Brandon Swanson /// Part 1 /// 332 | Forensic Files

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

Source: https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-r9wdx-be1bad

Brandon Swanson /// Part 1 /// 332 Part 1 of 3 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com This week we take a deep dive into a fascinating missing persons case. Brandon Swanson went missing in May of 2008. The strangest part of his case, he was on the phone with his father when he vanished. Beer of the Week - Hazy Jane by Brew Dog Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 Bottle Caps This week’s show is sponsored by: www.GreenLightCard.com/Garage - Greenlight is a Debit card for kids that parents manage with a handy app www.Everlane.com/Garage - Right now get FREE shipping on your first order www.SimpliSafe.com/Garage - Get FREE shipping and a 60 risk free trial www.FabFitFun.com - Use code GARAGE for $10 off your first box!

The full archive of True Crime Garage is available on the Stitcher listening app - for FREE. Our show “Off the Record” is only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

Brandon Swanson went missing in 2008 after calling his parents for help; his car was found later, but he was never located.

Key points

Introducing Greenlight. A debit card for kids managed by parents, teaching money management skills.
Brandon Victor Swanson's Disappearance. Reviewing the case of Brandon, who went missing in May 2008.
Brandon's Last Night. Details of Brandon's last night before he went missing, including parties and drinking.
The Confusing Call. Brandon calls his parents, claiming he got his car stuck in a ditch.
Brandon's Disappearance. Brandon goes missing after a night out, leading to a frantic search.
Confusion Over Location. Brandon's phone pings far from where he claimed to be, complicating the search.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Brandon was a sweet good kid who loved reading and debating.

Description of Brandon

7:28WatchSep 3, 2019

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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