18 years after disappearing, Brandon Swanson's legacy helps others be found faster
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Thursday marks 18 years since Brandon Swanson went missing in southwestern Minnesota.
He was 19 at the time and on the phone with his parents in Marshall after his car went into a ditch. Something happened, he yelled out an expletive, and the line went dead. Despite years of searching by volunteers and law enforcement, he’s never been found.
But Swanson's disappearance was the spark for something good, a law that redefined how missing persons cases are handled in Minnesota.
Jenny Kirk, a former journalist at the Marshall Independent newspaper and a classmate of Brandon's mother, has followed the story since the beginning and said Swanson’s parents were upset when they couldn’t immediately file a police report.
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Back then, “if you were an adult, people had to wait for 24 hours,” Kirk told Morning Edition.
“And I can't even imagine the heartbreaking feeling that Brandon's parents, Annette and Brian, experienced when the law enforcement told them that they couldn't help right away,” Kirk said. “And I remember Annette telling me one time that law enforcement told them that, as an adult, Brandon had a right to be missing.”
Their experience prompted Brandon's parents to act. By the next year, the normally quiet and private family helped push for a bill — dubbed “Brandon’s Law” — at the Legislature to ensure missing persons reports can be filed right away, regardless of age.
It also means that law enforcement must start a prompt preliminary investigation, especially when there are suspicious or dangerous circumstances.
“It's a big piece of legislation that I hope, and I really have to believe, that it has made a positive impact. It has to have saved some lives,” Kirk said.
