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[Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:44
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is the base player for scrantonicity 2 not to be confused with
00:01:51
scrantonicity he is the captain thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seen it's good to see you thanks for
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listen listening and thanks for telling a [Music] friend tonight and tomorrow we will be
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Scottish 90 Shilling ale brood with Scottish golden promise barley malt British floor molted Crystal and
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so just be patient people we'll get to you it's first come first serve captain everybody gather around grab a chair
00:03:31
grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime on a freezing Dark Night in March
00:04:01
of 2004 a young 17-year-old girl clocked out of work just before midnight she got into her car and drove
00:04:10
in the direction of home she has never been seen again her car was found in what I can
00:04:18
only say has to be one of the strangest vehicular accident scenes I've ever viewed her car was smashed backwards
00:04:28
into an abandoned creep creepy old farmhouse the old house has a violent history and possible drug
00:04:36
connections but what happened to the driver of that car and was this really even a car accident at all or did a
00:04:45
terrible crime take place something that may have led to the Abduction of this girl it is very likely that someone out
00:04:55
there knows something and still guards their Dark Secrets all of these years later this week we tell the story of The
00:05:03
Disappearance of Brianna [Music] Matlin this this case is an absolute jumble of confusing facts debatable
00:05:33
evidence complex characters contradictory theories and rampant rumors so to break this thing down we
00:05:40
are first going to get into what we know to be true based on tangible evidence as
00:05:45
well as reports by Brianna's parents friends and others who interacted with her so this is what actually happened
00:05:53
the day that Brianna maitlin disappeared March 19th 2004 Montgomery Vermont this is a small rural town of about 900
00:06:03
people near the Canadian border this is late winter in Northern New England the ground is still frozen in the air cold
00:06:12
the low temperature that night was only 8° this sparsely populated area features
00:06:18
dense Woods Wide Open Fields and houses and Farms set far apart in the landscape
00:06:25
Vermont at the time had a very low crime rate compared to much of the rest of the
00:06:30
nation this is Friday and the 17-year-old Brianna maitlin and her mother are going out to lunch after they
00:06:39
went shopping at a local mall now Brianna and her mother had somewhat of a strained
00:06:45
relationship all seemed normal on this trip until one point when Kelly Brianna's mom says that they were in a
00:06:53
store and Brianna started staring at something outside of the store Brianna mumbled something to herself and and
00:06:59
then walked out by the time Kelly paid for her purchases and walked out to the parking lot Brianna was waiting for her
00:07:07
she seemed agitated and upset Kelly said the mood had noticeably changed she decided not to press her daughter about
00:07:15
this issue though Brianna made no mention of why she left the store so suddenly she just said she needed to
00:07:22
hurry back to where she was staying to get ready for work Brianna was not living at the maand home at this time
00:07:29
she was staying with her friend since fourth grade this is Jillian Stout at Jillian's dad's home Kelly dropped her
00:07:38
off there between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. on that day now Brianna had a job as a dishwasher at a local establishment this
00:07:47
is the Black Lantern in she's working evenings after uh School mhm uh and the school's a bit tricky here Captain
00:07:55
because it's not traditional what you would think for a High School age girl 17-year-old girl she actually was
00:08:03
studying for her GED at a local community college during the day this was a popular Tavern where she worked
00:08:11
where locals and skiers would gather for meals and drinks then afternoon Brianna
00:08:16
left a handwritten note for her friend Jillian the note told Jillian that Brianna would be home after her shift at
00:08:23
work the Vermont State Police retains a copy of this note but the family has never seen it so we don't know exactly
00:08:32
what it says reports are that it just states that Brianna planned to return to jillians after her shift to stay the
00:08:40
night there now there are no accounts captain of anything unusual during her shift at work that night other employees
00:08:48
said that Brianna acted normal Brianna wore a apron like uniform uh that had Pockets her family doesn't know what
00:08:57
else she was wearing that night the in was very busy that Friday night and Brianna didn't finish until
00:09:05
after 11:00 p.m. her co-workers report that she declined to stick around some of the co-workers would hang out at the
00:09:13
Black Lantern in after their shift and she declined on that night right some Reports say she told colleagues that she
00:09:20
had to get to bed because she had to work her other job the next morning this may have been true Brianna just days
00:09:28
before started work as a waitress at KJ's Diner but we're we aren't certain whether she did have a shift the next
00:09:37
morning or not there are no reports that we've seen to indicate that when she failed to show up the next day or indeed
00:09:45
for nearly a week that anyone at the diner called anybody or notified anyone well right she just started so I mean
00:09:53
they could have just been like well she flaked out right yeah they don't know her character at that point so Brianna
00:10:00
clocked out of from the Black Lantern in at 11:20 p.m. on March 19th and she walked out into the cold Dark Night
00:10:10
multiple sources including the Vermont state police report that she was seen by other employees getting into her car and
00:10:17
driving away Brianna's car was a big green four-door 1985 Oldsmobile 88 Royale it was a boat that's right given
00:10:28
to her by her grandfather this was nearly 20 years old the vehicle was nearly 20 years old and
00:10:35
it frankly it looked like it um the car was registered to Kelly maitlin this is uh Brianna's mom but Brianna was the
00:10:46
driver of the vehicle right so 1.3 miles down the road from the Black Lantern in
00:10:53
in the direction of where Brianna was staying with Jillian was an abandoned house known to the locals as the Old
00:11:01
Dutch burn place it was a dilapitated farmhouse set about 40 or 50 fet off of the East Burkshire Road Route 118 the
00:11:12
windows and the doors are boarded up with plywood M The Farmhouse has been abandoned since 1986 when two elderly
00:11:21
brothers who live there Mike and Harry dutchburn were viciously attacked by an intruder in the home and beaten severely
00:11:29
h both men had to be hospitalized and seek permanent care after this incident and neither of them ever returned to the
00:11:36
house that case has never been solved the dutchburn house rest on a small Bluff overlooking a large field that is
00:11:45
bordered on the other side by a river I will post pictures of this so you can see not only the building but also the
00:11:52
crash site so like we said Captain it's 1.3 mil from where she works this abandoned house so it wouldn't have
00:11:59
taken her long at all to get to this location now the tricky thing here though is early in the morning on March
00:12:08
20th this is a Saturday a group of three skiers from nearby J Peak ski resort were driving on Route 118 and came to
00:12:17
the Dutch born place what they saw there caused them to pull over Park their car
00:12:23
and get out to take a closer look by the light of day they could see the large green car with the the rear corner of
00:12:30
the car embedded in the house and the trunk end of the car partially stuck up on The house's
00:12:38
Foundation the plywood covering one of the windows was knocked out by the impact and was lying on the trunk of the
00:12:45
car the ski group was so intrigued by this strange Tableau that they took a bunch of photos of this scene and photos
00:12:53
that can still be seen today online the ones that you're talking about uh picking one and posting there yeah
00:12:59
didn't they find a lime on the back of her trunk they did and we'll we'll get into that later um after the this Trio
00:13:07
were done taking the photos and I believe these photos are the only publicly viewable photos of the car
00:13:15
wedged into the side of the abandoned house um that are available to the public but they left after taking these
00:13:21
pictures now later that day around 1:20 p.m. a State Trooper driving by notice the Eerie scene and stop stopped by the
00:13:29
car to check it out he found the car doors closed but unlocked windows up and no keys anywhere in sight peering into
00:13:38
the car he likely saw all of the following things that were in the car and visible in photos so we have a
00:13:46
marijuana leaf decoration hanging from the rear mirror we have litter and objects all over the interior of the car
00:13:54
including takeout containers a snow scraper a case of cans of tuna cheit and other food there were also two paychecks
00:14:05
found inside the car with the name Brianna maitlin on them there are many reports that there were some things
00:14:12
found on the ground outside the car uh police officer noted a broken necklace on the ground and tossed it into the car
00:14:22
there was also loose change in a water bottle and by some reports an un smoked cigarette the cop basically made an
00:14:32
assumption that a drunk driver had an accident and the car was possibly stuck on The house's foundation and they
00:14:41
ditched the vehicle so that they wouldn't get in trouble he issued a tow order for the vehicle which it was
00:14:49
picked up in tow to a local garage it does not seem that the officer made any attempt to contact the registered owner
00:14:57
of the vehicle the this is Kelly maitlin um Brianna's mother so the vehicle here
00:15:04
Captain is look you know I keep saying that it's an eerie scene M it's an eerie scene because we're sitting here talking
00:15:11
today and we know that this girl this poor girl is Missing right and I think for me just driving by if I would have
00:15:20
been from the roadside there looking at the scene it's a strange one I definitely think it's a strange one to
00:15:25
see a vehicle backed into an abandoned home right but well it's a it's more of a barn yeah that's Farmhouse I think is
00:15:33
a fair uh thing to call it so but I think you could offer somebody a hundred bucks to spend the night in it and there
00:15:41
would be a lot of people that want to take that offer well that's it's interesting that you say that because it
00:15:47
does have the violent history it is kind of out in the middle of nowhere um right
00:15:52
beside the road right and it's it's in a dark area that would be it'd be very dark at night this is not an area that's
00:15:59
like lined with street lights right um but we do have the trio that see the vehicle that morning they take pictures
00:16:07
of it there is a rumor that the officer that scheduled the towing of the vehicle
00:16:12
took a picture as well of the car yeah I've heard that as well and but that if that photo exist either electronically
00:16:23
or physically then it's not one that is viewable not one that you will find on the internet well I think maybe you're
00:16:30
confusing that with the story of the officer that uh stopped and took pictures I believe the night before and
00:16:38
but he was on his way he was off duty H I think that's I have not heard that story yeah I believe this The Story Goes
00:16:45
that there's a officer off duty he stopped took pictures and then just went on his way does he report what time that
00:16:54
would have taken place that would have been it would have been like early morning like a couple hours after she
00:17:02
went missing basically so we have the vehicle it is towed from the scene I do want to throw this out there Captain
00:17:09
because I have seen a lot of comments on this case especially when people looking
00:17:14
at pictures of the vehicle uh backed into this abandoned house mhm there's a lot of people that really criticize the
00:17:23
state trooper the police here for not doing more with the vehicle in those comments and I tend to disagree with
00:17:31
that criticism and I think well I mean here's what happens is we have a few of these cases where it's not a
00:17:40
drunk driver mhm and it becomes something more and then the cops get a lot of criticism here but we're not
00:17:47
factoring in the amount of abandoned cars they're getting in their jurisdiction every weekend mhm and this
00:17:56
is this is a common thing and this is something something that I don't think that a well obviously a bunch of people
00:18:02
don't understand in the general public this is a common thing like you said they're now we live in a major city so
00:18:10
driving here it's not uncommon for me to pass at least one abandoned car on my way just to get to the garage each week
00:18:19
so here you know we see it it's right in front of our faces maybe here in this where our case and where our uh story
00:18:27
takes place you know it's it's a rural area so maybe this doesn't take place on The Daily like we have here but this is
00:18:34
a common thing for state troopers and police to have to deal with and then on top of that look their job is to show up
00:18:42
and assess the situation okay and nine times well not even nine times it's 99 times out of a 100 it's straight up an
00:18:50
abandoned vehicle right either it doesn't run for some reason or the person left it there for any number of
00:18:57
reasons the officer would just look at the vehicle and try to determine if another if some kind of actual crime
00:19:04
took place right and if it doesn't look like the a crime took place you're having the vehicle towed and as long as
00:19:13
if this person you know stays missing right mhm if if somebody's reported missing this is their vehicle we at
00:19:20
least have the car to investigate anything inside the car mhm the other thing too is there's a lot of CR
00:19:30
criticism by people saying well the officer could have at least reached out to the registered owner of the
00:19:38
vehicle I I I kind of agree with that I I do and I don't and here's why um one the person that ends up going
00:19:47
missing isn't the technically the paper owner of this vehicle right but the cop doesn't know any of that I mean
00:19:54
basically at the end of the day you have a car on the side of the road and and who's responsible for that car the owner
00:20:01
whoever it's registered to so you contact the register hey your car is being towed to such and such location I
00:20:08
don't think that's and it doesn't have to be the cop it could be the towing company somebody should notify the
00:20:15
person when you're towing their car I like I said I I have mixed feelings about that I agree and I disagree with
00:20:22
that criticism and makes feelings about you well good for you but what I'm saying here is the police are not um
00:20:31
it's not their job to contact the owner in my opinion they're they're they don't
00:20:35
need to hunt down the person and say look we found your car or you abandoned your car here and it's been towed um
00:20:43
right I think where again it's cuz we know the outcome and we also know that the person driving this car was uh
00:20:51
17-year-old you know a teenager right and when this case becomes natural national news and others have that are
00:20:58
similar to this case and we'll get into those later but that's when people start
00:21:03
wondering hey what are they doing over there why aren't they treating this vehicle like it's something serious now
00:21:08
what I will say is this a couple questionable things the the where I might change my mind and say that I do
00:21:16
agree with you captain and agree with the criticism of others that the registered owner was not um contacted by
00:21:23
law enforcement is I see some signs of possibly somebody living out of this vehicle right and I and I think cans of
00:21:32
tuna where I agree with you is it's not protocol but maybe it should be protocol
00:21:37
especially in these situations where if it is a teenager or a kid we don't know that by just looking at the vehicle but
00:21:45
like you said there's evidence got this tuna in the car you have this evidence that almost somebody's living out of
00:21:51
this vehicle mhm and the other thing here though is you say well I I'm curious did would the car
00:21:58
have run was it operational and I think that's a question in a lot of people's minds and we don't know that because the
00:22:05
officer didn't find the vehic find the keys right he found a vehicle unlocked the doors closed but unlocked no keys he
00:22:14
has no way of determining if it's operational but that would have to me that that would point us in some
00:22:21
different areas because what you're going to see in this case is there's a lot of different theories and a lot of
00:22:26
them are going to have to do with what actually happened with this vehicle right and so we don't know if the
00:22:32
vehicle was operational here's what my guess is it actually doesn't look to me like anybody you know came spinning off
00:22:39
the road and wrecked into the side of this abandoned house no because they didn't wreck into it side first or head
00:22:46
first they they backed into the building and it almost looks to me like I kept saying you know it it appears and others
00:22:53
agree with this statement that it appears that maybe the vehicle the rear portion of the vehicle the trunk of the
00:22:58
vehicle is up on The house's foundation so picture this you have a much more solid foundation holding up basically a
00:23:06
wooden Farmhouse right so the vehicle now mind you this is 1980 this vehicle is a 1985 I had a 1986 Buick Regal those
00:23:16
cars back then were not built the way that our cars are built today our cars today feel very plasticky and they
00:23:23
crumple they're meant to crumple to protect the the passenger and the driver of the vehicle if there were an accident
00:23:31
back then the corners of those Vehicles were solid man those things were solid the true the corner the front corners of
00:23:42
my car I know this from experience would do damage to to anything that they came
00:23:46
in contact with back when you had the the Buick so her vehicle mhm this 85 uh Oldsmobile to me it looks like somebody
00:23:57
may have been in the yard near this abandoned home and try to back up you know throw the thing
00:24:06
into reverse and think about how dark we already said it would have been there at
00:24:10
this location we don't have backup cameras yeah my thought is maybe someone I I'm
00:24:17
not willing to say who was driving the vehicle but let's say it was Brianna she could have for whatever
00:24:25
reason stopped in that yard decided to throw the vehicle into reverse and the corner of that car smashed Through the
00:24:33
Wood portion of the abandoned home and somehow slid up onto the more solid foundation actually lifting the rear of
00:24:42
the vehicle slightly up and off of the ground underneath the car I think she pulled a juvenile well
00:24:51
the thing is a lot of people when they look at the picture and and I know we're really going into the vehicle a lot but
00:24:57
like I said that's kind of the core of this case in my opinion and a lot of people would say well if she were
00:25:04
driving the vehicle and had some kind of accident into the side of that abandoned
00:25:08
home why didn't she just continue driving on well what I'm getting at is if in fact the rear of the vehicle was
00:25:15
lifted up slightly onto the foundation of the of the home right that 1985 Oldsmobile 88 Royale was a rear wheeel
00:25:24
drive vehicle if the if the back is elevated she's not able to get those tires on the ground to drive off
00:25:33
especially if she's by herself right if you had a few people there you might be able to figure it out or or unwedge the
00:25:40
vehicle yeah so whether or not the the car is drivable it could have been operational and she had no ability to
00:25:47
get it right but you're unstuck right the other thing too Captain is that we have the doors are all closed but
00:25:55
unlocked now we have to keep in mind this is an 85 this is a four-door car these are all individual locks this is
00:26:03
not like somebody hit one single button and unlocked all four doors at the same time right and there's some question as
00:26:10
to who was operating that vehicle at the time that it wrecked into the side of the home or how many people could have
00:26:17
been inside that vehicle no eyewitnesses that saw her leaving with anybody right
00:26:23
and so you have to ask yourself would it have been more commonplace it'd be interesting to know if she was
00:26:31
the type that locked her car doors because if we're talking about a situation where she wrecked on accident
00:26:37
and just hopped out of the car and decided to leave on foot if she was the type to lock her doors I would expect to
00:26:44
find the other three doors possibly locked I mean it it takes a bit of effort to go through and unlock all four
00:26:50
doors of course you want to lock your doors to save all that tuna that's right but there are people out there that do
00:26:58
not lock their car doors you know you and I know these you know people like this that say Maniacs well no but you
00:27:04
have some people that have unfortunately their car windows have been smashed out
00:27:08
so somebody can break into the car and I have I do have several friends that don't have alarm systems on their car
00:27:15
and they've just told me straight up look I don't keep anything in my car and I keep my doors unlocked that way if
00:27:20
somebody wants to check my car they can just check the car door and I have I'm tired of paying for smashed windows and
00:27:27
my car so moving on Captain we do have the car that's towed and we have Brianna who
00:27:34
is missing so on Sunday night March 21st her roommate Jillian returned home from
00:27:41
the weekend she spent away at her grandmother's home she noticed the note left by Brianna was still on the counter
00:27:49
she didn't think much of it actually because Brianna was not living at home like we said but she was also moving
00:27:55
around quite a bit lately she was crashing at friends homes and even boyfriend's homes and not staying in one
00:28:02
place for too long she was doing a bit of couch surfing Captain but by Tuesday March 23rd when
00:28:09
Brianna still hadn't been seen or heard from Jillian called the maand and asked for Brianna Kelly maitlin immediately
00:28:18
became alarmed she called her sister Tammy she called various friends as well and after searching fruitlessly on March
00:28:27
23rd the maand contacted the Vermont State Police to file a missing person's report on their daughter they were told
00:28:36
that an APB would be put out on Brianna and her car the maand heard nothing from
00:28:42
the police for two days now there are some discrepancies in the the story about the car being
00:28:51
found okay according to what the Vermont State Police told media sources they EST
00:28:57
establish the identity of the owner of the car and they called the maeland on that
00:29:04
Thursday according to what the maand told Dateline NBC and other sources that on that Thursday after Brianna went
00:29:11
missing they went down to the Vermont State Police and demanded some attention be paid to their daughter's case when
00:29:19
the maand arrived they sat down with an officer now during a conversation the officer who had actually found the
00:29:26
vehicle found the car stuck at the Dutch bur place right overheard this conversation and came over to which he
00:29:34
pulled out a photo that he took of the car and Kelly maitlin reacted she said the photo of the car made her stomach
00:29:44
roll and as she put it quote I saw evil in that photo this show is sponsored by better help do
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to answer call us at 1888 freedom all right we're back yes sir so here we have a situation Captain where after
00:32:12
being notified regardless of how it actually went down by the police that the vehicle was found Saturday morning
00:32:21
the Brianna's vehicle was found Saturday morning now we have her mother and father coming to the realiz ation that
00:32:28
you know this conversation is happening on Thursday right we found her vehicle Saturday they heard from her friend
00:32:36
Jillian on Tuesday who said hey I came home on Sunday and I haven't seen her so likely the parents were thinking that
00:32:44
she's been missing since Sunday now they find out it could be could have been as
00:32:49
early as Friday night when she left work so now they're terrified and the father her father is
00:32:56
going going to go to the garage where this vehicle is to view Brianna's car mhm this was look this has got to be
00:33:07
hard for anyone to do but we have a father of a missing daughter going to view the vehicle and there's an issue
00:33:14
here the vehicle's keys were not found with the vehicle mhm when he arrives to check out this
00:33:23
car they have the issue of the trunk somebody's got to look in that trunk and back then this is not the type of
00:33:30
vehicle where you could pull a lever and release the trunk the top of the trunk right you'd have to have a key for it
00:33:38
yeah and because the keys were missing nobody has checked that that trunk and actually he said you know hey when I
00:33:44
walked up to this this car me and the guy that worked there may have been an officer I'm not certain but these two
00:33:53
guys had to pry open the trunk with a with a crow bar the whole time he's concerned that he's going to find the
00:34:01
body of his daughter in the trunk of that car yeah along with some of her belongings and you know so you can only
00:34:08
imagine the moment of Terror when the lid finally popped on that thing you know praying that he would not find
00:34:15
Brianna in the trunk of that car all they did find thankfully were boxes and bags of her possessions um they did not
00:34:23
find her now back then 2004 Brianna did not have a cell phone so that would also
00:34:30
add to the mystery of this quote unquote car accident at the abandoned house right it's my understanding though
00:34:37
Captain you know this is 2004 Upstate Vermont that there was little to most likely no cell service anywhere in the
00:34:46
area of the vehicle accident right that makes you wonder if she wrecked her car and she was alone and her car couldn't
00:34:55
get she couldn't get the car out of the barn basically right that would she hitchhike right and the other thing too
00:35:06
there is some argument out there that people State well she did have she did have a cell phone and that's that's not
00:35:13
true she didn't have a cell phone what's actually true is that her mother had a cell phone at the time and on occasion
00:35:19
would let her use it even take it with her she just didn't have it that day correct you're absolutely right so it's
00:35:26
kind kind of clear that the police assumed early on in the investigation that uh Brianna was maybe a runaway or
00:35:36
at the very least some sort of irresponsible teenager now Bruce and Kelly the parents became very frustrated
00:35:44
early on and this is mainly because one of her co-workers one of Brianna's co-workers actually told the police that
00:35:51
she had said she was going on some sort of trip some kind of short trip at the the time and one of Brianna's friends
00:35:59
said that they often talked about escaping to Florida and another friend said that Brian often made reference to
00:36:06
wanting to get out of the small town Vermont and head to a city like Montreal or New York so which is a lot different
00:36:15
than Florida well but that's what's tricky for law enforcement when you start talking to people close to her you
00:36:23
have one saying hey she was talking about going on some kind of trip right you have one saying hey she always
00:36:29
talked about going and moving to Florida at some point and then somebody else saying she wanted to move to a large
00:36:35
city this is just proof that most people don't listen to you when you talk what do you mean it's just I mean the fact
00:36:44
that all of her friends have all these different stories well she could have told different people different things
00:36:49
over the course of possibly it's more who knows how long it's more likely that people just don't pay
00:36:55
attention um well the problem here though Captain is going to be that her family they don't agree with any of this
00:37:02
they want the police to be looking for their daughter but what the police know on the on the surface is look we have a
00:37:09
17-year-old that's not living with her parents at the time that she suddenly disappears right and she's also told
00:37:16
multiple people that she had plans or at least desired to go elsewhere at some point in her life the maand demanded uh
00:37:26
to be given lie detector test because you know knowing that the family would be investigated at some point they
00:37:32
wanted to be involved in the investigation and help so they offered up anything that they could do to be
00:37:39
eliminated at least as suspects so that they could be involved in the search for
00:37:44
their daughter there are reports that Brianna had left once before without telling her parents now her father Bruce
00:37:53
later denied this on the Nancy Grace TV show um at the time she vanished Brianna had
00:38:00
moved out of her parents house as we said they lived on a remote farmhouse in Franklin and she had moved in with
00:38:07
various friends and boyfriends from the time that she moved out I'm a little unclear captain of exactly when she
00:38:15
moved out from her parents' home the understanding I have is that the matlins were likely in the process of separating
00:38:24
and that she didn't have a great relationship with her mother she did have a good relationship by all reports
00:38:30
with her father uh but again I don't know that situation other than it's important to know she was not living at
00:38:37
home there are some reports like you and I suspected that she may have lived in her car temporarily at times right I
00:38:45
mean if she couldn't find a couch to crash on okay I'll just sleep in the back of my car what we do know is that
00:38:51
in February of 2004 she dropped out of school uh she enrolled in depending on who you talk to a GED program or a ghd
00:39:02
program right the old ghd and this would have been at a local community college do we know why she dropped out of school
00:39:09
cuz I heard rumors that she was a good student so I heard two completely different rumors okay um so one rumor is
00:39:20
that she was involved in drugs or had some kind of drug issue right that getting in the way of schooling and may
00:39:28
have been leading to her getting in trouble at least at on the school level right and then the other rumor that I
00:39:35
heard was that she um didn't get along with some of the students that she either didn't fit in
00:39:43
I'm a little unclear what exactly that meant um but we do know this she actually attended two different high
00:39:50
schools before dropping out right so well it could be both though it could be you have a little bit of issues with
00:40:02
people you go to school with so you're using drugs to kind of cope with that it could be both well we also have a
00:40:10
strange issue here that I call into question because after she went missing according to her mother uh she publicly
00:40:17
stated her mother publicly stated several times that she Brianna was starting to get her life
00:40:24
together I'm uncertain as to what means okay to me when I hear that that indicates that there was something where
00:40:31
her life was not together MH and we don't know what that means in the perspective of her mother right well
00:40:38
makes um gives some validity to the the rumors of possibly she was using drugs right and that was my first thought now
00:40:48
I don't know if if what she's referring to is well she dropped out of one school
00:40:54
went to the other school dropped out of that one and she was working on getting her GED right is some form of trying to
00:41:02
get her life together but what the parents would point out is if she wanted to leave the problem they pointed to with
00:41:10
not believing that theory from the police is the two uncashed paychecks that were left in her vehicle this seems
00:41:18
like something that she would have needed there is some argument by the parents as well that she would have
00:41:23
taken the vehicle with her but at you and I stated if if she were if the vehicle was stuck that may not have been
00:41:30
an option right at the end but the paychecks would have been it if if we would have known that she was going to
00:41:36
go missing right the police officers knew they could have done a couple tests to see if they could even get the
00:41:42
vehicle moving right again that's what you're always going to have that argument that the cops could have done
00:41:48
more yeah well we have the Vermont State Police they did work with the FBI and conducted ground and air searches of the
00:41:56
the area surrounding the abandoned house well because wasn't their Department very very small okay so this is my
00:42:04
understanding and this almost seems unbelievably small but my understanding is that's what she said that they had
00:42:10
like 13 officers for the entire County yeah that's what I heard and so there was thousands of people that were
00:42:18
reported missing roughly in that area like not not not from that town but within that area so to to have only 13
00:42:28
officers be able to look for anybody that's that's crazy well and if you're sitting there thinking that 13 doesn't
00:42:36
sound like that small of a number let's keep in mind that the police force is a 247 operation M okay um and actually in
00:42:46
some small towns I will say State this it does they do shut down from time to time but this is the state police so
00:42:52
from my understanding it would be that a 247 operation of 13 men and women patrolling the area
00:42:59
24 hours 7 months a year now regarding these searches Captain I'm a little unclear as to when they actually took
00:43:08
place which you know really can mess up what they could have possibly found but they were days long these searches the
00:43:16
ground searches and they did include hundreds of volunteered citizens with as many as 500 participating at one point
00:43:24
now this area includes many many acres of forest land which can be very difficult to
00:43:31
search so the searches turn up really nothing related to Brianna the maand went into search and rescue mode
00:43:39
themselves with Bruce searching areas with friends and Kelly designing Printing and disseminating thousands of
00:43:46
missing persons Flyers all over the area investigators also searched the Dutch burn house in the surrounding Woods a a
00:43:56
couple of sources reported that the Vermont State Police uh their detective Brian Miller told the media
00:44:02
investigators found a gun and drug paraphernalia inside The Farmhouse the area around the Dutch burn
00:44:10
house was searched by a metal detection expert in an attempt to find the missing
00:44:16
car keys while he found loose change no keys were ever located state police officers received
00:44:24
quite a few tips and brought in over 160 persons for personal interviews and at least three individuals were given
00:44:32
polygraph examinations that were quote inconclusive with at least one revealing deception now we don't know who these
00:44:41
people are that were given the polygraph examinations their names have not been named
00:44:47
publicly Witnesses spot the car so we have some other witnesses that may have spotted the car right so police turned
00:44:55
up some Witness that said they saw Brianna's car on the night that she went missing one report is around 12:30 a.m.
00:45:03
March 20th and this time is absolutely crucial to any reconstruction of the events this is a man who has been
00:45:12
described in numerous sources as a quote very credible witness said he drove by the Dutch burn house and noticed the car
00:45:23
outside of it he pointed at the road with he said the sorry the vehicle was pointed at the road with its headlights
00:45:30
on at this time the car fit the description of Brianna's car a second witness also saw the car sometime around
00:45:39
midnight or 1:00 a.m. they're not certain of the time but this witness states that the blinker was on now
00:45:47
whether instead of in addition to the lights being on or you know instead of or addition to we don't don't know okay
00:45:57
so obviously if it's in addition to the first guy could have just missed seeing the blinker being on uh if the blinker
00:46:04
was on instead of the lights then someone was in the car after that first sighting right now finally another
00:46:11
person reported seeing the car that night this was closer to 4 a.m. this is James
00:46:18
robelli this is Brianna's ex-boyfriend one of her ex-boyfriends told investigators he drove by on on his way
00:46:26
home from a party across the border and saw the car and recognized it to be Brianna's he said there was no sign of
00:46:35
her anywhere it might be strange that he wasn't concerned about Brianna enough to notify anyone of her
00:46:44
abandoned vehicle did he see any lights on that I couldn't find a statement from
00:46:50
him stating that lights were on that might have drawn that may have alerted him more later he would say he was drunk
00:46:57
that night and he was afraid of getting in trouble so he didn't report it that night it's tough too because you'd think
00:47:04
if there's no keys and the cars in park then why are the lights on mhm the other
00:47:10
thing too though that's interesting about his statement is he says he saw the car but he he he outwardly states
00:47:18
that Brianna was nowhere near or not in the area meaning to me that he may have likely stopped and investigated that he
00:47:28
got close enough to the car to see that there was no one in it at the time right
00:47:32
we should note that one of the homes that Brianna had stayed at during this time away from her parents house was
00:47:39
James's grandparents house now at the end of March a forensic team processed Brianna's car searching
00:47:47
it thoroughly and taking pieces out of the Interior to test they are looking for evidence of a struggle or possible
00:47:55
Foul Play all right so we have the initial investigation it states that it didn't
00:48:02
indicate any kind of violent struggle inside the vehicle although the investigator conceded that the way that
00:48:08
the car was backed into the house it did not look like a quote normal accident no
00:48:15
like you said in the trailer I mean this is it's kind of strange I mean I've seen
00:48:20
cars hit houses before right but never back up into them right and they found Brianna's ATM card uh they found her
00:48:29
contact lenses and migraine medication inside the vehicle mhm as stated earlier her keys were gone and they have never
00:48:37
been found to this day interestingly Lieutenant Nelson um working the case told reporters the car
00:48:45
was discovered at 1:22 a.m. on March 20th by a neighbor so this must be the unnamed witness that is quoted you know
00:48:55
you know stated to be credible who saw the lights Andor blinkers on another thing Lieutenant Nelson said that's
00:49:04
interesting is that it wasn't immediately apparent to investigators that Brianna was the last person to
00:49:11
drive the vehicle now he did not expound on this statement yeah I wonder what they found to make him think that it
00:49:20
that's a weird statement and and the reason why I find that to be a weird statement Captain is you can kind of
00:49:25
take that one of two ways you can take it in a sense that maybe they found something to indicate that possibly
00:49:32
there was someone else driving the vehicle at the time of the accident or that they couldn't find anything to
00:49:39
definitively say that Briana was in fact the one driving the vehicle right you know it's kind of a very vague statement
00:49:47
to throw out there yeah and the second one's not so bad though I mean just to say well we don't know for sure so let's
00:49:53
just keep an open mind so the maand offered up a $20,000 reward for information leading to Brianna's safe
00:50:02
return or the arrest of the person or persons responsible for her disappearance and they did establish a
00:50:08
website this is bring Bri home.com uh dedicated to finding her so who is Brianna Captain Brianna Alexandra
00:50:19
maen was born on October 8th 1986 at the time of her disappearance she was just 17 years old she was 5 tall
00:50:28
5' 4 in tall I'm sorry weighs 105 lb has hazel eyes and medium length brown hair
00:50:36
yeah she also has a nose stud in her left nostril and a faint scar on her left eyebrow she is a hearty New
00:50:45
Englander who can shoot ski track deer and zip around on an ATV or snowmobile Brianna's mom says one time Brianna
00:50:55
packed picked up a hitchhiker and brought him home one thing that's important to know about Brianna is that
00:51:02
she is trained in uh jiujitsu thank you just seeing that word on paper threw me for
00:51:11
aop um so she brought the hitchhiker home mhm I mean aren't you just supposed to pick them up and take them drop them
00:51:20
off somewhere else you're not supposed to take them home are you I you look I've had
00:51:26
that I can recall I think I've had one experience with The Hitchhiker and that was the protocol for that trip was to
00:51:33
drop them off at another location not not bring them home this was actually very common in the 70s I mean
00:51:39
hitchhikers were very common and people would pick him up all the time MH um but
00:51:45
2004 not so much but no no but what I'm saying is thinking back on it to think that at one point in in our nation that
00:51:54
in the 70s we're like hey just pick people up man it's cool yeah well and it it would happen often on uh college
00:52:01
campuses as well like so students that didn't know one another from attending the school but happen to be from you
00:52:08
know hey like if you lived somewhere along my drive home right we we there were ways of hooking up that I'd be like
00:52:15
hey I'll drop the captain off on my way back to to my family's home for Thanksgiving right well I'm an ' 80s
00:52:21
baby so it's like I've heard all the stories from the 70s and now we're investigating this case of 2004 and you
00:52:27
go she picked up a hitchhiker like that's just not something people do yeah I mean I've never hitchhiked myself but
00:52:36
as far as the Jiu-Jitsu thing goes we should note that she wasn't just trained in it this is a she was studying the
00:52:43
practice for several years leading up to her disappearance but I think what's interesting thing here Captain about The
00:52:51
Hitchhiker I think if you are knowing in advance that she is absolutely willing to pick up a
00:53:00
hitchhiker I think that points out to the same thought that she might be willing to accept a ride as well with so
00:53:07
much focus on the vehicle and what could have happened to the vehicle what happened to her afterwards we don't know
00:53:14
right and this points to the thought where you know cuz we've covered other cases where parents or loved ones or
00:53:20
friends are going she would have never gotten to a car not this situation you can't tell me that if she's willing to
00:53:26
let someone in her car I think she's willing to accept a ride especially if you're kind of out in the sticks in a
00:53:33
dark area at midnight yeah I think so yeah and I don't want to look I'm not trying to judge jiujitsu at all but you
00:53:44
know there's been a lot of Masters of the the martial arts that or masters of jiujitsu that say Hey look this stuff
00:53:52
works in that setting but this is grappling this has nothing to do with striking so this idea that if if
00:54:02
somebody tried to attack her that she'd be able to take down any man it's just kind of a ridiculous
00:54:10
statement well that's I mean I don't know who's saying that statement I just stating that she was not she didn't have
00:54:19
the inability to do such right um that it was possible that she's trained in some in a in a form of martial arts that
00:54:27
most people are not so uh but while we're on the the topic of background information on Brianna we should point
00:54:35
out too that there was an assault on Brianna that occurred on February 27th this is only weeks before she went
00:54:42
missing yeah and she took a selfie well reports are that Brianna was at a party in Richford which is near the
00:54:52
Canadian border James robelli which is a name that we've heard before uh who was either her ex or her current
00:55:01
flame at the time of this party was also there right he's the guy that reported seeing her car a number of other kids
00:55:08
were there as well including a girl named key lacrosse and a local guy whom key was possibly involved with key
00:55:16
thought that Brianna was flirting with this guy so words were exchanged and Brianna walked out of the party and went
00:55:25
out to James's truck apparently she fell asleep but at some point key and her cousin came outside told Brianna to roll
00:55:35
down the window and they challenged her to a a fight punching her in yeah punching her in the face mhm friends of
00:55:43
Brianna reported that key was pushing Brianna to fight her and hit her again but Brianna refused to fight right so
00:55:52
she just got punched a few times in the face and she left the party crying uh James apparently drove her home that
00:55:59
night Brianna sustained a broken nose and a concussion and two very black eyes now at the urging of her parents Brianna
00:56:08
filed charges these charges were ultimately dropped by the County District Attorney's office after Brianna
00:56:15
went missing we don't know a whole lot about key lacrosse but for what it's worth uh
00:56:23
in 2005 she told WCA x quote I got into an argument with her meaning Brianna and I regret
00:56:33
everything that happened I really wish she was here today end quote key went on to have a few Tangles with the law if
00:56:41
you want to call him that including an arrest for home invasion and assault in 2012 this is this is problematic I feel
00:56:53
I feel like we have a sit situation here where we have a history we have someone
00:56:59
who I wouldn't call it this is not a fight she attacked Brianna she broke her nose gave
00:57:06
her concussion yeah yeah so words are exchanged and Brianna left the situation right went outside and chilled out in
00:57:15
the truck and then she's approached Again by this girl and then we have we do know that she goes on to have this
00:57:22
situation of a home invasion and assault here's my understanding I wish I knew a
00:57:27
little bit more about this home invasion because home invasions can be extremely
00:57:31
violent hell we discussed one just last week in the garage right that ended in a
00:57:37
double homicide so I don't know the details of this home invasion it could have been something as simple
00:57:46
to break in and recover something or break in and steal drugs but I do have an understanding of the assault so so
00:57:54
the assault these were not two separate crimes the assault took place during the
00:57:59
home invasion and from my understanding she bit the victim now I don't know if if they busted into the home and a fight
00:58:07
broke out right and then the assault occurred but this was in 2012 so we have two two incidents where we see that we
00:58:16
have a violent individual is what we do know and unfortunately these charges would ultimately be dropped because we
00:58:24
don't have a victim around anymore we don't have Brianna around anymore to follow through on the charges being
00:58:30
brought against key right so but what you're saying is ke's house was broken into no no no no home invasion meaning
00:58:38
she was either invaded another home or part of a group that invaded another home okay so she was one of the Invaders
00:58:46
yes okay yes so she's in trouble with law She's Not Just involved with him as a victim yeah that's not a good thing
00:58:53
right so we have I think you and I can agree this is is someone that has at least on more than one occasion shown
00:58:59
signs to have been violent well and let me put this you know I want to say this is hearsay rumor mill stuff but as far
00:59:08
as this party goes this whole idea that that uh Brianna came with her boyfriend her ex-boyfriend James James see I heard
00:59:19
this story a little different the rumor mill that I heard was that key was involved they were both involved with
00:59:26
this guy James and that's what the fight was over okay that was the rumor that I
00:59:30
heard now if is that true I'm not for sure that's that's the rumor I I heard and that could be right which makes it
00:59:39
more suspicious that James saw her car that night possibly yes and but this was what calls into question for me is key a
00:59:48
good suspect and you know there are I did find reports did you see the picture of her face uh yeah Brianna's face I
00:59:56
mean that's I mean she looked like she was in the Octagon right but the reason why I bring up is key a good suspect I
01:00:05
think on the surface at least knowing this background information there's some kind of history
01:00:11
there but there I have seen online reports that state that no she's not a good suspect she's been cleared M I
01:00:19
couldn't find I couldn't find verification of what actually cleared her but what I could find was I could
01:00:26
find a statement from Brianna's father Bruce Maan who says he quote doesn't believe she was ever really
01:00:35
cleared okay so let's keep keep open mind we don't know why she's cleared we don't know what her Alibi was you know I
01:00:43
think it's a good lead to go down yes the other lead we should go down is a possible drug connection to this missing
01:00:51
person's case so in 2004 the Vermont Hills area where Brianna lived was suffering from a drug epidemic there was
01:01:00
a massive influx of drugs brought by dealers from New York and Massachusetts there already was plenty of pot in the
01:01:08
area but this newer infiltration of hard drugs they were bringing in things like
01:01:13
crack cocaine and heroin this was not just brought into the area it was a problem right so two drug dealers who
01:01:21
came up to the small town Vermont area from from the big city were Raymond Street Ryan of Queens New York and
01:01:30
Nathaniel low Jackson also from New York these guys sold crack and Other Drugs to
01:01:37
the teens in the area but they didn't just sell to these kids they hung out with them as well well that's normally
01:01:43
how it works the two of them attended parties and socialized with the younger kids they were providing drugs to how
01:01:51
much Brianna was involved in this drug scene is is hotly contested she seems to have been a pot smoker some friends say
01:02:00
that she may have tried Coke or crack uh a time or two others other people say that it went beyond that you know that
01:02:08
she had some kind of drug problem yeah some rumors that she's a full-blown crackhead I mean one of the speculations
01:02:17
is one of the reasons why she got two jobs I mean she's couch surfing and stuff like that so one of the reasons
01:02:24
why she got the the second job was to uh maintain her drug addiction yeah and so
01:02:30
that's interesting Captain because there there's two schools of thought here I would think is that one you have someone
01:02:37
who's working two jobs because they're living above their means and they're spending money on things like drugs or
01:02:46
then I go back to the statement given by her mother of Brianna was in the process
01:02:51
of getting her life back together so maybe she's working the two jobs and she's she's on a on the bridge to better
01:02:58
days right um so but but again yeah but what you tell your parents at the age of
01:03:04
17 and what they know is two different things well but again though that statement is is troubling as well
01:03:11
because the statement of she is getting in the process of getting her life together what does that mean what was
01:03:16
going on what was wrong before the time period that she went missing and does that involve the use of
01:03:22
hardcore drugs and again like like I was saying to you over the phone last week you know what your parents know of you
01:03:30
at the age of 15 16 17 They Don't Know Much unless you're giving them that information or they're s suspicious of
01:03:38
something so they're kind of snooping but guess what they can't Snoop if you're not living there right so they're
01:03:43
not going to pick up on who's calling you they're not going to pick up on who you left the house with right they're
01:03:49
not going to pick up on who came over to the house these are all important clues
01:03:54
that parents have to pay attention to because your teenagers are are normally not going to be forthcoming with hey you
01:04:01
know I've been hanging out with um you know this guy and this guy and we've been smoking crack that's normally not
01:04:07
how it goes down so you know I I don't blame that's never dinner conversation is it I'm just saying I I I don't I
01:04:16
don't blame her parents for not knowing I'm just saying let's let's start assuming that they probably don't know
01:04:23
everything that was going on in her life at that time I had to get me a second job cu the old Captain got me on the
01:04:28
crack pipe yeah never got anybody on the crack yeah Dear Mother um Dear Mother so we have
01:04:37
Vermont State Police investigator Brian Miller who we've discussed before he said publicly that they knew Brianna
01:04:44
quote experimented with a wide range of drugs so the police seem to have some sort of evidence that this may have been
01:04:53
going on and and that they could not rule out drugs being connected to her disappearance the other thing though too
01:05:01
is it might be possible that Brianna had some kind of or was in some kind of relationship with one of the dealers
01:05:09
that we discussed and this is low Jackson the two of them had been seen together multiple times by Brianna's
01:05:17
friends and family we don't know if there was for sure a relationship or any more about this but what what I feel
01:05:26
like is it doesn't look good well what I was going to say about the job the rumor
01:05:29
about the second job was that she was actually in debt as far as she owed money to people that she's getting drugs
01:05:37
from right so it's kind of uh there's two stories one that she wanted to get drugs well multiple stories do have two
01:05:47
jobs get your life together have two jobs so you can pay for your drugs get a second job because
01:05:54
you're in debt and you owe drug dealers money ban the van order your ban the van
01:06:09
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01:06:53
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