Braonain McGinnis
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When I saw he wasn't there, that's when I started to investigate to just confirm, where is he? What's going on? Are you okay? But there's no response from my text to him. And then I consulted with his sister and his stepfather. Have any of you seen him? Talked to him today? They said no. No one had seen him all day. That's when everything at high alert happened.

I started calling around, "Is he with you? Have you talked to him? No." And then that's when the panic started to set in and I instantly knew this is not right. He's gone. I immediately contacted Anne Arundel County Police to report him missing. All these cases are like a big puzzle and we're looking for a few key pieces to try to figure out where to go next. If you think somebody's traveling cross country, you might find ahead.

some luggage, clothes, and other things that they were traveling with. There was a pair of jeans in the car, an empty box of granola bars, a visitor map of the Grand Canyon. Those are things that are definitely odd about this case. I mean, it is a mystery to us why there. How did he get there? Is that the actual place that he drove the vehicle or somebody else took the vehicle there? We just can't place him 100% at that location.

The 2023 holiday season was already in full swing. Many of us were busy wrapping gifts and preparing for festive gatherings when 24-year-old Brennan McGinnis quietly vanished from his home in Glen Burnie, Maryland. Brennan and his mother Patricia worked opposite shifts, and it wasn't unusual for them to miss each other except for brief moments when coming and going.

So Patricia didn't immediately notice that her son was missing. At first, she thought he was at work, and later, asleep in his room. When she realized that Brennan had disappeared, she reported her son missing to the Anne Arundel County Police Department, who began investigating Brennan's footsteps on December 21, 2023. Christmas passed, then New Year's, with still no word from Brennan.

Then, Brennan's family was shocked when they received word that his vehicle had been found abandoned more than 2,000 miles away in the mountains of Arizona. Extensive searches ensued, but they never found a trace of Brennan McGinnis. I'm Marissa, and from Wondery, this is episode 465 of The Vanished, Brennan McGinnis' story.

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In August, Brennan's friend Lucas sent in our case submission form, asking if we could cover Brennan. Lucas was the first person we spoke to, and we asked him how he came to meet Brennan.

He was in Maryland. I'm in New York. So we met online playing a fairly similar video game and we continued to talk, hang out and whatnot after that. And we've just gone closer over the years. We've been friends for about 10, almost 11 years now. He's a very kind and caring person. He would always make sure that people around him, if they're having a bad day, he talked to them to make sure they

We also spoke to Brennan's mom, Patricia, who was able to fill us in with more information about her son's early life.

Brennan was born and raised and lived his entire life here in Glen Burnie, Maryland. As a child, Brennan was certainly one of a kind. He was very energetic. He was always happy. It just seemed like he was always in a good mood. He was curious about everything. He wanted to explore everything. I think that's where...

the energetic nature came into play. It was that drive to just want to see everything, touch everything, do everything. But at the same time, he was also very cautious.

When he was faced with something new, he wanted to know how things work before he dove in. Once it clicked and he was like, okay, I know what this is. And then he was all about it. Things like computers, video games, teaching himself how to play guitar. He was all in. He definitely had a reserved nature.

He has one sibling, a sister. She's currently 18 years old, so she's several years younger than he is, but he's been a fabulous big brother to her. Naturally, she misses him like crazy. Out of all of us, it's probably impacted his sister the most.

Patricia shared that while Brennan had what seemed like a typical childhood, he began to struggle with depression during his teenage years. Patricia took steps to ensure that he received the help he needed and explained how depression impacted Brennan's life over the years.

He didn't have any major health issues. He had just a very normal, healthy childhood growing up. As he approached his teenage years, he did start to experience depression. We did seek professional help immediately once we saw the signs. He began therapy at a pretty young age.

It was around middle school. And then that just continued for the rest of his life. It pretty much never stopped. He's been in therapy every week since then. Part of that probably plays into his comfort in things that are routine. He definitely likes his routine and finds comfort and safety in that.

to not be able to pinpoint what the triggers are. That was very frustrating for him. He felt like he wasn't in control of anything because he couldn't find the culprit, I guess. Later on, as an adult, this was maybe two or three years ago, he and I were having a conversation about his downswings

He had indeed figured out at least one of them. That was whenever he was in a really happy moment. Say, for example, Thanksgiving, spending time with the family. It seemed like a pendulum. When he had those really happy moments, the pendulum would swing back. He would have a really low moment after that. So we did learn...

to pay attention to that. We made sure to support him and pay attention to that pendulum swing back. We definitely had some rough years during his teenage years with the depression, but we managed to get through it. As an adult, things started to level out.

He had been on medication. He'd been on the same medication probably since high school. And they did increase the dosages throughout the years. He'd been at a maintenance level. The medication is starting to...

certainly a part of that equation. Major depressive disorder never really goes away. It's something that you have to figure out how you live alongside it. It's always going to be a part of your life. It's always going to be there. Everyone deals with depression at some point in their life. But with major depressive disorder, it's

It's more than just having a bad week or having a bad month or having a bad day. It's definitely a part of your life.

For the last at least five years, he'd finally found that balance and was able to move through the world alongside the depression, which is why his disappearance really came as a surprise to us. Naturally, my first instinct when we realized he was gone was that it had to do with his depression. It was possibly a lapse.

But as we uncover all the details and looking at all the facts, there are more questions than there are answers. I'm not 100% convinced it was his depression that caused him to leave. At the time of his disappearance, Brennan was employed in a stable job he had held for some time. He seemed to thrive when he had a reliable routine in his daily life.

At Cisco, he was in the warehouse in the packaging of the produce goods. I don't think he had figured out yet what type of career he wanted to have. He enjoyed the work from the aspect that it was a routine.

It didn't involve interacting with the public. Brennan is very shy and had challenges socially interacting with strangers. Once you get to know him, it's amazing. But with strangers, that was a different story. He was very cautious and intimidated, I guess.

Brennan was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. So he was happy in his job from that point that he could just be on his own and

and just be with his co-workers. So he got along great with his co-workers, especially any older women. He definitely felt comfortable with people who are more like a mother figure. Whenever he would talk to me about his co-workers, the ones that always stood out to me are the ones that you could describe as being his work mom.

Patricia mentioned that Brennan enjoyed his job at Cisco because it allowed him to avoid interacting with the public. Given this, we began to wonder about his social circle, whether he had close friends in his life whom he may have confided in. As he is certainly introverted, his circle of friends was indeed very small, but that circle was also very solid.

And he had very long standing friendships. Those that were able to gain access to his small circle, they were really solid, strong friends that he had had for a long time. One of his other friends who was locally here in Glen Burnie is Chris. They had been friends

since at least high school. They would go out and socialize. Normally, it would be Chris would come here to our house. They would play guitar. Brennan would go over to Chris's house and they would do bonfire in the backyard. They even went to concerts together.

Patricia explained that sometimes Brennan needed a little extra encouragement or support, and while he may have reached certain milestones later than his peers, that was perfectly okay. She wasn't in a hurry for him to catch up. Instead, she put thoughtful plans in place to ensure he had the guidance and support he needed as he navigated adulthood.

Brennan was still living here at home with us. Because of Brennan's introversion, he definitely had delays throughout his teenage years and into his adult years being able to take flight on his own. It didn't have to do with laziness, and he just hadn't reached that point yet.

feeling like he could go out and live on his own. We did actually have a plan in place once he graduated high school, and then he started working and was working consistently and had a good, steady job. Brennan joined onto the mortgage. So Brennan co-owns our home and

The intention was eventually myself and my other half, his stepfather, Phil, that we would move. And then Brennan would just stay here and the house would be his. So that way he didn't have to have any upheaval. He would be secure. He would have a guaranteed place to live. Everything's already set up. That was our goal that we had in place.

Brennan's job at Cisco had him working nights, which was opposite of Patricia's work schedule. This detail becomes significant as we begin to piece together the timeline of his disappearance. Patricia provided more insight into Brennan's routines and how his work schedule fit into his daily life. He'd worked second shift at Cisco, so he was going into work around 3, 4 o'clock.

And then he would finish his shift in the late evening and was usually home before midnight. And he's a bit of a night owl, so that shift suited him just well. It allowed him to still socialize through the computer with his online friends, such as Lucas. He never went to bed before midnight anyway. The second shift really suited him and his schedule.

Brennan disappeared on December 21, 2023, but his absence went unnoticed at first. When Patricia returned home after work that evening, she assumed he was working his shift at Cisco. Patricia explained how the events unfolded and how she came to the devastating realization that her son was missing.

We didn't realize he was missing until Friday evening. Because of his work shift, Brennan and I were always kind of like ships passing in the night. He was going to bed when I was getting up to go to work. And then when I'm coming home from work, he's usually already left. Or sometimes he would be leaving just as I get home from work.

So on Thursday, the 21st, I have no reason to suspect anything is amiss because when I come home on Thursday afternoon after working my shift, he's already gone. And I know he's scheduled to work. So my mind is thinking, okay, he's at work. Because of the struggles that Brennan has had over the years with his depression and

I am definitely fine-tuned to anything that seems off with him. Couple that with the fact that he very rarely deviates from his routines. When something goes off course, it sticks out like a red flag to me.

One of the first red flags I had Friday morning when I was going to leave to go to work, his room is right next to mine. I could see light coming through the bedroom door. Rest of the house is dark, but I can see light underneath of his door. At first, I didn't think anything of it.

because he normally goes to bed around the time I'm leaving to go to work. So I'm thinking, oh, he's just still up. He's getting ready to go to bed. But then when I leave the house, obviously I notice his car is not present. I'll backtrack a little bit. We had an incident earlier in the fall where someone had attempted to steal his car. When I see his car isn't there, I'm instantly terrified. Oh my gosh, they did it. Someone actually stole his car.

So I went back into the house to go let Brennan know, hey, you need to contact the police. Let them know your car is gone. But Brennan was not present in his room. The light was on, but nobody was there. That was sending up some red flags for me. This isn't part of his routine. This is different. I tried to relax myself, calm myself down. Everything's fine.

I rationalized he had potentially gone out to get some breakfast before going to bed and he would be back shortly. So I go on to work and I don't think anything more of it for the rest of the day. And then when I returned home from work, his car's still not there. Friday, that would have been his day off.

I was expecting to see Brennan when I came home. When I saw he wasn't there, that's when I started to investigate to just confirm, "Where is he? What's going on? Are you okay?" But there's no response from my text to him.

And then I consulted with his sister and his stepfather. No one had seen him all day. And since his sister is the one that's home the most and sees Brennan the most, when she said she hadn't seen him all day, that's when everything at high alert. I started calling around, calling,

Called his friend Chris, is he with you? No, he's not with me. I haven't talked to him in several days. Calling his dad, is he with you? Have you talked to him? No. And then that's when the panic started to set in and I instantly knew this is not right. He's gone. I immediately contacted Anne Arundel County Police to report him missing.

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Once it sank in that Brennan was truly missing, Patricia began reaching out to anyone who might have seen or heard from him. One neighbor reported seeing Brennan on the 21st, and it appeared that he was heading out for his usual work routine. After we realized that he was missing, we're going around and speaking to everyone. Our neighbor had stated he saw Brennan when Brennan was leaving on all appearances to go to work.

And this would have been like around three o'clock. He was dressed for work, going about his normal routine. Nothing seemed to miss. The neighbor had even greeted Brennan. Brennan greeted back. Everything seemed fine and normal. Although it seemed Brennan left home on the 21st with the intention of heading to his shift at Cisco, Patricia later discovered that he never arrived, something completely out of character for him.

He just did not show up. When I spoke with his manager at Cisco, his manager had reported back to me that Brennan was a no-call, no-show on Thursday the 21st.

As far as I know, he was always punctual on time. And I would imagine that if he had a history of arriving late or missing a shift, they would have pointed that out. But rather, his manager had nothing but good things to say about Brennan, that he was a wonderful employee.

Brennan took his cell phone with him when he left home on the 21st, and Patricia said that provided them with some breadcrumbs to follow.

We were able to track his movements by using his Google location on his phone. That's how we know every place that he went on Thursday. His Google location shows him leaving the house around three o'clock. He starts driving his route to work. By all appearances, it seems as if he's going to work, but then he doesn't. He

He takes a detour. His first stop was out of Rundle Mills shopping mall around 345 or so. And he's there for about an hour. Looks like he just goes into one of the stores there, Fast Pro, the sporting goods store. And he's in there for a while.

As a child, he absolutely loved the fish tank that they have in there. That would be the only thing I could think of that he would want to go in there for is to go and watch the fish for a little bit. But it does seem odd, like you're supposed to be going to work and instead you're over at the shopping mall. After he leaves Arundel Mills, he heads back to

And that's when he went to the grocery store or the pharmacy within the grocery store and he picks up his prescription for vitamin D. It's not like it's a life-saving medication or super crucial medication that he has to take.

He also picks up a case of water and a large box of granola bars. Then he leaves the grocery store and goes within the same shopping complex is our bank. And he goes to the bank and withdraws $200 from savings and then goes across the street to the Chick-fil-A and gets lunch.

After he leaves the Chick-fil-A, he goes to Marley Station Mall, which is a couple blocks down from the grocery store and the bank in the Chick-fil-A. And then he's at Marley Station Mall for nearly two hours, at least. And we were able to see the video footage from the mall. And he's just walking around.

by himself. There's no one with him. He arrives alone. We can't really tell if he leaves alone. From what I understand, the video footage of the parking lot, because it's dark at that time, it's not very good. Then the Google location service stops around eight o'clock.

Either he turns his phone off or turns the location off on his phone. That's where everything ends and we have no clue what happens beyond that. The only thing we know for certain is that he doesn't come home. That's it. We don't know where he goes after that.

While Brennan left a digital trail of clues on the 21st, they had nothing else to go on. Brennan's friend Lucas was at home in New York and sent Brennan a message on Christmas. What Lucas didn't expect was a response from Brennan's sister, informing him that Brennan was missing.

I texted him Christmas day saying, Hey, Merry Christmas. And his sister had responded back and said that he had been missing for a couple of days. And that's how I found out. I messaged him over discord, the online platform. So he has the phone that we assume we don't have the phone or she was on his computer.

Lucas was stunned, unable to believe what he was reading. This didn't sound like Brennan at all. He replayed their last conversations in his mind, searching for any hint or clue in Brennan's words that he might have missed at the time.

As I think back on everything, the last time I had talked to him was on the 18th, a few days before he went missing. He just seemed like his normal self, did our normal thing we did online, got on, watched some movies or something together, played video games, just talked. And everything seemed as it had been for the past 10, 11 years. I knew that he had depression. I knew he was taking meds and he had a therapist.

It's hard to say that he'd talk about it openly. He would bring up when he was having a hard time here and there, but he wouldn't say what was causing it. And he would just kind of vent till he felt better. And then he'd go about his day. He had it under control. Everything was working out. He was doing good.

While everyone assumed that something must have happened to Brennan close to home, law enforcement utilized plate reader technology to find some clues that pointed to Brennan's vehicle traveling elsewhere.

That first week that he was missing, all of our efforts were focused on here in Maryland. His father and I, we were driving around all of Maryland, every place we could think of that we know he likes to go to, different parks and different scenic areas, until we got our first hit on the tag reader.

In Illinois, we had been focusing all of our efforts here in Maryland and then come to find out he was never in Maryland beyond Friday the 22nd. And looking for any activity on his identification or on the identification of the car, they

They were able to determine that his car, he went through Illinois on Friday the 22nd. This is where we start to have more questions than answers. There's no way to know if Brennan was actually the one driving the car.

It seems likely, but we can't say with 100% certainty that Brennan was the one driving the car cross-country. And then the second plate reader was in Las Vegas on Christmas Day. He does have an E-ZPass, but not once was the E-ZPass used for any tolls.

So as far as I can tell, he never went on a toll road, never went on a toll bridge, none of that. Because even if he had gone through a toll and not paid, we would have got bills in the mail for those fines. And there's been nothing. So he certainly went all the way cross-country without accessing any toll roads.

Christmas came and went, leaving Brennan's family increasingly desperate. New Year's passed with no word, and their worry only deepened. Then, out of the blue, they received a call they never expected. Brennan's car had been found abandoned in the mountains of Arizona. And even stranger still, his license plate had been removed from the vehicle. Had Brennan or someone else attempted to make it more difficult to trace the car back to him?

The car being located in Arizona, one of the officers doing their routine drives located the car. When they saw it on a second pass, that's when they were alerted to something being off. This is an area that

It has some trails, I believe. Definitely, it's a very scenic area. So it's not uncommon for people to pull off on the side of the road, go for a small hike in the area. It's not a highly traveled road.

The first time the officer drove past it, there was no suspicion that anything was off. But then when I think it was a day or two later when they passed the vehicle again, that's when they stopped to investigate. And when they ran the VIN on the vehicle again,

they were alerted to the fact that this is a missing person. He drove a Hyundai Accent. The keys were with the vehicle. I believe they said the keys were on the roof so that the car was locked, and then the keys were on the roof of the vehicle. Whenever we speculate about who was actually driving the car and who left the car there on the side of the road,

This is where I turn to, it had to be Brennan. I try and put myself in the mind of, if you were a person who just took someone's car and then you abandoned the car, I just don't see a stranger leaving the car in that manner. They're not going to care about removing the tag off of the vehicle, putting the keys at the car.

Anyone with bad intentions on taking someone's car, they're just going to trash it the whole way there. It just seems like there is a lot of

care in place around the car. The fuel indicator light was on. The vehicle was low on gas. How the car estimates how much fuel is left in the car, the miles to go, I believe it was around 15 miles to empty. The items that were in the car when they found it, the empty box

of granola bars, no wrappers, no trash, no garbage. The entire case of water was gone. No empty bottles, quite literally the only things in the vehicle, the empty box of granola bars, a pair of jeans folded up neatly on the passenger seat.

and a brochure for the Grand Canyon. And I've been told by the investigators that the brochure for the Grand Canyon that's in the vehicle, it's the brochure that you get when you go to the park. It's not like the ones that you would pick up at the gas station or some other area that's advertising for tourist attractions.

The north entrance for the Grand Canyon is closed, I believe, from October till April. So if he did go, it would have had to have been the south entrance. It was actually snowing. The initial search...

was suspended for a couple days due to snow. The weather conditions were unsafe for them to fly the helicopter around the area. It was considerably cold. Brennan's vehicle was found along a desolate roadway in Coconino County, Arizona. Inside Brennan's Hyundai Accent, investigators found a note. Patricia shared more details with us.

I have not been able to view the note yet because I wanted to see it to confirm his handwriting. The investigator contacted me when they located the car. He essentially read the notes.

the note to me. The language used in the note, it does sound like something Brennan would say. The comments about the quality of the car and the dependability of the car, it certainly sounded like descriptions he would use. The comments about gifting the car to whoever finds it

Brennan was still naive sometimes at how things work and the legal processes that are involved in a lot of our aspects in life. It does seem to fit that

that he would truly believe that he could just say, here, have this car without legal paperwork and signing over a title and all of those things that go with it. That was essentially all that was to the note, just comments on the quality of the vehicle and here, take it and take good care of it. I have no further use for it.

Given the circumstances, searches were conducted in the area surrounding the vehicle. We had the opportunity to interview the search and rescue coordinator for the Coconino County Sheriff's Office, Sergeant Aaron Dick, since Brendan's family and friends were out of state and unfamiliar with the area. We asked him to describe how everything appeared when they responded and what impact the weather conditions had on their search efforts.

It's pretty cold. I mean, that area elevation where the vehicle was found is 6,500 feet above sea level. So in January, you'd expect high temperatures in the 30s, maybe low 40s. Low temperatures could be anywhere from 10 to

to 32 overnight. But it's pretty cold, can be pretty windy out there. It doesn't get as much snow as the northern McGrane Canyon, but it does get snow. There's probably some patchy snow. We had some snowstorms between probably the end of November and the time that the vehicle was found, but we hadn't had really significant snow. So it was patchy in the area. Snow did occur in that area a couple days after the searching had started.

So we were notified about the vehicle being there on January 3rd. What we understand is that Arizona State troopers had noticed the vehicle parked in that location for a few days, then stopped to check on it on the 3rd when they ran the VIN number on the vehicle, determined it was related to a missing person. So we think that the vehicle had probably been there maybe a day or two after Christmas and then noticed as associated with a missing person on January 3rd.

Some basic searching had been done right around the vehicle that day. And then our Sertoski team arrived to do a little bit more extensive searching starting on the 4th. Typically, we would do what we call a route and location search around the vehicle, looking for any indication of like a direction of travel. This is a sort of unusual case and the vehicle is parked right on a US highway, US Highway 89A. So it's a fairly heavily traveled road. It's not like an

an interstate, but it gets regular vehicle traffic between some communities in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. Being parked right there, I think that's probably one of the reasons it didn't get reported right away is that somebody may have broken down or something like that and gotten a ride. So those are all possibilities about where Brendan could be. He could have left the area with somebody else, hitched a ride away from the vehicle. But our initial response was to get there, take a look at the vehicle, try to determine if we could determine a direction of travel. And there's really no prominent attractions out here.

If you were going to go hiking, this is not necessarily a place you would park and try to go hike to a certain location. It's kind of rolling pinion, juniper, sagebrush country, but no really unique geographic features in the immediate area. So we looked around, tried to find any direction of travel indicators so we could determine how to focus the search.

Then we moved into more of a, we'll call it an area search tactic, where we kind of divide up the search area into smaller segments and deploy teams into those segments to try to cover that segment as thoroughly as possible using a technique called critical separation to determine how far we should space searchers apart in order to be able to theoretically see all of the search area. We kind of developed a search area that's probably around seven square miles. Some of that has received heavier searchers

search activity than other areas. When faced with an expansive landscape and no clear indications of a direction of travel, where do you begin searching for someone who's missing? Sergeant Dick described the process they use to identify key areas of interest to focus their search efforts on.

So kind of what we do with a situation like this, if we make the assumption that the subject is no longer mobile, then we try to formally define the search area based on statistically how far would somebody go, what's going on with the terrain, what do we know about the person, and just kind of our gut instinct about what's happening at that time.

So we develop the search area, we break it into smaller searchable units, and we do a consensus with several people involved in the planning process who are familiar with the incident and as familiar with the terrain as possible. And they individually rate the probability that the subject is in each one of those segments and the possibility that the subject is in the rest of the world or outside the search area.

When we do that, we'll end up with our initial probability of area, which ranks all the segments from the highest probability to the lowest probability. So it's a consensus of several different people's individual inputs. We end up with this consensus product. We'll prioritize search efforts based on the segments that have the highest probability. So we did that, and we've probably heavily searched with the ground searchers, the

a couple of square miles of that. The ground searchers, we also utilized search dogs and we had aircraft. We had a drone, we had a helicopter. And subsequently, there'd been another search group, Western States Aerial Search, that was contacted by the family and come out and done additional drone flights. And then informing other people that are working or recreating in that area about the case in case they had seen anything. So this area is near the

The California condor release site and California condors are frequently in this area. So we checked with Peregrine Fund, who monitors the condor population there to see if they had any personnel that were out there that noticed the vehicle or noticing they were on the vehicle or if the condors had been congregating at a particular location for several days. So we could try to investigate that. Nobody had any information and nobody had seen him or anybody at this vehicle. So that's kind of where things stand at the moment.

Another key question we had was whether any clues were discovered during the search that might suggest Brennan or anyone else had been in the area around the vehicle. Were there any signs of a campfire, any belongings or clothing left behind?

We did not detect anything like that. Obviously, right on the highway, there's a lot of trash people throw out of their vehicle. And so we would look at that, but we couldn't authenticate anything particularly to him. But further off the highway, there's not a lot of anything left by a person. It's just not an area that would receive a bunch of recreation. There's no real parking area. There's no particular...

attraction point that people would be trying to go to. So it might receive some hunting activity during the hunting season in the fall, but not a lot of sign out there of humans traveling through the area.

In past cases we've covered, extensive searches were conducted, only for the missing person to be found later, in areas that had already been thoroughly searched. Often this is due to the unique geographic challenges of the terrain, such as cliffs or hidden crevices. We wondered if the mountainous landscape around Brennan's vehicle posed similar difficulties, potentially hiding areas where he could have been overlooked.

There's not big sheer cliffs. There's a lot of smaller, we call them drainages or small canyons or washes that are in the area that drain down off of the plateau down toward the House Rock Valley. And there's a lot of limestone geologic features. There's little overhangs people get under to get into some shade or stay out of some weather.

So it's not like searching an open field. There are features that people could climb under. But when we brief a search team to do a search, we're doing that critical separation type of strategy. As they're moving through an area, if they can't see around something, the team stops. One person goes around, looks around that obstacle and comes back to where they left from and continues on so we can develop strategy.

probability of detection, the likelihood that the team that was in there would have discovered the object that we were looking for if it was there. So we factor that in and that then shifts the probability of area. So once we've searched an area, the probability the subject is in that search area will go down. That probability has to shift other places. So it goes to other segments and it goes a little bit to the rest of the world. In this case, our rest of world value was fairly high to begin with during our initial consensus, just because he's parked on a paved highway. Definitely

definitely has opportunities to get a ride out of there if he wanted to. A few weeks ago, we covered another case from Coconino County, Cameron Sequeira, and we discussed that Coconino is a very large county and law enforcement has a lot of area to cover. Sergeant Dick explained that Coconino County is regularly called out for search and rescue missions as the mountains attract a lot of tourists.

who are drawn to the many outdoor recreation locations within the county. Unfortunately, many underestimate the challenging conditions, venture into the wilderness unprepared, or become lost or injured. However, Brennan's case was different. There were several unusual and mysterious aspects that set it apart.

The car was sitting there for a few days. We don't have any indication that it was burglarized or anything like that, but we don't know if there was something else that was in the car that is missing from the vehicle. And there's very little stuff in the vehicle, no luggage or anything like that. Those are things that are definitely odd about this case. If you think somebody's traveling cross country, you might find like they had clothes and other things that they were traveling with. We didn't really find there was a pair of jeans in the car. It

It's an empty box of granola bars, visitor map of the Grand Canyon. I mean, it is a mystery to us. Why there? How did he get there? Is that the actual place that he drove the vehicle or was the vehicle parked somewhere else? Then somebody else took the vehicle there. We just can't place him 100% at that location. We are assuming that he was there since the vehicle was there. But I mean, we tried to consider what are the possible scenarios. This case is a little bit difficult because there's no clear activity. If we knew this person was a hiker,

and they parked their vehicle at a logical location to go do a hike, we would have a better idea of what was the objective, where were they starting from, where were they trying to go, what could cause them trouble from that starting point to their objective. In this case, that is one of the challenges for us is to try to determine what was the activity this person was involved with. And that plays into like how far do people in that particular category travel. We keep track of that in Arizona and nationally, there's groups that are keeping track of lost person behavior and distance traveled.

information, but it's hard to fit this person into a particular category because we don't really know what the category is. All these cases are like a big puzzle and we're looking for a few key pieces to try to figure out where to go next.

Hearing this explanation that the more territory they cleared, the more likely it seemed that Brennan was outside of the search area, possibly somewhere far from where they had been looking, was a sobering moment for his loved ones. It made them realize that they had to dig deeper into the clues that remained. Patricia later traveled to Arizona after Brennan's car was released to the family, and she decided to look it over herself, hoping to find something that might stand out to her.

We flew out to Arizona this past spring to go and retrieve the car and drive it back home. When we arrived, the first thing we did is looked at everything that was in the car and cataloged to ourselves.

What was there? What's not there? And one of the things that was not there was his E-ZPass transponder. Because we had intended on using the E-ZPass transponder if necessary on our return trip. That was not there. Why did he take the E-ZPass out? Did he take it out when he left the car there? Did he discard it at the start of his trip? There's no way to know.

Did Brennan, or someone else driving his car, purposely discard his E-ZPass to avoid leaving a trail of his movements? We know that on the day he vanished, Brennan withdrew $200 from his bank account. But that amount seems minimal for a long journey from Maryland to Arizona, covering gas, food, and potentially lodging. What's more, Patricia revealed that after December 21st, Brennan never used his bank card again.

I'm not aware of him making any purchases. I can confirm that there are no purchases on his credit card or on his bank debit card. That's something that we have been monitoring since day one. There has been zero usage. If he did make a purchase, it was in cash, but it seems unlikely because...

He would have needed that cash to pay for fuel. It's almost like he didn't want to be tracked is the appearance to me. We did the calculations and it is actually possible that he got across the country on just $200 for fuel. His vehicle gets excellent maintenance.

mileage on the highway. He has been very proud and boastful at times about his wonderful mileage on his car. On highways, he would get upwards to 50 miles a gallon. When we calculated the distance and the mileage,

It's actually possible. And now he wouldn't have been able to purchase anything else. Certainly no lodging, no food, but he already had water in granola bars. It seems very modest to live off of granola bars for several days, but I suppose it's possible.

While $200 would have been a tight budget for a trip of that distance, we can't rule out the possibility that Brennan may have had some cash stashed away, money that no one knew about.

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We also question why Brennan would have chosen Arizona as his destination. If he had decided to leave his life behind or set out on an adventure, what made him decide on Arizona? Had he traveled there before and loved it? Or was it somewhere he had always dreamed of visiting? We asked both Lucas and Patricia about this. Lucas couldn't recall Brennan ever mentioning Arizona. He did know that Brennan had talked about wanting to visit Washington, D.C., but never any destination so far away from home.

Patricia, too, said that she had racked her brain for any possible explanation. But nothing super obvious stood out to her, either. And she had to dig pretty deep to find a reason why Brennan may have headed to Arizona.

He never voiced any of that. When his father and I were newly married, we took our honeymoon in Arizona. Part of our reasoning for going to Arizona for our honeymoon is we were scouting the entire state because we were considering to relocate out there as a young couple, which obviously never transpired.

His father and I certainly expressed our love of Arizona. We loved the

the environment, the wilderness and the nature, the culture, the history. It could be because of that. Go to where my parents have always wanted to go. We've asked everyone we could think of, all of his friends and his online community. Has Brennan ever mentioned about wanting to go here or...

wanting to see someone there. Does he even know anyone out there? And we came up with dead ends everywhere. We were able to look through his computer to see if we could find any conversations, anything that maybe he was hiding or didn't discuss with us. There's been nothing.

Could Brennan have met someone online who lived in Arizona, someone he had been communicating with and planning this trip? Patricia checked his cell phone records, hoping to find some clues there.

We have a family plan for our cell phones. We were able to go and look at the history on his phone and there were zero phone calls made that day and zero text messages that day. In fact, the very last text he

he sent to anybody before leaving was on the previous Tuesday, the 19th. He had been called in to work that night. So he was supposed to be off work Tuesday. He had an appointment with his therapist for that afternoon. So it would have been Monday night into Tuesday. He had texted his therapist to cancel the appointment.

And that was the very last text message he ever sent anybody. When we learned that Brennan's car had been abandoned in the mountains, we wondered if he had planned some kind of adventure, perhaps a hike or a camping trip. But when Patricia checked her family camping supplies, it became clear that Brennan had left home without any gear for that sort of journey. And we were able to confirm with law enforcement that there were no supplies for camping or hiking within the vehicle.

As a family, we enjoy camping and we camp pretty often. Brennan has been very comfortable with camping his entire life.

And we do have camping equipment here at home. That was certainly one of the first things we checked when we realized he was missing. We looked to see if the equipment was gone and everything is present and accounted for. It did not appear that he had taken any additional clothing to use. He did have a couple of backpacks,

As far as I can tell, both of them are still here at the house. When I went through all of his clothing, if he did take any additional clothing, it was just a couple of things because his dresser was still full, the laundry basket was still full. There was no indication that he had taken additional items or supplies. His winter coat was still here.

Pretty much all of his light jackets were still here at the house. I was able to determine

which jacket he was wearing or must have been wearing and left the house with. And that's how we were able to identify the blue zipped up hoodie because that's the one that's missing. And then a couple weeks later, I guess, is when I realized that there was another jacket that's missing as well. And it's a jacket that he was very fond of. He considers it his concert jacket.

a black satin jacket. It was reversible, so it was black on one side and then has a graphic print on the other. On some of our missing flyers, we've posted a picture. Because it is so visually striking, it would be hard to miss. Like if you saw someone wearing this, you would just instantly know. When we saw the surveillance footage at the

At the grocery store when he was picking up his prescription, he was definitely wearing the hoodie that we determined was gone. I believe I can see the collar of this black satin with the graphic print peeking out from underneath the blue hoodie. This is where I start to lean more towards an intention of...

leaving because he certainly wasn't going to a concert and he would never wear that jacket to work. So the fact that he took that jacket with him, it opens up a lot of questions.

Another question we had was whether Brennan set out with a specific destination in mind. Perhaps the Grand Canyon? Or Las Vegas? We know that his car turned up on a plate reader there. Or had Brennan simply let the road take him wherever it led? If he did have a particular place in mind, how did he navigate there without using a map application on his phone?

He's navigating across the country. He's never been any further west than Western Maryland or West Virginia. I don't know how he could have possibly navigated cross-country without the access to the maps. Maybe he did have a clear destination in mind and mapped the route and then saved it for offline use. That could be the only way.

Sergeant Dick said they didn't find any maps or travel books in the car that might explain how Brennan navigated, but he said that there were other ways that he could have made it to that desolate road in Coconino County.

There are possibilities that you could turn the cellular service off on your phone and still use the phone as a navigation tool. That's possible. We didn't find like a standalone GPS in the vehicle. This particular location doesn't have great cell phone service where the vehicle was found. So it wouldn't necessarily be a surprise to us that there wasn't any cellular activity at that location, but could

It could be unusual that he stopped using the phone. So in the scenarios, there are a variety of things that could happen. And you could turn off your known phone, go get a prepaid phone and utilize that. So we just don't know if that happened or not.

If Brennan was the one who drove his car to Arizona and abandoned it on the side of the road, where may he have gone next? One possibility is that he could have harmed himself, though the search efforts didn't turn up any clues to suggest that that was the case. Another possibility is that he may have been traveling in tandem with someone else, who then picked him up, or he could have flagged down a passing motorist. When we spoke to Sergeant Dick, we asked about the traffic on that stretch of road during the winter.

And how far Brennan would have had to walk to reach the nearest town for help or a phone. People are driving by there and it's patrolled by law enforcement. Potentially a lot of opportunities to flag down assistance. That time of year, the north rim of Grand Canyon is closed. So you don't get as much traffic.

on that highway as you would during the summertime when the North Rim Grand Canyon is open. There are some winter recreation opportunities in that area. It also connects the town of Fredonia on the Arizona side and Kanab on the Utah side with some communities in Northern Arizona. So I wouldn't say it's heavily trafficked like an interstate highway, but 10 or 15 cars an hour, I would guess, on the highway. But to get to a town, the closest one is Jacob Lake,

There's a gas station there and visitor center, hotel and stuff. And that's about 19 miles away toward the west. And if you walked east, it's probably maybe a similar distance to a couple of little communities on US 89A, like Vermilion Cliffs and Cliff Dwellers, where there are small hotels, restaurants and gas stations. But this is not a heavily populated area right where this occurred.

With Brennan's car found in Arizona and his family living on the East Coast, they turned to social media in hopes of finding someone who may have seen him walking along the road or may have interacted with him, whether in Arizona or anywhere along the route between Maryland and Coconino County.

When we started distributing missing flyers on Facebook and online and trying to call everyone's attention to this, people were responding to our missing flyers with information. We had one person report they had seen the car on the side of the road. I believe it was on December 26th.

but it's not something that is 100% confirmed. I don't go by that date as a hard fact. We've had a couple of people contact us through our Facebook efforts that have said they saw who they believe to be Brennan walking along that

Road 89A. That area where the car was left on the side of the road, there's nothing nearby for a pretty good stretch. So even if you were to walk and go on foot, you'd be walking probably for miles before you would actually come across the first building. Initially,

When Coconino County Sheriff's Department started investigating, they had received a tip that someone may have seen him. There's an attraction north of that area, The Wave. It's an area that you can hike. It's done in a controlled way. You can't just go and show up. You have to get a ticket to access this hiking area.

They have a lottery on the day of to be able to go on the hike. So if you haven't obtained a pass prior to the day of the hike, you can arrive the day of and be entered into a lottery essentially. So if it was him, he definitely would have had to do it by lottery. They have a consultation prior to the hike there.

They go over the safety recommendations for hiking this particular area. The tip they received that Brennan may have been a part of that cluster that was receiving safety instructions prior to the hike. They interviewed everyone that was a part of that cluster going on the hike that day. When the hike actually began, no one recalls

seeing Brennan beyond that, if it even was Brennan. The other tips that we received were people who believed they saw Brennan walking alongside of the road. None of them have resulted to any sort of substantial ideas to where he is or if it even was him. When we flew out there to go get Brennan's car, we flew into Phoenix because we had had

Some tips, he may have been spotted in the homeless community there in Phoenix. Later, we're able to get a photo of the person that everyone was thinking was Brennan. And once we saw the photo, we were able to confirm that it's not Brennan. There has never been a 100% confirmed sighting of Brennan.

Despite Brennan's car being found in Coconino County, there's still no evidence to confirm he was ever there, a perplexing gap that remains one of the most baffling aspects of the investigation.

As soon as we put out a missing person flyer, we'll start to get tips that people may have seen somebody matching the description. So we've had a couple of those. They were not in the immediate area where the vehicle was located, but we've had other tips that people maybe saw somebody matching the description at a visitor center in Page or walking with a dog closer to Page. When we get those tips, we'll investigate them to see if there's anything we can determine from those tips.

And so far, none of those tips have panned out. Inside the vehicle, there was a visitor map for the Grand Canyon, which would only be available at the south rim of Grand Canyon at that time. So we assume that he was at the south rim of Grand Canyon at some point that, you know, nobody called us to notify us that they had some kind of interaction with him.

Brennan's loved ones have been stumped by his sudden disappearance right before Christmas, feeling it came without any warning signs. If this was a voluntary decision, what could have prompted him to leave? Many people struggle during the holidays for various reasons, whether it's the absence of a loved one or the strain of family dynamics. We asked Patricia if there was anything about the holiday season that Brennan found particularly difficult, or if it could have played a role in his disappearance just days before Christmas.

As far as I'm aware, Brennan did not have any negative association with the holidays. If he did, he never brought it to my attention. I never saw any signs that would point to that. There was no reason for me to be suspicious of, oh, hey, Brennan really feels uncomfortable or needs extra support during the holidays.

He also, on the flip side of that, was not overjoyous about the holidays either. Brennan's outward appearance towards holidays and events to everyone else would seem very flat. There's no excitement or excitement.

hyped up and energetic, feeling pumped about the holidays. Overall, as a person, his emotions were very level. There were no peaks, no drops. We have affectionately around the house conversations

We'll talk about his meh attitude when you're opening up gifts and most people are like jumping up and down and super excited when Brennan opens up a present. You can tell he likes it, but always seems like he's meh. It's all right. To anyone on the outside, it would seem like he dislikes the holidays or dislikes gifts.

But we know as long as he's on that level ground, he's secure, he's happy. That was part of the surprise too as to him doing this at that time. We do the holidays together. We always have. I don't think it was intentional for him to choose that particular time if this was a choice at all. We still don't know 100% if he did this on his own accord.

All signs point to it, but you never know. I'm willing to explore every possibility. Patricia struggles to understand why her son would suddenly walk away from his life, though she still has no proof that it was actually Brennan who drove his car to Arizona. There have been no confirmed sightings of Brennan, and he's never been captured on surveillance footage. Today, she's left hanging on to the possibility that he could be out there living amongst the homeless.

I actually do think that living within the homeless community is a viable option for him from the point of view that there's no commitment, there's no responsibility. You can just be. You don't have to be an employee. You don't have to be responsible for taking care of a house. You can just exist. Certainly it's not easy. It has its challenges and

safety issues, but I think in a natural course of things, that's certainly where Brennan could have ended up. Currently, one of the tips that we have, this isn't just one tip, this is multiple tips that we've received in the Huntington, West Virginia area within the homeless community where there's someone who resembles Brennan worldwide.

We're trying to obtain a photograph or something so that we can confirm or rule out whether or not this person is him. And Huntington, West Virginia, like that's nowhere close to Arizona. Right.

However, he could have hitchhiked back across the country. It's not impossible. If it is him, that makes me question, is he trying to get back home? Or was Arizona just a way to throw everybody off on where he wanted to go? Was West Virginia the destination and he went out to Arizona to throw everyone off?

Lucas is planning to travel down there himself so that he can go and walk around and search the areas this person has been spotted. Lucas has been very good with running down every tip, every contact, no stone unturned. Lucas has also been very creative in getting this information out.

in as many ways and as far and wide as we can. Brennan was first reported missing to the Anne Arundel County Police Department, but with his car turning up in Coconino County, Arizona, the Coconino County Sheriff's Office became involved. Today, both agencies are working together on the case. Patricia shared that for now, the focus of the investigation appears to be in Arizona.

It is more concentrated on the Coconino County Sheriff's Office. They have been doing a fabulous job, actually. When they shared all of their search information with me, it has been so thorough. All of the different angles that they're taking to find him, very creative ways to try and locate him.

As we began preparing to cover Brennan's case, we reached out to the Anne Arundel County Police Department for information. However, our records request was denied, with the department stating that as the matter is currently open, the release of such records could interfere with ongoing law enforcement proceedings and prejudice the investigation. We also requested a written statement or interview, but never received a response. Next month will mark one year since Brennan vanished.

But Sergeant Dick said the search for Brennan continues on in Coconino County. We have kind of a limited continuous search plan. Coconino County is a fairly busy search rescue county. It's the largest county in the state and the second largest in the lower 48. So we respond to 125 to 175 search rescue missions a year. And so sometimes we're not able to get back. After we've moved into the limited continuous phase, we could be busier with other missions.

We're not able to get back as frequently as we'd like to in that area. One of our strategies is to keep the information about this case out to people that might be in the area recreating or working. Like I said, you know, the Peregrine Fund is aware of this, the Forest Service is aware of it, other agencies that be working in that area. And then we did send a missing person flyer to 100

hunters in Arizona that drew a big game tag in that game management unit. So right before the hunts started this fall, we emailed the missing person flyer out to all those hunters. So far, nobody has reported anything. Other parts of that are if we have some training that that is a good area for us to do some training in, we'll consider that as a place to do the training. If somebody were to report a clue or something they thought was related, we're ready to re-engage the

One remaining possibility is that Brennan chose to walk away from his life. Or perhaps, after leaving, he realized he had been reported missing and became afraid of getting into trouble with law enforcement. Sergeant Dick emphasized that if Brennan is out there, he's not in any trouble. Everyone just wants to know that he's okay.

Anybody that's listening to your podcast, if they felt like they had some information about this case, we would definitely be interested in knowing about it so that we can follow up on it. I guess one of the things we always have to remember is this person is an adult. People can leave. He hasn't done anything that's against the law. What we are concerned about is his welfare. And so if somebody knew about him, he had made this decision, he has the right to do that. We would just like to know that he's okay. He's not in any trouble with anybody. We

We are just trying to locate him to check his welfare and make sure that he's okay and provide him with any services he may need. Hopefully, if he is listening or somebody else knows something about the case and knows that he's out there, he's not in any trouble. We're not trying to take him into custody or anything like that. We're just trying to make sure we know that he's okay and we can move on from there.

So what happened to Brennan McGinnis after he left his home in Glen Burnie, Maryland on December 21st, 2023? Was it Brennan who drove his car all the way to Coconino County, Arizona and abandoned it on the side of the road? If so, what prompted him to leave? And why did he choose that specific destination? Despite extensive searches of the area surrounding Brennan's car, no clues have been found to confirm that he was ever even there.

There have been no verified sightings of him in the area either. We also know that prior to this, Brennan's car was picked up on a plate reader in Las Vegas, which is farther west than where the car was recovered. Was the destination Las Vegas? And he stopped in Arizona on the way back.

To make things even more confusing, they don't even know if it was Brennan behind the wheel. Despite finding the car, there are other items that remain missing along with Brennan, including his wallet, identification, cell phone, E-ZPass, and license plate. Did Brennan plan his disappearance so carefully that he left no trace behind? Could he have harmed himself? And if so, why hasn't he been found? Or was there foul play involved with someone successfully covering their tracks?

If Brennan did decide to leave his life behind, why? At each turn when Brennan's loved ones hoped they would get answers, they found that the mystery surrounding his disappearance only deepened. Yet his loved ones continue to hold out hope that someone out there may have seen him, and that new information may provide a lead to help them keep searching.

If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Brennan McGinnis, please call the Coconino County Sheriff's Office at 928-774-4523 or 1-800-338-7888. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can contact Silent Witness at 928-774-6111. You may also call the Anne Arundel County Police Department at 410-222-8050.

We don't really know if it was him behind the wheel or not. From what I know, he lost his car. It seems kind of off that he would just give it to somebody, but if he's also not of the right state of mind, it could be something that he would do. Unfortunately, there was nothing on the computer that they could find or the police, because they did hand over his computer to the police for them to check it out, and they couldn't find anything either.

We had a small group of people, maybe in total 15 people. But me and him played almost every day on the regular. We all got together and tried to see if any of us had anything.

I get a lot of phone calls from out in Arizona. The posters and flyers and whatnot we put out had my phone number on it. So that's where we get most of those. There's been sightings, but none of them have been confirmed. A lot of the sightings were by people who thought they'd seen them in the homeless community out there in Arizona.

We flew out there, me and my wife, not too long ago, and we spent a week out there handing out flyers and looking at some of the weeds and whatnot. We couldn't find anything. At this point, the investigation is still active, so we have a detective assigned to the case. I manage our search and rescue program, so if we have clues that come up in the investigation that link back to an area that can be searched, that's where we would get involved. We're hoping that with keeping that information out there that

A hunter or somebody else that might be recreating in that area or working in that area comes across a clue that like, "Hey, that's weird." And then they call us about it and we got there and we can try to authenticate that clue back to Brandon and see, does this relate to him? If it seems like it does, what does that tell us about the activity?

Does that warrant additional searching or some other investigation? We're in that limited continuous mode where we're not out there continuously looking, but are ready to follow up on clues that might be reported. That's kind of where we are in this at the moment, and we're never going to completely stop looking. That brings us to the end of episode 465. I'd like to thank everyone who spoke with us for this story.

If you have a missing loved one that you'd like to have featured on the show, there's a case submission form at thevanishedpodcast.com. If you'd like to join in on the discussion, there's a page and discussion group on Facebook. You can also find us on Instagram. If you like our show, please give us a five-star rating and review. You can also support the show by contributing on Patreon. Be sure to tune in next week. We'll be covering a case from North Carolina. Thanks for listening.

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