Katharina Buczek
At that point, Brian phoned Brandon again to ask if he could see their headlights or hear their horn honks. The 19-year-old revealed he saw and heard nothing, though, and at that moment, Brian and Annette knew they had been given the wrong directions.
Brandon, however, was reportedly very frustrated since he was confident that he had provided accurate directions. After a short while, though, the 19-year-old decided to stay on the phone with his mom while he left his car behind and began walking toward lights in the distance– which were assumed to be a part of the town of Lynd.
Brandon and his parents ultimately stayed on the phone together for 47 minutes until, at about 2:30 a.m., the 19-year-old screamed. Afterward, the call ended, and despite Brandon’s father’s repeated attempts to call back, the teen never picked up.
By 6:30 a.m., Brian and Annette contacted the police to report their son missing. Beforehand, they had searched for hours and never heard from Brandon again.
The parents received a lot of pushback from authorities, though. In fact, since Brandon was 19 and considered of adult age, the officers did not take the missing person report seriously.
Still, later that day, the police did eventually agree to open up a missing person case and launched a search party. Investigators also obtained Brandon’s cell phone records and concluded that he had never been in Lynd. Instead, they revealed the 19-year-old had been nowhere close and was instead in a small town known as Taunton– which was 25 miles away from Lynd.
After uncovering this information, officers were dispatched to the area, and Brandon’s car was located in the ditch. This confirmation prompted a ground search to be launched, which included both bloodhounds and helicopters.
The canines ultimately followed a scent trail past fields and through an abandoned farm that led to the Yellow Medicine River– which had a water depth of about 15 feet at the time.
This pushed authorities to speculate that Brandon may have fallen into the river. However, investigators never discovered any evidence of the 19-year-old in the area, and Annette did not believe in the river theory.
“A dog actually jumped in the river, jumped back up, worked the trail up to another gravel road, and then lost the scent,” she said.
So, in 2010, Brandon’s case was given to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and a tip line was set up. Then, by 2015, approximately 90 leads had been reported– although none led to any new evidence or answers.
