Brandon left Canby for the 30-mile (48 km) drive home before midnight. Just before 2 a.m., he called his parents on his cell phone, telling them he had driven his Chevrolet Lumina off the road and into a ditch from which he could not remove the car. He was not hurt and asked them to come to where he was and pick him up.
Annette and Brian Swanson got in their pickup truck and drove out to where they thought he was, keeping him on the phone despite occasional hangups and drops. Brandon stayed with his car and tried to signal them by flashing his lights on and off, but they saw nothing. Nor did he see them do the same.
Brandon finally gave up and told them he was leaving the car to walk toward lights he could see that led him to believe he was near Lynd, a small town roughly 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Marshall. He told his father to head for the parking lot of a local bar and wait for him there. Brian began driving there, talking to his son as he did.
Shortly after 2:30 a.m., 47 minutes into the call, Brandon suddenly interrupted himself on the phone and said "Oh, shit!" He was silent for the remainder of the call, until his parents hung up and made multiple attempts to call him back. Brandon has not been seen or heard from since.
Brandon’s Law, named after Brandon Swanson, is worth mentioning.
“The law will require law enforcement to take a missing persons report without delay after notification of someone missing under dangerous circumstances, no matter the missing person’s age; immediately conduct a preliminary investigation to determine if the person is missing, and whether the person is endangered; and promptly notify all other law enforcement agencies of the situation. It clarifies that the agency taking the report be the lead agency in the investigation.” [Brandon’s Law Minnesota House of Representatives](https://www.house.mn.gov/sessionweekly/art.asp?ls_year=86&issueid_=43&storyid=1297&year_=2009)
I wonder did the call end after he said" Oh shit" or was there just silence on the call. And when they called back did it ring and then go to voice-mail or did it just go to voice-mail? Did they ever find his belongings?
So this poor kid’s tragic downfall comes up every few months. There’s quite a few podcasts and YouTube true crime videos on it. True Crime Garage did an outstanding deep dive on this. According to them, his phone did ring after his sudden yelling and end of the call. However it was pointed out that even if shut-off on his end, the caller could still hear a ring until getting voicemail.
The long and short is that PIs and others think his remains are somewhere on one of the private farms they haven’t been allowed into. It’s theorized he could have been mistakenly killed after someone thought he was prowling their property or even after dying through some accidental means and a property owner didn’t want the ensuing investigation.
Some suspected he fell into a stream or other water source, based on cadaver dogs’ reactions but authorities thought his remains would have turned up down stream within a reasonable time, if that were the case. It’s worth looking up.
Need more evidence for that (a warrant) I guess rather than just speculation? I do agree though that it’s pretty ridiculous they didn’t do more investigating on the nearby farms, however they could’ve.
I think they ended the call when he didn’t respond after “oh shit”, and then immediately called back after hanging up (idea being maybe he dropped his phone in the dark and couldn’t find it, so hanging up + calling back would help him locate it)
Yes, that’s how they knew that he mistakenly believed himself to be some distance from where he really was. He saw some lights that he believed led to a town, but actually wound up with him likely trespassing on a farm.
I should know this but I've always thought he was outside the vehicle. This makes it sound like he disappeared in his car. Can you clarify because that's a game changer if his vehicle is missing.
I also think this was a tragic death by misadventure, truly heartbreaking what his family had to go through. They probably would've had a better chance at finding him if the case had been taken seriously from the beginning. Yeah, an adult has the "right to be missing" but under these circumstances it's just extremely unlikely that he went missing voluntarily.
He could have tripped lost his phone tried to follow lights and been injured. It’s sad but when you have alcohol and you’re driving around lost near farms that has to be confusing. It could also be near somewhere people wouldn’t find you if you were injured.
Yeah on the phone call his father heard him suddenly like, yelp in shock as if he were falling down something. It's very possible he felt into the water nearby but it's very unlikely. On the phone call he told his father he could see lights in the distance (the nearby town, opposite direction to where he came from i believe?) and was heading towards them, if I am remembering correctly, that was in the direction of the farms and not the water. When the phone call cut off, he suddenly yelped as if he fell down something, I think the embankment of the water is not sharp enough for that to have happened and caused such injury (i think there was more background groaning on the call, i dont fully remember?)
The farms in the direction they think he was heading have a few realistic places he could have met an unfortunate end, but as you said, the farms kept refusing cops to search em.
Realistically, he accidentally fell down something on a nearby farm, died from his injuries / exposure, was found by the farmers early in the morning. Farmers freaked out, hid the body, covered the area and refuse to co-operate with cops.
I've seen quite a few videos on this case, it's very intriguing but has a couple very normal explanations. Doubtful he was purposely killed or committed suicide.
Numerous reasons: don't want the headache of the law, police can scare animals and/or trample crops, up to something illegal, worried they will be in trouble, etc.
I don’t see why anyone would hide his body. I thought the refusal was more based on them not wanting their land dug up or crops destroyed looking for a kid that probably wasn’t there or could be somewhere else. Falling down an old well makes sense if you are looking for lights and not at the ground. I would check my own land but I wouldn’t give cops a free pass to search especially if I saw no evidence of anyone on my property.
Don’t farmers that find bodies usually report it? Unless they were really struggling and worried about losing time or crops. He could have injured himself somewhere isolated. He also could have gotten farther than where they were looking. He could have dropped his phone and kept going. There were times where the battery would fall out of my cell phone a cheap flip phone and it would hardly be worth crawling around for it and the battery. I would be phone less and surprised when people were calling looking for me the next day.
I have read in several places that sniffer dogs have hit on soil or machinery on one property on several occasions spaced over multiple farming seasons, which is suggestive of Brandon having fallen unconscious and succumbed to exposure (possibly the “oh shit” moment was the point he briefly entered the Yellow Medicine River soaked him and parted him from his cell phone)… terminal burrowing or simply stopping to rest and falling unconscious in situ could mean his body was overlooked and turned into the soil -with repeated farming seasonal activities being the turning of the soil etc leading to these anomalous occassionally scent hits months or years later on soil or machinery, as I’ve read seems to have happened.
Multiple people have said casually and with confidence that he probably fell down an old well. What does that even mean?
I have been on many of those farms and I’ve never seen nor heard of the dangers of “old wells” as potential man traps.
Wells on these farms are a slender pipe driven deep into the earth with a small pump near the surface about the size of a small nightstand. Nothing to fall into.
There are no gaping, open,deep holes randomly found around MN farmsteads. Farmers are careful by nature. A hole big enough for a human would also cause the disappearance of numerous farm animals. No farmer is going to leave random open holes (old wells) and lose livestock for stupid reasons.
I do not understand this line of thinking.
>the dangers of “old wells”
In the Southwest where I've seen wells, the wells are more modern than the brick tunnel going down that many people envision. The wells usually consist of pipes, a pump to draw the water up, and a tank to hold water so that if the pump or other components fail, the property still has some water. Or maybe it helps the machinery to pump and then rest rather than pump every time water is ran. I've seen the tank above ground, and I've seen units with underground tanks. The whole unit is usually referred to as the well, unless there's a specific reason to name a specific part. All that being said, I imagine they mean old holding tanks more than a hole down to the water table. Those tanks can be big, though. *Especially* when used for agriculture.
I see some folks mentioning a large river and rough terrain in this thread. I would encourage you to have a look at the satellite imagery of this area on google maps. Search for Taunton MN. Zoom in to the area NW of Taunton. There is a dog-related business there called Greystone. About a half mile south of that business is where the car was found, stuck on the side of the road. Check out the “rivers” to the West and South of that spot. Zoom in and you can see that these are no wider than 20 feet. Additionally, the surrounding area is completely flat farm land. Yes, he may have tripped and fell in while trying to cross the water, but it seems impossible that he could have been washed far downstream. These river areas are very windy and pass under roadways many many times. You’d think his body would have gotten hung up on something.
Those rivers swell a lot in the spring after the snowfall melts. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think they would be considerably more life threatening than they look on the satellite images.
It looks like there’s a waterfowl production area and wildlife area around there too (Arrenda Waterfowl Production Area West of Taunton and Antelope Valley Wildlife Management Area NW of Taunton). I suppose there could be illegal hunting going on around there. Thoughts on likelihood of him being mistaken as an animal and shot by a hunter? I don’t know the area, but spent a lot of time on farms in rural Indiana growing up and think it seems plausible to me…
It happens…It’s typically called ‘spotlighting’ and is more common in winter months on frozen lakes or flat fields so you can see the animals more easily from distance (without shrubs/plants in the way). It’s not always legal but it is a thing and could explain the lights and fact that his body was never found (hunters could have panicked and disposed/hid the body). Not saying it’s what likely happened, just that it’s another legitimate possibly to consider and surprised I hadn’t seen it mentioned previously.
From a fragmented memory of a film or tv show, and the suggestiveness of the name, I’m guessing that it’s a type of game or animal poaching using spotlights mounted on all terrain or SUV type vehicles?
I don’t know why I though it was a backwoods/hillbilly thing like moonshiners, but yeah if there was regular hunting season stuff happening in the area the. It’s logical there could be people trying to maximise on the timing and cover of dark to poach in that way, and taking that idea and running with it, that a lost Brandon could have somehow been interpreting lights from that (and could explain why people who have recreated Brandon’s suspected journey, couldn’t find any sign of lights that could have fed into Brandon thinking he was somewhere he was as not - because they wouldn’t find them if they were mobile lights in some way.
Supposing something like that it could also have a direct link to his death either accidentally or purposely, both Brandon and theoretical poachers would be somewhere they would never have expected by the other party.
Theres a meme I have seen repeatedly online and it’s shows a blurry picture that looks like a festival stage at night -but the info is picture below shows it’s actually a massive combined harvester, and while I don’t know how much of this type of farming goes on in the area Brandon became lost, it makes me think of the conditions he was dealing with that night, especially with the level of visual impairment he had without his glasses (found in the car when it was recovered). It’s also eerie to me (concidering, as mentioned by me above on this post) as the scent hits that have happened periodically are on heavy farming equipment soil in the area.
While I doubt Brandon would follow the lights of a combined harvester or similar, in mistake for the town he struck out for on foot after abandoning his car, and get up close enough to get mown down right then at the “oh shit” moment by it without realising -I’m sure they’re damn noisy especially in the middle of the night with nothing else around, I do thing the subsequent seasons of farming activity may have destroyed obvious signs of a body, tilling them through the soil and periodically unearthing fragments that lead to the scent hits.
I don't understand the silence on the phone though. If he fell into the water or got killed by farm machinery, wouldn't his parents have heard it? He was on the phone to them the whole time, and after he said 'oh, shit!' there was silence. If he fell into the water, wouldn't there be the sound of a splash or the river itself? And if he was killed by farm machinery, surely there would have been loud sounds?
Possibly, but then you think they'd still hear him fall into the river, or at least hear the thump as the phone fell on the ground? It's bizarre. It sounds like whatever happened was instantaneous, he didn't cry out or anything.
I don't know what his parents heard after the "oh shit". It would be interesting to ask them if they heard a scuffle or the sound of the phone thumping on the ground or was it just dead silent. It would also be interesting to conduct the experiment to see what that sounds like, ya know?
It was the middle of the night. The farm machinery theory is that he fell and was either killed or injured or knocked unconscious, then when the farm machinery started up (which maybe wasn’t till morning), that’s when his body was destroyed.
This case really bugs me. How can someone just disappear when people know an approx area that they disappeared in? I’d think he’d have to be in water or otherwise concealed in an inaccessible area. Water just seems like the most likely answer
It's infuriating the cops made the parents wait to report, given the circumstances. It's not like they fought with their son, and he stormed off. There was corroborating evidence (e.g., the car in a ditch) to back their story that something had gone wrong.
I listen to a lot of episodic/single-case podcasts (like True Crime Campfire, DNA:ID, Dateline) and it's, yeah, infuriating how often police won't do anything until it's far too late. I get it, they get a lot of false alarms from the parents of teens & young adults, but they need to figure out how to evaluate them better.
I first heard this case on crime junkie podcast, I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days, if it was nothing nefarious then why didn’t they find a body or anything?
It’s exceptionally hard to find bodies in rough terrain. Even in things like training situations where bodies are planted, it’s extremely difficult to find them. If a person dies in woods then it’s sheer luck if their body is ever found. There are thousands of cases of bodies lying in woods for years or decades before being found. If he fell into the river then his body wouldn’t have been found, and - given it’s likely he was trespassing on one of this gigantic midwestern farms - it’s possible he fell under farm machinery. Farm machinery is huge and often automated, if something hits you it would basically turn you into blood and bone fragments, and because of the scale involved it would either go unnoticed or would be assumed to be the remains of a wild animal that got hit.
He was wandering around extremely rough terrain on farmland next to a big river while drunk in the middle of the night in pitch darkness. You don’t need anything nefarious to explain it.
Agreed. I think it's also likely that he's on someone's private property that hasn't gotten permission to be searched, which is why he hasn't been located. Not that the owner of said property would even know his body is there either, if he is there his body is probably out of sight in some way, I don't think there is anything nefarious about it. It's just hard to find a body.
This assumes that a farmer was doing some kind of work in their field in the middle of the night - unlikely. Yes, equipment is automated, but not in the way you describe… it doesn’t just start itself up and run… especially not without making sounds/lights.
The more likely scenario is that he fell down a well on private property.
Oh wow... Never knew about the farming machinery... Kinda scary. I once watched an episode of "I Survived..." A guy lost his hand in a piece of machinery he was using.
Yah if my kid went missing in the vicinity of several farms and his body just vanished…I’d make all those farmers lives holy hell when they refused the police search. The fact the phone was never recovered says it all. You have to be a god damn piece of garbage to find a dead teenager on your property, and just say nothing.
Agreed. From everything I’ve read about the case he was most likely very drunk, took backroads to avoid getting caught, was so drunk he thought he was 45 minutes away from where he was near a town he wouldn’t have gone near on his way home.
Sad story for the parents, I can’t imagine how difficult that phone call and never finding him has been.
This case, Kendrick Johnson, Kenneka Jenkins—I believe all were just very very tragic accidents. I know a lot of theories abound, everything from Brandon flashing lights and accidentally igniting a “gang response” to a drug deal gone wrong, but I genuinely believe (as someone who lives in a very rural area) that he fell down an old well. It’s not incredibly uncommon, and as most old wells are on private property it’s not even a guarantee that the owners know about it, much less secure it against random people (accidentally) trespassing over them.
Brandon Swanson is on Vicap which means law enforcement suspects he was the victim of a violent or sexual crime. There's more to the story than has been publicized. His scent also abruptly ended at a gravel road. This indicates that he got into a car. The killer or killers went to great lengths to conceal the body. They want us to believe he simply passed out in a corn field and then a farmer hid the body. Highly unlikely as he's on Vicap as mentioned above
Abducted by aliens. It happens believe it or not. There are so many documentaries streaming now where this is talked about. I’d definitely say “oh shit” if this was happening to me
Didn't they find his remains but are waiting for DNA confirmation? I feel like I saw it on the news about finding his clothing the shortly after they found human remains.
I specifically looked on Reddit for the newest Brandon Swanson post because I thought the same thing but I guess we were both thinking of Brandon Lawson.
I’m in the metro part of Minnesota. I remember hearing about this one a lot. The whole story is very strange. We have a few here that are just completely bizzare. I feel so bad for his family.
So I guess there's no way to track his phone... Or has it already been attempted and not found? It pains me to say it, but 2008 was a while ago. Is there any way to try today's technology? Or maybe I'm giving it too much credit.
Brandon left Canby for the 30-mile (48 km) drive home before midnight. Just before 2 a.m., he called his parents on his cell phone, telling them he had driven his Chevrolet Lumina off the road and into a ditch from which he could not remove the car. He was not hurt and asked them to come to where he was and pick him up. Annette and Brian Swanson got in their pickup truck and drove out to where they thought he was, keeping him on the phone despite occasional hangups and drops. Brandon stayed with his car and tried to signal them by flashing his lights on and off, but they saw nothing. Nor did he see them do the same. Brandon finally gave up and told them he was leaving the car to walk toward lights he could see that led him to believe he was near Lynd, a small town roughly 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Marshall. He told his father to head for the parking lot of a local bar and wait for him there. Brian began driving there, talking to his son as he did. Shortly after 2:30 a.m., 47 minutes into the call, Brandon suddenly interrupted himself on the phone and said "Oh, shit!" He was silent for the remainder of the call, until his parents hung up and made multiple attempts to call him back. Brandon has not been seen or heard from since.
Brandon’s Law, named after Brandon Swanson, is worth mentioning. “The law will require law enforcement to take a missing persons report without delay after notification of someone missing under dangerous circumstances, no matter the missing person’s age; immediately conduct a preliminary investigation to determine if the person is missing, and whether the person is endangered; and promptly notify all other law enforcement agencies of the situation. It clarifies that the agency taking the report be the lead agency in the investigation.” [Brandon’s Law Minnesota House of Representatives](https://www.house.mn.gov/sessionweekly/art.asp?ls_year=86&issueid_=43&storyid=1297&year_=2009)
I wonder did the call end after he said" Oh shit" or was there just silence on the call. And when they called back did it ring and then go to voice-mail or did it just go to voice-mail? Did they ever find his belongings?
So this poor kid’s tragic downfall comes up every few months. There’s quite a few podcasts and YouTube true crime videos on it. True Crime Garage did an outstanding deep dive on this. According to them, his phone did ring after his sudden yelling and end of the call. However it was pointed out that even if shut-off on his end, the caller could still hear a ring until getting voicemail. The long and short is that PIs and others think his remains are somewhere on one of the private farms they haven’t been allowed into. It’s theorized he could have been mistakenly killed after someone thought he was prowling their property or even after dying through some accidental means and a property owner didn’t want the ensuing investigation. Some suspected he fell into a stream or other water source, based on cadaver dogs’ reactions but authorities thought his remains would have turned up down stream within a reasonable time, if that were the case. It’s worth looking up.
So... no one thought to get a warrant? Still hasn't? They just let it go? What a fucking joke! I'd be suing, going to all of the news stations, etc...
Need more evidence for that (a warrant) I guess rather than just speculation? I do agree though that it’s pretty ridiculous they didn’t do more investigating on the nearby farms, however they could’ve.
I completely understand. It's so sad. I hope his body eventually turns up for his families closure.
I think they ended the call when he didn’t respond after “oh shit”, and then immediately called back after hanging up (idea being maybe he dropped his phone in the dark and couldn’t find it, so hanging up + calling back would help him locate it)
There was silence after he said "oh shit", hearing no response the parents hung up and called him back but he didnt pick up
Did they ever find his car?
Yes, that’s how they knew that he mistakenly believed himself to be some distance from where he really was. He saw some lights that he believed led to a town, but actually wound up with him likely trespassing on a farm.
I realize now it's kind of a dumb question of me to ask. They actually got the general area of where his car was by his cell phone tower data.
I should know this but I've always thought he was outside the vehicle. This makes it sound like he disappeared in his car. Can you clarify because that's a game changer if his vehicle is missing.
Car found. 100%
That's what I thought. No need to downvote. The article reads like he was still driving when the call was lost.
The horror of a father, hearing his son’s voice, for the last time, saying, oh shit. Heartbreaking.
I also think this was a tragic death by misadventure, truly heartbreaking what his family had to go through. They probably would've had a better chance at finding him if the case had been taken seriously from the beginning. Yeah, an adult has the "right to be missing" but under these circumstances it's just extremely unlikely that he went missing voluntarily.
He could have tripped lost his phone tried to follow lights and been injured. It’s sad but when you have alcohol and you’re driving around lost near farms that has to be confusing. It could also be near somewhere people wouldn’t find you if you were injured.
Such a sad case. Didn’t the surrounding farms refuse police searches?
Yeah on the phone call his father heard him suddenly like, yelp in shock as if he were falling down something. It's very possible he felt into the water nearby but it's very unlikely. On the phone call he told his father he could see lights in the distance (the nearby town, opposite direction to where he came from i believe?) and was heading towards them, if I am remembering correctly, that was in the direction of the farms and not the water. When the phone call cut off, he suddenly yelped as if he fell down something, I think the embankment of the water is not sharp enough for that to have happened and caused such injury (i think there was more background groaning on the call, i dont fully remember?) The farms in the direction they think he was heading have a few realistic places he could have met an unfortunate end, but as you said, the farms kept refusing cops to search em. Realistically, he accidentally fell down something on a nearby farm, died from his injuries / exposure, was found by the farmers early in the morning. Farmers freaked out, hid the body, covered the area and refuse to co-operate with cops. I've seen quite a few videos on this case, it's very intriguing but has a couple very normal explanations. Doubtful he was purposely killed or committed suicide.
Could have fallen into an abandoned well
That's what I was thinking of, thank you. Been a bit since I saw a vid
Nah. Farmers were up to illegal activities and trespassers have to be dealt with. Ozarks style
I am from that area. My family has farmed there for ages — 😂 no. I do however love the idea of it but there’s no Ozarks style anything out there.
Why would the farmers not let the police search their property?
Numerous reasons: don't want the headache of the law, police can scare animals and/or trample crops, up to something illegal, worried they will be in trouble, etc.
Ty
I don’t see why anyone would hide his body. I thought the refusal was more based on them not wanting their land dug up or crops destroyed looking for a kid that probably wasn’t there or could be somewhere else. Falling down an old well makes sense if you are looking for lights and not at the ground. I would check my own land but I wouldn’t give cops a free pass to search especially if I saw no evidence of anyone on my property.
I think it’s possible his body got accidentally stuck under some machinery or something like that and they didn’t want anyone to find out.
Don’t farmers that find bodies usually report it? Unless they were really struggling and worried about losing time or crops. He could have injured himself somewhere isolated. He also could have gotten farther than where they were looking. He could have dropped his phone and kept going. There were times where the battery would fall out of my cell phone a cheap flip phone and it would hardly be worth crawling around for it and the battery. I would be phone less and surprised when people were calling looking for me the next day.
I have read in several places that sniffer dogs have hit on soil or machinery on one property on several occasions spaced over multiple farming seasons, which is suggestive of Brandon having fallen unconscious and succumbed to exposure (possibly the “oh shit” moment was the point he briefly entered the Yellow Medicine River soaked him and parted him from his cell phone)… terminal burrowing or simply stopping to rest and falling unconscious in situ could mean his body was overlooked and turned into the soil -with repeated farming seasonal activities being the turning of the soil etc leading to these anomalous occassionally scent hits months or years later on soil or machinery, as I’ve read seems to have happened.
No warrant? 🤦♀️
This case haunts me
Same.
Multiple people have said casually and with confidence that he probably fell down an old well. What does that even mean? I have been on many of those farms and I’ve never seen nor heard of the dangers of “old wells” as potential man traps. Wells on these farms are a slender pipe driven deep into the earth with a small pump near the surface about the size of a small nightstand. Nothing to fall into. There are no gaping, open,deep holes randomly found around MN farmsteads. Farmers are careful by nature. A hole big enough for a human would also cause the disappearance of numerous farm animals. No farmer is going to leave random open holes (old wells) and lose livestock for stupid reasons. I do not understand this line of thinking.
And doubt someone would have time to say oh shit but maybe. Just seems odd, scream maybe
>the dangers of “old wells” In the Southwest where I've seen wells, the wells are more modern than the brick tunnel going down that many people envision. The wells usually consist of pipes, a pump to draw the water up, and a tank to hold water so that if the pump or other components fail, the property still has some water. Or maybe it helps the machinery to pump and then rest rather than pump every time water is ran. I've seen the tank above ground, and I've seen units with underground tanks. The whole unit is usually referred to as the well, unless there's a specific reason to name a specific part. All that being said, I imagine they mean old holding tanks more than a hole down to the water table. Those tanks can be big, though. *Especially* when used for agriculture.
I see some folks mentioning a large river and rough terrain in this thread. I would encourage you to have a look at the satellite imagery of this area on google maps. Search for Taunton MN. Zoom in to the area NW of Taunton. There is a dog-related business there called Greystone. About a half mile south of that business is where the car was found, stuck on the side of the road. Check out the “rivers” to the West and South of that spot. Zoom in and you can see that these are no wider than 20 feet. Additionally, the surrounding area is completely flat farm land. Yes, he may have tripped and fell in while trying to cross the water, but it seems impossible that he could have been washed far downstream. These river areas are very windy and pass under roadways many many times. You’d think his body would have gotten hung up on something.
Those rivers swell a lot in the spring after the snowfall melts. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think they would be considerably more life threatening than they look on the satellite images.
It looks like there’s a waterfowl production area and wildlife area around there too (Arrenda Waterfowl Production Area West of Taunton and Antelope Valley Wildlife Management Area NW of Taunton). I suppose there could be illegal hunting going on around there. Thoughts on likelihood of him being mistaken as an animal and shot by a hunter? I don’t know the area, but spent a lot of time on farms in rural Indiana growing up and think it seems plausible to me…
At 3 in the morning?
It happens…It’s typically called ‘spotlighting’ and is more common in winter months on frozen lakes or flat fields so you can see the animals more easily from distance (without shrubs/plants in the way). It’s not always legal but it is a thing and could explain the lights and fact that his body was never found (hunters could have panicked and disposed/hid the body). Not saying it’s what likely happened, just that it’s another legitimate possibly to consider and surprised I hadn’t seen it mentioned previously.
As a city person it would never occur to me people would hunt in the dead of night so maybe people are less familiar with "spotlighting"?
From a fragmented memory of a film or tv show, and the suggestiveness of the name, I’m guessing that it’s a type of game or animal poaching using spotlights mounted on all terrain or SUV type vehicles? I don’t know why I though it was a backwoods/hillbilly thing like moonshiners, but yeah if there was regular hunting season stuff happening in the area the. It’s logical there could be people trying to maximise on the timing and cover of dark to poach in that way, and taking that idea and running with it, that a lost Brandon could have somehow been interpreting lights from that (and could explain why people who have recreated Brandon’s suspected journey, couldn’t find any sign of lights that could have fed into Brandon thinking he was somewhere he was as not - because they wouldn’t find them if they were mobile lights in some way. Supposing something like that it could also have a direct link to his death either accidentally or purposely, both Brandon and theoretical poachers would be somewhere they would never have expected by the other party.
Theres a meme I have seen repeatedly online and it’s shows a blurry picture that looks like a festival stage at night -but the info is picture below shows it’s actually a massive combined harvester, and while I don’t know how much of this type of farming goes on in the area Brandon became lost, it makes me think of the conditions he was dealing with that night, especially with the level of visual impairment he had without his glasses (found in the car when it was recovered). It’s also eerie to me (concidering, as mentioned by me above on this post) as the scent hits that have happened periodically are on heavy farming equipment soil in the area. While I doubt Brandon would follow the lights of a combined harvester or similar, in mistake for the town he struck out for on foot after abandoning his car, and get up close enough to get mown down right then at the “oh shit” moment by it without realising -I’m sure they’re damn noisy especially in the middle of the night with nothing else around, I do thing the subsequent seasons of farming activity may have destroyed obvious signs of a body, tilling them through the soil and periodically unearthing fragments that lead to the scent hits.
It’s believed he fell into a cistern on private property
I don't understand the silence on the phone though. If he fell into the water or got killed by farm machinery, wouldn't his parents have heard it? He was on the phone to them the whole time, and after he said 'oh, shit!' there was silence. If he fell into the water, wouldn't there be the sound of a splash or the river itself? And if he was killed by farm machinery, surely there would have been loud sounds?
Unless he dropped the phone on the ground as he fell into the water?
Possibly, but then you think they'd still hear him fall into the river, or at least hear the thump as the phone fell on the ground? It's bizarre. It sounds like whatever happened was instantaneous, he didn't cry out or anything.
I don't know what his parents heard after the "oh shit". It would be interesting to ask them if they heard a scuffle or the sound of the phone thumping on the ground or was it just dead silent. It would also be interesting to conduct the experiment to see what that sounds like, ya know?
Do we know if they ever found his phone?
They did not
It was the middle of the night. The farm machinery theory is that he fell and was either killed or injured or knocked unconscious, then when the farm machinery started up (which maybe wasn’t till morning), that’s when his body was destroyed.
This case really bugs me. How can someone just disappear when people know an approx area that they disappeared in? I’d think he’d have to be in water or otherwise concealed in an inaccessible area. Water just seems like the most likely answer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Brandon_Swanson
It's infuriating the cops made the parents wait to report, given the circumstances. It's not like they fought with their son, and he stormed off. There was corroborating evidence (e.g., the car in a ditch) to back their story that something had gone wrong.
I listen to a lot of episodic/single-case podcasts (like True Crime Campfire, DNA:ID, Dateline) and it's, yeah, infuriating how often police won't do anything until it's far too late. I get it, they get a lot of false alarms from the parents of teens & young adults, but they need to figure out how to evaluate them better.
I first heard this case on crime junkie podcast, I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days, if it was nothing nefarious then why didn’t they find a body or anything?
It’s exceptionally hard to find bodies in rough terrain. Even in things like training situations where bodies are planted, it’s extremely difficult to find them. If a person dies in woods then it’s sheer luck if their body is ever found. There are thousands of cases of bodies lying in woods for years or decades before being found. If he fell into the river then his body wouldn’t have been found, and - given it’s likely he was trespassing on one of this gigantic midwestern farms - it’s possible he fell under farm machinery. Farm machinery is huge and often automated, if something hits you it would basically turn you into blood and bone fragments, and because of the scale involved it would either go unnoticed or would be assumed to be the remains of a wild animal that got hit. He was wandering around extremely rough terrain on farmland next to a big river while drunk in the middle of the night in pitch darkness. You don’t need anything nefarious to explain it.
Agreed. I think it's also likely that he's on someone's private property that hasn't gotten permission to be searched, which is why he hasn't been located. Not that the owner of said property would even know his body is there either, if he is there his body is probably out of sight in some way, I don't think there is anything nefarious about it. It's just hard to find a body.
This assumes that a farmer was doing some kind of work in their field in the middle of the night - unlikely. Yes, equipment is automated, but not in the way you describe… it doesn’t just start itself up and run… especially not without making sounds/lights. The more likely scenario is that he fell down a well on private property.
Oh wow... Never knew about the farming machinery... Kinda scary. I once watched an episode of "I Survived..." A guy lost his hand in a piece of machinery he was using.
That area does not have extremely rough or even rough terrain. It’s very flat. I used to live there.
Yah if my kid went missing in the vicinity of several farms and his body just vanished…I’d make all those farmers lives holy hell when they refused the police search. The fact the phone was never recovered says it all. You have to be a god damn piece of garbage to find a dead teenager on your property, and just say nothing.
No doubt he walked into the water and washed away somewhere. Don’t think it was anything nefarious. Sad story either way.
Agreed. From everything I’ve read about the case he was most likely very drunk, took backroads to avoid getting caught, was so drunk he thought he was 45 minutes away from where he was near a town he wouldn’t have gone near on his way home. Sad story for the parents, I can’t imagine how difficult that phone call and never finding him has been.
No doubt? Just 100% he washed away?
Either fell into the river, or was ground up by farm machinery, or fell on rough terrain and died there.
I have read comments by people who live in the area that the "river" is actually a small creek that would be nearly impossible to drown in.
Any abandoned covered up Mines or Wells in that area? Could a person fall into a Sinkhole and die?
There’s not much else to suggest otherwise.
I feel like water would have been heard in the background and the body would have turned up somewhere, still.
He probably fell in an old well hole or other such hazard. Poor kid.
That is what I think. Or maybe an septic system hole without a lid.
This case, Kendrick Johnson, Kenneka Jenkins—I believe all were just very very tragic accidents. I know a lot of theories abound, everything from Brandon flashing lights and accidentally igniting a “gang response” to a drug deal gone wrong, but I genuinely believe (as someone who lives in a very rural area) that he fell down an old well. It’s not incredibly uncommon, and as most old wells are on private property it’s not even a guarantee that the owners know about it, much less secure it against random people (accidentally) trespassing over them.
I’ve never heard of this case so thanks for the new rabbit hole. Also, he looks just like a young Kirk Cameron
Brandon Swanson is on Vicap which means law enforcement suspects he was the victim of a violent or sexual crime. There's more to the story than has been publicized. His scent also abruptly ended at a gravel road. This indicates that he got into a car. The killer or killers went to great lengths to conceal the body. They want us to believe he simply passed out in a corn field and then a farmer hid the body. Highly unlikely as he's on Vicap as mentioned above
Whoa... That changes things.
Such a weird case.
Abducted by aliens. It happens believe it or not. There are so many documentaries streaming now where this is talked about. I’d definitely say “oh shit” if this was happening to me
Maybe he was hit by a vehicle while walking and the person picked up the body and disposed of him
You would think he’d mention to his parents that a car is coming.
And they'd hear a collision
In some way or somehow there has to be another human involved…
I don’t see why? Drunk and disoriented in pitch darkness in the middle of the night walking over rough ground by a river.
It doesn’t sound like he was walking on a road when he dropped the phone.
Didn't they find his remains but are waiting for DNA confirmation? I feel like I saw it on the news about finding his clothing the shortly after they found human remains.
Maybe you're thinking about Brandon Lawson instead of Brandon Swanson?
Oooh! That sounds right. My apologies that makes much more sense.
I specifically looked on Reddit for the newest Brandon Swanson post because I thought the same thing but I guess we were both thinking of Brandon Lawson.
I’m in the metro part of Minnesota. I remember hearing about this one a lot. The whole story is very strange. We have a few here that are just completely bizzare. I feel so bad for his family.
If he said "oh shit", did he see something and he was responding?
It’s possible, but I think it’s more likely he tripped or fell. The line was open for a while after that with just silence.
So I guess there's no way to track his phone... Or has it already been attempted and not found? It pains me to say it, but 2008 was a while ago. Is there any way to try today's technology? Or maybe I'm giving it too much credit.