Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Disappearance of Brandi Wells Part One

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The Disappearance of Brandi Wells Part One · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Call podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. For decades, East Texas was defined
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  Speaker 1: by distance. Before the Interstate, traveling from Tyler to Longview
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  Speaker 1: wasn't something people did on a whim. Folks followed roads
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  Speaker 1: like Highway eighty as they wound through one small town
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  Speaker 1: after another, slowing down for courthouse squares and railroad crossings.
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  Speaker 1: They stopped for gas at stations where the attendant might
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  Speaker 1: recognize their family name, and eight at diner's where the
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  Speaker 1: waitress had known their parents before she knew them. People
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  Speaker 1: noticed strangers. They noticed unfamiliar cars parked too long outside
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  Speaker 1: a grocery store, or out of place, men lingering on
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  Speaker 1: sidewalks they didn't normally walk. A person moving through East
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  Speaker 1: Texas left left traces of themselves because there were only
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  Speaker 1: so many ways in and so many ways out. Then
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  Speaker 1: came Interstate twenty. When construction of the road carved its
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  Speaker 1: way across East Texas in the late nineteen sixties and
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  Speaker 1: early nineteen seventies, it changed the region in ways few
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  Speaker 1: people could have imagined. It promised convenience and progress, connecting
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  Speaker 1: Dallas to Shreveport, Louisiana, and eventually stretching all the way
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  Speaker 1: across the Deep South, finally ending in Florence, South Carolina.
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  Speaker 1: Going west, Interstate twenty led to the middle of Nowhere,
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  Speaker 1: or the western edge of Reeves County, as it is
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  Speaker 1: also known. It stretches more than fifteen hundred miles in total,
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  Speaker 1: a drive that once required patients became routine and much faster.
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  Speaker 1: Distances that had seemed significant suddenly shrank, making East Texas
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  Speaker 1: easier to reach and easier to leave. Interstate twenty offered freedom.
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  Speaker 1: Young people no longer had to limit themselves to whatever
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  Speaker 1: entertainment existed in their hometowns. They might live in White
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  Speaker 1: House and traveled a long view to go dancing, or
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  Speaker 1: maybe leave Henderson after dinner and be at a high
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  Speaker 1: school football game in Tyler before the sun went down.
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  Speaker 1: Friends thought nothing of driving thirty or forty miles to
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  Speaker 1: celebrate birthdays or simply escape the familiarity of their own
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  Speaker 1: small towns for a few hours. It became ordinary and
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  Speaker 1: was considered safe. By the early two thousands, those drives
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  Speaker 1: had become a part of life, something you wouldn't give
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  Speaker 1: a second thought to, and for many young adults across
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  Speaker 1: East Texas especially those who came of age before rideshare
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  Speaker 1: apps and smartphones. The car represented intoans. You drove yourself,
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  Speaker 1: you met friends, You headed home when you were ready.
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  Speaker 1: During the day, Interstate twenty looks like any other American highway.
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  Speaker 1: Families poll campers toward summer vacations and sales, reps, chase appointments,
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  Speaker 1: parents shuttle children between tournaments and grandparents' houses, church groups
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  Speaker 1: head towards retreats, and college students make the familiar trip home.
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  Speaker 1: But sometime after midnight that traffic slows and the truck
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  Speaker 1: traffic increases. Long haul drivers race deadlines scribed in log
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  Speaker 1: books and measured by delivery windows. Truckers pass through communities
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  Speaker 1: they may frequent on their routes, while others night travelers
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  Speaker 1: perhaps might never visit the site again, though the traffic
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  Speaker 1: is a fraction of its daytime cautnerpart Thousands of vehicles
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  Speaker 1: move through East Texas every night. Most carry ordinary people,
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  Speaker 1: of course, folks just trying to make a living or
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  Speaker 1: looking to beat the daytime rush. But anonymity has always
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  Speaker 1: been one of the interstate system's unintended consequences. A stranger
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  Speaker 1: can enter a community stop for less than an hour
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  Speaker 1: and disappear back into the flow of traffic without leaving
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  Speaker 1: much behind beyond a receipt and tail lights that fade
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  Speaker 1: into the distance. East Texas likes to think of itself
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  Speaker 1: as a destination pine trees, high school football stadiums, church
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  Speaker 1: fish fries, and generations of families rooted to the same
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  Speaker 1: red soil. But in many ways it's a corridor. From Longview,
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  Speaker 1: Dallas is only a couple of hours to the west,
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  Speaker 1: Shreveport sits just across the Louisiana line to the east,
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  Speaker 1: Arkansas and Mississippi are reachable long before the day or
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  Speaker 1: night is over. Interstate twenty transformed East Texas from a
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  Speaker 1: collection of isolated communities into a crossroads, and crossroads have
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  Speaker 1: always attracted people with reasons to keep moving. The geography
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  Speaker 1: behind the exits only deepens the contradiction from the interstate.
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  Speaker 1: East Texas can appear crowded with restaurants, hotels, and gas
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  Speaker 1: stations glowing beneath fluorescent lights. But take the right county
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  Speaker 1: road and the landscape changes quickly. Dense pine forests swallow
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  Speaker 1: the horizon, and oil lease roads branch into places few
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  Speaker 1: outsiders wouldever notice. Hunting land stretches for acres behind locked gates,
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  Speaker 1: while creeks cut through ravines hidden from passers by even
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  Speaker 1: small cemeteries sit hidden beyond the trees, visited only by
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  Speaker 1: those who know where to look. It's not difficult to
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  Speaker 1: leave the noise of the interstate behind in minutes. In
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  Speaker 1: other words, the interstate offers speed and the landscape offers concealment.
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  Speaker 1: If you're searching for something or someone, that reality can
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  Speaker 1: be a nightmare. Most people traveling Interstate twenty arrive home
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  Speaker 1: exactly as expected. They pull into their driveways carrying leftovers
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  Speaker 1: from dinner or stories from a night out. They put
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  Speaker 1: their kids to bed while complaining about road construction, and
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  Speaker 1: before crawling into bed themselves. But sometimes people living out
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  Speaker 1: ordinary routines cross paths with something that is anything but
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  Speaker 1: that extraordinary evil. Perhaps on a summer evening in two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and six, twenty three year old Brandy Wells did
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  Speaker 1: something countless East Texans had done before, something that was
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  Speaker 1: in fact familiar to her, at least in part. She
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  Speaker 1: got dressed to go out. Nothing remarkable or unusual. Young
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  Speaker 1: women from Tyler White House, Henderson, Gladewater, and dozens of
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  Speaker 1: other communities had made that same drive toward Longview's nightlife scene,
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  Speaker 1: where they met friends and danced, laughing beneath neon lights
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  Speaker 1: and blaring country music. They worried about finding parking spots
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  Speaker 1: and whether they'd have enough energy for work the next morning.
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  Speaker 1: The danger, they imagined was usually the obvious kind, like
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  Speaker 1: having too much to drink or getting a flat tire
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  Speaker 1: on the highway. Few imagined vulnerability could exist in the
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  Speaker 1: relatively small spaces between one familiar place and the next,
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  Speaker 1: between the club and the parking lot, or between that
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  Speaker 1: parking lot and home. But something happened to Brandy Wells.
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  Speaker 1: Her vehicle was later found near Interstate twenty, a fact
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  Speaker 1: that has always lingered and haunted the investigation. While that
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  Speaker 1: interstate changed East Texas by bringing prosperity and opportunity, by
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  Speaker 1: connecting families and communities and allowing young people the freedom
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  Speaker 1: to build lives larger than the towns where they grew up,
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  Speaker 1: it also created an invisible highway, one where strangers crossed
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  Speaker 1: paths without learning each other's names, a place where someone
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  Speaker 1: could arrive after dark and be hundreds of miles away
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  Speaker 1: by morning. Somewhere along that line of concrete cutting through
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  Speaker 1: the piney Woods, Brandy vanished. Brandy Ellen Wells was born
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  Speaker 1: on Thanksgiving Day, November twenty eighth, nineteen eighty two, to
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  Speaker 1: Morris and Ellen Wells. While growing up in the Tyler,
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  Speaker 1: Texas area, she developed a love of music, friends, and
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  Speaker 1: family that would remain with her throughout her life. Brandy
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  Speaker 1: was a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a young
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  Speaker 1: woman trying to build a future. Family members called her Boo,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: others called her Blinkie. The second nickname came from a
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  Speaker 1: habit she had of blinking frequently, one of those small
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  Speaker 1: details that means very little to outsiders but instantly brings
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  Speaker 1: a smile to the faces of people who knew her best.
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  Speaker 1: She stood only about five feet tall, but possessed a
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  Speaker 1: huge personality, one that seemed to attract people naturally. Her mother, Ellen,
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  Speaker 1: said that Brandy never met a stranger. It's a phrase
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  Speaker 1: that appears repeatedly whenever people describe her, and perhaps no
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  Speaker 1: other description captures her personality more accurately. Her younger half sister, Samantha,
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  Speaker 1: remembered her as bubbly, carefree, funny, and trusting. Her godmother,
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  Speaker 1: Michelle Cole, remembered someone who naturally saw the good and
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: people conversations came easily to Brandy. Friendships did too. She
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  Speaker 1: moved through the world with an openness that made people
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  Speaker 1: comfortable around her. Brandy attended Chapel Hill High School, where
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  Speaker 1: she graduated in two thousand. During those years, she became
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  Speaker 1: heavily involved in band and flagcore. The activity was more
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  Speaker 1: than an extracurricular interest. It became a major part of
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  Speaker 1: her identity and eventually helped earn scholarship opportunities. After graduation,
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  Speaker 1: friends remembered her love of music and her dream of
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  Speaker 1: one day becoming a country singer. Whether that dream would
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  Speaker 1: have remained a hobby or become something more is impossible
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  Speaker 1: to know now, but it reflected something important about her character.
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  Speaker 1: Brandy believed good things were possible even when life failed
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  Speaker 1: to unfold exactly the way she imagined. She rarely stayed
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  Speaker 1: discouraged for long. After graduating from Chapel Hill, she attended
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  Speaker 1: the University of Texas at Tyler. For a while, the
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  Speaker 1: future seemed straightforward. College would lead to a degree, and
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  Speaker 1: that degree would lead to a career. She was doing
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  Speaker 1: what so many young adults do, taking one step after
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  Speaker 1: another toward the future she wanted. Then life intervened. While
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  Speaker 1: attending college, Brandy fell in love with a young man
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  Speaker 1: named Manny Brock. On May thirteen, two thousand and three,
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  Speaker 1: the two married in Smith County. She was only twenty
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  Speaker 1: years old. Like many young couples, marriage thrust them into
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  Speaker 1: adulthood quickly. Work, college classes, bills, and everyday responsibilities all
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  Speaker 1: came at once. The balancing act proved more difficult than
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  Speaker 1: either probably expected, a reality plenty of young folk's face. Eventually,
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  Speaker 1: Brandy stepped away from university before earning her degree. The
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  Speaker 1: marriage didn't last. For some people, the divorce might have
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  Speaker 1: defined everything that followed, but for Brandy it became one
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  Speaker 1: chapter among many. After she and Manny parted ways, Brandy
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  Speaker 1: spent some time living in San Antonio. Years later, some
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  Speaker 1: of her sister Samantha's favorite memories would come from that period.
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  Speaker 1: Brandy picked her up for shopping trips. They went to
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  Speaker 1: movies together and spent afternoons browsing music stores, looking through CDs,
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  Speaker 1: and talking about life. Samantha remembered always feeling excited when
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  Speaker 1: Brandy came around because there was usually an adventure waiting,
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  Speaker 1: even if that adventure was nothing more than spending time together.
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  Speaker 1: One memory stood out above the others. Brandy repeatedly promised
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  Speaker 1: that when Samantha got older, the two of them would
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  Speaker 1: go dancing together. It sounded like the sort of promise
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  Speaker 1: sisters make every day, the kind of promise that at
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  Speaker 1: some point will come to pass Eventually. Brandy returned to
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  Speaker 1: East Texas and settled in Brownsboro, about twenty miles west
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  Speaker 1: of Tyler, where she shared an apartment with a roommate.
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  Speaker 1: By the summer of two thousand and six, she was
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  Speaker 1: quietly rebuilding her life one step at a time. She
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  Speaker 1: had found a job and was once again enrolled in college,
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  Speaker 1: which was about to begin, and her scholarship had been renewed.
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  Speaker 1: Brandy was to attend Trinity Valley Community College with plans
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  Speaker 1: to become a teacher. The future she thought she had
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  Speaker 1: lost years earlier, suddenly seemed possible again, and the people
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  Speaker 1: closest to her noticed the difference. When her friend Janelle
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  Speaker 1: spoke with her in late July two thousand and six,
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  Speaker 1: Brandy wasn't dwelling on the past. She wasn't talking about
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  Speaker 1: mistakes or disappointments. Instead, she was talking about what came next.
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  Speaker 1: A young woman looking forward, not backward. A young woman
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  Speaker 1: preparing for a future she fully expected to reach. On
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  Speaker 1: the evening of Wednesday, August second, two thousand and six,
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  Speaker 1: Brandy drove from Brownsboro to Tyler and walked through her
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  Speaker 1: mom's front door. According to Ellen, the visit wasn't planned,
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  Speaker 1: meaning she wasn't expecting her daughter at the house that night.
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  Speaker 1: Brandy simply showed up a welcome surprise. That evening, she
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  Speaker 1: and her younger sister, Georgia had planned to go dancing together,
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  Speaker 1: something they had talked about doing before school and work
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  Speaker 1: began demanding more of Brandy's time, but Georgia had started
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  Speaker 1: feeling sick and eventually fell asleep. Rather than staying in,
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  Speaker 1: Brandy decided to go out on her own. She considered
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  Speaker 1: it her last chance for a while. Ellen later remarked
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  Speaker 1: to live it up. Before leaving, she spent a little
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  Speaker 1: more time talking with her mother. During that conversation, Brandy
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  Speaker 1: asked if she could borrow Ellen's car because her own
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  Speaker 1: was low on gas. Ellen told her that wouldn't help
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  Speaker 1: much because her vehicle was also running low. Brandy ultimately
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  Speaker 1: decided to take her own car that evening. As she
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  Speaker 1: gathered her things and prepared to leave. There was no
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  Speaker 1: reason for anyone in the house to believe they were
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  Speaker 1: spending their final moments with her. Like so many tragedies begin,
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  Speaker 1: nothing felt unusual, and nothing would until it was too late.
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  Speaker 1: Before going to the club, Brandy made a stop. An
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  Speaker 1: old family friend named Jeannette worked behind the bar at
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  Speaker 1: a bowling alley in Tyler, and Brandy decided to stop
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  Speaker 1: in for a drink. She ordered a cherry vodka sour
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  Speaker 1: and put it on her mother's tab. The two sat
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  Speaker 1: and talked for a while, and at some point Brandy
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  Speaker 1: mentioned that she planned to spend the rest of the
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  Speaker 1: evening at Graham's Central Station in Longview, a popular nightclub
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  Speaker 1: she had never been to before. Longview, about thirty seven
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  Speaker 1: miles away, had long been one of East Texas's regional hobbs.
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  Speaker 1: Built first by the railroad and later transformed by the
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  Speaker 1: East Texas oil boom, the city drew people from across
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  Speaker 1: the region for work, shopping, entertainment, and nightlife. By two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and six, it wasn't unusual for someone from Tyler, Marshall, Kilgore, Hallsville,
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  Speaker 1: or the dozens of smaller area communities to spend an
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  Speaker 1: evening in Longview. Jeannette told Brandy to be careful and
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  Speaker 1: that Graham's was kind of a rough place, but the
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  Speaker 1: family friend's warning didn't slow her down. Brandy climbed into
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  Speaker 1: her black two thousand Pontiac Grand Prix and headed east.
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  Speaker 1: The drive from Tyler to Longview takes a little less
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  Speaker 1: than an hour. Twenty three year old Brandy Wells had
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  Speaker 1: never been to Graham's Central station before, and reportedly called
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: there several times from her cell phone seeking directions. The
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  Speaker 1: club was enormously popular at the time. Graham Central promoted
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  Speaker 1: itself as the number one dance club in Longview and
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  Speaker 1: was part of a Texas based chain that operated dozens
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: of nightclub ub across the country. By two thousand and six,
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  Speaker 1: the company reportedly owned or operated approximately seventy five clubs.
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  Speaker 1: Located at ten sixteen McCann Road in the heart of Longview,
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  Speaker 1: Graham Central sat on roughly eight and a half acres.
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  Speaker 1: The seventeen thousand square foot facility was designed to accommodate
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  Speaker 1: large crowds, with a stated capacity of more than nine
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  Speaker 1: hundred patrons and parking for approximately seven hundred vehicles. Originally
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: marketed as a top forty country and Western nightclub. The
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: facility was built with multiple entertainment areas that allowed management
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  Speaker 1: to feature different styles of music and attract a wider
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  Speaker 1: audience from across East Texas. Wednesdays were Ladies Night, and
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: like many large dance clubs of the era, Graham's regularly
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  Speaker 1: drew patrons from all around, even from dozens of miles away.
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  Speaker 1: Operating from seven pm until two pm Tuesday through Sunday,
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  Speaker 1: the club had become a familiar destination for young adults
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  Speaker 1: looking to dance, meet friends, and spend a few hours
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  Speaker 1: away from work and other everyday responsibilities. Company officials frequently
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: emphasized their commitment to customer safety, particularly because of the
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: large crowds the club attracted. As of the summer of
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: two thousand and six, thousands of people had passed through
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  Speaker 1: Graham's doors. When Brandy arrived that August night, the club
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: was already busy. Cars and trucks filled much of the
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  Speaker 1: parking lot, and music that was little more than a
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: mumbling thump from the outside spilled from the building each
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  Speaker 1: time the doors opened. Brandy's driver's license was electronically scanned
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  Speaker 1: when she entered the club, creating a record of her arrival.
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  Speaker 1: Surveillance cameras also captured her entering the building. Unlike many
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: missing persons cases, detectives were able to establish this portion
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  Speaker 1: of the timeline with confidence. Police later determined that Brandy
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: arrived at Graham Central Station at approximately twelve thirty six pm.
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  Speaker 1: Witnesses later reported seeing her during the evening, and one
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: detail surfaced repeatedly in those accounts. Brandy mentioned needing gas
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and was asking different folks for a couple bucks. Unfortunately,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: very little information about any interactions she may have had
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: has ever been released Publicly, shortly after midnight now August third,
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  Speaker 1: two thousand and six, Brandy departed from Graham Central Station,
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  Speaker 1: as was seen on the surveillance tapes. It was the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: last confirmed point in the timeline where investors gators can
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  Speaker 1: place her with certainty. The next morning began the way
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  Speaker 1: countless mornings begin for parents. Ellen expected to see Brandy
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  Speaker 1: sleeping on the couch when she woke up. After all,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: that had been the plan. Brandy was supposed to go out,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: enjoy herself and come back. There was no reason to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: think otherwise. She hadn't called or texted letting her mother
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: know of a change in plans. Ellen hadn't asked her
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: which club she was going to, but assumed it was
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the Electric Cowboy in town, just down the road from
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: her house. In fact, she didn't know Brandy had gone
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: to Longview. Still, when Ellen didn't find her asleep where
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: she expected, it wasn't immediately alarming. Brandy was twenty three.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Ellen thought she'd come home when she was ready, that
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  Speaker 1: maybe she'd just avoided driving after having a few drinks
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  Speaker 1: that afternoon, her daughter's roommate called. Brandy had been expected
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: back at the apartment in Brownsboro by then, but she
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: still wasn't there. Ellen began calling her daughter's cell phone.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Each call went straight to voicemail. At first, that wasn't
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: necessarily alarming either. Dead batteries happen, as do poor signals,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: much more often in two thousand and six than they
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: do now. But as the hours passed, those explanations became
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: increasingly difficult to believe. Ellen's concern transformed into fear. By
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Friday morning, the situation felt very different. Nearly forty eight
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: hours had passed and a missing person's report was filed.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: As she explained the situation to the Tyler police, her
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: youngest daughter was in earshot heard her mother telling the
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: police that Brandy had gone to the Electric Cowboy in
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: town and corrected her saying that she went to Graham's
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Central station in Longview instead, about a forty five minute
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: drive from Tyler. Brandy's case highlights one of the most
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: persistent and potentially dangerous myths surrounding missing persons investigations, the
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: belief that families must wait twenty four or even forty
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: eight hours before reporting someone missing. There is no such rule.
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  Speaker 1: Law enforcement can begin taking a report immediately when a
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: disappearance is unusual, out of character, or raises legitimate concern.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: In fact, the earliest hours are often the most important.
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  Speaker 1: Surveillance footage probably still exists, witnesses, memories are fresher, and
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: potential leads are easier to identify and follow. Every hour matters,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: every minute matters. What also often DeLay's investigations isn't policy,
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  Speaker 1: its hope and even rationality. Family members convince themselves there
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: must be an innocent explanation, and most often there is.
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  Speaker 1: They figure the person stayed with a friend, or tell
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: themselves a phone battery died. They hope someone simply forgot
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: to call, and they don't want to overreact. Most of all,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: they don't want to believe something terrible may have happened.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: For Ellen, those first days appear to have been consumed
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: by exactly that struggle, hope competing against fear. The hope
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: that Brandy had simply changed her plans, or that she
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: would hear the increasingly emotional voicemails and call her mother back.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: But with every passing hour, those hopes became harder to
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: hold on to. If there's one lesson to take from
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: cases like Brandy's, it's this there is no twenty four
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: hour rule or forty eight hour rule in missing persons cases.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Time is the one thing investigators can never get back.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: By the time the missing person's report was filed on Brandy,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Ellen's fear was becoming impossible to ignore something was certainly wrong.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Her daughter had vanished, and the window of time investigators
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: often rely on most was already beginning to close. While
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: family members were trying to figure out where Brandy might be,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: something significant had already happened. The car had been long found.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: At approximately nine point fifteen on Thursday morning, a Texas
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Department of Public Safety trooper located a black Pontiac Grand
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Prix along westbound innersh State twenty near Farm de Market
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Road twenty eighty seven, and the circumstances were incredibly troublesome.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: The car was parked at an odd angle and the
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: driver's side door stood open. Sometime that Thursday morning, a
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: passerby apparently noticed these unusual details about the Pontiac and
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: thought they were odd enough to bring it to the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: attention of authorities. When the trooper arrived, they noticed personal
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: belongings in the car, but at the time none of
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: those details meant anything on their own. There was no
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: missing person's report attached to the car. To the trooper,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: it appeared to be another abandoned vehicle on the side
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: of the road, something they dealt with routinely, if not
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: multiple times a day. He tagged it and went about
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: his shift. The car sat for five days until detectives
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: realized that one of the most important pieces of brandy
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Well's disappearance had been sitting alongside Interstate twenty since the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: morning after she vanished. Police converged on the car. The
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: keys were missing, but Brandy's purse, her wallet, a phone,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and other personal items remained inside. The Pontiac was facing
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: west toward the direction Brandy should have been traveling if
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: she was returning to Tyler from Longview. The vehicle bore
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: damage above the passenger side front wheel. Inside the car,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: detectives found a napkin with a man's name and phone
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: number written on it. The driver's seat had been pushed
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: all the way back, unusual for a woman who stood
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: around five feet tall. Police found a gas can in
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the trunk, and family members found that discovery particularly strange
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: because it didn't fit the Brandy they knew. She was
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the sort of person who carefully planned ahead for every possibility.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: More than one person later remarked that carrying a gas
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: can simply didn't sound like something Brandy would normally do.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: In fact, no one knew her to carry one at all. Individually,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: none of those details explained what happened, and even together
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: they created a picture that investigators struggled to interpret. The
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Pontiac didn't look like the scene of a violent confrontation,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and it certainly didn't provide a simple explanation for Brandy's disappearance.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: What investigators did know was that finding the car transformed
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: the situation from a missing person's report into something much
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: more troubling. Someone parked it there someone who it appeared
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: was quite tall, and then that someone walked away from it. Volunteers,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: detective and patrol officers began focusing on the area surrounding
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: the vehicle. Search dogs were brought in. Family members hoped
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: they might establish a direction of travel or locate some
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: sign of Brandy's movements after leaving the car. Police searched
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: on both sides of Interstate twenty and the frontage roads
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: that ran alongside them. By the time they were able
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to thoroughly search, rain had come and gone. A rarity
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: in Tyler in the month of August since the dogs
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: might have otherwise followed were gone. Countless people and cars
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: had been up and down both the interstate and frontage roads,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: leaving new tracks and discarded items. The authorities found nothing.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Next time on Gone Cold, Texas True Crime, the investigation
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: into the disappearance, and where the case stands almost twenty
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: years later. If you have any information about the disappearance
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: of Brandy ellen Wells Police, contact the Longview Police at
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: nine zero three two three seven one one one zero.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to join Gon Cold's mission to shine
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: a light on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get
• 31:26
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• 31:30
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• 31:35
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• 31:38
  Speaker 1: star rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever
• 31:42
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• 31:46
  Speaker 1: we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all,