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

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Also, the reason I find it extremely unlikely he ran into anyone from the party is that no one from the party would have any reason to be where he said his car was found. His car was found near Taunton, nowhere near Lynd, which is where he thought he was. Highway 68 is a direct route from Canby to Marshall, but he was on gravel roads running somewhat parallel to the highway. He was essentially walking through extremely rural farmland, and there would be no reason for him to run into anyone from the party, or anyone for that matter.


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I read up more a moment ago putting everything together and had like a million tabs open in Firefox. My biggest issue in tying up a theory is the cellphone.

I now think something along the lines of:

Brandon did indeed fall. He lost his phone and couldn't find it. He didn't bother with trying to find it since he had already set up a rendezvous with his father (right? According to something I read, he told his father to meet at this nightclub parking lot). Brandon then realized that he was in fact lost and backtracked to his car. A stranger then drove by, asked if there was something wrong, and Brandon told them what happened. The stranger offered a ride back home (or to the rendezvous) and helped him find his phone, but then abducted him and prevented him from calling back.

My issues with this is that we have to assume Brandon's cellphone fell face-first in the ground, and that it was on vibrate or silent, AND that it fell in such a way that it was practically impossible to find in the dark. But after reading what people have said here about the terrain I wouldn't call that impossible. The trickier parts with the abduction theory is tying up the cellphone. We still haven't found it, so it was on his body at some point when he went missing. The abducter would have wanted to prevent Brandon from calling again, but at the same time leave no evidence whatsoever around. It could be possible that they took the phone and smashed it up after abducting Brandon. Still a bit of a stretch - the abducter would have had to think on their toes at all times. Yet another hole is why didn't Brandon use the abducter's phone to call back his father right away? The abducter would have had to threaten Brandon or incapacitate him relatively quickly.

EDIT:

Let's imagine the trails sniffed by the bloodhounds are 100% accurate.

Brandon stepped into the river when he said "Oh ****". The phone either dropped or got wet, most likely got wet, rendering it useless. After he got out he wandered into another road and from there was picked up by a stranger who abducted him. That at least ties up some of the cellphone questions. Although the one still nagging is that when his parents kept calling him back it didn't go straight to voicemail (correct?), there was a dialtone that continued, which indicates that the phone was still working. Is it possible for a phone to get wet, fail to send and answer calls, and yet still be powered on?

Hrmph.
 
"What happened to Brandon Swanson? 7 years later, searchers haven't given up"

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_28970928/brandon-swanson-search-resumes-western-minnesota

Searchers have been looking for Brandon Swanson since he disappeared May 14, 2008, while driving home to Marshall, Minn.

On Saturday, they'll be back out again.

This weekend, teams will focus on farm fields northwest of Porter, Minn., an area they haven't been able to search for several years because of harvest schedules and bad weather, said Ken Anderson, who is spearheading the effort.
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The search, which has covered 122 square miles, is complex because Swanson "had the ability to walk a very long distance," Anderson said. He said searchers are concentrating on the area northwest of Porter because search dogs are "still getting the scent that says there are remains of a human in this area."

Since becoming the lead law-enforcement agency on the case in 2010, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has received about 90 tips about Swanson, said Drew Evans, superintendent for the BCA. The most recent came in last week, he said.

"We evaluate every tip we get," Evans said. "In fact, in the last year or so we've conducted two searches that were specifically related to tips we received. Unfortunately, neither led to new information about what happened to Brandon. But we will not quit these searches or our investigation until we can answer that question."
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After reading a recent story about Brandon in the local City Pages magazine, I read this entire thread. I have a few questions about Brandon's status on the FBI website. On one listing, the poster says that he is MISSING. On another, it says he is WANTED. I did some research on ViCAP, and they do work missing persons cases, ones they suspect may involve foul play.

What I want to know is how can a missing person also be classified as wanted, is this common? How often are missing people classified as wanted? Is he wanted because he is missing or is he wanted for something more?

In general what is the meaning of this and what does this imply?
 
Yoda1-4me said:
After reading a recent story about Brandon in the local City Pages magazine, I read this entire thread. I have a few questions about Brandon's status on the FBI website. On one listing, the poster says that he is MISSING. On another, it says he is WANTED. I did some research on ViCAP, and they do work missing persons cases, ones they suspect may involve foul play.

What I want to know is how can a missing person also be classified as wanted, is this common? How often are missing people classified as wanted? Is he wanted because he is missing or is he wanted for something more?

In general what is the meaning of this and what does this imply?
Click to expand...

I have these questions as well but never found an answer.
 
I've been thinking about Brandon being listed under the FBI's VICAP. Could it be that he was on those back roads in an attempt to get away from someone? Did he know he was in danger? Could that also explain the reason he decided to go cross country, off the road, which is something that never made logical sense to me. Just a different angle I've been considering. JMO.
 
neesaki said:
I've been thinking about Brandon being listed under the FBI's VICAP. Could it be that he was on those back roads in an attempt to get away from someone? Did he know he was in danger? Could that also explain the reason he decided to go cross country, off the road, which is something that never made logical sense to me. Just a different angle I've been considering. JMO.
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I'm looking at it differently. I was looking for other MISSING/WANTED disappearances on ViCAP to see if there were any commonalities. I didn't spend enough time to see if my research strategy was good and I don't know the best research strategy for searching the public portions of the FBI database
 
Yoda1-4me said:
I'm looking at it differently. I was looking for other MISSING/WANTED disappearances on ViCAP to see if there were any commonalities. I didn't spend enough time to see if my research strategy was good and I don't know the best research strategy for searching the public portions of the FBI database
Click to expand...

That's a good idea. Here are three examples, in the first two there appears to be no doubt that foul play is suspected. Though not as clear in the third the evidence does seem to indicate it, IMO. Those three are all I've had time to look at.


https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/vicap/missing-persons/jennifer-joyce-kesse/kesse_jj_vicapupdate.pdf
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/vicap/missing-persons/thomas_sierra.pdf
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/vicap/missing-persons/matthew-david-pendergrast
 
Yoda1-4me said:
I'm looking at it differently. I was looking for other MISSING/WANTED disappearances on ViCAP to see if there were any commonalities. I didn't spend enough time to see if my research strategy was good and I don't know the best research strategy for searching the public portions of the FBI database
Click to expand...

Yes, looking at some of the other ViCap missing people (Jennifer Kesse, Holly Grim, Tara Grinstead)...there is a high suspicion of foul play/abduction on all of these MP. Wonder what they're not telling us....
 
Neesaki, Jodirenee, thanks so much for taking the time to follow up on the search strategy I had settled on. I am so busy with projects at the moment, thanks to you both I will still be able to ride my train of thought soon.
 
I have a good friend who is a special agent at the Denver division FBI office. I can pick his brain when I see him this weekend to see if he can offer any insight into the differentiation, if any, between wanted and missing. I'm not sure if he'll have any answers, but I'll ask. If you have any other questions he might be able to help with, let me know.
 
KayElJay said:
I have a good friend who is a special agent at the Denver division FBI office. I can pick his brain when I see him this weekend to see if he can offer any insight into the differentiation, if any, between wanted and missing. I'm not sure if he'll have any answers, but I'll ask. If you have any other questions he might be able to help with, let me know.
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That would be great, KayEl ! Let us know if you learn anything. This is such a strange case, JMO.
 
Information from the FBI website about VICAP:

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/august/vicap-anniversary

https://www.fbi.gov/foia/privacy-impact-assessments/vicap

The FBI's Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG), National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC), Violent Crime Apprehension Program (VICAP) facilitates communication and coordination between law enforcement agencies that investigate, track, and apprehend violent serial offenders. VICAP maintains a nationwide data information center that collects, collates, and analyzes crimes of violence (i.e., homicide, attempted homicide, missing persons, child abductions, sexual assaults, and unidentified deceased persons). VICAP analysts examine crime data and patterns to identify potential similarities among crimes, create investigative matrices, develop time-lines, and identify homicide and sexual assault trends and patterns
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KayElJay said:
I have a good friend who is a special agent at the Denver division FBI office. I can pick his brain when I see him this weekend to see if he can offer any insight into the differentiation, if any, between wanted and missing. I'm not sure if he'll have any answers, but I'll ask. If you have any other questions he might be able to help with, let me know.
Click to expand...

Oh thanks so much, yes I would love to understand what causes Brandon to be MISSING AND WANTED while some listed with ViCAP are just Missing and some are just Wanted. Professional searchers have searched for him in-depth for many seasons, to the point where the odds of an unknown active external factor having been involved have increased.
 
I just noticed that under Details of Disappearance on Brandon's VICAP poster, it states his car was found "with the car doors open". I don't remember reading that the car doors were open, and not only one but more than one as in all of them. Also, after reviewing a few more of the FBI missing cases I think it's a point of interest that they would list him under VICAP if they believed he'd died of an accident. JMO

I'm also curious why the FBI lists some missing persons, but not all. Does anyone know why? TIA
 
I have heard of this case just recently when watching videos about strange calls (which Donna Lass was also featured on). The circumstances are so bizarre to me. I'm not sure if he was swearing because he fell somewhere and hurt himself, or was either grabbed or saw someone shady and a victim of foul play. I'm leaning more towards foul play because I think he would've been found in the area if he fell and hurt himself. I don't believe he killed himself or he wanted to disappear. It seems LE are dedicated to the case so I hope they continue it.
 
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