In March of 2004, a teenager left their place of employment, intent on returning home. They were never seen again.
Brianna Maitland was born on October 6th, 1986, in Burlington, Vermont to parents Bruce and Kellie. The Maitland family, Bruce, Kellie, Brianna, and her older brother, lived on a family farm in East Franklin, Vermont, a community located very close to the Canadian border.
Brianna, known as “B”, or “Bri”, was a free-spirited, vivacious, well-liked young woman. She has been described as spontaneous, and radiating happiness. She was also very trusting of other people.
Growing up, Brianna trained extensively in jiu-jitsu, and greatly enjoyed the training. However, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Brianna was lonely. Living out in the country, far away from her friends, simply didn’t suit her.
When she turned 17, in October of 2003, Brianna decided it was time she set out on her own. She moved closer to her friends, and even transferred into their high school. Kellie, Brianna’s mother, was surprised, but supportive of her daughter. She knew that Brianna was always fiercely independent. She also made sure that Brianna knew she could return at any time, if she so desired.
While Brianna was glad to be closer to her friends, her living arrangements were not very stable. She couch-surfed often, and her grades began slipping. By February, 2004, Brainna had dropped out of school. Brianna panicked. She wanted to go to college, like all of her friends. She needed to get her act together.
Brianna moved into the home of her childhood friend, Jillian Stout, and enrolled in a GED program. She was determined to graduate on time, and join her friends at college – wherever that may be. Brianna also had two jobs, one waitressing at a diner in St. Albans, Vermont, and one in Montgomery, Vermont. Both were a fair distance from Jillian’s home in Sheldon, Vermont, but Brianna was determined to make it work.
On the night of February 24th, 2004, Brianna let herself have some fun, and attended a party hosted by her friends. At the party, Brianna was attacked by Keallie Lacross. The reason Keallie attacked Brianna is unclear, but Brianna’s father, Bruce, believed that Keallie was jealous that her boyfriend was paying attention to Brianna. He also stated that Brianna wouldn’t have fought back; she was a trained martial artist, and was cognizant of the fact that her skills could do some serious damage to another person. The last thing she wanted was to hurt anyone.
The following day, a friend finally convinced Brianna to seek medical attention for her scrapes and bruises. She was diagnosed with a broken nose, and a concussion. Brianna admitted that Keallie had hit her in the face several times. She also filed assault charges against Keallie, at the prompting of her friends and family.
A few weeks later, on the morning of Friday, March 19th, 2004, Brianna took the math portion of her GED examination. She was feeling good about it. To celebrate, she and her mother, Kellie, we out to lunch. Bruce would have joined, but he was out of state on business.
Following lunch, where Brianna spoke excitedly about college plans, mother and daughter ran some errands, and did some shopping. While waiting in line to check out of a store, Brianna became distracted by something. She left the store, telling her mother she would return quickly. As Kellie checked out, she found Brianna in the parking lot of the store, appearing agitated and shaken. Kellie didn’t pry, and Brianna soon left, stating that she needed to get home and get ready to work her shift at the Black Lantern Inn, in Montgomery. Kellie dropped Brianna off at Jillian’s home between 3:30 and 4:00 PM.
Before she left for work, Brianna left Jillian a note, informing her friend of where she was going. Then, she left, driving a rather recognizable vehicle: a 1985 mint green Oldsmobile sedan, which was registered to her mother, Kellie.
At around 11:20 PM, Brianna finished up her shift at the Black Lantern Inn. Her coworkers invited her to join them for a bite to eat at a diner nearby, but Brianna declined. She had an early shift at her diner job in St. Albans the next morning. She wanted to get home, and get some sleep. Her coworkers watched her drive off.
The following afternoon, a Vermont State Police trooper was dispatched to an abandoned house in Richford, Vermont. The abandoned house was only about a mile from the Black Lantern Inn. There, he found Brianna’s Oldsmobile – but he had no idea what it was yet.
The car was found backed into the side of the abandoned house, colloquially named ‘the old Dutchburn house’. The rear of the car had gone over the foundation of the house, and was found partially sitting inside the house. The plywood that had been covering the window was found on the trunk of the car. Inside the car, the trooper found two uncashed paycheques. On the ground around the car was some loose change, a water bottle, and an unsmoked cigarette.
The trooper called a towing company to take the car to a local garage. He figured it had been left there by a drunk driver, who took off. He had no way of knowing yet that the car belonged to a missing teenager. No one knew. No one had reported her missing yet.
On the Friday that Brianna left Jillian’s home for work, Jillian saw the note. Then, she and her family left to visit other family for the weekend. When they returned, Jillian found the note exactly where she’d left it. It hadn’t been touched, and it looked like she hadn’t returned the the home at all. Jillian thought nothing of it, figuring that Brianna had decided to stay somewhere else again.
By Tuesday, March 23rd, 2004, Kellie was getting worried. She knew that her daughter had a hectic, busy schedule, but it was entirely unlike Brianna to not, at the very least, stay in touch. And Kellie was worried. She hadn’t seen, or heard, from Brianna since dropping her off on Friday. Failing to reach Brianna through her friend network, Kellie filed a missing persons report.
Two days later, on Thursday, March 25th, 2004, Bruce and Kellie gave the Vermont State Police in St. Albans photos of Brianna for their investigation. The trooper then showed them a photo of the abandoned Oldsmobile. Kellie identified it as her car, that Brianna was driving.
Following the missing persons report, and the identification of Brianna’s abandoned Oldsmobile, Many witnesses came forward stating that they’d seen the Oldsmobile at the Dutchburn house.
One witness stated that he had driven down that road between 11:30 PM and 12:30 AM, and had seen the car’s headlights on. Another man drove by between 12:00 and 12:30 AM, and stated that the turn signal had been flashing as he passed by the house.
Later in the morning hours, at around 4:00 AM, a former boyfriend of Brianna’s drove past the house as he was returning from a night of partying in Canada. He thought the car looked familiar, but thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until he heard the news that Brianna was missing that he realized what he’d seen. He contacted police, told them what he saw, and also stated that he hadn’t seen anyone around the car as he drove past.
Later that same Saturday morning, other passing motorists stopped to check out the scene. Some found it odd enough that they stopped and took photos. When they heard about the missing teenager, the went to police, and handed over the disposable camera that had taken the photos. Some of the photos showed some items on the ground around the car, including a bracelet, and a broken necklace that were identified as belonging to Brianna.
The Vermont State Police led the official investigation into the disappearance of Brianna Maitland. They searched the area around the Dutchburn house, collected the items on the ground, and brought in search dogs. Nothing was found.
On March 30th, Brianna’s Oldsmobile was processed by the state crime laboratory. When it was returned to Kellie and Bruce, they noticed that Brianna’s glasses, contact lens case, migraine medication, her ATM card, identification, and her paycheques were still in the car.
The Vermont State Police, in conjunction with the FBI, concluded that Brianna may have been a victim of foul play, and that her car had been backed into the Dutchburn house as a cover up, to make it look like an accident. Bruce and Kellie speculated publicly that they believed Brianna may have been abducted by multiple people. They knew for a fact that she hadn’t been taken willingly. While she was wary of defending herself using her martial arts skills, if she was truly in peril, she would have defended herself.
A few weeks after Brianna’s disappearance, the Vermont State Police were tipped off that Brianna was potentially being held against her will in a house in Berkshire, Vermont. The house was a rental, and the renters were Ramon Ryans, and Nathaniel Jackson. The two were known drug dealers from New York. The house was raided by police on April 15th, 2004.
Brianna was not found inside the house. However, a substantial amount of cocain and marijuana was found inside, as well as various drug paraphernalia. Ryans and Jackson were brought in on drug charges.
Some of Brianna’s friends had mentioned that prior to February, Brianna had been known to party with people in Ryans and Jackson’s orbit. She had experimented with crack cocaine, and had bought some from the two men.
In late 2004, police received another tip, pointing the finger for Brianna disappearance at Ryans and Jackson.
The signed affidavit alleged that Brianna had been murdered a week after she had gone missing. The tipster then proceeded to claim that Brianna had argued with Ryans and Jackson over money. In retaliation, they murdered her, and then stored her in the basement of a home belonging to a local woman who had recently been incarcerated. Next, the tipster alleged that Brianna’s body had been dismembered, and then disposed of on a pig farm.
The credibility of the tipster was, and remains, highly questionable. Police have never been able to corroborate the tipster’s claims. It seemed that any connection that Brianna may have had with Ryans and Jackson was tenuous, at best.
The Maitland family also reported that they had received multiple anonymous phone calls, letters, and notes stating that Brianna was ‘tied to a tree in the woods’, or that she was ‘at the bottom of a lake’. These claims also cannot be substantiated.
While police were conducting their investigation through official channels, Brianna’s friends and family began conducting their own searches. They distributed flyers around the Vermont area, and even expanded well into New York, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and even up into bordering Québec, Canada.
At one point, the Maitland family received a tip that Brianna had been working at a strip club in Boston. When they went there searching, they found that it was a case of mistaken identity.
In May of 2004, Bruce and Kellie made contact with the parents of Maura Murray. Maura had gone missing in New Hampshire a month prior to Brianna. Together, they also reached out to the parents of Amie Riley, a New Hampshire woman who had been found murdered in April. All three families pleaded with the public for information, any information, about what had happened to their daughters.
In 2006, a tip came in from New Jersey. Security footage from the Caesars World casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey showed a woman who bore an extremely striking resemblance to Brianna sitting at a poker table. Law enforcement attempted to investigate, but the footage was too grainy to determine the identity of the woman.
In 2007, a remote wooded area around Montgomery was searched. There, investigators found a pair of blue jeans. The jeans were sent to the state laboratory for processing and analysis. The results of those tests have never been released to the public.
Over the years, multiple searches were conducted, with various searching parties. Nothing has ever come of these searches.
In 2012, police investigated a new potential lead. Israel Keyes had just been apprehended in Alaska for numerous rapes and murders across the United States. He was known to attack women in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, New York, and Vermont. It was entirely possible that Brianna had been one of his victims.
After exhausting this line of investigation, Israel Keyes was ruled out as a suspect in Brianna’s disappearance.
In March of 2016, 12 years after Brianna’s disappearance, law enforcement in charge of the investigation revealed that they had recovered DNA form Brianna’s Oldsmobile. The results of the ensuing tests were never revealed.
In July of the same year, the old Dutchburn house was destroyed in a fire.
In September of 2020, the Vermont State Police announced that it was working with Othram Inc. in order to reinvestigate the evidence so far. Othram Inc. is a private DNA laboratory that was built in order to apply modern techniques to DNA testing. It’s the first private laboratory of its kind.
The disappearance of Brianna Maitland is still an open, ongoing investigation. The Vermont State Police are offering a reward of up to $5,000 for any information that would lead to a resolution of the case, or the arrest and conviction of those responsible.
Those with information regarding the disappearance of Brianna Maitland are encouraged to contact the Vermont State Police at 802-524-5993, or the investigation’s official tip line at 802-241-5355.
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Sources:
The Disappearance of Brianna Maitland – Stories of the Unsolved
Brianna Maitland – Chilling Crimes
The Murder Squad: Jensen & Holes podcast – Episode 73 – The Disappearance of Brianna Maitland
Disappearance of Brianna Maitland Wikipedia page