August 16, 2025 • 48 mins
Missing Person Cases That Remain UNSOLVED
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ronnette Swanson is joining us. She is the mother of
Brandon Swanson joining us from Minnesota. Thank you so much
for joining us from Marshall, Minnesota. Actually, first of all,
I want to ask you, miss Swanson, you were on
the phone with your son a large part of those
early hours when you were trying to find him and
he was trying to find you. He wasn't hurt at all, right,
(00:21):
I mean the car went into a ditch, but he
seemed to be okay.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh, correct, he said he was fine, that he was
not injured. And you know, in fact, when we did
find his vehicle, there was no damage to it. It
was simply muddy from being on a gravel road, but
no damage to the vehicle.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
What was it like that night to be going through
this and so close to your son, but so far
from your son?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah? You know, as you know, as Brandon tried to
explain to us where his location was, and he was
extremely sure of himself. He felt confident in where he
was at and that we were the ones that were
confused about, you know, how to get to him. And
(01:12):
as the conversation went on, is the minutes ticked by
y you know? It? It be it came to a
point where it's as long as Brandon was on the phone,
as long as he was talking, as long as we
had contact, it was okay. We would be okay. But
the minute that he that that call dropped, I just
(01:33):
became sick. I knew it was wrong. I knew it
was very, very bad, and just could hardly fathom, you know,
what was happening at that point.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Well, I can imagine, I mean to to take a
breath now, when the call just hung up like that,
with Brandon in dire distress, I mean, y, those were
the words that he seemed to utter when he said, Oh,
did you try to call him after that?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
And what happened?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Oh? Yes, we did, you know, we we didn't immediately
hang up the phone. We you know, we called his name.
We tried to, you know, thinking that he still had
the phone, that it was very near him, that he
could pick it up. We'd he'd hear our voice, and
we called out to him several times and we realized,
you know, he's he's not there, So we did We
(02:24):
called him back several times, thinking you know, he'll he'll
see the phone light up, even if he didn't have
it on ring. He would see his phone light up
when the call came in and he'd find it, you know,
he'd answer the call, and it just didn't happen time
and again, just it just went unanswered.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Hello friends, Steve Stockton here with you in this video
we bring you the strange case of Brandon Swanson. On
the night of May third teenth, two thousand and eight,
nineteen year old Brandon Swanson from Marshall, Minnesota, went out
with some friends to have a few drinks and some fun.
It was a Tuesday night, but Brandon had just completed
(03:11):
his first year of Minnesota West Community and Technical College
that day, so he and his friends who went to
the nearby town of Lynn to hang out and celebrate.
Between ten thirty and eleven PM, Brandon left the friends
he originally set out with and drove to another friend's
house in Camby to say goodbye to yet another friend.
His friends who were with him and Lynn said that
(03:32):
when he got into his car to make the short drive,
he wasn't intoxicated, and other witnesses who saw him that
night all agreed he was not by any means intoxicated
when he arrived at the friend's house either. They said
he had one shot of whiskey and then left some
time after midnight to head back to Marshall. Presumably he
was headed home at that point. The direct route from
(03:52):
Camby to Marshall is a thirty minute drive on Highway
sixty eight. Technically the next day, on May fourteenth, that
around one thirty of the morning, Brandon got his car
stuck in a ditch along the gravel road. He tried
calling multiple friends for help, but unfortunately no one answered
the calls, and Brandon remained stuck on the side of
the road. Around one point fifty four am, Brandon called
(04:15):
his parents and told him where he was and what
had happened, and asked if they could come and get him,
as he needed a ride home. His parents, Annette and
Brian Swanson, agreed to come and pick him up and
ask where he was so they knew where to go
to find him. He told them he was between Marshall
and Lynn, and he assured them he wasn't injured at all,
but just wanted to get home. When his parents arrived
(04:36):
at the location Brandon had given him, he wasn't there
and was nowhere in sight. His mother called him on
his cell phone and the two decided to start flashing
their lights to alert the other of where they were.
They all assumed at this point that they must have
been very close to one another but were just missing
the other somehow Annette could hear her son flashing his lights,
and she informed him she was doing the same. We're
(05:00):
flashing our lights. We're flashing our lights, to which Brandon replied,
don't you see me. Both Annette and Brandon were very
frustrated at this point, and Brandon ended up hanging up
on his mother. She immediately called him back with the
intention of apologizing to him for getting worked up a
bit herself. Brandon answered and told his mother that he
(05:20):
could see the town's lights referring to Lynn, and that
he was just going to start walking in the direction
of town. He told her to just meet him in
the parking lot of a local tavern in the town
of Lynn. She agreed to meet him there. As his
parents drove to the tavern, they maintained contact with Brandon,
with Brian staying on the phone with him.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Brandon told his father he was going.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
To cut through some fields to take a kind of
shortcut and save some time on his trip. Since he
was walking along the way. Brandon was telling his father
over the phone what he was seeing and passing. He
walked on gravel roads, saw two fence lines, and heard
running water. About forty seven minutes into the car, Brandon
yelled and then the call disconnected. Brian Swanson later said
(06:06):
it sounded as though his son had fallen down or
possibly slipped. Brian Annette tried repeatedly to call Brandon back,
but he never answered the phone again. It would just
ring and ring until sometime the next day, when the
calls started going straight to voicemail and it was assumed
that the phone had died. Brandon Swanson hasn't been seen
or heard from since the end of that faithful call
(06:27):
with his father that night. That same morning, May fourteenth,
two thousand and eight, Brandon's parents called the police to
report him as missing. As it's usually the case, the
police didn't take the call very seriously, insisted that they
wait a little while, as it wasn't unusual for young
men Brandon's age to go missing voluntarily for a bit
(06:48):
without telling their parents. Later on in the day, cell
phone records for Brandon's phone were retrieved, and they showed
his last things were from near Porter Minnesota, which is
about twenty five away from where he seemed to have
thought he was in Lynn. There was no way the
town he saw was Lynn. Shortly before noon, the authorities
(07:08):
began their official search for Brandon. At around twelve thirty PM,
his vehicle, a Chevrolet Lumina, was found in a ditch
bordering the towns of Lincoln and Yellow Medicine. Lincoln County
Sheriff Jack Mazeki stated that the ditch was positioned where
Brandon wouldn't have been able to gain any traction to
be able to drive himself out of it. There was
(07:29):
no visible damage to the vehicle and no signs of
foul play or injury at the scene. In the months
following his disappearance, law enforcement conducted searches on horseback, using
ATVs and even foot searchers, but to no avail. They
even utilized sniffer dogs and searched around and near several
bodies of water. The dogs ended up leading their handlers
(07:51):
to the edge of the Yellow Medicine River, which led
authorities to come to the conclusion that Brandon had somehow
fallen into the water. This led them to a conduct
extensive searches in the river but they came up empty
every time. Because of this, they then concluded that if
Brandon did indeed fall into the water, he must have
made his way back out of it at some point
(08:11):
and didn't drown. They believed he just got himself out
of the river and continued on his way walking. Their
conclusion then was that he must have died of hypothermia
due to the temperature dropping below forty degrees on the
night that he went missing. Search dogs also alerted to
human remains being near Mud Creek. However, authorities never found
any remains at all in this area, let alone Brandon's.
(08:35):
Authorities believed Brandon could have been anywhere within one hundred
and twenty two square mile radius of the river ten
years after he seemingly disappeared into thin air the Yellow
Medicine County Sheriff Bill flood. Instead, it's a huge area
if you take that immediate area where the car was
and in the timeframe when he was talking on the
phone with his parents, Who knows what direction he went
(08:58):
and how far he traveled. A volunteer firefighter named Darren E.
Delzer came up with his own theory as to what
could have happened to Brandon. He took everything he had
learned about the case and put it all together. He
noted that Brandon always wore glasses because he was legally
blind in his left eye. However, on the morning he
went missing, he'd left his glasses in his car. Based
(09:21):
on Darren's theory, we could assume Brandon also left him
in his car when he left in the ditch to
start walking to go and meet his parents, and therefore
wasn't wearing them the whole time he was on the
phone with his folks that night. He made a note
of the fact that right before Brandon said oh shit
and possibly slipped when the phone disconnected with the final time,
he also said, not another fence. He concluded that Brandon
(09:45):
must have fallen into an unmarked well or system, which
are very common in rural areas like the ones where
Brandon went missing. There are theories such as Brandon simply
left on purpose and orchestrated the whole disappearance. This theory
allegescy living under an assumed identity somewhere. Most people don't
give this theory much credit, as if you remember, Brandon
(10:07):
was calling his parents and several friends that night trying
to find someone.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
To help him.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
It makes more sense he really was trying to get
help that night, and not trying to purposely disappear. Theories
of Brandon suffering some kind of nervous or mental breakdown
also don't hold much water, as his parents say he
was loocid while on the phone with him, and also
that he had no history of any kind of mental illness.
The initial theory that he had drowned and the theory
(10:33):
that followed stating that he may have made it back
out of the water and then died of hypothermia has
been highly criticized as well. His phone was working for
quite a while after the call with his father disconnected.
It's been said that if the phone had entered the water,
which it presumably would have since Brian was holding it
when this theory states he went into the water, it
(10:53):
would have immediately started going to boysmail right away, as
it wasn't waterproof and would have been immediately broken. Sure,
some people counted that by saying that the phone could
have fallen onto the ground when Brandon slipped into the water.
But if that was the case, then why was the
phone never found? Remember, there were extensive searches in and
around all the bodies of water in a large area
(11:15):
surrounding where Brandon's car was found and where he alleged
he was the night he went missing, so it's safe
to assume here that the phone would have been found
at some point. It simply wasn't. All of the abandoned
buildings in the area were also searched, and no human
remains and none of Brandon's personal facts were found in
any of them. This discredits the theory that Brandon might
(11:37):
have sought refuge and shelter in one of them and
died some other way while inside. Yet another theory is
that perhaps Brandon was involved in a hit and run
or otherwise abducted, and that his remains were disposed of
by the perpetrators. However, there's no evidence at all to
prove this theory or that foul play was involved in
any way in Brandon's case. Brandon's parents believe their son's
(12:00):
disappearance might have been solved had police immediately started investigating
instead of telling them to wait it out for a while.
There's no law that says there needs to be a
waiting period for someone to be able to be reported
as missing. However, unofficially of course, priority is usually given
to cases where a foul play is obvious, where people
are mentally or physically impaired, and when younger children are involved.
(12:23):
A missing eighteen year old who disappeared after night out
drinking with some friends just didn't seem too important to
the police until hours after the fact, and so much
precious time had been wasted. An Ad and Brian Swanson
proposed a law be written up in their son's name,
Brandon's Law, which would quote require law enforcement to take
a missing person's report without delay after notification of someone
(12:46):
missing under dangerous circumstances, no matter the missing person's age,
immediately conduct a preliminary investigation to determine if the person
is missing and whether the person is in danger, and
promptly notify all other law enforcement agencies of the situation.
Brandon's Law, which was sponsored by former House Minority Leader
(13:07):
Marty Seifert and Senator Dennis Frederickson, was signed into law
by Minnesota's then Governor Tim Paulini on May seventh, two
thousand and nine. The law officially went into effect on
July first, two thousand and nine. This still leaves one
very big question, though, what happened to Brandon Swanson? How
(13:27):
could he have been so off about where he was
when he was telling his parents he was near Lynn
and they were flashing their lights at each other but
not seeing one another. What led him to yell the
expletive into the phone and hang up? Why wasn't his
phone or any of his other belongings ever found? There
has literally been no trace of him since the last
time he was heard shouting into the phone that faithful night. Hello, friends,
(13:53):
welcome to our latest video. Today we're going to be
discussing the frightening disappearance Tara Calico. Now, many times in
this community we come across cases that are so incredibly
baffling we struggle with their humanity and wondering how something
like this could actually happen. While we cover hundreds of
(14:15):
cases on this channel of people who have gone missing,
some who have been found unfortunately deceased, and still others
who have no trace at all has ever been found.
As they say, the devil is in the details. It's
the smallest details. Sometimes they can either make or break
a case, or that can leave us scratching our heads
(14:35):
and being even more confused than when we first started
out The disappearance of Tara Calico is one of those
cases where you kind of feel like you're right on
the brink of having the answers, only to find the
next bit of information bringing you right back around to
the beginning, right back at square one. This sad and
(14:56):
frightening case is one of thousands where the person was
abducted had never seen or heard from again. However, it's
the little clues along the way which makes this case
stand out so much. Tarah Calico was from Berlin, New Mexico,
and this is where her home was when she left
it on the morning of September thirtieth, nineteen eighty eight.
(15:19):
Tara was nineteen years old at the time and had
her whole life ahead of her. She had no idea
that when she went out for a usual bike ride
at nine thirty that morning, and it would turn out
to be the last time she would ever see her
home again. Her mother rode with her in the morning's
up until very recently, when she felt that two were
being stalked by passing motorists and was too scared to
(15:40):
continue on these morning rides with her daughter. This would
be a strange and sad coincidence and foreboding that neither
mother nor daughter had any idea would be so relevant
and possibly close to the truth until it was too late.
As far as they were concerned, this day was no
different than all the rest ordinary Tuesday morning, or so
(16:02):
it seemed. Tarah refused the mace her mother suggested she
carry along with her following the alleged stalker incident, and
insisted her mother was just being paranoid. Sarah had a
date to play tennis with her boyfriend at twelve thirty
that afternoon and asked her mother to come and pick
her up if she wasn't home by noon. When eleven
(16:22):
thirty hit and still no sign of Tara, her mother, Patty,
set out to go and pick her up. As plan,
she drove the usual route, but this time Tara was
nowhere to be found. This was long before the days
of cell phones, so Patty wasn't able to just call
her daughter and ask where she was or why she
wasn't where she was supposed to be. However, this was
(16:44):
immediately concerning for Patty, and she contacted the authorities pretty
much right away and reported her daughter as missing. As
they investigated further and searched along the route Tara was
known to have been writing that day, they found pieces
of her sony walkmen a cassette tape. Though there was
no way of knowing for sure that these items belonged
to Tara, the family were pretty convinced, as they knew
(17:07):
what her belongings looked like. Tara was a creature of
habit and brought along the same walkman, cassette player, and
tape with her almost every single day. Terah's family believed
that she might have purposely dropped these items to not
only mark her trail, but to alert whoever came looking
for that she was in some kind of danger. After all,
(17:28):
there would be no other reason for her to have
just left her stuff broken and lying on the side
of the road. During the investigation, several people came forward
and said that they had indeed seen Tera that morning
riding her bicycle along the route where items were later found.
Her bicycle, to this day, has never been located. No
(17:49):
one witnessed her presumed debduction, however, and there weren't many
clues other than the people who claimed to have seen
her and the broken walkman scattered around the area where
she was last seen by several passers by. There were
several witnesses who said they saw a light colored nineteen
fifty three Ford pickup truck with a camper shelf following her,
but the authorities were never able to locate.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
The owner of the vehicle.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
It's unknown whether or not its connected to Terr's disappearance.
Tarre's case went cold fairly quickly, and her family and
loved ones were left with no answers and the perpetual
fear that terror would be found to cease somewhere, along
with the perpetual hope that she would once again come
walking through the front door someday. That brings us to
June of nineteen eighty nine, when it seemed that new
(18:35):
life was breathed back into the case when terrifying new
evidence was possibly found in the parking lot of a
convenience store in Fort Saint Joe, Florida. A photograph was
lying on the ground between two vehicles. The woman who
found the photo said it was found in the parking
space of where a white, windowless Toyota cargo van driven
(18:56):
by a man with a mustache believed to be in
his thirties was parked When she arrived at the store. However,
despite the police setting up roadblocks in an attempt to
intercept the vehicle, the man was never caught nor brought
to interrogation. The picture in question was a polaroid which
shows a little boy and a young woman, both bound
and gagged and with terrified looks.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
On their faces.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Because of the duct tape and the gags in their mouth,
it was hard to tell who the image was of.
It was theorized by investigators, however, that the young woman
in the photo was Tera Kalico, and that the boy
was Michael Henley, also of New Mexico, who disappeared in
April of nineteen eighty eight. According to investigators, the picture
(19:39):
had to have been taken after May nineteen eighty nine
because the particular film used in the photograph was not
available until then. The identification of the boy in the photographs,
Michael Henley, seems unlikely because his remains were discovered in
nineteen ninety in the Zuni Mountains, about seven miles from
his family's campsite where he had originally disappeared, and seventy
(20:00):
five miles from where Tara Callico disappeared. There was much
back and forth and conjecture about this polaroid. But in
the end, the standing ruling is that it was not
him in the picture. Please believe he simply wandered off
and sadly died of exposure to the elements. Tara's mother, Patty,
believed that the girl of the picture was in fact
(20:22):
her daughter, though this positive identification was mainly made due
to the scar the woman in the photo had on
her leg, which according to Patty, was identical to one
Tara had in the same exact spot on her leg.
Tara had received this particular scar due to an injury
she suffered from a car accident when she was younger.
In addition, a paperback copy of V. C. Andrew's novel
(20:46):
My Sweet Adrina, said to be one of Tara Callico's
favorite books, can be seen lying next to the woman.
Scotland Yard analyzed the photo and concluded that the woman
was Tara, but a second analysis by the Loss Almost
Sich Laboratory disagreed. An FBI analysis of the photo was inconclusive.
(21:06):
This is where the case seems to take it even
more of bizarre turn. Twenty years after the discovery of
the photograph, which was of course widely shared by media
at the time, pictures of a little boy were sent
to the Port Saint Joe Police Chief David Barnes. He
received two letters, postmarked June tenth and August tenth, two
thousand and nine, from Albuquerque, New Mexico. One letter contained
(21:30):
a photo printed on copy paper of a young boy
with sandy brown hair. Someone had drawn a black band
in inco on the photo over the boy's mouth, as
if it were covered in tape, like in the nineteen
eighty nine polaroid. It seems whoever since the photos was
alluding to the fact that the boy in the original
photograph found all of those years ago was Michael Henley.
(21:52):
After all, this has never been officially confirmed. However, the
second letter contains an original image of the boy. On
August twelfth, the Star newspaper in Port Saint Joe received
a third letter, also postmarked in Albuquerque on August tenth,
and depicting the same image of a boy with black
marker drawn over his mouth. None of the letters contained
(22:15):
a return address or a note indicating the child's identity,
making the officials there believe it may have something to
do with the disappearance of Tara Calico. The letters were
sent in around the same time, a self proclaimed psychic
called the detective about Tara, saying she had met a
runaway in California with whom she worked in a strip
club with who eventually wound up murdered. The caller said
(22:38):
she had dreams suggesting the runaway may have been Tara
Calico and that she may be buried somewhere in California.
Though it was a long shot and there was no
real location given publicly as to where this alleged psychic
said the girl could possibly be buried. The police must
have had some additional information, as they did conduct searches
and reported that the search is led to nothing and
(23:00):
no bodies at all were found, not of Tara Calico
or anyone else. Additionally, these photos were given to the
FBI for further investigation in hope of finding fingerprints or
possible DNA evidence. Twenty years after she disappeared that faithful day,
in September of nineteen eighty eight, the sheriff of Valencia County,
(23:21):
California at the time, Renee Rivera, reported that he had
received what he believed to be credible information that finally
explained what had happened to Tara. This information alleged that
some boys who knew her drove up behind her in
a truck and some form of car accident followed. Tara
later died, and those responsible covered up the crime. Rivera
(23:43):
states he knows the names of those involved, but that
without a body he can't make a case. He hasn't
released whatever evidence has led him to this conclusion. No
rest have been made and the case remains open. Tara's stepfather,
John Dole, has disputed these claims, saying that the chef
should not have made these comments, that he was not
(24:04):
willing to arrest anyone, and that strong circumstantial evidence should
be enough for conviction. Two other polaroid photographs, possibly of Tara,
have surfaced over the years. The first was found near
a construction site in Monticito, California, and in a blurry
photo of a girl's face with tape covering her mouth
and light blue striped fabric behind her, similar to that
(24:26):
on the pillow in the Toyota van photo. It was
taken on film that was not available until June nineteen
eighty nine. The second photo shows a woman loosely bound
in gauze, her eyes covered with more gauze and large
black framed glasses with a male passenger beside her on
an Amtrak train. For this photo, the film used was
(24:47):
not available until February nineteen ninety. Tara's mother believed the
first one was Tara, but thought that the second may
have been some kind of sick joke. Her sister stated
they had a striking, uncalming resemblance. As for me, I
will not rule them out, but keep in mind our
families had to identify many other photographs, and all but
(25:10):
those three were ruled out. In October twenty thirteen, a
six person task force was established to reinvestigate the disappearance.
As of twenty seventeen, no arrest had been made and
the case remained open. On October first, twenty nineteen, the
FBI announced that they are offering a reward of up
to twenty thousand dollars for precise details leading to the
(25:33):
identification or location of terror Lee Calico and information leading
to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for her disappearance.
In September twenty twenty one, the Valency County Sheriff's Office
and the New Mexico State Police issued a statement that
they have a new lead in the case and that
the focus of a sealed warrant for an unknown private
(25:55):
residence located within Valencia County has been issued. However, no
further details were provided and there have been no additional
updates since that time. So what happened to Tarah Calico?
Is it possible some boys she knew, possibly from her
neighborhood or school, decided to try and scare her, but
took it too far and accidentally ran her over and
(26:16):
killed her, leading them to then having to cover it
up and get rid of her body and bicycle. As
Sheriff Brevera believes, If this is the case, then why
wasn't the witness or witnesses who allegedly came forward to
him with this information then called in to testify? As
Tara's stepfather stated, the circumstantial evidence should have been enough
(26:38):
for conviction.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Is it possible that her mother was.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Right and perhaps someone had been stalking the two of
them and saw Tara alone deciding to take the opportunity
to abduct her right there on the side of the
road were any of the bizarre photographs handed in actually
of Tara? What was the new lead in the case
back in twenty nineteen, and that's Why has nothing ever
come of this alleged search warrant on the private residence.
(27:05):
These are questions we hope one day will be answered,
If for nothing else, then that Tara's family could at
least begin to heal. Maybe one day justice will be
served and the facts of what happened to young Tara
Calico all those years ago when she was simply going
for a bike ride and listening to some of her
favorite music in her walkman will come to light and
(27:27):
someone will be held accounted. As always, will bring you
any updates to come to light as soon as we
receive them. Hello, friends, Steve's talking here with you. Welcome
to our latest video. Today's episode, we're going to bring
you the strange vanishing of a filmmaker in the woods. Now,
(27:51):
we've previously covered this case in one of our compilations,
but today we're going to do a little deeper dive.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Join me.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Let's take a walk and see. The woods can be
a beautiful and mystifying place where all sorts of wonder
and fun seem to call us sometimes, and when we
hear that call, most of us can't help but heat it.
What happens though, when it's darkness beckoning to us out
there in those densely wood and oftentimes civilizationless places, at
(28:21):
the end of the day, we still can't resist the
urge to go. They say that the hours or even
days leading up to person's disappearance will give investigators at
least in inkling as to what could have possibly happened
to a person. And it's true that in most missing
person cases, even those without an official ending, they all
have some sort of order to them, as in, the
(28:43):
person did this for this reason, and then did that
for that reason, and then something happened. Every once in
a while, though, we come across something truly bizarre and
a real life mystery, when someone does something baffling and
unexplainable right before they vanished off the face of the earth,
never to be seen or heard from again, and leaving
everyone scratching their heads as to what could have led
(29:04):
the person to behave in such a strange manner, most
often completely inconsistent with how they presented themselves day to
day to the people around them. Folks, here's one of
those cases. Let's know what you think in the comments below.
Terence schmil Woods Junior, at just twenty six years old,
had made quite the name for himself with his quick
(29:24):
success as a filmmaker. Though educated in England, he was
a resident of Capitol Heights, Maryland. In the United States,
he worked on many documentary type films and numerous TV programs,
some of which had him traveling to and working in
exotic places like Turkey and Alaska, and in these places
he would be even more secluded, sometimes out in the
(29:45):
field filming in the farthest long parts of these respective places.
He was not only used to the great outdoors, but
also used to working in the streniout conditions they often provided,
and was said to never even break a sweat when
he would find out that next far out of the
way place he would be shooting. He loved the adventure
and the rush of it all. He definitely wasn't opposed
(30:07):
or a stranger to roughing it out there. In twenty
eighteen was no exception. Terrence was working for the London
based production company called Raw TV, who win the States
Made Know Best for their show on the Discovery Channel
called gold Rush. In October of that same year, he
was asked to go out into the wilderness of Montana
and Idaho for a few weeks to work on a
(30:29):
documentary for the British show Whitewater. The episode he would
be filming for was one about a place in the
heart of north central Idaho in the nez Peris Clearwater
National Forest, and more specifically a sort of well known
and somewhat legendary abandoned gold mine called Penman Mine. Terrence
was one of thirteen crew members, including himself, and at
(30:50):
first things seemed to be going fine and everything was
totally normal. He was said to be in good spirits
and nothing was out of the ordinary with him, or
really at all at first. That is, it didn't take long, though,
for things to take a somewhat remarkable term for the
bizarre and strange, specifically regarding Terrence Woods Junior, on October fifth,
(31:12):
twenty eighteen. The entire crew is that the mine filming
for the whole day. Terrence and other members of the
crew were experienced and fully equipped to handle the rugged
and somewhat treacherous mountainous terrain. Most of the crew schalk
Terrence's being unusually quiet that day to tiredness, as they
were all feeling a little exhausted after spending the whole
day out in this isolated and abandoned and somewhat unfamiliar place.
(31:36):
But they were done filming, and as they began to
pack everything up for that day, Terrence would suddenly and
seemingly out of nowhere, do something very strange that no
one could explain or make any sense of. He was
having a conversation with one of the miners, and according
to witness who later came forward and gave a statement
as to what he had seen transpire, Terrence excused himself
(31:56):
from that conversation by saying that he had to go
and answer the call of nature. Our witness watched from
a nearby van, and here's what he also reported. He
says that out of nowhere, he was struggled this seemingly
random and strange gut feeling to look over to the
cliff where Terrence had just been standing. That's when he
says he noticed that Terrence wasn't there. All that was
(32:18):
left was the radio that he had been using, just
left there on the ground. The witness said he immediately
jumped out of the van and ran over to the
cliff because he thought Terrence had somehow accidentally fallen off
of it. He was shocked to discover though as he
stood there looking down over this extremely high cliff, and
Terrence was already approximately fifteen feet down it, and that
(32:38):
he hadn't fallen, but had taken off running. He remembered
thinking that he had never in his life seen anyone
run that fast. He turned and yelled to some other
crew members, telling them all to get into a van
and drive down to the main road. The idea was
to cut Terrence off at this road and find out
what the world was going on. The witness took off
running after his friend he was going out, but Terrence
(33:00):
didn't even look back. This witness had extensive search and
rescue training and stopped his pursuit for fear that if
Terrence were, for whatever reason scared, chasing after him could
make him even more fearful. It was a very confusing scene.
He said that when he had finally gotten back up
to cliff, the crew who had driven to the main
road to cut Terrence off hadn't seen him. It was
(33:22):
as though he had blinked out of existence somewhere between
where the witness had left.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Him and where the main road was.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
The witness further claims the crew then searched and once
they found a house with a telephone they called for
help and reported Terrence's missing. Terrence had taken his cell
phone with him when he took off Rounting. He left
behind his two way radio and his backpack containing all
of his belonging. He had no supplies, and even though
he had his cell phone, there was no service out
there in the middle of nowhere. By the time authority
(33:51):
showed up, it was nearly dark and everyone was concerned
as to how he would survive.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Overnight.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
A preliminary search in the immediate area was conducted, but
when nothing useful was found due to how dark it
was out there, the search would be haulted until first light.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
In the morning.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Overnight that night, a fresh sheet of snow had fallen.
But during the search, which consisted of helicopters, search dogs,
and infrared camera technology, not even a footprint was found,
and no one was any closer to figuring out what
in the world had happened to Terrence Woods Junior. By
the end of the first search day, the search team
member even stated quote it's as if he had never
(34:29):
been there at all.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Quote.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
After a week, the official search was called off, but
not without some very bizarre clues that would surface. First
it was found that though his job called for him
to be an Idaho until sometime in mid November, Harnson
recently sent a text message to his father informing him
that he would be returning home on October tenth. He
did not elaborate as to why he would be cutting
(34:53):
his trip short, and Terrence had never before left a
job early, regardless of circumstances, location, or anything else from
that matter. After speaking to some of his friends and family,
investigators found that Terrence had been extremely anxious over this shoot.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
This was something else.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
That never happened before. He loved the outdoors and he
loved his job, so he never had any problems or
issues with getting the work done, regardless of what it took.
His behavior and anxiety about it was enough to raise
some eyebrows and make his loved ones feel the investigators
should know about it after the fact. Indeed, in the
weeks leading up to the shoot, Terrence had told those
(35:31):
closest to him that he didn't even want to go
on the trip, But again, he didn't elaborate as to
why he felt this way, and everyone just let it
go and thought nothing more of it until after his disappearance.
It was extremely strange, all this sudden anxiety and being
unsure as the only thing he has said to have
loved more than his job, with the adventures in the
(35:52):
places that it often took him, these strange and exotic,
though oftentimes isolated places. A sister, Charnee, disagrees with the
other's narrative, however, and said that she spoke to her
brother right before he left and he seemed absolutely fine
to her. She stated that the whole situation seemed somehow
unusual to her, and that since she wasn't there and
(36:12):
all she had to go on was what the other
crew who were with him that day were saying, she
didn't really know what to think. She claimed she and
Terrence spoke often and if they told each other basically everything,
so if there was something wrong or something bothering Terence,
he would have certainly mentioned it to her and further
elaborated on it, she says, though he didn't. She disagrees
(36:33):
that he was anxious leading him to the trip, and
also that he was expressing disinterest in going at all.
She stated, quote, He's traveled around the world, he really
likes to do TV. He's a loving person and caring
an all around good person end quote. On the first
morning of their first day filming, Terrence had done something
which at the time his father hadn't thought anything more of,
(36:56):
but in retrospect said it seemed rather eerie.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
When all was said and done, it.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Seems Terrence had sent him a text message of some
video footage which was described as creepy.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Of a river flowing through the canyon.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
There was no text or explanation as to why I
was sending this or what it was supposed to mean.
It was brought up afterwards that Terrence and the production
manager weren't seeing eye to eye on some things and
had been having some disagreements, but it's not known if
this is or isn't connected to his disappearance. The family
orchestrated searches utilizing volunteers, and posted flyers with terrence picture
(37:30):
all over the region. Hope quickly faded, however, that he
had made it out of the area alive, mainly due
to the harsh and heavy snowfall that had almost immediately
upon his vanishing rolled through the expands. His family, those
closest to him said that Terrence had absolutely no history
of any sort of Middle ivless either, and everyone was
completely baffled as to why he just up and ran
(37:50):
down the cliff that way, never looking back. Admittedly, it
would be fairly easy to get lost or turned around
in this particulary of mountains and treacherous terrain, but the
question still remains of what in the world made him
run in the first place. Was he running towards something
or was he running away from it? If it was
either of those things, then what exactly was he running
(38:13):
to or from. Unfortunately, no one knows the answers to
these questions still to this day, and Terence Woods Junior
has never been seen or heard from again, and no
remains or further evidence or clues have ever surfaced. His
family have since theorized that perhaps he was either fearful
of one or more of the crew members there with
him that day, or fearful due to the actions of
(38:33):
the same. Authorities have ruled out this theory, though, or
any theory stating that someone else on the crew is involved,
and have been adamant that there is absolutely no sign
whatsoever of foul play. They believed that he had suffered
some sort of random mental breakdown and either just randomly
up and booked it down the Cliff, or that he
had long been planning to take his own life out
(38:54):
there where he knew nobody would easily find him. However,
we would like to point out that none of this
is in keeping with Terrence's usual personality or mental and
medical history. The only option left, at least to those
of us who have seen situations like this before, albeit
not very often. It's what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once stated,
(39:14):
when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth. Could some other worldly,
paranormal or even extraterrestrial.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Force have been at play here?
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Could he be lured out there into the woods somewhere
and then possibly passed through a portal of some sort.
Obviously this is just speculation, and there isn't and could
be no evidence for this one way or the other,
but it is something we should all consider, given what
we know in this channel about what's happening all over
the world in national parks and forested wooded areas. Could
(39:48):
Terrence have been supersensitive of these types of things and
perhaps saw something that no one else could. Did he
see something only meant for him to see? We just
don't know, and Terrence's loved ones still struggle with the
details of the disappearance and the overall vanishing in general.
His father has allegedly accused the police of not properly
investigating the case due to alleged racism. However, the police
(40:12):
stand by their statement that they did all they could
and did exactly what they would have done for anyone
in the same circumstance. We now leave it up to you.
What do you think happened to Terence Woods Junior on
that day back in October twenty eighteenth when he suddenly
seemingly went from a perfectly normal, rather successful filmmaker to
another missing person who seemingly vanished into thin air and
(40:36):
without a trace, under very strange and bizarre circumstances. His
world and the world of those closest to him changed
literally in the blink of an eye, and not knowing
the lie or how of that has got to be
one of the most painful and frustrating things in the world.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Risk family.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Today, the search picking back up to find a field
geologist who's been missing for more than a month now.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Daniel Robinson has been missing for nearly two months.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
It has been three months since a Valley man went missing.
A man who disappeared in neighboring Arizona nearly three months
ago is still nowhere to be found. Twenty four year
old Daniel Robinson's car was found along with some of
his belongings, but no sign of Daniel, and then a
human skull was discovered near the car, but that only
raised more questions when testing showed it didn't belong to him.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
Hello, friends, today we're going to be looking into the
strange disappearance of Daniel Robinson. Daniel Robinson, twenty four year
old geologist from Columbia, South Carolina, has been missing since
he was last seen leaving a job site in the
area of Sun Valley Parkway and Cactus Road on June
(41:51):
twenty third, twenty twenty one. Later that day, he was
reported missing, and nobody has seen or heard from him since.
Daniel graduated from the College of Charleston in South Carolina
with a degree in geology. In twenty eighteen, Missing Persons
flyer was released to the public, and investigators of the
(42:11):
Buckeye Police Department began speaking with friends and family to
determine where Robinson may have gone. According to loved ones
and those who knew him best. There was no indications
that Daniel had wanted to leave his life behind or
harm himself in any way. However, it was also stated
to be very unlike him to not have told anyone
(42:32):
why he was leaving the job site in the middle
of the.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Day or where he was going.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Cell Phone and financial records have provided no indication of
Robinson's possible whereabouts. According to the police, Robinson was last
seen driving his twenty seventeen Jeep for Renegae, heading west
further into the desert area of Sun Valley Parkway, just
north of Cactus Road in Buckeye. While reviewing phone records,
(42:58):
investigators did notice a single ping that came from his
cell phone, but there was no available data as to
the location because, as they stated, the phone was either
out of range or turned off. It did not appear
as though Daniel had made any calls or texts after
leaving the job site on.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
That fateful June day.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
However, on the nineteenth of July, a rancher who owned
property about four miles southwest from the job site where
Daniel was last seen, made a call to the police
and reported having found what looked like Daniel's jeep on
his property, wrecked and abandoned. Daniel was nowhere around as
far as the man could tell. It was determined fairly
(43:39):
quickly to indeed be Daniel's jeep and its hat was
found that was very concerning. It was stuck in a
deep ravine with significant damage and appeared to have rolled
and landed on its side, Buckeye Police said at that time,
adding that Robinson's cell phone, wallet, keys, and clothing were
all found at the scene. The vehicles airbags had also deployed.
(44:06):
The buck Eye Police Department also stated that because of
the rough terrain, the vehicle was not clearly visible to
cruise searching by air and on foot, the detectives in
charge of the case immediately began an official and thorough
search around the area where the vehicle was found. The
employed search dogs, aerial helicopter searches, and even searched by foot,
(44:27):
all to no avail. Daniel Robinson, it seems, had disappeared
without a trace. Police reported that they had searched an
area of more than seventy square miles together with outside
agencies and utilized ATVs to daver or dogs, a helicopter
and even a drone, although no further evidence of Daniel
(44:50):
or even a hint as to what happened to him
other than the wrecked vehicle was found anywhere. When a
statement issued after the initial search, buck Eye Police added
that but based on the personal effects found in Daniel's vehicle,
no foul play is suspected. Daniel's family and the private
investigator that they've hired disagree. For one, the private investigator
(45:13):
believes that Daniels jeep had been crashed several times in
different locations before coming to rest on its site in
the Ravine. Another thing that they found extremely suspicious is
that the very clothes Daniel was wearing, every single item,
was found in a pile mere feet away from his
crash jeep.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
On July thirty first.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
There was a human skull found a bit south of
the area where his jeep was recovered, but it was
later forensically determined to not be that of Daniel Robinson.
No further human remains of any kind were found in
the search area or around the area where the skull
was found. Daniel had recently moved to Phoenix for work,
and it wasn't at all unusual for the job to
(45:56):
have him working on sites in remote desert locations, often
in extreme conditions. His father, David Robinson second, has traveled
from his home in South Carolina to continue the search
for his son and for answers as to what happened.
He's also set up a gofunding page to pay for
a private investigator, along with flyers, continued searches, and other expenses.
(46:20):
In mid July, Daniel's father claimed that the Buckeye Police
Department stopped putting in the necessary effort. He even began
organizing search parties of his own and brought in his
own private investigator and forensic analysis team. He's launched two
websites and a Twitter page to help streamline the project.
(46:40):
David Robinson's efforts are ongoing, with a volunteer party set
to conduct a search on October second. He is still
calling on the Buckeye Police Department to revamp the efforts
and conduct a more thorough investigation into Daniel's disappearance. Daniel
Robinson is described as five foot eight with black hair
and brown eyes.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
Is missing a right forearm and hand.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
Anyone with information can submit tips by Robinson's website, which
you can find in the description, or by contacting the
Buckeye Police Department at six two three three four nine
six four zero zero. Well, there you have it, folks.
What do you think of this strange disappearance? Why would
(47:26):
Daniel shed all his clothing and take off into the desert?
You perhaps have a head injury or was he forced
to do this by someone else? Was this purely an accident,
or was there something more in the Fairy's going on?
Why would Daniel suddenly leave a job site in the
middle of work at this time? None of this makes
(47:47):
any sense. I look forward to reading your comments, but
we do ask that you please keep it friendly and respectful.
Many times the family and friends of these missing persons
watch these videos and read the commentsation. Please don't say
anything you wouldn't want to read if this was your
friend or family member loved one being discussed in the meanwhile,
(48:12):
be good to yourselves and each other. Be careful out there.
I'll see you just a little farther on down the trail.
I'm Steve Stockton, and I'll talk to you next time.
Ronnette Swanson is joining us. She is the mother of
Brandon Swanson joining us from Minnesota. Thank you so much
for joining us from Marshall, Minnesota. Actually, first of all,
I want to ask you, miss Swanson, you were on
the phone with your son a large part of those
early hours when you were trying to find him and
he was trying to find you. He wasn't hurt at all, right,
(00:21):
I mean the car went into a ditch, but he
seemed to be okay.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh, correct, he said he was fine, that he was
not injured. And you know, in fact, when we did
find his vehicle, there was no damage to it. It
was simply muddy from being on a gravel road, but
no damage to the vehicle.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
What was it like that night to be going through
this and so close to your son, but so far
from your son?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah? You know, as you know, as Brandon tried to
explain to us where his location was, and he was
extremely sure of himself. He felt confident in where he
was at and that we were the ones that were
confused about, you know, how to get to him. And
(01:12):
as the conversation went on, is the minutes ticked by
y you know? It? It be it came to a
point where it's as long as Brandon was on the phone,
as long as he was talking, as long as we
had contact, it was okay. We would be okay. But
the minute that he that that call dropped, I just
(01:33):
became sick. I knew it was wrong. I knew it
was very, very bad, and just could hardly fathom, you know,
what was happening at that point.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Well, I can imagine, I mean to to take a
breath now, when the call just hung up like that,
with Brandon in dire distress, I mean, y, those were
the words that he seemed to utter when he said, Oh,
did you try to call him after that?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
And what happened?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Oh? Yes, we did, you know, we we didn't immediately
hang up the phone. We you know, we called his name.
We tried to, you know, thinking that he still had
the phone, that it was very near him, that he
could pick it up. We'd he'd hear our voice, and
we called out to him several times and we realized,
you know, he's he's not there, So we did We
(02:24):
called him back several times, thinking you know, he'll he'll
see the phone light up, even if he didn't have
it on ring. He would see his phone light up
when the call came in and he'd find it, you know,
he'd answer the call, and it just didn't happen time
and again, just it just went unanswered.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Hello friends, Steve Stockton here with you in this video
we bring you the strange case of Brandon Swanson. On
the night of May third teenth, two thousand and eight,
nineteen year old Brandon Swanson from Marshall, Minnesota, went out
with some friends to have a few drinks and some fun.
It was a Tuesday night, but Brandon had just completed
(03:11):
his first year of Minnesota West Community and Technical College
that day, so he and his friends who went to
the nearby town of Lynn to hang out and celebrate.
Between ten thirty and eleven PM, Brandon left the friends
he originally set out with and drove to another friend's
house in Camby to say goodbye to yet another friend.
His friends who were with him and Lynn said that
(03:32):
when he got into his car to make the short drive,
he wasn't intoxicated, and other witnesses who saw him that
night all agreed he was not by any means intoxicated
when he arrived at the friend's house either. They said
he had one shot of whiskey and then left some
time after midnight to head back to Marshall. Presumably he
was headed home at that point. The direct route from
(03:52):
Camby to Marshall is a thirty minute drive on Highway
sixty eight. Technically the next day, on May fourteenth, that
around one thirty of the morning, Brandon got his car
stuck in a ditch along the gravel road. He tried
calling multiple friends for help, but unfortunately no one answered
the calls, and Brandon remained stuck on the side of
the road. Around one point fifty four am, Brandon called
(04:15):
his parents and told him where he was and what
had happened, and asked if they could come and get him,
as he needed a ride home. His parents, Annette and
Brian Swanson, agreed to come and pick him up and
ask where he was so they knew where to go
to find him. He told them he was between Marshall
and Lynn, and he assured them he wasn't injured at all,
but just wanted to get home. When his parents arrived
(04:36):
at the location Brandon had given him, he wasn't there
and was nowhere in sight. His mother called him on
his cell phone and the two decided to start flashing
their lights to alert the other of where they were.
They all assumed at this point that they must have
been very close to one another but were just missing
the other somehow Annette could hear her son flashing his lights,
and she informed him she was doing the same. We're
(05:00):
flashing our lights. We're flashing our lights, to which Brandon replied,
don't you see me. Both Annette and Brandon were very
frustrated at this point, and Brandon ended up hanging up
on his mother. She immediately called him back with the
intention of apologizing to him for getting worked up a
bit herself. Brandon answered and told his mother that he
(05:20):
could see the town's lights referring to Lynn, and that
he was just going to start walking in the direction
of town. He told her to just meet him in
the parking lot of a local tavern in the town
of Lynn. She agreed to meet him there. As his
parents drove to the tavern, they maintained contact with Brandon,
with Brian staying on the phone with him.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Brandon told his father he was going.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
To cut through some fields to take a kind of
shortcut and save some time on his trip. Since he
was walking along the way. Brandon was telling his father
over the phone what he was seeing and passing. He
walked on gravel roads, saw two fence lines, and heard
running water. About forty seven minutes into the car, Brandon
yelled and then the call disconnected. Brian Swanson later said
(06:06):
it sounded as though his son had fallen down or
possibly slipped. Brian Annette tried repeatedly to call Brandon back,
but he never answered the phone again. It would just
ring and ring until sometime the next day, when the
calls started going straight to voicemail and it was assumed
that the phone had died. Brandon Swanson hasn't been seen
or heard from since the end of that faithful call
(06:27):
with his father that night. That same morning, May fourteenth,
two thousand and eight, Brandon's parents called the police to
report him as missing. As it's usually the case, the
police didn't take the call very seriously, insisted that they
wait a little while, as it wasn't unusual for young
men Brandon's age to go missing voluntarily for a bit
(06:48):
without telling their parents. Later on in the day, cell
phone records for Brandon's phone were retrieved, and they showed
his last things were from near Porter Minnesota, which is
about twenty five away from where he seemed to have
thought he was in Lynn. There was no way the
town he saw was Lynn. Shortly before noon, the authorities
(07:08):
began their official search for Brandon. At around twelve thirty PM,
his vehicle, a Chevrolet Lumina, was found in a ditch
bordering the towns of Lincoln and Yellow Medicine. Lincoln County
Sheriff Jack Mazeki stated that the ditch was positioned where
Brandon wouldn't have been able to gain any traction to
be able to drive himself out of it. There was
(07:29):
no visible damage to the vehicle and no signs of
foul play or injury at the scene. In the months
following his disappearance, law enforcement conducted searches on horseback, using
ATVs and even foot searchers, but to no avail. They
even utilized sniffer dogs and searched around and near several
bodies of water. The dogs ended up leading their handlers
(07:51):
to the edge of the Yellow Medicine River, which led
authorities to come to the conclusion that Brandon had somehow
fallen into the water. This led them to a conduct
extensive searches in the river but they came up empty
every time. Because of this, they then concluded that if
Brandon did indeed fall into the water, he must have
made his way back out of it at some point
(08:11):
and didn't drown. They believed he just got himself out
of the river and continued on his way walking. Their
conclusion then was that he must have died of hypothermia
due to the temperature dropping below forty degrees on the
night that he went missing. Search dogs also alerted to
human remains being near Mud Creek. However, authorities never found
any remains at all in this area, let alone Brandon's.
(08:35):
Authorities believed Brandon could have been anywhere within one hundred
and twenty two square mile radius of the river ten
years after he seemingly disappeared into thin air the Yellow
Medicine County Sheriff Bill flood. Instead, it's a huge area
if you take that immediate area where the car was
and in the timeframe when he was talking on the
phone with his parents, Who knows what direction he went
(08:58):
and how far he traveled. A volunteer firefighter named Darren E.
Delzer came up with his own theory as to what
could have happened to Brandon. He took everything he had
learned about the case and put it all together. He
noted that Brandon always wore glasses because he was legally
blind in his left eye. However, on the morning he
went missing, he'd left his glasses in his car. Based
(09:21):
on Darren's theory, we could assume Brandon also left him
in his car when he left in the ditch to
start walking to go and meet his parents, and therefore
wasn't wearing them the whole time he was on the
phone with his folks that night. He made a note
of the fact that right before Brandon said oh shit
and possibly slipped when the phone disconnected with the final time,
he also said, not another fence. He concluded that Brandon
(09:45):
must have fallen into an unmarked well or system, which
are very common in rural areas like the ones where
Brandon went missing. There are theories such as Brandon simply
left on purpose and orchestrated the whole disappearance. This theory
allegescy living under an assumed identity somewhere. Most people don't
give this theory much credit, as if you remember, Brandon
(10:07):
was calling his parents and several friends that night trying
to find someone.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
To help him.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
It makes more sense he really was trying to get
help that night, and not trying to purposely disappear. Theories
of Brandon suffering some kind of nervous or mental breakdown
also don't hold much water, as his parents say he
was loocid while on the phone with him, and also
that he had no history of any kind of mental illness.
The initial theory that he had drowned and the theory
(10:33):
that followed stating that he may have made it back
out of the water and then died of hypothermia has
been highly criticized as well. His phone was working for
quite a while after the call with his father disconnected.
It's been said that if the phone had entered the water,
which it presumably would have since Brian was holding it
when this theory states he went into the water, it
(10:53):
would have immediately started going to boysmail right away, as
it wasn't waterproof and would have been immediately broken. Sure,
some people counted that by saying that the phone could
have fallen onto the ground when Brandon slipped into the water.
But if that was the case, then why was the
phone never found? Remember, there were extensive searches in and
around all the bodies of water in a large area
(11:15):
surrounding where Brandon's car was found and where he alleged
he was the night he went missing, so it's safe
to assume here that the phone would have been found
at some point. It simply wasn't. All of the abandoned
buildings in the area were also searched, and no human
remains and none of Brandon's personal facts were found in
any of them. This discredits the theory that Brandon might
(11:37):
have sought refuge and shelter in one of them and
died some other way while inside. Yet another theory is
that perhaps Brandon was involved in a hit and run
or otherwise abducted, and that his remains were disposed of
by the perpetrators. However, there's no evidence at all to
prove this theory or that foul play was involved in
any way in Brandon's case. Brandon's parents believe their son's
(12:00):
disappearance might have been solved had police immediately started investigating
instead of telling them to wait it out for a while.
There's no law that says there needs to be a
waiting period for someone to be able to be reported
as missing. However, unofficially of course, priority is usually given
to cases where a foul play is obvious, where people
are mentally or physically impaired, and when younger children are involved.
(12:23):
A missing eighteen year old who disappeared after night out
drinking with some friends just didn't seem too important to
the police until hours after the fact, and so much
precious time had been wasted. An Ad and Brian Swanson
proposed a law be written up in their son's name,
Brandon's Law, which would quote require law enforcement to take
a missing person's report without delay after notification of someone
(12:46):
missing under dangerous circumstances, no matter the missing person's age,
immediately conduct a preliminary investigation to determine if the person
is missing and whether the person is in danger, and
promptly notify all other law enforcement agencies of the situation.
Brandon's Law, which was sponsored by former House Minority Leader
(13:07):
Marty Seifert and Senator Dennis Frederickson, was signed into law
by Minnesota's then Governor Tim Paulini on May seventh, two
thousand and nine. The law officially went into effect on
July first, two thousand and nine. This still leaves one
very big question, though, what happened to Brandon Swanson? How
(13:27):
could he have been so off about where he was
when he was telling his parents he was near Lynn
and they were flashing their lights at each other but
not seeing one another. What led him to yell the
expletive into the phone and hang up? Why wasn't his
phone or any of his other belongings ever found? There
has literally been no trace of him since the last
time he was heard shouting into the phone that faithful night. Hello, friends,
(13:53):
welcome to our latest video. Today we're going to be
discussing the frightening disappearance Tara Calico. Now, many times in
this community we come across cases that are so incredibly
baffling we struggle with their humanity and wondering how something
like this could actually happen. While we cover hundreds of
(14:15):
cases on this channel of people who have gone missing,
some who have been found unfortunately deceased, and still others
who have no trace at all has ever been found.
As they say, the devil is in the details. It's
the smallest details. Sometimes they can either make or break
a case, or that can leave us scratching our heads
(14:35):
and being even more confused than when we first started
out The disappearance of Tara Calico is one of those
cases where you kind of feel like you're right on
the brink of having the answers, only to find the
next bit of information bringing you right back around to
the beginning, right back at square one. This sad and
(14:56):
frightening case is one of thousands where the person was
abducted had never seen or heard from again. However, it's
the little clues along the way which makes this case
stand out so much. Tarah Calico was from Berlin, New Mexico,
and this is where her home was when she left
it on the morning of September thirtieth, nineteen eighty eight.
(15:19):
Tara was nineteen years old at the time and had
her whole life ahead of her. She had no idea
that when she went out for a usual bike ride
at nine thirty that morning, and it would turn out
to be the last time she would ever see her
home again. Her mother rode with her in the morning's
up until very recently, when she felt that two were
being stalked by passing motorists and was too scared to
(15:40):
continue on these morning rides with her daughter. This would
be a strange and sad coincidence and foreboding that neither
mother nor daughter had any idea would be so relevant
and possibly close to the truth until it was too late.
As far as they were concerned, this day was no
different than all the rest ordinary Tuesday morning, or so
(16:02):
it seemed. Tarah refused the mace her mother suggested she
carry along with her following the alleged stalker incident, and
insisted her mother was just being paranoid. Sarah had a
date to play tennis with her boyfriend at twelve thirty
that afternoon and asked her mother to come and pick
her up if she wasn't home by noon. When eleven
(16:22):
thirty hit and still no sign of Tara, her mother, Patty,
set out to go and pick her up. As plan,
she drove the usual route, but this time Tara was
nowhere to be found. This was long before the days
of cell phones, so Patty wasn't able to just call
her daughter and ask where she was or why she
wasn't where she was supposed to be. However, this was
(16:44):
immediately concerning for Patty, and she contacted the authorities pretty
much right away and reported her daughter as missing. As
they investigated further and searched along the route Tara was
known to have been writing that day, they found pieces
of her sony walkmen a cassette tape. Though there was
no way of knowing for sure that these items belonged
to Tara, the family were pretty convinced, as they knew
(17:07):
what her belongings looked like. Tara was a creature of
habit and brought along the same walkman, cassette player, and
tape with her almost every single day. Terah's family believed
that she might have purposely dropped these items to not
only mark her trail, but to alert whoever came looking
for that she was in some kind of danger. After all,
(17:28):
there would be no other reason for her to have
just left her stuff broken and lying on the side
of the road. During the investigation, several people came forward
and said that they had indeed seen Tera that morning
riding her bicycle along the route where items were later found.
Her bicycle, to this day, has never been located. No
(17:49):
one witnessed her presumed debduction, however, and there weren't many
clues other than the people who claimed to have seen
her and the broken walkman scattered around the area where
she was last seen by several passers by. There were
several witnesses who said they saw a light colored nineteen
fifty three Ford pickup truck with a camper shelf following her,
but the authorities were never able to locate.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
The owner of the vehicle.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
It's unknown whether or not its connected to Terr's disappearance.
Tarre's case went cold fairly quickly, and her family and
loved ones were left with no answers and the perpetual
fear that terror would be found to cease somewhere, along
with the perpetual hope that she would once again come
walking through the front door someday. That brings us to
June of nineteen eighty nine, when it seemed that new
(18:35):
life was breathed back into the case when terrifying new
evidence was possibly found in the parking lot of a
convenience store in Fort Saint Joe, Florida. A photograph was
lying on the ground between two vehicles. The woman who
found the photo said it was found in the parking
space of where a white, windowless Toyota cargo van driven
(18:56):
by a man with a mustache believed to be in
his thirties was parked When she arrived at the store. However,
despite the police setting up roadblocks in an attempt to
intercept the vehicle, the man was never caught nor brought
to interrogation. The picture in question was a polaroid which
shows a little boy and a young woman, both bound
and gagged and with terrified looks.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
On their faces.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Because of the duct tape and the gags in their mouth,
it was hard to tell who the image was of.
It was theorized by investigators, however, that the young woman
in the photo was Tera Kalico, and that the boy
was Michael Henley, also of New Mexico, who disappeared in
April of nineteen eighty eight. According to investigators, the picture
(19:39):
had to have been taken after May nineteen eighty nine
because the particular film used in the photograph was not
available until then. The identification of the boy in the photographs,
Michael Henley, seems unlikely because his remains were discovered in
nineteen ninety in the Zuni Mountains, about seven miles from
his family's campsite where he had originally disappeared, and seventy
(20:00):
five miles from where Tara Callico disappeared. There was much
back and forth and conjecture about this polaroid. But in
the end, the standing ruling is that it was not
him in the picture. Please believe he simply wandered off
and sadly died of exposure to the elements. Tara's mother, Patty,
believed that the girl of the picture was in fact
(20:22):
her daughter, though this positive identification was mainly made due
to the scar the woman in the photo had on
her leg, which according to Patty, was identical to one
Tara had in the same exact spot on her leg.
Tara had received this particular scar due to an injury
she suffered from a car accident when she was younger.
In addition, a paperback copy of V. C. Andrew's novel
(20:46):
My Sweet Adrina, said to be one of Tara Callico's
favorite books, can be seen lying next to the woman.
Scotland Yard analyzed the photo and concluded that the woman
was Tara, but a second analysis by the Loss Almost
Sich Laboratory disagreed. An FBI analysis of the photo was inconclusive.
(21:06):
This is where the case seems to take it even
more of bizarre turn. Twenty years after the discovery of
the photograph, which was of course widely shared by media
at the time, pictures of a little boy were sent
to the Port Saint Joe Police Chief David Barnes. He
received two letters, postmarked June tenth and August tenth, two
thousand and nine, from Albuquerque, New Mexico. One letter contained
(21:30):
a photo printed on copy paper of a young boy
with sandy brown hair. Someone had drawn a black band
in inco on the photo over the boy's mouth, as
if it were covered in tape, like in the nineteen
eighty nine polaroid. It seems whoever since the photos was
alluding to the fact that the boy in the original
photograph found all of those years ago was Michael Henley.
(21:52):
After all, this has never been officially confirmed. However, the
second letter contains an original image of the boy. On
August twelfth, the Star newspaper in Port Saint Joe received
a third letter, also postmarked in Albuquerque on August tenth,
and depicting the same image of a boy with black
marker drawn over his mouth. None of the letters contained
(22:15):
a return address or a note indicating the child's identity,
making the officials there believe it may have something to
do with the disappearance of Tara Calico. The letters were
sent in around the same time, a self proclaimed psychic
called the detective about Tara, saying she had met a
runaway in California with whom she worked in a strip
club with who eventually wound up murdered. The caller said
(22:38):
she had dreams suggesting the runaway may have been Tara
Calico and that she may be buried somewhere in California.
Though it was a long shot and there was no
real location given publicly as to where this alleged psychic
said the girl could possibly be buried. The police must
have had some additional information, as they did conduct searches
and reported that the search is led to nothing and
(23:00):
no bodies at all were found, not of Tara Calico
or anyone else. Additionally, these photos were given to the
FBI for further investigation in hope of finding fingerprints or
possible DNA evidence. Twenty years after she disappeared that faithful day,
in September of nineteen eighty eight, the sheriff of Valencia County,
(23:21):
California at the time, Renee Rivera, reported that he had
received what he believed to be credible information that finally
explained what had happened to Tara. This information alleged that
some boys who knew her drove up behind her in
a truck and some form of car accident followed. Tara
later died, and those responsible covered up the crime. Rivera
(23:43):
states he knows the names of those involved, but that
without a body he can't make a case. He hasn't
released whatever evidence has led him to this conclusion. No
rest have been made and the case remains open. Tara's stepfather,
John Dole, has disputed these claims, saying that the chef
should not have made these comments, that he was not
(24:04):
willing to arrest anyone, and that strong circumstantial evidence should
be enough for conviction. Two other polaroid photographs, possibly of Tara,
have surfaced over the years. The first was found near
a construction site in Monticito, California, and in a blurry
photo of a girl's face with tape covering her mouth
and light blue striped fabric behind her, similar to that
(24:26):
on the pillow in the Toyota van photo. It was
taken on film that was not available until June nineteen
eighty nine. The second photo shows a woman loosely bound
in gauze, her eyes covered with more gauze and large
black framed glasses with a male passenger beside her on
an Amtrak train. For this photo, the film used was
(24:47):
not available until February nineteen ninety. Tara's mother believed the
first one was Tara, but thought that the second may
have been some kind of sick joke. Her sister stated
they had a striking, uncalming resemblance. As for me, I
will not rule them out, but keep in mind our
families had to identify many other photographs, and all but
(25:10):
those three were ruled out. In October twenty thirteen, a
six person task force was established to reinvestigate the disappearance.
As of twenty seventeen, no arrest had been made and
the case remained open. On October first, twenty nineteen, the
FBI announced that they are offering a reward of up
to twenty thousand dollars for precise details leading to the
(25:33):
identification or location of terror Lee Calico and information leading
to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for her disappearance.
In September twenty twenty one, the Valency County Sheriff's Office
and the New Mexico State Police issued a statement that
they have a new lead in the case and that
the focus of a sealed warrant for an unknown private
(25:55):
residence located within Valencia County has been issued. However, no
further details were provided and there have been no additional
updates since that time. So what happened to Tarah Calico?
Is it possible some boys she knew, possibly from her
neighborhood or school, decided to try and scare her, but
took it too far and accidentally ran her over and
(26:16):
killed her, leading them to then having to cover it
up and get rid of her body and bicycle. As
Sheriff Brevera believes, If this is the case, then why
wasn't the witness or witnesses who allegedly came forward to
him with this information then called in to testify? As
Tara's stepfather stated, the circumstantial evidence should have been enough
(26:38):
for conviction.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Is it possible that her mother was.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Right and perhaps someone had been stalking the two of
them and saw Tara alone deciding to take the opportunity
to abduct her right there on the side of the
road were any of the bizarre photographs handed in actually
of Tara? What was the new lead in the case
back in twenty nineteen, and that's Why has nothing ever
come of this alleged search warrant on the private residence.
(27:05):
These are questions we hope one day will be answered,
If for nothing else, then that Tara's family could at
least begin to heal. Maybe one day justice will be
served and the facts of what happened to young Tara
Calico all those years ago when she was simply going
for a bike ride and listening to some of her
favorite music in her walkman will come to light and
(27:27):
someone will be held accounted. As always, will bring you
any updates to come to light as soon as we
receive them. Hello, friends, Steve's talking here with you. Welcome
to our latest video. Today's episode, we're going to bring
you the strange vanishing of a filmmaker in the woods. Now,
(27:51):
we've previously covered this case in one of our compilations,
but today we're going to do a little deeper dive.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Join me.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Let's take a walk and see. The woods can be
a beautiful and mystifying place where all sorts of wonder
and fun seem to call us sometimes, and when we
hear that call, most of us can't help but heat it.
What happens though, when it's darkness beckoning to us out
there in those densely wood and oftentimes civilizationless places, at
(28:21):
the end of the day, we still can't resist the
urge to go. They say that the hours or even
days leading up to person's disappearance will give investigators at
least in inkling as to what could have possibly happened
to a person. And it's true that in most missing
person cases, even those without an official ending, they all
have some sort of order to them, as in, the
(28:43):
person did this for this reason, and then did that
for that reason, and then something happened. Every once in
a while, though, we come across something truly bizarre and
a real life mystery, when someone does something baffling and
unexplainable right before they vanished off the face of the earth,
never to be seen or heard from again, and leaving
everyone scratching their heads as to what could have led
(29:04):
the person to behave in such a strange manner, most
often completely inconsistent with how they presented themselves day to
day to the people around them. Folks, here's one of
those cases. Let's know what you think in the comments below.
Terence schmil Woods Junior, at just twenty six years old,
had made quite the name for himself with his quick
(29:24):
success as a filmmaker. Though educated in England, he was
a resident of Capitol Heights, Maryland. In the United States,
he worked on many documentary type films and numerous TV programs,
some of which had him traveling to and working in
exotic places like Turkey and Alaska, and in these places
he would be even more secluded, sometimes out in the
(29:45):
field filming in the farthest long parts of these respective places.
He was not only used to the great outdoors, but
also used to working in the streniout conditions they often provided,
and was said to never even break a sweat when
he would find out that next far out of the
way place he would be shooting. He loved the adventure
and the rush of it all. He definitely wasn't opposed
(30:07):
or a stranger to roughing it out there. In twenty
eighteen was no exception. Terrence was working for the London
based production company called Raw TV, who win the States
Made Know Best for their show on the Discovery Channel
called gold Rush. In October of that same year, he
was asked to go out into the wilderness of Montana
and Idaho for a few weeks to work on a
(30:29):
documentary for the British show Whitewater. The episode he would
be filming for was one about a place in the
heart of north central Idaho in the nez Peris Clearwater
National Forest, and more specifically a sort of well known
and somewhat legendary abandoned gold mine called Penman Mine. Terrence
was one of thirteen crew members, including himself, and at
(30:50):
first things seemed to be going fine and everything was
totally normal. He was said to be in good spirits
and nothing was out of the ordinary with him, or
really at all at first. That is, it didn't take long, though,
for things to take a somewhat remarkable term for the
bizarre and strange, specifically regarding Terrence Woods Junior, on October fifth,
(31:12):
twenty eighteen. The entire crew is that the mine filming
for the whole day. Terrence and other members of the
crew were experienced and fully equipped to handle the rugged
and somewhat treacherous mountainous terrain. Most of the crew schalk
Terrence's being unusually quiet that day to tiredness, as they
were all feeling a little exhausted after spending the whole
day out in this isolated and abandoned and somewhat unfamiliar place.
(31:36):
But they were done filming, and as they began to
pack everything up for that day, Terrence would suddenly and
seemingly out of nowhere, do something very strange that no
one could explain or make any sense of. He was
having a conversation with one of the miners, and according
to witness who later came forward and gave a statement
as to what he had seen transpire, Terrence excused himself
(31:56):
from that conversation by saying that he had to go
and answer the call of nature. Our witness watched from
a nearby van, and here's what he also reported. He
says that out of nowhere, he was struggled this seemingly
random and strange gut feeling to look over to the
cliff where Terrence had just been standing. That's when he
says he noticed that Terrence wasn't there. All that was
(32:18):
left was the radio that he had been using, just
left there on the ground. The witness said he immediately
jumped out of the van and ran over to the
cliff because he thought Terrence had somehow accidentally fallen off
of it. He was shocked to discover though as he
stood there looking down over this extremely high cliff, and
Terrence was already approximately fifteen feet down it, and that
(32:38):
he hadn't fallen, but had taken off running. He remembered
thinking that he had never in his life seen anyone
run that fast. He turned and yelled to some other
crew members, telling them all to get into a van
and drive down to the main road. The idea was
to cut Terrence off at this road and find out
what the world was going on. The witness took off
running after his friend he was going out, but Terrence
(33:00):
didn't even look back. This witness had extensive search and
rescue training and stopped his pursuit for fear that if
Terrence were, for whatever reason scared, chasing after him could
make him even more fearful. It was a very confusing scene.
He said that when he had finally gotten back up
to cliff, the crew who had driven to the main
road to cut Terrence off hadn't seen him. It was
(33:22):
as though he had blinked out of existence somewhere between
where the witness had left.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Him and where the main road was.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
The witness further claims the crew then searched and once
they found a house with a telephone they called for
help and reported Terrence's missing. Terrence had taken his cell
phone with him when he took off Rounting. He left
behind his two way radio and his backpack containing all
of his belonging. He had no supplies, and even though
he had his cell phone, there was no service out
there in the middle of nowhere. By the time authority
(33:51):
showed up, it was nearly dark and everyone was concerned
as to how he would survive.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Overnight.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
A preliminary search in the immediate area was conducted, but
when nothing useful was found due to how dark it
was out there, the search would be haulted until first light.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
In the morning.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Overnight that night, a fresh sheet of snow had fallen.
But during the search, which consisted of helicopters, search dogs,
and infrared camera technology, not even a footprint was found,
and no one was any closer to figuring out what
in the world had happened to Terrence Woods Junior. By
the end of the first search day, the search team
member even stated quote it's as if he had never
(34:29):
been there at all.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Quote.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
After a week, the official search was called off, but
not without some very bizarre clues that would surface. First
it was found that though his job called for him
to be an Idaho until sometime in mid November, Harnson
recently sent a text message to his father informing him
that he would be returning home on October tenth. He
did not elaborate as to why he would be cutting
(34:53):
his trip short, and Terrence had never before left a
job early, regardless of circumstances, location, or anything else from
that matter. After speaking to some of his friends and family,
investigators found that Terrence had been extremely anxious over this shoot.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
This was something else.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
That never happened before. He loved the outdoors and he
loved his job, so he never had any problems or
issues with getting the work done, regardless of what it took.
His behavior and anxiety about it was enough to raise
some eyebrows and make his loved ones feel the investigators
should know about it after the fact. Indeed, in the
weeks leading up to the shoot, Terrence had told those
(35:31):
closest to him that he didn't even want to go
on the trip, But again, he didn't elaborate as to
why he felt this way, and everyone just let it
go and thought nothing more of it until after his disappearance.
It was extremely strange, all this sudden anxiety and being
unsure as the only thing he has said to have
loved more than his job, with the adventures in the
(35:52):
places that it often took him, these strange and exotic,
though oftentimes isolated places. A sister, Charnee, disagrees with the
other's narrative, however, and said that she spoke to her
brother right before he left and he seemed absolutely fine
to her. She stated that the whole situation seemed somehow
unusual to her, and that since she wasn't there and
(36:12):
all she had to go on was what the other
crew who were with him that day were saying, she
didn't really know what to think. She claimed she and
Terrence spoke often and if they told each other basically everything,
so if there was something wrong or something bothering Terence,
he would have certainly mentioned it to her and further
elaborated on it, she says, though he didn't. She disagrees
(36:33):
that he was anxious leading him to the trip, and
also that he was expressing disinterest in going at all.
She stated, quote, He's traveled around the world, he really
likes to do TV. He's a loving person and caring
an all around good person end quote. On the first
morning of their first day filming, Terrence had done something
which at the time his father hadn't thought anything more of,
(36:56):
but in retrospect said it seemed rather eerie.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
When all was said and done, it.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Seems Terrence had sent him a text message of some
video footage which was described as creepy.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Of a river flowing through the canyon.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
There was no text or explanation as to why I
was sending this or what it was supposed to mean.
It was brought up afterwards that Terrence and the production
manager weren't seeing eye to eye on some things and
had been having some disagreements, but it's not known if
this is or isn't connected to his disappearance. The family
orchestrated searches utilizing volunteers, and posted flyers with terrence picture
(37:30):
all over the region. Hope quickly faded, however, that he
had made it out of the area alive, mainly due
to the harsh and heavy snowfall that had almost immediately
upon his vanishing rolled through the expands. His family, those
closest to him said that Terrence had absolutely no history
of any sort of Middle ivless either, and everyone was
completely baffled as to why he just up and ran
(37:50):
down the cliff that way, never looking back. Admittedly, it
would be fairly easy to get lost or turned around
in this particulary of mountains and treacherous terrain, but the
question still remains of what in the world made him
run in the first place. Was he running towards something
or was he running away from it? If it was
either of those things, then what exactly was he running
(38:13):
to or from. Unfortunately, no one knows the answers to
these questions still to this day, and Terence Woods Junior
has never been seen or heard from again, and no
remains or further evidence or clues have ever surfaced. His
family have since theorized that perhaps he was either fearful
of one or more of the crew members there with
him that day, or fearful due to the actions of
(38:33):
the same. Authorities have ruled out this theory, though, or
any theory stating that someone else on the crew is involved,
and have been adamant that there is absolutely no sign
whatsoever of foul play. They believed that he had suffered
some sort of random mental breakdown and either just randomly
up and booked it down the Cliff, or that he
had long been planning to take his own life out
(38:54):
there where he knew nobody would easily find him. However,
we would like to point out that none of this
is in keeping with Terrence's usual personality or mental and
medical history. The only option left, at least to those
of us who have seen situations like this before, albeit
not very often. It's what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once stated,
(39:14):
when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth. Could some other worldly,
paranormal or even extraterrestrial.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Force have been at play here?
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Could he be lured out there into the woods somewhere
and then possibly passed through a portal of some sort.
Obviously this is just speculation, and there isn't and could
be no evidence for this one way or the other,
but it is something we should all consider, given what
we know in this channel about what's happening all over
the world in national parks and forested wooded areas. Could
(39:48):
Terrence have been supersensitive of these types of things and
perhaps saw something that no one else could. Did he
see something only meant for him to see? We just
don't know, and Terrence's loved ones still struggle with the
details of the disappearance and the overall vanishing in general.
His father has allegedly accused the police of not properly
investigating the case due to alleged racism. However, the police
(40:12):
stand by their statement that they did all they could
and did exactly what they would have done for anyone
in the same circumstance. We now leave it up to you.
What do you think happened to Terence Woods Junior on
that day back in October twenty eighteenth when he suddenly
seemingly went from a perfectly normal, rather successful filmmaker to
another missing person who seemingly vanished into thin air and
(40:36):
without a trace, under very strange and bizarre circumstances. His
world and the world of those closest to him changed
literally in the blink of an eye, and not knowing
the lie or how of that has got to be
one of the most painful and frustrating things in the world.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Risk family.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Today, the search picking back up to find a field
geologist who's been missing for more than a month now.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Daniel Robinson has been missing for nearly two months.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
It has been three months since a Valley man went missing.
A man who disappeared in neighboring Arizona nearly three months
ago is still nowhere to be found. Twenty four year
old Daniel Robinson's car was found along with some of
his belongings, but no sign of Daniel, and then a
human skull was discovered near the car, but that only
raised more questions when testing showed it didn't belong to him.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
Hello, friends, today we're going to be looking into the
strange disappearance of Daniel Robinson. Daniel Robinson, twenty four year
old geologist from Columbia, South Carolina, has been missing since
he was last seen leaving a job site in the
area of Sun Valley Parkway and Cactus Road on June
(41:51):
twenty third, twenty twenty one. Later that day, he was
reported missing, and nobody has seen or heard from him since.
Daniel graduated from the College of Charleston in South Carolina
with a degree in geology. In twenty eighteen, Missing Persons
flyer was released to the public, and investigators of the
(42:11):
Buckeye Police Department began speaking with friends and family to
determine where Robinson may have gone. According to loved ones
and those who knew him best. There was no indications
that Daniel had wanted to leave his life behind or
harm himself in any way. However, it was also stated
to be very unlike him to not have told anyone
(42:32):
why he was leaving the job site in the middle
of the.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Day or where he was going.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Cell Phone and financial records have provided no indication of
Robinson's possible whereabouts. According to the police, Robinson was last
seen driving his twenty seventeen Jeep for Renegae, heading west
further into the desert area of Sun Valley Parkway, just
north of Cactus Road in Buckeye. While reviewing phone records,
(42:58):
investigators did notice a single ping that came from his
cell phone, but there was no available data as to
the location because, as they stated, the phone was either
out of range or turned off. It did not appear
as though Daniel had made any calls or texts after
leaving the job site on.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
That fateful June day.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
However, on the nineteenth of July, a rancher who owned
property about four miles southwest from the job site where
Daniel was last seen, made a call to the police
and reported having found what looked like Daniel's jeep on
his property, wrecked and abandoned. Daniel was nowhere around as
far as the man could tell. It was determined fairly
(43:39):
quickly to indeed be Daniel's jeep and its hat was
found that was very concerning. It was stuck in a
deep ravine with significant damage and appeared to have rolled
and landed on its side, Buckeye Police said at that time,
adding that Robinson's cell phone, wallet, keys, and clothing were
all found at the scene. The vehicles airbags had also deployed.
(44:06):
The buck Eye Police Department also stated that because of
the rough terrain, the vehicle was not clearly visible to
cruise searching by air and on foot, the detectives in
charge of the case immediately began an official and thorough
search around the area where the vehicle was found. The
employed search dogs, aerial helicopter searches, and even searched by foot,
(44:27):
all to no avail. Daniel Robinson, it seems, had disappeared
without a trace. Police reported that they had searched an
area of more than seventy square miles together with outside
agencies and utilized ATVs to daver or dogs, a helicopter
and even a drone, although no further evidence of Daniel
(44:50):
or even a hint as to what happened to him
other than the wrecked vehicle was found anywhere. When a
statement issued after the initial search, buck Eye Police added
that but based on the personal effects found in Daniel's vehicle,
no foul play is suspected. Daniel's family and the private
investigator that they've hired disagree. For one, the private investigator
(45:13):
believes that Daniels jeep had been crashed several times in
different locations before coming to rest on its site in
the Ravine. Another thing that they found extremely suspicious is
that the very clothes Daniel was wearing, every single item,
was found in a pile mere feet away from his
crash jeep.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
On July thirty first.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
There was a human skull found a bit south of
the area where his jeep was recovered, but it was
later forensically determined to not be that of Daniel Robinson.
No further human remains of any kind were found in
the search area or around the area where the skull
was found. Daniel had recently moved to Phoenix for work,
and it wasn't at all unusual for the job to
(45:56):
have him working on sites in remote desert locations, often
in extreme conditions. His father, David Robinson second, has traveled
from his home in South Carolina to continue the search
for his son and for answers as to what happened.
He's also set up a gofunding page to pay for
a private investigator, along with flyers, continued searches, and other expenses.
(46:20):
In mid July, Daniel's father claimed that the Buckeye Police
Department stopped putting in the necessary effort. He even began
organizing search parties of his own and brought in his
own private investigator and forensic analysis team. He's launched two
websites and a Twitter page to help streamline the project.
(46:40):
David Robinson's efforts are ongoing, with a volunteer party set
to conduct a search on October second. He is still
calling on the Buckeye Police Department to revamp the efforts
and conduct a more thorough investigation into Daniel's disappearance. Daniel
Robinson is described as five foot eight with black hair
and brown eyes.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
Is missing a right forearm and hand.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
Anyone with information can submit tips by Robinson's website, which
you can find in the description, or by contacting the
Buckeye Police Department at six two three three four nine
six four zero zero. Well, there you have it, folks.
What do you think of this strange disappearance? Why would
(47:26):
Daniel shed all his clothing and take off into the desert?
You perhaps have a head injury or was he forced
to do this by someone else? Was this purely an accident,
or was there something more in the Fairy's going on?
Why would Daniel suddenly leave a job site in the
middle of work at this time? None of this makes
(47:47):
any sense. I look forward to reading your comments, but
we do ask that you please keep it friendly and respectful.
Many times the family and friends of these missing persons
watch these videos and read the commentsation. Please don't say
anything you wouldn't want to read if this was your
friend or family member loved one being discussed in the meanwhile,
(48:12):
be good to yourselves and each other. Be careful out there.
I'll see you just a little farther on down the trail.
I'm Steve Stockton, and I'll talk to you next time.
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