In 2008, 19 year old Brandon Swanson was driving home when he crashed his car into a ditch at 2:00AM. Slightly panicked, on a dark street at night, Brandon called his parents hoping for assistance. His parents set out to look for him, but to no avail. They continued a 45 minute phone call with Brandon trying desperately to find him on the wooded streets of Canby, Minnesota. At one point, Swanson claimed he could see lights and started to head towards the nearby town. Out of nowhere, his parents heard Brandon exclaim, "Oh shit!" and the call cut off.
This is the last Brandon's parents heard from him. Now almost seven years later, Brandon still has not come home. After an intense search with hundreds of volunteers and 34 dogs, Brandon's car was found 120 days after his disappearance, but nothing else was ever found. Upon finding Brandon's car, there was no evidence of foul play and his family stated that he had no reason to dissapear. It is widely believed that Brandon slipped and fell into a nearby river but for two days after his disappearance, his phone rang, meaning if Brandon fell into the river, his phone did not fall with him. It is also odd that the phone records show he was incorrect about his location and was actually 20 minutes away from the town he claimed he could see the lights of.
The tragedy of Brandon's disappearance is felt every day in his parent's home. They still leave the porch light on for him, though after such a period of time with over 75 tips given to the police department but no strong leads on his whereabouts, his parents were quoted on the 5th anniversary of his disappearance as saying "It's not that we've forgotten Brandon or anything like that. It's just that we've searched extensively for 3 to 4 years. It hurts."
Granted, there is a plethora of missing persons cases filed on a regular basis, none any less sad than the other, but often surrounded by a whirlwind of attention at first and then quickly forgotten when replaced by the next big news story. It is less often that people stop to think about the families involved in these cases and how when it seems as though everyone else has forgotten about their loved one, they are reminded of them every single day without fail. What was it that caused Brandon to exclaim "Oh shit!" that night? Was it as simple as falling into a river (though a body was never recovered from any nearby rivers)? Was it a criminal taking advantage of the situation? Was there a supernatural force at play? Was a wildlife attack possible? There are endless questions, the answer to which we may never know.
-Amanda
