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E121: Brianna Maitland
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Brianna Maitland had been struggling lately with school and with friends, but she had just begun turning her life back around and regaining control. The morning of Friday, March 19th, 2004, she had earned her GED and was talking with her mother about college. By that evening, she had vanished.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'True Crimecast'
00:00:00
Speaker
Alison and I want to take a minute to introduce you to a new true crime podcast that we think you'll love as much as we do. Let me just give you a little teaser about this podcast from a portion of one of their recent ratings on Apple podcasts. Quote, they are well researched and fact driven, yet willing to discuss their opinions with intelligence, compassion and consideration. The hosts with their warm friendship and admirable moral values are relatable and likable.
00:00:28
Speaker
Stay strong, guys. Great job." That is a rave review, probably because when we listen to podcasts about true crime, sometimes the question was justice served falls by the wayside, but that's not the case on true crime cast.
00:00:45
Speaker
Right, because each week the hosts dive into a wide range of cases. Everything from high profile whodunits to small town USA murders, true crime cast honestly has all of it. Their episodes are the perfect length for the average morning commute. And
Bonus Content & Parenting Discussions
00:01:05
Speaker
as a bonus to their listeners, they also have a weekly true crime to go episode where they break down a crime in 10 minutes or less.
00:01:15
Speaker
So to hear for yourself why everyone loves the show and to get all of this binge-worthy content delivered directly to you, just check out True Crimecast on your favorite podcast app or go to Stoveleg.com for more information.
00:01:28
Speaker
Parents make a million decisions throughout the course of a child's life. Most of them are made without ever knowing which decision is the right one. Do we make our child eat the food they hate because it's good for them? Or do we allow them to eat what they want within reason, of course, because you want to foster independence and voice?
00:01:51
Speaker
plus the added perk that they won't go to bed hungry. How young is too young to get them involved in an activity? Or do we wait until they're old enough to tell us themselves what they like? And what about when they want to quit? Do we let them? Or do we make them stick with it, hoping that it teaches them resilience?
00:02:11
Speaker
Do we let them fail, hoping that in the process they'll learn a lesson? Or do we step in to help to show them that they'll always have our support? In other words, how do we ever know that what we are choosing will lead to our children being kind, self-sufficient, driven, successful, happy, and most of all, safe? In a nutshell, we can't know.
00:02:41
Speaker
Sometimes we do what we believe is best and it doesn't or can't make a difference because fate has something else in mind. When a family in Vermont raised their young daughter to be able to protect herself, trained her in the art of jujitsu, and brought her up to be headstrong to know what she wanted in life and what she didn't, they never could have anticipated.
00:03:06
Speaker
that at the age of seventeen she would disappear without a trace. This is the case of Brianna Maitland.
00:03:49
Speaker
Welcome
Introducing 'Coffee and Cases'
00:03:50
Speaker
to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:04:09
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:04:27
Speaker
It's shout out time again to our CNC Partners in Crime, which is so funny because when I was writing this week's bonus, or not this week, this month's bonus episode, I called in Partners in Crime. I'm so proud of you because I love our new name. You know, I feel like merch needs to come soon with that. Yeah, that would be cute. I would proudly wear it. Me too.
00:04:53
Speaker
Our Patreon shout out this week goes to Rhiannon who wrote, I have started listening to the podcast since Allison announced it in our class and I've been binge listening ever since. This podcast gets me through my lengthy college classes and I'm always eager for new episodes. Y'all are amazing for getting these cases out there and I can't wait to see what amazing things you all continue to accomplish. Much love. That is the best.
00:05:17
Speaker
I love Rhiannon and I'm so glad that college is going well and that we can help in some small way to make life more enjoyable. And let
Community Thanks & Listener Engagement
00:05:29
Speaker
me also take a moment again this week, not only to thank Rhiannon and all of Maggie, you and I both have friends who are just so sweet and
00:05:40
Speaker
you know, talk us up and make us feel good. And I also want to say a thank you to those who continue to take the time to write us written reviews on Facebook or to suggest our podcast in Facebook groups and to friends. I've seen several this week and we appreciate that so much. Yes, we really do. You guys are the ones who get us through the week so often. So we really do thank you.
Brianna Maitland's Background
00:06:06
Speaker
Okay Maggie, let's get into this week's case.
00:06:10
Speaker
Brianna Maitland was the second child of Bruce and Kelly Maitland. She was born on October 8th, 1986. Well, I'm an October baby. Yeah, I know. You're right around there. What year were you born? 1990. Oh my goodness. Babies. You're just a baby.
00:06:33
Speaker
Well, Brianna and her family lived on a farm in East Franklin, Vermont, only about 11 miles away from the Canadian border. Oh, that's fun. Right, and Maggie loves Canada. Maggie loves Canada. Yeah, you'll feel at home in our case this week because it's 11 miles away. The population of East Franklin is around 1,600 people. So this is an extremely small town.
00:07:02
Speaker
And you and I both know, because we grew up in them, small towns generally operate at a slow pace. Oh yeah, snail pace. Yes. When you Google Franklin, Vermont, in fact, you will find their city website has an image at the top complete with this large weathered red barn in the middle of a field filled with black and white cattle.
00:07:27
Speaker
Okay, love it. That's the image of East Franklin, Vermont. And it is a quiet town, which is why what happened to Brianna Maitland on March 19, 2004, sent shockwaves through the community, the ripples of which will be felt for a long time to come.
00:07:50
Speaker
Now, Maggie, as I said a moment ago, being from a small town, you understand that some of us were born to feel at home in that environment. And it is a very different environment than a larger city.
00:08:05
Speaker
everything from so many people knowing your business, right? Because everybody knows everything. To it being, like I said a moment ago, a much slower pace lifestyle without much to do outside of hanging out with your friends to keep your time occupied.
00:08:22
Speaker
It's crazy because the full-length February episode starts out very similar to this. Really? Maggie and I are always on the same wavelength. We have like 80. I think so. And because it was such a slow-paced town, therein lay a small point of contention between Brianna and her parents, though I didn't read anything necessarily explaining the route
00:08:52
Speaker
of the issue, but Brianna just didn't feel, I don't get the sense, at home in that small town. Okay. And even though it was a small town, and again, I didn't read any reasoning, so I don't know if the districting for schools was such that
00:09:15
Speaker
many people who went to the same middle school were then zoned for different high schools, but that's unusual because usually it's the opposite. Usually the high school is the largest pool of students coming from different middle schools or elementary schools. Yeah, but this one, and I bring this up because many of the friends that Brianna had, who she went to middle school with, attended a different high school than she did.
00:09:44
Speaker
So, yeah, I don't know if those friends ended up like moving to larger cities if that were a common thing or if it had to do with districting. One article that I did read noted that Brianna had trouble fitting in at her high school and, you know, that problem and that is such a huge difficulty for students.
00:10:11
Speaker
Yeah, especially if you're not going into high school with like a group of friends if you're having to start over.
00:10:17
Speaker
Right. And so, you know, this difficulty of fitting in coupled with what you just said, Maggie, her friends attending a different high school and Brianna was a headstrong girl. So she decided that it was best for her to move out of her parents' home and move in with her friend, Katie, so that she could go to the same high school as her friends.
00:10:46
Speaker
So her parents just agreed to that? They were not happy about the decision. I heard on a podcast about Brianna's case that there was some strain in the relationship that Brianna had with her mom.
00:11:10
Speaker
But again, I feel like that's a very teenage angsty thing. So I don't know if it was necessarily like justified or if this were just
00:11:24
Speaker
you know, teenager-parent relationship, because I didn't read any of the details. That's exactly what she did, though, was to move out sometime around her 17th birthday, near the end of 2003, around October of 2003.
00:11:43
Speaker
And just what you asked Maggie, Brianna's parents weren't happy about the decision nor about the move, but her dad acknowledged in an interview with Rob Stafford for NBC News, quote, I didn't want her to be out living on her own. It was an arrangement that we didn't like, but we tolerated.
00:12:04
Speaker
End quote. And Brianna's mom quipped in response, quote, we didn't have a choice. End quote. So it was like Brianna knew what she wanted and she wasn't going to stop until she got it. But I do want to talk about that move very briefly because yes, it seems like a huge move to say you want to move away from your parents at age 17. But I don't want people to think that because Brianna was allowed to move out that her parents
00:12:33
Speaker
It should be seen in any negative light because first, so many of us make that decision to move away from our parents and out of their homes just one year later when we graduate high school. Yeah, and some people graduate high school at 17. Exactly.
00:12:50
Speaker
I don't necessarily, now, I don't know how I'd feel if my little sleuth hound told me at age 17 that she wanted to move out. I might have a very different response than what I'm having right now, but I do want us to keep that in mind because at age 18, when I graduated high school, I moved
00:13:09
Speaker
two and a half hours away. But Brianna's move, actually, even though she left home and moved in with her friend to attend that other high school, unlike me, you know, and I moved two and a half hours away, she only moved about 15 miles away. Oh, okay. So not too bad. Exactly. But the problems in Brianna's life
00:13:37
Speaker
if she thought she had problems before, really began occurring after she made that move, mostly because her living arrangements were extremely unstable. Only two months after changing schools in December of 2003, Brianna's arrangement of living with her friend Katie actually fell through.
00:14:02
Speaker
And it can be hard to live like, I mean, I can't imagine this situation, but it can be hard even in college to room with somebody you think you're best friends with. You learn a lot more about them when you're living with him.
00:14:17
Speaker
Maybe things that you don't like so well. Yeah, exactly. So instead of going back home though Maggie, Brianna began couch surfing with various friends and boyfriends that she had come to have over the course of the next few months.
00:14:36
Speaker
And her friend group contained several close friends, Katie, Megan, Keely, Sydney, and Hillary. So she at least had her friend group when she moved there. But conditions in Brianna's personal life were worsening.
00:14:59
Speaker
Not only was her living situation unstable, but the very group of friends that she had left her family to be closer to were now on the outs. Again, happens all the time in high school. Yes. And especially with large friend groups, generally one person will make another friend in that group mad and then everyone feels like they have to pick sides. Yep.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah, so this whole friend group is on the outs. They were actually all growing distant from Brianna and Brianna was feeling more and more alone.
00:15:38
Speaker
physically at one point she was alone because several sources noted that at least temporarily she had been living in her car. Wow. That has to be miserable. It's the winter time. Yes, in Vermont. I hope her school didn't know about this and then just pretended like they didn't know about it because that's bad. That would be really bad.
00:16:05
Speaker
Yeah, because our school, if they know a child is homeless, they make sure they find housing. Yeah, and even her jumping from couch to couch is considered homelessness. Mm-hmm. It is. So I can't imagine living in a car in the winter, because you can't keep... There's no way you could keep your car running all night to keep the heat on. Nope. So that had to have been miserable, and that's...
00:16:31
Speaker
kind of where Brianna was by December of 2003. Sad. By the end of February 2004, so only less than eight weeks later, Brianna had dropped out of school.
00:16:49
Speaker
These are the kids that we're talking about when we say kids fall through the cracks. It's these kids. All of the issues with her friends, the living situation had been wearing on her academically.
00:17:03
Speaker
And while she still didn't move back home after that, Brianna, after she dropped out of high school, she did actively try to piece her life back together.
Altercation & Brianna's Achievements
00:17:16
Speaker
Did her parents know that she was basically homeless? I do not know. I did not read that in any of my research.
00:17:26
Speaker
So in this act of putting her life back together, Brianna actually moved in with a friend from middle school, Jillian, and her family. They lived about 10 miles away in Sheldon, Vermont, and Brianna actually enrolled
00:17:43
Speaker
via a local community college in a program to get her GED. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, so even though she didn't attend traditional high school, she attended classes at this local community college all during the day in order to get her GED.
00:17:59
Speaker
And according to her parents, she still had plans to get that GED, so high school diploma equivalency. And she was not about to let her recent circumstances change that goal. And she even had a plan to attend college. But even though she was trying to turn her life around, the problematic circumstances were still there, Maggie, glaring Brianna in the face.
00:18:30
Speaker
In the final days of February, three weeks before Brianna disappeared, as I alluded to in the show intro, Brianna and her friend Keely had been in a physical altercation at a party. And that's just so sad when people who were close friends end up
00:18:51
Speaker
you know, having that sort of, I guess, anger built up between them. Girl, that's my life every day in seventh grade. That's all I hear about. You're like, calm it down. Yeah, I'm like, please take a breather. You'll be friends in 10 minutes. Yes, exactly. The website, have you seen us, purportedly spoke with Keely about the altercation for their entry on Brianna's case.
00:19:20
Speaker
I saw no other sources that spoke with Keely. This was the only one I could find. And I didn't see an author on this site, which is why I'm saying purportedly. Though many of the details that are found on this are corroborated in all of the
00:19:44
Speaker
academic and, you know, trustworthy peer reviewed sources that I used. So, but I'm bringing it up.
00:19:54
Speaker
Kelly recalled for that blog that she and Brianna had been very close friends. Their whole friend group had been close. And she remembered that they used to all pile in Brianna's old 1985 Oldsmobile sedan 88 Royale to go to Keely's boyfriend's house nearly every night. And then Brianna would drive Keely home.
00:20:20
Speaker
afterward. And this old Oldsmobile Maggie, it's like the olive green. Oh, sweet. Like long boat-ish kind of car. Yeah, one source said that her grandfather had given it to her. So
00:20:39
Speaker
That's why Brianna drove her around. So Keely had these fond memories of this car, of all that friend group driving over to Keely's boyfriend's house and then Brianna being the good friend driving Keely home. But remember, I said all of that is going to shift to the physical altercation in the final days of February. And that came about because Keely had gone away for a week to visit her mom in Massachusetts
00:21:09
Speaker
And when she came back, rumors were swirling that Brianna had been staying with Keely's boyfriend of two years. Oh yeah, that'll definitely cause a girl fight right there. Yep. Keely was livid and confronted her boyfriend who admitted that he had cheated on Keely with Brianna. Oh yeah, definitely a girl fight. Mm-hmm.
00:21:35
Speaker
And because Brianna had dropped out a week or two previous, and Keely had been out of town as well, she actually hadn't seen her friend Brianna in a bit. And of course, this still felt like complete and utter betrayal. When Keely saw Brianna and this boy together at a party, she grew... Well, I'm not going to name him. Okay.
00:22:04
Speaker
Yes. So she grew even more angry about it. And Keely allegedly admitted to the Have You Seen Us blog that she at this party tried to intimidate Brianna all night long and that Brianna wouldn't even look at her.
00:22:27
Speaker
So, in hindsight, Keely thinks that just shows how guilty Brianna felt over what she'd done. Yeah, I could see that. And that night, when Keely noticed that Brianna wasn't at the party anymore but the boy was still there, she asked the boy, like, where's Brianna? And he told her that Brianna was waiting in the truck.
00:22:53
Speaker
So Keely went out to the truck, knocks on the window, which Brianna rolls down. Keely proceeded to punch Brianna in the face, giving her a concussion and two black eyes because she broke Brianna's neck. So this wasn't just pulling hair. This was...
00:23:18
Speaker
This was a punch. This was, I want you to hurt physically as much as I was hurt emotionally. Yeah. Kind of a punch. Now, I want you to recall, though, Maggie, the intro to this episode, Brianna was skilled in jujitsu. She could have... You could have beat her up. She could have. But Brianna refused to fight back.
00:23:44
Speaker
Keely said that Brianna just sat there crying. Aw. And while Brianna was taken to the hospital to treat her injuries, she was, at first, very hesitant to press any charges against her friend. Brianna's mother actually had to convince Brianna to file those charges against Keely. This is very heavy. Mm-hmm. Those charges, though.
00:24:14
Speaker
would later be dropped three weeks after Brianna disappeared. So let's go back to what's going on. We're now three weeks out from Brianna disappearing. I'm going to jump ahead to the last day when we know all of Brianna's actions. OK.
00:24:41
Speaker
So despite all of the bad, after that incident, that fight, Brianna was still active in switching the narrative for her life. She took a job washing dishes at the Black Lantern Inn and Brew Pub, and she had been studying hard for that GED exam.
00:25:04
Speaker
So when we're fast forwarding to that last day of Friday, March 19th, 2004. March 19th, today I got married to Anthony, obviously not in 2004 because I was 14. Right. So we're close to all kinds of dates that are connected to you.
00:25:25
Speaker
So early that morning of March 19th, Brianna took and passed her exam to get her GED. Oh, awesome. So again, great things are happening. She also just accepted a second job as a waitress at KJ's Diner in St. Albans, Vermont. So she's already working. She just took a job washing dishes at the Black Lantern Inn. She has gotten her GED.
00:25:54
Speaker
And she just got a second job waitressing so she can support herself and she's moving forward toward her future plans. Yeah, thanks for looking up. As a celebration, Brianna's mom actually met her in St. Albans to have lunch together.
00:26:12
Speaker
and to do some shopping because Brianna needed some black pants for that new waitressing job that was set to start the next day. And so Brianna's mom, I guess, was like, well, let's go shopping and we'll get you some. While they were in the checkout line at one particular store, something outside had caught Brianna's attention. She seemed
00:26:40
Speaker
Concerned hmm. She told her mom that she would be right back and walked outside So like so she's just checking out Mm-hmm like normal. She sees something outside and Says hey mama, I have I'll be right back. Yes. Did she act normal? Or was like it noted she was acting weird. Yeah, she it was
00:27:06
Speaker
It was almost like she got quiet, like there was something concerning. So Brianna's mom finished paying and she came outside, but by the time she got outside, Brianna was visibly altered.
00:27:21
Speaker
Like, I wonder if she saw somebody who scared her. Like, maybe somebody could do it or something. That's what I wonder. Her mom remembers that Brianna seemed nervous. She was anxious. She was shaken. And she quickly ended the shopping trip. So she says, you know what, I need to get home. I've got to get ready for work at the Black Lantern because she did work that night. And remember,
00:27:45
Speaker
I mentioned briefly before, Brianna and her mom didn't have the most open relationship. Yeah. So Brianna's mom decided, you know, I don't want to press her too much. Yeah, I understand. They've had a good day. Like, I'm just gonna not ruin it. Exactly. Exactly. Let's just leave it there. And so her mom took Brianna back to the friend Jillian's home and dropped her off somewhere between 3.30 and 4 that afternoon. Brianna got ready for work.
00:28:14
Speaker
And she left her friend Jillian a note saying that she would be back after work that evening. And she
Brianna's Disappearance
00:28:22
Speaker
drove in for her shift at the Black Lantern. According to co-workers, the shift that night was uneventful but busy. You know, nothing really stood out, but it's like you're constantly moving. That is steady, yeah. Mm-hmm. Co-workers, when they were asked later, said that they didn't notice Breonna acting any differently than normal.
00:28:44
Speaker
But I do want to point out again that I don't know if they would even know if she's acting normal because she'd only had this job for a couple of weeks. Right. So they don't really know her. Exactly. Brianna's parents had actually driven near the Black Lantern that night and they had contemplated going in just to say hello. But then they were like,
00:29:10
Speaker
you know, she just started this job. Yeah, this might be a little weird if your parents come in. So even though they desperately wanted to come in, they just continued on home. But now they wish that they had.
00:29:30
Speaker
When Brianna and her co-workers shift into that night, it was around 11.20 when Brianna was able to leave. Her co-workers asked Brianna if she wanted to join them and grab something to eat, but she turned them down, citing that she would need to get up early the next morning because that would be her first day at her second job. She's a busy gal. Yeah, responsible here. So she leaves the Black Lantern at 11.20.
00:30:00
Speaker
Brianna left alone after her shift and she was never seen again. Wow. I'm going to tell this next part in chronological order, even though at the time law enforcement didn't know that there was any link to Brianna Maitland until days later, nor did anyone else who saw the site realize that there was a connection. Okay.
00:30:31
Speaker
Today, we know that there are several people who saw in the morning hours of March 20th, Brianna's car. Right. I mean, it would be like one you would remember. Exactly. Not only did they remember it because of the cars make and model, you know, it's an older car. It's olive green and it's huge, but also because of its odd placement. Hmm.
00:30:58
Speaker
I'm intrigued. Only about a mile away from the Black Lantern. So we're not very far from where she left. I wonder how far like was she parked in like their parking lot or was that maybe where she parked her car and walked to work?
00:31:18
Speaker
Oh no, no, she had been in the parking lot and had driven away because her co-worker said she was alone when she drove away. Oh yeah, duh Maggie. But her car was found about a mile away at an old house that's known locally as the Old Dutchburn House.
00:31:38
Speaker
And it's called that because I'll give you a brief little snippet of its history. These two brothers, the Dutchburn brothers, lived there. And they were very much like the Eddie Brown type from our case a few weeks ago. Super kind, super helpful. They didn't really get out and drive much of anywhere. I mean, going to get anything in town was
00:32:06
Speaker
like a treat in itself, but they were hard workers. They were all kinds of people got stuck in the mud or the gravel or the muck near their home. They were always out there helping people get unstuck. They were also known
00:32:22
Speaker
to carry large amounts of cash on them. Yes, okay, Eddie. And one night, someone yelled that they were stuck. The two brothers got out of bed, came downstairs to help, and intruders broke into their home and beat them nearly to death.
00:32:45
Speaker
They were scarred by that incident. They, you know, if they didn't like coming out of their home before, they definitely didn't leave after. So that's, and the house had since been abandoned, but that's why it was called the Old Dutchburn House. But there at the house was a late model green sedan 88 Royale. This was Brianna's car.
00:33:12
Speaker
Yeah, so she hadn't gone very far. No, not far at all. One driver later, and again, I'm telling you this in chronological order, these things came out afterward. But one driver later reported that he drove by the abandoned house on Route 118 sometime between 1130 on March 29th and 1230 a.m. on the 20th. Okay. So sometime in that hour. And remember, she left work around 1120.
00:33:41
Speaker
Yeah, so any of those times could be possible. Exactly. He couldn't remember if the car's headlights were on or not, but he says he does remember a car being there and that he didn't see anyone in or around the car.
00:33:57
Speaker
So everyone's noting that this car is there. Another person drove by sometime between midnight and 1230. And this man recalled seeing the turn signal flashing. So almost like she had to pull over because maybe she dropped the CD she was going to put in or something. Or something. Just quickly pulled over.
00:34:22
Speaker
Right. Though, in this old of a model, it wasn't a CD. Cassette. Right. Yeah. Or 8-track. Who knows? The third sighting actually came from The Boy.
00:34:35
Speaker
at the root of the altercation. And while his story has changed slightly over time as to when he noted the car and where he had been when he was driving home past it, he eventually admitted to a story that law enforcement now believes is true, that he was partying across the border in Canada, and he saw the car around 4am when he was driving home.
00:35:01
Speaker
he saw the vehicle and quote, thought he recognized it, quote, but continued on home because he didn't see anybody around the car or in it. And I mean, maybe he had been drinking and the concern didn't register.
00:35:19
Speaker
or a guess to play devil's. I don't believe that he just thought he recognized it. I mean, yeah, you would recognize it. Yeah. So I'm trying to play devil's advocate and think, okay, why would he not have stopped? So maybe he had been drinking and his concern radar just wasn't dinging. Or he was only concerned with himself and was afraid he'd have to call the police and then he would get trouble because he was driving drunk.
00:35:45
Speaker
Could definitely be that or he knew whose car it was but he wanted to avoid doing anything that would cause another fight. Because that was just three weeks earlier or we could be mad at Brianna and just not really here right any of those things are a possibility.
00:36:02
Speaker
With the morning light came new visibility to the weird positioning of the car. So can I ask you, you may answer this, you said people got stuck a lot in front of this house. Was her car stuck? It was not because at this point, because it was this early on in the season, it's not yet spring, the ground was frozen solid. Okay, gotcha.
00:36:33
Speaker
So the odd positioning of the car, though, became visible the next morning with the morning light. And it was odd enough, Maggie, that a group of hikers who were driving back home and driving by actually got out and took pictures of the position of the car before they called the police. OK, but good evidence.
00:37:01
Speaker
You got a picture? And it was necessary, yes, because of what happened next. So a Vermont state trooper was dispatched to the house at 1.22 PM on March 20th.
00:37:14
Speaker
Like I said a second ago, the ground at the scene was frozen solid from the overnight temperatures, but there were neither tire marks on the ground, on the road, or anything that seemed to indicate any kind of accident had taken place. So her car is there in a weird position that I'll tell you about in a second, but there's no sign of there having been a vehicle accident.
00:37:43
Speaker
right of like slamming on brakes or of acceleration or anything like that on the road or right off of the road. However,
00:37:55
Speaker
the Green Oldsmobile had been backed up, so in reverse, so hard into the old house that a piece of the plywood had fallen off of the house onto the trunk of the car. And with that slam backwards into the house, it had caused minor damage to the rear bumper. Right, because you're driving a boat.
00:38:22
Speaker
Yes, exactly. And the edge of that rear bumper had actually caught on the cement foundation of the home, lifting the back tires off of the ground, rendering the car inoperable. I'm wondering if maybe she saw someone she knew was trying to turn around quickly to go the other way. And then get stuck. And then she got stuck. It could be. But then you would think if it happened that quickly,
00:38:51
Speaker
You would think that there would be evidence of that quick movement of tires. I don't know. Oh, yeah. I don't know. It's super bizarre. Law enforcement found on the ground around the car a water bottle, an unsmoked cigarette, and some loose change. But again, to them, there wasn't really a sign of anything amiss. So there's no sign in the ground of a struggle.
00:39:20
Speaker
There are these items laying out on the ground, but I mean, people would come by this abandoned house. Teens would party there. Sometimes there were drug deals that would go on there. I mean, it wasn't like nobody ever went by in a Dutch burn home. So they determined that the car had likely just been abandoned by someone who was drunk when they realized that they could no longer drive the car.
Theories & Investigations
00:39:49
Speaker
So this is before they figure out who the car belongs to? Exactly. So they're like, well, I mean, obviously there's no sign of a struggle. There's no sign of an accident. This was probably just someone who was drunk, tried to back up their car, backed it up too hard. Then they can't drive their car because it lifted the back tires off the ground when it got hung on the cement block. And so they probably just left it. This is why it's so important that those tourists took those pictures.
00:40:19
Speaker
Oh my God, did they not treat it like a crime scene? They did not, because they're like, well, this is from someone who's drunk. But inside the car, Maggie, were a contact case, some migraine medicine, and two uncashed checks made out to Brianna Maitland. But at this point, she's not officially missing. No. OK.
00:40:48
Speaker
Vermont State, because this is the very next morning. I mean, this is just hours after she left work. Vermont State Police had the car towed to a local garage while the officer went to the business on the checks, the Black Lantern, to ask some questions of the car's owner.
00:41:20
Speaker
Maggie, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but when I was in my gifted and talented class in eighth grade, we had a project. And in this project we were given fake money that we had to invest in the stock market.
00:41:35
Speaker
But when you talk to the super wealthy, it seems like they all understand how it works. They do invest in things such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. But the problem is actually that all of those things, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, are vulnerable to the same market forces.
00:41:55
Speaker
But what if I told you that you can invest in something much less volatile, that continuously outpaces inflation, and that investing can be something we can all do? It's not just for the super wealthy anymore, especially with Venovest.
00:42:15
Speaker
Investment in wine has outperformed the global equities market for the past 30 years with a 10.6% annualized return. And even if you don't understand the language of stocks and bonds, I think we can all understand the language of additional money coming in and that high percentage coming in as well.
00:42:35
Speaker
And if you go to zen.ai forward slash coffee and cases pod, all one word, you'll receive two months of fee free investing. So be sure to mention that coffee and cases podcast is helping you save on two months of management fees.
00:43:01
Speaker
Meanwhile, it was actually days before family and friends would realize that Brianna was missing First makes sense. She's not living with her parents. She wasn't couch surfing. So Well, so at one point right so she wasn't living with her parents and Brianna's mom had actually just seen her on the 19th right so
00:43:28
Speaker
As for her friend Jillian, who she was living with, she had seen Brianna's note on Friday, but then Jillian had gone away for the weekend. When Jillian got back the following Monday, March 22nd, she saw Brianna's note still there, but she thought, you know, maybe Brianna's with her parents. Maybe she had gone to stay someplace else for a few days. Again, this wasn't unlike Brianna.
00:43:57
Speaker
It wasn't until the next day, Tuesday, March 23rd, that phone calls between Brianna's parents and Jillian in the process of that conversation, they both realize they don't know where Brianna is. Brianna's parents and workers at the Black Lantern
00:44:21
Speaker
also realized it had been days since anyone had heard from her. So had she missed work? She had missed work. So her parents, after they hear from Jillian that Jillian hasn't seen Brianna and they're like, well, we haven't talked to Brianna. So then they call the Black Lantern and they haven't seen Brianna.
00:44:43
Speaker
So on Tuesday, March 23rd is when they filed a missing persons report. But remember, the last anyone saw her was the night of the 19th. So that's a significant amount of time. Yes, four days.
00:45:01
Speaker
At first, especially because of Brianna's history of moving out, of dropping out of school, of couch surfing, law enforcement believed that this was very likely a runaway.
00:45:17
Speaker
Though Brianna's parents said, okay, yes, she did move out. Yes, she did drop out of high school. Yes, she did couch surf, but she would not run away. That's just not something that Brianna would do. And she had just passed her GED. She had just started two new jobs. Yep. And she had just talked to her mom about starting college.
00:45:43
Speaker
I'm with them. I feel like she wouldn't have talked about any of those things had she been planning to run away. Exactly. It wasn't until two days after the missing persons report was filed on Thursday, March 25th that a law enforcement officer actually showed the Maitland's a picture. And this was like on just a gut feeling.
00:46:08
Speaker
of the green Oldsmobile that had been found abandoned at the old Dutchburn house. And when they saw it, Maggie, their hearts sank. Because at this point, they don't know where Brianna is or her car. Right, so they're like, she may just be with her friend, but now... Now they're seeing a picture of her car.
00:46:35
Speaker
And it was at that moment that her parents reported that they knew something terrible had happened. Brianna's mom, Kelly, told Rob Stafford of NBC News, quote, my stomach rolled. I started to shake, I saw evil in the picture. Oh, that gave me chills. She knows something horrific has happened.
00:47:04
Speaker
So police searched the area now. They're like, okay, this car was associated with a missing persons case. I feel like we should just treat all cars found in awkward positions as a crime scene. I mean, many of the cases we have covered could have been solved that way. But police searched the area on foot. They brought in search dogs, but they found nothing.
00:47:33
Speaker
March 30th, Brianna's car was processed, but all they reported at the time, I'll get into a newer development in just a second, all they reported at the time was finding the following items, some of which I mentioned before. They found her contact lens case and they found her glasses.
00:47:54
Speaker
So Maggie, you know this. Anthony wrote you a reminder. Yeah. This is true and embarrassing. Anthony wrote Maggie a reminder so she can run down the list to make sure she doesn't forget anything on her way out the door. And were your glasses on it? Yep. Yeah. Okay. Along with deodorant.
00:48:20
Speaker
Maggie doesn't like to get deodorant on her clothes though, so she puts deodorant on last. So that's why she has, and she has some in her desk at school. So don't think that she goes all day stinky. Right. And I also have toothpaste and toothbrush in my desk at school because on two separate occasions, I've forgotten to brush my teeth before leaving the house.
00:48:37
Speaker
It also had to unplug her hair straightener. Well, sure it is. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, you know that it might be easy to forget one, like her glasses, but she's not likely going to forget both.
00:48:53
Speaker
No. Because how do you see? Exactly. She also left behind her migraine medicine. Which one would never do. Right. I have been blessed to have never experienced a migraine. But from what I understand, they can be debilitating. Yeah, they're crippling. So that is not something that you would leave behind, even if you were going to run away.
00:49:19
Speaker
There were also, in her car, two uncashed checks totaling around $150. I think if you were running away, you would cash and take with you. You might need some cash and her ATM card. Also beneficial. Mm-hmm. Even if, again,
00:49:37
Speaker
Brianna is a headstrong girl. She seems to have some street smarts about her. You would think if her plan were to run away, you know, she would have used her ATM card to withdraw some cash from her account. She would have cashed these checks first. You need money. Right. But all of those items seem to indicate what we just were talking about, Maggie, why her parents said she did not run away.
00:50:09
Speaker
Because, again, you wouldn't have left those things behind. Especially cash and the migraine medicine. Well, and your glasses. None of those things. Yeah, none of those things. And at this point, when Brianna's parents are kind of looking through the inventory of what was found in the car,
00:50:30
Speaker
Her dad, Bruce, actually realized that police hadn't even searched the trunk of the car because they didn't have a key to it. So the key to the car was completely missing. Can you not open the trunk from a button in the car? I don't know if that's something that happened years later. I think you used to have to use a key to unlock it.
00:50:54
Speaker
Well so and the key was missing to the car. The doors were unlocked but the key is gone. So Brianna's dad Bruce went to the garage with a crowbar to pry it open. Right. And reporter Rob Stafford asked Bruce
00:51:12
Speaker
What was going through your mind as you're prying open the trunk of your daughter's car? Bruce Maitland responded, quote, Oh dear God, please let her not be in there. And she wasn't.
00:51:29
Speaker
The trunk did not yield any further clues other than what they already saw before, that there didn't seem to be sign of a struggle really in the car either. Now, I would imagine, and I heard some allusions to this, that the car would be a bit messy. She was living out of it.
00:51:54
Speaker
So I don't know if a struggle happening in the car would have been necessarily readily visible. Right. So how would you know? Right. Searchers of the surrounding area, too, continued to come up empty-handed. Even those that did end up in the discovery of something,
00:52:17
Speaker
that something was a dead end. For example, one search produced the discovery of a woman's fleece jacket, but the jacket didn't belong to Brianna.
00:52:28
Speaker
And we don't know exactly what Brianna was wearing the night she disappeared, because remember, it was days before anyone even realized she was missing. So there aren't really details that one would likely remember unless they had a conversation about it. Like, oh my gosh, I love your new top. I love that color blue. You know, if you don't have a conversation about it,
00:52:49
Speaker
But wasn't she leaving work? She was. They didn't have like uniforms or anything? Um, no, because it was this inn and brew pub. It was very informal. Okay. So it's believed that she was wearing jeans because remember her mom had to take her shopping for that one pair of black pants that her mom had just bought her that morning. And those pants were still in the bag from the shopping trip from the 19th.
00:53:18
Speaker
So we know she was wearing jeans. We don't really know much other than that. And when another search effort years later in October 2007, so we're talking like three years after Brianna goes missing, there was a discovery of a pair of jeans in this remote wooded area that was in that county and it was just off of an ATV trail.
00:53:47
Speaker
but only a couple of miles from where Brianna's car was abandoned, many people were sure those jeans were Brianna. They were like the right size. The state forensic lab analyzed the jeans, but according to an article from Stories of the Unsolved from January 21st, 2021, those results have not been made public.
00:54:15
Speaker
Which could be a good thing. Maybe it's something that they're like important to the case. Could be. I will say though, the area where the jeans were found also produced an old sweatshirt that was buried in the leaves and where the clothing items were found. I will say it was on property that was owned by a seasonal resident.
00:54:42
Speaker
And because of that, it was a place where partying teenagers often congregate. Oh. And so it's iffy.
00:54:52
Speaker
But there's been, like I said, no public results have been stated. So I don't know if that means it wasn't a match, and so it's not a lead. Or like you said, maybe this is something that law enforcement continue to look into, and if they get an additional missing puzzle piece, then they can figure out the connection.
00:55:18
Speaker
But ultimately, that is the puzzle. There's no sign of a struggle in the landscape, no sign of a struggle really in the car or right outside of it. There's no sign of the car's position being in an accident in the traditional sense. But Brianna had left behind the items that she would need in the car.
00:55:41
Speaker
So the most likely scenarios are that either she planned on coming back to the car, right? So she backs it up, it gets stuck. She needs a ride somewhere. And she's, you know, met with foul play there. She left those items in the car because she planned on coming back. I really feel like she was just taken from the scene. Well, and that was what I was going to say is the other thing. She was unwillingly taken from the scene because I feel like if you know you're coming back,
00:56:11
Speaker
If you have checks and other personal items, you're gonna lock the doors. Yeah, exactly. You're not gonna leave valuable items in your car with the doors unlocked. Mm-hmm. Over a decade after Brianna was reported missing, Vermont State Police have now confirmed that they found DNA evidence in the car. Oh, good. Though they've not said whether this evidence they had the whole time.
00:56:42
Speaker
And it's just a detail that they were keeping close to the vest or whether updated examinations of evidence have revealed the DNA. But either way, we have DNA now. Yes. And my guess is, though, that it would be hard to tell if DNA in the car, because remember, she drove all of her friends around everywhere.
00:57:03
Speaker
Yeah, and her car wasn't treated as a crime scene, so it could really be anybody's DNA. Mm-hmm. And that's what I was gonna say. I'm sure it's hard to tell if the DNA were left by someone who was in her vehicle days before she went missing or if it's associated with the crime.
00:57:21
Speaker
In fact, Vermont State Police Major Glenn Hall told Christina Corbin of Fox News on November 21, 2015, quote, it wasn't a long period of time before her car ended up where it did. She could have met someone she knew. She could have stopped for someone she didn't know. This is a rare case, especially for Vermont, end quote.
00:57:44
Speaker
Then Major Hall made a very similar statement nearly six months later when he told Jennifer Costa of WCAX News on March 17, 2016, quote, what we don't know is whether she met with someone she knew or whether she came across someone that she didn't know and what the circumstances were, end quote. So six months later, it's still the same questions.
00:58:15
Speaker
And as always, Maggie, though we don't have answers, we have some theories. Okay. Theory one was that something happened to Brianna caused by multiple people or strangers.
00:58:33
Speaker
So with the car seen by eyewitnesses in that position so soon after Brianna left the Black Lantern, this is terrifying. Some wonder if there could have been someone hiding in the back seat. Oh, just while I check the trunk of my, like the back of my SUV and the back seat of my SUV before I get in it. Mm-hmm. I mean, not like in the back seat.
00:58:58
Speaker
Oh, I look in the backseat and then still think I catch something in the corner of my eye and turn the light on. Yep, or go back and look again. Mm hmm. Yeah. So that is potentially a possibility. After all, she was only about a mile down the road from her job. But then though, you would think that there would have been some sign of a struggle.
00:59:22
Speaker
either in the car itself or at the car's site. Now, there were personal items on the ground though, right? Like cigarette change. There just were no markings in the soil, but the ground was frozen solid. That's true. So could that have limited the signs of the struggle?
00:59:45
Speaker
I also keep going back to that one witness who saw the turn signal on. So maybe there had been some sort of a struggle inside the car and the turn signal somehow got hit in the process. Oh. I wonder if it was like...
01:00:01
Speaker
Oh, well, it wouldn't really matter, though, because the car was backed into the house. At first, I pictured it on the side of the road, so she had her turn signal on indicating she was leaving the highway. But with it being backed up against the house, that's a good point.
01:00:16
Speaker
Mm-hmm, and I also wondered if Maybe where the car was found was staged. Yeah, I thought that too. I don't know how that's possible but Anything is possible and I thought that too. Mm-hmm And then I was thinking you know could the struggle have maybe happened? Underneath where the car was left like somebody tried to back the car up to cover up sign of a struggle Hmm
01:00:42
Speaker
And then, of course, when the tow truck comes to remove the vehicle, it disturbs the ground in a way that if there were a sign of struggle underneath the car, now you're not going to see it. Right.
01:00:53
Speaker
And in terms of multiple people being involved, this theory holds some weight because Brianna was tiny, but she was also skilled, just like I mentioned earlier, in jujitsu. So it likely would have taken more than one person to subdue her. Still very frightening that someone could be in the back of your car. So that's theory one. Theory two is the fight friend.
01:01:22
Speaker
The reason many fingers pointed to her friend Keely is because things had gotten physical so recently. If the first altercation were any indication, then we know that Brianna likely wouldn't have fought back because she didn't the first time. She would likely have pulled the car over to talk to her friend.
01:01:48
Speaker
And she could have just had personal items fall out of a pocket or something like that. So could she have pulled over seeing her friend there? Her friend is still angry, another altercation happens, and Brianna again doesn't fight back so there's no sign of a scuffle. But that doesn't explain how her car got
01:02:12
Speaker
in the position that it was in. That's true. Many people's minds go to this theory because only weeks after Brianna went missing, the charges were dropped from the altercation.
01:02:30
Speaker
Now, Keely did admit, because again, there was only that one source, the have you seen us blog. She did admit to the blog that she didn't have a formal alibi. And I feel like that's a bold statement for her to make if she were guilty. Yeah. To be like,
01:02:48
Speaker
To be honest, I don't really have an alibi. Yeah, it would just not make sense. That's like a girl came to me and told me there was something nasty written on the bathroom wall. And when I went to look at it and the next stall, the same thing was there and it had been signed by her. So why would she tell on herself? You know what I mean? Yeah, she wouldn't. Right.
01:03:09
Speaker
So she admitted that she didn't have an alibi, but she had always been cooperative with police. And then she went on in this blog post to paint an unflattering picture of herself to the blogger by admitting that she did say some mean things to people about Brianna after Brianna went missing.
01:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, at first when we were talking about her, like I kind of had the little inkling, but not really. I just feel like they act, she acted like a teenage girl. I don't think she, nothing about her says murderer to me or kidnapper.
01:03:50
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And ultimately, she told the blog, quote, I know her family hates me, but I'd love to talk to them and give them closure from my side. I pray her family finds her and puts her to rest. I can't believe it's drawn out this far. How have they not found her in Vermont? I hope it gets put to rest, end quote. And she has been cleared of involvement by law enforcement. I agree with law enforcement. Theory three.
01:04:20
Speaker
the boy. Okay, also had a creepy feeling about this boy, but I'm going to let you explain to me. A local rumor is that the boy and potentially some other male acquaintances were involved in Brianna's disappearance. In that same blog post, Keely alleges that when her boyfriend heard Brianna was missing, he began crying.
01:04:48
Speaker
which of course only angered Keeley because of the past of him cheating with Brianna, right? And she's like, oh, you're gonna cry, you know, over that. And because at this point, Keeley admitted that she hadn't taken the whole case seriously yet. Because remember, when they find out she's missing, it's like, what, five days after the last person sees her. And Keeley is a boyfriend.
01:05:16
Speaker
And the boy at the party are one and the same? Yes, yes. So she's upset that he's crying. She's not taking any of this seriously yet. So then she's really mad that he's crying. And she also alleges that she remembers police officers. So he lived, I think, with his grandparents.
01:05:39
Speaker
And she alleges that law enforcement showed up at the property asking to search it and that she gave them permission to do so at the same time that she acknowledged that the boyfriend's grandparents or parents or whoever owned this farm actually owned hundreds if not thousands of acres in the area. Wow. So they own a lot of land. But what gets me with the boy is the immediate crying.
01:06:09
Speaker
Mm-hmm, especially when it's only days into the investigation right honest case cuz she could still be just at another friend's house. Yes So I'll admit that does make me question involvement. I Mean, I don't I don't want to seem stereotypical
01:06:30
Speaker
Right. And to say, oh, because he cried, he has to be involved. I don't mean to imply that boys can't show emotion. It could be the case that the boy cared a lot for Brianna. It could be the case that he felt bad because of the fight that had happened just weeks before.
01:06:54
Speaker
Yeah. For what it's worth, Keely actually doesn't herself think that he was involved because she said he wouldn't have been able to live with the guilt. But then maybe that's why he's crying. True. Theory four.
01:07:12
Speaker
is linked to another cold case, the case of Mara Murray. Now, I'm not gonna go into detail about this additional case. There are actually whole podcasts that are just focused on the minutia of Mara's case. But I will say that both girls were around the same age. Mara was a college student.
01:07:38
Speaker
while Brianna was still in high school, about to graduate. They were both attractive brunettes. In Mara's disappearance, her car was left abandoned on the side of the road after sustaining some damage. But when a wrecker came to the scene, Mara was just missing. And many of her personal affects were left inside the vehicle.
01:08:08
Speaker
Just like in Brianna's case. Yeah, I was going to say, it sounds familiar. Mara went missing only 90 miles away from where Brianna did. And Mara went missing on February 9, 2004, only about five and a half weeks before Brianna went missing. Sounds eerily similar. So many are like,
01:08:35
Speaker
Could the same perpetrator have been behind both of these mysterious cases? Law enforcement, however, well, law enforcement have deemed that the two cases are likely to be unrelated. Though there's a little bit of wiggle room there for you, Maggie. Doesn't rule it out completely. They just said it's likely unrelated. Theory five.
01:09:03
Speaker
Serial killer is real keys. Have you ever heard of him? No, I haven't. Oh my. We will have to do a Patreon episode about him. Oh, yeah. If you have never heard of this serial killer, he is terrifying because he was masterful at killing.
01:09:34
Speaker
He flew, I'll just give you the short synopsis. He flew all over the country for work, but when he would fly places, he would then rent a car, drive for hours, like hundreds of miles away from the town he flew into. He would use cash in that town to buy items
01:09:58
Speaker
for his kill cash, like the C-A-C-H-E cash, like the hidden storage. He would bury these items in a Home Depot bucket. Oh, wait. I have heard of him. Yes. He was in one of the museums that we went to in Washington, D.C.
01:10:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's so scary. He would have hundreds of these buckets buried just random places all around the country. Yes. And each one would have all of the items that he would need to commit a murder. But what's scary is he would have those buckets buried all over, like you said, Maggie. But those buckets would stay buried for years before keys would then return.
01:10:45
Speaker
dig up the bucket and use the items in it to kill the first person he came across. Well, you could just rule me out for that because I would forget where I buried the bucket the next day. Oh, heck, within an hour. Yeah. So the weapons were always different though, so there was no clear MO. Like he didn't have, you know, a pattern. His victims, sometimes couples, sometimes men, sometimes women, all of varying ages. So he doesn't even have a clear victim type.
01:11:15
Speaker
And he flew under everyone's radar because he seemed trustworthy. He had no record other than a DUI, but he would pick his victims at random. Which is also super scary. Yes. He is believed to have killed up to 11 different people. We believe that because FBI just released that he had done
01:11:41
Speaker
This is super creepy. 11 different drawings of skulls using his own blood to make the drawing. And so we assume that that's how many, that was an admission of guilt in that many cases, but he actually killed between the years of 2001 and 2012. Where's he at right now? 2004. He committed suicide. Okay. But he was in jail when he committed suicide.
01:12:08
Speaker
But additionally, Vermont was one of the states where keys committed crimes.
01:12:16
Speaker
and all of the, in addition to New York, Alaska, Washington, and Oregon. Yeah, so all over the place. Could Brianna have been one of his victims? This inn where she worked, where she was the dishwasher, did attract many tourists to a local ski resort. So might Keys have been one of those tourists?
01:12:40
Speaker
According to Stories of the Unsolved, Keys' financial records show that he wasn't in the area when Brianna went missing, but with how crafty we know he was, I don't know if that necessarily rules him out. Theory six, a drug ring link.
01:13:03
Speaker
There were rumors swirling that as Brianna's life seemingly crumbled around her, before that most recent turnaround, that she had been experimenting with hard drugs, particularly crack cocaine. Oh, I feel like that is a very dramatic step. You go from doing nothing to however you take crack cocaine, you're just taking crack cocaine.
01:13:29
Speaker
There were two young men from the local area who were said to be the dealers of the drugs. And it was said that Brianna owed them money. You know, this is totally off topic, but like, I do not understand. And maybe it's just because my brain is not wired that way. But like, if I decided one day, I think I want to buy some crack cocaine, how does one even know how to do that?
01:13:57
Speaker
You can't buy that at Costco. How do you know where to get it? That's always astounded me. I guess young people maybe know who sells it. I don't know. I never knew when I was in high school. I'm sure that there were people, but yeah.
01:14:13
Speaker
So, some people who believe this theory speculate is that why she wanted to get a second job? Oh, to help pay off her dues. Could be. There were three main stories that the Maitland's and law enforcement had heard about the involvement of these two men linked to the drug ring.
01:14:34
Speaker
One was that Brianna was being held captive in their home. This is a story that law enforcement had been told because of people who had anonymously called the Maitland's home. Snitches. Law enforcement actually raided the home on April 15th, 2004. And while they found enough drugs and paraphernalia to bring up charges, they didn't find Brianna.
01:15:02
Speaker
A second version of events comes from a series of anonymous calls to the Maitland's home. But remember, this is a small town, so maybe if somebody knew something, they wanted the Maitland's to know. But these anonymous calls could not be corroborated, but they said that Brianna was, quote, tied to a tree in the woods, end quote, and that when she had died, they had disposed of her body, quote, at the bottom of a lake.
01:15:30
Speaker
And even if this person is trying to help, and obviously if they thought that this was true and they're calling her parents without information, but can you imagine being the parents hearing that information? Yeah, even if that was true and I knew it, I think I would call law enforcement and report it and not the parents. The third version is even worse.
01:15:54
Speaker
The third version involving this pair of people involved in the local drug ring came from another anonymous person. This one was an older female who in late 2004 actually signed an affidavit with law enforcement, though she remains anonymous, with graphically described allegations that one of the two men had killed Brianna over her owing the money.
01:16:23
Speaker
that they had temporarily kept her body in the basement of another local person's home. The homeowner had recently been incarcerated and therefore she wasn't home. And then the two men had taken her body, had dismembered her and taken the pieces to a pig in the area. But again, those claims couldn't be corroborated. That's very fried green tomatoes right there.
01:16:52
Speaker
Captain Bruce Lang of the Vermont State Police told Mark Bosma of Channel 3 News on June 15, 2004, quote, I can tell you there was a belief through an interview or two that she did owe someone some money for drugs. And that's one of the avenues that we have followed up with extensively, end quote. But Maggie, that was 18 years ago. And this theory is no more fleshed out now than it was then.
01:17:22
Speaker
And for Brianna's dad, he doesn't quite believe this drug theory. Bruce Maitler, yeah, he told Jennifer Costa of WCAX News, quote, it's easy for people to feel safer about their kids if it were only the bad kids. It's a very safe kind of escape for them that it isn't going to happen to my child, end quote.
01:17:46
Speaker
So he's kind of saying, well, this is a scapegoat, right? Something bad happened to Brianna, and so they want to make her seem bad. Yeah, sort of like she ran away. To make themselves feel safe.
01:17:57
Speaker
And that's theory seven that she ran away without a sign of struggle, clearly looking for a change of pace from a small town life. Might she have staged the car, hitched a ride and left town? It seems so elaborate. I know she was close enough to the Canadian border though to have crossed and maybe she's Canadian now.
01:18:18
Speaker
Yeah, some of her friends also noted that Brianna had recently mentioned her plans for a short trip out of the area. So could Brianna still be alive out there somewhere? A short trip out of the area without her car. I know that doesn't or money. Yeah, or her migraine medicine.
01:18:38
Speaker
There have been sightings of people who resemble Brianna enough to keep this theory alive. Brianna's parents, after putting up a ton of missing posters in multiple states, actually followed leads in at least four different locations in both the United States and in Canada themselves. But all of the supposed sightings ended up being mistaken identity.
01:19:02
Speaker
Right. And like you can be your features can be common enough that they can be seen in multiple people. Right. Yeah. And the most significant sighting actually happened in 2006 when a local Vermont man, so somebody from that small town was visiting Caesars World Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. And he thought he spotted Brianna.
01:19:26
Speaker
Well, luckily casinos have a ton of security cables. And the footage did indeed show a woman who looked very much like Brianna. But because there had been so much let down before with the previously incorrect sightings, Brianna's parents, Kelly and Bruce, they recalled how fearful they were to let their hope get too high. Bruce told Stafford of NBC News, quote, I'm, you know, at this point, you, you just not
01:19:56
Speaker
You just nod again, you know, nod again, nod, nod one more time. I just, you know, don't want another, I don't want another false alarm. While there was surveillance footage, the lighting was dark and the image was fuzzy.
01:20:18
Speaker
But why would she be in a casino? Right. Obviously, you know that there are security cameras in casinos. Brianna's mom, Kelly, did notice a striking similarity. And she stated to Stafford, the reporter, quote, the side profile is almost identical. The only thing that was different slightly was the end of the nose. It kind of had a little bit more of a ball on the end of the nose than what I recall. Other than that, it was a ringer, end quote.
01:20:49
Speaker
Brianna's father was more skeptical of the footage, adding, quote, I want to believe that it's her. I really do. And you kind of whenever you want something so bad, you can't even trust your eyes sometimes, especially when it's not clear, end quote. And I'm telling you, Maggie, that statement is so profoundly sad to me because I know that it is painfully accurate for this family.
01:21:18
Speaker
Yeah, you want to see her in every face. But the woman from the footage has never been identified.
01:21:27
Speaker
And the final theory, theory eight, someone else she knew. While this is the most vague theory, Brianna does seem the type who would stop to help someone she knew. If her friend Keely was right, then Brianna just wanted desperately to fit in and to be liked, and she was feeling so isolated and lonely. So could there have been a ruse to make Brianna stop?
01:21:55
Speaker
only for harm to come to her. Or might she have stopped willingly and some kind of accident happened that was covered up?
01:22:04
Speaker
Bruce Maitland told Christina Corbin of foxnews.com in 2015, quote, I don't think this was a random act of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was something going on in Brianna's life that we don't know about. She had obviously made a connection with someone that may have resulted in what happened to her, end quote.
01:22:26
Speaker
And if the house where Brianna's car was discovered ever held any further clues, those clues can no longer be recovered because the old Dutchburn house was destroyed by fire in July 2016. Okay, Maggie, what theory are you going with? Well, I kind of am all over the place. I want to say it was somebody that she knew because she stopped.
01:22:55
Speaker
Mm-hmm, but then I also want to think at first I was like it's probably definitely the serial killer But then I thought back to the scene with her mom where she was at the grocery or the store Then I'm wondering maybe if it was like this drug ring thing because then She would have been scared of those people Right and because they would have threatened her or whatever. So she would have been visibly scared and
01:23:22
Speaker
Mm hmm. And then it makes me wonder if it was them and she like noticed it was them. She backed her car up quickly to try to get away and got stuck on the house. Right. And they took her. And then there were multiple people because there are two. Yeah. Oh, I don't know. That's what I'm kind of leaning toward also.
01:23:47
Speaker
Brianna Maitland stood around 5'3 to 5'5". She had brown hair and hazel eyes with a very faint scar on her forehead. Her nose was pierced in the left nostril with a small stud. She was called Brie or Bee by her friends.
01:24:04
Speaker
While she's known to many by her missing posters, her memory lives branded into the minds of those who knew her, and they, like us, are determined to keep fighting until there are answers. In fact, Brianna's dad, Bruce, said of the truth of what happened that night, quote, we'll find out or we'll die trying, one of the two, end quote.
01:24:29
Speaker
As of late 2020, state police are now working alongside a company in Texas to perform genetic genealogy tracing on some of the evidence. So we hope that the finding out of answers will happen soon. I'll end with a final message that Brianna's mom, Kelly, gave to Stafford in her interview with NBC, a message to Brianna and what she wanted Bri to know if she's still out there.
01:24:59
Speaker
We love her very much and that we hope if we've done anything wrong that she would forgive us if we have. If there's anything that she thinks we couldn't understand, we'd be willing to forgive that. The love we have for her is beyond everything."
01:25:20
Speaker
If you have any information about Brianna's location or about the night in question, please call the Vermont State Police at 802-524-5993. Anonymous tips
Call to Action & Contact Information
01:25:34
Speaker
can be sent via text message. Simply send the message to CRIMES 274-637 with the keyword V.
01:25:45
Speaker
tips in the body of the message, followed by the information you have to share.
01:25:51
Speaker
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01:26:21
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.