May 14th, 2008.

Marshall, Minnesota.

The parents of 19-year-old Brandon Swanson receive a late-night phone call from their

son, who claims that his car has become stuck in a ditch in the middle of nowhere.

His parents leave to go pick him up, but have trouble finding him.

At one point, Brandon's father hears him shout a swear word over the phone before the

call abruptly cuts off.

The attempt to phone him back, Brandon does not answer.

Even though his abandoned car is eventually found on a road, Brandon himself has never

found.

After that, the trail went cold.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to a very special mini-sode of the trail went cold.

I'm your host, Robin Warder, and today we will be chronicling one of the most baffling

missing persons cases of the past decade, the 2008 disappearance of Brandon Swanson.

As you probably know, for the month of October, our podcast will be covering creepy Halloween

theme stories.

While this particular case did not take place at Halloween, it still fits the theme because

I featured it in a very popular Halloween article I published at Crack.com three years

ago titled the six creepiest unexplained phone calls.

I still remember when I first stumbled upon this case.

I thought the circumstances of how Brandon disappeared sounded so frightening that I was

surprised this mystery wasn't well known.

...