Hi all--first time poster here. I stumbled across the case via a Youtube "Top 5" list (of creepy unexplained phone calls) and my wife and I became a bit obsessed about it.
I believe I read most of the posts on all of these threads, though it is possible that I missed something, so bear with me a bit.
One thing I was curious about that I never saw mentioned was how bright the moon was on the night of Brandon's disappearance. There was a crescent moon that night, meaning only about 8% of the moon's light was visible. This would be the 2nd-darkest kind of night, right behind a new moon. So if Brandon were 'in a field' or 'in the woods,' absent his phone light and/or a possible flashlight, it would have been very, very dark. I'm skeptical that Brandon was able to cover very much distance at all under those conditions without following the highway itself.
I'm also unconvinced that his cell pings mean anything significant. Although that data has been used in criminal cases (notably Adnan Sayad) there have recently been articles and research posted about how, absent GPS or multiple-tower triangulation, a single ping doesn't mean much in terms of actual location. Example: at my house, if I put my cell phone on my bed, it will connect to an LTE tower about 6 miles south; however, if my phone is on my computer desk in the same room, it connects to a 3G tower about 3 miles to the north. Physically, I'm in the same location--my bedroom--but if you were to just go by cell pings, it would appear that I traveled from my hometown to the next community over. Brandon's cell may not have even connected to the cell tower that was physically closest to him--if he had line of sight to another, which had stronger signal, then that could explain the "river ping." I'm fairly confident that Brandon did NOT make it to the river under his own power.
Another thing I find curious: the 'missing' collage available at the family's website seemingly contradicts itself in several ways.
1) The GPS lat/long coordinates on the 'poster' will place a marker north of the rest stop, but on the west side of the road--opposite Brandon's direction of travel.
2) The text on the poster indicates that the truck was found "slightly north" of the rest stop; however, the images from Google Maps/Street View are of an area a quarter block or so south of the rest stop. You can see the rest stop itself ahead and on the left (indicating the camera is facing north) and the "left side of road" and "right side of road" images are also from that spot--south of the rest stop. Whoever created the poster went out of their way to get these street view images and include them--so my question is, why THAT location, if the truck was found further north, past the rest stop?
If the truck were actually found in the location shown on the poster, then to me it would also help explain the haphazard way Brandon's truck was parked: when he coasted off the road, he noticed something or someone up ahead at the rest stop and parked his truck so that his headlights would illuminate it. I suppose that could be the explanation anyway, even if the truck were truly parked north of the rest stop, but that pullout strikes me as the location of whatever shady business Brandon stumbled onto. Perhaps he saw a car parked there (the 911 call is pretty clear on his "there's one car here" statement.)
It would also explain why he left the truck. At this point, he's already called his brother and asked him to bring some gas to him. There's no reason in the world for Brandon to then leave his truck and start walking in any direction--he'd be waiting in the truck for his brother to arrive with the gas. Or, at the very least, if neither of them had gas money, he'd stay with the truck and wait for his brother to pick him up. My theory is that after he calls his brother, he decides to investigate whatever he sees or hears up ahead. He's not planning to go very far, so he leaves the truck unlocked. He never makes it back.
I keep coming back to the rest stop, but if you notice, there are a lot of tire tracks and ruts on the east side of the road (opposite the picnic area.) My intuition is that explains what Brandon meant by "on both sides." Cars and trucks park/pull over at the rest stop on both sides of the road. The only other things that would make sense for that explanation would be several pipeline right-of-ways that extend "on both sides" off the road, as well as a fairly obvious culvert that crosses under the road a little ways north of the rest stop.
Finally, regarding the 911 audio: I downloaded the MP3 and messed with it in Audacity--slowing the call down, speeding it up, and listening to selected parts over and over again. I'm not really able to add anything to the transcription--it's too garbled at many points--but I don't think he's saying "State trooper" and I don't think he ran the words together, nor does it seem like the tape was edited here. Whatever the word is that sounds like "Staper," I can't make it out. "Pushed some guys over" seems clearer, and to me translates more to a sentiment of perhaps trying to help what Brandon thought was a stranded motorist (the car that he indicates is 'here' in the call.) In other words, maybe they told Brandon that their car died and needed to be "pushed over" to the shoulder. Ted Bundy used a similar technique--asking victims to help him load books into his car.
Anyway--outside the transcription issue is the fact that there definitely is another voice on the recording. Y'all have discussed the strange way Brandon answers "yes..no I need the cops" during the call, with the suggestion that the "yes" comes from a different person. I think that is likely. But there's a better example.
Just before Brandon says what sounds like "That's the first guy," there is a definite voice, further from the phone. I boosted the gain and put that part of the audio on a loop, and it sounds to me like this voice is in the middle of saying "We'll get..." before Brandon's voice, much louder, says "That's the first guy."
Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that there was another person present with Brandon. Since we're listening to a copy of a copy (and we know that a 3rd party audio tech whisper is present on the tape) it could be simply background conversation from either when the police re-recorded the call for Brandon's girlfriend, or background conversation when she herself recorded the recording. The only way to confirm would be to have a 1st-generation copy of the actual call.
At any rate--figured y'all might appreciate a fresh set of eyes and ears. My conclusion is that Brandon walked into something nefarious, ran into the brush and made the 911 call, the calls to his brother's girlfriend, and then was found. My guess is he was taken either at gunpoint or unconscious, put in the perp's vehicle, and driven out of the area before the cops and the brother showed up at the truck. I doubt he's alive.
