This is what Brian's girlfriend Alexis had to say on her myspace about the cell phone ringing:
There's been some news coverage recently regarding Brian's phone ringing. Here's the deal: two weekends ago on Friday September 8 at about 11:30 I called Brian cell phone as usual before going to bed. I call his phone at least once a day before I go to sleep, and sometimes more often. Anyway, that night, his phone rang which was the first time I had heard that since the last time I called and talked to him the night he disappeared. Of course, I freaked out, and called it another three times or so and each time it rang and then went to his voice mail. I asked my brother to call his phone too, and he got the same result. I called one of the detectives that had been working on the case to let him know, then I called Brian's dad to tell him about it. It continued to ring through the rest of the night and stopped sometime between 3 and 7 am. It didn't ring anymore that Saturday, but started up again sometime on Sunday morning and rang throughout the day. It wasn't ringing anymore on Monday, and hasn't since then. We also sent the phone a bunch of text messages between me, my brother, and a group of friends and family. Obviously, we were hoping and praying that this was the big break that we needed. I was very happy that I had been keeping up on paying Brian's bills for him, that's for sure! We kept it under wraps in case someone had Brian's phone and was trying to use it, or didn't know that it was turned on somehow. At this point we're not sure what happened or how it happened. These are the explanations I have heard so far from a variety of sources:
1. It was a computer glitch that caused the problem. Maybe some programming work at Cingular. This fits with the fact that since this happened there hasn't been any change on his phone bill. I've looked at it everyday since this happened, and I've been looking at all his bills for months now anyways.
2. It was actually turned on and working on and off for a weekend. Could be, and what we would want to have happend since that means that someone had the phone. Of course, if there's no way to track it without having phone calls coming in or out then it doesn't matter. Cingular told us 5 months ago that his phone didn't have GPS.
3. There's the Hilliard thing from some unnamed source that Brian's dad heard from. Apparently somehow there's information saying that Brian's phone was bouncing off some tower in Hilliard which is a suburb or Columbus, but for some reason this same information doensn't say when this happened. I think that sounds strange personally.
Basically, all I know is that for a few hours a couple of weeks ago Brian's cell phone was ringing before going to his voice mail for the first time in months. I kept calling it to hear it purely because it was one of the best sounds I have ever heard, even if no one picked up. His phone rang. That was good enough for me. It also scared the crap out of me, because I had no idea what I would say if a person answered it. I just wish I could have had the chance. I really wish I could get a straight story from someone on what happened and why because wondering where Brian is, is more than enough of a question to ask myself everyday without this one too.