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[Music] [Music] home [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:18
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who wants to breathe
00:01:23
that fire again ladies and gentlemen here is the captain yeah yeah yeah yeah it's good to be seen and good to see you
00:01:31
thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friends this week we are very excited to
00:01:42
be featuring fire station number four by the good folks down at the house of motor Brewing Company in beautiful Miami
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bottle caps and let's give some thanks and praise to our friends that helped us fill up the old garage fridge this week
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first up a shout out to Connie and Prince William County Virginia and last but not least we have a double fisted
00:02:21
cheers that goes out to The Thirst responders in Spring Hill Florida thank you all for going to truecrime
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if you'd like to make a donation just go to True Crim garage.com and click on the beer fun and
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while you're there sign up for the mailing list and Colonel that's enough of the business all right everybody
00:02:49
gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music]
00:03:20
it can be pretty difficult to Simply disappear but what if someone really wanted you
00:03:28
to maybe for for them you are a problem a big problem and at the end of the day isn't
00:03:37
that what we all want for our problems to just simply go away this week we tell the story of a
00:03:48
young mother who vanished on August 17th 2006 32-year-old Brandy Hall was working
00:03:57
the night shift at the Malibar fire station just before 11:00 p.m. Brandy told her co-workers that she was going
00:04:07
home her husband says she never showed up she has never been seen since the last images of Brandy start at
00:04:17
10:32 p.m. from surveillance cameras at the fire station in the footage we can see Brandy
00:04:27
preparing to leave the station she enters the common area of the firehouse there are three firefighters
00:04:35
sitting on couches one walking with a bag and another standing by the door Brandy wearing a white long sleeved
00:04:46
pullover engages the firefighter by the door for a few moments she then walks through the next
00:04:55
room alone on her way out to her truck and then the final image captures the tail lights of bry's dark green
00:05:07
2002 Chevy Silverado pickup truck slowly leaving the station's camera frame at 10:50
00:05:16
p.m. the images are chilling because well that's it she's gone this is true crime garage and this
00:05:29
is the missing person's case of Brandy [Applause] [Music] Hall this week we are going out to a
00:05:48
place called Malibar Florida Malibar is a picturesque Town brimming with natural
00:05:54
beauty nestled on the eastern coast of the Sunshine State Malibar offer offers residents and visitors alike a tranquil
00:06:02
escape from the hustle and bustle of urban life this idyllic Town boast a unique blend of residential
00:06:08
neighborhoods parks and a quaint downtown area creating a welcoming atmosphere for all Malibar is a small
00:06:17
town with a rural field to it it's only about 13 square miles of which 2.6 square miles are water and only about
00:06:27
3,000 people live there there are hiking trails Parks lots of open spaces and no
00:06:32
tall buildings to speak of it's one of the few places left in brever county that still has some dirt roads the town
00:06:42
has a volunteer fire department but no police station of its own the day that Brandy Hall disappeared was a warm and
00:06:51
muggy day with humidity topping out at 84% the temperatures reached 89° but had dropped down to about 75°
00:07:02
when Brandy disappeared now we also need to talk about a nearby place called Palm
00:07:08
Bay so you're going to hear a lot of us bouncing back and forth between Malibar Florida and Palm Bay Florida which is
00:07:17
pretty much next door to Malibar but to the west and before we get into this week's mystery I want to give a couple
00:07:24
of shout outs here first to floridatoday.com and to new news columnist and investigative journalist
00:07:32
John Torres he's a reporter who has doggedly followed this Brandy Hall case and worked very closely with some
00:07:41
retired detectives and he covered this story extensively in season 3 of the murder on the Space Coast podcast he did
00:07:52
a fantastic job and I like to cite these sources early in the show here Captain especially when we have a situation like
00:07:58
this week such great work was done here Gang Busters work as I like to say and so we
00:08:05
need to give a longdistance high five and shout out to John Torres now the people involved in this case there are
00:08:12
going to be a lot of people as we typically see in these cases that are going to be on the peripheral however
00:08:20
there are several people that are at the very center of this case first off of course we have our victim Brandy Hall
00:08:27
she's a devoted mother of to she is a victim of a mysterious disappearance now keep in mind she disappears this is
00:08:37
leaving her two small children both of them ages 10 and under at the time of her disappearance she was holding a
00:08:46
position as a firefighter at the Malibar fire department at the time that she went missing Brandy skill set defined
00:08:54
traditional Norms according to her husband she embodied the essence of a country girl and in fact growing up
00:09:03
Captain her nickname and this was a nickname that she was rather fond of was redneck and all of her friends and would
00:09:12
say that she did the stuff that the boys did and she could do the stuff that the
00:09:16
boys did a lot of times much better than they did riding ATVs getting in the mud
00:09:22
getting dirty she liked to work do construction things of that nature so that gives a little bit of back
00:09:29
background about the individual that we are going to be focusing on for this week's case she was also as an adult uh
00:09:38
into welding fishing hunting and sharp shooting now Brandy's story is intertwined with elements of intrigue
00:09:45
and controversy she was married to a former fire chief who had a tarnished record she and her husband seem to have
00:09:56
been entangled in drug related TR troubles and we'll get into the specifics of that as we go through our
00:10:02
timeline here today simultaneously she is in a longstanding extramarital affair with a married man
00:10:11
so this further complicates our case despite this complexity Brandy garnered widespread respect within the
00:10:19
firefighting Community her peers agree that she excelled As A Firefighter and she was quick witted and reliable
00:10:28
someone who could always be counted on in times of need and normally when a woman a mother a wife goes missing the
00:10:36
first suspect that law enforcement needs to look at and needs to question to get
00:10:41
answers is the husband Jeff Hall Jeff Hall and Brandy they met their paths crossed working for a fire department
00:10:53
okay while they were both volunteering now Jeff Hall who is he well he's not just Brandy Hall husband he is or was a
00:11:02
once distinguished firefighter from the Oola County fire department now his journey in the fire
00:11:12
service began at an astonishingly young age as he joined the fire department Reserve team in Orange
00:11:19
County at age 14 by 1983 he had transitioned to a full-time role as a Saint Cloud
00:11:28
firefighter an achievement underscored by his rapid Ascent to the esteemed position of fire chief within a mere
00:11:36
decade commanding an annual salary of about $555,000 now in 1993 Jeff further solidified his legacy
00:11:46
by becoming the youngest individual in the county history to assume the role of head of Public Safety notably he was the
00:11:54
inaugural person to concurrently hold the positions of of head of Emergency Management and fire chief so he's he's
00:12:03
playing both of these roles at the same time with an already impressive track record Jeff was on the cusp of obtaining
00:12:11
the Zenith of his career when fate brought him into bry's life now we will see and we discussed briefly that Jeff
00:12:21
Hall is going to find himself into some troubles and again we will get into that
00:12:26
in our timeline now Randall rich man is another person that we will be discussing at length today because he is
00:12:34
the longtime boyfriend of Brandy Hall and it sounds like Captain that they may have been seeing each other for
00:12:41
nearly 10 years flicky flicky leading up to bry's disappearance this is according
00:12:47
to bry's friends and other firefighters in fact the two were referred to by some as brandall you know
00:12:55
putting meshing the two names together lame brandall was the last person believed to have spoken with Brandy
00:13:03
interestingly he initially denied having spoken to or seeing Brandy for the past
00:13:09
couple of weeks H the timeline here is such key as it always is especially in a missing
00:13:16
person's cases but the the movements of this Randall Richman are very curious to
00:13:24
say the least keep in mind he's married both Brandy Hall as we discussed she's married to Jeff
00:13:33
Hall and Randall Richmond is married to an Marie Richmond many times when you have a affair happening nobody knows
00:13:42
about the affair except for the two people that are in the entanglement but this one not the case
00:13:49
it seemed like almost everybody knew about the affair not only the two involved but both individual ual's
00:13:59
Partners knew about the affair as well that's what's very interesting in this case and a really hard to
00:14:07
decipher having not been directly involved in the situation is who knew what and what
00:14:15
exactly did they know and it sounds to me that there's a little bit of a incestuous type of environment going on
00:14:25
maybe in some of these smaller fire departments down in this Florida area at this
00:14:31
time these two might not be the only two that were fooling around or running around on their spouse which makes the
00:14:40
case that much more convoluted and very cloudy and we have no evidence for or against the idea that any of these
00:14:51
individuals weren't having multiple Affairs there's rumor of such but the thing seems to be here Captain is that
00:14:58
Jeff Hall I can't say that he fully 100% knew of the affair it sounds to me like
00:15:05
he he wasn't completely dumb to it the same thing could be said for anarie Richmond it sounds like she had her
00:15:13
suspicions but maybe not was unable to confirm those suspicions but again we're going to get into all the details of
00:15:22
that stuff now we need to point out here though that an Marie Randall's wife she
00:15:28
is working at the Palm Bay Hospital she will play a key role in this timeline as
00:15:36
well which we're going to jump into right now so this timeline the reason why we give a shout out to
00:15:41
floridatoday.com is a portion of that is taken from floridatoday.com and we've filled in
00:15:50
some of the blanks added to the gaps and added a lot of detail where needed and even some other stops here on the
00:15:57
timeline let's go all the way back Captain to 1993 so this will be when Brandy and
00:16:05
Jeff her would be husband when they first met so he's a firefighter/paramedic and she is a
00:16:13
volunteer for the acola county where they run calls into rural areas of a place called Hollow pal the pair would
00:16:27
marry when brand was only 19 years old and Jeff is 30 years of age at this time in October of
00:16:36
1994 Palm Bay Fire Department hires Brandy Hall As A Firefighter and medical technician she had applied to several
00:16:45
fire departments in May of 1994 and then is later hired by Palm Bay on October 10th of that same year she
00:16:55
starts off with a salary of just under $20,000 Now by all accounts and this is to put it pretty lightly she loves it
00:17:05
she loves the job this is this is like dream job right we see a person who is volunteering their time to go into a
00:17:12
career that they've always dreamt of being a member of this career path so she loves it her family says she loves
00:17:21
it her mom says that her passion was being a firefighter we're going to fast forward
00:17:27
6 years to April of 2000 this is when Brandy receives a really cool promotion she's promoted to
00:17:35
driver engineer she obtains certification as a paramedic and we should note too that Brandy is only one
00:17:43
of four female firefighters employed by the city at that time July 2nd of 2005 Brandy Hall's husband Jeff Hall former
00:17:54
Oola County fire chief he is arrested and charged with trafficking marijuana so to fill in the blanks here a little
00:18:03
bit Captain as we said Jeff is 11 years older than Brandy and so while he started his
00:18:13
firefighter career at the young age volunteering at the young age of 14 and Rose through the ranks rather quickly
00:18:21
and it sounds like deservedly so it sounds like this man was well-liked hardworking very very smart very good at
00:18:29
being a firefighter he rises to the ranks of County Fire Chief and then he retires well him and a buddy decide that
00:18:41
you know what would be exciting and what would be really cool we can make a whole
00:18:45
lot of money and have this exciting lifestyle his buddy's name is Paul hirs they decide to go into business
00:18:52
together well what business are they going to go into together that would be the drug business we're going to go into
00:18:58
the illegal drug business well yeah so his family had this extra 13 acres and they thought well we could grow some
00:19:09
marijuana I I don't know how much they were trying to become rich off this or if it was just something that they were
00:19:16
going to try to make a few extra bucks so you're exactly right Captain because the stories don't they vary greatly in
00:19:24
the situation you have some stories where Jeff and his buddy Paul are saying well this was pretty small operation
00:19:34
this was really kind of just a casual thing that a couple buddies were doing we got a few seeds from The High Times
00:19:40
magazine and decided that we wanted to start cultivating marijuana plants and then there's other people
00:19:48
that say not so fast Mister because you had this large property for which you had a facility you put in all of these
00:19:59
resources to set up a rather large grow operation yeah when law enforcement was hdden them with these charges law
00:20:07
enforcement was saying hey this is a extensive operation this is you know kind of
00:20:14
complex but again there's two sides of that coin right exactly and and one part of that coin says law enforcement saying
00:20:24
that this is like a an operation where these two stood to make about a million or so dollars off of their crop and that
00:20:34
would just be one season right if they could get away with that they could do it season after season now Jeff to his
00:20:42
credit and I want to be clear here too these these two individuals are not like some real lowlevel low life dirty drug
00:20:53
users smalltime dealers right this sounds much more to me like guys that had made it in this
00:21:01
world and had some extra cash had some extra space and I'm not trying to defend them too much because it was incredibly
00:21:11
illegal at the time to be doing what they were doing but Jeff says look I kind of just got caught up in this like
00:21:19
it started off as something casual and recreational and then I kind of got excited by the idea of living a
00:21:27
different lifestyle making a bunch of money which back up the truck a little bit Jeff pump the brakes on on wanting
00:21:35
to be whatever it is you thought you were going to be you got a wife and two kids at home yeah and not to defend them
00:21:41
but there's many professions that are Society relies on firefighters being one underpaid teachers underpaid nurses
00:21:53
underpaid so you could see the lore there and because he's in a small community a lot of these firefighters
00:22:01
are connected to law enforcement and and maybe they've heard about other people doing some Mis dealings and they thought
00:22:11
well we can get away with it it's not going to be that big of a operation and one thing we're going to see you want to
00:22:17
talk about firefighters being connected to something one thing we're going to see in this case time and time again a
00:22:23
lot of our firefighters are tied to construction and this case and I think that's a lot of Jeff's background as
00:22:31
well so regardless in July of 2005 once a well-respected fire chief Jeff Hall he's arrested in charge with
00:22:42
trafficking marijuana possession with intent to sell plus manufacturing a hallucinogen a few days later Brandy
00:22:51
Hall then surrenders to police on drug charges connected with her husband's marijuana oper ation this to me is a
00:23:00
little cloudy I don't have full understanding of the situation my guess here as Captain is that it was no secret
00:23:09
to Brandy what her husband was doing and what he was up to her level involve of involvement seems a little dicey to me
00:23:17
to try to sort out but what we do know is she is charged and wanted by police in relation to the charges against her
00:23:27
husband she then turns herself in to the police yeah this situation becomes cloudy with the side of Meatballs again
00:23:35
two sides of the coin law enforcement is saying she had to know what was going on
00:23:40
uh she was more involved than she claimed she is and then her story is basically I didn't know anything about
00:23:48
this so again two sides to that coin whether she knew everything or didn't know anything at all what this is going
00:23:56
to lead to is is at the end of that same year 2005 she's going to lose that job that
00:24:04
she loves so much so she loses her city of Palm Bay firefighting job okay this will require her it doesn't technically
00:24:15
require her but she wants so badly to stay in the field of firefighting that that's her dream job her dream
00:24:24
career and she just lost that because of this arrest because of her ties and her
00:24:32
husband's drug operation that he was attempting to do but because she wants to stay in in firefighting there's a
00:24:39
certain level of training there's a certain level of involvement that you want to keep if you want to continue
00:24:46
that career so very smartly she decides you know what I will go to Malibar fire department they have a volunteer fire
00:24:55
department there I'm going to go there and volunteer here so I can continue my training I can can continue working as a
00:25:02
firefighter and maybe once all this mess gets cleared up I can then resume my career as a paid firefighter with a
00:25:12
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today [Music] [Applause] all right we are back you filthy animals cheers to everybody in the front and
00:30:46
everybody in the back that's right pour me one Captain so I can cheers everybody
00:30:50
in between yeah give you a pint my friend that's right so where we left off Brandy and recently lost her job but now
00:30:58
she's volunteering for the Malibar fire department remember these two locations are practically right next door to one
00:31:07
another Palm Bay is much bigger and Malibar as we said at the time would be a population of about 3,000 people well
00:31:16
this really sucks for her because if she did not know about the dealings of her husband the Mis dealings or whatever you
00:31:24
want to call them she is facing consequences for somebody else's actions can I throw in just some pure
00:31:32
speculation here yeah I have nothing to back very little to back this up again I
00:31:38
I'm very uncertain to what her involvement was and and frankly exactly what she was charged with but we do know
00:31:45
her charges stem from ties to this air quotes drug operation and that may just be the
00:31:52
simple fact that oh her husband's running this there's no way she didn't know maybe we just charger
00:31:58
but Brandy is very involved in construction and you will see this a lot of times because of the schedule that
00:32:07
firefighters typically work a lot of them will have a part-time job or some other gig that they do to add to extra
00:32:15
income well and that's why in this case you see firefighters so connected to construction workers because when you're
00:32:22
off hey here's a job that you can do part-time and they're happy to have the extra help and there's no way that he's
00:32:30
listening to this so if somebody out there hears this I'm giving a shout out to one of my favorite bartenders of all
00:32:36
time disco Dean wherever you are cheers to you my friend disco Dean that's the nickname I gave him his you know great
00:32:44
guy he was a firefighter with Columbus great guy bad nickname for many many years and he bartended I believe just
00:32:51
one day a week at one of my favorite establishments uh so great guy shout out to him but that's just one example of a
00:32:59
firefighters who grab these part-time jobs or they work and have their own small businesses that they can run on
00:33:07
their days off because typically you'll work one on two off from my understanding because your one on is
00:33:14
24-hour shift right Brand's very involved in construction so my speculation here Captain is did they
00:33:21
have any proof that she helped to build up this land or the area where they were
00:33:28
attempting to run this this grow operation out of yeah I'm guessing that they have some phone records and then
00:33:35
they have not just phone records but text records as well so it could be a slam dunk case as far as she had some
00:33:45
text message between friends or somebody and they they know 100% that she was involved but that that information has
00:33:53
never been made public now here Captain is where we get into some soap opera Real Housewives of Malibar Florida type
00:34:01
stuff yeah it on this is the juicy details that some people juicy juicy so this is going to be February of 2006 Now
00:34:10
by this time I'm a little uncertain as to when the affair starts but as said the people that knew Brandy best seem to
00:34:20
all agree that the affair with Randall Richmond had been going on for years leading up to her disappearance so by
00:34:27
this point the affair seems to be in full go 10 years there are rumors about a heated exchange that took place out in
00:34:38
a very public setting so the rumors are that Brandy Hall and an Marie's husband Richard those rumors that are going on
00:34:49
about the two being involved this leads to a heated exchange between the two women at the grant Seafood Festival
00:34:57
it was reportedly ugly and caught in in view of a lot of people and a lot of people's attention so Reports say that
00:35:06
it started when Brandy asked Randall hey why are you wearing your wedding ring he
00:35:13
asked Brandy to lower her voice and Brandy just got louder and louder until Randall's wife and Marie she hears
00:35:23
what's going on she comes over and then there's an altercation between the two women again this was at the grant
00:35:30
Seafood Festival February of 2006 yeah see I heard it different I heard it was that Brandy asked the wife why are you
00:35:40
wearing your wedding ring because I can have your husband whenever I want to oh so no one wants to you don't want to
00:35:50
be confronted with that at the seafood festival no so that you mentioned earlier how much did did this man and
00:35:59
remember he was bry's boss at one time correct how much did his wife know about this affair I think she knew all about
00:36:08
it and obviously when Brandy goes missing and law enforcement is showing up at your door going hey we we want to
00:36:17
know where Brand's at and by the way you were the last person to talk to her he was downplaying everything of course
00:36:24
he's going to downplay everything cuz he probably told his wife multiple times it's done and over with we're not we're
00:36:30
not a thing anymore well and what's weird too is that Randall Richmond is often referred to as a friend of Jeff
00:36:39
Halls now what my speculation is Captain is what a friend they they were probably
00:36:44
one-time friends and as we just discussed a firefighter schedule Brandy works for Randall Richmond they do 24
00:36:54
hours on their overnights together you know and and there there seems to be you know we know with Brandy and Randall
00:37:02
there's a lot going on there but there's also rumors of this isn't the only Affair that's ever happened in a
00:37:09
firehouse right and and look I'm just going to play some devil's advocate here because is it possible that bry's
00:37:18
husband went well she's having this affair and I know she's having it or maybe it's on again off again maybe he's
00:37:24
not very sure of it but I would give somebody reason to go hey I got these 13 acres I'm just going to grow a little
00:37:31
pot make a little money on the side and I don't need to tell her about it cuz there's stuff in her life that she
00:37:37
hasn't told me about so this is a very messy situation it's juicy juicy part of me wonders Captain is this like a
00:37:46
midlife crisis situation for Jeff Hall recently retired maybe late at night sucking down a couple Budweisers sees
00:37:54
catches an episode or two of weeds on Showtime and decides you know what sucking on some cold ones that looks
00:38:00
like fun I'll start up a little a little marijuana operation yeah or maybe he is
00:38:05
uh a big fan of Breaking Bad or something that's right so let's get into the day in question and there's going to
00:38:12
be a lot of moving parts and pieces here so pay attention folks this is Thursday
00:38:18
August 17th 2016 and as we already said this is going to be a hot and humid day temperatures reaching about 80 9° by the
00:38:28
time that uh Brandy goes missing or his last scene it's going to be about 75 76 degrees so we'll start off at the 900
00:38:37
p.m. hour now we have Randall Richmond at this time in our timeline he is the Palm Bay fire captain at 900 p.m. he
00:38:48
calls Jeff Hall now why would he call Jeff Hall he's having an affair with Jeff Hall's wife he calls Jeff Hall
00:38:56
because again there's it's said that they were friends Jeff Hall is due in court the
00:39:06
following day yeah not to determine if he is innocent or guilty of the drug grow operation charges or not no he is
00:39:15
dueing Court to be sentenced they are going to decide how long he should be in prison for these charges well just to
00:39:22
clear this up so he was on trial and then he was released and now he's facing his sentence and so
00:39:30
by this time Jeff Hall has already pled guilty to the charges and the following day he's going
00:39:37
to be sentenced Randall Richmond calls Jeff at 900 p.m. this to lend him support so Jeff considered Randall
00:39:48
Richmond a friend and Randall is telling Jeff hey I'll be there tomorrow at your
00:39:55
sentencing hearing what they have is a bunch of character Witnesses right a bunch of people are
00:40:00
going to come forward and say Jeff Hall's a good guy I've known him for x amount of years yes he he did this one
00:40:07
bad thing he did something stupid but otherwise has live lived and led a productive life he's a he's a good
00:40:16
citizen a good civilian uh a member of the community so and so you know we see this in in every case that we cover that
00:40:24
goes to court there will be people that come forward to say either a you know Victim Impact statement this guy's
00:40:31
complete trash or B this is a good guy maybe the court can be lenient on this dude he's either trash or class Randall
00:40:40
was calling Jeff and saying hey I'll be there tomorrow at your sentencing to tell everybody the good stuff that
00:40:46
you've done and now we're going to go 45 minutes later to 9:45 this is when Brandy calls home to
00:40:54
speak with Jeff and her children this is to say good night she tells Jeff on this
00:41:01
phone call that she will see him in the morning and that she too will be at the sentencing hearing he says that they say
00:41:09
I love you and this captain from my understanding is something that Brandy Hall regularly did so she works the
00:41:20
night shift Jeff is at home with their two young kids it was very common if not every night that she worked because
00:41:30
she works overnight she works the third shift right that she would call home talk to Jeff briefly get the kids on the
00:41:40
phone tell them good night they would say their prayers together and then it's bedtime so this is something she did
00:41:46
darn near every night now just after 10 p.m. Brandy Hall is last scene we talked
00:41:54
about this in the trailer it's at 10:32 that she's seen preparing to leave the fire station yes and this is on video
00:42:02
footage so we're not guessing this right this this absolutely happened so this is
00:42:08
roughly this is roughly 1 hour after calling home talking to Jeff and the kids so Brandy decides to leave the fire
00:42:15
station surveillance footage shows her Milling around in the common area of the firehouse this is at 10:32 p.m. then at
00:42:24
10:50 p.m. another C camera picks up her truck as it leaves the firehouse parking
00:42:30
lot phone records indicate Brandy is using her next t phone so why is that important she actually has two cell
00:42:39
phones one is an AT&T phone and one is a nexttel phone which the nexttel phones if if people remember back
00:42:48
then was a combination of a mobile phone and a walkie-talkie yeah and correct me
00:42:54
if I'm wrong I'm guessing one is work rated and one is personal that I don't know the thing
00:43:02
here is she's a volunteer right so I don't know the status of those two cell phones they may
00:43:11
both be hers right and again the next Tel phones back then had that walkie-talkie
00:43:18
feature which for First Responders and and I know this from working security back then in Security operation we use
00:43:26
those Nextel phone walkie-talkie feature all the time because what was so cool about it was let's say I got a
00:43:34
supervisor or somebody we have an emergency and somebody I need to get a hold of is on vacation or at their home
00:43:43
you know I work third shift second shift first shift so you would second shift and third shift you're you may need
00:43:50
somebody that is likely not there not working at that time right and I remember one emergency that we had it
00:43:57
was really cool I could hit a button I didn't have to dial anything or nothing hit a button and it would it would beep
00:44:04
the individual I needed to get a hold of and in that case the individual was several states
00:44:10
away and within a second I hear a beep back and and I'm now walkie-talkie feature talking to that
00:44:17
individual so she is using her next hell phone at this time at 1050 she's using this next cell phone to
00:44:26
call her cell phone voicemail she's checking her own messages while she's leaving the station yeah makes sense
00:44:34
seems like a common practice right from there it's believed that she went to the
00:44:40
Sonoco Gas Station she fills up her pickup truck with diesel fuel and then she makes another
00:44:48
call so after the leaving the fire station and the this is based off of phone records so this is not in question
00:44:56
these are things that we absolutely know happen right the problem is we don't know what the conversations were we
00:45:06
don't know what the words were we don't know if it was a heated argument or a casual conversation or just a hey how
00:45:13
you doing I love you I miss you kind of situation but after leaving the fire station we know that Brandy Hall and
00:45:19
Randall richond exchanged text messages so this takes place at 10:53 p.m. 10:56 p.m. and 10:57 p.m. but also don't we
00:45:30
have him on on a call with her as well yes so they had text or spoken on the phone more than 80
00:45:39
times before Brandy leaves the fire station on the night of her disappearance okay repeat that so there
00:45:47
between text and talking on the phone 80 times in one day the information I have
00:45:52
says 80 times now that seems like a and it is a lot but but there are I've I've heard from
00:46:02
recorded conversations detectives stating that they have records saying that the two spoke or traded
00:46:11
Communications so either text or phone calls roughly about 50 times a day on average right so this is not excessive
00:46:20
but it's more than the average more than the average but not excessive considering how much communication they
00:46:26
had so according to the information I have this is based off of phone records Brandy is the one who text Randall
00:46:33
Richmond at 10:53 p.m. the problem is police have said we know that they were texting we don't know what the messages
00:46:42
were right so Brandy texts Randall Richmond at 10:53 p.m. Randall then text her back at 10:56 so 3 minutes later and
00:46:51
then again the following minute at 10:57 so 1 from Brandy Two from Randall Richmond now we go to
00:47:00
1106 p.m. August 17th 2006 Brandy Hall and Palm Bay fire captain Randle Richmond talk on the phone for 10
00:47:15
minutes and 46 seconds that is the last phone record of anyone speaking to Brandy h
00:47:26
on either of those cell phones right that she owned and I don't think it's clear or at least I don't know if it's
00:47:33
been stated again correct me if I'm wrong but do we have record of him reaching out to her after she goes
00:47:43
missing well that's what's going to become a problem for Randall Richmond is that it looks
00:47:50
like after this call he doesn't attempt to communicate with her again via text or phone call
00:47:59
because if you know somebody's missing you there's no reason to contact them because you know what happened to
00:48:08
them it's very fishy so to reiterate here Captain Brandy calls Randle Richmond she is at she's parked at the
00:48:18
Sonoco Gas Station at this time the phone call as we said is 10 minutes 46 seconds so that's from 11:06 p.m. to
00:48:29
11:17 p.m. that night right we can say that she goes missing right afterwards she's going to go missing soon
00:48:38
afterwards but I also want to be clear here as we're going through this timeline that there are some gaps they
00:48:48
might be small and who knows what could happen if anything happened at all during these
00:48:54
small little gaps but there there is some wiggle room here in the timeline that things could have happened she
00:49:00
could have stopped off somewhere and other people are just not being honest with us but from what we can see from
00:49:09
what Randall Richmond agrees to telling police from what Jeff Hall agrees to telling police and what the phone
00:49:16
records indicate and the surveillance footage from the fire station this is the best that we can piece together her
00:49:24
timeline now now this is going to take us to 11:48 p.m. this is when Jeff Hall hears from
00:49:33
his attorney that his sentencing hearing has been moved up so remember he's going
00:49:40
to be sentenced the following day again he's pled guilty so this is not a situation where he's like I'm not going
00:49:47
to prison I might not go to prison he's he's about 99.9% sure tomorrow my ass is going to
00:49:57
prison yeah and what's important I have children and I need their mother around correct well and remember Brandy
00:50:05
is supposed to be a character witness if you will at his hearing the following day right and so is Randall Richmond and
00:50:13
several other people now Jeff Hall says that at this time he is at home in bed and he's actually trying to spend as
00:50:23
much time with his young children as he can given the circumstances so he says they
00:50:29
were all lying in bed together and that they all fell asleep watching TV now what time they fell asleep I do not know
00:50:37
exactly but what we do know happens is at 11:48 p.m. his attorney calls and says hey man tomorrow your sentencing
00:50:45
hearing it's going to be a little earlier in the day than we anticipated right so he knows his wife Brandy Hall
00:50:53
is at the fire station or should be at the fire fire station working and so he attempts to get in touch with Brandy
00:51:01
because he wants to let her know hey tomorrow the sentencing hearing is earlier than expected and you're one of
00:51:08
the people I'm counting on not just to to put in a good word for me but as the captain said somebody's got to watch
00:51:13
these kids right now the kids will have school the following day because that will be a Friday but he attempts to
00:51:21
reach out to Brandy and he he's unable to get a hold of her at this time so he calls Brandy at 11:48 p.m.
00:51:31
there's no answer he then tries her next tell again and then there's no answer so
00:51:39
he tries both cell phones no answer at 11:48 now let's fill in everybody in on what Brandy's plans were so remember we
00:51:51
said that she's involved in construction so she owns a piece of equipment called a skid steer
00:52:01
now I don't know if it's I can't speak for other locations but I can say for here in Ohio Captain you and I would
00:52:10
typically look at that piece of equipment that machine and say oh that's a bobcat you know this is like a looks
00:52:17
like a a oneperson very small bulldozzer for a lack of a better term right a front loader right and it
00:52:27
technically the machine is a skid steer front loader we typically refer to them as
00:52:35
Bobcats up here because one of the biggest brands in in bestselling brands of that machine is the Bobcat brand so
00:52:46
he's got to get in touch with his wife for obvious reasons but it's much more important that he gets in touch with her
00:52:53
because he knows know Jeff knows that often times after Brandy gets done with her
00:53:00
shift she will go and either do welding early in the morning or she will operate
00:53:07
her skid steer and do some work so the plan from what he understood was that she was
00:53:17
doing a bobcat job earlier that day but due to weather conditions she decided that she was
00:53:27
going to resume some of that work the following morning and then get cleaned up and go
00:53:33
to the sentencing hearing so he wants to make sure he gets in touch with her because her first stop after work might
00:53:40
not be to come home well like you said this is very important I mean he needs her there in court he needs her also
00:53:46
there to do her motherly duties because she is going to be the only parent and he calls several times and he calls both
00:53:56
phones and no reply that is going to lead us to The Stroke of Midnight which is actually kind of a rough time right
00:54:06
here it's a roundabout time and you'll see why here in just a second but the record state that at midnight the
00:54:13
following occurred so military time I guess all zero on the clock right this is when Jasmine Campbell files a tip a
00:54:21
tip that unfortunately seems to get Mis placed for I believe one year or so okay so to give a little background
00:54:31
here Jasmine Campbell is a police officer and she is working her job that night but by this time her shift is
00:54:41
technically over but she spotted something and decided to fill out the tip form call it in what have you she
00:54:50
reports this information after her shift is over so you're never really off the clock when you are a first responder you
00:55:00
always have a job to do and so she's just doing her due diligence and she files this
00:55:08
report now what she says is that she had seen a fire Captain's vehicle parked at
00:55:16
a Hess gas station this is just moments before she saw bry's truck nearby so she knows this truck right it's a
00:55:30
dark green large 2002 Chevy Silverado and it sounds to me Captain like when she sees this truck
00:55:40
immediately she is of the idea that it's this is probably Brandy Hall's truck right okay so she sees this truck
00:55:50
sitting and it's in the back so the it's in the back of of a Home Depot so for I don't know do we have
00:55:59
Home Depot in every state in this country I think so okay so yeah it's one of those large box stores uh
00:56:06
do-it-yourself Home Improvement type stores so her truck is parked behind this business and this is obviously not
00:56:16
during the hours of operation so of course her police mind is going to be curious as to well what's going on over
00:56:24
there so she drives by to see what's up to check on the situation and she sees this truck and
00:56:32
here's what she says so she says she drove out to the back of the Home Depot where they sell trees and stuff like
00:56:40
that and she saw this big pickup truck so she goes down there she says the driver was a lady that had long blonde
00:56:49
hair and that there was another person in the vehicle with her with the driver she calls in the
00:56:58
tip and that tip includes that she had spotted previously spotted a Palm Bay Fire this is where this is where things
00:57:07
get incredibly murky there's many different sources on this case we cited two at the
00:57:15
top of the show but when I review all the sources here Captain I get kind of a different
00:57:22
detail in each one so some of the reports the sources state that Miss Campbell saw a fire chief's
00:57:35
Suburban others state that a fire Captain's vehicle right and other state of fire supervisor vehicle I don't know
00:57:45
what is true my guess here is that it's probably the fire Captain's vehicle because that seems to be the one that's
00:57:54
referenced the most but to be clear I don't think we have video footage of bry's vehicle or this fire chief or fire
00:58:04
fire vehicle however you want to describe it I don't think either one is caught on video footage correct we don't
00:58:12
have video footage all we have is this report from this officer that from my understanding
00:58:18
was uh in in some of the reporting she's on patrol at the time I believe she was
00:58:24
actually just leaving her just finished her patrol for the night and had spotted
00:58:30
this shortly after her shift had ended regardless this is what she sees right she sees a vehicle that she describes
00:58:38
that the description matches that of Brandy Halls she states that the driver was a lady who matches vaguely matches
00:58:46
Brandy Hall's description a lady that had long blonde hair now she states that there's another individual in the truck
00:58:53
with the driver she calls this in this might be just as simple as you know this vehicle's kind
00:59:02
of parked in a suspicious spot around midnight hey just in case the place gets broken into I probably should call this
00:59:10
in right but it doesn't sound like there's a whole lot of investigative work going on and maybe she didn't feel
00:59:16
in the situation that that it was necessary but it does say in the report that the fire
00:59:25
officer's vehicle was secured and there's nobody in it and the vehicles nearby this other parked vehicle where
00:59:33
we have two persons in it I don't think it's a big leap to say hey there's a chance that whoever was driving that
00:59:42
fire supervisor's vehicle might be one of the two people in this truck that's found nearby yeah I agree with you I
00:59:50
don't think that would be a giant leap yeah we're not in the business of making giant leaps here in the garage we
00:59:56
haven't done our stretches yet that's right uh but now as we stated in the trailer keep in mind all of this
01:00:03
activity that's happening this is all the night before Jeff Hall is to be sentenced for a crime that he
01:00:12
willingly admits that he is guilty of so there's no question that he's going to get some kind of punishment so all this
01:00:20
activity is leading up to the following day where Brandy is a mother of two children she's going to go missing she
01:00:30
goes missing sometime this night so now Jeff and her have two children and it looks like to me Captain all within a
01:00:38
short period of about just 12 hours two young kids are [Music] [Applause] so much more to get to join us for the
01:01:02
next episode back here in the garage and for everything True Crime Check out true
01:01:06
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01:01:13
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01:01:20
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01:01:25
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01:01:31
[Music] litter [Music]