The last words of a 19-year-old man who was speaking with his father on the phone before vanishing are exceptionally eerie.
In May 2008, student Brandon Swanson was on his way back to his parents’ home in Minnesota after celebrating the end of the spring semester with friends.
Brandon had the option to stay at a friend’s place, but he chose to drive back to his hometown of Marshall instead.
Although he frequently made the trip for his studies, this time he would not return home.
At around 2am on May 14, Brandon called his parents to inform them that his car had gone off the road into a ditch and he couldn’t get it out.
He mentioned that he was uninjured and asked his parents to come and pick him up.
However, as Brandon was in a remote area, his parents couldn’t locate him, prompting the teen to walk towards some lights he thought were from a nearby town.
The arrangement was for Brandon’s parents to pick him up from there.
While still on the phone with his parents during the walk, Brandon suddenly exclaimed ‘oh s**t’ before the call abruptly ended.
His parents tried calling him back immediately, but it went straight to voicemail—a pattern that would persist throughout the night.
Annette, Brandon’s mother, reported him missing to the police in the town of Lynd at around 6:30am the following morning.
Cell phone records revealed that Brandon wasn’t in Lynd as initially thought but was actually 40km away in a different direction.
Lyon County Sheriff Eric Wallen, according to Grand Forks Herald, stated: “We were able to use the cellphone tower technology to have an idea of where his last communications or phone calls came from, so that put us on a cell tower up in that area.
“So then the search was focused there, and the car was located.”
An extensive search ensued for Brandon, involving sniffer dogs along the Yellow Medicine River.
Local authorities have speculated for a long time that Brandon might have fallen into the river, but no evidence of the teenager has ever been found.
In fact, police never recovered any of his personal belongings, leaving the haunting case unresolved to this day.