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

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let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] 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 person's case listed on the vicap page Brandon Victor Swanson was last seen on
May 14 2008 in Canby 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 five foot five inches to
five foot six 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 slvr
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 651-793-7000 or call the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office at 507
694-1664 this is True Crime garage [Music] May 13 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
Canby 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 it's 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 13th 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 the town in Lyon County the population at
the time was about 13 500. Brandon was close with his family they describe 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 five
foot five five foot six inches tall and only about 125 pounds and one thing that
may be quite important as we move through this Brandon wore glasses and he was illegally blind in his left eye
on the night he went out and didn't come home he was wearing baggy blue jeans a blue
striped 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 PM 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 Lynn 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 too 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 pm 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 Canby 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 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 [Music] the reason why with these reports vary
is 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 the time but that is what the general report is see I don't remember what they said
about the first party if he was 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 the second party sounds more likely they
could do it at the second party if if they said well we know he had a shot of whiskey and me and some others we found
reports that state that he left as early as midnight and some reports that left as late as 1 30 in the morning yeah
again normally we would take Umbridge 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 in Canby this is about 30 miles from his
hometown of Marshall it's a 30 to 35 minute drive that is a straight diagonal shot along a two-lane road which is
route 68. Route 68 is a highway that runs between Canby 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 and that he had successfully completed a Year's 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 uh 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 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 time frame Brandon
tried to contact two or three of his friends by phone but he couldn't reach them
so at 1 54 am 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 Lind the town where he went to the first party and Marshall where he lived according to
Brandon he was somewhere between Marshall and Lind just off the highway now as we said it wouldn't make much
sense for Brandon to be between Marshall and Lynn if he were coming from a party
in Canby Canby 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 backroads as the captain 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 all male friends do we have any contact of female friends
no and and here's here's my actual belief here 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 it tried 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 DUI then the repercussions of that right right and
yeah it could just be a whole bad situation for him if he's able to get a hold of somebody else instead he's an
adult maybe he could 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 a female that he was going to 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 I agree with you it's kind of fair to say chances are he he got stuck in this ditch called his
friends for help before he caught 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 Lind
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 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
uh if you look at a if you look at line 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 150th Avenue 300th Street for example basically everything looks the same the
clever names yeah 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 it was possibly even fatigued at this late hour and he's blind in one eye right all this simply is to say that
that Brandon might have been confused about where he was he left a party and then he called his
parents at 1 54 a.m let's just bring it 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 1 54 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 1 54
am both his parents Brian and Annette 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 10 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 your eye 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 the switch being flipped on and flipped off through the phone through
the phone because you know how it 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 this car correct yeah
so again Brandon is getting frustrated and I'd be pissed well I mean I mean I'm 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 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 to find him well and you also Wonder Hey as you're flashing these lights if
they don't come find me first does a police officer find me so that's one and you have that fear because you have the
the DUI in the past but this this is weird because to me it points to two things one it points to
evidence that he's intoxicated because he's giving somebody directions to a place that he's not at
but then the 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 Lent he says hey let's go and let's meet in a parking lot of the
Linwood Tavern this is a bar in 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 [Music] foreign [Music] we're back cheers mates
Cheers 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 Annette
Brandon's mother Brian his father drove her back home the 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 Lind meet me in the Lynn Wood 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 am Brandon said he's walking along a
gravel road away from Marshall in the direction of Lind 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 AM 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 a 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
with um this early technology it it and it varies so it's not as simple as well it was ringing so we
believe his phone was still working 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 then it means that
the phone is still live 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 oh you sent me straight to voicemail and I go let's 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
exact situation so kind of you to call me an expert and say that look when when you hear that ring that that's not
indicative of activity on that actual phone yeah it's 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 Lind 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 Annette 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 person's 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 was 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 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 uh 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 uh we have a
situation see this is I mean it's just unfortunate that's pathetic 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 is Serve and Protect which you're supposed to be doing anyway why not just
send a car to this general area where this concerned mother and father are saying they're young
man 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 uh we're sending on a
cruiser we'll 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
Swansons 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 cell phone
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 Lind
saying he would meet him in the parking lot of the Linwood Tavern so instead of lend his phone hit off of
a tower 20 miles away in the town of Minneota 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 pm on the 14th of May that 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 Canby where Brandon started off
and 25 miles from Lind the car was in a ditch alongside a minimum maintenance Road off of Lion
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 this 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 uh fathers would make about their sons when it
comes to driving right right and they're making these claims that he knows these
roads he he knows his whereabouts and he's 25 minutes away from where he said he was
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 to put together the 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 and 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 Canby
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 land 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 in Minnesota which is much closer to Canby and very
in 20 25 minutes away from Marshall and land 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 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 I was familiar with and I'd be going ah again you know so that's why I also wonder was
he talking to somebody on the phone where just by being on that phone he 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 wander necessarily
and the reason why is because he could have been heading One Direction and then once he makes the wrong turn or or gets
confused he could have actually been heading back the other direction no and that's what I mean we we don't know
he 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 Canby 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 is 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 located right and again this
becomes an issue because we don't know how intoxicated he is or like you said just you know being exhausted you know
right we don't know so Lincoln County Sheriff Jack vaseki 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 approach 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 end quote
Brandon's car while immobilized was technically fine you know 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 he's trying to turn around in the middle
of the road and 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 uh 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 [Music] in any event Sheriff vaseki 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 and 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 the I 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 that
that contain they 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 what I mean like it's bad information that people are passing on
as a rumor that's what my gut tells me also could be a small little pipe you know I worked at a hardware store I
could see somebody carrying around a little piece of lead pipe you know as protection
so that's something too the the thing that I keep going now now that we're on this uh
smoking the pipe right and the whole intoxicated level one of the things that has really got me about this case is 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 at the first one and uh 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 um smoking of the of weed
um was there any usage of like mushrooms you almost sounded like a really old person there first I was smoking of the
weed I almost said smoking the weed boy you high on the weed he was out there smoking the weed
um so because I I'm just trying to think of my friends early days of college if something
happened to one of our buddies we'd 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 go into more maybe maybe be a little more upfront about some things 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 um 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 just at a 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 right 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 but 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 uh 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 a sign of an impairment the fact that he doesn't know where he's at
sign of impairment the fact that um then he claims where he's going to start walking towards again another sign
of impairment so you know I'm glad that it's you know you know I I don't I'm not saying that his
father is 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 liar if he believed what he's saying and meaning you know
Brian Swanson 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 two-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 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
could again be exhaustion you know exhaustion it 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 in 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 an imperative is that he's taking these
back roads and instead of taking the More Travel you know well-lit roads you're taking back roads that that's
another sign to me and I'm not saying that he's like drunk to the point where he can't walk I'm just saying that maybe
he's you know buzzed enough where you know can't get his car 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 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 I don't know that it it we gain 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 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 Lind they are not we we know that uh from where his vehicle is 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 um 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 Razer remember the Motorola had like a silver
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 um 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 you sign up
get it yeah yeah today you sign up for a plan and they're like well you get everything you know back then it was uh
quite different so all right and I can't remember exactly when the change happened the days when you'd have to
like monitor how much you text well yeah that but also like you'd also text by like
you would have to hit you know three a couple times for C you know uh in judging by the the the picture the image
I saw of the phones that that were brought up in my Google search he he very likely would have been if he was
texting it would have been that deal where you're like tap the number one three times for the letter c
right 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 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 that is outstanding as weird or unusual because we would have that information
you know we would that would be included in The Narrative of this story that that
there not only does was there this strange situation of he's on the actual phone I mean and 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 person's 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 because 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 of 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 the call goes dead on Brandon's end [Music] there's so much more 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 this Stitcher app and check out all of our old shows and also
we have a weekly bonus show on Stitcher premium called off the Record there's now over 70 episodes available so check
that out and make sure you go to truecrime garage.com and leave us your theories and thoughts on the Brandon
Swanson case and until next week everybody be good be kind and don't let him foreign
[Music]

Brandon Swanson /// Part 1 /// 332

Part 1 of 3

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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

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Brief Summary

Brandon Swanson went missing in 2008 after a night out, leaving behind puzzling clues and a confusing phone call to his parents.

Key points

Brandon's Disappearance. Brandon Victor Swanson went missing after a night out with friends.
Brandon's Last Night. Brandon attended two parties before disappearing, raising questions about his whereabouts.
Confusion in the Dark. Brandon's call to his parents reveals he was lost and confused about his location.
Brandon's Disappearance. Brandon goes missing after a night out, leading to frantic searches by his parents.
Cell Phone Records Change Everything. Cell phone records reveal Brandon's last activity was far from where he claimed to be.
The Car is Found. Brandon's car is discovered in a ditch, raising more questions about his whereabouts.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

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

Describing Brandon's character.

7:02WatchNov 21, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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