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[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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blog and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:16
crime [Music] [Music] according to FBI gov ViCAP stands for the violent criminal apprehension
00:04:02
program this database maintains the largest investigative repository of major violent crime cases in the u.s. it
00:04:11
is designed to collect and analyze information about homicides sexual assaults missing persons and other
00:04:19
violent crimes involving unidentified human remains this week we are reviewing a missing persons case
00:04:26
listed on the ViCAP page Brandon Victor Swanson was last seen on May 14th 2008 and can be minnesota his car a green
00:04:40
Chevy lumina was found abandoned near Taunton Minnesota according to the FBI's website the vehicle was in a ditch with
00:04:49
the doors open and the keys missing at the time of his disappearance Brandon was just 19 years old he is Caucasian 5
00:04:59
foot 5 inches to 5 foot 6 inches tall and approximately 120 to 130 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes he was last
00:05:09
seen wearing baggy blue jeans a blue striped polo shirt a black hooded zip-front sweatshirt with
00:05:16
emblem on back a white Minnesota Twins baseball cap glasses and his sterling silver chain he was carrying a black
00:05:26
Motorola SLV our cell phone his wallet with identification and his keys if you have any information regarding Brandon
00:05:36
Swanson's whereabouts or the circumstances of his disappearance please call the Minnesota Bureau of
00:05:42
Criminal Apprehension at six five one seven nine three 7,000 or call the lincoln county sheriff's office at five
00:05:53
zero seven six nine four one six six four this is true crime garage May 13th 2008
00:06:17
Brandon Victor Swanson age 19 he just finished his last class of his one year program of study at Minnesota West
00:06:26
Community and Technical College in can be minnesota brandon was studying wind energy and he was already enrolled in a
00:06:33
second technical school in iowa this was going to start in August of 2008 after that he planned to transfer to a
00:06:41
four-year college to get his degree in science so after a year of hard work its mid-may school's out for the summer it's
00:06:50
time to go out meet up with some friends and have a lot of fun and that's just what the plan was for Brandon on the
00:06:56
night of May 13 now before we get into the details of that night let's review a little background information about
00:07:04
Brandon Brandon was born January 30th 1989 he lived with his parents Brian and Annette and his younger sister they
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lived in Marshall Minnesota a town in Lyon County the population at the time was about 13,500 Brandon was close with
00:07:25
his family they described him as a sweet good kid who loved reading and debating
00:07:31
he was very intelligent and he liked to read and ponder complicated topics like string theory
00:07:37
Brandon worked at a local grocery store for four years the last two years working in the bakery so not just a
00:07:46
smart kid but seems like quite a reliable young man as well yeah and Brandon was similar to you
00:07:52
because he's dedicated to the environment particularly renewable resources and he loved politics history
00:08:00
and music he also loved the Minnesota Twins Brandon was not a big dude he was just
00:08:05
about 5 foot 5 5 foot 6 inches tall and only about 125 pounds and one thing that may be quite
00:08:13
important as we move through this Brannen wore glasses and he was legally blind in his left eye on the night he
00:08:21
went out and didn't come home he was wearing baggy blue jeans a blue stripe polo sweatshirt over a white t-shirt a
00:08:28
black zip front jacket a white Minnesota Twins baseball hat he tended to wear this hat sideways and he wore his white
00:08:37
sneakers as well now I point that out again captain because even though it's going to get quite chilly that night he
00:08:45
was wearing fairly warm clothing right he had a one stud earring in each ear and his wire-rimmed glasses on now with
00:08:55
him he had his black motorola SL VR cell phone as always he drove his green Chevy
00:09:02
lumina that evening he left his parents place around 6:00 p.m. Brandon went to a
00:09:08
graduation party in the Lind Lind is a small town near Marshall so not far from where Brandon lives in fact Lynne is
00:09:17
just about an 11 minute drive Southwest down route 23 from Marshall this graduation party was really just a small
00:09:26
gathering of only five or so people right these are all people that Brandon was friends with from school and to be
00:09:34
clear it sounds to me like these were all high school buddies remember Brandon's only 19 so just having
00:09:41
graduated from Marshall high school just the year earlier at the small party brandon was drinking this is not in
00:09:49
question what is the question is how much as the general report from all leaves us with this broad statement that
00:09:57
he was said to have consumed an unknown amount of alcohol but he was not overly intoxicated according to the people who
00:10:05
were at this party well think about how many parties you've been to if I ask you
00:10:10
how many beers your buddy was on would you know how many beers he drank no only if I had like some extreme indicator
00:10:18
right like if somebody shows up with a six-pack and then there's none of that beer left right then you're like well he
00:10:24
probably had six when you're hanging out and you're you're really you're catching up with
00:10:29
your buddies there's a lot of talking going on there's multiple people there you're not really counting anybody's
00:10:34
drinks one and then on top of that two everybody knows this you're not really checking the time either you know so
00:10:42
there's there's a lot that you're not really keeping up on because of the conversations and stuff like that
00:10:47
however if these people knew him for a fair amount of time I think that they would reasonably be able to judge if he
00:10:55
was drunk or not right right now of course there's varying degrees of being buzzed but Brandon left this gathering
00:11:05
alone around 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. from there he drove to another friend's party this was like a house party this for the
00:11:15
purpose of saying goodbye to one of his former classmates now I do not know exactly who this person is but the party
00:11:23
was in can be where Minnesota West Community and Technical College is located so Brandon is quite familiar
00:11:31
with this area the party was attended by other college kids who were friends with
00:11:36
Brandon here Brandon was noted to have one shot of whiskey he left this party alone and was going to head home back to
00:11:46
his parents place in Marshall sometime between midnight and 1:30 now the this seems like a huge window of time reports
00:11:54
vary wildly I want to bring this up because I don't know how important this is later so much so because we have some
00:12:01
time accounted for Brandon's whereabouts later right I think the thing in question here is depending on what time
00:12:08
he left means there could be some unaccounted time mm-hmm the reason why we these reports vary as
00:12:16
as we just mentioned you're not really counting people's drinks you're not really counting the time looking at your
00:12:20
clock looking at your watch they said that he had one shot of whiskey I don't know if he consumed any other alcohol at
00:12:29
that time but that is what the general report is see I don't remember what they said about the first party if he is just
00:12:35
drinking beer or if possibly he was drinking a mixed drink because I did hear on
00:12:41
several accounts that he was drinking like like a rum and coke or you know whiskey and coke so you just go was he
00:12:50
doing that at the first party or at the second party sounds more likely they would do it at the second party if they
00:12:57
said well we know he had a shot of whiskey and me in some others we found reports this state that he left as early
00:13:03
as midnight and some reports that left as late as 1:30 in the morning you know again normally we would take umbrage
00:13:10
with that statement it wouldn't fly here in the garage but this time we're going
00:13:14
to let it fly because we have a lot to get to and because of the details that we have not got to yet it will be clear
00:13:22
that the exact time that Brandon left the party while in dispute may not be so important all right let's get into the
00:13:30
geography of this whole situation this is super important to this case the last party Brandon attends the night in
00:13:37
question is and can be this is about thirty miles from his home town of Marshall it's a 30 to 35 minute drive
00:13:45
that is a straight diagonal shot along a two-lane road which is route 68 route 68
00:13:54
is a highway that runs between can be and Marshall in Camby you hop on route 68 heading southeast and you will go
00:14:03
straight to Marshall this drive should have taken him no more than 30 to 35 minutes assuming he took the most direct
00:14:12
route highway 68 which connects the two towns Brandon drove this route daily for the
00:14:21
entire school year and again would have been very familiar with this but for some reason that we can only speculate
00:14:29
Brandon does not appear to have taken the highway to get home he took a different route yeah I believe he took
00:14:36
the back roads because he had been drinking at least a little bit so I found some reports that state that
00:14:43
Brandon had a DUI in the past mhm and that he had successfully completed a years probation because of the charge
00:14:52
so what we do know is Brandon was under the legal drinking age on this night he's only 19 years old right and we do
00:15:01
know again it's not in question if he had been drinking or not the question was how much had he been drinking right
00:15:09
regardless of how much all reports say that he did consume some alcohol that night so if he were concerned about
00:15:15
maybe a DUI checkpoint on something like highway 68 or getting on or off of highway 68 well again this take Highway
00:15:26
68 we have different roads different highways different interstates that you don't want to travel on because they're
00:15:35
notorious for just pulling people over in general so maybe that's the case here yeah he wants to fly under the radar so
00:15:44
to speak he wants to take a less direct less populated route to get home that's all we can assume by what we know that
00:15:52
was going on that night we can't say exactly what occurred between the time that Brandon left the party in Camby and
00:15:59
the next known contact with him reports are that during this timeframe Brandon tried to contact two or three of
00:16:08
his friends by phone but he couldn't reach them so at 154 a.m. so this is technically now May 14th Brandon called
00:16:18
his parents he told them he got his car stuck in a ditch he was okay though this
00:16:24
ditch was as he said on a gravel road just off of Highway 23 this is the road that runs between Lindh the town where
00:16:34
he went to the first party and Marshall where he lived according to Brandon he was somewhere between Marshall and Lindh
00:16:42
just off the highway now as we said it wouldn't make much sense for Brandon to be between Marshall and Lindh if he were
00:16:51
coming from a party and can be can be is a straight shot to Marshall down route 68 Lind is out of the way and not along
00:17:00
route 68 at all but we believe that Brandon was intending to take back roads as the
00:17:06
and said avoiding the highway and it's possible he could have been deliberately off of Route 68 now you said that he
00:17:13
tried to call some of his friends do we know the sex of those friends where they
00:17:18
just saw male friends do we have any contact of female friends no and in here's here's my actual belief here hmm
00:17:27
as far as gender goes I believe that it's possible that those phone calls were not made while he was traveling or
00:17:36
before he chose his destination as home part of me wonders if he got his vehicle
00:17:42
stuck in that ditch right called try to call friends before calling mom and dad and admitting hey I got the car stuck
00:17:50
you've been drinking a little bit so there's that fear that they come to help you and at least smell something on your
00:17:56
breath and then after having the GU I than the repercussions of that right right and yeah it could just be a whole
00:18:03
bad situation for him if he's able to get ahold of somebody else instead he's an adult maybe he can find somewhere
00:18:09
somebody to pick him up at least well the location just seems funny to me that's why I wondered if there was any
00:18:15
contact that he had with a female that he was gonna like meet up after the party yeah I don't know what the what
00:18:22
the nature of that call those the intent of those calls were right because he never connected with them but I agree
00:18:29
with you it's it's kind of fair to say chances are he he got stuck in this ditch called his friends for help before
00:18:36
he called his parents especially and I don't want to hang on this too long captain but but keep in mind where he
00:18:43
says that he is with the car stuck in the ditch he says he's he's near the town of lend
00:18:50
well he was at a party just earlier that night with high school buddies so maybe
00:18:55
he thought it'd be very easy very convenient for somebody near him to come and offer some type of assistance right
00:19:01
the major major problem here is it's not where he was where wherever he believed
00:19:08
that he was is not really even close to his actual location right and this is where it gets confusing for me in this
00:19:16
case because the claim is that Brandon knew his whereabouts and knew these roads well yeah yes he did it he may
00:19:24
have had some things working against him though if you look at a if you look at Lyon County Minnesota on Google Maps
00:19:32
first you'll see that it's incredibly rural flat and the roads are almost laid out in a grid like pattern so basically
00:19:40
the farmland is broken up into squares by country roads named things like one hundred and fiftieth Avenue three
00:19:47
hundredth Street for example basically everything looks the same the clever names the clea the crops are high there
00:19:55
is virtually nothing delineating one area from the next and the street and avenue names are all confusing because
00:20:03
they're they're just numbers right the landscape is dotted with streams ponds and lots of drainage ditches serving the
00:20:10
agricultural fields now on the night of the 13th 14th it was dark the moon was only half full we also have
00:20:19
this situation of Brandon had been drinking and was possibly even fatigued at this late hour and he's blind in one
00:20:26
eye right all this simply is to say that the Brandon might have been confused about
00:20:32
where he was he left a party and then he called his parents at 154 a.m. let's just bring into the question that this
00:20:40
could be evidence of how intoxicated he might have been well and the thing too is having called his parents at 154 a.m.
00:20:48
in the interim even though we don't know what time he left we know that Brandon had not actually
00:20:55
traveled nearly as far as he thought or at least he didn't end up as far along in his journey as he thought so after
00:21:03
this initial phone call at 154 a.m. both his parents Brian in a net they got in their pickup truck and they set out to
00:21:11
find him Brandon said he's going to wait in his car he's talking to them on the phone periodically to give them
00:21:19
directions to where he believes he is he told them he was on the left side of the
00:21:26
road just off of highway 23 his father Brian told CNN that Brandon quote was absolutely positive he knew where he was
00:21:35
and quote it was only about ten minutes from the Swanson home his parents drove to this area that he was describing but
00:21:45
they couldn't see him or his car after several interim phone calls in which everyone was getting frustrated and
00:21:53
Brandon even hung up on them at some point his mother called him back this is at 2:17 a.m. saying that they were sorry
00:22:01
but they just they just couldn't find him they couldn't see him could be wrong about this but I heard at one point that
00:22:06
they were flashing their lights at him yes this is this takes place from this phone call 217 okay so when they
00:22:14
couldn't find each other his mother came up with the idea of let's flash our headlights
00:22:21
you know let's this is a flat area and there's not a lot of lights out there so this might be something that you're I
00:22:27
will pick up on fairly quickly if it's taking place in this general area right right so Brandon's parents they're
00:22:35
flashing their headlights over and over again turning them on and off on and off
00:22:40
Brandon's mother says that not only does he say that he's doing the same thing but she says that she could hear the
00:22:48
actual switch being flipped on and flipped off through the phone through the phone cuz you know how some of them
00:22:54
will make a little click noise yeah the problem with this is this is a great idea but Brandon's he's in his car on
00:23:02
the phone flipping the lights and saying don't you see me and they couldn't see him
00:23:08
well again how far away is he from where he's claiming he is he's he's actually quite far and we'll go through the the
00:23:16
very detailed description of where they end up finding his car correct yeah so again Brandon is getting frustrated and
00:23:25
I'd be pissed well I mean I mean flashing my lights don't you see me no I don't see anything it's dark out here
00:23:33
well I think I think the whole reason why he's probably pissed is that he's giving them fairly detailed instructions
00:23:41
on where he believes he is right they go to where he's telling them to go and they're like look we're right here
00:23:50
and he's probably you know how it is when you're 19 you're probably on the phone going my parents are idiots I told
00:23:56
him where to find me right that I just want to get home it's late and they can't figure out how to find me but as
00:24:05
it turns out he's nowhere near he's telling them to find him well and you also wonder hey as you're flashing these
00:24:12
lights if they don't come find me first does the police officer find me so that's one you have that fear because
00:24:19
you have that DUI in the past but this this is weird because to me appoints the two things one appoints to evidence that
00:24:29
he's intoxicated because he's giving some a directions to a place that he's not at but then parents would know if he
00:24:39
sounded intoxicated or not and they don't make any claims that say that he sounded hammered or anything right and
00:24:47
so while you're trying these different tactics to locate one another first which is giving simple directions now
00:24:55
we're both sitting parked flashing lights on and off trying to see each other in the distance now that's not
00:25:01
working so now your next strategy is going to be well maybe we could meet up at some type of landmark that we both
00:25:08
believe that we can easily get to so now Brandon's very frustrated with his parents he comes up with the idea that
00:25:15
he's going to get out of the car and he's going to walk to lend now remember Lind is the town that he
00:25:21
was at at one point in the evening and he says he could see lights from a town in the distance and he's going to walk
00:25:30
in 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
00:25:38
parking lot of the Lynwood tavern this is a bar and Lind meanwhile his dad drove Brandon's mother home after
00:25:46
dropping her off he set back out to meet Brandon at the spot that Brandon suggested
00:25:52
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$10 off your first box at WWF AB 15.com [Music] all right we're back cheers mates cheers
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Cheers cheers captain it's just gonna get more interesting from this point on okay well you're absolutely right about
00:30:33
that and the thing is here captain now where we left off we have a net Brandon's mother Brian his father drove
00:30:43
her back home the whole trying to find Brandon thing is not really working out people are getting frustrated and we
00:30:50
also have Brandon who says look I see lights in the distance and I believe that's the town of Lynde meet me in the
00:30:57
Lynwood Tavern parking lot so his dad's driving to find him he's gonna call his son and get back on the phone with
00:31:05
Brandon this call started at 2:23 a.m. Brandon said he's walking along a gravel road away from Marshall in the direction
00:31:15
of Lynde after a bit Brandon tells his dad that he was leaving the gravel road to cut across the land because he said
00:31:26
quote it will be quicker than following the road Brandon then told his dad that he had encountered two fence lines and
00:31:34
he could hear running water nearby shortly after that Brandon said quote oh [ __ ] and Brandon's dad says he heard a
00:31:44
sound like something slipping then at 3:10 a.m. the line went dead on Brandon's end Brandon's dad attempted to
00:31:54
call his son back repeatedly calling five or six times but while the phone rang before going to
00:32:00
voicemail no one ever picked up yeah now this is another little sticky situation
00:32:07
normally we have situations where you call phone it rings rings rings and that means that there's still battery life
00:32:14
left on the phone it doesn't go straight to voicemail so that's something that you might want to assume here but with
00:32:22
this model of phone this early technology it and it varies so it's not as simple as well it was
00:32:32
ringing so we believe his phone was still working mm-hmm it could have been dead at this point or submerged in water
00:32:40
or whatever yeah and I think that's a general misconception regarding these phones is that if it is ringing that it
00:32:50
means that the phone is still alive still active and then going to voicemail and that once the phone goes to
00:32:56
voicemail immediately that the phone is dead that may be that may be the situation for certain phones for certain
00:33:04
models right but or maybe even a higher percentage of phones do that but I've had plenty of times where people try to
00:33:11
call me and I'll get a joke text like all you set me straight to voicemail and I go and send it straight to voicemail
00:33:17
the phone didn't even ring you know right or you know in this situation we have expert opinion experts who have
00:33:26
weighed in on this situation so kind of you to come in expert and say that look when you hear that ring that that's not
00:33:35
indicative of activity on that actual phone yes it's just a noise that you hear when you're calling well it's
00:33:43
proven that you have activity on your end correct it doesn't prove that they have
00:33:48
activity on their end well said my friend so he calls Brandon's dad unable to find his son calls friends of
00:33:57
Brandon's for help they come out they agree to drive along these country roads all around route 23 between Lindh and
00:34:05
Marshall looking for Brandon frantically there is no sign of Brandon and there's
00:34:11
also no sign of his car at 6:30 a.m. a net called the Lyon County Sheriff's Office and
00:34:19
reported Brandon missing all right this this is a bit of an uncomfortable part here for me captain but look it it is
00:34:29
certainly police protocol in regards to taking a missing-persons report when we are talking about a missing adult
00:34:37
but I like the cases and the stories we tell here in the garage where someone jumps into action immediately
00:34:45
you know hey these people are concerned we're going to see if we can help unfortunately that was not the case in
00:34:52
this in this story yeah seems like there is a little pushback from police the police pointed out that look and I agree
00:35:00
with this statement it's not unusual for a 19 year old to not come home right and
00:35:05
but one okay one officer even points out that it is the young man's right to be out that it
00:35:12
if he doesn't want to come home yeah but the argument is pretty simple the this young man was on the phone with
00:35:21
his parents asking for help right and so and therefore that makes this situation
00:35:27
immediately different than all those other possible situations right this idea of well you know there's many
00:35:33
teenagers that just don't come home yeah but did they call in the middle of the night asking for help saying I'm walking
00:35:40
around in the dark yeah I mean this is ridiculous and and they should be able to find his
00:35:45
car pretty quickly and there's evidence that we have a situation see this is I mean it's just unfortunate sporadic
00:35:55
really it's unfortunate for a number of reasons but here's here's at the very least play along play the game right you
00:36:04
you could send an officer out in a car to just do a little driving around and you chalk it up to patrolling the area
00:36:11
anyway which serve and protect what you're supposed to be doing anyway why not just send a car to this general area
00:36:17
where this concerned mother and father saying their young man's son 19 years old is wandering around in the dark well
00:36:26
it's absolutely pathetic because like I said you serve and protect and these these are taxpayers these are good
00:36:32
people in your community and they're just asking you to look into their missing son and like you said just send
00:36:38
out a cruiser yeah just say hey look we're sending down a cruiser well let's see what we can do and here's
00:36:44
the thing if you end up finding the kid you're the hero of the day man you're the hero of the day
00:36:51
so what ends up happening though captain is the Swanson's they are obviously convinced that something bad has
00:36:58
happened to their son I'm not really certain how but it seems that they were able to push the sheriff enough to
00:37:06
actually get them involved so the sheriff's deputies join in on the search and a county wide request was made to
00:37:14
expand the search area for this young man now in a brilliant move this is where I do give some credit
00:37:21
the sheriff quickly obtained the cellphone records for Brandon's phone good and what those records showed
00:37:27
changed everything Brandon's phone the last activity on his phone caused the phone to ping on a cell
00:37:35
phone tower that was nowhere near where he told his father that he was so Brandon thought he was near Lynde saying
00:37:45
he would meet him in the parking lot of the Lynwood tavern so instead of lend his phone hit off of a tower 20 miles
00:37:54
away in the town of Minnie ootah so now they need to go search this area the area that was covered by that cell tower
00:38:04
sure enough it is during this search at 12:30 p.m. on the 14th of May the officers found Brandon's Chevy Lumina in
00:38:13
a ditch off a gravel road as he described it to his parents this is several miles from can be where Brandon
00:38:22
started off and 25 miles from Lynde the car was in a ditch alongside a minimum maintenance road off of Lyon Lincoln
00:38:32
County Road which runs north to south and separates the two counties just west of Taunton and east of Porter if you're
00:38:41
looking for this location on a map it's about a mile and a half north of the intersection of Lyon Lincoln County Road
00:38:49
and Highway 68 so so you're saying Brandon's about 25 minutes away from where he claimed to be correct and this
00:38:59
is where it does this is where the case gets me because again well this is where
00:39:03
it makes absolutely no sense well you're right because the claim is that this kid knows his way around these
00:39:09
roads that he knows the directions around there and and that's not always a claim that that fathers would make about
00:39:17
their sons when it comes to driving right and they're making these claims that he knows these roads he knew he
00:39:24
knows his whereabouts and he's twenty five minutes away from where he said he was that's that's bizarre so there I
00:39:33
mean there's so many things bizarre about where he he ended up I mean I I was sitting there the other night and I
00:39:40
thought that to put together the description of where everything is and where he ends up where he thinks he is I
00:39:49
mean you're left there sitting looking at a map going this just doesn't make any sense he's not that far away from
00:39:55
the party he's much closer to the party than where he was supposed to end up at his parents house so I mean basically if
00:40:03
you take if you take Camby and draw a diagonal line on a piece of paper south east to Marshall it'd be a straight shot
00:40:12
right right south of that south of Marshall where he lived where he's trying to get to is
00:40:17
Lind so he goes way he believes that he is near Marshall near Lind which is technically out of the way but where he
00:40:29
ends up is somewhere along that diagonal line basically he's he's north of Lind and Mineo des mm-hmm which is much
00:40:38
closer to can be and very in 20 25 minutes away from Marshall and Lind well it seems like you know somehow he gets
00:40:47
confused and gets on on a road that he thinks is familiar but is not correct well and that's where I think the
00:40:55
trouble lies with this case is I think you could be pretty sober and get turned around even if you do know the area
00:41:04
fairly well because again everything kind of looks the same the roads are all just basically numbers when I
00:41:12
I also question are any of these phone calls that he's making to his friends look we've
00:41:18
we can assume that he's not calling anybody until the car he fears off and goes in the ditch right but I'm telling
00:41:26
you it was a bad habit I would get on the road when I'm playing gigs and every time I was on the damn phone I'd miss an
00:41:35
exit and it was always an exit that I that I knew from you know I was familiar with and I'd be going ah again you know
00:41:44
so that's why I also wonder was he talking somebody on the phone where just by being on that phone he gets on the
00:41:51
wrong road and then he you know travels I think it would have been incredibly easy to make a wrong turn right and but
00:42:00
but what that's not so hard to believe what's really hard to believe is that he he clearly hasn't traveled much of a
00:42:11
distance and and he hasn't traveled as far as he believes that he has traveled so then you start to wonder necessarily
00:42:19
and the reason why is because he could have been heading one direction and then once he makes the wrong turn or or or
00:42:27
gets confused he could actually been heading back the other direction no and that's what I mean right we don't know
00:42:34
he could have been driving for as long as he anticipated right right and that's where I think the problem lies and I
00:42:41
think that that might be where I think that might be why he thinks he was was where he thought he was which is a weird
00:42:50
statement to say but he knows generally how long of a drive it would be from can
00:42:55
be to Marshall or can be to lend and I think he probably drove around about that amount of time and says well that's
00:43:03
where I must be right his lend where as you pointed out and I think what's probably correct here is that he's made
00:43:09
several wrong turns turned around a couple times tried to correct himself and ultimately he's just getting more
00:43:16
and more lost more and more confused about where he where he is actually locating right and again this becomes a
00:43:23
issue because we don't know how intoxicated he is or like you said just you know being exhausted
00:43:30
right we don't know so Lincoln County Sheriff Jack Vaisakhi offered a description of Brandon's car he said the
00:43:40
car was found on the Lincoln County side of the county line quote it was off the
00:43:45
side of a field approached and the vehicle was hung up it's sort of a sharp incline nothing major but enough that
00:43:54
the car would get hung up so the wheels are too high off the ground to get any traction and quote Brandon's car while
00:44:03
immobilized was technically fine no it was operating just fine there was no real damage to it and this is further
00:44:12
backed up by Brandon's mother Annette right there's no evidence that he had been hurt in this incident and
00:44:19
furthermore he tells his parents he's fine from the incident and there was no evidence that anyone else was involved
00:44:26
in the accident as well right so basically saying that we don't think he hit his head or
00:44:32
anything and that he was conscious of what was happening from my understanding Brandon told his parents this accident
00:44:40
happened as he was trying to turn off of an unpaved Road if you if you want to try to picture this scenario basically
00:44:50
it's like he's trying to turn around in the middle of the road and maybe go the opposite direction right and because
00:44:59
these are country roads that typically are not wide lanes he got hung up in in the ditch and when they say hung up they
00:45:08
just mean that the the tires are not touching the ground therefore you cannot move the car
00:45:14
it was we've had another case that was very similar to this vehicle type situation I think it was Brianna
00:45:21
Maitland right where the car was it worked just fine and that's what confused people so much but but if if
00:45:28
those if the tires that move when you hit the accelerator do not touch the ground your car doesn't move no traction
00:45:35
that's right furthermore many reports say that nothing else unusual was found at the
00:45:42
actual site however one very important source that we will get into later and we've already touched upon says the car
00:45:50
doors were found open if that is true to me captain that would be incredibly strange in any event sheriff Vaisakhi
00:46:02
said that officers could not determine which direction brandon was heading after he left the vehicle which
00:46:09
direction he was heading on foot he says quote there's grass in the ditch and gravel on the road so it is possible
00:46:16
to leave that vehicle and not leave any tracks one thing the sheriff failed to mention was an unfortunate coincidence
00:46:27
the roads were graded on the morning of May 14th before the vehicle was actually
00:46:33
found and located by deputies this destroying any possible footprint or other evidence that they may have found
00:46:40
on the gravel roads let's discuss the scene where the car was found we know there were no prints of use in that one
00:46:50
source indicates that the doors were open and keys were gone there was nothing unusual found in near or on the
00:46:57
vehicle we have seen a few reports that a pipe was found in the car to be perfectly clear there's no indication of
00:47:06
what kind of pipe right it could be a tobacco pipe it could be a marijuana pipe crack pipe could be a lead pipe I
00:47:14
have no idea but I think the general idea here is if in fact the pipe was found in the vehicle then it's possible
00:47:24
Brandon could have been high before he set off on foot that night right I don't know captain in in my opinion I want to
00:47:33
throw this out there I feel like the the pipe being found in the car might just be some bad information yes and I and I
00:47:41
say that because there is one newspaper article that references this pipe but they give no indication of what it was
00:47:49
used for what kind of pipe it was and then where I see other reports the the can't
00:47:56
to say that there was a pipe in the car they appear to me to be reports and articles that were written using that
00:48:02
first article right you might you know I mean like is bad information that people
00:48:07
are passing on as a rumor that's also a gut tells me also could be a small little pipe you know I worked at a
00:48:12
hardware store I get to see somebody carrying around a little piece of lead pipe you know as protection mm-hmm so
00:48:20
that's something to the the thing that I keep going now now that we're on this smoke in the pipe right mm-hmm and the
00:48:29
whole intoxicated level one of the things that has really got me about this cases yes we know that he was at these
00:48:35
two parties hanging out with his friends and yes they say well yeah we think he was drinking out the first one and he
00:48:41
might have been drinking on the second one we don't know how much we'd know that he had a shot of Jack Daniels what
00:48:48
I wonder was was there any smoking of the weed was there any usage of like mushrooms he
00:48:59
almost sounded like a really old person there first I was looking of the week I almost said smoking the weed boy you
00:49:05
hound the weed he was out there smoking the weed so because I I'm just trying to
00:49:14
think of my friends early days of college if something happened to one of our buddies would probably start off
00:49:20
with yes we were drinking if it was one of the days that we were experimenting with shrooms I don't think we would have
00:49:27
told the parents that we were experimenting with shrooms right but I think I get where you're going with this
00:49:33
yeah I think what you're trying to say is as time passes and as the concern for your friend who is lost and continues to
00:49:43
be lost are you saying that at some point you just well under more maybe maybe be a little more upfront about
00:49:50
something I think you would so I think so I think we would hear rumors about that and I would just don't hear rumors
00:49:56
about that right and of course marijuana drinking all of that is totally believable because that's very common at
00:50:07
the age of 19 you know early college santé high school very common so it's totally believable but to me it feels
00:50:16
like if the suspicion was strong enough for that that the suspicion would have stood the test of time and it really has
00:50:24
not because what you have here in this case is you have Brian Swanson Brandon's father Brian who has said for 11 years
00:50:34
now that he does not believe that his son was in any way incapacitated that evening saying that Brandon sounded
00:50:42
totally normal lucid and coherent on the phone right there's just so much evidence against that I mean one the you
00:50:51
know he has to call for help because of his car like you said turning around on a country road because I think that's
00:51:00
evidence that there's an impairment there the fact that you know if it's true that they found two doors open that
00:51:07
doesn't make a lot of sense to me that shows in sign of an impairment the fact that he doesn't know where he's at
00:51:13
sign of impairment the fact that then he claims where he's gonna start walking towards again another sign of an
00:51:22
impairment so you know I'm I'm glad that just you don't hit you know III don't I'm not saying that his father's a liar
00:51:31
I'm just saying that there's a lot of evidence against the fact that he you know that he was completely coherent
00:51:38
well I mean he he wouldn't be a live liar if he believed what he's saying and meaning you know Brian Swanson it does
00:51:47
not believe that his son could basically he's saying look I was on the phone with
00:51:51
him for 47 minutes it wasn't a 2 minute phone call it wasn't a five minute phone
00:51:56
call right right he's saying I don't think my son could fake it through a very lengthy phone call no no I agree
00:52:04
with that and and Brandon's friends have not said that he was drunk or high although if they were like you said
00:52:10
underage or they were doing illegal activities they might not admit to this especially right away we know that there
00:52:18
have been there was quite of a bit of time unaccounted for it seems to be that way depending on
00:52:25
which timeline you follow for that evening right but one thing that I find that's that's super interesting is the
00:52:34
police investigators have also said repeatedly that they do not believe Brandon was impaired that evening now of
00:52:42
course it's totally unclear on how they would know this or how they were able to
00:52:49
come to this conclusion right and the impairment doesn't have to be drugs it can again be exhaustion
00:52:57
you know exhaustion right and and the police coming to this conclusion may just be because all of his friends and
00:53:04
his dad says that he wasn't you know intoxicated basically and all reports are telling us he was he was sober kind
00:53:12
of thing yeah but what does seem clear to me more so than if he was impaired or intoxicated in any way it's 100% that
00:53:24
Brandon was very very confused about where he was that evening well the other evidence that he possibly was impaired
00:53:31
is that he's taking these back roads and instead of taking the more traveled you
00:53:38
know well-lit roads you're taking back roads that that's another sign to me mm-hmm
00:53:45
and I'm not saying that he's like drunk to the point where he can't walk I'm just saying that maybe you know buzzed
00:53:52
enough where you know can't get his car unstuck leaves the door open doesn't know exactly where he's at has to take
00:54:00
the back roads right but I think I think a big problem with this case is and there's some debate and I don't know
00:54:07
having you know I don't live in this area or have never visited this area there is some debate online about how
00:54:16
well the roads he would have been traveling were actually marked if they were even marked at the time in 2008
00:54:24
yeah again if if the farms look the same the farmland looks the same the streets
00:54:30
and roads look the same you know I don't know that it it we gained much value out
00:54:37
of debating if he was impaired or not but I can see a situation where somebody would be
00:54:42
maybe even sober as a judge and perfectly fine and still get turned around in this situation though he's
00:54:50
he's 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
00:54:58
remember he thinks that they're coming from the town of Lindh they are not we we know that from where his vehicles
00:55:06
found now you said that they had his phone records they got the phone records pretty quickly but do we know I mean it
00:55:13
was 2008 so did they have any text mess any text messages any records of that I looked up his phone and I actually
00:55:25
thought that it was another phone before I looked it up I thought it was like the
00:55:28
the razor remember that Motorola had like a silver razor flip type phone yeah that's the phone that I thought it was
00:55:36
and when I when I looked up the phone online it showed me clearly a different model but what I can say from what i can
00:55:43
view regarding that phone is it did have texting i believe it to have texting capabilities right if his regarding what
00:55:55
kind of service he had might play into that somehow remember right remember back in the day it wasn't like like
00:56:02
today's I don't get it yeah today you sign up for a plan and they're like well you get everything you know
00:56:07
back then it was quite different so I can't remember exactly when the change have it the days when you'd have to like
00:56:15
you know on a trigger how much you text well yeah that but also like you'd also text by like you'd have to hit you know
00:56:23
three a couple times four see you know in judging by the the picture the image I saw of the phones that were brought up
00:56:32
in my google search he very likely would have been if he was texting it would have been that deal where you're like
00:56:38
tapped the number one three times for the letter C type of thing right and again it might have been a new enough
00:56:47
time 2008 where where the texting was fine I don't have any detailed reports regarding his
00:56:54
his phone logs for that night but what I what I believe to be a fair statement to
00:57:02
say about his phone log would be that nothing there doesn't seem to be anything that is outstanding as weird or
00:57:12
unusual because we would have that information you know we we that would be included in the narrative of this story
00:57:20
that that there not only does was there the strange situation of he's on the actual phone I mean and that's the way
00:57:29
that this story plays out in the way that it's told on the Internet and told from person to person is Brandon is on
00:57:35
the phone at the time that he vanishes which is so incredibly weird we've had so many other cases that we've covered
00:57:42
that there are there's a strange phone call involved in a missing-persons case but to be actually on the phone with
00:57:48
one's father when when it's believed that he went missing yeah I mean this is and it's weird too cuz you got Brandon
00:57:56
Swanson and then you have the Brandon Lawson case which is oh yeah similar yeah both involve phone calls strange
00:58:05
phone calls yeah two family members yeah both Brandon's yeah so it's it's one of
00:58:12
those situations where I see what you're getting at and I wish we knew that information I think that the reason why
00:58:18
it's not reported is that it may just have no real bearing on the case it may be in fact exactly as we just said that
00:58:28
from the call records we know that he tried he attempted to call a couple friends we know that he called his
00:58:35
parents when his parents say that he's on the phone with them and we know that his father tried to call his phone
00:58:42
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to get to in this incredibly fascinating case of missing person brandon swanson still left captain we have the search
00:59:51
for brandon we have the theories about what could have happened to him plus our thoughts and the conclusion only one
00:59:59
episode this week due to the holiday if you need more garage download the stitcher app and check out all of our
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01:00:18
comm and leave us your theories and thoughts on the brandon Swanson case and until next week everybody be good be
01:00:27
kind and don't live [Music] [Applause] [Music]