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[Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:45
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always from behind the glass he's a modern-day warrior with a mean
00:01:51
mean stride he is the captain all right slap in the base play the base big time Big Time man it's good to be seen and
00:01:59
it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend today we are drinking hazy Jane
00:02:12
by well I was going to say our friends but the truth of the matter is we are in love with them hazy Jane is by the king
00:02:20
of craft beers and that of course is Brew dog in Scotland and of course from right here in Ohio as well garage grade
00:02:28
four out of five bottle caps hazy Jane is a juicy Vermont style IPA that features pineapple stone fruit mango and
00:02:37
hints of lime peel and just like the both of us here in the garage it's full bodied baby and today's beer was brought
00:02:43
to us and to you by these Great Garage guys and gals right here first up super cheers to our boy Doc Holiday that's
00:02:51
right the outlaw Doc Holiday up in Pal Ohio and a big shout out to Mindy in Green Bay Wisconsin and here's some more
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of our friends we have Kirsten and her good friend Taylor D in St John Canada now big we like your trip to Ferguson in
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Toronto let's give it cheers to Brian in Bloomington Illinois and last but certainly not least we have armchair
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detective Kathy all the way over in Melbourne Australia everybody we just mentioned went to our website true Crim
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garage.com and they contributed to this week's beer fund and for that we thank you and you are super super awesome well
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it's pronounced melbin the born is silent as you're over at True Crime garage.com make sure you check out the
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store Page make sure you check out the blog and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a
00:03:43
chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] according to fbi.gov
00:04:27
vicap stands for the violent criminal apprehension program this database maintains the largest investigative
00:04:36
repository of major violent crime cases in the US it is designed to collect and analyze information about homicides
00:04:45
sexual assaults missing persons and other violent crimes involving unidentified human remains this week we
00:04:53
are reviewing a missing person's case listed on the vicap page Brandon Victor Swanson was last seen on May 14th 2008
00:05:05
in Canby Minnesota his car a green Chevy Lumina was found abandoned near Taunton
00:05:13
Minnesota according to the FBI's website the vehicle was in a ditch with the doors open and the keys missing at the
00:05:21
time of his disappearance Brandon was just 19 years old he is Caucasian 5' 5 in to 5' 6 in
00:05:31
tall and approximately 120 to 130 lb with brown hair and blue eyes he was last seen wearing baggy blue jeans a Blu
00:05:41
striped polo shirt a black hooded zip front sweatshirt with emblem on back a white Minnesota Twins baseball cap
00:05:50
glasses and his sterling silver chain he was carrying a black Motorola slvr cell phone his wallet with
00:06:00
identification and his keys if you have any information regarding Brandon Swanson's whereabouts or the
00:06:07
circumstances of his disappearance please call the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal apprehension at
00:06:15
651 793 7000 or call the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office at 507 6941 1664 this this true crime
00:06:33
[Music] garage May 13th 2008 Brandon Victor Swanson age 19 he just finished his last
00:06:51
class of his one-year program of study at Minnesota West Community and Technical College in Canby Minnesota
00:06:59
Brandon was studying wind energy and he was already enrolled in a second Technical School in Iowa this was going
00:07:06
to start in August of 2008 after that he planned to transfer to a 4-year college
00:07:12
to get his degree in science so after a year of hard work it's miday school's out for the summer it's time to go out
00:07:20
meet up with some friends and have a lot of fun and that's just what the plan was
00:07:24
for Brandon on the night of May 13th now before we get into the detail of that night let's review a little background
00:07:33
information about Brandon Brandon was born January 30th 1989 he lived with his parents Brian and
00:07:41
Annette and his younger sister they lived in Marshall Minnesota a town in Lion County the population at the time
00:07:49
was about 13,500 Brandon was close with his family they describe him as a sweet good kid
00:07:58
who loved to read and debating he was very intelligent and he liked to read and Ponder complicated topics like
00:08:05
string theory Brandon worked at a local grocery store for four years the last two years working in the bakery so not
00:08:15
just a smart kid but seems like quite a reliable young man as well yeah and Brandon was similar to you uh cuz he's
00:08:22
dedicated to the environment particularly renewable resources mhm and he loved politics history and music he
00:08:30
also loved the Minnesota Twins Brandon was not a big dude he was just about 5'5 5' 6 in tall and only about 125 lbs and
00:08:41
one thing that may be quite important as we move through this Brandon wore glasses and he was legally blind in his
00:08:48
left eye on the night he went out and didn't come home he was wearing baggy blue jeans a blue striped Polo
00:08:55
sweatshirt over a white T-shirt a black Zip front Jack jacket a white Minnesota Twins baseball hat he tended to wear
00:09:03
this hat sideways mhm and he wore his white sneakers as well now I point that out again Captain because even though
00:09:11
it's going to get quite chilly that night he was wearing fairly warm clothing right he had a one stud earring
00:09:20
in each ear and his wire rimmed glasses on now with him he had his black Motorola SL VR cell phone as always he
00:09:29
drove his green Chevy Lumina that evening he left his parents place around 6:00 p.m. Brandon went to a graduation
00:09:38
party in Lind Lind is a small town near Marshall so not far from where Brandon lives in fact Lynn is just about an
00:09:47
11-minute Drive Southwest down Route 23 from Marshall this graduation party was really just a small gathering of only
00:09:57
five or so people right these are all people that Brandon was friends with from school and to be clear it sounds to
00:10:04
me like these were all high school buddies remember Brandon's only 19 so just having graduated from Marshall High
00:10:12
School just the year earlier at the small party Brandon was drinking this is not in question what is
00:10:20
the question is how much as the general report from all leaves us with this broad statement that he was said to have
00:10:28
consumed an unknown amount of alcohol but he was not overly intoxicated according to the people who were at this
00:10:35
party well think about how many parties you've been to if I ask you how many beers your buddy was on would you know
00:10:42
how many beers he drank no only if I had like some extreme indicator right like if somebody shows up with a six-pack and
00:10:50
then there's none of that beer left right then you're like well he probably had six when you're hanging out and
00:10:55
you're you're really you're catching up with your buddies there's a lot of talking going on there's multiple people
00:11:01
there you're not really counting anybody's drinks one and then on top of that too everybody knows this you you're
00:11:08
not really checking the time either you know so there's there's a lot that you're not really keeping up on because
00:11:14
of the conversations and stuff like that however if these people knew him for a fair amount of time I think that they
00:11:21
would reasonably be able to judge if he was drunk or not right right now of course there's varying degrees of being
00:11:31
buzzed but Brandon left this Gathering alone around 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. from there he drove to another friend's party
00:11:42
this was like a house party this for the purpose of saying goodbye to one of his
00:11:46
former classmates now I do not know exactly who this person is but the party was in cani where Minnesota West
00:11:55
Community and Technical College is located so brand Brandon is quite familiar with this area the party was
00:12:03
attended by other college kids who were friends with Brandon here Brandon was noted to have one shot of whiskey he
00:12:11
left this party alone and was going to head home back to his parents place in Marshall sometime between midnight and
00:12:18
1:30 now th this seems like a huge window of time reports very wildly I want to bring this up because I I don't
00:12:26
know how important this is later so much so because we have some time accounted for Brandon's whereabouts later right I
00:12:34
think the thing in question here is depending on what time he left means there could be some unaccounted time mhm
00:12:43
the reason why these reports vary as as we just mentioned you're not really counting people's drinks you're not
00:12:48
really counting the time looking at your clock looking at your watch they said that he had one shot of whiskey I don't
00:12:55
know if he consumed any other alcohol at the time but that is what the general report is see I don't remember what they
00:13:02
said about the first party if he was just drinking beer or if possibly he was drinking a mixed drink because I did
00:13:09
hear on several accounts that he was drinking like like a Roman Coke or you know whiskey and Coke so you just go was
00:13:20
he do doing that at the first party or at the second party sounds more likely that he would do it at the second party
00:13:25
if if they said well we know he had a shot of whiskey and me and some others we found reports that state that he left
00:13:32
as early as midnight and some reports that left as late as 1:30 in the morning yeah again normally we would take
00:13:39
umbrage with that statement it wouldn't fly here in the garage but this time we're going to let it fly because we
00:13:45
have a lot to get to and because of the details that we have not got to yet it will be clear that the exact time that
00:13:53
Brandon left the party while in dispute may not be so important all right let's get into the geography of this whole
00:14:01
situation this is super important to this case the last party Brandon attends the night in question is in Canby this
00:14:09
is about 30 miles from his hometown of Marshall it's a 30 to 35 minute drive that is a straight diagonal shot along a
00:14:18
two-lane road which is Route 68 Route 68 is a highway that runs between cani and
00:14:26
Marshall in cani you hop on rout 68 heading Southeast and you will go straight to
00:14:33
Marshall this drive should have taken him no more than 30 to 35 minutes assuming he took the most direct route
00:14:43
Highway 68 which connects the Two Towns Brandon drove this route daily for the entire school year and again would have
00:14:52
been very familiar with this but for some reason that we can only speculate Brandon does not appear to have taken
00:15:01
the highway to get home he took a different route yeah I believe he took the back roads because he had been
00:15:07
drinking at least a little bit so I found some reports that state that Brandon had a
00:15:14
DUI in the past and that he had successfully completed a Year's probation because of the charge so what
00:15:23
we do know is Brandon was under the legal drinking age on this night he's only 19 years old right and we do know
00:15:31
again it's not in question if he had been drinking or not the question was how much had he been drinking right
00:15:38
regardless of how much all reports say that he did consume some alcohol that night so if he were concerned about
00:15:45
maybe a DUI checkpoint on something like Highway 68 or getting on or off of Highway 68 well again this take Highway
00:15:55
68 we have different roads different highways different uh interstates that you don't want to travel on because
00:16:04
they're notorious for just pulling people over in general so maybe that's the case here yeah he he wants to fly
00:16:12
under the radar so to speak he wants to take a Less Direct less populated route to get home that's all we can assume by
00:16:20
what we know that was going on that night we can't say exactly what occurred between the time that Brandon left the
00:16:27
party in cambi and then the next known contact with him reports are that during this time frame Brandon tried to contact
00:16:36
two or three of his friends by phone but he couldn't reach them so at 1:54 a.m. so this is technically now May 14th
00:16:47
Brandon called his parents he told them he got his car stuck in a ditch he was okay though this ditch was as he said on
00:16:56
a gravel road just off of Highway 23 this is the road that runs between Lind the town where he went to the first
00:17:04
party and Marshall where he lived according to Brandon he was somewhere between Marshall and Lind just off the
00:17:13
highway now as we said it wouldn't make much sense for Brandon to be between Marshall and ly if he were coming from a
00:17:21
party in Canby cambi is a straight shot to Marshall down Route 68 Lind is out of
00:17:28
the way and not a Route 68 at all but we believe that Brandon was intending to take back roads as the captain said
00:17:36
avoiding the highway and it's possible he could have been deliberately off of Route 68 now you said that he tried to
00:17:43
call some of his friends do we know the sex of those friends were they just all male friends do we have any contact of
00:17:51
female friends no and and here's here's my actual belief here as far as gender goes
00:17:59
I believe that it's possible that those phone calls were not made while he was traveling or before he chose his
00:18:07
destination as home part of me wonders if he got his vehicle stuck in that ditch right called his tried to call
00:18:15
friends before calling Mom and Dad and admitting hey I got the car stuck you've been drinking a little bit so there's
00:18:22
that fear that they come to help you and at least smell something on your breath
00:18:26
and then after having the DUI then the repercussions of that right right and yeah it could just be a whole bad
00:18:33
situation for him if he's able to get a hold of somebody else instead he's an adult maybe he could find somewhere
00:18:39
somebody to pick him up at least well the location just seems funny to me that's why I wondered if there was any
00:18:44
contact that he had with a a female that he was going to like meet up after the party yeah I don't know what the what
00:18:51
the nature of that call those the intent of those calls were right because he never connected with them but I agree
00:18:58
with you it's it's kind of fair to say chances are he he um got stuck in this ditch called his friends for help before
00:19:06
he called his parents especially and I don't want to hang on this too long Captain but but keep in mind where he
00:19:12
says that he is with the car stuck in the ditch he says he's he's near the town of Lind
00:19:20
well he was at a party just earlier that night with high school buddies so maybe
00:19:24
he thought it'd be very easy very convenient for somebody near him to come and offer some type of assistance right
00:19:31
the major major problem here is it's not where he was where wherever he believed
00:19:37
that he was is not really even close to his actual location right and this is where it gets confusing for me in this
00:19:45
case because the claim is that Brandon knew his whereabouts and knew these roads well yeah yes he did it he may
00:19:53
have had some things working against him though uh if you look at a if you look at lion County Minnesota on Google Maps
00:20:02
first you'll see that it's incredibly rural flat and the roads are almost laid out in a gridlike pattern so basically
00:20:10
the Farmland is broken up into squares by Country Roads named things like 150th Avenue 300th Street for example
00:20:19
basically everything looks the same the CR really clever names the yeah the crops are high there is virtually
00:20:25
nothing delineating one area from the next next and the Street and Avenue names are all confusing cuz they're
00:20:32
they're just numbers right the landscape is dotted with streams ponds and lots of
00:20:37
drainage ditches serving the agricultural Fields now on the night of the 13th 14th it was dark the moon was
00:20:46
only half full we also have the situation of Brandon had been drinking and was possibly even fatigued at this
00:20:53
late hour and he's blind in one eye right all this simply is to say that that Brandon might have been confused
00:21:01
about where he was he left a party and then he called his parents at4 a.m let's just bring into the question that this
00:21:09
could be evidence of how intoxicated he might have been well and the thing too is having called his parents at 1:54
00:21:17
a.m. in the interim even though we don't know what time he left we know that Brandon had not actually traveled nearly
00:21:25
as far as he thought or at least he didn't end up as far along in his journey as he thought so after this
00:21:33
initial phone call at 1:54 a.m. both his parents Brian and Annette they got in their pickup truck and they set out to
00:21:41
find him Brandon said he's going to wait in his car he's talking to them on the phone periodically to give them
00:21:48
directions to where he believes he is he told them he was on the left side of the
00:21:55
road just off of Highway 23 his father Brian told CNN that Brandon quote was absolutely positive he knew
00:22:04
where he was end quote it was only about 10 minutes from the Swanson home his parents drove to this area that he was
00:22:13
describing but they couldn't see him or his car after several interim phone calls in which everyone was getting
00:22:21
frustrated and Brandon even hung up on them at some point his mother called him back this is at 217 a.m saying that they
00:22:30
were sorry but they just they just couldn't find him they couldn't see him could be wrong about this but I heard at
00:22:35
one point that they were flashing their lights at him yes this is this takes place from this phone call 217 okay so
00:22:43
when they couldn't find each other his mother came up with the idea of let's flash our headlights you know let's this
00:22:51
is a flat area and there's not a lot of lights out there so this might be something that your eye will pick up on
00:22:58
Fair quickly if it's taking place in this general area right right so Brandon's parents they're flashing their
00:23:05
headlights over and over again turning them on and off on and off Brandon's mother says that not only does he say
00:23:12
that he's doing the same thing but she says that she could hear the actual the switch being flipped on and flipped off
00:23:21
through the phone through the phone because you know how it some of them will make a little click noise yeah the
00:23:26
problem with this is this is a great idea but Brandon's he's in his car on the phone flipping the lights and saying
00:23:34
don't you see me and they couldn't see him well again how far away is he from where he's
00:23:40
claiming he is he's he's actually quite far and we'll go through the the very detailed description of where they end
00:23:48
up finding his car correct yeah so again Brandon is getting frustrated and I'd be
00:23:56
pissed well I mean I mean Flash in my lights don't you see me no I don't see anything it's dark out here well I think
00:24:04
I think the whole reason why he's probably pissed is that he's giving them fairly detailed instructions on where he
00:24:12
believes he is right they go to where he's telling them to go and they're like look we're right here and he's probably
00:24:21
you know how it is when you're 19 you're probably on the phone going my parents are idiots I told them where to find me
00:24:27
right that I I just want to get home it's late and they can't figure out how to find me but as it turns out he's
00:24:35
nowhere near he's telling them to to find him well and you also Wonder Hey as you're flashing these lights if they
00:24:42
don't come find me first does a police officer find me so that's one and you have that fear because you have that
00:24:49
that DUI in the past but this this is weird because to me it points to two things one it points the
00:24:58
evidence that he's intoxicated because he's giving somebody directions to a place that he's not at but then parents
00:25:07
would know if he sounded intoxicated or not and they don't make any claims that say that he sounded hammered or anything
00:25:16
right and so while you're trying these different tactics to locate one another first which is giving simple directions
00:25:24
now we're both sitting parked flashing lights on and off trying to see each other in the distance now that's not
00:25:31
working so now your next strategy is going to be well maybe we could meet up at some type of landmark that we both
00:25:37
believe that we can easily get to so now Brandon's very frustrated with his parents he comes up with the idea that
00:25:44
he's going to get out of the car and he's going to walk to Lind now remember Lind is the town that he was at at one
00:25:51
point in the evening and he says he could see lights from a town in the distance and and he's going to walk in
00:25:59
that direction he believes that he's seeing lights from the town of Lind he says hey let's go and let's meet in a
00:26:07
parking lot of the lindwood tavern this is a bar in Lind meanwhile his dad drove
00:26:13
Brandon's Mother home after dropping her off he set back out to meet Brandon at the spot that Brandon suggested
00:26:21
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00:28:49
just going to get more interesting from this point on okay well you're absolutely right about that and the
00:28:56
thing is here captain now where we left off we have Annette Brandon's mother Brian his father drove her back home the
00:29:06
the whole trying to find Brandon thing is not really working out people are getting frustrated and we also have
00:29:12
Brandon who says look I see lights in the distance and I believe that's the town of Lind meet me in the
00:29:20
lindwood tavern parking lot so his dad's driving to find him he's going to call his son and get back on the phone with
00:29:27
Brandon this call started at 2:23 a.m. Brandon said he's walking along a gravel road away from Marshall in the direction
00:29:37
of Lind after a bit Brandon tells his dad that he was leaving the gravel road to cut across the land because he said
00:29:47
quote it will be quicker than following the Road Brandon then told his dad that he had encountered two fence lines and
00:29:56
he could hear running water nearby by shortly after that Brandon said quote Oh [ __ ] and Brandon's dad says he heard a
00:30:06
sound like something slipping then at 310 a.m. the line went dead on Brandon's end Brandon's dad attempted to call his
00:30:16
son back repeatedly calling five or six times but while the phone rang before going to voicemail no one ever picked up
00:30:25
yeah now this is another little sticky situation normally we have situations where you call a phone it rings Rings
00:30:32
rings and that means that there's still battery life left on the phone it doesn't go straight to voicemail so
00:30:40
that's something that you might want to assume here but with this model of phone
00:30:45
with um this early technology it it and it varies so it's not as simple as well it was ringing so
00:30:55
we believe his phone was still working mhm it could have been dead at this point or submerged in water or
00:31:03
whatever yeah and I think that's a general misconception regarding these phones is that if it is ringing that it
00:31:11
means that the phone is still live still active and then going to voicemail and that once the phone goes to voicemail
00:31:18
immediately that the phone is dead that may be that may be the situation for certain phones for certain models right
00:31:27
but or maybe even a higher percentage of phones do that but I've had plenty of times where people try to call me and I
00:31:34
I'll get a joke text like oh you sent me straight to voicemail and I go send you
00:31:38
straight to voicemail the phone didn't even ring you know right or you know in this situation we have expert opinion
00:31:47
experts who have weighed in on this exact situation so kind of you to call me an expert and say that look when when
00:31:54
you hear that ring that that's not indicative of activity on that actual phone yeah it's
00:32:01
it's just a noise that you hear when you're calling well it's proven that you have activity on your end correct
00:32:08
doesn't prove that they have activity on their end well said my friend so he calls Brandon's dad unable to find his
00:32:16
son calls friends of Brandon's for help they come out they agree to drive along these country roads all around Route 23
00:32:25
between Lind and Marshall look for Brandon frantically there is no sign of Brandon
00:32:32
and there's also no sign of his car at 6:30 a.m. Annette called The Lion County Sheriff's Office and reported Brandon
00:32:43
missing all right this this is a bit of an uncomfortable part here for me Captain but look it it is certainly
00:32:51
police protocol in regards to taking a missing person's report when we are talking about a missing adult mhm but I
00:33:00
like the cases and the stories we tell here in the garage where someone jumps into action immediately you know hey
00:33:08
these people are concerned we're going to see if we can help unfortunately that was not the case in this in this story
00:33:15
yeah seems like there was a little push back from police the police pointed out that look and I agree with this
00:33:22
statement it's not unusual for a 19-year-old to not come home right and but one okay one officer even points out
00:33:30
that it is the young man's right to be out that if if he doesn't want to come home yeah
00:33:37
but the argument is pretty simple the this young man was on the phone with his parents asking for help right and so and
00:33:47
therefore that makes this situation immediately different than all those other possible situations right this
00:33:53
idea of well you know there's many uh teenagers that just don't come home yeah but did they call in the middle of the
00:33:59
night asking for help saying I'm walking around in the dark yeah I mean this is ridiculous and and they should be able
00:34:06
to find his car pretty quickly and there's evidence that uh we have a situation see this is I mean it's just
00:34:15
unfortunate for that's pathetic really it's unfortunate for a number of reasons but here's here's at the very
00:34:23
least play along play the game right you you could send an officer out in a car to just do a little driving around and
00:34:31
you chalk it up to patrolling the area anyway which Serve and Protect which you're supposed to be doing anyway why
00:34:37
not just send a car to this general area where this concerned mother and father are saying their young man son 19 years
00:34:45
old is wandering around in the dark well it's absolutely pathetic because like I
00:34:49
said you Serve and Protect and these These are taxpayers these are good people in your community and they're
00:34:55
just asking you to look into their missing son and like you said just send out a cruiser yeah just say hey look uh
00:35:02
we're sending out a cruiser we let's see what we can do and here's the thing if you end up finding the kid you're the
00:35:08
hero of the day man you're the hero of the day so what ends up happening though Captain is the Swanson they are
00:35:17
obviously convinced that something bad has happened to their son I'm not really certain how but it seems that they were
00:35:25
able to push the sheriff enough to actually get them involved so the sheriff's deputies join in on the search
00:35:33
and a countywide request was made to expand the search area for this young man now in a brilliant move this is
00:35:41
where I do give some credit the sheriff quickly obtained the cell phone records for Brandon's phone good and what those
00:35:48
records showed changed everything Brandon's phone the last activity on his phone caused the phone to Ping on a cell
00:35:57
phone t tower that was nowhere near where he told his father that he was so Brandon thought he was near Lind saying
00:36:06
he would meet him in the parking lot of the Lynnwood Tavern so instead of Lind his phone hit off of a tower 20 miles
00:36:16
away in the town of Minot so now they need to go search this area the area that was covered by that
00:36:24
cell tower sure enough it is during this search at 12:30 p.m. on the 14th of May
00:36:32
that officers found Brandon's Chevy Lumina in a ditch off a gravel road as he described it to his parents this is
00:36:41
several miles from Canby where Brandon started off and 25 miles from Lind the car was in a ditch alongside a minimum
00:36:50
maintenance Road off of Lion Lincoln County Road which runs north to south and separates the two counties just west
00:37:00
of Taunton and east of Porter if you're looking for this location on a map it's about a mile and a half north of the
00:37:08
intersection of lion Lincoln County Road and Highway 68 so so you're saying Brandon's about
00:37:15
25 minutes away from where he claimed to be correct and this is where it does this is where the case gets me because
00:37:23
again well this is where it makes absolutely no sense you're right because the claim is that this kid knows his way
00:37:30
around these roads that he knows the directions around there and and that's not always a claim that that uh fathers
00:37:38
would make about their sons when it comes to driving right right and they're making these claims that he knows these
00:37:44
roads he he he knows his whereabouts and he's 25 minutes away from where he said
00:37:50
he was that's that's bizarre so there I mean there's so many things bizarre about where he he ended
00:37:58
up I mean I I was sitting there the other night and I thought that to to put together the the description of where
00:38:05
everything is and where he ends up where he thinks he is I mean you're left there sitting
00:38:13
looking at a map going this just doesn't make any sense and he's not that far away from the party he's much closer to
00:38:19
the party than where he was supposed to end up at his parents house so I mean basically if you take if you take cambi
00:38:27
and draw a diagonal line on a piece of paper Southeast to Marshall it'd be a straight
00:38:33
shot right right south of that south of Marshall where he lived where he's trying to get to is Lind so he goes way
00:38:42
he believes that he is near Marshall near Lind which is technically out of the way but where he ends up is
00:38:53
somewhere along that diagonal line basically he's he's north of Lind in minota mhm which is much closer to Canby
00:39:01
and very and 20 25 minutes away from Marshall and lint well it seems like you know somehow he gets confused and gets
00:39:10
on on a road that he thinks is familiar but is not correct well and that's where
00:39:16
I think the trouble lies with this case is I think you could be pretty sober and
00:39:23
get turned around even if you do know the area fairly well cuz again everything kind of looks the same the
00:39:30
roads are all just basically numbers when I I also question are any of these phone calls that he's making to his
00:39:37
friends look we've we can assume that he's not calling anybody until the car he he fears off and goes in the ditch
00:39:46
right but I'm telling you it was a a bad habit I would get on the road when I'm playing gigs and every time I was on the
00:39:54
damn phone I'd miss an exit and it was always an exit that I that I knew I was familiar with and I'd be going oh again
00:40:05
you know so that's why I also wonder was he talking to somebody on the phone where just by being on that phone he
00:40:12
gets on the wrong road and then he you know travels I think it would have been incredibly easy to make a wrong turn
00:40:21
right and but but what that's not so hard to believe what's really hard to believe is
00:40:28
that he he clearly hasn't traveled much of a distance and and he hasn't traveled
00:40:35
as far as he believes that he has traveled so then you start to wonder not necessarily and the reason why is cuz he
00:40:42
could have been heading One Direction and then once he makes the wrong turn or or or gets confused he could actually
00:40:51
been heading back the other direction no and that's what I mean we we don't know
00:40:56
he he could have been driving for as long as he anticipated right right and that's where I think the problem lies
00:41:02
and I think that that might be where I think that might be why he thinks he was was where he thought he
00:41:10
was which is a weird statement to say but he knows generally how long of a drive it would be from can B to Marshall
00:41:17
or can be to Lind and I think he probably drove around about that amount of time and says well that's where I
00:41:24
must be is Lind whereas pointed out and I think what's probably correct here is that he's made several wrong turns
00:41:32
turned around a couple times tried to correct himself and ultimately he's just getting more and more lost more and more
00:41:40
confused about where he where he is actually located right and again this becomes an issue because we don't know
00:41:45
how intoxicated he is or like you said just you know being exhausted you right we don't know so Lincoln County Sheriff
00:41:55
jack veki off offered a description of Brandon's car he said the car was found on the Lincoln County side of the County
00:42:05
Line quote it was off the side of a field approach and the vehicle was hung up it's sort of a Sharp inine nothing
00:42:14
major but enough that the car would get hung up so the wheels are too high off the ground to get any traction end quote
00:42:22
Brandon's car while immobilized was technically fine you know it was operating just fine there
00:42:30
was no real damage to it and this is further backed up by Brandon's mother Annette right there's no evidence that
00:42:38
he had been hurt in this incident and furthermore he tells his parents he's fine from the incident and there was no
00:42:46
evidence that anyone else was involved in the accident as well right so basically saying that we don't think he
00:42:53
hit his head or anything and that he was conscious of what was happening from my
00:42:59
understanding Brandon told his parents this accident happened as he was trying to turn off of an unpaved road if you if
00:43:08
you want to try to picture this scenario basically it's like he he's trying to turn around in the middle of the
00:43:15
road and and maybe go the opposite direction right and because these are country roads that that typically are
00:43:24
not wide Lanes he got hung up in in the ditch and when they say hung up they just mean that the the tires are not
00:43:32
touching the ground therefore you cannot move the car it was we've had another case that was very similar to this
00:43:39
vehicle type situation I think it was uh Bri maitlin right where the car was it worked just fine and that's what
00:43:47
confused people so much but but if if those if the tires that move when you hit the accelerator do not touch the
00:43:54
ground your car doesn't move no track that's right furthermore many Reports say that
00:44:01
nothing else unusual was found at the actual site however one very important source that we will get into later and
00:44:09
we've already touched upon says the car doors were found open if that is true to
00:44:16
me Captain that would be incredibly strange mhm in any event Sheriff veki said that officers could not determine
00:44:27
which direction Brandon was heading after he left the vehicle which direction he was heading on foot he says
00:44:34
quote there's grass in the ditch and gravel on the road so it is possible to leave that vehicle and not leave any
00:44:42
tracks one thing the sheriff failed to mention was an unfortunate coincidence the roads were graded on the morning of
00:44:52
May 14th before the vehicle was actually found and located by deputies this destroying any possible footprint
00:45:00
or other evidence that they may have found on the gravel roads let's discuss the scene where the
00:45:07
car was found we know there were no prints of use and that one source indicates that the doors were open and
00:45:13
keys were gone there was nothing unusual found in near or on the vehicle we have
00:45:20
seen a few reports that a pipe was found in the car to be perfectly clear there's no
00:45:27
indication of what kind of pipe right it could be a tobacco pipe it could be a marijuana pipe crack pipe could be a
00:45:35
lead pipe I have no idea but the I I think the general idea here is if in fact a pipe was found in the vehicle
00:45:45
then it's possible Brandon could have been high before he set off on foot that night right I don't know captain in in
00:45:53
my opinion I want to throw this out there I feel like the the pipe being found in the car might just be some bad
00:46:01
information yes and I and I say that because there is one newspaper article that references this pipe but they give
00:46:08
no indication of what it was used for what kind of pipe it was and then where I see other reports that that contain
00:46:17
that say that there was a pipe in the car they appear to me to be reports and articles that were written using that
00:46:24
first article right you know you know what be bad information that people are passing on as a rumor that's what my gut
00:46:31
tells me also could be a small little pipe you know I worked at a hardware store I could see somebody carrying
00:46:36
around a little piece of of lead pipe you know as protection so that's something too the
00:46:43
the thing that I keep going now now that we're on this uh smoke in the pipe right
00:46:49
mhm and the whole intoxicated level one of the things that has really got me about this case is yes we know that he
00:46:56
was at these two parties hanging out with his friends and yes they say well yeah we think he was drinking on the
00:47:01
first one and uh he might have been drinking on the second one we don't know how much we know that he had a shot of
00:47:07
Jack Daniels what I wonder was was there any um smoking of the of weed um was there
00:47:18
any usage of like mushrooms you almost sounded like a really old person there first smoking of the weed I almost said
00:47:25
smoking the weed boy you high on the weed he was out there smoking the weed um so
00:47:33
because I'm just trying to think of my friends early days of college if if something happened to one of our buddies
00:47:41
we'd probably start off with yes we were drinking if it was one of the days that
00:47:45
we were experimenting with shrooms I don't think we would have told the parents that we were experimenting with
00:47:51
shrooms right but I think I get where you're going with this yeah I think what you're trying to say is as time
00:47:58
passes and as the concern for your friend who is lost and continues to be lost are you saying that at some point
00:48:07
you you just go into more maybe maybe be a little more upfront about some things
00:48:12
I think you would so so I think we would hear rumors about that and I we just don't hear rumors about that right um
00:48:20
and of course marijuana drinking all of that is totally believable because that's very common at the age of 19 you
00:48:30
know early college just out of high school very common so it's totally believable but to me it feels like if
00:48:39
the suspicion was strong enough for that that the suspicion would have stood the
00:48:44
test of time and and it really has not because what you have here in this case is you have Brian Swanson Brandon's
00:48:51
father right who has said for 11 years now that he does not believe that his son was in any way incapacitated that
00:49:01
evening saying that Brandon sounded totally normal lucid and coherent on the phone right but there's just so much
00:49:08
evidence against that I mean one the you know he has to call for help because of
00:49:14
his car like you said turning around on a country road it's I think that's evidence that
00:49:22
there's an an impairment there uh the fact that you know if it's true that they found two doors open that doesn't
00:49:29
make a lot of sense to me that shows in sign of impairment the fact that he doesn't know where he's at sign of
00:49:36
impairment the fact that um then he claims where he's going to start walking to towards again another sign of
00:49:44
impairment so you know I'm glad that is you know you know I I I don't I'm not saying that his father's a liar I'm just
00:49:53
saying that there's a lot of evidence against the fact that he you know with that he was completely
00:49:59
coherent well I mean he he wouldn't be a li liar if he believed what he's saying
00:50:06
and meaning you know Brian Swanson does not believe that his son could basically
00:50:11
he's saying look I was on the phone with him for 47 minutes it wasn't a a two-minute phone call it wasn't a
00:50:17
five-minute phone call right right he's saying I don't think my son could fake it through a very lengthy phone call no
00:50:25
no I agree with that and and Brandon's friends have not said that he was drunk or high although if they were like you
00:50:31
said underage or they were doing illegal activities they might not admit to this
00:50:37
especially right away we know that there have been there was quite a of a bit of
00:50:43
time unaccounted for it seems to be that way depending on which timeline you follow for that evening right but one
00:50:51
thing that I find that's that's super interesting is the police police investigators have also said repeatedly
00:51:00
that they do not believe Brandon was impaired that evening now of course it's totally unclear on how they
00:51:08
would know this or how they were able to come to this conclusion right and the impairment doesn't have to be drugs it
00:51:15
could again be uh exhaus you know exhaustion right and and the police coming to this conclusion may just be
00:51:24
because all of his friends and his dad says that he wasn't you know intoxicated basically in all reports are
00:51:32
telling us he was he was sober kind of thing yeah but what does seem clear to me more so than if he was impaired or
00:51:43
intoxicated in any way it's 100% that Brandon was very very confused about where he was that evening well the other
00:51:51
evidence that he possibly was imper is that he's taking these back roads and instead of taking the more traveled you
00:52:00
know well-lit roads you're taking back roads that that's another sign to me and I'm not saying that he's like drunk to
00:52:08
the point where he can't walk I'm just saying that maybe he's you know buzzed enough where you know can't get his car
00:52:16
unstuck leaves the door open doesn't know exactly where he's at has to take the back
00:52:22
roads right but I think I think a big problem with this C cases and there's some debate and I don't know having you
00:52:29
know I don't live in this area or never visited this area there is some debate online about how well the roads he would
00:52:39
have been traveling were actually marked if they were even marked at the time in
00:52:46
2008 yeah again if if if the Farms look the same the Farmland looks the same the
00:52:51
streets and roads look the same you know I I I don't I don't know that it it we gained much value out of
00:52:58
debating if he was impaired or not but I can see a situation where somebody would
00:53:03
be maybe even sober as a judge and perfectly fine and still get turned around in this situation yeah he's he's
00:53:13
in the end what we do know is he's 20 miles from where he thought he was and the lights that he could see remember he
00:53:20
thinks that they're coming from the town of Lind they are not we we know that from where his vehicle is found now you
00:53:28
said that they had his phone records they got the phone records pretty quickly but do we know I mean it was
00:53:35
2008 so did they have any text me any text messages um any records of that I looked
00:53:44
up his phone and I actually thought that it was another phone before I looked it
00:53:49
up I thought it was like the the razor remember the Motorola had like a silver razor flip type phone yeah that's the
00:53:57
phone that I thought it was and when I when I looked up the phone online it it showed me clearly a different model but
00:54:03
what I can say from what I can view regarding that phone is it did have texting I believe it to have texting
00:54:13
capabilities right um it his regarding what kind of service he had might play into that somehow remember remember back
00:54:22
in the day it wasn't like like today you sign get it yeah today sign up for a plan and they're like well you get
00:54:28
everything you know back then it was uh quite different so I I and I can't remember exactly when the change
00:54:34
happened the days when you'd have to like you monitor how much you text well yeah that but also like you'd also text
00:54:42
by like you would have to hit you know three a couple times for C you know uh and judging by the the the picture the
00:54:51
image I saw of the phones that that were brought up in my Google search he he very likely would have been if he was
00:54:57
texting it would have been that deal where you're like tap the number one three times for the letter c right type
00:55:04
of thing right and again it might have been a new enough time 2008 where where the texting was fine I don't have any
00:55:13
detailed reports regarding his his phone logs for that night but what what I what
00:55:20
I believe to be a fair statement to say about his phone log would be that nothing there doesn't seem to be
00:55:30
anything that that is outstanding as weird or unusual because we would have that
00:55:37
information you know we would we that would be included in The Narrative of this story that that there Not only was
00:55:45
there this strange situation of he's on the actual phone I mean and and that's the way that this story plays out and
00:55:52
the way that it's told on the internet and told from person to person is Brandon is on the phone at the time that
00:55:58
he vanishes which is so incredibly weird we've had so many other cases that we've
00:56:03
covered that there are there's a strange phone call involved in a missing person's case but to be actually on the
00:56:10
phone with one's father when when it's believed that he went missing yeah I mean this is and it's weird too because
00:56:16
you got Brandon Swanson and then you have the Brandon LW in case which is kind of similar yeah both involve phone
00:56:25
calls strange phone calls yeah two family members yeah both Brandon yeah so it's it's one of those situations where
00:56:35
I see what you're getting at and I wish we knew that information I think that the reason why it's not reported is that
00:56:42
it it may just have no real bearing on the case it may be in fact exactly as we just said that from the call records we
00:56:52
know that he tried he attempted to call a couple of friends we know that he called called his parents when his
00:56:57
parents say that he's on the phone with them and we know that his father tried to call his phone several times after
00:57:06
after the call goes dead on Brandon's [Music] in there's so much more to get to in
00:57:22
this incredibly fascinating case of missing person Brandon Swanson still left Captain we have the search for
00:57:30
Brandon we have the theories about what could have happened to him plus our thoughts and the conclusion only one
00:57:37
episode this week due to the holiday if you need more garage download the Stitcher app and check out all of our
00:57:44
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episodes available so check that out and make make sure you go to True Crim garage.com and leave us your theories
00:58:01
and thoughts on the Brandon Swanson case and until next week everybody be good be
00:58:06
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