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

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chair grab a beer let's talk some true 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 US 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 14th 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 5' 5 in to 5' 6 in
tall and approximately 120 to 130 lb with brown hair and blue eyes he was last seen wearing baggy blue jeans a Blu
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 6941 1664 this this true crime
[Music] 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 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 4-year college
to get his degree in science so after a year of hard work it's miday school's out for the summer it's time to go out
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 detail 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 Lion 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 to read 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 uh cuz he's
dedicated to the environment particularly renewable resources mhm and he loved politics history and music he
also loved the Minnesota Twins Brandon was not a big dude he was just about 5'5 5' 6 in tall and only about 125 lbs and
one thing that may be quite important as we move through this Brandon 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 striped Polo
sweatshirt over a white T-shirt a black Zip front Jack jacket a white Minnesota Twins baseball hat he tended to wear
this hat sideways mhm 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 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 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 cani where Minnesota West
Community and Technical College is located so brand 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 th this seems like a huge window of time reports very 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 mhm
the reason why 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 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 Roman Coke or you know whiskey and Coke so you just go was
he do doing that at the first party or at the second party sounds more likely that he would do it at the second party
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
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 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 cani and
Marshall in cani you hop on rout 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 cambi and then 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 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 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 ly if he were coming from a
party in Canby cambi is a straight shot to Marshall down Route 68 Lind is out of
the way and not a Route 68 at all but we believe that Brandon was intending to take back roads 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 were 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 his 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 but I agree
with you it's it's kind of fair to say chances are he he um got stuck in this ditch called his friends for help before
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 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 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 uh if you look at a if you look at lion County Minnesota on Google Maps
first you'll see that it's incredibly rural flat and the roads are almost laid out in a gridlike 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 CR really clever names the yeah the crops are high there is virtually
nothing delineating one area from the next next and the Street and Avenue names are all confusing cuz 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 the 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 that Brandon might have been confused
about where he was he left a party and then he called his parents at4 a.m let's just bring into the question that this
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 a.m. 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 end 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 217 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
Fair 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 his car correct yeah so again Brandon is getting frustrated and I'd be
pissed well I mean I mean Flash in my lights don't you see me no I don't see anything it's dark out here well I think
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 them 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 that
that DUI in the past but this this is weird because to me it points to two things one it points the
evidence that he's intoxicated because he's giving somebody 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 Lind 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 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 lindwood 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
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call us at 1888 [Music] Freedom all right we're back cheers mates Cheers Cheers Cheers Captain it's
just going to 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
lindwood tavern parking lot so his dad's driving to find him he's going to call his son and get back on the phone with
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 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 by shortly after that Brandon said quote Oh [ __ ] and Brandon's dad says he heard a
sound like something slipping then at 310 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 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 mhm 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 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
I'll get a joke text like oh you sent me straight to voicemail and I go send you
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
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 look 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 Lion 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 mhm 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 push back 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 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 for 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 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 their 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 out a cruiser we let's see what we can do and here's the thing if you end up finding the kid you're the
hero of the day man you're the hero of the day so what ends up happening though Captain is the Swanson 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 countywide 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 t 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 Lynnwood Tavern so instead of Lind his phone hit off of a tower 20 miles
away in the town of Minot 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
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 lion 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 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 he knows his whereabouts and he's 25 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 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 cambi
and draw a diagonal line on a piece of paper Southeast 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 in minota mhm which is much closer to Canby
and very and 20 25 minutes away from Marshall and lint 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 cuz 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 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 I was familiar with and I'd be going oh 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 wonder not necessarily and the reason why is cuz 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 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 can B to Marshall
or can be to Lind and I think he probably drove around about that amount of time and says well that's where I
must be is Lind whereas 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 right we don't know so Lincoln County Sheriff
jack veki off 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 inine 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 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 Bri maitlin 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 track 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 mhm in any event Sheriff veki 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 a 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
that 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 know you know what be 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 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 smoke in the pipe right
mhm 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 on the
first one and uh he might have been drinking on the second one we don't know how much we know that he had a shot of
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 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'm just trying to think of my friends early days of college if 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 you just go into more maybe maybe be a little more upfront about some things
I think you would so so I think we would hear rumors about that and I we just don't hear rumors about that right um
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 out of 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 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 it's I think that's evidence that
there's an an impairment there uh the fact that you know if it's true that they found two doors open that doesn't
make a lot of sense to me that shows in sign of impairment the fact that he doesn't know where he's at sign of
impairment the fact that um then he claims where he's going to start walking to towards again another sign of
impairment so you know I'm glad that is you know you know I I I don't I'm not saying that his father's a liar I'm just
saying that there's a lot of evidence against the fact that he you know with that he was completely
coherent well I mean he he wouldn't be a li 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 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 a 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 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 uh exhaus 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 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 imper 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 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 C cases 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 if the Farms look the same the Farmland looks the same the
streets and roads look the same you know I I I don't I don't know that it it we gained much value out of
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 yeah 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 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 me 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 razor remember the 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 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 it his regarding what kind of service he had might play into that somehow remember remember back
in the day it wasn't like like today you sign get it yeah today sign up for a plan and they're like well you get
everything you know back then it was uh quite different so I I and I can't remember exactly when the change
happened the days when you'd have to like you monitor how much you text well yeah that but also like you'd also text
by like you would have to hit you know three a couple times for C you know uh and judging by the the the picture the
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 we that would be included in The Narrative of this story that that there Not only 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 and
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 LW in case which is kind of similar yeah both involve phone
calls strange phone calls yeah two family members yeah both Brandon 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 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 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 [Music] in 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 the 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
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and thoughts on the Brandon Swanson case and until next week everybody be good be
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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 getting his car stuck, leading to confusion and a lengthy search effort.

Key points

Brandon's Disappearance. Brandon Victor Swanson went missing after a night out with friends in 2008.
The Confusing Call. Brandon called his parents claiming he was stuck in a ditch, but his location was unclear.
Brandon's Frustration. Brandon struggles to direct his parents to his location, leading to confusion.
Missing Person Report. Brandon's parents report him missing after a frustrating night of searching.
Phone Records Change Everything. Cell phone records reveal Brandon's last known location was far from where he claimed.
The Mysterious Case of Brandon Swanson. Brandon Swanson vanished while on the phone with his father, raising questions about his state of mind.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

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1:59WatchNov 16, 2023

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