Holly Branagan /// Part 1 /// 236 | Forensic Files

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chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] [Music] crime the brand Brans were not rich but
they certainly were comfortable and happy Richard branagan's job as a sales representative for a cement company
based out of New Jersey provided well for his family they were able to buy a house in
an exclusive section of Bethlehem Pennsylvania the house on Pinetop Trail was in a secluded wooded area the
driveway allowed for privacy the house came with all the benefits of suburban life in the
1970s quality schools quality friends and the safety of a well-to-do group of neighbors the branagan family was a
typical 1960s family Peg and Richard had two children Shawn and his little sister
Holly and Peg was a stay-at-home mom but life can change on a dime and it did for the Brans when Peg was diagnosed
with leukemia she fought hard but ended up losing her battle in November of 1976 throughout her illness the family
Dynamic changed at 14 Holly started to take over the role of the Homemaker she did her best to keep the
family unit moving through everyday life as her mother slipped away this role she
assumed without complaint and the three of them had to pull together to keep keep moving
forward 3 years after Peg passed the children had grown it was 1979 Shawn was a freshman at Lehigh
University mahol was a junior at Freedom High School Shawn was interested in cars and
he worked at rener service station in Hanover Township this was a Mobile gas station
that also serviced Vehicles Holly grew into a respectful quiet teen she was an average student
and sang Alto in the Senior Choir at school she was also the manager of the boys school soccer team Holly did work a
summer job at the local Holiday Inn as a server but had recently left the job for
part-time work at the mall her plans after high school were to attend Penn State
University with their dad traveling most of the week for work the Branan children
became very independent they didn't have the typical parental supervision Holly and Shawn both lived
their own lives they looked out for each other but each had their own group of friends and
habits this never was an issue until March 28th 1979 [Music] on Wednesday March 28th
1979 17-year-old Holly branagan attended school and took the bus home as usual she entered her house and proceeded on
with her day just like any other this meant calling her friends and talking on the phone at l length that day at school
Holly had made plans with friends to go out for pizza she was going to be picked
up at her house at 6:00 p.m. Holly was on the phone in her bedroom with one of her friends when at 4:40 p.m. she told
her friend that someone was at the door Holly placed the phone on her bed and went to answer the door the friend would
wait a few minutes listening to the radio playing in the background a couple minutes later Holly picked up the phone
in the kitchen and informed her friend that someone was there and she would have to end the call at 4:45 p.m. Holly
called her father's office and asked his secretary B if her father had already left for his business trip be told her
he had indeed left the office and was on his way to Atlantic City at 5:00 p.m. Holly's friend calls
her back side note here there there are two versions of this and it may be important important we can evaluate that
later but some reports state that the phone rang but no one answered the phone mhm other Reports say that the friend
heard a busy signal at 600 p.m. one of Holly's other friends this is her friend Sally arrives
to pick her up to go for pizza the friend knocks on the front door and is greeted by the family dog the dog's name
is Clancy and the dog of course is barking because Somebody's knocking on the door her friend knocks again but
once again nobody answers the friend assumes Holly is either in the shower running late for
their plans or maybe she has changed her plans and was already out of the house so her friend decides to walk around to
the side of the house to a staircase that leads to the kitchen sliding glass door she stops at the base of the stairs
when she quote had a bad feeling end quote her feeling caused her not to ascend the stairs at the same time as
Holly was home after school Shawn her brother was at his friend's house his friend's name is Mark Viola yeah Mark
was 18 and Mark lived with his parents at the time when Mark's mother made dinner that night she asked Shawn if he
would like to stay for dinner and this was an offer that that happened regularly and Shawn never turned down
this offer you know you know how it goes when you're at a buddy's house and you're a teenager 18 19 and his mom's
cooking dinner you stick around right you stick around for a couple hours well and his his mom just passed away also
and so then you know I grew up living with my father so if anybody offered me food I took it because you didn't have
the mom at home cooking the good meal the weird thing here Captain is not only has his mother passed away but on this
night his father would be out of town traveling for work which was not an uncommon occurrence mhm and then he has
his younger sister who's at home but the vibe that I get from this situation is it wouldn't be terribly uncommon for
Holly even being a minor to stay home by herself yeah but I think once you get into you know late middle school high
school it's pretty common that you're left home alone mhm well the the two young men uh Holly's brother Shawn and
his friend Mark at Mark's house they were work on a vehicle and even after dinner they decided hey look things are
going good on this project let's just stay and finish up this project so let's after dinner let's get back to working
on the car now Shawn knew that this would run very late into the night and he would probably be spending the night
at Mark's home yeah so he's going to call home to tell his sister that he's spending the night at his buddy's house
he's going to get the Busy Signal though he won't actually speak with Holly and from my standing he tries to call
several times that night to let her know but keep in mind his sister that he's trying to reach she's a junior in high
school and one thing we do know about her typical day is that she spent the evenings on the phone right so calling
home getting the busy signal it's not going to set off any red flags for Shawn because he's at his friend's house he's
calling home trying to reach his sister one could assume that she would be on the phone that night just going about
her normal business well the following day the next morning of March 29th one of Holly's friends arrives at the house
to pick her up for school the friend knocks on the door but the only answer she gets is the dog her friend knocks
again and leaves for school without any contact from Holly now her brother Shawn
arrived home in the morning and found Holly's lifeless body lying on the kitchen floor near the sliding glass
door she was lying in a dried pool of blood with a blade of a 10-in kitchen knife sticking out of her right side of
her back the handle to the murder weapon was lying on the floor near Holly the handle had snapped and broke off Sean
sees the kitchen phone is off the hook and a clock is broken and on the floor the hands of the clock had stopped and
remained at 5:20 Shawn leaves the house and calls the police and then calls his father's
office the office calls Richard and he returns home immediately the police arrive and they start to process the
scene this police force unfortunately has very little experience in Murder investigations they fail to tape off the
house in the yard instead of limiting access to the scene they let several people enter and leave the house they do
process the scene as best as they know how they collected fingerprints and took many photographs the handle to the knife
was collected on further examination it was determined that the handle had been wiped clean it contained no prints there
was talk of a bloody towel being recovered from the scene but no evidence of that exist to this day there was no
sign of anything missing from the house Holly's body was taken to the corner and
it was determined that she had 18 wounds mostly to the back out of the 18 wounds 15 would have been
fatal stab wounds three were less serious wounds and Holly had a couple of defensive wounds on her hands so let's
talk about what that could mean here Captain we see that we have 18 wounds 15 of them were fatal stab wounds that's a
serious that means any one of these 15 stab wounds would have killed her mhm and we talked about the weapon being a
10-in kitchen knife so this is something that most likely might have been grabbed
In the Heat of the Moment and she's stabbed repeatedly well wouldn't we know this I mean would we know if the knife
came from inside the house or if it came from outside the house yes it came from
the branigan's home it it belong to the Brans and so we have this situation here
where most of the wounds are to her back she had very few defensive wounds there's a chance that whoever decided to
attack her and for whatever reason waited until her back was turned and then they went after her and she would
have died very quickly during this attack and then she's left on the floor let's just go over this a little bit
more so she's on the phone with one of her friends mhm and she puts down the phone says hey there's somebody at the
door so she puts the phone down right so we don't know if her friend on the phone
if she heard dog barking or not right right her friend heard a radio so when when Holly put the phone down the radio
was playing either in the house or inside Holly's room at that time she was on the phone in her room right okay so
when she put the phone down her friend could hear the music that was playing on the radio so she couldn't in the
background she never I couldn't find any reports of her saying that she heard the
dog barking um looking at the layout of the house there could have been a decent
amount of distance between Holly's room and the front door yeah and so with the radio being on even you know I have a
couple dogs and they bark regardless they bark whether it's somebody they know or somebody they don't know if
somebody knocks on the door MH so given the distance between her room in the front door and the added fact that the
radio's on that could have drowned out the noise of the dog I would assume the dog was barking at that time so then she
goes and answers the door Holly goes and answers the door correct she then gets back on the phone in the kitchen not
immediately not immediately yes some time passes a few minutes several minutes pass and then she it's believed
that she picked up the phone in the kitchen and says to her friend hey um somebody's here I'll have to call
you back it almost seems like Holly doesn't know this individual because if it was somebody that was common to her
and her friend she would say Hey you know Jake is here well that's that's the tricky thing and um that is what the
investigators were hoping to find out now the weird thing here though is think about that sequence of events so she
puts down the phone goes and answers the door and her friend remains on the phone
for several minutes before Holly returns to the phone regardless if it's the phone in her bedroom or in the kitchen
regardless what phone several minutes pass right before Holly then says hey I'm going to have to call you back
somebody's here what that tells me is two things when she answered the door she can can we can we agree that there's
a chance if it was somebody she didn't know she might not answer the door I'm not saying it's 100% but there could be
a small chance that hey I don't recognize this person I'm home alone I'm just not going to answer the door right
that's a Poss that's a possibility so I think that that leans to the point of either she knew the person or at least
the person seemed to be non-threatening there was no obvious signs of a threat she willingly opens up the door engages
in some kind of conversation with this individual to the point of this person may have been unexpected I think if it
was somebody that was either expected or somebody that she knew very well she might know immediately hey I'm going to
talk to this person or welcome them in and then tell her friend almost immediately hey so and so's here I'm
going to have to call you back right but what happens instead is several minutes
pass it's almost like when she answered the door and saw this person and then engaged in conversation with him she did
not know from the get-go that this was going to turn into a longer conversation a longer visit than expected and then so
there's two things one she doesn't know this individual so that's why she's telling her friend someone quote unquote
someone mhm or she knows this individual it's uh maybe a guy that she's seeing on
the side and that she's not telling her friends about cuz that happens mhm and so when she goes to tell her friend hey
uh I mean she could have been sitting there at the door flirting with this guy we don't know and she gets back on the
phone and tells her friend uh somebody's here cuz I can't tell you who is here so
either or in my mind the tricky thing becomes then she hangs up the phone and she call calls her father's work mhm to
find out if he's left on his trip yet right so one it could be junior in high school has a guy come
over wants to make sure her father left you know on his trip mhm and so we can sit here and hang out have the house to
ourselves worst case scenario my brother comes home but that's not a big deal right right
or it's I want to see if my father left because this guy's asking about my father or I need to speak to my father
for some reason I lean towards the point towards the side of she was looking to speak with her father with knowing how
often he traveled for work I think that it wouldn't be tough for her to put together plans if she had plans of
hanging out and doing things maybe that her father wouldn't approve of I don't think it would have been very hard in a
single parent home with a with a father that's traveling often for work right so
more to me I feel like this is almost like she needed to get a hold of her father for some reason and this reason
was unexpected whatever came up came up it just came up and she's trying to get a hold of her father you know back in
the day well before cell phones you have to call the office to try to get a hold
of Dad well here's where it gets a little more tricky because did this individual know her father and say hey
um I'm here to see your father so she calls and says hey I'm I'm going to hey has my dad left yet you know she might
not have went into details of cuz there's somebody at the house to see himh or did this person not know her
father and it was just a ruse to get into the house right you know what I mean like hey I'm here to see your
father because if I use that as a ruse well my father's not here MH so what I mean like um it's kind of like if
somebody asks you is your parents home you're always supposed to say yes if they called on the phone back in the '
80s that was the thing like people would call and be like are your parents at home right and you're supposed to say
yes even if they're not like but they're in the shower or whatever right so but what a great ruse to get inside the
house you know hey I'm here to see your father right oh well he's not here well where is he at and that to me that makes
a little bit of sense because like you said she would know her father's travel Arrangements a little bit since he's
traveling so much mhm and he's traveling on a school night right but it seems like she almost called the office to say
hey is he available to talk or is he coming back mhm so again but that's where it becomes tricky because was it
just a ruse to get in the house or or did this individual actually know her father but then you have to question why
does the individual want to be in the house in the first place regardless of if they use a ruse or if or if it was
known to Holly who this person was right because we have the coroner who had later determined that there was no signs
of sexual assault they also claimed that there might have been some material under her fingernails so her nails were
clipped and preserved I question If that had anything to do with the actual crime
itself with seeing so many of the wounds to her back and very few what we would call defensive wounds I almost wonder if
there was really no defense put up at all well it seems like this perpetrator did not bring a weapon with them gets in
the house at some point grabs a knife starts stabbing her why she's back facing him mhm um and then like you said
it's so vicious I mean 15 stab wounds that are fatal I mean that seems um like there's some
rage yes this is a strong angry person that did this this is a strong angry person so yeah keep that in mind that's
what I think we're dealing with here we I think we're dealing with somebody that
that might have been welcomed into the home for some reason that showed up to the house with didn't intend to kill her
because they or maybe they did well they they could have but not bringing a murder weapon to a murder scene usually
suggests that they weren't planning to kill the individual but if you knew this family pretty well and that you knew
that she was going to be home alone uh father's going to be out on a trip mhm all I have to do is get into the house
and get to the kitchen again no signs of sexual assault and the thought is that nothing had been stolen from the
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2023 all right cheers M mes cheers Captain all right so I have a couple question questions so at 4:40 she's
talking to her friend she tells the friend hey somebody's at my door mhm at 4:45 according to the secretary Holly
then calls her father's work to see if he's left yet on the business trip then we have this broken clock at 520 correct
so maybe their clock is a little off some people's clocks are a little off in their house but let's just assume that
it's correct or or even roughly correct if it's within a few minutes it's still helpful right so we can assume that the
attack probably happened around that point correct that so talking with somebody last week about this case I did
throw this out there and I know it's not a very high probability but I did throw
this out there just from my own personal experience I told him I said you know uh
at any given point in my life it's very likely that I had one Broken Clock hanging on a wall somewhere in my house
I just do like they quit running I never look at them for actual time and they're
more there for decoration the battery goes out at some point and it stops running until I change it months and
months and months later correct so that we're not ignoring that as a very small slight possibility that it was just a
clock that happened not to work that it said 520 all the time right um that yeah
but that but the likelihood seems very incred L slim because here's the deal I think what we can assume here is that
with her being found dead inside the home yeah I think we can assume that she's already dead by 6:00 p.m. because
of the friend coming to visit I I think that there's no evidence to suggest anything otherwise right we have we have
her on the phone we know she's alive at approximately 440 p.m. if the secretary's timing is right and I I tend
to believe secretaries when when they give quotes on time why because think about the typical setup at an office
you're stationed at a desk your phone your secretary phone is on your secretary's desk there's almost always a
clock in the room and sometimes you're trained to you know when I used to answer the phone for my boss one of the
things he wanted to know about what time the person called right you know that was included in my little note to him so
um I tend to believe that the secretary's time is fairly accurate so we know that Holly is alive at 4:45 p.m.
we know at 6:00 p.m. approximately 600 p.m. when her friend shows up the door is not answered she knocks several times
so I think it's only likely to assume that she may have been lying dead in the house at 600 p.m. and that clock somehow
was broke in the altercation that took place between Holly and the offender okay those were some of my Bon head
questions so how about you lead us down the initial investigation not bonehead questions at all Captain because the I
will tell you what my questions are what they're not the time the time frame on this is very important I think and so
will the investigators so after the police are finished up at the house and the everything's been cleaned up Richard
and Shawn move back into the home the police begin their investigation interviewing the friends who had last
contact with Holly the friend who was on the phone was interviewed but could not
recall any details out of the ordinary she states that it was just an unremarkable conversation between two
teenage girls when asked about the exact times of the call and when Holly left to
answer the door the girl was not too sure about any of these times the police then interviewed the friend who stopped
by around 6:00 p.m. to pick up Holly to go for pizza both girls could not provide any information for the police
to start their investigation with no leads from either of these uh the ear witness or the person that stopped by
the house we will Circle back to this Captain I assure you of that so the police then decide to widen their
investigation sha Holly's brother and his friend Mark well they fall under suspicion but very quickly their Alibi
checks out and was confirmed also not only there aliis but one it's weird that you'd ring the door and you can kind of
roll out the the father because why would the father show up she talks to the father then calls her father's work
MH unless the father was like makes her call mhm right to set up an alibi mhm but it just doesn't seem you know I mean
and and if and if your father did show up you'd tell your friend on the phone hey my father's here I got to go what
was really weird about this though this is supposed to be a tight-knit Safe Community there didn't seem to be a
whole lot of people that were willing to help the investigation along so her high
school friends the friends of Holly that were under the age of 18 their parents kind of stepped in and
wouldn't allow them to be interviewed or answer questions from the police the high school friends that were over the
age of 18 A lot of times attorneys were hired and they refused to be interviewed as
well that's shady very shady so the police now hit a serious dead end not much evidence at the scene no
fingerprints and no one to interview to provide any leads so the police decide to request the help of the amazing
keskin George keskin is a mentalist he is known for hypnotizing people to pull details from their memory that they
could not do with normal recall m in this case he hypnotized the friend who was on the phone with Holly when the
murderer or when someone had arrived at the door he was able to hypnotize her and have her identify the songs that
were playing in the background while Holly went and answered the door they then took this information to the local
radio station and they were able to determine the exact time that Holly answered the door this is back in the
day when there's actually DJs probably picking the song and the song right it's probably not pre-programmed computer
stuff back in back in that day yeah so let's see here let's say she was on hold for 2 or 3
minutes maybe maybe four so I I'm guessing the way that they're determining this is the sequence of the
songs that she heard like okay you I heard this this and then maybe the start of this song and they take it to the
station they say well that occurred around 4:40 p.m. on that Wednesday which is very interesting and it's actually a
very creative way to try to get this time frame because the way we're reporting this Captain it it's not so
much a mystery to you and I because we know the facts later afterwards right the initial investigation the ones that
gave us the facts yeah but the initial investigation the what they get from that person on the phone yeah they don't
have any times they have no times to go off of it was sometime in the afternoon I think she originally told the police
that it was sometime between 4: and 5:00 p.m. that they were on the phone and that's as much as they had right so they
were able to really narrow this down instead of having a 60-minute window or even a little more beyond that they're
really able to nail this down to hey at about 4:40 p.m. is when somebody knocked
on the door so very key piece of information to know what time that phone call took place and what time it is
believed that somebody had arrived at the door the other thing here too Captain the investigation what they're
working with is they're seeing a scene where somebody took the time to clean the scene somebody took the time to wipe
fingerprints off of the handle of the knife and off of other locations in the house so police start working with a
theory here that there was a very good chance that at 6:00 when Sally arrived to pick Holly up for pizza that either
the murderer was still on the scene or had just left and was in the immediate area right this is why when she had that
gut feeling that something was wrong Sally may have saved herself from an encounter with the murderer now with no
leads the investigation stalls and Shawn her brother started spreading rumors on
May 10th 1980 the mayor of Bethlehem Pennsylvania declared it Holly branagan reward fund day they set up a hotline
for donations and Holly's High School performed a play with the proceeds going to the reward fund they collected over
$5,000 the lack of progress in the investigation really upset her brother Shawn he started to spread a rumor that
he and the police knew who had killed Holly yeah it's not a bad tactic well and he also starts telling people that
not only do they know who did it but the police were getting ready to make an arrest yeah his father Richard warned
him that this kind of talk might upset the murderer and make Shawn a possible Target uh Shawn didn't seem to care he
continued to spread these rumors to everyone that was willing to listen that's a kind of a weird thing for the
father to say well I don't think so I think he's been a victim once he's worried about something could happen
happened to his son right so Shawn is a sophomore at college and on September 9th
1979 uh there was an explosion at the rener service station where he worked at 9:30 a.m. as part of a regular cleanup
routine Shawn and his friend Mark were scrubbing the floor with two cups of gasoline to loosen the grease off of the
floor the boys were scrubbing prior to using a power washer to wash away the grind
Mark walked out as a customer had pulled up to get gasoline the doors to this area were shut when the explosion
occurred inside the service station with Shawn still inside Mark ran to the doors
but the Flames were too great for him to enter he went around to the side and he
found Shawn climbing out of the window Shawn was still on fire and had been burned over most of his body Mark put
out the flames and comforted Shawn until medical help could arrive Shawn begged markot to leave him during this time the
ambulance arrived and transported Shawn to the hospital he was unable to talk but the police wanted to interview Shawn
about his sister's murder in case he had a deathbed confession to give they asked
Shawn yes and no questions that he responded to by moving his head he was asked if he had killed Holly or if he
knew who killed Holly he signaled no to both questions Shawn would die from his injuries the following day now Richard
his father had lost his whole entire family right an investigation into Shawn's accident was conducted by the
State Fire Marshall it was concluded that the power washer had a faulty switch which caused an electrical Arc to
ignite the gasoline fumes Richard would go to his grave believing that Shawn was
murdered by someone involved in Holly's death he believed the rumor Shawn was spreading made the murderer frightened
enough to kill Shawn this belief was deepened in Richard's mind when the owner of the power washer was found dead
under suspicious circumstances 6 years after Shawn's death there's a lot to unpack here yes
so they're working at the service station they they claim that the there's a faulty switch and the electricity that
would go through the faulty switch that sparked and enited the gasoline that would be all over the floor and all over
the shop right and so then this guy ends up dead the guy that owned the power washer correct okay how did he die well
let's go through that real quick and then we we can Circle back yeah this is there's a lot of death here okay so the
power washer that caused the explosion that killed Shawn was borrowed from a restaurant from a business a few doors
down from the rener service station the owner of this place and it's called The King Chef lent the power washer to rener
service station on August 12th 1985 Tony Sorano the owner of the King Chef Restaurant was found dead in his car two
people on their way to go fishing past his car which was still running and discovered his body on the initial exam
there was trauma to the the back of sorano's head this led people to believe that he was murdered but during the
autopsy it was discovered that Mr sanana had strick nine in his system and after
this discovery the coroner ruled his death a suicide adding to the rumors of explain strict nine so it's it's it's
highly poisonous okay if you take it you're going to die okay don't ever take that so strict nine don't take it right
so but this is just one of these weird things here I think this is a weird coincidence it was his death was ruled a
suicide okay and Shawn's death was ruled an accident these both both these incidents were looked into they were
looked into and they were ruled by people that that are paid to do so that have experience in this area it's it's
not like both deaths are are labeled undetermined all these years later and I spoke with a uh a firefighter regarding
the the Shawn accident and you know there's not we don't have official documents to review but what we could
find we reviewed together and he said look I used to I used to do these types of Investigations there's no reason to
believe that this story isn't correct there's nothing that points out that this is not correct yeah it's very
likely I mean that's one of the reasons why they'd say I mean you can have static electricity off your clothes
could start a huge fire in a gas station or your cell phone usage can start a fire so a faulty switch on a power
washer uh definitely could start a fire well and I tell you what we you know we have so so much experience with gas and
we use it daily I think that a lot of people take take it for granted how dangerous and how flammable gas can be
yeah some people have more gas than others well the thing is though I think people forget how explosive gas can be
given the right circumstances and if this is exactly how it went down the way we just told this it seems almost
like I mean forgive me for saying so you're playing with fire here right well also if you're cleaning in you know they
said he's inside the service station if they're using gasoline to be cleaning things inside the service station then
you're also having all those fumes that they're not going anywhere right those places weren't properly
ventilated back in the the day no and I would guess that that normal protocol and procedure would be when cleaning
with gas to open up and vent out the place they may have simply just turned on this power washer too quickly thus
causing some kind of spark that ignites into this explosion so if you have a faulty power washer or a faulty engine
or any piece of electrical part of that of that P power washer is faulty right you could get a spark that in a closed
environment filled with gas fumes would in fact create some type of explosion now when
Shawn was hanging out with Mark is this his buddy Mark that he spent the night with correct correct so I mean it's kind
of odd that he's hanging out with Mark the day his sister is murdered and then he's hanging out with Mark when he dies
no I agree with that it's it seems like hey little odd two coincidences in one unless you're hanging out with this guy
every day anyways right it appears that they worked together that they worked on
vehicles together we also have witness statements of of Shawn saying that Mark he wanted Mark by his side when as he
was dying it was one of those situations man his injuries were so bad they knew he was going to die they knew when we
take him to the hospital he's not going to recover from this it's only a matter of time so Holly and Shan's mother
passes away with cancer Holly is then murdered inside their home sha then dies and what we think is an accident
mhm it's almost as if like their father or something made a deal with the devil and that the devil's coming back to
collect well that's the first thing that jumps off the page to you when you look
at this case there's so much death there's so much tragedy surrounding Richard branagan and you know I hate to say this
because my initial suspicions they went toward Richard branagan right just because it seemed to
me that this just seems like too much but here's the thing we do know that his wife died from cancer I can't give you
cancer I can't make you get cancer I can't make you die of cancer that's just that's just something that happened
that's just something that happened and unfortunately it in our lives nowadays we know it happens to somebody we know
somebody we love it happens in every family it's just an unfortunate terrible thing so that we need to ignore that
that that can't be part of the coincidence for us the other thing that we need to keep in mind here though too
is her father from nothing that I could find was ever a suspect in her murder or
in the investigation the investigation never seemed to lean that way that tells me a few things just like her brother
Shawn who had an airtight Alibi right you know we don't have to use our imagination too much to come up with an
airtight Alibi for Shawn Shawn's actually received more suspicion over the years than his father Richard but
see Shawn we know was at his friend's house and we know that they stayed there that night and we know that the friend
still lived with at least his mother if not both parents so Shawn more than likely has multiple aliis for the time
of his sister's death as far as the father goes I'm going out on a limb here captain and I'm making the assumption
that he has an alibi as well and I'm doing that based off of just that he was never listed as a suspect he was never
discussed as a suspect where we even have Shawn publicly being discussed as a suspect at some point well we do have a
record of her calling her father's office at 4:45 and asking if the father's there and the father has gone
on business so you would think that whether he's driving a car he would have had to have some Rental receipt or if
he's flying on a plane he would have the airline ticket so those could be your airtight Alibi well he's going to have
as you said receipts this could include gas receipts this also could include checking into a hotel somewhere and they
could be able to easily verify that hey if if the secretary says he left at this
time we have this gas receipt from here and he checks into the hotel at this time then there's very likely little
possibility that he could have had the time to go out of his way return to his home attack and kill his daughter and
then continue on his trip sometimes it's just an impossibility there's just not enough time and I think in all fairness
we need to add in here that Holly's Father Richard never stopped searching for her killer it was not one of these
parents that just disappeared moved off to another city went about his business as though nothing happened this man was
severely affected by the loss of his whole family he was severely affected by the loss of his wife by his daughter and
by his son and the man continued to live in that home in the home that Holly was
murdered in until he was very late in [Music] age all right thanks for listening
thanks for telling a friend make sure you get your filling FY shirt at the discounted price of $1
199.99 and honor of FY Malik passing and until next time be good be kind and don't let
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Holly Branagan /// Part 1 /// 236

Part 1 of 2

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On Wednesday, March 28th, 1979 - 17 year Holly Branagan was murdered inside her family’s home. The following day her brother found her lifeless body, laying in blood on the kitchen floor. Through the years many have speculated as to who could have killed her. Her own brother has been considered by some to be a good suspect. Tonight we talk about the murder of a young lady and the events of that day. Beer of the Week - Project Dank by La Cumbre Brewing CompanyGarage Grade - 4 and a quarter bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

The episode covers the murder of Holly Branagan and its impact on her family, including her brother Shawn's tragic death.

Key points

A Family's Tragedy. The Branagan family faces a devastating loss when Peg is diagnosed with leukemia.
Holly's Last Day. Holly Branagan makes plans for a pizza night with friends, unaware of the impending tragedy.
The Mysterious Visitor. Holly's last phone call reveals a stranger at the door, leading to a shocking turn of events.
The Murder Scene. The investigation reveals a brutal murder with no signs of robbery or sexual assault.
Police Investigation Stalls. With no leads and uncooperative witnesses, the investigation hits a dead end.
Rumors and Tension. Shawn spreads rumors about knowing the murderer, raising tensions in the community.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Life can change on a dime.

Reflecting on the Branagan family's sudden tragedy.

4:26WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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