforcement is probably keeping back and
00:53:17
then I wonder too like do we have surveillance footage from around that area well that's great and I tell you
00:53:24
what I you are absolutely right I have to believe that I would wager here we go Captain going to wager Franklin that the
00:53:31
captain is right and here's why because the statements are that the same witness
00:53:36
the neighbor says that at a later date the detectives showed her a picture oh here
00:53:43
we go okay and so the way that this has been described is that this was a picture with a lot of dudes in it like a
00:53:49
big group of dudes it's been recorded that she points to two guys in that picture and says these are the guys that
00:53:56
I believe believe that I saw there that night yeah now here's the thing do we have DNA we don't know that correct but
00:54:03
if we do then we can collect that DNA why aren't they working this case harder it just doesn't make a lot of sense to
00:54:10
me it seems like we have some pieces of the puzzle but we can't complete it damn
00:54:16
Killers got lucky again here right well I think these stupid ass moose knuckles are going they're going to talk they're
00:54:24
going to tell somebody this is too horrendous of a situation to have these guys not tell somebody the problem is
00:54:35
the people they probably told are piles of [ __ ] themselves and so maybe they'll
00:54:40
get busted for something and go hey uh I can tell you information about this other case if you give me a deal I I
00:54:48
think that there was somebody that was going to be there that night or was there that night that set him up and
00:54:55
here's why I say this I think that Brandon was you already talked about how busy he would have been right with all
00:55:02
that movement and he's he's a very he lives an active outdoor lifestyle as well he was big into skateboarding we
00:55:09
know that he rode a scooter with a friend for two to three hours that day this is a busy guy but I think to keep
00:55:16
he's at the top of his class at school he is successful with these internships their paid internships he's he has a job
00:55:23
and he's and he's got this side hustle going on too that you're only successful in all of those Realms if you maintain a
00:55:32
calendar and I have a feeling here that unfortunately Brandon probably had a a routine and I think that people that
00:55:39
bought from him were aware of that routine hey he he usually he's good to go if you contact him on a Tuesday or
00:55:47
Wednesday why can we profile that we see a lot of people coming on that Tuesday night to to buy weed he's good to go on
00:55:53
a Tuesday or Wednesday that means he's holding and that's when you want to show up if you're going to rob him you want
00:55:59
to show up and Rob him while he has cash and while he has product and one guy that we haven't got to yet is a man by
00:56:07
the name of Tony he's about Brandon's age and he approached Brandon's family after Brandon was killed and says he's
00:56:18
he's he's heartbroken he appears to be heartbroken he's crying and he says he asks the family this is the very next
00:56:24
morning or next day a I apologize it could have been the evening time he said approaches the family says is it true is
00:56:30
it true I heard you know I heard he was killed Is it true and yes they tell him it's true and he says you know I was
00:56:35
supposed to be there last night but I was out of town I didn't get back until today and I heard the news uh he was my
00:56:42
friend sounds like he's setting up an alibi well and look is Tony a phony baloney well Tony's Egyptian and
00:56:51
described as always dressing well well there you go I don't want I'm not trying to say that Tony was one of the two guys
00:56:58
spotted by the neighbor but he might know them he might know them and may have sent them there so he doesn't
00:57:05
necessarily have to be back in town to be involved you know what pisses me off there's a lot of cases that we cover and
00:57:11
we go we just don't know we don't know X Y or Z we have suspects here we have them identified if they have a picture
00:57:19
of a group of people and they have the neighbor identify these two individuals out of that picture law enforcement
00:57:25
knows who these clowns are and then this Tony guy he he if identified correctly yes yeah if identified correctly if
00:57:34
you're walking past these guys in the hallway and you see a scared look on your neighbor's face you're you're going
00:57:40
to remember more so than if you just walked by and just seem and it seemed like they were having a friendly
00:57:47
conversation I want to avoid some rabbit holes here because I don't think that they hold a lot of water but it's
00:57:53
important to toss them out where where is the head of people looking into this case some some persons uh and these are
00:58:02
not people that seem to be very dialed into this case in my opinion but some persons have referenced a group called
00:58:08
the hippie Mafia uh that he may have been buying from other persons have referenced the Hell's Angels and then
00:58:16
some people say that the hippie Mafia and the Hell's Angels work together or were working together in that area and
00:58:24
quote run an incredibly organized system see again that it doesn't add up to me with weed and you can say what you will
00:58:34
but every guy that I've known that have sold that has sold a little pot has at some point stepped
00:58:44
out of bounds or out of the realm of comfort and sold something harder with Brandon's
00:58:52
case one thing that I found odd well there's a bunch of things obviously but yeah he's found tied up
00:58:59
and dead one thing that I found to be strange is I as said I reviewed the autopsy well
00:59:06
that autopsy included a toxicology report there's no drugs not even marijuana found in his system a certain
00:59:14
portion of the population you know this doesn't mean anything today because in many states it's it's recreational use
00:59:20
or medical use is is legal hell I'm high right now most people of a certain age a
00:59:26
small percentage of of persons of a certain age will tell you that it's customary that when a friend shows up or
00:59:35
to buy from a friend they regularly will share a joint or smoke a bowl together and we know we have people coming go and
00:59:43
going purchasing from him that night yet there's no marijuana found in Brandon's
00:59:48
system in the toxicology report that anybody that's seen Pineapple Express will tell you that it's customary to
00:59:54
hang out briefly and we know that we have people that have said you know I yeah I went over there for the purpose
00:59:59
of purchasing I was there for 45 minutes that day hanging out with with my cool friend Brandon so this case look we've
01:00:09
said it I've said it dozens of times The Killers get lucky unfortunately the victims never
01:00:16
do and in this case the detective that catches this case suffers a heart attack within 20 4 to 48 hours of catching the
01:00:28
case so they immediately have to transfer it to another detective so right there you have a a major speed
01:00:34
bump I think the other problem for this case is while we have some detailed information of that last day for Brandon
01:00:43
and and people coming and going and people that he interacted with we're sitting here looking at that
01:00:49
information 13 years later they at the time these people were conducting illegal activity themselves
01:00:56
so unless you love this guy dearly you're probably not very forthcoming with that information when you sit
01:01:02
across the table from a detective or he knocks on your door did you see Brandon yeah I saw him yesterday why what were
01:01:09
you doing what did you guys talk about what did you know what was the purpose of your visit where you had his
01:01:14
apartment details get mi get get stepped over and purposely left out of those conversations and statements because
01:01:25
there is illegal activity within those statements within those details so we don't know how much
01:01:33
of this information the detectives were privy to on day three or four or five of
01:01:39
their investigation so where do we go from here in this case well one thing that's great about this CA let let me
01:01:47
let me step back a second and and talk about something that's not so great you asked earlier about cell phone
01:01:53
technology and I am of the belief you know we live in the the thank God we live in the the day where we see DNA
01:02:03
it's almost every week every other week some 30 40 25 year old cases being closed out we're finally getting delayed
01:02:10
Justice for a victim in their family using DNA technology to connect it to the perpetrator I am of the belief that one
01:02:19
day and we might be very close maybe we're there now but cell phone technology will pass the numbers on
01:02:28
solving crime solving homicides Beyond DNA and so Lynn Brandon's mom was the person that was paying for his cell
01:02:39
phone and we talked about Brandon being a good saver there are people close to this
01:02:46
case that believe that he could have had anywhere between 20 to $80,000 between cash and product in that
01:02:56
house in his apartment $80,000 there are people out there that will do a lot of crazy dumb horrible
01:03:03
[ __ ] for $80,000 and with his cell phone Lynn his mother she because it was stolen because
01:03:12
it was not at the crime scene it was not found it was one of the items we know to
01:03:16
have been taken she continued to pay that cell phone bill every month she thought that that cell phone if they
01:03:23
could find the cell phone they could find the and so she went to the FBI to have them
01:03:29
ping the phone because she's like look I'm still paying on this phone and I'm still paying on it because somebody's
01:03:34
using this phone somebody's racking up the bills on this thing and so she had to go to the FBI to get it done the FBI
01:03:42
they ping it and they say that they have this is 2012 right months after the murder they
01:03:50
say we've pinged this phone we know it's General location we don't have jurisdiction here
01:03:57
the Cleveland Police Department homicide division has jurisdiction here in your son's case we are going to give them the
01:04:05
information we have and they can use it to find that cell phone this this will make you tear your
01:04:12
hair out so so sit on your hands for a second here everybody or your thumbs this information is given to the
01:04:21
Cleveland police department and they delay the the homicide detective that was air quotes
01:04:30
working Brandon's case said he was too busy to go to that location to look for the phone on multiple occasions
01:04:39
eventually telling Brandon's mom that oh I went to the location it was an apartment complex and because the amount
01:04:47
of people there and the amount of people living in the building and in the complex we couldn't locate the phone
01:04:54
congratulations Detective dickweed now I say all that to say this here's where there should be some
01:05:02
optimism for Brandon's case this case the investigation at some point was transferred from Cleveland Police
01:05:10
Department homicide division to the FBI to their local office good and there are
01:05:16
agents currently working this case I have spoke with the FBI about Brandon's case we didn't go into great
01:05:25
details about certain things but what I was told is that it is an active case and that there is reason to be
01:05:37
optimistic for the future of this investigation that it will not drag on forever that should be good news for
01:05:45
Brandon's case well he deserves Justice and his family deserves Justice thank you for listening to Brandon's
01:06:02
case information law enforcements still need your help with this case if you have any information regarding the
01:06:10
murder of Brandon cleone or any of the persons described in today's podcast that you can add further
01:06:19
detail please submit any information you have to the Cleveland FBI field office their phone number is
01:06:29
26522 1400 online tips can be sent to tips.fbi.gov or if you are uncomfortable speaking
01:06:39
with law enforcement you may reach out to True Crime garage go to our website truecrime garage.com and find our
01:06:48
contact information there thank you and we wish law enforcement and Brandon's family and friends the very best of luck
01:06:55
with this case want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage and sharing this show with your friends and
01:07:02
loved ones until next week be good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause] [Music]