Brianna Maitland: The Car in the Vermont Barn // 588

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Tee. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody, hope you're doing well today. Many of you will know that we covered this case back in the early early going West days. But unfortunately that episode has not been available for a very, very long time. Yeah many years I think. But in it we actually interviewed her dad Bruce. After this case was shown to us by the awesome guys at the Crawl Space Podcast. And the main lens are still fighting for justice for their daughter. So her case always deserves to be shared and told because it truly is such an eerie and perplexing story. Yeah. And they are still investigating this case to this day. I mean they're really doing everything that they can to try and solve it. So please, please don't forget to share this episode. Yeah. So if you did, here is cover this long ago. It's been updated. They're actually like he's just said because they're still investigating it. We have a small update for you guys as well. So thank you for tuning in and over before we forget. Today, finally, thank you guys for your patience. Going West merch is officially online. You can find sweatshirts, t-shirts, sweatpants all over at shop.imunwell.com and then just look for going West. I think you guys are going to like it. It's super comfortable clothes. Very cute. We really like it. Yeah, I know a lot of you guys have been asking about the merch for so long and we're so excited to finally have it up for you guys to go check it out. And without further ado, this is episode 588 of Going West. So let's get into it. Police are still looking for answers in the disappearance of a Montgomery team. A 17-year-old went missing from her hometown. The disappearance of Brianna Matlin has haunted her family, police and the Montgomery community ever since. Matlin was last seen March 19, 2004, leaving Montgomery's Black Lantern Inn. A day later, someone spotted her car rammed into the side of an abandoned farmhouse. In March of 2004, a 17-year-old girl left the lace shift at a small town Vermont Inn and began her short drive home. But she never made it. The next day, her car was discovered back into the side of an abandoned farmhouse. Its headlights still on and her belongings left inside. With no clear signs of a struggle and no trace of her, her family as well as investigators were left to wonder what happened to her. This is the disappearance of Brianna Matlin. Brianna Alexandra Matlin was born on October 8, 1986 in Burlington, Vermont to parents Kelly and Bruce Matlin and grew up alongside a brother named Waylin in East Franklin, Vermont, which is so far north that it is the last stop before the Canadian border. In fact, the Matlin family home was located just 300 feet from the border. Yeah, they're essentially like the almost have dual citizenship. Yeah. So that gives you any idea of how like rural this area is. Yeah, it's up there. So a true Vermont girl, Brianna grew up snowmobiling, forewheeling and going to the lake with her friends and family. Her best friend, Shawna LeBelle, recalled quote, �Bree was fun outgoing, very smart. She was not a girly girl. She was known for being very free spirited and independent. She was this total spitfire who had trained in Jiu-Jitsu. Her brother Waylin remembered quote. When she set her mind to something, there was no way of changing it. We used to argue about who was going to get to shower first in the morning and regardless of what was decided, she'd get up earlier and get there first. But beneath that kind of tough exterior was a sensitive girl who cared deeply about what others thought of her. Her mom Kelly also recalled her daughter being exceedingly empathetic and that she would frequently bring home hitchhikers and ask her parents to take them where they needed to go. According to her mom Kelly quote, �She believed everyone was good, everyone. And it was just some people just had more problems than others, but you just tried to understand and work it out. And maybe that's naive, but she was just good-hearted like that. Well, by the time she reached high school, she and her parents were getting into frequent arguments about kind of her like distaste for staying at her high school and in their family home not because of the family, but just because of where the house was. Like Brianna was bored, she was under stimulated and felt very separated from her core group of friends who actually all attended a different high school that was about 15 to 20 minutes away. And according to her best friend Shawna, Brianna didn't really gel with the students at her school and felt almost rejected by them. Now to give you a better image, like I said before, when we were talking about Canada, this area is quite rural, but East Franklin, which is where the maintenance lived, is a tiny remote rural community. I mean, it's absolutely beautiful. There's lots of farms and farmhouses, like maple forests, lots of nature. They can feel extremely quiet and spread out. The population is low, hosting only about 1,200 people at the time had limited businesses, so it's beautiful and idyllic for many people, but probably not a teenager. I was going to say there's probably not like a ton to do. No. She was an outdoor girl. I mean, she did like to go snowmobiling and write ATVs and stuff like that, but you know, she's growing. She's a teenager. She wants to be around her friends, so it's understandable. Yeah, I mean, at that point in time, your friends are like the most important thing in your life. So she just felt very separated. So intentions in the home continue to rise, not just with Brianna, but marital issues actually between Bruce and Kelly, her father Bruce considered moving out. And then Brianna jumped at the chance to move to, to Enesburg Falls, closer to her friends who attended Enesburg High. Now like Daphne said, it's only about 15 to 28 minutes away, but somehow it felt so far and separated for her. But by the time Bruce decided to stay in the family home in East Franklin, Brianna had made up her mind about leaving it. She was just so restless and fed up with her life in East Franklin that in October of 2003, just after her 17th birthday, she wound up leaving her school and enrolling in Enesburg High School. Obviously, you know, this is going to create some problems because she's 17 and she's kind of living on her own now. Yeah, and sort of forcing the hand. She's like, I'm going to enroll in this school. I'm going to make it work. This is where my people are. This is where I am now. Yeah, well, then she bounced around from friends house to friends house, as well as staying with her boyfriend at the time. And sometimes when she really just couldn't find anybody to stay with, she would sleep in her car. But her unstable living situation proved un conducive to her education. And by February of 2004, Brianna had dropped out completely. However, she did still want to complete her high school education. So she enrolled in a GED program instead. By then, she had also found someone to take her in full time, living with a childhood friend named Jillian Stout. Now, in addition to her studies, Brianna was working evenings at the Black Lantern Inn, which is obviously such an adorable name. And I know Daphne probably loves that name. It's also very cute inside and out. Of course. It's a Vermont Inn. It's a very charming colonial style historic hotel and restaurant in Montgomery, Vermont. And she was also working mornings at a diner. Now just three weeks before her disappearance, she found herself at the center of a very dramatic confrontation that may have laid the groundwork for her subsequent disappearance. Donna said candidly, quote, Brianna was partying a lot. She was loud and goofy and attention seeker. You know, she did want attention from boys. She wanted to know that she was pretty. And even if it was negative or positive attention that she got from a male, it was still attention. Ugh, girlhood. Yeah, it's tough, you know, being a teen is tough. I think especially because she didn't have this stability. Obviously she had this loving family, but she's kind of floating around. She wants to fit in with her friend group and this newer group at Inusburg High School. Like she wants to kind of mesh into this group and get away from the old group at her old school. Well, let's talk a little bit about that confrontation that I just mentioned a second ago. Because while at a party with some friends from her new high school, including her core group of six girlfriends, Brianna angered one of the female attendees of the party after talking to the girls boyfriend. Eritated that she believed Brianna was doing this on purpose, her friend grew increasingly confrontational. So Brianna just kind of removed herself from the situation, heading outside to her boyfriend's pickup truck and waiting to go home. Feeling jealous and threatened, her friend Keely LaCross, we're going to be talking about Keely quite a bit today, followed her out to the truck and gestured for her to roll down the window. And then when she did, Keely reached inside the truck and punched her in the face. So this is not really a friend. This is like a bully girl. Yeah. Well, the beating that ensued was so brutal that it left Brianna with two black eyes, a broken nose, as well as a concussion. Geez. So after she was assessed by a hospital, she filed a police report against Keely at the insistence of her parents because they're like, you were just assaulted, of course. This is not okay. I mean, Keely, tell us you're insecure without telling us you're insecure that Brianna is talking to your boyfriend, God. Yeah, and it just, I mean, you know, it's like stuff like this is like in small towns, this kind of stuff happened in my small town as well where people would go to these dumbass country parties and people would end up fighting. Someone would get really, really hurt. And it's like, all for what? Can we live in peace? Like come on, you know? So dumb. You know that your teenagers and you're still immature, but let's get real here. But this is really important to note that there were people around Brianna who acted this way. So when Brianna's mom, Keely, asked her why she didn't fight back, Brianna admitted that she was just trying to keep the peace in order to fit in with her new peers, which is really sweet. She didn't want to fight. She's just trying to make friends. Well less than a month after this whole thing went down, Brianna would vanish. Friday, March 19, 2004, was a monumental day in Brianna's life as she was set to take the math portion of her high school diploma equivalency exam, which was the final step in procuring her GED. So after this, you know, as long as she passed, she would get her GED and she could, you know, really kind of start her life after that. Well that morning, she and her mom went out to breakfast and then Kelly brought Brianna to her exam. And to celebrate her hard work, they went shopping together afterward. So this was, you know, kind of a good day. They had a nice breakfast. Yeah, it's positive. Yeah, she completed this test and now it's like, okay, let's go shopping and let's kind of see what happens next. But while waiting in line to check out at one of the stores they went to, Brianna noticed something or someone outside and told her mom that she would be right back. Now, Kelly didn't see where she went or what she had done because obviously she's in line. She's dealing with business, but they met back the car a few minutes later and Brianna's mood had clearly shifted in Kelly's words, quote, she was like agitated. Like I've got to go get ready for work and, you know, I've got to get back. I've got to get back and whole mood kind of changed then. So as you can imagine, speculation is now rife about what those few moments could have entailed for Brianna. Yeah, because we really don't know. Was it something? I mean, maybe it was nothing, you know, it's like you can speculate all day about what that little meetup entailed, but we really don't know. Was it something nefarious or was it just really nothing? Did it have to do with her then ex-boyfriend? Did it have to do with Kelly? Is this connected to her disappearance? Is it not? So many thoughts. Well many wonder if she may have run into someone who is causing her problems because clearly some people were in her life. Like maybe someone related to the fight that she had been in with Keely, you know, a few weeks prior was, you know, coming back around, especially because as we know, Brianna reported the crime. Well Kelly dropped Brianna at her home around 2.45 pm that day so that she could head to her evening shift as a dishwasher at the Black Lantern Inn. This was a newer job for her. But Jillian, remember this is her childhood friend in roommate, had yet to return from school. So Brianna left her a short note telling her that she would be home between 10 pm and midnight. And that if Jillian needed her, she could call the Black Lantern Inn and then she left the phone number. You know, this is 2004. Just right in a simple note, this shows her intentions for the evening as of that point. Now, ironically, Brianna's parents actually drove past the Black Lantern Inn after having dinner nearby that night. And they kind of toyed with the idea of stopping in to check on their daughter and say hi. But ultimately, they decided against it. Yeah, I mean, obviously they don't want to bother her while she's at work or possibly embarrassed her. Yeah, that's that's their thought process, especially because like I said, this was a newer job for her. Also it's not like she's on the floor as a server and they could get a drink at the bar and she could see them. She's in the kitchen being a dishwasher. So if they showed up, they kind of have to pull her out, right? Right. So Brianna continued on with her shift, which was reportedly uneventful. And then she clocked out and headed home around 11, 20 pm. Her co-workers did invite her to join them for drinks afterwards, but Brianna was working an early shift at the diner the next morning and needed to go home and get to bed. So again, she had no plans of going out that night. This would definitely line up with her arriving home before or around midnight, like her note said. She was just supposed to drive back to the home that she shared with Jillian. Right. Well, the last time that she was seen was in the parking lot of the Black Lantern, having been spotted by co-workers driving in the direction of her home. So they saw her in her car driving away. Well, Jillian saw Brianna's note when she got home, but she actually left shortly afterwards because she was going out of town for the weekend, which little did she know at no fault to her own, of course. This would cause issues later for the investigation into Brianna's disappearance because it wasn't until two days later on Sunday, March 21, 2004, when Jillian got back home that anybody noticed that Brianna was gone. When Jillian walked in, she was surprised to find the house empty and the note exactly where Brianna had left it. Now assuming that she was just with friends, you know, maybe a boyfriend or that she had gone home to visit her family, Jillian didn't worry quite yet. She just found it kind of like a little bit strange. But then, it wouldn't be until two days after this on Tuesday, March 23, that alarm bells would be raised. By that point, it had been four days since she had seen or heard from Brianna, and Jillian was beginning to worry about her friend. So she called Brianna's mom Kelly to check on her, and upon discovering that no one had seen or heard from her in days, Kelly began to panic, calling all of her friends to see if anybody knew where she was, but sadly, nobody did. Now at the time, Brianna's father Bruce was away on business in New York City and raised back to Vermont to aid in the search. And then Brianna was finally reported missing, with her parents just scrambling to put together her final movements before she disappeared, because they're like, how could it have been four days in nobody had seen her? Yeah, and the pure panic of that situation, obviously we know she had work early the next morning at the diner that Saturday. She's not showing up to work, but her parents aren't being called. And she doesn't live with her parents. If I would have missed work when I was a teenager, I don't think they would have called my parents. Sometimes they just don't do that. You're a working person. Yeah, exactly. And to make things even more alarming here, people were talking about the fact that, oh well, Brianna really wanted to get out of Vermont. She wanted to spread her wings. She was a free spirit and all this stuff. And her friends and family knew about her aspirations to get somewhere beyond Vermont. And that she had dreamed of moving to New York City or even Montreal. But those who knew her best maintain that she would have never left her loved ones behind like that, no matter how free-spirited she was. I think it says a lot that she had, like her biggest goal it seemed like, was going to this other high school. Yeah, she wanted to go to school. She had just completed her GED testing. She was working two jobs. She had found a place to live with her friend. Why would she just vanish with no word? Yeah. Not saying anything. And then obviously there are things to come that prove that she had no mode of leaving as you guys will see. Yeah. And it's like, you know, she, like you're saying, you know, she had these plans and stuff. She already kind of had a little bit of that freedom that she was looking for and being able to live in Enesburg with a friend and, you know, go to that high school. So it's like, you know, maybe if she had planned for the future to leave like, hey, you know, in two years time, I'm going to head to New York City or Montreal, we would have all been like, okay, and she was close to be able to do exactly that with, you know, assuming that she was about to get that GED. Those type of plans were just on the horizon anyway. Sure, they were, but she was not quite there yet. Her friend Shana maintained, quote, she had a big heart. She would never do that to anybody. So on March 25th, 2004, nearly a week after Brianna had gone missing, her parents met with state troopers and hopes of ascertaining some direction in Brianna's case because her car was missing alongside her. So when asked what kind of car she drove and what she might have been driving when she disappeared, her parents told them that Brianna drove a green 1985 Oldsmobile Delta 88. Which, if many of you don't know cars, kind of, it's kind of a beater. Yeah, an old clunker, a bit. An old clunker. And this is 88 or it's an 88, this is 04. So, you know, 16 years old. They're 85. Oh, wait, what does that? 88. Oh, it's a Delta 88. So it's even older than that. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so 19 year old car. Yeah. So then, on a hunch, officers offered up pictures of a recent accident that one of their deputies had come across the weekend prior in which a car matching the description of Brianna's had been abandoned after a wreck. On Saturday, March 20, the day after Brianna was last seen, this is the day that she had the shift at the diner. A trooper came across a green Oldsmobile, which again was her car that had been backed into the side of a dilapidated farmhouse alongside Vermont 118. This is a main highway with one lane on each side. Now though the car hadn't sustained much damage, the wooden side wall of the barn had kind of buckled up upon impact. Now, the officers surveyed the scene because it was so odd and ultimately assumed that a drunk driver had gotten themselves in trouble and abandoned the vehicle so as not to receive a DUI. Yeah, which does obviously happen sometimes in rural places. You'll see a random car that's just abandoned, you know? Right, so he kind of investigated the interior of the vehicle and although the keys were missing, the car was unlocked. Now there didn't appear to be any signs of a struggle, but inside were two uncash paychecks from the Black Lantern Inn made out to Brianna, Madeland. So hoping to track down the owner of the vehicle because this car is just a left here backed into a barn like obviously in some way, a crime occurred here. Yeah, the trooper's got to figure out what's going on. He actually headed to the Black Lantern Inn, which was just over a mile or about two kilometers down the road from where the car was found. So a short few minutes drive away, but the restaurant was closed at the time. So he just kind of made a note to follow up on the identity of the driver later and then he was called away on a seemingly more urgent matter. So he's like, okay, I'll do with this later. Yeah, and actually that trooper was later criticized for leaving behind a potential crime scene as well as the vehicle without processing the vehicle or contacting the car's owner who at that time was Brianna's mom. Yeah, and the commander for the local St. Albin state police barracks said that this was routine procedure, but obviously, you know, had they informed Brianna's mom the day the car was found her family and the police would have known to start looking for her three days before they actually did. And less than 24 hours after she went missing, which could have changed everything. Yeah, I mean, could you even imagine if they were able to get on top of this investigation from the get go and how just how much closer they would have been to solving this thing? But again, like rural area, small town cops, like again, he's that trooper was looking at this like you were saying, like it could be a DUI or an avoided DUI, you know, the person's probably fine because it didn't look weird. It's not like there was blood on the car or anything super suspicious, but obviously this ended up being those kind of one in a million type of situations. But I mean, truly, this scene was so eerie and strange, the way her car was backed up into this abandoned barn. Commander Daniel Begebing explained quote, he assumed that sooner or later the vehicle's owner would come in and ask where the car had been towed to. In this county, we get a lot of abandoned vehicles. Well, like Daphne just said, the weirdest part about the abandoned car was that it appeared as if it had been backed into the wall of the house because Brianna, or whomever had been driving the car, would have had to reverse at an angle from the street to make contact with the wooden sighting of the farmhouse. And strangely, this house had already been the sight of one tragedy. The large boxy wooden farmhouse known as the old Dutchburn house had been the home of brothers Harry and Myron Dutchburn. Well in 1986, so about 18 years earlier, the elderly and feeble men suffered a break-in and were both brutally beaten and robbed. Now, branculously, they did in fact survive, but after both men passed the farmhouse sat empty and it just basically grew into despair. And so it remained that way for six years prior to Brianna's disappearance. And it's kind of weird when you look at this farmhouse, like the street view of it, which we will post photos of, it is literally feet away from the highway amongst sprawling farmland. So there are no other houses nearby and I think this area is kind of known for that. Like, I said, the houses are separated, but it's just weird because there's this one house literally right on the highway and then there's no other homes nearby. Yeah, I definitely, in Oregon, there are different roads that are very similar to that. It's just highways and then it's just like one random house right there. I've always thought to myself, like that is probably the most opportunistic home for some sort of like robbery to happen because it's rural and it's like there's no other houses around it and it's right on the highway. Yeah, almost like the house was there before the highway was. Yeah. So as police were mulling over the connection between Brianna and the vehicle, her parents were growing agitated about why they had not been notified that the car had been in an accident days prior. By now, it had been impounded and any possible crime scene evidence had already been corrupted, so her family hadn't even seen the car yet. It was actually Brianna's brother who located the car at an impound lot, so her parents raced there in hopes of gleaming more clues as to whereabouts. Like, you know, they checked the trunk, terrified that maybe she had been physically locked inside of it, but they found no trace of her in there. Inside the cab of the car were her contacts as well as prescription medication that she usually took for reoccurring migraines, both of which she took with her everywhere. But even more alarming was the fact that her wallet was left inside the car. Yeah, and some reports say that her purse was in her car as well, but every report that we found that includes the word purse either says it was in the car or doesn't mention it, so it seems to us like she either didn't use a purse or the purse was in the car. And then this also kind of makes me think two things that either she was planning on coming back to grab her wallet, so she was planning on coming back to the car, or that she was taken so quickly that she wasn't able to grab her wallet before leaving. Initially with the car being left unlocked and the keys being missing. Well on the outside of the car on the ground was loose change, a water bottle, a piece of women's jewelry identified as either a necklace or a bracelet, as well as an unsmoked cigarette. And strangely on top of her vehicle, this is like, I don't know why this just feels so weird to me, was a single lime wedge. You know like almost as though she had brought a drink out, to come to her restaurant that she worked at, and I don't know how to explain that. Well, it's just weird because usually when you see something like that, you assume that maybe alcohol is involved. Like, oh, maybe she had a corona and she was just like had some limes with her or something. I don't know. Yeah, was standing next to the car and using the top of the car as like a table or something. Sure. Yeah. So, but was, you know, maybe the lime kind of stuck on again. Her car was found only a few minutes away from the restaurant. So did she put her drink there before she's getting into her car and then she grabs the drink and the lime falls off and it was like, is this involved or not? Or was this somebody else's lime that they were using for their drink? Somebody that may have been at the scene. Yeah, like when the accident happened was somebody else there and she was talking to them or hanging out with them outside the car. Like does it matter or is it just a lime? And I gotta say, I mean, it's so unfortunate because when her car was found, it was obviously briefly assessed and then it was impounded without the police really looking at the scene from the vision of it being the center of a missing person's investigation. Yeah, because they obviously didn't know that yet. So they're looking at the car like, is this just an abandoned car? Yeah, and okay, let's just get it out of here because it's not a good look. It's just kind of like an eye sore and everybody's looking at it as we're going to get into. So like no forensic investigation was conducted of the scene as it was when they found her car like that the next day. And actually, just so you guys know, the fairly detailed photos of the scene, I will say they're really good photos. We're even taken by the police. They were taken by various passing drivers because of how weird the scene looked, which is really interesting to me that some drivers were like, hey, that car looks like it crashed into a farmhouse or a barn. Let's take some photos of it, especially in 2004. Like I feel like everything is videotaped now or recorded now, I'll say or photographed now. Feels like it would be less likely in 2004. Yes, truly. And most of these photos were taken by one person who actually got out of their car and like walked around and took pictures of the different angles of her car. And it's like, if this person had not done that, we would not be able to look back at the scene of Brianna, Maryland's disappearance. But also unfortunately, it could have also kind of contaminated the crime scene, having people walk around where that vehicle was. Yeah. Again, I understand why, especially with the quote from the commander that you read Heath, why they didn't look at this and say, oh, missing person. Sure. But had they been able to figure out, I mean, again, they would have had to have gone to Brianna's work, found her, found out that she was missing. Like it would have taken some work to get to that answer before they move the car, which probably wouldn't have happened anyway. I also think that probably because of what kind of car it was, maybe that also kind of played into why it didn't seem strange. Like it's this old clunker, old mobile from 1985 and it's backed into a fucking barn. It's like a grandpa car. Yeah, it's not like you're talking about Alexis or something like that that happened to be crashed into a barn. That would look a little more suspicious in a rural area, don't you think? Yeah, totally. Good point. At this point in time, the car was processed as a crime scene finally, but no signs of foul play were found in the car. As we said, you know, there's no blood, there's no hair, there's no weapon, and really also nothing at all to point to anything happening to Brianna. According to Kelly, Bruce headed back to the black lantern and a questioner co-workers before the police even made it there. Like police completely dropped the ball in her case. Meanwhile, her mom Kelly printed posters and put them up around Montgomery in the surrounding towns, pleading with the community for information, and even offering $10,000 in exchange for tips. So with this, tips and sightings did pour in ranging from, you know, pretty helpful to wildly speculative. One man actually claimed to have driven by the car on the side of the highway, between 11.30 pm on Friday and 12.30 am on Saturday, and claims that Brianna's headlights were still on at the time. So this left a window of only about 10 minutes minimum to a maximum of an hour and 10 minutes in which Brianna could have gone missing, but that proves, you know, this guy would have been one of the first people to come upon her car and says the headlights were still on, which is weird because if you're thinking that maybe somebody planted her car, probably wouldn't have kept the headlights on because that's like a freaking eye sore. Yeah, and on its head, obviously this sighting feels very, very suspicious. Absolutely, and another witness passed by shortly after the first car and claimed to have spotted Brianna's turn signal blinking on the car. So another strange thing to keep on if you're leaving the vehicle. Weirdly, an ex-boyfriend of Brianna's also passed by her accident while heading home later that night and wondered if it was her car, but he didn't see anyone in or around the vehicle so he just headed home without stopping. Because again, it is very, very visible to cars that are driving by on the highway. When you see photos, you're going to be like, wait, that is literally right on the highway. Very visible to passing cars, amongst these trees in an open farmland, but it's mostly open. There's no trees outside of that farmhouse that would cover up the car. It is right there feet away from the road. Then yet another tip reported having seen a white pickup truck parked down the street from Brianna's car. Someone also heard what they claimed was a man shouting in the area that night, but if it's connected, we obviously don't know for sure. Two more tips came in from motorists who had stopped to see the car the next day after it had already been long abandoned. You know, now it's light out, they can actually see it. And they had found the scene so odd and out of place that these are the people who took pictures of it. Which again, was basically a freaking godsend that we could be so thankful for given that the police had no crime scene photographs of their own. Well someone also reported having seen a man flirting with Brianna on her final evening or at least like attempting to flirt with her during her shift at the restaurant that night, despite an otherwise routine night of work. So it seemed like somebody right before she went missing was interested in her and maybe pursuing her. And again, this is just one of those things where it's like, is it connected? Somebody follow her? Is this just like a completely normal thing? Yeah, random guy who just failed and left. Yeah, who knows? In the early days of April, so a couple weeks later, over 500 volunteers came out to walk the rural field surrounding where her car had been recovered in hopes of finding something. A national guard helicopter circled overhead in hopes of spotting some sign of her from above and sent dogs were marched through the area, but still no sign of her emerged. And sadly for now, theories are all that remain in Brianna's case. For locals, many suspected that Keely, you know the girl who had attacked Brianna about a month before she disappeared and the rest of Brianna's friend group, no more than they've shared. And some people have flat out called her out online and demanded that she come clean about her level of involvement and exactly what she knows. Especially because Keely has gotten in more trouble since Brianna's disappearance, like she has quite the local reputation. Eight years after Brianna went missing in 2012, Keely broke into a woman's home and bit her on the leg when confronted. What the hell? You know what the fuck? And she was then charged with assault and burglary. And then the following year, she was arrested for driving drunk with her infant child in the car. And the aftermath of Brianna's disappearance, Keely apparently bragged that the charges of her assault on Brianna would likely be dropped because Brianna wasn't coming back. And while this could have simply, you know, just been like a callous remark of a teenager who realized that they were going to get away with something, it could also mean that something more nefarious took place. And that Keely had knowledge of this or even that she was partly to blame. Because in the aftermath of Brianna's disappearance, the charges against her for the assault on Brianna were indeed dropped. Now Keely, of course, was questioned in connection with the disappearance, but as far as the public has been made aware, she was cleared. Well another theory in Brianna's case is that she was met with foul play as a result of drug activity, or possibly like a drug deal gone wrong or maybe an unpaid drug debt. Because Brianna confided in her best friend Shana that she had dabbled in marijuana, cocaine, and even crack, but maintained that she wasn't anything more than like a recreational user. She was known to attend parties with her large social circle and would partake if drugs were offered, but it just really wasn't something that she sought out frequently, so not something it seems she would probably carry a debt for. I mean, even her roommate Jillian argued that Brianna's habits have been completely blown out of proportion since her disappearance, saying quote, Every teen goes through a party stage. She didn't party when she moved in with me. She didn't want to party. She'd come home, read a book, or watch TV. So sightings and tips just continue to trickle in, igniting all kinds of theories, including that she was being held in a particular house somewhere, which police did look into though they didn't find anything. In February of 2007, so almost three years exactly since Brianna vanished, a police officer filed a report that local woman confided in him that Brianna had been killed by Ramon Ryan's, who is a man that lived in the local home that police searched, which was known to be occupied by different drug users and sellers, including Ramon. She claimed he, along with a few other people in a circle, killed and then dismembered Brianna's body using a table saw and then disposed of it at a nearby pig farm. I gotta say, whenever we hear local rumors that are this specific, like I can't help but kind of wonder if it's real, because people talk, you know, and somebody who's in a circle that's next to that circle would maybe know that kind of information. Sure, and you know, sometimes these little conversations that are being had between locals does actually lead to something and you know, it's like, I always find that there's a little bit of truth in every rumor. Yes, I agree. Yeah, I mean, that's why a lot of the times on going west when we hear rumors, it's always like, hmm, you know, I mean, if somebody... If it's your interest for sure. Yes, because if somebody, if people in town are talking about it, sure, somebody could have just said that and it's 100% not true. If there was already a tip about this guy's house and then another tip came in unbeknownst to the public, by the way. Cames in. Does it come in? Yeah. Comes in, you know, unbeknownst to the public, of course, and multiple people are saying, hey, look at Ramon Ryan's. Like that, that's interesting. That's not nothing. Yeah, and you wonder if, you know, Ramon Ryan's is just like really infamously known within this local area as being a terrible guy. Right, so maybe they're like, oh, that guy's kind of sketchy. He probably did this and that comes from nowhere. But I'm glad at least police looked into it, but the problem is, no part of this story could be substantiated. This tip came in three years later. So how the hell are we going to find evidence now? Sure. And then they also did look into this house and when they did look at the house, they didn't find anything substantial. Right. So I mean, I don't know if they did a full forensic sweep of the house or maybe they just kind of peeked around in it. But maybe nothing happened or at that house anyway, they brought her somewhere else. There could be so many things to this and it doesn't mean this man, this house, these people didn't do something. But police just don't know. And police do publicly acknowledge that many of the tips and rumors lead back to Ramon Ryan's and a buddy in his circle, Nathaniel Jackson, which is very suspicious to them. But yeah, unfortunately, they didn't have much more than that, but back to the scene. So detectives believe it's possible that Brianna was lured to this field intentionally in order to meet with someone like maybe somebody called the restaurant that she worked at or somebody came in and said, hey, me to set the Dutch, the Dutch burn house. Yeah. And that also kind of also makes you think about when she was had to go meet with somebody while she was with her mom earlier that day, you're like, does that connect to possibly hey, you know, are we going to meet up tonight at this place? Yeah, you're going to pay me back or whatever, something like that. Absolutely. I mean, but that that's why it feels so endless because what was, who was she talking to and is it connected or was she just planning on going home that night and was not trying to stop anywhere? And then police also wondered if she was at that barn to meet up with somebody maybe once it got dangerous, she kind of tried to flee. And then that caused her to back up into the farmhouse by accident. And then, you know, she was extracted from her car and her car was left there. But sadly, like you said, he speculation is all that's left here and the rumor mill. It continues to churn to this day, but I just can't get over why and how her car got into the position that it was in like it is so perplexing. It didn't appear by the way as though she like slid out of control and hydroplained and landed that way either even though there was some snow on the fields as you'll see in the photos. But why she would intentionally veer off the highway, turn around back into this barn and the pitch black of night because by the way, this area has no street lamps. Doesn't make any sense like was it a staged accident? Was she forced off the road? Did her car actually slip in the road and then she had to flag down help and the wrong person came by at that very time? You know, it's kind of wondering if maybe like the car got stuck when it got backed into the barn like if it hooked on something and she couldn't drive it out of there. Apparently it didn't. So yeah, they were able to just drive her car out. It's okay. So it doesn't appear that the car was stuck there at all. Yeah. So even me saying did she flag down help? Like maybe she thought something was more wrong, but it's like the car was in working order and it wasn't stuck in that house. Well, that is definitely a very interesting detail. And also by the way, based on the available information, it appears that the car was intentionally backed up slowly. Like this was not a wild swirling accident at a high speed. It seemed like it just was backed up again, maybe not intentionally, but it was like kind of like maybe the car was right in front of it and then it went, whoop, and went backwards. Right. So it didn't seem like if she was the person that was driving the car, it didn't seem like she was in a hurry and oh my god, I have to. Yeah. The house. Yeah, the house didn't like explode. You know, it's not like bam. And then there's like wood everywhere. It's like, whoa, whoa. It was like just like, boop, you know, like, yeah, well, it's called a boop. Yeah, that's what it's that's the legal term or the official term. But no, you'll see in photos, it is, it definitely went through the wall, but this is not like a strong new build. And even so, we've seen it happen where not going very fast, you can like drive right into a house, you know, you can. So she just bat or somebody backed up, but why? Like it is facing the road. Specific. So okay. So she's driving north, right, from her work. The barn is on the left side of the road. So it's not on her like drivers, well, it's on her driver side, but it's not like she pulls over on the right side of the road. There's the barn. Yeah, you have to cross over the highway to get into the driveway of it. Yes. And then it was backed in facing north, right? So it's like she would have had to have made a left to get into that like driveway type of, you know, gravely area and then turned around and then backed up or just like backed up depending on what way she was facing. But yeah, the front of the vehicle was facing the direction in which she was traveling. The barn was just on the opposite side of the road. So it was like that also doesn't really make any sense because then it would have felt more like this was an intentional move to go towards this barn. It's not like, whoa, let me pull over for a second. She would have had to turn around essentially her make that left turn to get to that barn. Why? Yeah. Is it possible that that was kind of the only option for her when she was like, maybe she forgot something back at work and like, maybe she had to pull in there to turn around to head the opposite direction. And again, we'll put street view images, but like you can see, I'm looking at it right now. That is kind of like the widest space that you can pull into, but like if she needed to pull over for any reason, she could have pulled over on the side of the road that she was already on. She didn't have to turn around unless like you're saying she did need to go back to work for whatever reason. But there's also no report of her. Oh, she left her purse at work. Well, one thing that I do know about those big old, old, old-smobile cars is that they are kind of tough to turn around because they're big in boxing, you know? True. So, you know, maybe she was thinking like, hey, this is going to be hard for me to like completely make a 180 in the road. Maybe if I just pull into this abandoned lot and turn around there, it'll just be easier. Yeah. And you know, something I always think about too is was somebody in the vehicle with her. So, I think about this a lot, heath of like if somebody in the backseat of the car, which is very possible, but like we said, her co-workers watched her drive away. So we know that she left work, whether there was somebody in the car or somebody following her, we don't know, but she was seen driving away. So, it's one definitive fact that we have. But otherwise, it just truly feels so endless. I can't help but go back to the fact that I feel like somebody was there with her that night just, you know, talking about the fact that there were sightings of other cars that were in the area and a lot of people talked about that. Also the fact that the keys were missing from the car, as if maybe somebody said, hey, we're going to go to my house and go grab some drinks or some drugs or whatever, possibly. I mean, I don't know if that's the case. She would have taken the car keys with her. It's just so weird to think of her willingly leaving the scene with the as of her vehicle inside an abandoned barn visible from the road. I agree. Yes, I agree. With the turning blinker on, with the headlights on facing directly into other driver's faces, and again, though, she could have driven away from the scene. This wasn't a terrible accident. But why don't you get into some more of the theories and the thoughts around her case? Yeah, so naturally, some have blamed her ex-boyfriend, wondering if maybe he was jealous that she was moving on and possibly dating other guys, saw her on the highway, and then stopped her somehow. The possibility has also been posed that perhaps it was Keely's cousin wanting to help cover for her assault charge and knowing that it would be dropped if Brianna wasn't there to testify against her. But Brianna's case isn't totally forgotten about, because as recently as last summer in 2025, new information has actually come out. Lou Barry, one of the two private investigators retained by the mainland family, shared that a previously unreported tip may offer valuable insight into the scene of Brianna's abandoned vehicle. A couple actually reported having seen a silver or gray Honda sedan, likely from the late 1990s or early 2000s, parked near Brianna's car on the night that she vanished, which again, goes back to the thought that I have that somebody else was there that night. Right, like maybe somebody did pull her over and she's like, why is somebody flashing their lights at me? I'm going to pull over here and then something happened. It also seen a tall man lurking outside the vehicle at that time. Later this couple reported having seen the silver Honda driving erratically and then breaking suddenly near the scene of Brianna's disappearance, which obviously is suspicious. Especially because we know that another vehicle would have had to have been involved. Was it a Honda? It's interesting to know that that car was driving erratically as well because what would be the purpose of that late at night on that roll road unless they were like race maybe drunk or racing or something. While the other private investigator Greg Overracker penned a book about the case entitled the Hunt for Brianna, MATELIN, the relentless pursuit of answers to one of Vermont's biggest mysteries with a forward written by Brianna's dad and an afterward penned by Lou Berry. A link to the eerily similar disappearance of Mara Murray was also investigated and Mara's family actually reached out to the MATELIN's early on in the investigation just in order to offer their support. At one time the families actually believed that it was possible that there was a connection between the two and that perhaps they had both fallen victim to a serial killer that was stalking the winding back roads of small northeastern towns. As many of you know, Mara disappeared only about a month prior on February 9th 2004, just under two hours away in haveral New Hampshire. But without more evidence, investigators really can't find a connection between the two. But if you do want to learn more about Mara's case, we definitely recommend you check out season one of the podcast Media Pressure, which is hosted by her sister Julie Murray. I mean, either way to this day, police have maintained their belief that foul play befell Brianna on the night of her disappearance, but they've declined to announce the extent of their findings from within the vehicle. In 2022, a DNA profile was built for a sample discovered in the vicinity of her car, and it was then compared to the profiles of 11 potential persons of interest, but unfortunately it didn't match any of them. However, detectives have assured the public that the prognosis is positive, with detectives Sergeant Angela Baker maintaining her belief that the case is, quote, not unsolvable. Her parents have kept up their valiant efforts alongside private investigators Lou Berry and Greg Overacker, and the FBI has also gotten involved in the search. Her dad actually started an organization for other families with missing loved ones, calling it private investigations for the missing. Yes, and when we originally talked to Bruce in that first episode, we did talk pretty extensively about private investigations for the missing, which is an amazing nonprofit. Yeah, they are so incredible. We'll go ahead and link their page in the description for this episode. If you want to donate or look more into it, it's a nonprofit organization. And Bruce explains that, quote, private investigations for the missing seeks to at no cost. Fill that need by providing families with qualified expert investigators to work on their loved ones case and hopefully locate or bring some form of closure to them. So he's like, his goal is to help families with missing loved ones get PI services for free because nobody expects their loved one to go missing and a lot of people can afford that kind of private help. And he also knows firsthand just how this can affect people's lives. Absolutely. So it's amazing. Such a great organization to support. Now when asked about the reason for the formation of his organization, Bruce explained, quote, I've heard horror stories from people that have taken second mortgages on their houses and done things like that to pay investigators and paid thousands of dollars and still have gotten nowhere. I started this organization really to be able to help people. Currently it the reward is sitting at $40,000 in Brianna's case. 17 year old Brianna, Matlin was last seen on March 19, 2004. She had brown hair and hazel eyes, stood at around 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed about 105 pounds. She has a scar on her forehead above her left eyebrow and her nose is pierced. If you have any information about the disappearance of Brianna, Matlin, please call the Vermont State Police at 1-844-84-V-TIPS or the FBI's tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Make sure that you share this episode because the Matlin are still waiting for some form of justice and closure. Make sure you check out Bruce's Nonprofit Organization which is Private Investigations for the Missing. Yes, it's such an amazing organization and just to know that they have been searching for Brianna for over 20 years and her case is this puzzling and perplexing like they deserve answers. Somebody knows what happened to her on this open highway. And like Angela Baker said, you know, this case is not unsolvable. Well, thank you guys so much for tuning in. Don't forget we just came out with merch. You can find that at shop.imunwell.com and then just look for Going West. We've got t-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, the whole gamut. So go check it out. I know a lot of you guys have been waiting quite a long time for us to drop it and it is finally here. We used to have a bunch of merch but now we just have really high quality, soft, comfortable merch with a few options that are really well designed by our team at UNwell. So go check it out. We hope you guys love it. Thank you for your patience and we will see you guys again on Tuesday. Alright guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger.