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[Music] thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is The Music Man the host and taco connoisseur he is the
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captain it is Taco Tuesday [ __ ] it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
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a friend [Music] this week we are drinking anheuser-busch's Budweiser and American
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lager and an American Classic this may seem like an odd pick but hear me out we've been discussing The Disappearance
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of Brandon Swanson and Brandon loved the Minnesota Twins and was known to always
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be wearing a twins hat anyone that has been to a Twins baseball game knows you can grab a beer at the Budweiser roof
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deck located in the left field corner of the ballpark it's the ultimate Minnesota
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Twins Outdoor Experience it's the king of beers that's right so to all the listeners tuning in from the great state
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of Minnesota we say this bud's for you garage grade three big bottle caps and we would also like to thank and send a
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big cheers to Jill in Columbus Ohio and a big shout out to dines in Forney Texas
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next up we have a shout to Michelle and San Juan Capistrano California and a big
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shout out to Tiffany in Buford Georgia and next a big long distance cheers and big thank you to 10 M from Seattle and
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last but certainly not least we have Stevie and Bay City Michigan everybody we just mentioned went to True Crime
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garage.com and donated to this week's beer fund and for that we give you a big thanks yeah make sure after you donate
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to be calm and be patient because we're going to get to you might take a little time but when you hear you know yourself
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chill yourself chill yourself out it's going to take a little bit of time but once you hear your name you're going
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to get excited so excited that you wee in your pants and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather
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round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] we covered the details in some of the
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speculation regarding the night and early morning hours of 19 year old Brandon Swanson's last known whereabouts
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last week now we need to cover the search that ensued for Brandon after the discovery of his abandoned green Chevy
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Lumina which was found hung up in a ditch on the side of a gravel road and reminder this was approximately 20 miles
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from where Brandon thought he was the searches have been exhaustive thorough and in my humble garage opinion highly
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professional investigators brought in search dogs which started at the vehicle the dogs
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LED investigators up and down some country roads and then to a Woods by the banks of the yellow Medicine River the
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descriptions of this River are really all over the shop here Captain while the depths of the river range from anywhere
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from Just Knee Deep up to 15 feet in certain areas this particular area meaning parts of the yellow Medicine
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River within walking distance of where Brandon's vehicle was found several people have stated that this
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part of the river is much more like a creek-sized Waterway but we should also keep in mind that
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like with most waterways the yellow medicine River's depth can vary greatly depending on the time of
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year at the time Brandon disappeared it's reported that the river was flowing high and fast with spring runoff still
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impacting the flow so by most reports we are talking about a very strong current at the time
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according to sheriff vaseki quote there are two miles of the river in that area and it took six hours for deputies to
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walk it he said he personally walked the river every day for 30 Days quote at the
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time the dogs indicated and it was believed that he must have fallen in the river in that area end quote the sheriff
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then added so we searched that area on the premise that he had been washed Downstream but the dogs didn't just
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track Brandon sent to the River's Edge according to Brandon's mother Annette Swanson one Bloodhound followed a cent
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from the stranded car down a gravel road to a farm she said this was a long trail it was
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about three miles this long trail is what led to the yellow Medicine River and that says when the dog walked them
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up to the River's Edge the dog jumped in the river but then jumped back out after jumping out of the water the dog
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continued to walk following a trail up to another Gravel Road this was a road that separates Lyon and Lincoln counties
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and then at some point the dog loses the scent she says now because the dog actively jumped into and then back out
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of the river and then continued along a scent path that ended into nothingness investigators are not convinced that
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Brandon drowned in the river Sheriff viseki pointed out that had Brandon fallen into the river he should
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have been found in the river or Downstream somewhere no trace of Brandon has been found
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anywhere but if he was washed away in the yellow Medicine River you'd think that something like a you know a shoe
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his jacket anything would have been found as the river dried up later in the season this exposed more of the land
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along its banks more searches were done during this time but still again nothing
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turned up the area of the river that is in question that was searched it was searched over 50 times all with no
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results absolutely no evidence other than the dog leading them to the river that
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Brandon you know that he was ever even in the river that he drowned in the river or remains in the river to this
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day were there multiple dogs because sometimes they'll have multiple dogs and sometimes they have one dog and they do
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multiple tests with that one dog so throughout the years what gets a little difficult with in this case when
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we're reporting on it there have been so many searches and I'm certain that throughout the
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years there's probably been a search or two that only contained one dog but a lot of the stuff that I was reviewing
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they're referring to dogs plural so I believe that we're talking about multiple dogs now I don't know that
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using the searcher's words and the sheriff's words it's a little conflicting because at
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times they say the dog led us to The River's Edge and then other times they say the dogs LED investigators to the
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river so I don't know if in this exact point if it was just one dog or multiple dogs the other thing we need to keep in
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mind too is sometimes we're dealing with different kind of tracking dogs dogs that are trained to look for different
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things right you know sometimes when you're looking for search and rescue you're you're tracing a scent and other
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times they're they've actually brought in cadaver dogs dogs that are looking for human remains right
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the problem here is again captain the the yellow Medicine River I think could hold some secrets
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but the problem with that is other than the dog or the dogs leading the investigators to the river there's never
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been any other evidence that Brandon went into the river or drowned or you know and remains in the river to this
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day right but the problem is we have we have no evidence we have no evidence of a lot of things so I I do want to go
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to a comment that I saw by his mother Annette Swanson and this seems to be backed up or at
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least a shared Feeling by other family members they don't seem to be 100 convinced that Brandon drowned that
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night and then I think you have to go back to this because if in fact if you believe
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the search dog's accuracy Brandon entered and then exited the river yeah so look I want to try a little exercise
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if you will Captain this but hold on a second it's difficult because we don't know how the dog tracked let's say the
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dog jumped into the river jumped out of the river and then walked the The River's Edge for you know a quarter mile
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or whatever and then veered off into this other path that would make me believe more likely
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that he went into the river and went down the river for a time period enough for the dog to follow the scent the
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problem with some of these reports is that we don't have this great detailed reporter we don't have a video footage
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of what actually happened so to speculate too much either way you might as well pull out your crystal ball and
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and make a guess because you don't know well of course nobody knows and that's why this is a an interesting case and
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that's why it's still talked about so much to this day but okay so you say detailed description detailed report I I
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want to try a little exercise here okay and this will be quite helpful I believe
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especially to those who are either familiar with the area or for those who did look up a map of this area like we
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mentioned last week I want to go through a detailed description of the part of this search okay there's a lot of
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searches throughout the years but I want to go through this one in in very good detail here because
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again I believe with with the dog information the dog tracking information if we believe the accuracy of the dogs
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this is really one of very few pieces of possible evidence that we have to go on right so
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okay here's what we do know dogs tracked Brandon from his abandoned car remember
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his car was found in Lion Lincoln County Road one and a half miles north of Route
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68. so on the map if you're looking at it go north of Route 68 and continue North past 3 90th Street
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on my map I placed a pin on Lion Lincoln Road at the halfway mark but right between
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390th Street and 160th Avenue so we know from the conversation he had with his folks Brandon thinks he is near
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Lind and he eventually comes up with the idea to meet them Inland via him walking
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there he says he sees the town of land or the lind Town lights from his car right and
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he's going to walk towards the light so there are two things we can deduce from his statements here
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one Brandon is basically heading in a Northwest walking direction so he believes he is south east of land
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Well Northwest of Brandon's car is the town of Porter so he is very likely seeing the lights
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coming from the town of Porter so number two he thinks he is southeast of Lent so again if the dogs are right from his
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car Brandon walked half a mile south on Lyon Lincoln Road and then turned right onto
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390th Street He Walked on 390th Westbound for about a mile then he makes another right onto County Road 16
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walking northbound he walks for about a half a mile and then he decides to go off of the road
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and make a left now walking westbound on a private driveway of what has been described by at least three sources that
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I could find this is a driveway belonging to a an abandoned farm right he continues westbound for approximately
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a quarter of a mile and then veers off the driveway and continues on roughly following the course of the yellow
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Medicine River traveling Northwest well again we also have to be clear about these driveways because a lot of these
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back roads are rough right they're not not every single one is paved nicely a lot of them are gravel roads yes so you
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have to you you can't um assume at this point that that he knows if he's going on a road or a
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driveway right that'd be safe to say right and again he may not even care as long as he
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believes that he's making his way in that direction that he wants to go so now he's he's he's kind of very roughly
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following the course of the yellow Medicine River traveling Northwest but but how how much is the distance between
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the car and in the river like if you had to guess well it's difficult because there it's very
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different between where the you know how the crow flies to the route that he is taking
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because he's taking a very roundabout way of getting there he's he's going we see him going south and then he's going
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west and then he's going north and then he's going Northwest right so he's traveled a few miles once you add this
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all up but again he's he's not taking a direct cut right to where we have him now oh
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well I think this is important because we do have a little bit of a Time Gap um from when his when his father decides to
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take his mom home to come back out and we have a Time Gap and then they're back on the phone
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and and do and I know that time Gap is kind of blurry but I I think the key thing here is what
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I'm what I want to point out to everybody if they are following along on the map you can you can really see where
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about he would be based off of the information of the dogs and it's once he starts doing this this
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route that that roughly follows the yellow Medicine River there traveling Northwest this is approximately where
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the Bloodhound jumped into the river and then jumped back out now the the Handler
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as we said interpreted this Behavior as possibly indicating that Brandon might have fallen into the river at that point
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but then Brandon traveled onward walking heading North toward a gravel road it is
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here that the Trail Ends the dog or dogs lose the scent really any number of things could have happened here
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to make this Trail end the the scent vanishes he starts off in a very roundabout way of walking Northwest with
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the idea that he is walking into town this obviously regardless of what town it may actually be or what town he
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thinks he's walking into I want to point out some things here too that are kind of working against Brandon if that is
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his exact movements remember we talked about this is a route you know Route 68 would be a route that he would have
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taken from school to his house I think rather than assuming that he knows the area well I would debate that
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quite heavily I question that that off of anything off of Route 68 he may not know at all you
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know he may just take the simplest way to and from school into his house day after day after day and never
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veering off of that Route 68 which he is clearly off of at this point right and anybody that knows these country roads
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are not not exactly these country roads but country roads in general you might be able to go well I I go down
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this main path and then I head down one country road and that gets me to another
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town right and then that's your path but once you jump onto these you know other
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country roads that you're not familiar with they could take you anywhere you want to know right you know I mean so
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and again so I think there's also evidence that backs up that he doesn't know the this area so
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well because we have evidence that he's not where he thinks he is 100 we we know
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he's not where he thinks he is and and what I think is working against him here in this situation alcohol no I think
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that there are things there are indicators that to to tell him that he is where he thinks he is meaning if I if
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I'm looking around and I go oh Northwest of me there's the lights coming from right should be land oh but it's not
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land it's Porter but it's something yeah yeah it's it's an indicator to him that
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he's he's right even though he's clearly wrong and then on top of that the direction he's taking from his vehicle
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to walk into town traveling Northwest Let's Pretend he does know the area very well this would work against him even
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more because to walk into Porter he would need to cross a major road and there's a river that runs into
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Porter okay that's the Redwood I'm sorry the the North Branch of the yellow medicine river runs into Porter now if
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he were to walk Northwest into Lind again he would have to cross a major road 23 instead of 68 there's another river
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that runs that direction into the town of land that's the Redwood river right that's if he knew the area so well yeah
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if he knows this area really well he's going well still going to be confused he's going [ __ ] I'm right there's the
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town of lend I know it because here's the river backing my feelings up and here's the road that I have to cross
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backing my feelings up as well I still think he's impaired he could be he could be and I think we
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can we can debate that here in a little bit but I want to go through some of the
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decisions now I want to go through some of the search efforts here Captain but to go through all of them would be
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ridiculous if you want to to dive into that even further that stuff is available online and specifically I want
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to point out um some of the sources for our research here we have Footprints at The River's
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Edge blogspot.com that site has been raising awareness for specifically for missing
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young adult males since 2002. and then there's a really interesting thing regarding this case we have Jeff
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Hassey who has really been the one that's LED these these uh searches and there is a website the search for
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brandon.blogspot.com this website but who's this guy he he's in charge we'll get into him in a minute but okay uh one
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thing I want to point out while I'm telling people if you want to look into it yourself check out that the search
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for brandon.blogspot.com that is basically a website that reads like individual journal entries for each
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search that took place and they have journal entries listed for searches that were conducted over a three-year time
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period right so very detailed information there the areas around Brandon's car where his car was found they were
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searched using ground Searchers ATVs horses and helicopters yeah a company that we've talked about many
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many times Texas equisearch did come in to help bringing in underwater sonar devices a remote controlled plane and
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other high-tech equipment to help the search efforts and still nothing was found before you have to raise a bunch
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of money to get somebody to go up in a helicopter now with technology we can use these these drones to cover so much
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area and detail right and then by July of the year that he went missing the Lincoln County Sheriff acknowledged that
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he personally believed that Brandon Swanson was likely deceased by this time and they're still searching at this and
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this is where we have the if you review the the sheriff's statements throughout the years
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I think he's just really kind of perplexed by this whole situation because you will see statements where
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they say he can't be in the river we've searched it so many times but then here in July
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of the year that we went he went missing we have the sheriff saying we believe he's deceased and and he likely fell
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into the river yeah now within a few months after the quote-unquote official search for
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Brandon stopped which was actually about 10 days after he went missing a new private search company took over the
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search for Brandon this was and this is going to answer your question this was search rescue and Recovery resources of
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Minnesota which was headed up by a man named Jeff Hassey hassie is not your amateur civilian
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search organizer he uses scientific methods in mathematical calculations such as theoretical maximum distance
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traveled equations probability studies and statistics to come up with the search areas and likely
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scenarios besides his work for the srrmn that's that's a handful there that's what we should call the show yeah hassie
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is the founder of Midwest Technical Rescue Training Associates a non-profit organization that teaches technical
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rescue skills to Public Safety providers well they're going to do some kind of scientific and mathematic equations as
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far as you know the average human can walk a mile in in 15 minutes things like that to kind of narrow down the search a
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little more thank you Captain and I want to talk about this because we talk so much about criminal profiling on the
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show well when you think about it Jeff and his team are using similar techniques to
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try and find and rescue or return lost persons basically taking whatever evidence they have here we got the car
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descent Trail the phone call with Dad saying oh [ __ ] and then the car call drops
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they're going to take that information and layering layering that with information in statistics collected from
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previous search efforts you throw that algebra equation into a blender and boom now you have prioritized search areas
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you have a game plan one of these statistics is quite interesting hassie says and and this was
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to the independent where he said this he says quote retrospective studies based on the international search and rescue
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incident database found that in these circumstances involving abandoned vehicles the subjects were found within
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5.6 miles from the last known position this is 95 of the time this yielding a total search area of
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98.5 square miles the median distance is 1.3 miles so 5.3 square miles search area there's one
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statistic used to help prioritize the search areas and also you might use this equation as
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well the average person as you pointed out and this is what they're going to use in Brandon's situation walks one to
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three miles per hour yielding a one to three mile search ring or 3.1 to 28.3 square miles this is
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based off of he's in the car he's walking for 47 minutes while talking on the phone to his father right and then
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he says oh [ __ ] and the call drops you would use this information in regards to what you know by the
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information provided by Brandon's mother and father what time he started walking from where
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he left his car and ending with the old [ __ ] moment that's the indicator for his
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disappearance or demise if that's the thinking now I think that that's some fascinating stuff and we will get back
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into that in a bit when when we get to the theories and our thoughts but that's what they're kind of working with here
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look he points out 98 Point what did we say six square miles so roughly a hundred square miles
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that's a huge area to try to search and anybody that knows this area we're dealing with farmland
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that's difficult especially when you we're talking about when the the crops are high yeah very much so and then also
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like you said there's multiple water sources yeah yeah so you you have to use this information to
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profile where you think he may be to prioritize your search areas and your search efforts
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[Music] all right we're back cheers cheers to you captain Oh I want to give another cheers here I got a fantastic
00:27:29
message from a very long time friend of the show remember Gina private investigator down
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in Texas who helped us out with the dark past episodes yeah uh Gina Gina badass yeah regarding serial killer Felix Vale
00:27:46
so she had some kind of thing to go to at one of her children's uh schools or one of their classes she wore the band
00:27:56
the van t-shirt to the school she said that the teachers loved it and the kids were very confused
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she's hoping it's a life lesson for for I guess that class well we're gonna start uh sponsoring please police
00:28:12
departments to go into the schools just like the Dare program we're starting the
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band the van program in the van program so regarding the searches Captain there were multiple searches as we said over a
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number of years parts of the river were even drained now on the five year anniversary of
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Brandon's disappearance twincities.com discuss the scale of the search for Brandon saying more than 500
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volunteers including 34 Dog Handlers from nine different states spent more than 120 days searching for Brandon and
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covered part of 120 square miles we have Jeff Hassey who says it's by far the biggest search that he has ever been
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involved in in terms of length of time number of missions and number of Searchers involved remember he's the
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search manager a search in October of 2013 focused on the Mud Creek area this is a few miles
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Northwest of the town of Porter the cadaver dogs consistently hit on the creek leading Searchers to believe that
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the waters from wherever Brandon's body is located somewhere in the Watershed were
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possibly washing into this Creek and that's why the dogs are hitting on this area
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again in 2015 Searchers searched Farm Fields Northwest of Porter where the dogs were hitting on a cent
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this included an area that they had not been able to search for several years and this is because of harvest schedules
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and bad weather Ken Anderson president of emergency Support Services in Minneapolis who
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partnered with Jeff Hassey said Searchers concentrated on the area Northwest of Porter because search dogs
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were quote still getting the scent that says there are remains of a human in this area end quote so we're again we're
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assuming those are cadaver dogs and not scent dogs that they used before correct
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yes this is according to cadaver dogs they are hitting on areas Northwest of the town of Porter so it may be likely
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that Brandon's remains are somewhere in that area again this is a large area right and it's my understanding that
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these dogs when they hit on this scent because of winds and such they can be hitting on this
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even for miles away now another search was conducted just last year in May of 2018 and this was
00:31:02
um just another search where they really they found nothing now I do want to point out here too
00:31:09
something that I think is important to this case is that back in March of 2010 the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal
00:31:17
apprehension the BCA they became the lead investigating Agency on this case the BCA has said that the case remains
00:31:27
open and leads continue to trickle in in fact last year in 2018 Derek Woodford BCA special agent said quote the case is
00:31:38
open and just last week I got another lead or two sometimes you need a break in the case all it takes sometimes is
00:31:46
one thing so we're not giving up end quote and we talked about this a little bit on off the Record uh recently where
00:31:54
uh if if you are working a case and the trail has gone cold for you you may trade it off to another investigator you
00:32:04
may hand it off to somebody else put some new eyes on this thing to see if I missed anything and we also see
00:32:10
situations with these cases where they will hand it over to a whole nother agency
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completely and that's what happened here in 2010 March of 2010. let's start to get into some of the
00:32:26
theories here Captain there's a lot of them right because Brandon's disappearance is it's very frustrating
00:32:32
and it's mysterious he was on the phone with his dad and then he wasn't and now no trace of him has ever been found well
00:32:41
not just that I mean he says oh [ __ ] and then the phone gets disconnected right
00:32:47
right and and so the Internet is just Rife with rumors and theories about what could have happened to Brandon right
00:32:55
uh I think we it's a big topic on Reddit yeah and and there's so many so much so
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out there that we can't list all of them uh but we're going to try to go through
00:33:06
some of them yeah you could read stuff about you know possible uh abducted by aliens uh that was first on my list
00:33:13
alien or some other strange abduction or disappearance [Music] possible Sasquatch right I think I think
00:33:22
if that were to be the case it would be better recognized on some other show right yeah
00:33:30
um unless you feel different no I don't think there's any evidence of that I'm not saying I'd rule down as out as a
00:33:38
possibility on a case if if there was like some sightings that night oh well we we had 300 sightings of a UFO and
00:33:47
then this kid went missing right maybe I'd have a little more weight to it but I think sometimes in these missing
00:33:52
person case they go he was probably walking down the road and and Bigfoot got him you know or the
00:33:58
aliens took him or um the Mothman or he he went into a time portal uh you know just have some kind of evidence of this
00:34:10
you know what I thought there were a ton of theories out there I think you just added two more to to the possible
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theories but there's no evidence of those so they're not well and you know what I one sad thing well I mean this
00:34:24
this whole case is tragic and sad but when I was doing research for Brandon's case
00:34:31
our old friends thinking sideways covered the case oh yeah I brought a tear to my uh
00:34:39
I listened to the thinking sideways and and basically what they said in Brandon's case regarding alien abduction
00:34:46
this was kind of funny uh they were saying Devin Joe and Steve there was no crop circles
00:34:53
if if he were abducted by aliens there would have been crop circles and I obviously I don't know that to be true
00:34:58
but I found I found that to be funny on their show and I missed their show and I
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missed those the the those guys yeah so let's get into some of the much more likely theories
00:35:10
here's one that that is constantly in this case it says Brandon tried and and some of this is ripped straight off of
00:35:19
the internet Brandon tried some bad meth that night and had a bad reaction to drugs and or alcohol that he have he
00:35:27
consumed and he got so disoriented enough so that he got totally lost [Music] well we know he was lost we have
00:35:36
evidence of that phone gets disconnected he says oh [ __ ] maybe the old [ __ ] isn't that big of a
00:35:47
deal he keeps walking he goes further he gets even more lost that's a possibility I think the
00:35:55
difficult thing here is I I don't think he'd be so impaired or so unhealthy that by the time
00:36:06
um and yes this is a rural area but by the time that the the sun would come up up I would think that Brandon would get
00:36:15
to a road and at least see somebody um passing by and possibly could get help so that's the only reason that's
00:36:25
the only problem I have with this Theory you know in this theory in itself almost
00:36:30
seems cut and pasted from Brandon Lawson's case right Brandon same first name tried some bad meth that night
00:36:40
that's a theory in both of those cases and what I want to just like scream from from the top of the mountain is
00:36:47
this shouldn't be any news flash for anybody it's all bad math yeah there is there is no good math all
00:36:54
right just don't do meth that's what we should call our band good math well here's all right ban the van
00:37:01
campaign was uh was this year maybe next year's campaign is don't do math bad math right so again this is ripped
00:37:13
straight off of the internet um it's total speculation but here's some things here it's been thrown
00:37:20
out there that Brandon maybe tried drugs that night possibly meth and then behaved just as Brandon Lawson did
00:37:28
disoriented and Confused possibly even seeing things now we referenced a pipe that was found in Brandon Swanson's car
00:37:39
the pipe found in his car is of Unknown Origin these are the words of sheriff doll that I hope I'm saying that right
00:37:46
it's d-a-h-l he said that it is not known whether the pipe even belonged to Brandon police in my opinion must not
00:37:54
have given it much weight because they have publicly stated that they do not believe that Brandon was impaired that
00:38:02
night the problem here though meth is a real possibility apparently this area of
00:38:09
Minnesota is so it's no stranger to meth troubles in fact the Minnesota Bureau of
00:38:15
Criminal apprehension website contains two options for Public Access One search public criminal history
00:38:23
the other one is search methamphetamine offender registry it's there's so much of it that they
00:38:31
have to give a whole category to it on its website so clearly there there is a problem in that area
00:38:38
well it's 2018 there's a problem in this whole country so correct so yeah we don't have to worry about that that's
00:38:45
that's a possibility uh and again you could have done something um at one of these parties because we
00:38:51
assumed that he went to two different parties so there's two different accounts of possibly where he was at and
00:38:57
is in you know and his partiness of his his level of partiness that that night but we have a situation where he's a
00:39:06
little lost he's a little confused tries to call some of his friends they don't answer
00:39:12
I think if he is on something he wasn't so messed up that he wasn't afraid to call his parents right
00:39:20
or so messed up that that there's no there's nobody inside there's nobody involved in this case that is
00:39:27
saying we believe he was so messed up that that's what led to his demise yeah and
00:39:33
think about the everybody on the outside is going uh he probably just did some meth and
00:39:38
ended up hallucinating but we have the father we have the mother we have the sheriff we have friends none of none of
00:39:45
them are going yeah he was so effed up that that he ended up God knows where and we can get into that right now
00:39:52
because like I said we have these two accounts of these parties yes maybe the first 60 days or so or or
00:40:01
maybe even less than that but what was he drinking not really for sure uh I don't think he was drinking too
00:40:08
much maybe he didn't want to get him trouble maybe he smoked some weed maybe they did some more than that I think if
00:40:15
they would have done more than that as time uh would have went on I think his friends would have came out and said you
00:40:22
know what uh we didn't want to get him in trouble at first but it's important for us to let you know that he he's he
00:40:29
smoked meth that night right right uh that has not happened uh and then I think the other thing that has not
00:40:36
happened is with the brand and Lawson case for example we have a 9-1-1 call that makes
00:40:42
zero sense right and that P and we have a um we have a situation here with Brandon
00:40:49
Swanson where he's talking not only to his father but also to his mother and both of them are saying that he sounded
00:40:57
fine right now he now that could be he sounded fine for um it being that late at night and being
00:41:05
a little confused on where he was at but I don't think there's really any any indication that he was on some psychotic
00:41:15
um well that he's hallucinating and he's totally off his rocker here right it's not like he's because he talked to his
00:41:21
father for 47 minutes that's after other phone calls with his mom and dad right 47 minutes that's a tough time to try to
00:41:29
play the sober game right and look I think you and I could agree that he's probably somewhat impaired I mean it's
00:41:36
late at night we know he's had a couple of drinks but right the the thing I want
00:41:42
to really point out here I would say and I'm just going to put this out there I would say he's as impaired from the
00:41:49
alcohol as he is from uh just being tired and well and here's one thing that I want to I want to really go into and
00:41:58
maybe not stay on it too long but one thing that I really looked at when looking at this case was okay I go into
00:42:05
a lot of these with with the idea that there may be Foul Play so let's at least look at that
00:42:13
angle okay if there was Foul Play who had the means and the opportunity to be involved in that Foul Play
00:42:20
well in this situation we have Mom and Dad who are saying they spoke to this boy their their boy shortly before he
00:42:29
vanished forever so one thing I did and I apologize to the family but when I went into this
00:42:35
case looking into it I wanted to know as much as I could find out about Mom and Dad and their search efforts and what
00:42:42
took place the night that he went missing and and since then regarding Mom and Dad yeah I mean but that that's what
00:42:49
you have to do right and what I can tell you from from what I've spent two weeks
00:42:54
on looking at Mom and Dad I can tell you they only have one agenda in this entire
00:42:59
huge story and that is to find their son they have at no point I don't I've never
00:43:05
got the feeling at any point that these are parents that are going well yeah he was really messed up but we don't want
00:43:12
the memory of Brandon to be that we want the memory of him to be good and wholesome no no no
00:43:19
I'm telling you his parents the vibe I get captain is that if whatever would help them find their son they will say
00:43:27
it they will do it right they don't care about public opinion these people have spent years they've spent time they've
00:43:34
spent money lots of money some of these searches were volunteers and a lot of this stuff they they spent their own
00:43:42
hard-earned money trying to find their son and we all know somebody that has struggled with addiction of
00:43:52
some level and you know their parents and most of the time those parents do not shy away from their kids problems so
00:44:00
I don't think it's like you said you're going to have these overly concerned parents on trying to find their kid but
00:44:07
they're not willing to tell the truth it just doesn't make a lot of sense right and the other thing too which is you
00:44:14
know people compare this case to Brandon Lawson but they also the the meth Believers or the people that state that
00:44:22
he did some bad drugs on this night they often point to the case of Michael Wamsley and Janelle hornickel this was
00:44:32
this was a very famous case in Nebraska the two were very high on meth again all meth is bad
00:44:39
meth they suffered delusions and they were calling 9-1-1 multiple times reporting that their truck was
00:44:47
stuck in some snow they ended up freezing to death just within two miles of their truck
00:44:55
again though this kind of points back to me that Mom and Dad don't think he's messed up
00:45:01
the sheriff doesn't think that he's messed up the friends don't think that Brandon's messed up and what happened in
00:45:06
this other case that everybody keeps pointing to they found the bodies they don't find Brandon we don't know
00:45:13
where Brandon Swanson is I have an issue though with with the whole car thing and again I don't know
00:45:19
the road that well and so getting to the point where your car is stuck that that concerns me and again I think
00:45:28
that leads to being impaired somewhat with um just tiredness and then also being
00:45:34
somewhat impaired by the the alcohol maybe enough to just go uh I don't I can't get out of this mess right now so
00:45:42
I gotta I gotta start walking take it off on foot um but again I don't know the road that
00:45:50
well so it could be just you know happenstance where here's this kid that wanted to turn around or went to do
00:45:57
something with his car and it just so happened to be the wrong place to do that at and that even even if you're
00:46:04
sober you're gonna get hung up on it yes I I would think so in looking at pictures that I found
00:46:11
of the site and of the area that's what it looks like to me that okay so these are these are long Country Roads where
00:46:19
there's not much turn off you know there's not like a spot where you're like oh I'll just pull in here and back
00:46:23
out and turn around right this is the and especially not a lot not a lot of houses on these on these roads and
00:46:30
especially think of think of yourselves out there right okay we've all been in a
00:46:36
situation where I'm handsome where we're frustrated where we might be in a hurry
00:46:41
or we're lost or turned around or whatever and we're frustrated and and we do something out of haste that in the
00:46:48
end we realized was just a dumb stupid move right and the thing that I think here is looking at these pictures it
00:46:56
appears to me there's not any turn offs and he's like you know what I gotta turn
00:46:59
around I think he just made a bad turn I think I think there's ditches on both sides of this road
00:47:06
and maybe a little pissed off so he he was a little too aggressive yeah it's a narrow road and I think he thought he
00:47:13
could make the turn but he didn't and also if your drive is taking a little bit longer or that it's such a frustrating
00:47:22
thing to to be going am I going the right way what the hell is going on like you said that that maybe just a little
00:47:29
too aggressive and and that stops you from um being able to drive your car we're rolling
00:47:40
another theory Captain is that Brandon could have been hit by a car many people like this Theory and believe that
00:47:48
possibly the oh [ __ ] that he uttered was in response to an approaching vehicle
00:47:55
for this to be the case obviously whoever hit Brandon had to take his body and the body was taken away to hide
00:48:03
after this accidental death okay so the the reason why I like this is that we have evidence that the dog
00:48:12
goes to the river gets gets out of the river goes down another path kind of in um
00:48:18
ends its search or ends the scent kind of in the road so that would make you lead you know that's evidence to
00:48:26
show that this Theory makes some sense correct I you know I've heard this I found this to be quite strange
00:48:34
some of the Searchers were saying you know the the dogs can only follow the scent for so long
00:48:41
yeah I believe that I believe that too but I don't fully comprehend it and and what I'm getting at is so so
00:48:49
what they're pointing out is that at this spot on the road where the dog lose the scent or the dogs lose the scent
00:48:56
right is because they've been following it for so long they they point out that that doesn't actually mean that the
00:49:03
scent went away or right right that they the brand that something happened to Brandon in that spot the problem with
00:49:10
with look there are several holes in this Theory I like this Theory too at first but when I really started thinking
00:49:18
about it I I I I distance myself from this Theory because because of the holes one
00:49:24
if something happened to Brandon at that spot it's not like they can't find that
00:49:28
spot they were led to that spot by the dogs there should be some you would think there would be some indication
00:49:34
that something happened there possibly blood or or anything else right and we know like let's just we can assume that
00:49:42
these people search and go okay well here's roughly where the scent stops we're gonna look you know before that
00:49:48
and after that again we have no blood evidence we have no we also have no evidence of him telling
00:49:56
his father oh there's this car coming up on me there's none of that there's that's
00:50:01
where that's where the theory falls apart okay he's saying to his father just before he says oh [ __ ] he's
00:50:08
describing that he's walking along a fence line that he's off of the road he's going through a field
00:50:14
and that he can hear water so this doesn't sound like an area that you're going that a car would be
00:50:23
driving through the car would be on the road if this was it was an accident this
00:50:27
car is not driving in the middle of the field this is between driving on top of a fence right so so if if that in fact
00:50:35
is true then that part that makes the theory impossible now let's pretend go back to what you were saying let's
00:50:43
pretend that Brandon was walking on the road uh if here's the problem with that his father is driving around looking for
00:50:55
him there is no way in hell that Brandon does not say to his father oh I see you
00:51:02
you just turned I'm right up here do you see me I see your headlights he would if
00:51:06
he saw a car he would very likely assume it to be his father first or even if he
00:51:12
didn't assume it to be his father he would say wait there's somebody coming or he would these are these are things
00:51:18
he would say to his father we could have evidence of that the same scenario is that we have evidence that he's telling
00:51:25
his father I'm walking along this fence line I hear water oh [ __ ] and maybe that
00:51:31
old [ __ ] is I fell into water I get out of the water I keep going down the path
00:51:36
I'm not on the phone with my father that's where I get hit by a car that's a that's very likely too the
00:51:43
reason why I don't like this series we have no evidence of Tire Treads no like uh sign of a vehicle trying to stop uh
00:51:52
no sign of a vehicle trying to speed up um no blood evidence and this would be dark so yeah to be
00:52:02
able to clean up that blood evidence uh would be nearly impossible the other thing I don't like is we know that he
00:52:09
had a cell phone on him we don't have you know a broken cell phone somewhere well and some people
00:52:15
regarding this Theory even point out what would be the probability that if you hit a total stranger in the
00:52:23
middle of the night of on an accident that that you even decide to take the body with you and clean up the the scene
00:52:29
right you would just drive away right A lot of people point out that that there is a certain percentage that would just
00:52:35
continue along their way so I it's an interesting Theory to ponder but I I put the probability level
00:52:43
not very high because yeah right right no evidence as an armchair detective or even just a law enforcement has to put
00:52:52
this on the list of things that we have to dive into and rabbit holes we need to
00:52:57
go down it's with any missing person in case when we have nothing at the end of the day you have to go did this person
00:53:03
run away did this uh did this you know did this person want to start a new life these are questions that we have to keep
00:53:10
asking ourselves over and over and and I think this is an important question to ask I think that there's just zero
00:53:17
evidence of this the other another theory is that Brandon met with Foul Play now this Theory encompasses
00:53:25
several possibilities but but most likely two possibilities one Brandon fell victim to a random killer or that
00:53:34
someone who knew him followed him and there was some type of Confrontation or Ambush and Brandon was killed
00:53:42
let's address these intern okay first the random killer this theory is that Brandon was unlucky enough to stumble
00:53:51
upon a opportunistic killer who murdered him and disposed of his body we have to consider what are the chances
00:53:59
that Brandon would encounter some random psycho killer in rural Minnesota on farmland and unused roads in the middle
00:54:08
of the night right this is remote desolate area with rugged terrain at three in the morning
00:54:16
now an offshoot of this theory of the random killer Theory is that and this is probably well
00:54:23
definitely more plausible in my opinion is that Brandon was on private land and maybe stumbled upon
00:54:30
a pissed off farmer yeah someone shot and killed him and hit his body right or this is an area that you shouldn't be
00:54:38
out in it's like it's like my neighborhood right at three o'clock in the morning I know
00:54:45
all my neighbors you shouldn't be driving down my road right yeah it's it's not good so in this
00:54:52
case you got a kid that's lost maybe the farmer doesn't know he's lost but you're
00:54:58
on my property if you're on my property at this time uh of the day I think you're a bad person it's nothing but bad
00:55:06
right so therefore uh you know you're gonna be met with my shotgun right the farmer
00:55:13
doesn't have to be a psycho the the farmer might be scared and assume that you are a psycho you're you're outside
00:55:20
of my house creeping around in the middle of the night now the the thing here is this this is a another offshoot
00:55:29
of this theory that I have seen um very rarely discussed so I do want to point this out as well this is an
00:55:36
interesting one that possibly Brandon fell into an illegal booby trap intended for poachers or for thieves or for you
00:55:44
know any number of reasons right and then eventually was was killed trapped there or was killed by the person that
00:55:52
set the Trap yeah again you would think a illegal booby trap I I don't know how that works well booty
00:56:05
track yeah what the what they're said what this is suggesting is that somebody has
00:56:11
set some type of traps on their property these could be for animals they could be
00:56:16
for against people anything um it's I wouldn't throw it out of the realm of possibility it does lead to the
00:56:25
idea of why they've not found any evidence because this Theory would suggest that somebody then later covered
00:56:33
up whatever took place yeah but again it doesn't have to be illegal it could be you know if somebody's coming through
00:56:42
this field it's nothing but bad right um so he gets hurt by one of these things they go out there they go again
00:56:50
the only reason why you'd be out here is bad they take care of uh Brandon they kill Brandon and then find out later it
00:56:57
was just a lost kid and then right and you have to be kind of psycho to to come up with those uh
00:57:05
to want to do that the other thought here Captain is Hunters maybe somebody's out there
00:57:13
hunting either the season yeah we talked about on boys of boys on the tracks they're out spotting for animals so yeah
00:57:23
but you should know that this I mean if it's accidental shooting you should know
00:57:28
it's not an animal because this person was talking to somebody on the phone see that's where I I think an intruder
00:57:36
thought uh you know like protecting your land makes a little more sense because you you would hear this kid talking and
00:57:43
so maybe you would start assuming that he's talking to somebody else that's with him which would get you you'd raise
00:57:52
um your suspicion's a lot higher you know I do want to go back to the idea that maybe this wasn't a stranger that it
00:58:03
wasn't that there was Foul Play but the offender is not a stranger because we really should address that there are
00:58:12
several message boards online containing posts where they're talking about local rumors
00:58:17
regarding what took place in this case and people suggesting that Brandon either owed some people money for
00:58:24
vehicles or drugs it varies depending on the post that you see and that he was actually targeted and killed as a result
00:58:33
of these debts yeah it's an interesting Theory and an interesting rumor but do we have evidence that he owed anybody
00:58:41
money other than those rumors now there doesn't seem to be anything that's backing that up and again what's
00:58:48
confusing about those rumors and why I think they may just be rumors is they're citing two different things
00:58:56
that he has a debt for right right it's not like you know in some of the posters
00:59:02
stating that he had a debt because of drugs other posts are stating he had a debt because of vehicles
00:59:09
I think the vehicle thing would be if there was any truth to that it seems like Mom and Dad would be like yeah you
00:59:15
always have some different vehicles and all these strange trucks and cars and whatnot so and the other problem with
00:59:22
that too is if you in fact believe that he's he's going oh [ __ ] because he sees
00:59:28
somebody that he's afraid of then you have to believe why wouldn't he say anything to his father about seeing
00:59:36
headlights seeing a vehicle coming toward him that did not take place so again that doesn't
00:59:42
it makes it not ring true I don't think either of those rumors are true I think it's just people trying to come up with
00:59:48
some rationale of what happened and and even if he could prove that he owed somebody you know bought a little weed
00:59:55
from somebody and owed him 20 bucks or something like that I don't think there's any evidence of Brandon you know
01:00:01
being a hardcore drug user uh but again quite a bit of debt before somebody wants to kill you yeah so not if you're
01:00:11
buying from the captain you owe me 10 bucks that's 10 bucks I'm coming after you
01:00:18
um no I just don't think there's a lot of evidence of that and again like how how much money would you have to owe
01:00:24
somebody on a car it seems like it's almost like somebody came up with this idea and yes it's possible but it's
01:00:31
also possible that you owe somebody money you you owe your buddy a thousand bucks
01:00:36
and he didn't come after you and and you just happened to go missing well there are two things that I believe
01:00:43
do tend to point to Brandon being the victim of Foul Play one Brandon is listed in VI cap as a
01:00:53
missing person as we brought up in episode 1 vicap stands for the violent criminal apprehension program
01:01:00
there is not a long list of missing persons on vicap last time I checked vicap there were 64 missing
01:01:11
persons listed on there and what people will point to in this case is that they believe that there is
01:01:20
a reason why he would be on there on this short list right meaning that someone whoever put him on there believes that
01:01:31
violence was involved in his disappearance people point to this because they wonder
01:01:36
if the FBI in fact has reason to believe that Brandon was the victim of a violent
01:01:41
crime the other thing regarding this too is that the vi cap entry for Brandon contains one interesting tidbit of
01:01:51
information that we did mention earlier his vehicle the Chevy Lumina was found with the doors open and the keys missing
01:02:00
we can presume that Brandon took his keys but then why would he leave the doors open that seems very strange to me
01:02:09
was somebody else actually in the vehicle or did someone come along later perhaps the following day and open up
01:02:16
the car you know looking for things to steal or or for whatever reason we also have Sheriff vaseki who
01:02:25
definitely considered and left open the possibility of Foul Play saying quote the only thing would have been if
01:02:32
someone was in the shadows and they got him that way he said he said he can't say that there wasn't
01:02:40
someone else out there but adding that he can't find any evidence of it stating that cadaver dogs and Searchers he
01:02:47
explained should have found a body or some evidence if Swanson had succumbed to the elements
01:02:54
adding I can't explain why clothing belongings wouldn't Surface after all these searches and after all this time
01:03:02
now in episode three Captain we will tear through some of these theories get into some more
01:03:08
but before we go I want to leave you with Brandon's mother Annette Swanson what she told the Saint Cloud Times she
01:03:17
said her greatest fear is that people will forget Brandon she says talk about Brandon Brandon is a real person he
01:03:25
touched a lot of lives and don't forget him he has a smile that lights up his whole face
01:03:31
he is big-hearted and kind and he really believed in doing the right thing [Music]
01:03:49
so much more to get to stick around for part three tomorrow in the garage thanks
01:03:55
for listening thanks for telling your mother thanks for telling your brother thanks for telling your sister thanks
01:04:01
for sharing on social media all right and everybody make sure you be good be kind and don't live
01:04:13
thank you [Music]