MN MN - Brandon Swanson, 19, Marshall, 14 May 2008

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Heard 10,000 versions of this and they all say the same thing that it was possible he fell into a river but nobody EVER explains whether or not that was actually possible?

To say. Where is the river located, 10 foot down an embankment and 5’ off the road and where is the road relative to the river, did it run parallel with it or perpendicular? Was the road a lot higher than the river?

Was the river the same level as the road since they said that it was the highest ever and was it at the point of flooding? Were there any paths that crossed over the river where he could’ve stepped off of it or bridges?

Even the maps they show points out EVERYTHING except the location of the river in reference to the road!!! LOL

I’ve seen a lot of rivers in my life and there’s no way to accidentally fall into it unless you stop walking make a right-hand turn and walk down the embankment and jump into the river!!!!

Also hypothermia just doesn’t fit into the scenario because you would have to ignore the fact that he said “oh *advertiser censored*” or whatever the word was before the phone went dead. People don’t die like that from hypothermia.

Now you could say he fell into a hole and then died of hypothermia but that wouldn’t really be the cause of death, falling into the hole would be in my opinion.

These type cases are always I think a LOT more simple than people make them out to be and only complicate them and get all freaked out to it being a mystery because of the “disappearance” factor and especially the “missing no body” factor but that shouldn’t change any of the obvious facts!

You only have TWO possibilities. Accident or foul play. We can rule out foul play because unless a madman was hiding in the middle of nowhere at 2 AM on the off chance that somebody would get stranded and start walking down the road is a lottery hit at best. BEST foul play possibility is a farmer thought he was a thief and shot him dead then hid body because of the fear factor.

So next you have accident and very seldom is there anything “mysterious or complicated” there. The boy had an accident and died. Considering accidents are the FOURTH leading cause of death in America, i’d say that’s much more probable then the crazed farmer scenario.

Also considering that regardless of search and rescue, there have been hundreds of cases where search and rescue did a very thorough search and gave up and then the body was found a month / year later in the EXACT same search area!!

It’s extremely difficult to locate a body that’s in a remote area regardless of how many people are searching for it and it is more than probable that the body is simply down some kind of hole or in a shaft or an embankment hidden between cracks or wherever, it doesn’t matter you can fill in the blanks.

My point is simply this. The only thing that really separates this from an everyday accidental death and being a strange mystery is the fact that the body hasn’t been located, because if it was located this case would’ve been closed along time ago and nobody would care.

So if you’ll just go ahead and tell yourself the body is there, somewhere, but just cannot be found, that makes this case of accidental death very very simple.
 
Got familiar with this case over the last week or so.. Here are my thoughts

- The thing I notice the most is that absolutely no fabric has been found. Denim jeans, hoody, white hat. That makes the "Wild animal" theory as the absolute LEAST likely cause. There weren't wild boars running around. Something would have been left behind and the dogs would have found it. I put this at nearly 0%.

- Getting mulched into the field is also a very unlikely possibility. Again, dogs were getting hits on these fields but no fabric was turning up? They were checking these areas every spring/fall. Stuff gets churned up, something would have surfaced.

- I personally believe "oh *advertiser censored*" is him falling into the creek. I do think he gets out as the dogs indicate.

- Him getting lost doesn't seem too strange. Looking at a map of that area the roads look like an Excel Spreadsheet with nothing but farms around. It seems to me that it'd be quite easily to get lost if you're mildly intoxicated at night and you take one wrong turn.

- The most intriguing idea to me is that a landowner mistaken him for a burglar/intruder and shot him before asking questions and got rid of the body. This seems most likely and explains why not a shred of evidence has been found.

- Second likely is he wandered much further than people believe and died of exposure/hypothermia in a possibly woodsy area that hasn't been well checked, maybe as far as 10-15 miles away. James Kim whose car got stuck in the Oregon mountains during a snowstorm walked 16 miles in much worse conditions over more difficult terrain.


Just my thoughts.
 
Got familiar with this case over the last week or so.. Here are my thoughts

- The thing I notice the most is that absolutely no fabric has been found. Denim jeans, hoody, white hat. That makes the "Wild animal" theory as the absolute LEAST likely cause. There weren't wild boars running around. Something would have been left behind and the dogs would have found it. I put this at nearly 0%.

- Getting mulched into the field is also a very unlikely possibility. Again, dogs were getting hits on these fields but no fabric was turning up? They were checking these areas every spring/fall. Stuff gets churned up, something would have surfaced.

- I personally believe "oh *advertiser censored*" is him falling into the creek. I do think he gets out as the dogs indicate.

- Him getting lost doesn't seem too strange. Looking at a map of that area the roads look like an Excel Spreadsheet with nothing but farms around. It seems to me that it'd be quite easily to get lost if you're mildly intoxicated at night and you take one wrong turn.

- The most intriguing idea to me is that a landowner mistaken him for a burglar/intruder and shot him before asking questions and got rid of the body. This seems most likely and explains why not a shred of evidence has been found.

- Second likely is he wandered much further than people believe and died of exposure/hypothermia in a possibly woodsy area that hasn't been well checked, maybe as far as 10-15 miles away. James Kim whose car got stuck in the Oregon mountains during a snowstorm walked 16 miles in much worse conditions over more difficult terrain.


Just my thoughts.

Thank you for your post. All possibilities. Thanks for joining in the discussion. Welcome!!!
 
Heard 10,000 versions of this and they all say the same thing that it was possible he fell into a river but nobody EVER explains whether or not that was actually possible?

To say. Where is the river located, 10 foot down an embankment and 5’ off the road and where is the road relative to the river, did it run parallel with it or perpendicular? Was the road a lot higher than the river?

Was the river the same level as the road since they said that it was the highest ever and was it at the point of flooding? Were there any paths that crossed over the river where he could’ve stepped off of it or bridges?

Even the maps they show points out EVERYTHING except the location of the river in reference to the road!!! LOL

I’ve seen a lot of rivers in my life and there’s no way to accidentally fall into it unless you stop walking make a right-hand turn and walk down the embankment and jump into the river!!!!

Also hypothermia just doesn’t fit into the scenario because you would have to ignore the fact that he said “oh *advertiser censored*” or whatever the word was before the phone went dead. People don’t die like that from hypothermia.

Now you could say he fell into a hole and then died of hypothermia but that wouldn’t really be the cause of death, falling into the hole would be in my opinion.

These type cases are always I think a LOT more simple than people make them out to be and only complicate them and get all freaked out to it being a mystery because of the “disappearance” factor and especially the “missing no body” factor but that shouldn’t change any of the obvious facts!

You only have TWO possibilities. Accident or foul play. We can rule out foul play because unless a madman was hiding in the middle of nowhere at 2 AM on the off chance that somebody would get stranded and start walking down the road is a lottery hit at best. BEST foul play possibility is a farmer thought he was a thief and shot him dead then hid body because of the fear factor.

So next you have accident and very seldom is there anything “mysterious or complicated” there. The boy had an accident and died. Considering accidents are the FOURTH leading cause of death in America, i’d say that’s much more probable then the crazed farmer scenario.

Also considering that regardless of search and rescue, there have been hundreds of cases where search and rescue did a very thorough search and gave up and then the body was found a month / year later in the EXACT same search area!!

It’s extremely difficult to locate a body that’s in a remote area regardless of how many people are searching for it and it is more than probable that the body is simply down some kind of hole or in a shaft or an embankment hidden between cracks or wherever, it doesn’t matter you can fill in the blanks.

My point is simply this. The only thing that really separates this from an everyday accidental death and being a strange mystery is the fact that the body hasn’t been located, because if it was located this case would’ve been closed along time ago and nobody would care.

So if you’ll just go ahead and tell yourself the body is there, somewhere, but just cannot be found, that makes this case of accidental death very very simple.

I’m quite sure you don’t mean to imply that Brandon’s parents don’t deserve to know what happened to their son. As of course, they do.
So with that said, thank you for your input, and Welcome to the thread!
 
I’m quite sure you don’t mean to imply that Brandon’s parents don’t deserve to know what happened to their son. As of course, they do.
So with that said, thank you for your input, and Welcome to the thread!

I’m not really sure where you could’ve gotten that idea out of my post to be honest? LOL

To say, speculating about a cause of death and saying it’s probably accidental and a body won’t be found doesn’t imply or mean that the parents don’t have a right to know. I’m not connecting the dots there with you :)
 
I’m not really sure where you could’ve gotten that idea out of my post to be honest? LOL

To say, speculating about a cause of death and saying it’s probably accidental and a body won’t be found doesn’t imply or mean that the parents don’t have a right to know. I’m not connecting the dots there with you :)

I guess it seemed by your statements that you were questioning why they were looking for him. Sincere apologies if I misunderstood, and thank you very much for the clarification. :).
 
I guess it seemed by your statements that you were questioning why they were looking for him. Sincere apologies if I misunderstood, and thank you very much for the clarification. :).

Lookie here MISTER (pulls up britches and spits on ground) don’t you EVER ques... juuuust kidding. No problem my friend. Apology humbly accepted :)
 
I'm glad to see there is still interest in this case. I have always leaned toward some type of accident. But then there are the dog 'hits' on the farm equipment. I wonder how well (if at all) the owner of the farm/equipment, or any help on the farm were interviewed. Maybe Brandon fell into the creek, got wet, perhaps succumbed to hypothermia, and was later hit by the equipment. Then, perhaps, someone panicked and hid the body?
 
This explanation had me until the point where it discounted foul play.

All other points agree with my thinking.

The Oh *advertiser censored* factor coupled with lack of a body could point to an accident or to a perceived threat. Plus, the cell phone hasn’t been located. Usually with an accident, there is a body or evidence nearby that tells the tragic tale because it is instantaneous. With homicide, while the murder can be instantaneous, it is purposely not a forthcoming story & the body isn’t located in the same location as the accident.

When drowning occurs and the LE knows that person’s last location, it usually takes a couple of days of good weather to find a body. Even when a body has been washed miles downstream by a flash flood: the preceding event, the accident and then the location of the body are consistent with an accidental death.

Honestly, because I am straining to think of one example, can y’all think of a recent case (in past 30 years) where the person was immediately reported to be missing, their last known location is available, where the cause if death is due to an accident and where the body wasn’t found after extensive searches?

Heard 10,000 versions of this and they all say the same thing that it was possible he fell into a river but nobody EVER explains whether or not that was actually possible?

To say. Where is the river located, 10 foot down an embankment and 5’ off the road and where is the road relative to the river, did it run parallel with it or perpendicular? Was the road a lot higher than the river?

Was the river the same level as the road since they said that it was the highest ever and was it at the point of flooding? Were there any paths that crossed over the river where he could’ve stepped off of it or bridges?

Even the maps they show points out EVERYTHING except the location of the river in reference to the road!!! LOL

I’ve seen a lot of rivers in my life and there’s no way to accidentally fall into it unless you stop walking make a right-hand turn and walk down the embankment and jump into the river!!!!

Also hypothermia just doesn’t fit into the scenario because you would have to ignore the fact that he said “oh ****” or whatever the word was before the phone went dead. People don’t die like that from hypothermia.

Now you could say he fell into a hole and then died of hypothermia but that wouldn’t really be the cause of death, falling into the hole would be in my opinion.

These type cases are always I think a LOT more simple than people make them out to be and only complicate them and get all freaked out to it being a mystery because of the “disappearance” factor and especially the “missing no body” factor but that shouldn’t change any of the obvious facts!

You only have TWO possibilities. Accident or foul play. We can rule out foul play because unless a madman was hiding in the middle of nowhere at 2 AM on the off chance that somebody would get stranded and start walking down the road is a lottery hit at best. BEST foul play possibility is a farmer thought he was a thief and shot him dead then hid body because of the fear factor.

So next you have accident and very seldom is there anything “mysterious or complicated” there. The boy had an accident and died. Considering accidents are the FOURTH leading cause of death in America, i’d say that’s much more probable then the crazed farmer scenario.

Also considering that regardless of search and rescue, there have been hundreds of cases where search and rescue did a very thorough search and gave up and then the body was found a month / year later in the EXACT same search area!!

It’s extremely difficult to locate a body that’s in a remote area regardless of how many people are searching for it and it is more than probable that the body is simply down some kind of hole or in a shaft or an embankment hidden between cracks or wherever, it doesn’t matter you can fill in the blanks.

My point is simply this. The only thing that really separates this from an everyday accidental death and being a strange mystery is the fact that the body hasn’t been located, because if it was located this case would’ve been closed along time ago and nobody would care.

So if you’ll just go ahead and tell yourself the body is there, somewhere, but just cannot be found, that makes this case of accidental death very very simple.
 
This explanation had me until the point where it discounted foul play.

All other points agree with my thinking.

The Oh **** factor coupled with lack of a body could point to an accident or to a perceived threat. Plus, the cell phone hasn’t been located. Usually with an accident, there is a body or evidence nearby that tells the tragic tale because it is instantaneous. With homicide, while the murder can be instantaneous, it is purposely not a forthcoming story & the body isn’t located in the same location as the accident.

When drowning occurs and the LE knows that person’s last location, it usually takes a couple of days of good weather to find a body. Even when a body has been washed miles downstream by a flash flood: the preceding event, the accident and then the location of the body are consistent with an accidental death.

Honestly, because I am straining to think of one example, can y’all think of a recent case (in past 30 years) where the person was immediately reported to be missing, their last known location is available, where the cause if death is due to an accident and where the body wasn’t found after extensive searches?

Have always thought it possible he may have been followed by someone from the party, as it has been suggested elsewhere there had been some type of conflict between Brandon and other persons there. Why was his car found with all the doors open? Was he on those backroads because he was intoxicated, or is it possible he was also trying to lose someone who may have been in pursuit? Could also explain why he ended up in a ditch if he was driving too fast.
So I don’t see how foul play can 100% be ruled out. JMO
 
Have always thought it possible he may have been followed by someone from the party, as it has been suggested elsewhere there had been some type of conflict between Brandon and other persons there. Why was his car found with all the doors open? Was he on those backroads because he was intoxicated, or is it possible he was also trying to lose someone who may have been in pursuit? Could also explain why he ended up in a ditch if he was driving too fast.
So I don’t see how foul play can 100% be ruled out. JMO
He didn't say anything about being followed; that scenario seems pretty far fetched to me.
That doesn't mean that foul play can be ruled out, but it's reasonable to rule out the involvement of other partygoers. He could have stumbled upon some illegal activity (like poaching) or been shot by a landowner who mistakenly thought that he posed a threat.
One of the most likely explanations is that he died accidentally on someone's property and the property owner concealed the death in order to avoid civil or even criminal liability. Some landowners set booby traps for thieves It's illegal to do that, so if a booby trap killed a lost motorist, then the landowner would have good reason to conceal the death. Maybe Brandon was lying unconscious in a field when a farmer ran him over with a tractor. Maybe Brandon was already dead before being run over, but the farmer didn't know that.
Equally likely is that Brandon injured himself but managed to wander outside of the search area before dying. If he got wet and started to suffer for hypothermia, he might have burrowed into any kind of hole or cavity; that's something that hypothermia victims often do. He could have crawled into a hollow tree or borrowed into a pile of horse manure.
 
He didn't say anything about being followed; that scenario seems pretty far fetched to me.
That doesn't mean that foul play can be ruled out, but it's reasonable to rule out the involvement of other partygoers. He could have stumbled upon some illegal activity (like poaching) or been shot by a landowner who mistakenly thought that he posed a threat.
One of the most likely explanations is that he died accidentally on someone's property and the property owner concealed the death in order to avoid civil or even criminal liability. Some landowners set booby traps for thieves It's illegal to do that, so if a booby trap killed a lost motorist, then the landowner would have good reason to conceal the death. Maybe Brandon was lying unconscious in a field when a farmer ran him over with a tractor. Maybe Brandon was already dead before being run over, but the farmer didn't know that.
Equally likely is that Brandon injured himself but managed to wander outside of the search area before dying. If he got wet and started to suffer for hypothermia, he might have burrowed into any kind of hole or cavity; that's something that hypothermia victims often do. He could have crawled into a hollow tree or borrowed into a pile of horse manure.

I’m sure you’re right , and agree these are all very possible scenarios. I do think he could have been ran over by the cultivator, the one the dogs hit on, horrific and gruesome thought, but he was most likely deceased when it happened. And hypothermia prior to that very likely.
 
Do you think that he was somehow mulched by the cultivator, or do you think that the operator of the cultivator concealed the body?
Do we know the make and model of the cultivator?
 
Do you think that he was somehow mulched by the cultivator, or do you think that the operator of the cultivator concealed the body?
Do we know the make and model of the cultivator?

Re first part of your question, wow, I have no idea but suppose it could be either one. :/

I have no idea on the make model of the cultivator, possibly that info could be found in Jeff Hasse’s blog, he is or was the search coordinator. I believe I read where he’s still involved.

The Search for Brandon Swanson

User:Jeff Hasse/Missing Person Case Study -- Brandon Swanson - Wikiversity
 
Do we know what kind of crop was grown in the farm in question? Was it corn?

Was the farmer or a farmhand out that same night that Brandon was?
 
Do we know what kind of crop was grown in the farm in question? Was it corn?

Was the farmer or a farmhand out that same night that Brandon was?
There's never been a public admission of anyone having been out.

My best guess is that Brandon fell into the river, ruining his cell phone, but managed to crawl out and pass out in a field. He may have died of hypothermia, or he may have still been alive, but he was probably run over by the cultivator. The operator likely freaked out and concealed the body in order to avoid liability.
 
Looks like it's been over year since the last post. Have there been any updates (stupid question, I suppose, as they would likely be posted here - but really I'm just bumping the thread.)
 
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