On May 14, 2008, 19-year-old Brandon Victor Swanson left his home to celebrate the end of his first year at Minnesota West Community and Technical College. There were a few local parties that Brandon was able to attend and have a good time at. Brandon’s friends would later recall seeing him there drinking and socializing. At some point after midnight, Brandon left one of the parties and was making the drive home. This route was practically the same route he would take to and from school for the entire year.
Curiously, Brandon decided not to take the Minnesota State Highway that he usually took home. Instead, he opted to drive through the more rural areas. The speculation was that he was trying to avoid getting pulled over by police since he had been drinking that night.
Brandon would soon find himself in a troubling situation. Somehow, he swerved off the road and wound up in a ditch near a farming field area. With the wheels of his cars being lifted off the ground, he was unable to gain enough traction to drive his car out of the ditch. Then, at nearly 2:00 am that morning, Brandon’s received a phone call. Brandon was calling them to ask for help getting home since he couldn’t drive his car. He was about a 10-minute drive from home.
Both of his parents went to pick him up. While en route, they stayed on the phone with him to make sure that they would be able to connect more easily. Despite their efforts, they could not find the area where Brandon had crashed his car. Brandon, who was reportedly getting agitated at this point, hung up the phone on his mother. When she called him back, Brandon said that he would just walk back to his friend’s house and have his parents pick him up from there. Brandon’s father dropped his wife off at their home and then went to get his son at his friend’s house. They continued to stay on the phone.
As Brandon was taking a shortcut to get to his destination, his father heard him say “Oh, sh-t!” before the phone cut out. That was the last thing he ever heard his son say.
Both of his parents repeatedly called his phone and kept getting his voicemail. They would then enlist the help of his friends to search the area. Sadly, they weren’t able to find any trace of him. The police would eventually join the search and use their resources to pinpoint Brandon’s phone. It was found in an entirely different area altogether. It was there that they located the car he was driving.
That car would be the one and only piece of physical evidence found in this case. To this day, Brandon Swanson has never been found.
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