10. Brandon Swanson - Where Did You Go
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Hello everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. I'm the husband. If we sound a little bit different, it's because we are finally home and we are in a different room. So...

We've realized that since being home, besides this podcast, I actually have another real job and Garrett does multiple things. And so once we left isolation or quarantine, we found it was actually going to be a lot harder than we originally thought to get two podcasts out a week.

Um, that being said we are going to continue to produce a podcast a week for you guys But without a patreon or ad revenue two just seems a little unattainable at the moment Of course if we got ads or had a patreon we could produce as many as you want Wink wink, that's funny. That's true though, but we're still gonna do one a week every single week. We're not gonna miss one We're super committed to this real life just kind of hit us in the face Yeah, there's just kind of a lot going on. So two is two is a lot though

Yeah. Because like I mentioned in some of the other podcasts, I mean, Payne does a lot of research for this. So between doing this, her job and some other stuff, sometimes it gets a little...

overwhelming but she loves doing this so this is definitely a priority so if you're just dying to hear more let us know write us in maybe sometime soon hopefully eventually we could make more than one a week and other options available for you guys yeah um but that being said you want to just jump right into it yeah let's just jump into it okay so we are doing the disappearance of brandon victor swanson

And he actually vanished while he was on the phone talking to his dad. No way. Which is what makes this case super interesting. So my sources, True Crime Garage podcast, which is another true crime podcast, did an extensive cover on this story that was awesome. And I got a lot of information from them that I actually couldn't find on any other sources. So good job, True Crime Garage. They really did...

A lot of research and put a lot of time into their cover on the story. It's a lot more extensive than what we're going to be doing. I think they did like three episodes on this story. We're just going to go into one. Okay. So if you are really interested in the story, I would highly suggest you go listen to their episodes. Yeah.

I also got information from the truecrimefiles.com, from marshallindependent.com, from the searchforbrandon.blogspot.com, and footprints at theriversedge.blogspot.com, as well as fhsvoice.org. Wow. That sounds busy. So...

Let's go. Brandon Swanson was born in Marshall, Minnesota on January 30th, 1989. Brandon's parents, Brian and Annette, describe Brandon as being very close with the family. He loved debate, reading, and worked at a local grocery store for four years. He liked politics, history, and music, and he was a fan of the Minnesota Twins.

But I don't actually know what that is. Is it a baseball team? That's why I figured. But I didn't know for sure. Yeah, you're good. So Brandon wore glasses and he was legally blind in his left eye. Okay. He seems pretty swaggy in the pictures I saw of him. His ears were pierced and he would wear like

like a chain around his neck and then he would always wear his hat sideways, which if you know Garrett, Garrett always mad chills with his hat crooked like all the time and all of our friends make fun of him and stuff. So I thought you could relate to that. That's funny. Brandon went to college at Minnesota West Community and Technical College to study wind turbines after high school. Wow. So he was actually like really into science and all of this stuff.

So he went there and he like studied basically just wind, but like went hard on wind turbines. It was actually pretty cool. That's super cool. Seems really smart. So he had plans to continue his education after his semesters at that college. He was going to go on and keep going. So on the night of May 13th, 2008, which is actually, what is it today? May 17th? Yeah. So that's actually not, we're in that week right now. But 2008-

classes had just ended the day before at his college and so brandon and his friends were gonna celebrate the end of the semester before heading off to their summer plans you know and

He was going to start the night off by hitting up a party that was actually near his hometown with some of his high school friends. So he had only been graduated for a year. So he was probably still in touch with some of his high school friends. And he was in a college town that was close to his home. So I'm sure they all kept in contact. So he was going to go to that party first with his high school friends and kind of celebrate the end of semester. So was he pretty popular in high school and everything? I mean, he had a lot of friends, it seems like. So I'm going to guess so. Yeah.

And then he was going to finish the night off at a different party that was in his college town. And he was just going to go celebrate with his college buddies and say goodbye to all of them before heading home. Okay. So...

Brandon leaves his parents' house, which he lives at. So he goes, his college town is not very far away. So he just lives at home with his parents still and drives to college every day. Brandon left his parents' house around 6 p.m. to head to the high school party in Lind, Minnesota, which was only an 11-minute drive away from Marshall. So it's just a neighboring town of Marshall. I'm sure it was just like both of those towns went to the same high school. And so they were going to all go celebrate. It's only 11 minutes away from his home. Yeah.

Once Brandon arrived at that party, he was seen drinking and celebrating. Almost everyone at the party claimed that Brandon had drank, but they weren't sure how much. So it wasn't a question of whether or not he was drinking. It was we like weren't keeping track of how much he was drinking. And he's underage as well, correct? Yeah. I think he's like 19. Yep.

So once 1030 to 11 p.m., we're not sure, rolls around, Brandon leaves that party and heads to Canby, Minnesota to say goodbye to his college friends. And Canby is the city that his college was in. Canby's about 30 miles away from his hometown where he lives in Marshall. And it's probably just a short 30-minute drive. So it was only like a 30-minute drive.

What's that word? Commute. Yeah. It was only a 30 minute commute for him. Okay. And you basically only take one road route 68 to get from the party to where they were having their party and where his college was back to his house. So you just drive from the town, hop on this highway. And then they said, it's just like a, basically a straight shot diagonal line. You get off an exit and then his house is right there. Yeah. So not very far, not very far, not very complicated. Yep.

So at this party, the college party, people saw him take one shot of whiskey, but no one was really paying attention. Like, oh, he's on his third shot of whiskey. Now he's on his fourth. His friends do recall later that he wasn't acting severely intoxicated. Like he didn't act like he had drank a lot.

He leaves that party around midnight, maybe. No one actually was keeping track of him. And so a lot of different sources and a lot of different people that party say different times. All the way to like 1:30. - It's not funny how when there's a big group of people, everyone just goes, "Oh no, but I saw him at this time." No, no, no, he left at this time. - So some people say midnight and then some people say, "Oh no, it was as late as 1:30." And this is like vital to the case

because then it messes up our timeline of work.

What happened when, you know? Yeah. But they could never pin it down when he exactly left. Because I mean, the police all the time is humans. We kind of start making things up. Oh no, but I'm pretty sure he left. Yeah. It's interesting. So keep in mind that Brandon has driven from his parents' house in Marshall, where he lives, to his college in Canby every single day for the past two semesters and back home. So he knows this route like the back of his hand. Yeah. So, but for some odd,

odd reason that night after leaving the party around between 12 and 1 30 a.m it appears that when brandon left he did not take the straight shot single highway easiest route home it seems like he took back roads weird but were the back roads just like dirt roads then i mean it's roads but it's like it would be like just skipping from taking a highway and driving through towns to get home okay

Maybe he was drunk. He's underage. And if this town is known for having cops on that specific highway, because it's the only main highway in between, you know, these towns or whatever. I mean, he's underage. And there was rumors that he already had a DUI. Okay. So maybe he was like, I'm just not going to risk it. I'll just take the back roads home. Yeah. And he's only 19. So he would have been in severe trouble.

During the time of him leaving the party and getting home, Brandon tried to call a couple friends on his cell phone, but neither of them answered. And then at 1.54 a.m. So keep in mind, his home is only 30 minutes away from this party. Yeah. And if he left at midnight, it's now 1.54 a.m., almost two hours later, and he's still on his way home.

That's so hard because then, like you said, other people were saying, oh, but he left at 1.30. It was 1.30, so 1.54 might make sense, right? Only 25 minutes. Yeah. So Brandon calls his parents at 1.54 a.m. He says that he's crashed his green Chevrolet Lumina car into a ditch and that he was stuck.

He mentioned that he wasn't hurt, but he was just off Highway 23. That's so scary in the middle of the night. Yeah. So a different highway like this. The Route 68 was a main one. And now he's on like a I don't know, like I have them in my state. Like there's just little country roads that they call highways. So he's and then he says, I'm just off Highway 23 and I've crashed my car. Highway 23 is the road that.

That is between Lind and Marshall, the place that he attended the first party that night. Got it. So he's in between the two parties, basically. No, in between the first party in his hometown. Okay.

an 11 minute stretch is where that road is in between. But, but keep in mind, Lind is out of the way. So it's like, here's Marshall up at the top. Okay. And then a straight shot to the diagonal is can be his college town. But then if you go straight shot diagonal, the other way is Lind. So it's like a triangle. So instead of just going straight home, he's now on the road that was from Lind. He's taking the triangle back.

Yes, like as if he was going back to Linn and now he's on a road that you would only take from Linn, but he was going home. Okay, that makes sense. That wouldn't make that much sense because he wasn't coming from Linn and it was completely out of the way of his original route from Canby to Marshall. Brandon might have been confused about where he was given his drinking, but we don't know if he's drunk.

He's blind in one eye and where he's at in Minnesota is run like a grid system similar to here in Utah. So for those of you that don't know what a grid system is, it's every street is numbers, not names. And there could technically be a number, like an address that's

There's four of them because there's one that's east, there's one that's west, and so there's like a center point, and then it just spreads out after that, and it just goes in grids. And so it can kind of get confusing because you could be heading to 53 north, 123 west, but there's also a 53 south, 123 west. Oh, I hate it. And so it can be kind of confusing. So I guess he could have, I mean, this is his hometown, but I guess he could have gotten confused with the grid system. Yeah.

Um, I don't really, I hate the grid system. Everyone who grew up using the grid system actually loves it, which makes me believe that maybe he wasn't confused because like every, all of our friends who grew up with the grid system, yeah, they know what, like the back of their hand, we on the other hand, we get confused. Yeah. Um, Brandon's parents get in their pickup truck and they head off to try and find him to try to rescue him out of the stitch. They stay on the phone.

With him while they're driving because they're going to try to find him because he did he just says i'm off the highway I'm on the left side and i'm in a ditch. Okay, so i'm trying to picture this again. So what year are we in again? 2008 so 2008. Okay, so so he's got a phone. He's on his cell phone. Yeah, it's like a It says can say what type of phone it is Just curious because I try to like to I kind of like to try to picture what what's going on. It was a black motorola slvr cell phone

I'm going to look that up. Oh, okay. So it's like a, I mean, it's just a regular phone and it's on a flip phone, but it's like a brick. Oh, okay. It's like a little small brick. I would have thought it was a flip phone. No, see how it's like a little brick. Oh, like a really old phone. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just like a brick, yeah. Like a really old phone. No, I mean, it's not one of those huge ones that our parents used to use. It's just before the flip phones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of like, yeah. But these things would not break. These things were indestructible. Yeah. I swear. That's funny you say that. We'll get to that later. Oh, okay. All right. Probably not expecting me to start this ad, but I'm going to start this ad. The Skims ad. And let me tell you about something that Peyton's been wearing. The Skims soft loungewear is amazing. Feels great.

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Brandon claiming, okay, I'll stay in my car and wait for you guys to come get me. He tries to explain to them where he is along the road, claiming to be on the left side of the road just off Highway 23.

Brandon's parents say that he was acting absolutely confident that he knew where he was crashed at. Like on the phone, there was no question. He's like, I'm off highway 23. I'm on the left side. I'm in a ditch. Like, just come find me. I know I'm off 20. And so they're like, he was like, he called us and didn't ever change his story about where he was. It didn't seem like he was drunk or under the influence. Yeah. So they drive to the area, to the road where he has told them that he thinks he is it being only about a 10 minute drive from their house.

And they slow down waiting to come up on him somewhere, crash in a ditch, but they never do. And so they start arguing with him. They're arguing back and forth on the phone. Like, dude, we're here, we're on the road and you're not here. Like we are on highway, we've driven all the way up and down highway 23 and you are not in the ditch anywhere on the left side. Yes, mom, dad, yes I am. Like it's now almost 2:00 AM. - That would be so scary as a parent. - Yeah, well, I mean, they're just frustrated. They're like, dude,

You're an idiot. I mean, it's two o'clock in the morning. Yeah. Like imagine how frustrating this it's late. Your son calls. He's crashed into a ditch. He's crashed his car into a ditch, which is already annoying on its own. And he might be buzzed. He might not. And he's like,

And so you pull yourself out of bed to go find him. But as you're driving up to where he should be, he's not there. But he keeps insisting that's where he is and that they're just not like back up. Do it again. Do it again. Back up. Just drive the whole road, mom. And they they they're just fighting on the phone. I can imagine. Yeah. So they keep arguing and Brandon ends up hanging up on them.

Because they're fighting. Yeah. But then his mom calls him back at 2.17 a.m. Because she's like, okay, well, dude, we got to find you. And they start, they decide that let's start flashing our lights. Right.

So both of them start flashing their lights on and off hoping that if they're driving down the road It may be he's crashing deep that they couldn't see his car. So if he's flashing his lights, they might it's it's a super dark night They said like the moon was barely even out And so if the lights were going they would probably see it Why don't why didn't he just call the police? Was he scared to get in trouble? Because he was drinking do you know? Okay, so I thought of this but think of this logically like put yourself back in

You're only a year in your freshman year of college. You're only 10 minutes away from your house. Yeah. That you live at with your parents still. So basically you're still in high school and you've crashed your car into it. Okay. I need to clarify. They call it in all the sources, crashing his car. But then when I dug deeper, like into the police files and stuff, he didn't,

actually crash his car it almost is like he just drove his car and then his he accidentally went into the ditch and so his tires came up so he wasn't like his car was completely fine that's why he wasn't hurt he just couldn't get his car's traction the tire traction to pull back out of the ditch so nothing really scary is happening besides the fact that like he's just stuck and so would you have called the cops

No, you would have called your parents and said, come get me. I can't, I'm not, I haven't crashed, but my wheels won't get traction and I'm stuck. If I got stuck somewhere, I wouldn't call anyone. I'd call you and say, come find me. Yeah. I'd probably just call my parents. Yeah.

Okay, so Brandon says he's flashing his lights and according to True Crime Garage, Annette can actually hear the switch being flipped on and off in the background of the phone call. So she's like, he actually is flashing his lights because I can hear him. I can hear the switch going on and off.

Um, everyone is frustrated beyond belief at this point. Brandon feels as if he couldn't have been any clearer to his parents about where he is. And he has given them all the information and instructions they needed to find him. And they're like, we're here. And he's like, no, you aren't. So Brandon also probably doesn't want to call the cops if he's intoxicated. So keep that in mind.

Brandon decides that he will get out of his car and walk towards the town, Lind. He thinks he can see the lights of the town in the distance. So he tells his parents, okay, listen, this is not working. I'm going to get out of my car. I'm going to start walking towards the lights, the town of Lind. And you guys come pick me up in this designated parking lot that we'll both meet at.

So it's going to take him a while to walk there. And so Brandon's dad decides to drop his mom, Annette, off. And I mean, she's honestly probably tired and fed up at this point. And then Brandon's dad is going to drive back to the parking lot to pick him up where they decide to meet. And then they'll just find the car in the morning. Man, find my friends and my location would have solved so many issues back then. I know. When I was talking to my mom about this story, because she has heard this one before, she was like, I don't remember.

I don't remember. Why didn't they just use find my friends? I was like, mom, it was 2008. Find my friends wasn't a thing. Like we're just so rely, like relying on it now. Cause all he'd have to do is drop his location and he would have been found in two seconds. No, thank goodness for modern technology. So, um, Brian, Brandon's dad calls Brandon back at 2 23 AM. So keep in mind, this all started at one 54. So it's now almost been 30 minutes that they've been looking.

And he tells, oh, and Brandon tells him that he's just going to cut through a field that he is coming up on because it'll get him to the city lights quicker. So he could just keep following the road, but he was like, the road's going to have to curve around. And if I just cut straight through this field, I'm going to get there faster. Yeah. And they're on the phone. And so he's like, I'm going to do that. Yeah. Yeah.

So Brandon's dad. Why would you go through a field and two o'clock in the morning? It's just. Well, I mean, I think they were just so frustrated at that point that it was like, you know, when you're mad at someone and so it's like nothing's in the moment. And so you're just like nothing's scary. Like you could do anything. I think that's kind of what was going on. Yeah. So I'm on the phone with his dad.

He tells him that he's come along. He's come up on two fence lines and that he could hear water running nearby. Like he's like, you know, I'm sure they're still saying like, where are you? Do you have a clue of where you are now? And he's like, oh, I've come up on two fence lines and I think I can hear water running. And so right after he tells his dad that he says into the phone, oh shiz, but he says the real word.

And then Brandon's dad hears something like crash or something slip or something. He doesn't know what it is. And then the phone line goes dead. No way. And it's 310 a.m. And they started this at 154 a.m. That's so scary. So it's been 47 minutes. His dad's probably freaking out. So Brandon's dad like tries to call him back thinking he fell or, you know, accidentally hung up the phone or whatever. But no one ever picks up the phone ever again. So Brandon's dad...

Goes to the meeting spot. Brandon never shows up. And so after a while, he ends up calling some of Brandon's friends, says, hey, can you guys come out here and let me help me look for Brandon? Yeah. Like I think he might be lost. And I'm in Lind at this spot we said we were going to meet and he still hasn't shown up. And so his friends come out and they all drive around Route 23, the highway that he was on, looking for Brandon and they can't find him or his car.

So at 6.30 a.m., Brandon's mom calls the cops and reports Brandon missing. Unfortunately, the police do not take it very serious. He's an adult. He doesn't have to come home if he doesn't want to, etc. The kind of typical thing we see. Yeah.

Um, the thing about this though, is that he didn't just not come home. Like he was trying to get home. He was trying to get home. He was calling people, asking for help, asking them to come get him, like staying on the phone with his parents. Come find me. Like I, like, it wasn't like he just ran away. Like there was obvious proof that something weird had happened. Yeah. Okay. I'm curious to see where his car is now. So the parents convinced, luckily the sheriff's office though,

to come out and join the search that next morning. And the sheriff's office is like, yeah, great. He's missing. Sure. Let's just go get his cell phone records real quick. Cause we can just ping his phone and then we'll find him. So they go get the phone records and the records earth shatteringly show that Brandon's phone was pinging Brandon.

At the time that he was on the phone with his parents, nowhere near where he said he had crashed and needed help. Oh, man. He was so far off that his phone was pinging in a completely different town 20 miles away from where he told his parents he had crashed. Oh, man. So obviously him being under the influence confused that. But we don't even know if he was under the influence. True. But I don't.

I feel like if you live in your town and you live there, grew up there for 19 years, you'd probably know if you weren't under the influence. Maybe. So his parents have come out and said that he didn't sound drunk on the phone. That he didn't.

That he didn't sound incapacitated at all. Dang, how can you get so confused? 20 miles off in your hometown. That's not even the same. Okay, and get this. It was 20 miles away from his home. That's not even the same town. Like 20 miles outside of my hometown in California is a completely different city. And the weird part is, is he thought he was on a road only 10 minutes away from his... He was driving down that road going, oh mom, I'm on highway 23. I can see Lind in the distance.

And he wasn't. So strange. So obviously everyone is confused as crap and they head over to the new town earnestly to search around the area because they're like, he wasn't even where we've been looking. Yeah. He was in a completely different town. So they all head over there. And at 1240 PM the next day, so May 14th, during the search of the new town, the sheriff, the sheriff's office find Brandon's car crashed into a ditch off of a road.

The strange part is the location that they found the car is only several miles away from Canby, where Brandon had originally left that party at midnight or 1.30. He was only a couple miles away from where he had left that party. But he was just going the opposite direction? No, he was heading...

Who, I mean, he was heading home to Marshall, but he had been gone for, depending on who you talk to, at least 30 minutes, at most two hours, and he was only a couple miles away from the party. Okay, got it. So what was he doing that whole time? Okay, okay, I see.

And where his car was, was actually a daunting 25 miles away from Lind where he said he was. So where he crashed was 25 miles away. That'd be like us being in Salt Lake City. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let me guess. Your medicine cabinet is crammed with stuff that does not work. You

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CBdistillery.com, code husband. CBdistillery.com, code husband. So the car was crashed off of a road that was barely driven on. It was a gravel road. It was like, okay, and a gravel road. He thought he was on Highway 23. That's what I'm saying. I feel like he had to have been under the influence. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I understand as his parents, he said he wasn't, but... And even his friends at the party before he left said...

That he wasn't like severely intoxicated. Oh, it's so crazy So literally, how did he get so off 20 on his location 25 miles? He was roughly 25 minutes away from where he claimed to have crashed on a low maintenance road that nobody Even barely drove and it definitely wasn't a highway He would have known he would have felt the difference between a gravel road and a highway. Like how was he so confused weird? Okay

Could he have really drove around lost in his hometown for two hours? Could he have been that confused, that drunk, that tired? I mean, he's blind in one eye. It seems like a bad dream where you like can't get to where you need to go. Like, you know, you need to go somewhere, but you just can't seem to get there. Like I have dreams where I'm like trying to dial the phone. And every time I go to click the number, it like slips off to the other number. You know, that's what it feels like to me.

How much confusion does there have to be before it might not just have been an accident that he was that lost and that off and got out and didn't know where he was going and actually walked somewhere and then went missing? Yeah. Did the parties have drugs? No.

Was he on drugs? Was he on acid? Was he on bad meth? And none of the kids fessed up because they were all underage. And if so, why did Brandon sound completely normal to his parents and to his friends? He was completely lucid.

When the sheriffs investigated the car at the scene of the accident, they came to the conclusion that it completely worked fine. It had just literally gotten hung up, meaning that the wheels weren't touching the ground and that he didn't crash into the ditch. He most likely pulled into the ditch on accident. So what they think happened was that he was driving, was like, oh, I think I'm lost, and went to turn around, not realizing there was a ditch, and just drove right into it. Okay. They also can't figure out

Which way Brandon walked after getting out of the car because the gravel road that he was crashed on had been graded that morning before they found the vehicle. No. Erasing any footprints. But didn't he go through a field? Yes. Okay. But I mean, this road that they're on is just farmland after farmland. So they had no idea. They couldn't figure out which field he was in. No, it was all farmland with private property, farms, landowners. Dang. Okay. Yeah.

So investigators started searching for Brandon, hoping he was nearby. They're like, we'll just search the length of the road, start going and filled and hope that we can find him. They brought in search dogs and they searched the nearby yellow medicine river because remember how he said he could hear water. Yeah. So they searched them. They search around the river and this river could actually get up to 15 feet deep.

So maybe it was possible that he fell in. But the part that was near the accident, like he would have had to walk really far. It wasn't that deep, but it could have had a strong current that night. So they were like... But they didn't find his phone or anything over there? No body. They found nothing. No phone, no clothes, nothing. So... What? But did they...

So for pinging, I guess back then you couldn't ping like an exact location. It was just off the tower. Yep, that makes sense. A nearby tower. And the phone never pinged again after he hung up on his dad. It was no activity after that. Oh, okay. So they didn't have any pings other than when he was... Even if it's off, they can't... Well, they don't know if the phone's off. I mean, even if it's on, they can't ping it or anything? I don't think back in those days. Even now, like when you're trying to find a location, you trace a call.

Yeah, yeah, okay. I see what you're saying. Uh-huh. So they actually searched this river for six hours and they did that every day for 30 days afterwards. So this... Okay, so... Wow. I'm just going to say the search is a really big part of this story and this is probably the best, most extensive, thorough searching I've ever seen for a missing persons case. These guys went so hard and are still going so hard to try to find Brandon. Oh, man. So the dogs made it seem...

Like Brandon had got in the water, like the dogs, the search dogs. Um, but then that he got out and kept walking. So they don't feel like Brandon fell in the water and drowned because it seems as if the dogs jumped in the water and then jumped out and kept following the scent. So the scent. Yeah. Cause the scent would have been lost if he went downstream in the river and there would have been no more scent, but they kept following the scent afterwards. Okay. So then they're like, okay, we don't think he fell in the water. Um,

Um, they searched the river and they searched the drive up the dried up river later that year and nothing, not even a clue, not a cell phone, not where did the dogs go after they jumped off out of the river? They did. They just kept walking farther up the field. Okay. And then they eventually lost the scent. Got it.

So the search for Brandon was extensive and thorough. According to footprints at the rivers edge dot blog spot dot com. They used ground ATV horseback airplane and helicopter to look for Brandon. Wow. Nowadays, though, you could just I mean, think about how hard and expensive that was to get a helicopter. Yeah. You have drones. Oh, yeah, that's true. So it would actually be a lot easier. Yeah.

But friends, family, and volunteers all searched the area where Brandon had been walking, where he had gone missing, looking for anything that would point them to where he might be. The search for Brandon.blogspot.com has reoccurred.

real journal entries from each of the searches that they have done for Brandon and if you are interested in reading about those go do it I read some of the journal entries they go details into the plan of the search all the way to what happened what was found the execution it's a really good representation to me that Brandon has not been forgotten and that people still care

And that there's a lot of people that still care. That's crazy that they do that much searching and they still... Still, to this day, you can go on and there's recent... We went to this part of this and searched on...

foot for this many hours. It was this many people like they document every search. So they don't end up researching the same areas because it's just so much land. Does it keep, do you have more? Is that basically just, Oh no, I got more. Oh, okay. So Jeff Hasse was the, was the, with the search rescue and recovery resources of Minnesota who took over the search fairly shortly after the cops had kind of given up on the case.

He claims that the area that Brandon went missing is hard because it's kind of like a cesspool. And so the wind blows in every single direction in that area. Okay. And so any scent that the dogs can catch, they don't know where it originally came from because the scent carries with all the wind. They can't go, oh, this was probably blown downstream because it blows every which way. Yeah. So...

They also can't... Okay, this part kind of bugs me. They also don't search private property unless they have evidence to, which they don't because there's no like, oh, we found a shoe on your property. Can we come search your land? But couldn't the owners just give permission to search private property? But it's... I mean, there's...

direct quotes from the from Jeff Hasse the director of the whole search team saying that they haven't searched the landowners land that are nearby

Did they ask for permission? I don't know. They said, I think the quote was kind of like, we try to protect the rights of private landowners. Got it. Okay. That seemed a little, I guess, strange to me. Because I grew up in a country and if someone went missing near my property, I would 10,000% let the police search my property. I would go to them and say, come search my property. What if he wandered on my acres of land? Yeah. Unless I was guilty, right? Yes. So...

Because of that, they haven't searched any of the private property. I mean, I'm not... I'm sure they've searched some. Yeah. But they've definitely made it seem like there has been some property or land that is privately owned near where he disappeared that they have yet to search because of rights. Got it. So...

This new search team, though, is kind of cool because they use victim profiling, known facts and evidence about the incident and mathematical equations to try and find the missing person. So a lot of the time we hear about suspect profiling, right? Like, oh, we think the suspect is this tall, this, da, da, da, da. These guys go, okay, so based on Brandon, when they gather all the information from the friends and family that they know,

Okay. How fast, according to his height and his weight, could he have walked in the amount of time before he said, oh shiz and dropped and cut off the phone call? Yep. How fast could he have walked based on his body? And then after, if something bad had happened based on his personality, what would he have done? So it's kind of cool because they use that for their searching. Gosh, it just seems so strange to me still that he would just walk into the river, like just-

Or fall. Or fall into the river. Yeah. So the cadaver dogs used in the search consistently hit on an area called Mud Creek. Even as recently as 2015, they have hit on human remains in Mud Creek. Can't find the remains, just the scent of human remains. And because the wind blows all over, the dogs just go crazy in the area because they can smell it, but they can't track down where it's coming from. Is Mud Creek like a big creek? Yes. So it has like a whole bunch of those...

Things that come out of the water. What are those called? Like the big things that have like the big. Lily pads? No, they like stand up out of water. Like in Outer Banks.

Oh, they like stand up. So you'd have to wade through it and they're tall. Oh, like a marshland, a marsh. It's a marsh. That's what I'm trying to say. So it's like they have to cut down the marsh to search the area. And it's better when like the, the water isn't very high. So they have to wait till a certain time of the year. And then when they finally hit that year, they have to go through and cut down. And it's like,

It's physically like brutal on them to try to cut that down and search through all of it. Yeah. So they still are searching that area even up to today. Well, it must be big then, right? Yeah, I would think so. So Brandon has never been found. That's so crazy. The searches have gone on, but they have had zero leads since that night. So let's go through some theories. Yeah, I have a couple. Well... No, tell me yours. Tell me. Before yours? Yeah. Okay. I think...

I don't think this is a theory, though, because I don't want to be disrespectful. Okay. No. It's obviously because, I mean, the search is still going on. Everyone's still trying to find him. But, I mean, I'm sure one of his theories are that maybe he ran away. I'm sure that's a theory. I don't think that's very likely. So I'd probably take that out of my theory because I just doubt that he ran away.

I guess another theory would be, right, he got kidnapped, right? That kidnap was taken. I doubt that as well. I actually think there's probably a good chance that he drowned. I think that's what I think. You're feeling that he drowned. I think that he probably drowned. I think that's the most logical explanation. I think if he was really 25 miles off, had no idea where he was...

I mean, I know everyone says he wasn't on drugs, but it just... I guess you don't ever know. You don't ever know, right? I think that's probably the most likely scenario, but I could be totally wrong. He had been partying. Yeah. Yep. So that's what you think happened. I think that's a very logical theory. Okay.

Let's hear your theories. Okay. These have also come from Reddit. They've come from a lot of different sources. I mean, the theories run rampant on this one. If you get on Reddit, there are threads and threads and threads about this. And man, I hope that he is found if he's alive. I know. I really do. Okay. So the first pretty popular theory is that he was abducted by aliens. And that when he said, oh shiz, he saw something and then was cut short.

Because, I mean, if it was a person, they couldn't have snatched the phone that fast and hung it up in time. And I don't think he would have hung up if he was in trouble. But, I mean, if it's an alien, they can do it.

they want. That's why I think if he fell into the river, it would have just cut off right away. Yeah. Right. But like you said, those funds are indestructible. Sort of not on water though. Yeah. But anyways, an alien abduction is a really popular theory. My only problem with this is there were no crop circles and there was a lot of crop circles. That's funny. But I kind of like the alien theory. Okay. I'm like, okay, it's kind of like

When you hear about people who were abducted by aliens that suddenly go missing. It's kind of a cool theory, I guess. He's in the middle of all these farm fields in the middle of the night. That's crazy. Okay, what about another one? Okay. So the next one is that Brandon had a bad reaction to drugs, that he was on a trip, and...

Just fell into the river? He did something. He somehow hurt himself somewhere and his body hasn't been found. Okay. He fell. He laid down. It was really cold that night. It was like 30 degrees. So if he had fell in the river and got back out like the dog hinted on, he could have died of hypothermia. Yeah. My problem with this though is where is his body if this is the case? Because could he have really gone far enough away that his body wouldn't have been found? Because in my case, if he...

if he's tripping then yes maybe he did just wander into the middle of nowhere and died but i feel like he was smart i feel like he was lucid enough to call his parents when he crashed that's to ask for help to stay on the phone with them i feel like if you're having a trip you wouldn't be lucid enough to stay on the phone with your parents for 47 minutes yeah like you just couldn't um

There are actually rumors kind of on some of the sources and on Reddit that there was a pipe found in his car, but they don't really verify what pipe it was. And this like originally came from like one of the news sources. And then they think people just took it from that as a source and ran with it.

So we don't know if it's like a lead pipe. We don't know if it's like a meth pipe. We don't know what type pipe was found in his car. Yeah, you can't really use that as evidence for anything. Police have also, though, come out and said that they don't think that he was impaired. And they don't give any reason why, but they've come out and said he wasn't impaired. So that hurts your theory. Yeah, it makes your alien theory a little better. Yeah. So the next theory is that Brandon could have got hit by a car.

And then the person who hit him picked up the body afterwards because they didn't want to go to jail for manslaughter. But he was in the middle of a field. Exactly. But people are like, dude, this kid was so lost. He could have been walking the side of the road at this point and then got hit. And that was the lights that he was claiming to see in the distance. But I mean, the lights that he was claiming to see in the distance were it wouldn't take a car 20 minutes to get to you and hit you. You could see their lights is what I'm trying to say.

So another very popular theory is that foul play was involved and that he was killed by someone random or someone he knew that had followed him and saw him crash and then waited for him to get out and they had killed him or that super unlikely, but someone came up on him that just wasn't a good person. And he was a very,

opportunistic victim. Yeah. Oh, that's sad. I don't like to think of these theories because I mean, I wish she was alive and found. It's sad. One of the really popular branches of this theory is that he went onto private land and got shot and killed. And at first, if you had told me this, I would have been like,

No, they wouldn't kill. They'd maybe cock a gun or something like, but they wouldn't actually shoot someone. But I actually recently just talked to someone who told me that there is an area in Utah, the state of Utah that, um,

If the private landowners have shot multiple people in this little city and they don't get in trouble because they were trespassing. I don't think it's that because one, you would have heard a gunshot and the phone wouldn't have just hung up right away. So I doubt it's that, especially if it was the middle of a field. If that phone fell and hit the dirt, it wouldn't have just hung up. It would have been on the phone still.

So, yes. But this does happen. You guys don't trespass because I literally just heard all these horror stories of these people and they don't get in trouble because you're trespassing on private property. That's crazy. So don't do it. So which one do you think it is? Oh, there's more. Oh. If it was someone he knew...

Deep on the web in hometown stories, there are people who rumor that he was actually in trouble and that he owed money to people. And so Brandon's just... And so people are like... Was there any records of that though? No. But hometown people say that he was in trouble with some people. But I'm like, what are the chances that he got lost and then they followed him...

Oh, hey, we found you. Yeah. Let's kill you. You know what I'm saying? Also, the FBI has listed Brandon's disappearance under VICAP, which means that he is listed under violent crimes, not disappearance. There are very, very few disappearances listed in VICAP, and Brandon is one of them. Why did they do that? They don't. Why would the FBI think that? Why?

Also, two doors on his car were left open. So when the police found his car, it wasn't just the driver's side that was open. And also, why wouldn't he shut his door? Who gets out of their car and doesn't close their door? So do you think the FBI maybe did an investigation after and found something that we don't know? Yeah, we don't know. Okay. It's almost as if two people had gotten out of his car or someone had come and searched his car after.

Maybe he was like super smart. So he found something crazy with the government or something. I don't know. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I feel you. Like he found something. So the FBI did it. And they're covering it up. Oh, violent crime. Yeah. Wow. The next theory you already guessed is that he purposely disappeared. The next theory that's the most plausible theory is that he fell into the water and then either drowned or that he climbed out and got hypothermia. And then the next theory is that he was attacked by an animal.

In the middle of the field. But there would be blood. Like sorry animals don't clean up their crime scene. After they attack somebody. The thing is. The only thing that's logical with the phone. Is that. He fell in the water. He fell in the water. That's how I feel too. Because anything else. It would have just. Why would he have hung up. Oh people do say maybe his phone died.

He went, oh shiz, because it lit up saying, beep, empty battery, and then shut off. And that's how the call got disconnected. And then he kept walking because he was lost and then died. Okay, that makes things a little tougher. But we don't know that for sure. Yeah. And then the last theory is...

The popular Reddit theory, this is probably the most popular theory that's on Reddit, and it's that he fell into a hole or a trap somewhere that was placed on someone's farmland for like an animal or something, and he ended up dying in the hole. And whoever the farmland or farm owner was just was like, yep, well, I'm not going to get in trouble for that. That's scary. That's like the most popular theory, which makes me feel like maybe, I mean... But see, then if it was that...

None of it still explains the phones to me at least. Yeah. I guess they're saying like he fell and the phone died or something. But I mean, I think people are truly forgetting how indestructible those phones were. I, you couldn't break a Nokia if you tried. I would throw it against the wall and it wouldn't break. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

So the only, I mean, not the only, but I want to say the only good thing that has come out of this is that they've passed a law called Brandon's law, which we see a lot with these cases. And according to the true crime files.com, Brandon's law is that the law will require law enforcement to take a missing person's report without delay after notification of someone missing under dangerous circumstances, no matter the missing person's age, it

That's good. So we actually see this happen a lot with missing persons where they end up passing a law after saying, hey...

no matter the missing person, you have to take it seriously. So now luckily I don't feel like this is happening as much because every missing person is taken more seriously now, but back then it wasn't that way. Yeah. That makes sense.

So, yeah, that's the story of Brandon Swanson. I'm just going to repeat because this case he is still missing. So this was on May 14th, 2008. And according to True Crime Garage, he was 19 years old. He was Caucasian. He was around 5 foot, 5 foot 6. He was 120 to 130 pounds. He had brown hair, blue eyes. He was wearing baggy blue jeans, a blue striped polo, a black zip front sweatshirt that had an emblem on the back. And he was wearing a blue striped polo.

and a white Minnesota Twins baseball cap. Oh, baseball, duh.

He was wearing his glasses, he had a sterling silver chain on, and he was carrying his black Motorola SLVR cell phone, his wallet, and his keys. If you know anything about the disappearance of Brandon Swanson or have any details about this case, please call the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension at 651-793-7000 or Lincoln County Sheriff's Office 507-694-1664. Good job, babe.

So yeah, that's the case of Brandon Victor Swanson. That's crazy. I hate the ones that aren't found, but I also hate the ones where people die. You like the survivors. I don't even know if I like the survivors because I feel so bad for them. Okay, so you're telling me you still hate this? Yep, I'm telling you I still hate this. Well, I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.