Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found.
Before we get started, I just wanted to say that episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this podcast.
Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Hi everyone, I'm Deb.
And I'm Shelby.
And we want to welcome you to episode number 50 of Dying to be Found.
Shelby, we are just a couple of episodes away from finishing out this season.
So to our listeners, be sure to tune in for our season finale.
Shelby, I think it's really going to be a good one.
I can't wait to tell you the story.
I can't wait to hear it.
I cannot believe that it's coming up on a year since we've been doing this.
This is crazy.
I'm loving it.
And I was saying before we press the record button,
I know this is my hobby, but I appreciate you being here with me because I'm really having a lot of fun.
And I'm getting a lot of good feedback from our listeners to have my family members here.
So thanks for coming on.
I enjoy it.
Aww.
And I don't even feel like I've talked to you very much this week.
I know. It has been so busy.
Yeah, I have a conference coming up this week.
So it's going to be nuts-a-rama.
I'm going to be gone for three whole days.
Wow.
And we will see how that goes.
It's got to be like a mini vacation though.
Work was talking about they were bringing up the fact if any employees maybe want to start going on conference trips.
And that's something that I'm very interested in doing.
Oh my gosh. Really? Out of state or I mean, you know, hint, hint, Atlanta.
Both.
That's awesome. See, we haven't talked.
You haven't even told me about that.
That's great.
Well, it just happened today.
Well, no wonder. Okay.
Yeah, we haven't talked very much, but I love going out on my trips and just having a little getaway.
It's just a change of scenery.
You get to see what different towns are like.
I mean, it's just nice to get away every now and then even if it's business still great.
Absolutely.
I know some of the leadership are actually going to the Bahamas.
Oh, are you going on that one?
I wish I am not.
Oh, well, maybe you should jump on board.
I'll hide in their suitcase.
Surprise.
Could you imagine their faces when they open a suitcase and out you pop?
I am probably the last person that they want to bring on that trip.
Why is that?
Oh, I tell them what they don't want to hear.
Yes. Did I tell you what I told my boss today?
No, you did not.
I just told him that people were getting on my nerves in general today and he was standing not even in the room.
So in my office, I have kind of a window where you can see in and out and he was like, I'm just no.
He said I haven't even said anything and I'm like, yeah, well, you're standing there.
And I'm just.
You said that to your boss.
I did.
Oh my gosh.
We have that kind of relationship where he knows to just ignore me sometimes.
My gosh, that's amazing.
I love that and you're still employed to talk about it.
That's awesome.
Yes.
Seven years later.
All right.
So I'm going to take you back to high school for a moment.
How good are you at geometry?
I don't think I'm good at geometry.
All right, because I wanted you to go look up a right triangle for just a moment.
It's an L. I actually know the acute, the right triangle and the obtuse.
Are you kidding me?
We might be talking about the acute.
What's the obtuse?
Is that the long one?
It's greater than 90 degrees less than 180 degrees.
Oh my God.
How did you retain that?
That's virtually impossible.
I have no idea.
That's impressive.
Okay.
Yeah.
So you don't have to go look that up.
So today we're going to talk about Brandon Victor Swanson.
He's a 19 year old man who disappeared in early morning hours of May 14th, 2008.
And Brandon was born on January 30th, 1989 in Marshall, Minnesota.
MN is Minnesota, right?
Shulbs.
I think so.
I always have to look those up.
I know an obtuse triangle, but I don't know the abbreviations for the stage.
Well, he was born to Annette and Brian Swanson.
And growing up, Brandon was a typical boy with a kid sister, Jasmine, who eventually
went on to Minnesota West Community and Technical College to study wind turbines and renewable
energy.
I thought that was really cool.
Don't you have a bunch of wind turbines near you?
We do.
And they're the coolest thing.
They have a red light in the very center of them.
And so when you're driving past them at nighttime, they all kind of blink sometimes in
sync, sometimes a little bit apart, but they're really cool to see.
Yeah, that is cool.
Well, Brandon planned to transfer to Iowa Western College from the community college
the next school year.
And what was going on in his life is that he had just completed his freshman year from
the community college on May 13th, 2008.
Brandon actually went out that night to celebrate with some of his friends near Lind, Minnesota
to celebrate obviously their accomplishments.
They're done their very first year of college.
They're going to be moving up to sophomore year.
So, you know, they were all out having a good time that night.
Nothing over the top.
They weren't being crazy.
They were just having a night of celebration only about six of them.
So it wasn't like a huge party that was going to have cops called or anything like that.
You know what I mean?
I do.
Around 11 p.m.
on May 13th, Brandon told his friends that he was going to drive to Canby to see a friend
and one on his way.
So nothing unusual.
He had stopped by made his appearance at the first party decided that he was going to go
to another friend's house maybe for a couple hours.
Although he'd been drinking friends later said that Brandon did not appear in any way
to be intoxicated.
So he probably just had a beverage and went on his way.
Nothing unusual about that, right?
No.
By midnight Brandon began his journey home to Marshall, Minnesota where he had lived
and this is where things get really interesting shelves because I feel like this is where
the triangle is going to come in just a bit.
When Brandon left Canby he should have taken Highway 68 which was the main thoroughfare
between towns.
However, instead of taking the main highway Brandon for one reason or another decided
that he was just going to take some back roads instead.
And I don't know how you are Shelbs.
I know that you live in a more rural area than I do.
I highly prefer back roads over the highways.
I do too.
And that sounds very similar to my area.
Actually, we do have a main highway.
There's nothing on it.
Never any traffic that we used to get in between the towns, but you can absolutely take the
back roads as well.
And when I find that when I take the back roads, I more often have no idea where I'm
at because I'm not too terribly familiar with this area.
Yeah, I need landmarks.
Yeah, me too.
The commute between Canby and Marshall was very familiar to Brandon because this is where
that Minnesota West Community and Technical College was that Brandon had attended for
the past year.
So it's like you going back and forth to work.
You know your path, nothing unusual about it.
He was very familiar with that pathway, but since he was traveling the back roads and
it was dark, he may not have been quite as familiar with the roads he was on.
I get it.
I'm just like you.
I'm just like him.
My sense of direction is terrible.
For me to even know where North, South, West, East is, unless I have a compass, I'm no good.
Same, although I don't think I've ever used a compass.
Never?
You've never used one?
I think the only time I have ever really seen or per se used a compass, I want to say it
was the Ford Explorer that we had.
There was a little gauge maybe at the top of the car where it literally did tell you
which direction you were going in.
I think it was the Explorer.
I think it was.
We had that one for a long time.
I think you're right.
Yeah.
I still wouldn't be able to tell even if I would have to look at it to know which direction
I was going in for sure.
Me too.
Well, around 1230 AM, Brandon had a minor car accident on that back road and ended up
driving his car into a ditch.
Don't know if something jumped out in front of him like a deer.
I don't know if he was looking at his cell phone, but basically he landed in the ditch.
And he first tried to call his friends, got no answer, but somewhere around 1 54 AM, this
is another 40 minutes or so shelves after his car accident, Brandon ended up calling
his parents in Marshall, Minnesota to let them know what happened.
I mean, he's stranded.
He's got no one that's answering their phone at this point in time.
He's got to get somebody to come pick him up.
So he calls his parents and Brandon told his parents, Brian and Annette, that he was not
exactly sure where he was, but he believed that he was maybe 10 minutes outside of Lind.
And that's where the original party was when he first went to go see his first set of friends.
So Brandon thought that he was in Lind or 10 miles away from his parents' house.
Not too far, but too far to walk at night.
Right.
Well, guess what?
Here's where your geometry lesson comes in.
I knew it was coming.
It's been a while since I've looked at this, but Shelby, I am not that good at math.
You did a good job of being able to tell me all about that triangle and I'm not going
to go into all those logistics because you did it for me.
So thanks.
But all right.
So I want you to envision a right triangle and I want you to get an idea of where Brandon
traveled that night and where he thought he was when he called his parents to come pick
him up.
The party that Brandon attended was in Canby, Minnesota, which is at the top of the right
triangle.
If you are going to follow the line down to the 90 degree angle, are you doing it?
You look like you are.
I'm doing it.
That's where the town is of Marshall, which is located where Brandon and his parents lived.
So basically Shelbs is a straight shot between the towns, probably around 35 miles distance
between each other.
So it's a straight shot.
I mean, you can't miss it.
Brandon believed he was just left of Marshall near land where that party was at, which would
have been at the base of the triangle.
Does that make sense?
It does.
Okay.
Now Brandon's car was not found along the 3,900 block of Lyon Lincoln Road.
In actuality, it was 30 miles north of Taunton, Minnesota, which is between Canby and Marshall.
And he thought he was on that straight path coming down towards his parents' house when
he was actually east.
Wow.
So he was way, way off.
I'm assuming when he was coming the back roads, he was doing a lot of zigzagging.
I know that's pretty easy to do on back roads.
And so he just got himself turned around somehow.
As Brandon began describing his surroundings to Brian and Annette, he said that he could
see something off of the distance that looked like maybe lights.
Have you ever been driving down a really dark road, but you could see the bright lights
of a city up ahead of you?
I have.
That's what he thought he was describing to his parents.
So yeah, he probably had a pretty good idea in his head where he may have been.
It just, anyway, you'll see.
Brian and Annette thought they knew exactly where Brandon was and got in their car to
go find him.
So, okay, I know where you're at.
Let's go get you picked up and then we'll be back home in no time.
You're only 10 minutes away.
No big deal.
Right?
Right.
Once they reached the spot where they thought Brandon would be, he wasn't there.
And both Brandon and his parents were still talking on the phone and they both decided
they were going to flash the headlights of the cars to see if they could see each other.
So again, it's pitch black.
I would be able to see if somebody is flashing their lights.
So they both tried that shelves and neither one of them saw any lights flickering in the
distance at all.
Oh, wow.
They honked their horns and neither of them heard each other even with that.
So everything they tried, it just didn't work.
Both Brandon and Annette got a little frustrated with each other during this conversation.
Obviously they're in the dark, they're tired, it's past midnight, they're ready to get home.
And I mean, obviously this conversation is going nowhere.
Annette could hear the clicking sound of Brandon's flashing his lights, but neither one could
see each other.
So in his frustration, honestly, Brandon got really ticked off, asked Annette, do you not
see me?
And then he hung up the phone.
He hung up on his mother.
I can't imagine that.
Says the woman who's going to hang up on her own mother.
And I am talking about me.
I'll do it in a heartbeat.
And you know, I will.
Well Annette, obviously she felt bad.
She immediately called Brandon back to apologize.
But Brandon said at this point in time, he was just going to walk back to Lind and he
just meet his parents there.
So at this hour, it was around 2.30 in the morning and Brian drove Annette home.
Obviously it was time for her to go back to bed, but he said he was going to go out and
look for Brandon.
So he went back out looking for his son and got back on the phone with Brandon, just as
you probably would.
Thank God for technology, you know?
For sure.
2.30 in the morning.
I can only imagine how tired they all are.
Well Brandon told his dad that he was going to take a shortcut through the fields and
climb over some fences.
And as he continued to talk to his dad, Brandon described some landmarks where he saw a gravel
road, some fence posts, and it sounded like some flowing water, like a river was nearby.
So he was giving all these descriptives.
Around 3.10 a.m. shelves, Brandon said that he had reached another fence.
And by this time, it seemed to annoy him because it just seemed like all he was doing is walking
and then climbing fences, walking and climbing fences.
I mean, I get it.
I'd be frustrated too.
I'd be ready to get home.
You know, by this time he's out there for a couple hours.
For sure.
It's 2008.
He couldn't call 911 and they couldn't find his location that way.
The only guess that I have shelves is he thought he was 10 minutes from the house.
So why call AAA?
Why call a tow truck at that hour?
Yeah, that's true.
They would just go pick the car up the next day.
That's true.
Yeah.
So Brandon stayed on the phone the entire time and they clocked it somewhere around
47 minutes when all of a sudden Brian heard Brandon say, oh shit.
And the phone went dead.
Oh no, I kind of figured that might happen.
Wow.
Have you heard this story before?
No.
I mean, it's just three o'clock in the morning.
And by that time, I mean, he probably had it all day.
It was about time for it to die, you know?
Yep.
Okay.
Brian thought Brandon had just fallen and tried calling back around five or six times,
but Brandon never picked up after that.
So he's talking to his dad for two hours out in the boondocks.
He's climbing fences.
He's walking through fields and all of a sudden he curses and the phone goes dead and Brian
can't get in touch with Brandon after that.
Brian continued to drive around and call some of Brandon's friends who all joined in on
the search, but as of 6.30 the next morning, nobody was able to find him or get in touch
with him.
Annette ended up calling the police that morning to report him missing around that 6.30 hour.
As the usual response shelves, police told Annette to wait a couple of hours to see if
Brandon would show up, which of course did not happen.
After all, he was at a party the night before.
It was not unusual for a 19 year old to stay out all night after finishing their college
classes and the police went on to add that Brandon had every right as a 19 year old to
go out and just make himself missing if he wanted to.
Could you imagine?
No.
I mean, if they spent two hours on the phone, they're flashing lights, they're honking
horns trying to find each other, what 19 year old would just spend two to three hours trying
to get somebody to find them at those three hours of the night?
That just doesn't make any sense to me.
Exactly.
A search and rescue was sent out at 12.30 PM on May 14th, 2008.
Police were able to use cell phone towers to ping Brandon's location and they were able
to locate his green Chevy Lumina in the ditch near Taunton, Minnesota on the border of Lincoln
County and Yellow Medicine County, which was about 25 miles from Lind where Brandon told
his parents he believed he was at.
So he was 25 miles away from where he believed he was when he called his parents.
Wow.
Although there was no damage to the vehicle, it was pretty evident that Brandon would not
have been able to get out of that ditch with the car because if you've ever seen a car
in a ditch Shelby where the tires are kind of up in the air, even if they turned, they
would not get traction on the ground.
And that's kind of how he landed.
So there was no way he was going to get that car out of the ditch without a tow truck or
somebody pulling him out.
The driver's side of the door was open and the keys were missing from the ignition.
So it looks like he did take the keys with him.
Now, interestingly enough here, shelves Brandon apparently left his glasses inside the vehicle,
which was really strange because he was legally blind due to an eye injury that he received
as a child.
So in all the pictures that I saw, he always had his glasses on.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
I don't understand if he knew he was about to take a hike, why he would leave without
his glasses.
Yeah, absolutely.
There were no footprints surrounding the vehicle to even give an indication on the direction
that he went.
I don't remember seeing anything about it being raining outside or anything that would
have set his footprints in a field or what have you.
There was just no indication in which direction he started walking.
But do you remember when I told you that Brandon saw those lights up ahead like they were coming
from a town nearby?
I do.
And it turns out Brandon's call came from a cell tower within a five mile radius near
a grain elevator, which I don't know if you've ever seen one of those, Shelby.
It's just one of those really big metal buildings that you would see on a farm.
Have you ever passed one of those?
Don't you know where I live?
Which is why I think you probably should have seen one.
Oh, yes.
Yeah, I always thought those were like silos.
Yeah, that's another term for a silo.
But now I know they're called grain elevators.
Yeah.
Well, I call them a silo.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
Now they're known to have a red light on them.
I mean, when you have that type of building shelves, a lot of the time you're going to
have smaller airplanes that might be flying the area, like maybe in a very small rural
airport.
So they're going to have that red light flashing on it.
And some experts believe that this might be what Brandon had seen and he mistook it for
the town of Lind nearby.
Oh, wow.
So he didn't have his glasses on.
He saw this light flashing up ahead.
He just assumed it was the town of Lind, which was a 10 minute walk.
And that's probably what he was thinking he was headed towards.
Oh, well, you definitely educated me.
I have about 11 of them right within a 30 mile radius of me.
Absolutely.
So now I know what they're called.
I'm so glad I could do that.
And thank you for educating me on the right triangle because it's been a long time.
You're welcome.
The search for Brandon continued for several months in a 122 square mile or 316 square
kilometer radius, which mainly consists of rural land.
And you get that some land owners and farmers refuse to allow law enforcement to bring cadaver
dogs onto their property during harvest season.
Or they simply thought that the dogs were going to interfere with their cattle, which
obviously left a very large gap in the search area.
Because if the farmers are not going to let them on the land, surely you're not going
to be able to see if Brandon was anywhere nearby.
I kind of get that to a certain extent.
And the way I look at this is that how many people disappear on your land or around your
property in any given time, almost zero to none, right?
That's right.
And they wouldn't let these cadaver dogs come on their property.
That makes no sense to me.
No, it doesn't make any sense.
But to each his own.
I get it because they had cattle.
They didn't want to startle.
Yeah, I understand that.
I'm not saying there's a lot of people who decline law enforcement to come on their property.
If any of our listeners know why, farmers would not let that happen.
By all means, email me.
That's just my ignorance.
It's not that I'm saying that they shouldn't allow them.
I know there's got to be reasons for that.
It has to have been more than cattle farming.
I mean, they had to have had some kind of crops in there.
Oh yeah.
And you know, I understand farmers should be held to a certain standard when they sell
that product.
So that could be a huge thing.
I know Chris's family owns one of the largest farms on the East Coast of the Mississippi.
Wow.
Yeah.
They do a lot of grain, but they had actually had several cotton fields that somebody had
come in.
I'm not sure you know, you know when you drive by cotton fields after they have, what's it
called when they roll all the cotton into the harvest?
Yeah, when they harvest the cotton into those very large circles.
I don't know what I'm talking about.
Oh, you're talking about the cotton bricks.
The cotton.
Yes.
That's exactly what they are.
They had several of their bricks vandalized in which somebody had actually cut open the
plastic that was holding.
I don't know if it was plastic, but I'm just going to assume they had people cut open that
plastic and they basically had to do away with it.
Why would someone do that?
That's a good question.
I don't know if they've ever found out who it was yet, but anyway.
That's awful.
Well yeah.
The articles that I read, they did say the farmers because of harvest season did not
want the cadaver dogs to come on.
I can understand if you're even growing corn and you're going to have to trample through
the corn to look through.
I get all that.
I do.
I understand that.
Sure.
It's their way of life.
So if somebody was to come through my office, I probably wouldn't be too happy.
So I can understand where both sides were coming from.
Oh sure.
Well, for the areas that authorities could search, they did so by air, horseback, boat,
and all-terrain vehicles along all those country lines where Brandon's car was found.
Unfortunately shelves, they never could find any sign of Brandon.
There was a river nearby and that area was known to flow knee deep in some areas, maybe
as much as 15 feet deep in others.
Think about how many times you've come up here and gone tubing down the river with me.
Sometimes you can stand up and it's only knee high.
Sometimes it's a little deeper than that.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And given the time of year, the river was flowing pretty fast.
So think about it.
If it's late at night, he could have easily fallen in and been swept away.
Search crews walked a two mile radius of the river every day for 30 days, but found nothing.
Search dogs followed Brandon set along the river and continued to walk along the banks,
causing the dogs handlers to believe that Brandon had fallen into the water and regained
his footing afterwards and kept traveling by foot.
One bloodhound followed another scent from Brandon's car down that gravel road that
Brandon had described to his family over to an abandoned farm.
This may have been where Brandon was at when he told his dad that he heard the water flowing.
As the bloodhound jumped into the nearby river, he immediately jumped right back out and followed
the trail for just a minute or two before the scent was lost.
So no clear direction on what was going on, but the dogs did pick up something.
Wow.
Now there are several theories on Brandon's disappearance.
Number one, there is a river nearby.
Police do think that Brandon could have fallen in and drowned or could possibly have even
gotten himself out and just kept walking.
But I want to bring to your attention shelves to what the weather was like that night.
This happened in May.
Average May temperatures at night in Minnesota run in the mid forties Fahrenheit or below
nine degrees Celsius, but it was somewhere around 39 degrees Fahrenheit, four degrees
Celsius the night that Brandon disappeared.
To me shelves, yes, it was chilly.
If he fell into that water, he could have been soaking wet and succumb to hypothermia.
Even if he got out of the water, Shelby had just kept walking.
He is soaking wet and walking and it is very close to freezing.
For sure.
Water is very cold.
And with him being legally blind and not having his glasses, it may have been pretty difficult
for him to see where the bank was and where the actual water was.
So I mean, that's possible.
And most people suffer from hypothermia when temperatures are between 30 and 50 degrees
Fahrenheit or negative one to 10 degrees Celsius.
I can see that could be plausible.
But my next question is, is where's his body?
Yeah, absolutely.
Some people, including Brandon's parents, don't believe that he drowned because Brian,
his father tried to call him back five or six times after the phone went dead and the
line rang several times before going to voicemail.
So if he had fallen into the water and his phone went with them, Shelby, it would have
gone directly to voicemail.
That's true.
But maybe, I guess it depends maybe how far the top of the bank is.
I was thinking maybe it was possible for when he did say that swear word that he maybe had
fallen down the bank, dropped his phone and the phone had just eventually been washed
away.
Oh, true.
Yeah.
It would have caught up or the bank would have caught up with it.
Yeah, that makes sense too.
One of the firefighters who was working the case stated that the area where Brandon had
disappeared contained unmarked cisterns or otherwise known as wells, which are pretty
standard in rural Minnesota.
I don't know if you have a ton of wells where you're at, Shelbs, but these are all unmarked
in the Minnesota area where he was at.
To differentiate between a cistern and a well, I actually went to look this up because I
wanted to know the difference and inquiring minds want to know like me.
Me too.
Well, good.
Cisterns are built either above or below ground and it's intended to store water, sort of
like a, what do you call those water towers that you see only it's just at ground level.
Oh, wow.
Yep.
A well on the other hand taps into groundwater.
So that is the supply of water that is an underground stream.
So they kind of built the well to go around that tapped in resource and then the well
will fill up with water.
Does that make sense?
It does.
Okay.
So the firefighter suggested that given the time of night that Brandon was walking, plus
the fact that he was legally blind in one eye and was not wearing his glasses, he would
not have seen a cistern or well that he could have easily fallen into.
That makes sense.
I've heard of people falling into wells.
According to the Minnesota Department of Health, unused wells act like a drain, which contributes
to surface water runoff.
Now snowfall usually ends in April, but the ground would have been very moist due to the
melting.
The running water sounds that Brandon described to his dad could have been that of an uncovered
well and since it was dark, Brandon could have accidentally fallen in as well.
All right.
So let's move on to the next theory.
Brandon planned to disappear.
There's not a lot of substance to this because Brandon, why would you be on the phone with
your father for two or three hours trying to get home?
That doesn't make sense to me.
It didn't make sense to his parents.
That's what I said when, when his parents tried to file the missing persons report.
Exactly.
So others say there could have been foul play.
Brandon could have happened upon someone or something in that desolate area.
I mean, I'm thinking if he's going onto somebody's property, if there's a no trespassing sign
and he, even though he probably didn't realize that he could have been trespassing, so he
could have happened upon someone.
But like theory number three, there's no substance to that.
And obviously the police didn't really find much to go on with that theory.
So they reached a dead end on that.
And then finally, some say that Brandon may have had a mental breakdown because obviously
he was becoming very agitated about his circumstances when he was on the phone with his parents.
But this theory seems unlikely because Brandon's friends and family said that there were no
flags to say that he was facing any mental health issues.
Does that make sense?
It does.
Yeah.
On May 7th, 2009, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty signed Brandon's law into effect, which now
requires law enforcement to take a missing persons report immediately when someone is
reported missing under dangerous circumstances.
Oh, that gave me goosebumps.
Oh, well, I didn't mean to do that.
I'm not crying.
Are you?
No, I'm not.
Okay, good.
That just gave me goosebumps.
Oh, okay.
So in other words, Shelby, police cannot tell a concerned friend, family member, and so
on that they need to wait a few hours to see if somebody will show up.
It does not matter if they were 19 years or not, and they have the right to stay out.
Brandon was obviously under some dangerous circumstances.
The temperatures had dropped.
He was legally blind.
There wasn't a ton of distress other than him getting a little ticked off with his parents
because he was getting aggravated.
I get that.
Police agencies are now required to conduct a preliminary investigation, reach a reasonable
conclusion that someone is endangered, then contact whatever law enforcement agencies
that are fit for the area.
Could be local, could be city, could be state, it could be county.
It doesn't matter.
They're going to have to contact some law enforcement agency immediately to look into
somebody's disappearance.
So we have Brandon's law in place now.
Good.
Yeah.
Well, to end this story, Shelbs, Brandon is described as a white male, age 19.
He is 5'6", 120 pounds when he was last seen on May 14th, 2008.
That's 15 years ago.
So he would be how old now?
34.
Yeah, he'd be in his mid thirties by now.
When Brandon was last seen, he had brown hair, blue eyes.
He was wearing glasses and had both of his ears pierced.
So if any of our listeners have information on Brandon's whereabouts, please call the
Lincoln County Sheriff's Department at 507-694-1664.
And Shelby, that is the story of Brandon Swanson from Minnesota.
Wow.
That was a good one.
I do hope that somebody is able to shed some light.
That was a, that was a good one.
Yeah, thanks.
I like to hear feedback from our listeners on our storylines and I'm really finding that
I'm migrating towards hopefully being a little bit more helpful as far as opening up cases
that may be going cold.
They may not be out there very often.
I mean, I just, I feel like I need to keep some of these cases alive.
So I'm glad that I came across this one to share with you today, Shelbs.
So yeah, if our listeners have any feedback on this, let us know.
For sure.
And I think we should also tell him happy early birthday because it is a week from today,
January 30th.
Oh my gosh.
Yep.
You're right.
Wouldn't that be amazing if we could bring him home for his birthday?
Thanks for picking up on that.
That's amazing.
Absolutely.
All right.
So there you have it.
That's Brandon Swanson.
Thank you for sharing.
Do you have a teachable moment for us today?
Of course I do.
I say stay put and what I mean by that, it's a big scary world out there.
Whether you're 19, 29, 59, it does not matter.
The most sensible thing to do Shelby is stay put.
In today's day and age, stay put.
It's easier to find someone when they're stationary, even if it takes a couple hours to do so.
And in this instance, it's understandable that Brandon thought he was just a short walk
away from town, but he was still in an unfamiliar area and walking through the woods or through
a field in the dark is never a good idea, even if somebody's on the phone with you.
But definitely get that call out to whoever it is that you need to, but stay put, stay
on the phone until help is on the way.
If anything, Shelbs, I know I was talking to Corey last week and he told me that he
recently put a blanket in the trunk of the car.
I don't care if it's 90 degrees outside, you should probably put a blanket in the car.
So if it's summer or winter, at least you're going to have something and you do have that
vehicle itself to keep the elements off of yourself until somebody does come along.
Somebody will eventually drive down that road.
Make sure to call the police, a friend or a family member, and then just stay put until
they come to get you.
Even on rural roads, someone is bound to drive by and see that you're in trouble, especially
if you see your car is in the ditch.
And it could be a minor nuisance to sleep in that car for the night, but take the stroll
in daylight if you have to.
It's much better than doing something on unfamiliar territory in the middle of the night for sure.
So that's my teachable moment.
I 100% agree with the blanket and the trunk.
That's so crazy that you said that.
I know that there was something that had occurred, I want to say it was in Michigan, where a
young lady was stuck in the storm blizzards and was found in her car.
And so I do, I keep blankets in the back of my trunk for sure.
Yeah, that's a good idea or a jacket.
It doesn't matter, something to keep the elements off of you.
Just need the extra layer.
Well to our listeners, let us know what you think about today's episode and make sure
you DM us on Instagram or let us know if you have any information on Brandon's case.
And that's it for now.
So we will bid adieu and talk to you all next week.
Thanks guys.
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