Going West: True Crime - Brandi Wells // 118

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

In August of 2006, a 23-year-old woman headed out to a nightclub as a “last hurrah” before returning to college in Eastern Texas. Her car was later found abandoned on the side of a highway and thought to have run out of gas, but she was nowhere to be found. As investigators began looking into her last known steps, they found some peculiar surveillance footage and even discovered that her cell phone was actively being used by an unknown man. This is the story of Brandi Wells. *BONUS EPISODES* patreon.com/goingwestpodcast *CASE SOURCES* https://mysticsnowangel.proboards.com/thread/2006/brandi-wells https://en.everybodywiki.com/Disappearance_of_Brandi_Wells https://storiesoftheunsolved.com/2018/11/05/the-disappearance-of-brandi-wells/ https://medium.com/@jennbaxter_69070/the-unsolved-disappearance-of-brandi-wells-372aa36edaa4 https://www.news-journal.com/news/local/10-years-missing-brandi-wells-mother-still-hopes-for-daughters-return/article_9b5fa99d-9930-53c2-ac57-23c224d29ff0.html https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/8wus85/can_we_still_solve_the_disappearance_of_brandi/ https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/tx-brandi-wells-23-longview-2-aug-2006.46956/page-9#post-15791851 https://charleyproject.org/case/brandi-ellen-wells https://www.hulu.com/watch/3d5efdb2-6958-43cc-8419-865012630620 https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/usedtobedoe/wells-brandi-08-03-06-t8887.html Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on true crime fans, I'm your host Tee? And I'm your other host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. This case is really, really, really frustrating to Heathen Ey. I want to almost do a whole freaking separate podcast on this case. Yeah, we could do a whole series on this one. How is this story not everywhere? Like this, this reminds me of like a brand in loss and like more a Murray type of one, you know? Yeah, there's a lot of like directional things going on here and just a lot of things that are unknown. And we said this last week, but for everybody who has not yet checked out

our new merch line, it's really fun and wearing, I'm wearing a, so we have a new sweatshirt, and on the back it says, anti-serial killer club, and it's a really great sweatshirt, super comfortable, and I wore it on a walk this morning and an old lady complimented me. Yeah, she was probably about it. Yeah, she was, she was.

So we have, like beach towels, we have totes, we have hats, sweatshirts, mugs, phone cases. I'm using the anti-seerow killer club phone cases while I love it. We have a Fanny pack as well. I can't forget that. I know that that's a different meaning in Australia. So they call it a Fanny pack though? No, no, no. So Fanny. Wait, what?

Anyway, if you want to check out the merch head on over to goingwestpod.com hit the shop tab and get shopping. Alright guys, let's not waste any more time. This is episode 118 of Going West. So, let's get into it! In August of 2006, a 23-year-old woman headed to a nightclub as a last hurrah before returning to college in eastern Texas. Her car was later found abandoned on the side of a highway and thought to have run out of gas, but she was

nowhere to be found. As investigators begin looking into her last known steps, they found some peculiar surveillance footage and even discovered that her cell phone was actively being used by an unknown man. This is the story of Brandy Wells. Brandy Ellen Wells was born on November 28, 1982 in Tyler, Texas to her mother, Ellen Tant. And she didn't grow up with her parents being together, and her father ended up having more children with someone else, so she had a few siblings from both relationships. Brandy also had a godmother named Michelle Cole who was essentially like her second mother and was a really big part of her life, so lots of family and lots of people who just loved Brandi. Tyler, where she grew up, is a city in eastern Texas with a population of

around 100,000 people and only about an hour and a half east of Dallas and Fort Worth. And fun fact, Tyler is known as the Rose Capital of America because of its long history of Rose cultivation and production, so lots of roses around Tyler. That's interesting because Portland, Oregon is like the Rose city. It was in competition with Tyler then. I guess so. So Brandy attended Chapel Hill High School in Tyler,

and it was there that she got involved with the flag core, which is also known as color guards. And this is a team that you've probably seen in them. It's a team that performs co-agraft routines and dances with flags, and oftentimes alongside a marching band. Yeah, I think my mom did that in high school. Did she, that's really cute. Yeah.

That's so Beatrice. So she? That's really cute. Yeah. That's so be a trist. So she loved being a part of this team and spent a lot of her free time practicing her flag routines. And this is what earned her a scholarship to the University of Texas in Dallas. And when she got there, she joined that school's flag core since she really enjoyed doing it. And during her time at UT Dallas, she met a man and they fell in love and quickly married when Brandy was 19 years old. Their marriage lasted just about two years and during that time she had actually left school, but when they divorced, she moved to San Antonio for a short stint. Before deciding she wanted to return to college and be closer to her family.

So with that, she moved to the small town of Brownsboro, which is just outside of her hometown of Tyler. It's just west of Tyler, and she got an apartment with a roommate. Since childhood, Brandy had big dreams of becoming a country singer because she absolutely loved to sing, and she also played the flute. But it was really important for her to go back to school and get a degree in teaching. So in 2006, when she was 23 years old, she was planning to do just that and was even able to reinstate her scholarship.

So that's kind of amazing. And according to her friends and family, Brandy was really excited for what her future held and finally felt like she was getting things back on track. She had also just gotten rehired at Walmart and was happy to get back into working there, while getting ready to start at Trinity Valley Community College near her apartment in the fall of 2006, as well as rejoining the school's flag core. But in August, things would take a really strange turn. On Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006, Brandy Wells headed over to her mom's apartment in Tyler

Texas, which for reference was roughly 20 miles or 32 kilometers away, and she knocked on the door. This was a bit of a surprise since her mom hadn't been expecting her, but nonetheless, she was happy to see her. And there's really nothing too weird here because after all, she had just moved back to the area, and it seems that she just wanted to drop in and spend some time with her mom. Also she had planned to go to a club that night as kind of a last hurrah before starting school, so she was in the area anyway.

Brandy's younger sister Georgia was home, and in her room at the time since she hadn't been feeling well. But Brandy went into her room anyway and asked her if she and in her room at the time since she hadn't been feeling well. But Brandy went into her room anyway and asked her if she wanted to join her at the club that night. But Georgia really wasn't feeling up for it so she declined. So Brandy hung out with her mom for a bit before changing into a different outfit so she could hit the club. And she wore a strapless floral top, rust-colored pants, and some black-heeled sandals.

She asked her mom Ellen how she looked, to which Ellen responded that she looked cute, and Brandy was on her way. She told her mom that she was going out with some friends, and asked if she could borrow some gas money, or her mom's car, since she was low on gas. But her mom didn't have any cash and couldn't lend out her car for the night. And although Brandi didn't say which friend she was meeting, her mom just assumed it was probably some of her old friends from high school who she hadn't seen in a couple years since she moved away. At about 8 p.m. that Wednesday evening, Brandi headed out

in her own car to a club, which her mom thought was the electric cowboy. So by the way, the electric cowboy has since closed, but when it was open, it was a popular like western style bar for line dancing and typically attracted a crowd of people in their early 20s. So Brandy's mom is under the impression that she's going here because this is kind of the local club in Tyler that she would hit up. Now it was stated by an employee at the 11th frame club that she stopped there at around 8.30pm, meaning this was her first stop that night. And this is a bar inside a Tyler Texas bowling alley

called Green Acres Bowl. And Brandy and those close to her had been known to frequent this spot in general, and the bartender was a good family friend named Jeanette. Brandy's mom Ellen even had a running tab there, so when Brandy arrived, she ordered a cherry vodka sour, and told Jeanette that her mom said that it was okay that she put this drink on her tab. Jeanette and Brandy got to talking, and Brandy mentioned that she was heading to a bar in Longview, Texas Texas called Graham Central Station. It was ladies' night there, so no cover charge for women, meaning Brandy could get in at

no charge and pretty much dance the night away. This was concerning for a couple of reasons. One, because Brandy didn't have very much gas, and this bar was a whole 40 minutes away, and the opposite direction from where Brandy lived. And two, she was planning to go there alone. Jeanette was around Brandy's mom's age, so she was being protective of Brandy and told her to please be careful and watch herself, especially since she had a friend go missing 18 years earlier from that area. And she told Brandy this. Yeah, and more on that. So on Friday, March 18, 1988, when Brandy was six years old, a 43-year-old mother of three

named Glenda Moorehead had been in a bar in Tyler called Proud Mary's, and she went missing around 11 p.m. Her car was found outside the bar with her purse, coat and wallet all in the front seat and her keys in the ignition. Her driver's side window was rolled down two inches, and there was a trail of blood nearby near a shoe that Glenda had been wearing that night, and her body had never been found and it's unknown to this day what happened to her. The only potential suspect in her case actually died by suicide shortly after, but no information

has been uncovered regarding if he was actually involved or not. So it's definitely a bizarre and sad mystery of Tyler Texas. So as Janette heard, Brandy talking about going to a bar alone, even though it was 18 years after her friend had gone missing and likely been murdered, she still worried about Brandy's safety, and Brandy just kind of shrugged it off and said she could take care of herself. That night Brandy called her godmother Michelle Cole and asked if she wanted to come out with her, but Michelle couldn't, so it seemed while Brandy was at the 11th frame club,

she was still looking for someone to go out with and didn't have a very official plan. She only finished half of her drink before she was ready to head out within 30 minutes or so of arriving at the 11th frame club. She hugged Janette and was on her way, apparently to Longview to go to the Graham Central Station Club. The night passed on into the morning and at around 9.30am, Brandy's mother Ellen woke up to go to work and realized that Brandy wasn't in the house. Obviously since Brandy didn't live there anyway, this wasn't a huge concern, and Ellen just assumed that Brandy was staying at a friends. But later that afternoon, Brandy's roommate called her mom Ellen, worried since she hadn't heard from Brandy or seen her all day, and she was supposed to be home at their apartment in Brown'sboro. So Ellen explained that she hadn't seen Brandy

since the previous night, and then decided to call her on her cell phone to check in, but it went to voicemail. Remember, Brandy was three months away from her 24th birthday, so she was an adult, and Ellen just figured that she would come home later. And her mind didn't immediately say that something happened. She was just kind of like, Brandy's not here, she's probably going to be home at some point. But the following day, which was a Friday, Ellen's attitude towards the situation changed. Because at that point, she still hadn't heard from Brandy and didn't know why. It was very unlike her to go a couple days without talking to her, her sister, and her godmother.

But none of them had spoken to her since Wednesday evening. Every time any of them called her, her phone would just go to voicemail, so Ellen decided that it was time to call the police and report her daughter missing. That's when she contacted the Tyler police department and explained to them what was going on and kind of filled out the report. But when she told them that she figured her daughter had gone to a local club, her other daughter and Brandy sister Georgia explained that she had told her that she was going to Graham Central Station in Longview, which was news to Ellen because Ellen's like, wait a second.

She's gonna, she went to Longview all the way to Longview alone. Yeah, and Ellen's singing this whole time that she's been in Tyler. And so obviously you wouldn't be that worried. I mean, like you haven't heard from your daughter, she lives in that town where she went out, probably not a big deal. Exactly, but now it's like she went to a bar in a totally different city and you know, Ellen's kind of feeling like, why didn't she tell me this? Maybe she didn't want me to worry, but obviously, Ellen's like, I wish she would have told me. So the police then told Ellen that she had to call the Longview Police and file another

report with them and so she did that. And unfortunately, the Longview Police and file another report with them, and so she did that. And unfortunately, the Longview Police didn't have the same concerns and stated that Brandi wasn't an adult and free to do what she wanted. And since there wasn't necessarily anything clearly suspicious that happened, police allegedly felt that she was voluntarily not responding to phone calls and was likely fine. In this obviously upset the whole family because they knew that something just didn't feel right and on top of that they all kept leaving emotional voicemails on Brandy's cell phone

and they knew that she would never ignore those. So Brandy's godmother Michelle Cole got into her car and drove to long view herself, hoping to maybe come across Brandi's car, because she knew that Brandi was low on gas that night, so the family was thinking that maybe she had car trouble and something may have happened. But after arriving at Graham Central Station and searching the parking lot as well as just the general area, including the ravine that ran alongside the club, Michelle didn't find anything leading to Brandy.

Meanwhile, Ellen stayed at home so she could be by the phone in case the police or Brandy tried to call her. But little did Ellen and the family know, the morning after Brandy had gone out, so Thursday at around 9 a.m. right before Brandy's mom noticed that she wasn't in the house, and Officer found a black 2000 Pontiac Grand Prix on Interstate 20 westbound just outside of Longview Texas. The driver's side door was partially open and the car was slanted and pulled off the road into the grass in a very strange way. Originally, police wondered if the car had been stolen, so they ran the plates and didn't find any reports regarding the car, so they tagged it and left

it there thinking someone would come back for it. But a few days later, someone called the police to report that that car had been there for a few days and they passed it a couple times, so it seemed suspicious to this caller. Well, when the police put two and two together that a car had been found abandoned and a young woman had been reported missing, they checked to see if the car belonged to Brandy, and it did. When police made the connection that the abandonment of the car, the police made the connection that the abandoned Black Poniat Grand Prix was Brandy's on Tuesday August 8th 2006, so six days after she disappeared, they searched it and found some troubling information. First and foremost, as we said, the driver's side door was partially open, yet the keys were

missing. The driver's side seat was pushed all the way back, and this struck Brandy's family as pretty odd considering Brandy was only 4'11". So there's no way she would have been able to drive with the seat all the way back like that. Her legs just simply weren't long enough. And for reference, the seat being in this position could accommodate someone who was over a foot taller than her. In the back seat of

the car was Brandy's purse that had her wallet and her ID inside, and on the seat there was a napkin with a man's name and phone number written on it. There's also a cell phone in the vehicle and a reportedly empty gas can in the trunk. Some of the potential evidence was accidentally destroyed here. Because when police tried to start the car, it wouldn't stay running. So without even checking the gas tank, they added gas to the car and then just ended up towing it out of the area. But when they tried to start it again elsewhere, they realized that the car key was setting off an anti-theft device since the original key was missing, and that's why the car wouldn't stay on.

So unfortunately, we cannot determine if Brandy's car was on the side of the road because it was out of gas or because of something else. We can presume the out of gas theory is right since she had mentioned to a couple people that she was low on gas, but we really don't know how low she really was. And regarding the gas can found in the trunk, no one in her family believes that that was hers because they'd never known her to have a gas can or be the person whoever would. But more on that later.

And at this point, finally, police begin to think that something could have happened to Brandy. So they search the area with cadaver dogs and fully process her vehicle for any kind of evidence. And we post the photo of her car on the side of the road on our social medias, so if you guys want to check that out, our Instagram is at Going West Podcast, our Twitter is at Going West Pod, and we also have a Facebook discussion group which is basically Going West discussion group. So basically there's trees lining the interstate, and the cadaver dogs were taken into that

area on both sides of the highway to see if maybe Brandi or any of her belongings were back there, but they didn't pick up a scent and no clues were found. And a big reason for this is because in between the six days that Brandi had gone missing and the area was searched, it had rained, so any kind of scent trail was washed away. Regarding the location of the car, she was about a 30 minute drive away from her mom's house, going in the right direction towards Tyler and Brownsboro. So it really does look like she had left long view and was on her way home, but she came from the wrong highway and didn't take a suggested route home.

And check our socials for a visual because we have a map that explains this. Essentially, it seems that she had taken the wrong route but was still on track to head to Tyler. So police, as well as FBI, who were now involved, wondered if Brandy had potentially gotten lost and then ran out of gas, pulled over and was met with foul play there. The other theory was that she was met with foul play at or near the bar, someone car jacked her and then the car ran out of gas and this tall assailant abandoned the car then. And both theories made sense as far as running out of gas goes

because her car was slanted in a grass ditch with the door ajar and the keys were missing. And then another theory is, you know, did she run out of gas and start walking since she was near her main highway exit? But you know, that doesn't explain the gas can nor the fact that her purse was in the car. Or maybe she pulled over and someone came and brought her gas, hence the gas can in the trunk. But then that wouldn't explain the seat being pushed back in the car and her car keys being missing.

So, it's hard to really imagine any scenario here because it seems like there's always something going against it. But also just as an FYI, there isn't a gas station anywhere near this exit. Yeah, so definitely pay attention to all the details in this case because there are a lot of them. So just for reference, just to kind of give you guys another rundown. The car is sitting on the side of the road The door is open the purse is in the back seat There's a napkin with a number on it and the car keys are missing and so is Brandy of course Police called the man whose number had been written on an napkin and he explained his encounter with Brandy

So police felt this man was very forthcoming with them and seemed to want to help, which really doesn't mean anything honestly. Yeah, means nothing in a murder investigation. They thought it did. So anyway, napkin guy explained that he met Brandy at Graham Central Station in Longview and offered to buy her a drink. But she didn't want one. So the two kept talking and Brandy pretty much came out and asked him for gas money. But he didn't

end up giving her any, I don't know if maybe he didn't have money or didn't have cash or money. Yeah, probably didn't have any cash. Couldn't find that information either way and a story. She did not receive anything from him. But before they're encounter ended, he gave her his phone number on an appkin and didn't see her again, so he says. Now having more information that Brandi had gone to Graham Central Station in long view that night, investigators headed over

there in hopes of finding more information. Luckily, there were cameras both inside and outside the club, and investigators also discovered that upon entry, you have to swipe your driver's license. And because of the swiping feature, you know, to check ID validity, the club was able to see that Brandy's license was indeed scanned at 10.44 p.m. that night that she was last seen. At around this same time, police noticed on the security footage a woman who looks very

similar to Brandy, but they can't fully conclude that it's her. And we have to remember this is 2006 security footage is shit. I mean, honestly, all security footage is pretty much shit Basically, well can I just say though how lucky police got here that the security footage Would he was even still available because now it's about a week later and they didn't look into this until this other car Was like hey this this car's still on the highway right because a lot of places will actually tape over still on the highway. Right, because a lot of places will actually tape over their other tapes because they don't they don't have to go out and buy new tapes. So they just tape over like last week's tape. And that happens so often where even 24 hours later they don't have the tape.

So police got and we got just in this case really lucky that that wasn't the case here because of this massive delay. So let's talk a little bit about the security footage. The video surveillance is black and white, and the coloring on the inside is slightly inverted since it's dark inside the club. Right, so if on the outside camera, the real one, the real black and white, if you're wearing like a white shirt,

it's gonna look black inside the club on that camera. Exactly. Which makes it a lot harder to find someone. Exactly, because the colors are flipped. So anyway, the young woman on camera is seen outside the bar at about 10.40pm, so four minutes before Brandy's card was swiped. And she's seen talking to two men. Then she heads inside with a man and is seen buying drinks. Her outfit looks slightly similar to what Brandy was wearing that night, Then she heads inside with a man and is seen buying drinks.

Her outfit looks slightly similar to what Brandi was wearing that night, but again, since the coloring and the footage is off, they felt that it could be her. So they released this video on the local news hoping to figure out who these men were, and then they waited. While they were reviewing the surveillance footage and awaiting on the public's help, investigators were also trying to see if they could get anything on Brandy's phone. But a whole week and a half after Brandy went missing, the flip phone that was found in Brandy's car was shown to her mom Ellen, and Ellen informed the police that this was not Brandy's cell

phone. They then discovered that it was her ex-boyfriend's cell phone, who at the time was serving in Iraq. So they wasted 10 days looking into the wrong cell phone without realizing that it wasn't hers. And we really can't be sure why her ex-cell phone was in the car. Maybe he had bought a new cell phone and just discarded his old one and left it in Brandi's car.

I mean, nobody knows. It could have just been amongst other junk that sometimes gets left in our car or shoved under a seat or whatever. But, you know, I mean, this was a huge just WTF moment for Brandy's family because they're like, how the shit did you not know this? Yeah, and they're like going through all the contacts

and all the photos and everything. I mean, you would assume that they would have got the sense after like 10 days of investigating the cell phone that it was not Brandy's. And I will say the phone was not functioning anymore because it was an old cell phone so they had to like charge it, look into it, and somehow still Didn't realize that it wasn't hers and in an interview this episode was actually on the show disappeared So I did watch that and was able to pull some information from that so thank you disappeared

from ID the wonderful ID channel so the her mom Ellen had said you know they had even gone in and contacted some people in the phone and some of the people in the address book on the phone didn't even know who Brandy was and that still wasn't a flag enough to say this isn't her phone. Yeah, literally. I mean, how many people, like how many times do you have to call different people and they're like, yeah, I don't know what Brandy for you to be like, okay, well, if nobody knows

who Brandy is, why are their numbers in her phone? Yeah, how would they know her? Yeah. Makes no sense. Not trying to come down on the investigation because I know, I mean, hindsight's 2020, it's easy for me to say sitting over here in my chair, and you know, on the west coast, but I don't know.

I think they probably should have noticed that. Yeah, just seems a little bit obvious. So at that point, investigators started the process of getting Brandy's actual cell phone records, and they proved to be incredibly strange. On the day Brandy was last seen, she last used her cell phone at about 10.30 pm, so roughly 15 minutes before arriving to Graham Central Station, and she actually called the club twice and asked for direction, so it appears she got lost on the way there.

As we know, she walked in at about 10.45 pm, and this is between 1 and 2 hours after she would have left the first bar. Because the family friend bartender, Janette, remembers Brandy leaving sometime between 9 pm and 9.30 pm roughly. So, you know, Graham Central Station was about 45 minutes away, and she did get lost, so it's probably unlikely she made any stops between the first club and Graham Central Station. So it's likely she probably left more likely at 9.30pm.

Right, exactly. That's what I'm thinking. So according to cell phone records, her phone was not used again until, you know, 10.30pm the night she was last seen, was not used again until eight days later on August 10th at 11.23pm. So a few days before police realized that they had been tracking the wrong phone. It was once again used. Then the phone was used sporadically after this. For example, one call was made at 11.23, then again at 11.24, then again the next morning at 10.25 am, and then another 4 minutes later, then another call was made 11 minutes later, and another 21 minutes later, etc.

And over 30 calls were made in the coming days, so very frequent short calls, which reminded Brandy's family as well as law enforcement of calls made by drug dealers. Most of those calls were made to two people, and obviously since they had the phone records, investigators figured out who those two numbers belonged to, and brought them in. After talking to these two individuals, which were a man in his niece, a third person was brought into the circle, as the man who had found the phone. The man says that he had been walking in the South Longview area around August 10th when

he heard beeping sounds on the ground, and the cell phone was just lying there. The man said he found it in a residential area near Stamper Park in South Longview, which is known to be a little bit of a rougher area. And this is 7 miles, aka a 10 minute drive from where her car was found. And the spot her phone was supposedly found is just 3 miles or an 8 minute drive south from where Gram Central Station is. For all you visual people out there, so let's look at Graham Central Station. If you go South, three miles, you get to the phone.

And then if you go essentially South West, seven miles, you get to where her car is. So it makes like an L shape almost. Right, and then again, where her car was found, if you went west of that, you would be headed towards Tyler, which she was. The car was headed west. And from where the phone is said to have been found, if you drive about four blocks, you would be at the entrance of the highway that Brandy's car had to have gotten on to to end up in the spot it did. So this essentially could mean that Brandi, or at least Brandi's car, had driven south from the club,

and that's why it didn't get on the proper freeway. Because remember earlier, we were kind of saying, she didn't take the right freeway, like she was at a different part, but her phone being found in South Longview makes sense, because that's really close to where the freeway entrance is for the interstate that her car was found on.

Right, so the other highway was a more common way to take back to Tyler, but she took this weird way by going south and then getting on the highway to head west. Right, so again, as a recap, if Brandy's car had been where her phone was, you drive four blocks, you'd get onto the highway and then drive ten more minutes on the highway, and then pull over into the grass ditch, that's where her car was. So this kind of helps piece it together a little bit because if this guy really just did

find her phone like off to the side of the sidewalk, that means she could have met someone in that area, Ben met with foul play, her phone ended up on the ground, maybe someone threw it out of her car, you know some tall person got into her car started driving, maybe to get rid of the car, car ran out of gas, I don't know just a theory. I just personally don't see her, going into South Longview, dropping her phone, and then driving on the highway and leaving her purse in the car and having been met with foul play after. I see someone pulling her car into that ditch while trying to either car-jack her or get rid of her car.

Yeah, I mean, it definitely feels more like somebody had car jacked her and then dumped her car somewhere or She was met with foul play and the car and the person was discarding the car because remember again Brandy is short the the car seat is all the way back the the driver's side is all the way back Her her purse is in the car She would have taken her purse with her no matter matter where she was going. And sorry for all the theories. It's just kind of helping us piece together what could be happening with the information we have right now. We're going to present more information that's going to lead to other theories, but just so you know, we're just going down the list here. I feel like in a missing person's case,

it's really important to lay out all the different theories, especially if you've looked over all of the details within a case. That is how cases get solved, so I think it's important. Yeah, fully, fully agree. So this is where things get a little more complicated. Investigators stated that the man changed his story, the man who found the cell phone, a few times. So you have to wonder, is this because he's involved in whatever happened to Brandy?

Or is he just involved in some sketchy stuff that's unrelated and he's afraid to get caught for that stuff? Investigators asked him to take an FBI administered polygraph test and he opted not to. The weird thing about him saying that he found Brandy's phone a week after Brandy was last seen is that it's highly unlikely that considering it rained in the area and so many days had passed that one, the phone would have had battery, and two, that the phone would even be working. Which begs the question, did he have Brandy's phone in his possession since she went missing?

And did he have something to do with her disappearance? Since investigators didn't know what happened to Brandy, all they could do was question this guy and he could answer or not answer whatever they asked and they couldn't hold him. I obviously think it's interesting that his story changed and I do think it's really unlikely that the phone would have battery or be working when he found it, but I also wonder. If he had the phone in his possession the whole time because he was involved in Brandy's disappearance Why didn't he start using it until eight days later? Yeah, exactly. I mean if he found this phone and it was dead

He would have had to take it home and charge it up and then start using it. So I don't know Yeah, I you know obviously I want to say he has our phone. He's got to be involved But maybe he's not maybe he's just a weird sketch our phone. He's got to be involved, but maybe he's not Maybe he's just a weird sketchy guy. He got nothing to do with Brandy Six whole weeks after Brandy went missing her mom was still not fully convinced that the young woman on the surveillance tape was Brandy So as the family looked more into the video Brandy's uncle felt he spotted the real Brandy. Turns out the timestamp on the Graham Central Station surveillance footage was about nine to ten minutes off, so the girl they thought was Brandy was a completely

different person, not at all her. And suddenly, their Brandy was on video walking in the same outfit that she left the house in into the club. She walked in alone at 10.35pm and was seen on camera as well at the check-in stand, so that's where you get your ID swiped and you get your wristband and you pay your cover, but since it was Wednesday, it was ladies night, there was no cover for brandy or any other ladies that went in there. Then, at 12.29 pm, two hours after entering the bar, she's seen walking out. So first off, I want to just talk about this. We have the video on our socials if you want to see, I'm going to do my best to describe it for those who can't go look at it right now.

So she's walking into the bar alone. She doesn't have a purse. He and I watch this video so many times. Yeah and we were trying to determine why she didn't have a purse, but then we saw other ladies in the bar getting their IDs swiped and almost none of them had a purse. And then we started thinking, oh well this is like a country western bar. So they're probably wanting to dance and they don't want to have to put their purse down or hold it. So they probably just grab their card, you know, their debit card and their ID and keep it in their pocket all night and keep their purses in their cards. Exactly. So we kind of made that observation. So she is walking up. She's standing in the

line waiting for her turn for her card to be swiped. She's standing in the line alone. She has her arms crossed. She's got her ID in her hand. Then she to be swiped. She's standing in the line alone, she has her arms crossed, she's got her ID in her hand. Then she goes up to the bar, they swipe her ID, she's just standing there not really saying anything, not talking to anybody, no one's looking at her. Right, and then she gets her wristband, and then she walks away to the right side

of the check and stand. But no guys that are behind her or near her go after her directly, and none of them are are behind her or near her go after her directly and none of them are looking at her talking to her. So then the next time we see her on video, she's seen walking out alone, but she walks out right before a man in a cowboy hat, and he walks slightly to the left and she walks straight. But when she's just out of you when you can just see her feet and the bottom of her legs,

you see her shadow move on to the left as if to follow the guy in the cowboy hat, who by the way was motioning towards her. Yeah, I mean, you can see his body language pointed towards her as if he said something to her. So it's really hard to see because she's just outside of the frame when he turns his body towards her. But you know that that's her. Right. So you see her, you know it's her

because you just saw her legs, you just saw her. And then he's kind of motion towards her. They both walk to the left. And then they're off in the parking lot. And you can see both of their feet, like off slightly in the distance. And then they both go off of you. So automatically we're like, did she go off with him because they were motion towards each other or did they just say something and go their separate ways we don't know, but obviously, I'm trying to figure out who Cowboy Hat Guy is.

So I'm gonna come out and tell you guys if you didn't already know this case is unsolved, and we have no idea if Cowboy Hat Guy was found in question at all because that information has not been released. And we also don't know if cowboy hat guy is the same guy who is napkin guy. We don't know. Or at least that information has not been released because obviously if a case is still open,

there's a lot of information that they can't tell the public because they're trying to solve the case. But to us, Heath and I were thinking about this because we're like, they could easily find out who Cowboy Hat Guy is because all they have to do is wait to see when he comes into the club on the camera and then match that time up at 10 minutes and see who swiped their card at that time. They can easily have this man's name. Exactly, because they have all of those ID swiping transactions from that night. So, I mean, you can honestly just, yeah, you can just match it up to the camera.

Right, so obviously, I mean, it's hard for me to believe that they did not look into this guy, because if you look up Brandi Wells Cowboy Hat Guy on Google, there's so many people that are like, who is Cowboy Hat Guy? Oh yeah, the internet is going crazy about Cowboy Hat Guy. And we want to know too. So I mean, it's hard for me to believe that police did not look into this guy. They had to have done their due diligence, found the man's name.

But as we know about napkin guy is they just said, oh, he was really forthcoming and he seemed like he wanted to help and that he wasn't involved It's like okay. Well, are you really looking into cowboy hack guy too? Or are you just saying oh well he gave us some information and we believe him right was he just forthcoming as well? Yeah, are you really just are you really looking into them guys? So hopefully they did but sorry guys we don't know so the reason why we brought up the purse thing is because when her car was found, the napkin obviously from the guy that she met that night inside the club

was in the backseat of her car and so was her ID, it was in her wallet. So that to us says she got back into her car that night. So we're like, if cowboy hat guys involved, did she follow him out? Right. So if you're thinking that it's possible that she was abducted in the parking lot or something of that bar, she probably drove away from the bar in her car. And then something happened. Right. Again, also, I mean, if you think of it this way, that you can always say, oh, well, maybe she put her

ID and the napkin down and then she got abducted then. It's like, okay then why would her car end up on the freeway? If you're gonna abduct her from the parking lot, leave the car there. There's absolutely no reason you should move the car. I mean, obviously, unless, of course, you know, you were trying to take suspicion away from you and you were at that bar that night, so you want to drop her car somewhere else to make it seem like, you know, she was just abducted randomly off the highway. Right, could be, but that's the thing about this case, there's a lot to consider. So by this time it's the middle of September, so over a month and a half after Brandy

went missing. And still, they have no idea what happened to Brandy. And of course, her family was feeling extremely restless because it was clear that something idea what happened to Brandy, and of course her family was feeling extremely restless because it was clear that something bad had happened to her. So the family reached out to the Laura Recovery Center, which is a Texas-based non-profit organization dedicated to helping find missing children, and it's named after 12-year-old Laura Smither who disappeared in 1997, and her father Bob is the one who started this organization. So after reaching out to the Laura Recovery Center, that group got together and thoroughly

searched the area around Graham Central Station with cadaver dogs, and they even walked down towards South Longview, but no clues were uncovered during this search. Over a month later, on October 29, 2006, this still-burning body of a woman was found in Gregg County, which is where Longview is located. The deceased woman was found in an oil field just seven miles away from where Brandy's car was found. Because of the fire damage, the woman was unrecognizable, but police did know that she was wearing blue jeans and a light purple sweater. Although the outfit was different from what Brandi was wearing the night she went missing, police wondered if this young woman could be Brandi, but after comparing dental records, it wasn't a match.

And this woman actually went unidentified for 12 years. So they had created a complete 3D clay reconstruction and sketch of what they thought this young woman looked like, and still, no one came forward thinking it was anyone in particular. So she was referred to as Lavender Doe, because of her purple sweater for 12 years. And finally, in January 2019, the DNA Doe project was able to identify her as a 21-year-old blonde named Dana Dodd. And the reason she wasn't identified sooner was because she lived in Florida and worked to traveling sales jobs, so she traveled constantly and had been traveling in Texas when she was strangled to death in 2006 and then set on fire.

And when she was identified, detectives finally charged a man named Joseph Wayne Burnett for Dana Dodd's murder. And just months ago in December of 2020, he pleaded guilty to the crime. At the time of Dana's murder, Joseph Burnett was 28 years old, and he had been a long time person of interest in the murder thanks to evidence found at the scene, which was semen. By the time he was arrested for Dana's murder, he had already been charged with another murder

that happened in July of 2019. A 28 year old woman named Felicia Pearson, and this occurred in Longview as well. Something that stands out right away to me here, and this might be total like overshot, but it's the gas can that was found in Brandy's trunk. Because Dana Dodd was found face down in a burning wood pile with a gas can nearby. And this was around the same time. And again, that may be super off base because I couldn't

find whether or not Felicia's body had been burned just that it was found in the woods, but I can't not make that comparison. So Joseph Burnett has a pretty long criminal history and is a registered sex offender. In 1996, when Joseph was 18, he was convicted on a sexual assault charge in the neighboring county of Rusk County, so it's right next to Greg County. And around this same time, he was convicted of vehicle burglary. After serving time for these charges, he was released but convicted once again in 2007, so the year after Brandy's disappearance and Dana Dodd's murder, for failing to register

his address in Greg County as a sex offender. So it very much appears that Joseph Burnett was a free man in August of 2006 when Brandy went missing. And although he pleaded guilty to both Dana and Felicia's murders and no others, it's definitely still possible that he was involved in whatever happened to Brandy. Since Brandy's case is unsolved, we can't say for sure if Joseph was questioned, but back in 2008, police were aware of the potential connection, so we can only assume he's been questioned at least once since Brandy's disappearance. Something that stands out to me is that Brandy was alone at both bars, and that drinking didn't seem to be the big factor for her that night

As we know she only drank half of her cherry vodka sour at the first bar and According to the napkin guy at Graham Central Station She declined his offer to buy her a drink good point exactly so Part of me wonders if she had planned to meet someone there that she didn't know very well because I can't really think of why she was even out that night. We know that she tried to get at least two other people to join her, her godmother, and her sister, but even though they declined, she went anyway. And why she insisted on going to this bar that was 45 minutes away alone just kind of sticks out to me.

Yes, I totally agree, because especially since she was low on gas, and so low that she straight up asked to stranger at the club for gas money. Like, if you don't have money for gas, you certainly don't have money for drinks, which leaves me to wonder, why are you going out in the first place and why are you going out so far away? So there's some sort of motivation

for her to want to drive all the way to Graham Central Station. I know that sometimes girls will go out and they just hope that a guy will buy them a drink. But again, it's like she was offered a drink and she didn't take it. So it just is like, why? Why were you even there and why did you go so far?

Like she easily could have gone to the electric cowboy in Tyler, been close to home and not use up all her gas. And for reference from Tyler, this club was like 40 minutes away, which means 80 miles round trip. Like that's far. In 2010, so four years after Brandy's disappearance, a man called her mom Ellen and said her daughter was still alive and living in Kansas City, Missouri.

But before Ellen could get any more information, the man hung up. I think this was probably someone who had heard about her disappearance and wanted to be an asshole, because nothing in this case leads me to she went off to lead a different life, because things were just coming together in her life, not falling apart. Right, she was just about to start school again. Yeah, and all the details are just too strange, you know, to think that she just went off.

But either way, you know, must have been very confusing and a very devastating call to receive. Like, yeah. And again, for people who do stuff like that, who, you know, make a joke out of missing person's cases, you guys are pieces of shit. Well, yeah, I mean, that's what I'm saying. This guy's definitely, definitely a piece of shit. I don't think he was truthful at all. When Brandy Wells was last seen on August 2nd, 2006, she was 23 years old, four feet, truthful at all. Please call the Longview Police Department at 903-237-1110.

Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much for listening to this case. There are so many scenarios going through my mind. Oh, it's so frustrating. It's so frustrating. But next week we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. I personally think that Cowboy Hat Guy is such a big question mark in my head. I don't know how he couldn't be involved.

And I really think that maybe she followed him out of the club. He was like, oh, I'll get you gas or we can go hang out. Because she was at the club for two hours. So maybe they were talking. They wanted to hang out more after Strucket connection right and maybe he lived in South Longview or nearer South Longview and He did something to her. Maybe he sexually assaulted her and then killed her I don't know making that up fully fully making that up and then To get rid of her car

He threw her phone out the window it landed in the street and then he drove and her car either ran at a gas and he ditched or Or he just planted it there for God knows why yeah We really don't know exactly the whole thing is as we feel like the suspect Probably most likely lives in long view because you know if she left that night and she yeah She may have met somebody went over to their house, that person promised her a gas can with gas, and oh hey, I don't have any cash for you, but I do have this gas can back at my house,

and then something may have happened, and from there, we don't really know. Yeah, it's- God, there's so many scenarios, and none of them make- none of them, I'm like, that feels good, that's it. Like, I- I- I can't decide.

I mean, if one of them did, this case would probably be solved. Please share this episode. This, I mean, I feel like there's security footage. There's phone records. Like, we gotta be able to solve this one and her mom and her whole family are just every day trying to find answers. So we gotta help them anyway we can

by spreading the word on Brandy's case. So thank you everybody for listening and thank you so much to all of our patrons who joined in the last week. You guys really helped support the show. We love this shit out of you, so we wanna give you a little shout out. Thank you so much to Jess, Tara,

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