Disappearance of Brandon Swanson

A native of Marshall, Lyon County, in southwestern Minnesota, Swanson graduated from Marshall High School in 2007. He then chose to study wind turbines for a year at the Minnesota West Community and Technical College campus in Canby. == Disappearance ==

Swanson left Canby for the drive home before midnight. Just before 2 a.m., he called his parents on his cell phone, telling them he had driven his Chevrolet Lumina off the road and into a ditch from which he could not remove the car. He was not hurt and asked them to come to where he was and pick him up. Annette and Brian Swanson got in their pickup truck and drove out to where they thought he was, keeping him on the phone despite occasional hangups and drops. Brandon stayed with his car and tried to signal them by flashing his lights on and off, but they saw nothing, nor did he see them do the same. Brandon finally gave up and told them he was leaving the car to walk toward lights he could see that led him to believe he was near Lynd, a small town roughly southwest of Marshall. He told his father to head for the parking lot of a local bar and wait for him there. Brian began driving there, talking to his son as he did. Shortly after 2:30, 47 minutes into the call, Brandon suddenly interrupted himself on the phone and said "Oh, shit!" He was silent for the remainder of the call, until his parents hung up and made multiple attempts to call him back. Brandon has not been seen or heard from since. == Investigation ==

At 6:30 a.m., his parents reported Brandon missing to the Lynd police. They were told at first that it was hardly unusual for young men that age to stay out all night after the last day of college classes. Annette Swanson specifically recalled that one of the officers said it was Brandon's "right to be missing". Later searches After the original search found no sign of Swanson, most efforts were discontinued. Sheriff Vizecky continued to walk the of the Yellow Medicine in that area every day for 30 days. Searches resumed late that fall, after fields planted shortly after the disappearance had been harvested. Dogs on those searches continued to follow scents of human remains into an area northwest of Porter that had not been searched earlier. By that time, had been searched. In 2010, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension took over as lead agency on the case. It set up a tip line; by 2015, 90 leads had been reported that way. By that point, when official searches resumed, the area of interest had moved towards Mud Creek, a tributary of the Yellow Medicine north and northwest of Porter. == Theories ==

While the trail followed by one of the dogs went to the Yellow Medicine River, and despite her son's last known words, Annette Swanson does not think he drowned there. After following the scent to the water, that dog continued up across the other side, and along that riverbank to another gravel road, where it continued north towards the Yellow Medicine County line and ended. "There really is nothing to indicate that he's in the river," she told CNN. Brian Swanson also recalls that, any alcohol his son had consumed earlier in the evening notwithstanding, he did not seem disoriented or confused during their phone conversations. If Swanson is still alive, there are other possibilities, although they appear remote. He could have intentionally disappeared, but his parents do not believe he would have done that. Vizecky said he could not rule out foul play, even though there was no evidence of it. "[S]omeone [could have been] in the shadows, and they got him that way," he speculated. == Brandon's Law ==

After the searches, Annette Swanson was still struck Annette met with Marty Seifert, minority leader of the state House of Representatives at the time, whose district included Marshall, in a local restaurant. The two talked about the problems she had experienced with the police when she reported her son missing. "She knew it wouldn't help in her son's case, but that it could help others in the future", Seifert recalled in 2015. Seifert introduced a bill called "Brandon's Law" that would make the required change by amending the law governing the state's existing Missing Child Program to change the word "child" to "person". He recalled considerable resistance at first from the state's law enforcement community as it was developed in committee. "Part of it had to do with privacy, especially regarding cell phones", he told the Marshall Independent. "Technology was emerging then, so there were discussions about privacy and when can they ping you and when can't they." including unanimously in the lower chamber, Police were no longer allowed to refuse a report based on an initial belief that no criminal activity was involved, the brevity of the interval since the person was last seen, the possibility that the person may have intentionally disappeared, or the lack of a relationship between the missing person and the reporter. Following the governor's signature, the law took effect at the beginning of July 2009. Four other states have passed similar laws. Seifert left the legislature in 2010, but he still has the pen Pawlenty used to sign the bill into law. "I consider it one of the most important bills I authored in my 14 years. It will save lives." == See also ==