Brandy Hall | The Backpack in the Canal and the Skid Steer in the Yard (Part 3)

Brandy Lynn Hall was a 32-year-old firefighter and mother of two from Brevard County, Florida, who vanished on the evening of August 17th, 2006, after leaving her volunteer fire station in Malabar. The next day, her prized green pickup truck was found deliberately submerged in a nearby pond with a significant amount of her blood inside but no trace of Brandy herself. As time went on, scattered personal items surfaced miles away, but no body, no clear timeline, and no definitive suspect ever emerged. Despite connections to her husband’s recent drug case, a long-term affair with a fellow firefighter, and a series of investigative missteps, Brandy’s disappearance remains one of Florida’s most mystifying unsolved cases.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:15Derrick Levasseur?

  And I'm Derrick Levasseur.

• 0:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  And we are diving into the third and final part of the Brandy Hall series. And I mean, we should just get right in, right?

• 0:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, we're part three here. By now, if you haven't heard about this case, you got to go back and watch it.

• 0:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, if you don't know what we're talking about.

• 0:32Derrick Levasseur?

  There's a lot that's happened, so you're going to be lost.

• 0:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right, so we kind of finished up last time discussing how Brandy's truck was found, the condition of it, what was inside of it. And then they were kind of looking at suspects, obviously, her husband Jeff Hall would have been at the top of the list, but also her affair partner of over 10 years, Randall Richmond. And then we talked about how Randall's truck, his fire captain's truck, was spotted nearby where Brandy's truck would be found in the pond, and that there was a police officer, Jasmine Campbell, who saw Brandy's truck in the Home Depot parking lot, which was basically right next to the gas station where Randall's fire captain truck was found, even though Randall says he never left the station that night.

• 1:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, things kind of, they died down after this because I guess they didn't have evidence. They really, you know, they couldn't really arrest or do anything because there wasn't enough to do anything. But then about a year after Brandy Hall vanished, a discovery was made roughly 30 miles south of Malabar in Vero Beach, along Florida's east coast. On June 24, 2007, several teenagers were hanging out near one of the area's many canals. They were smoking pot. And then they noticed something in the water, they pulled it closer, and they realized it was a camouflaged backpack. And when they opened the backpack, they found a strange collection of items. There were a few pieces of clothing, several small steel squares, some pornographic DVDs,

• 2:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  a tube of erection cream, and an address book. The name inside that address book was Brandy Hall. The teenagers called the police. But according to reports, no one came. Later that same day, one of the teens searched Brandy's name online and realized she'd been missing for nearly a year. He called the police again, and this time, they responded. Now, what made the backpack especially important and interesting was its condition. Police noted that the ink inside the address book had not completely smeared, which suggested the bag had not been submerged in the canal for the entire year Brandy had been missing. In other words, someone may have disposed of it much more recently. And that matters because this wasn't just any backpack.

• 2:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  This was reportedly the bag that Brandy used to keep her prescription medication in. It was believed that she'd kept a firearm in it at one point. And when the backpack was recovered, neither the medication nor the firearm was inside. Also missing was a radio from the Malabar Fire Department, a radio that was not found in the backpack, or in Brandy's truck, or at the original scene. So, retired Palm Bay Detective Ernie Diebel, who was in charge of the case when the backpack was found, he later explained that several detectives, along with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, went down to Vero Beach to interview the people who had recovered the bag, and also the people responsible for managing the canals. According to Diebel, the backpack had not simply been floating freely, it had become

• 3:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  hung up near what he described as a lock, or a small dam. And the person who managed that canal area told the investigators something very significant. Shortly after Brandy disappeared in 2006, Tropical Storm Ernesto had prompted officials to drain the canals in preparation for heavy rain and possible flooding. Because of that, the canal manager believed the backpack likely had not been there at the time. If it had been, he felt it probably would have been found. So now investigators had a troubling scenario. Brandy disappeared in 2006, the canals were drained shortly afterward, nothing was found. Then nearly a year later, her backpack appears in that same canal system, containing personal items, her address book, videos, several small metal pieces believed to be connected to her welding work.

• 4:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  And that raises the obvious question. Were those metal pieces placed inside the backpack to weigh it down? Former investigator Mike Poussetteri said they could not explain how the backpack ended up there. He said there were no cameras in the area. It was rural and the canal ran parallel to an orange grove. So when asked whether the metal plates may have been used to make the bag sink, Poussetteri said that was probably the case because there did not appear to be any other reason for them to be inside. The backpack has become a strange and important part in Brandy's case. It was not found near her truck. It was not found near the original scene. It was found miles away in a canal, apparently weighed down, long after she disappeared. So how did it get there?

• 4:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Did Brandy have it with her when she left that night? Did she meet someone and leave it somewhere? Did someone else take it, remove certain items from it, like her prescriptions, her firearm, her firefighter radio, and then dispose of it later? Now, remember that in the first part of the series, we talked about how Brandy had been in a bad ATV accident when she was just 11 years old, which led to a broken jaw, broken cheekbones, and a skull fracture, after which she had gone through an over 10-hour surgery and spent a month in the hospital. Not only had this accident left Brandy with permanent scarring, but she had to go through more surgeries as she got older and she suffered from constant migraines. At the time of her disappearance, Brandy was taking non-narcotic medications for the headaches,

• 5:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  and this was something she had to take several times a day. And if she didn't have her meds nearby, she would panic. She usually kept her meds in a smaller black bag, kind of like a cross-body bag, that she kept in the bookbag that was pulled out of the canal 30 miles away from where she lived. So another important item, like I said, that was missing from Brandy's belongings was her radio from the Malabar Volunteer Fire Station. It hadn't been in her car, I mean, her truck. It wasn't in that bookbag. And when police searched Brandy's locker at the station, it wasn't in there either.

• 6:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Hmm. I mean, listen, I don't know where this is going to go. I haven't read the script, but... Very clear that there was human intervention here. Somebody dumped that bag here. If it wasn't, if it wasn't Brandy, it was the person responsible for whatever happened to Brandy. But I want to focus for a second on what was in the bag and not necessarily what isn't. That's also important. I think two things you mentioned, not to oversimplify the evidence in the bag, other than the metal pieces, was the fact, I believe you mentioned, if I wrote this down correctly, that there was pornographic material and also erection medication or lotion.

• 6:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Erection cream, yeah.

• 6:45Derrick Levasseur?

  The erection cream would not be for her unless I'm just, my biology lessons are completely off. You can correct me if I'm wrong on that, Stephanie, but also the pornographic material. Listen, when we think about infidelity cases and we talk about them, if you have someone who's disguising, going to work or on vacations as an opportunity to rendezvous with the, the person you're having the affair with, you may sometimes pack a bag or have something nearby where you can throw it in your car or wherever to meet up with this person. And depending on what you're engaging in, that might be a common occurrence where you're throwing on porn and you have this erection medication or cream to, you know, for when you're having these sexual encounters with these people. And so if this is Brandy's bag, which it is, you have to ask yourself, why would she have those items in her bag?

• 7:30Derrick Levasseur?

  I think the simple answer would be, would be for whoever she's, she's seeing. And then the question would be, well, who was she seeing at that time? Those are things that I would ask. It sounds like an oversimplification. I know it would, but I think that's important. I don't, I don't think everything has to be this like super secretive thing that you have to unpack. Just look at it on the surface level. That bag at least partially was being used to transport items that she was using with someone. And the erection lotion would be clearly a male counterpart.

• 8:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  You kind of sound like she kept the backpack in her car at all times, you know?

• 8:03Derrick Levasseur?

  See what I'm saying? Where that would be quote unquote, her work bag.

• 8:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  And you wouldn't want it in the house, right? That way like your husband wouldn't like be going through a book bag or putting stuff away and being like, Brandy, why do you have these porn DVDs and erection cream? Like, these aren't mine.

• 8:17Derrick Levasseur?

  If it was Jeff's, it would be with Jeff at the home. If that was something that they were engaging in, then you would expect to find that in the medicine cabinet or by the bed, whatever the case may be, right? To each their own. But the fact that she's bringing porn and erection cream in her, in her backpack, it's not a normal occurrence and it's probably something that was in there all the time, like you just mentioned. And we have to imagine that this was going on for 10 years and. Apparently Jeff wasn't in on it, so they were doing some stuff to kind of sneak around and engage in the sexual relationship. And so it probably would be when she was saying she was going to work or training or whatever, and she'd have to have those items accessible to her in her car.

• 9:00Derrick Levasseur?

  So it didn't, it wasn't obvious that she says, hey, I'm going to work and she's bringing these bags or whatever it is, so.

• 9:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, just that you don't want to bring that bookbag inside because Jeff's not going to go and search through your truck while you're at home. And every time you leave the home, your truck's with you, which means a bookbag's with you. So.

• 9:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Which is why it's important to continue the, and you had said, you had mentioned, and I'm sure this is the case, like to develop a very strong profile on Brandy to understand everything that was going on her life at that time. She was clearly having an affair with Randall. Was there anybody else? That's an important question to ask because that would be the only other person that this cream.

• 9:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't know how she would have time for another person with Jeff, with Randall, and she's working like three jobs and she's got kids.

• 9:45Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 9:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't know if she would have time for another person.

• 9:47Derrick Levasseur?

  And I, I also, without knowing Brandy, just, but you know, we've covered cases like this before.

• 9:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  And you'd see also signs of that in her cell phone. Like if you saw signs of her talking to Randall on her cell phone, then why not the other guy?

• 9:58Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't think a 10-year affair is a, a sexual transaction. This was a relationship as we have established. I truly believe she had feelings for Randall and the plan was to eventually be with Randall. And so I don't think she was sleeping with someone else. I think the only person that would, it would make sense that she was watching these videos with or using that cream with would be, would be Randall. Because to her, it wasn't just sex. And that's, that's clear based on some of the behaviors you talked about at the food festival, where she was upset by the idea of just Randall being with his wife. This wasn't just sex, it was emotional as well. And there was a plan. There was a plan to be together, at least on Brandy's side of things.

• 10:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I mean, I agree with you for sure. But that's what I think she wanted, especially with Jeff going to, to prison for an undetermined amount of time.

• 10:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, this is our chance.

• 10:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Sometime, yeah.

• 10:47Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm gonna be alone. You've made it clear you don't love your wife.

• 10:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:51Derrick Levasseur?

  What better time than now?

• 10:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, in 2007, the police talked to Randall Richmond about Brandy's bag being found. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Agent Wayne Ivy told Randall that they had the backpack and quote, "We've got the cellular telephone companies working with us triangulating everybody's telephone record. We've got a number of things that are coming to the table now. DNA, the backpack, and everything is being tested for DNA because being submerged in water doesn't do it. It doesn't get rid of it. There's a lot of things, even DNA that's being taken from some Mandalay erection cream that was found in the backpack," end quote. So at this point, I think they're bullshitting Randall, okay? Number one, because triangulation would, you'd have to know when somebody put that bag in there in order to try. You can't just like.

• 11:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Also, where, where in the creek?

• 11:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  And also, you have no idea when that part, you know, it was after the canals were drained and they refilled, but that's several months.

• 11:45Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 11:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right? So you'd have no idea, you'd have no way of actively triangulating. I mean, I guess you could try to figure out if Randall had ever been to that location, but.

• 11:55Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, that's how I would, yeah. So that's how I was looking at it. You're talking 30 miles away. And so if Randall doesn't have a reason for being out in that area with that triangulation, you would have three towers where there would be a diameter, a radius in which the cellphone in that area of that creek would have to, would have to connect to one of those, those cell towers. So if he has no business for being out there and they're able to put him there after the hurricane, there's definitely some questions, but the DNA side of things, I want to talk about that for a second because initially my first thought is they're bullshitting him because the DNA would be affected by water. We had that in Honolulu Strangler. However, the lotion is interesting.

• 12:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Inside, maybe like on the, where it's capped.

• 12:37Derrick Levasseur?

  It's capped, but also, right? Like if he's applying it on himself, when I use toothpaste or lotion or whatever, you, you spray, you know, you squeeze out a little bit, you rub your hand along it, if it's not a toothbrush, right? And then the remainder goes sucked back into the bottle, the bottle itself. So if that cap is airtight. Then I guess the DNA could be preserved under that cap. So maybe that's what they're referring to.

• 13:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, I mean, they're definitely bullshitting, I think, with the triangulation.

• 13:04Derrick Levasseur?

  Why wouldn't you?

• 13:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  They don't know when they went in there, so that would be very difficult.

• 13:08Derrick Levasseur?

  No, but hey, listen, that's the game, right? Like, I know some people don't like it, but lying is a part of it.

• 13:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  But as far as the touch DNA, yeah, I mean, you'd have to hope that the water and is it an airtight cap?

• 13:20Derrick Levasseur?

  What type of backpack is it? Is it a military-style bag that has like a waterproof lining to it? I don't know, you know, that also could play a factor.

• 13:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't know, yeah. But, um, but either way, they said that they were like, we found this Mandalay erection cream. And Randall whispered back, Mandalay erection cream? And then Weema Ivy asked if they were going to find his DNA anywhere in that backpack. And he said, quote, "I honestly believe you're not going to find my DNA in that backpack," end quote, which I thought was a weird way to word it. Like, why wouldn't you just say no? I honestly believe you're not going to find my DNA in that backpack.

• 13:54Derrick Levasseur?

  That doesn't sound too sure. I would also be checking his, uh, medical records. I'd be trying to get, I know HIPAA and stuff, you'd have to get a search warrant. But is he known to have EDs? Is he known to have erectile dysfunction?

• 14:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, that's when you go to Anne Marie, you know, and you're like, listen.

• 14:07Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that too, but what if they're not having sex? You know, what if it's like far and few between?

• 14:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, why are they not, right? They'll like, listen, Anne Marie, like, we found Brandy's backpack, there was erection cream in it. Does Randall have some issues in the bedroom?

• 14:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, does he use a particular brand?

• 14:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Cause at that point, she's, if he does, she's gonna put two and two together and be pissed. And she could be like, yeah, that, he can't get it up to save his life, you know? Absolutely, and then she'll throw him under the bus.

• 14:30Derrick Levasseur?

  I agree. And it seems like she, that's the plan, right? Like, she's keeping, Brandy's keeping potentially his cream in her bag. That was their, that was their like, uh, rendezvous ba- bag, you know?

• 14:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, he can't bring it home, cause then Anne Marie's gonna be like, well, you have this erection cream for? We're not having sex, yeah.

• 14:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. Hmm, this case is just getting weirder and weirder, man.

• 14:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  So then, um, Florida Department of Law Enforcement Agent Tom Davis asked Randall, well, why don't you think, you know, we're, we're gonna find your touch DNA on that book bag or in that book bag? Like, haven't you touched Brandy's backpack when you were around her or with her? And he told Randall that this was called touch DNA and how would Randall explain if they did find his DNA on something that he had previously touched in Brandy's backpack? Randall said he didn't know what backpack they were talking about. Brandy had two or three backpacks, each with different things in them. Quote, "One had clothes, one had this, one had business stuff," end quote. So it seems like Randall knows a lot about Brandy's kind of, you know, like her daily routines.

• 15:33Derrick Levasseur?

  We don't know what he did beforehand. I mean, if he is responsible for the bag, he could have sprayed the thing down with or doused it in alcohol peroxide before throwing it in the water.

• 15:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Cause he didn't get rid of it right after Brandy's truck was found.

• 15:45Derrick Levasseur?

  There could have been some precautionary measures taken to ensure that even if it were found, everything would be cleaned.

• 15:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  So you held on to it for a little while, which I think is curious. But Wayne Ivey again asked Randall if there was any reason his DNA would be on anything in Brandy's backpack, like the erection cream. And Randall said, quote, "No, my DNA should not be on any erection cream. The affair she and I had was years before that," end quote. Now remember, this interview is happening in 2007. And at that time Randall was still maintaining to the police that he and Brandy had only had sex one time.

• 16:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 16:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  And that this had happened a long time before Brandy went missing. But it wasn't until years later during an interview with Sid Liddo and Doc Jones that Randall would finally admit that he and Brandy had been intimate more than one time. And I think this was after he and Ann Marie divorced. So maybe that's kind of why he was like holding on to that information despite the obvious, which he didn't want people to know how like close he and Brandy were and how intimate of a relationship they had. But it, once again, a weird way to answer, like, is your DNA going to be on anything like that erection cream? No, my DNA should not be on any erection cream.

• 16:55Derrick Levasseur?

  Shouldn't be.

• 16:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 16:57Derrick Levasseur?

  If it is, I'll be as surprised as you. It shouldn't be because I cleaned the bottle beforehand. No.

• 17:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, it shouldn't be. Like, why, if you weren't having sex with her, then that's a pretty straightforward no.

• 17:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, no, it won't be. I've never.

• 17:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, it won't be. The last time we had sex was four years ago. No, it won't be.

• 17:15Derrick Levasseur?

  No issues in that department, won't be me.

• 17:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, that was should be your, but that's not what he said. That's not what he said, because I think, I think that he knew it was, you know, documented in some place with his wife or whatever. That maybe he did have issues in that area. Right? So he didn't want to be like, well, I don't have issues in that area. So that can't, my DNA definitely can't be on that. He said, no, instead of saying that, he said, we had sex years ago. So maybe like on an erection cream she was using years ago, but not this one. Why would she keep the same erection cream for years?

• 17:48Derrick Levasseur?

  No, I mean, he's definitely not being completely forthright. The reason behind that, we can all take a guess at that, but he's not being honest. And we know that because like you just said, later on, he would came out and admitted he wasn't being honest about that in their relationship.

• 18:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right. So now let's talk about Brandy's radio, the one from the Malabar Fire Department, the one that has never been found along with her prescription medicine, her gun and her body. So the police would discover that Randall Richmond had a portable PACSAT radio, a handheld two-way radio that a firefighter or first responder would carry with them. So they can listen to the fire department traffic or communicate with the station at all times. Now, the night Brandy went missing, Randall turned his PACSAT radio on at 12:30 a.m. And so the police asked him, why did you turn on your portable, you know, radio? Like, why would you do that?

• 18:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  And Randall said that it was so he could see what was going on in the city. Most likely, he was referring to the police channels, like, oh, he just wanted to see, you know, were there any, uh, police chases or what kind of crime was going on? But get this, because it was discovered that there was already a radio in the fire captain's room at the station that scanned all those same channels. So if Randall never left the fire station that night, why would he have needed to turn on his portable radio? Why wouldn't he have just used the main one at the station that was located in the fire captain's room? What could it be because he wasn't at the station and he wanted to know if there was some fire emergency happening at the station, which would in turn reveal that he wasn't at the station when things went down and his crew tried to find him so that they could go out on a call?

• 19:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  You know, he wants to make sure that there's not like a call happening. That way he can get away from wherever he is and get somewhere. And then if the crew's like, oh, where were you Randall? There was a call. He was like, oh, I was just grabbing a coffee. See, I have a coffee, you know? He could know like what story to come back with at the, at the least, but.

• 19:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, listen, being in the fire station, if there's a call that comes in, first off, I don't know the dynamic of that relationship, but I will tell you as a sergeant myself, I had my radio on me at all times. So I can hear if an officer needed me, but the fire department's a little different because when these calls come in, most of the time a truck's going out. The captain isn't usually sitting in the dispatch room, listening to the radio. And if they're needed, they're called upon. And if there's something that requires his attention where he has to go out in that supervisor's vehicle, it's put over the intercom. It's all hands on deck. They let everybody know. I could make an argument that he had the portable radio on him because he was in an area of the facility where he, he didn't have access to it. It doesn't seem like it'd be the common practice. What's more common, and I've actually seen this in my

• 20:24Derrick Levasseur?

  professional career, when I've stumbled upon other firefighters or police off duty, where they have their police radio or their fire radio on in the car when they're meeting up with someone that they shouldn't be, because here's the thing, you're a police officer, you're off duty, you're meeting up with someone in a jurisdiction that you're familiar with, that you shouldn't maybe be with. There may be a call that comes in from a passerby or a neighbor who says, hey, there's a suspicious vehicle at the park right now or in this parking lot. Can someone go check on it? You don't want to be there when they show up. So you have the radio on so you can hear those things. So that if you hear something come over the radio, that's requiring your department to show up, you can get out of there before they do so.

• 21:10Derrick Levasseur?

  But on the other hand, what you said is also very true, where if he's not at the station, those things that I just laid out, where he would be in the building if a call came over the intercom, he's not in the building. So if there's a structure fire that happens on the other side of town, and he's in the car with, with Brandy, allegedly, right? He needs to be able to get out of there quickly by having that radio on in the car because he's still on duty. So this is something that we've definitely seen before.

• 21:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, he's still on duty. So if there's a fire and he's not at the station and he can't hear, he has to have his portable radio and that way he can still show up. If he didn't show up at all, and then she ends up dead, well, there's your alibi completely gone forever.

• 21:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Can we add another layer to that? If he's out in his SUV, if he's out in the secondary vehicle that we established was in the back lot, if he's in his car, there's a, there's a radio system in all of those vehicles. The only time you would need your portable radio on if you're inside the car is if you get out of the car. And as we've kind of laid out here, that truck was parked at Hess and it was unoccupied. So if hypothetically, it was him driving that vehicle and he knew he was going to be leaving for an extended period of time, well, he wouldn't have access to the radio in the truck, would he?

• 22:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, he's gonna be in Brandy's car for an hour or so, or whatever, while they chat, kiss, whatever.

• 22:24Derrick Levasseur?

  And, and again, even, we don't know if he's the person who was with her that night, although it's not looking good. But based on what we have learned, it's pretty fair to say that they probably met up a few times during work hours to have this affair.

• 22:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  I agree.

• 22:38Derrick Levasseur?

  And this was a common practice where he would probably take the secondary vehicle.

• 22:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:42Derrick Levasseur?

  He would take his portable radio and he would be available, but quote unquote, unavailable for a period of time.

• 22:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  I absolutely agree. So you do think like him turning it on at 12:30, it kind of, it looks like he was not at the station.

• 22:58Derrick Levasseur?

  No doubt, no doubt. Or he was not at the station, or, yeah, I mean, more than likely not the station, because again, as a supervisor, you, they would be able to get ahold of you. They're every, and the radio actually is on the intercom through the station. Like this is a common thing. It's not something that, um, like would be specific to only certain stations. So yeah, normally as a supervisor, you wouldn't need that portable radio on unless you were heading out on the road.

• 23:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right. So this interview in 2007 was the last time that Randall Richmond ever spoke to the police, even though he was asked to come in multiple times after for follow-ups, and he also refused to take a polygraph. So almost a year after Brandy's backpack was found, her firefighter helmet was found floating in a marina near Mathers Bridge in Indian Harbor Beach, a few miles north of Malabar. Now reportedly, the police decided that this helmet had nothing to do with Brandy's disappearance because it wasn't her Malabar fire helmet. It had been the helmet she'd used years back when she'd worked as a volunteer at the Holapah Fire Department. And Brandy's husband Jeff said that the helmet was kept at their welding shop in West Melbourne. So Detective Mike Poussetteri claims he doesn't think the helmet is connected

• 24:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  because it would not have been in Brandy's truck. It was, quote, "an old helmet that her kids would play with. I believe it was stolen or taken from what essentially looked like a trash pile behind the business, and somebody discarded it and it ended up there."

• 24:19Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, he would know more than us, but that's a what a coincidence, right?

• 24:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right, because it just doesn't sit right with me.

• 24:25Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm sure he went down this road. And maybe there was some truth to what he was saying here, where it's a crazy coincidence, but it is exactly how it looks.

• 24:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't know, it kind of seems like he doesn't know, but based on where it was.

• 24:37Derrick Levasseur?

  That's what he's assuming.

• 24:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's like, yeah, because the welding shop was in Melbourne, and this was found a few miles away from Malabar. So we've got three different bodies of water that are going to eventually reveal three different, you know, items connected to Brandy Hall, her truck, her backpack, and her helmet. And then it brings me back to the metal squares that were in Brandy's backpack, right? They were like, oh, we think that they were intentionally placed in the backpack to weigh it down. But they also said that those metal squares were connected to her welding work, which is the welding shop in West Melbourne, right? And so, small squares of metal, by the way, used in welding can be surprisingly heavy. Like, they could be small, but they're...

• 25:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Especially depending on how thick they are. Throw a couple of them in there. We have little metal blocks that were used in our buoyancy vest for scuba diving. Throw a couple of those on and you're going right to the bottom.

• 25:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  So if they're heavy, why would Brandy be carrying heavy pieces of metal around in her backpack for no reason?

• 25:36Derrick Levasseur?

  I wouldn't be comfortable to say that.

• 25:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  It doesn't make any sense. So if they were put there intentionally to weigh the backpack down, and you think they're connected to her work at the welding shop... Well, who had access to them? Where did they get the welding squares from? Did the person who brought harm to Brandy Hall pay a visit to her welding shop that night? Or sometime after in order to collect the metal squares? Thinking that they would be something no one would be surprised to find in the backpack? If it was ever found? Cause it's connected to her welding work? And also while they were there grabbing the metal squares to weigh the backpack down?

• 26:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Hmm.

• 26:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  They grabbed the helmet? You know, for whatever reason, maybe that person didn't realize the helmet was an old one? And after the backpack was found, they wanted to get rid of the helmet in some other random body of water to throw police off any track or scent? Or just confuse the investigation? It doesn't make sense to me. The backpack was found in Indian River County. The helmet was found at Indian Harbor Beach. Now that once again could be a coincidence? But I thought I'd mention it. They're not the same location. They just have the same kind of name.

• 26:37Derrick Levasseur?

  Worth mentioning, that's for sure. Cause you could be in a scenario where whoever's responsible is, there's a deliberate act here where they're trying to diversify evidence. So that even if one item is found? It's not the, the whole treasure chest of information that detectives would need.

• 26:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or maybe they threw the old helmet, knowing it was an old helmet? And it wasn't in her truck, but threw it in there thinking that nobody else would put that together? And then they'd be focused on like the wrong location? Yeah.

• 27:05Derrick Levasseur?

  I think, I think that's also possible. I mean, listen, I would assume for investigators to come out, depending on their level of confidence that this was vetted to determine where it would have last been. But the metal pieces to me are more interesting because we've established this, this particular backpack contained items that more than likely were, was used to, to hold items that would have been used during sexual interactions with somebody, assuming a person she was having a consistent affair with. So to your point, in that backpack, would you also put metal pieces? Maybe you would. Maybe you would to kind of, again, depending on how things were thrown in that bag? Maybe the thought process was to kind of bury those items at the bottom and put metal

• 27:47Derrick Levasseur?

  pieces over the top on, in case Jeff opened the bag?

• 27:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think there's a lot of other things that are more practical and not as heavy. That you could put over the top like a makeup bag or

• 27:58Derrick Levasseur?

  But if I told you that was true, like if Brandy came out and said, yeah, no, I covered it in metal shrapnel above it so that like, you know, you'd have to dig through the metal.

• 28:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Jeff worked at the welding shop. Wouldn't he be like, what the hell are you doing carrying around metal pieces in your bookbag, Brandy? That's heavy as hell.

• 28:11Derrick Levasseur?

  Case I gotta weld something up, Jeff.

• 28:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  That's heavy as hell. And she's like, how do you think I maintain these guns, right?

• 28:16Derrick Levasseur?

  Also, that was something that crossed my mind where some people use the weighted vests and weighted backpacks. I don't know.

• 28:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but she's not hiking around with it. It's like sitting in her car, you know, like strategically, you don't want that to be heavy.

• 28:26Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm just coming from the angle of if there's a suspect here and he's connected or even not connected to her, would you run the risk of going to the shop after killing her to grab these metal pieces when you could just grab a rock from a side of the road?

• 28:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, I think he wanted the metal pieces to almost look like maybe it's Jeff that did it, right?

• 28:43Derrick Levasseur?

  I guess. That's a stretch.

• 28:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or, or maybe they're just that Brandy had a welding shop, so she just had pieces of metal. It wasn't somebody trying to weigh them down. Maybe she just did, you know what I mean? Like

• 28:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, where if you put rocks in there, it's obvious somebody tried to weigh it down. Yeah. So then why not just burn the bag?

• 28:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  And it wouldn't, I don't know.

• 29:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Right? I mean, I'm not trying to give people ideas here, but then

• 29:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  You don't want the erection cream to explode? Who knows if that's flammable or not?

• 29:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, that's disgusting. Yeah, I don't know.

• 29:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Randall, it wouldn't have been weird for him to be at the welding shop. Remember that Jeff was like, yeah, it was always funny because people were like, oh, Brandy and Randall are at a hotel right now. And he was like, and Randall was sitting there talking to me at the welding shop. So Randall went to the welding shop. He knew where it was.

• 29:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  They were all friends. Not great friends, apparently, but. Now, according to retired detective Sid Liddo, the police considered arresting Randall Richmond on obstruction charges based on the fact that he had initially lied. But then according to Sid, someone at City Hall got involved and told law enforcement not to do this. So this is a lot of speculation where it's like, how did Randall get away with things? And it was kind of like even a year before he had a full interview and nobody really ever pressed him. And there was certain things where we tried to find out what he was doing or and we were kind of blocked. Like, did Randall have somebody in law enforcement, higher up, who was kind of making sure that he didn't get in trouble? I haven't found anything to support this, but yeah, I mean, we

• 30:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Already talked about a few instances where it was like, yeah, maybe, you know, it doesn't seem like as far as the local, not the Florida Department of Law Enforcement aspect, but as far as local goes right away, there wasn't really things done that that should have been done. Like the fact that Randall got rid of his cellphone, you know, like, did you ask him where he got rid of the cellphone? Like, did you go and try to retrieve the cellphone? Why didn't you ask him for his cellphone records at that point? Little things like that that it just didn't seem happen because maybe he wasn't seen as a suspect right away. But in February of 2009, a New England-based search and rescue group conducted a search in the area near the Brevard County Community College campus

• 30:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  where Brandy's truck had been found. According to Fox Orlando, the search was started after one of the investigators on the case notified Fred Golba about several new areas of interest the police wanted to check out, but it wasn't yet necessary to bring in the full resources of law enforcement since the areas in question had been searched in the past. Golba said he viewed the search as an opportunity to train his people and his search dogs in realistic conditions, and he was utilizing new equipment and search techniques, along with an underwater infrared camera that would scan several waterways. Golba said that there were concerns that Brandy's body might have been buried under truckloads of dirt that they hauled in to create the dam in order to drain the pond to search for Brandy two years prior.

• 31:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  Because remember, I said that they basically drained half at a time. So they brought in a lot of dirt, and then they put all that dirt, like, on one side of the dam, on one side of the lake, on the pond. And then, basically, so they could search one side at a time. But now they were like, well, maybe we, you know, buried her body with that dirt, so let's use the infrared camera and we'll figure it out. Now, they used a pole to poke holes in the area where the dirt was poured while three different dogs waited to possibly catch a scent of human remains. The dogs never did hit on any scent, and it doesn't look like they, they didn't really find anything in that search, right? I mean, that doesn't mean her body wasn't there. It just means, I really don't think her body was there. They've done a lot with that pond.

• 32:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  They've drained it, they've done searches. I don't think her body's in that pond.

• 32:18Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't think so either. I think there was probably a deliberate attempt to move things to different locations.

• 32:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 32:26Derrick Levasseur?

  But without knowing the layout, it's hard to say definitively. I mean, even the backpack, they say that it wasn't in the creek before the hurricane. That's possible. I think it's likely, but it doesn't mean it's right. Right? They also could have missed it. They weren't specifically looking for said backpack. So is it possible they didn't see it? Yeah, of course it is.

• 32:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, that same year, the Palm Bay Police Department contacted noted forensic psychologist, Richard Walter. Walter was the head of the VDOC Society, a Philadelphia-based invitation-only group of forensic experts, investigators, profilers, medical examiners, psychologists, and other specialists who review cold cases. Their stated role is not to take over investigations, but to provide free expert assistance to law enforcement when invited.

• 33:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 33:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  And they described themselves as a catalyst for agencies working on solved murders. So Richard Walter was one of the three co-founders of the VDOC Society, along with forensic sculptor Frank Bender and FBI Customs Investigator William Fleischer. So Walter was known publicly as a forensic psychologist and criminal profiler, and for years, he was presented as one of the major minds behind the group's profiling work. Palm Bay detective Ernie Dible asked Walter to take a look at Brandy's case, and he received an email back on November 30th, 2009, that said, "In brief, while the investigative effort has eliminated almost every tangible lead, it remains that the primary person of interest has received only nominal attention. That is, as suggested in at least four interviews,

• 33:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Ann Richmond is the primary suspect that cannot be excluded by motive, method, and opportunity. Furthermore, the situational deceptions presented to the investigators, be it commission and/or omission, indicate that Randall Richmond has knowledge and has some complicity with the same." End quote.

• 34:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Hmm. That's interesting. I mean, first off, VDOC Society is right behind us at CrimeCon this year. I was looking at the booth setups. They're directly behind us, and a lot of their investigators are from the Philadelphia area or have worked in the Philadelphia area at one point.

• 34:34Derrick Levasseur?

  I understand what they're saying here as far as Anne is concerned means motive opportunity. She would have a reason behind this if she figured something out. My, my question back to them would be, well, what, what about the fire truck then? Is that just a coincidence that that happened to be there at that time?

• 34:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Also Randall is complicit or knows something.

• 34:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, well, yeah, that part, we're on the same page. The Anne thing, I would go the angle of maybe she knows more about his behavior in the past. Like what research has she done to kind of figure out what Randall was involved with specifically with Brandy? And was she aware that he had been leaving work to go to these specific locations? Was there, was there an investigation conducted by her that may be advantageous to the investigation being conducted by law enforcement now? I don't necessarily think she's directly involved. I also think that looking at Brandy, I haven't seen Anne. I think Brandy would have beat me up. So I, I feel like in a disagreement or an argument or a physical altercation, Brandy would have, would have won that side of it.

• 35:36Derrick Levasseur?

  But if there's a, if there's a weapon involved, that is the ultimate equalizer. I think they're leaning, I think they're trying to cover their bases like I often do. But at the same time, I think they are leaning towards Randall as much as we are. They're just trying to cover all, all bases.

• 35:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, I mean, if Anne Marie Richmond was suspicious enough to conduct an investigation, I have no doubt that she would have figured out the, the everything.

• 36:02Derrick Levasseur?

  Hey, listen, don't mess with the wife.

• 36:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like if you have a wife who's suspicious enough to take time out of her busy life to start trying to figure out what you're doing and who you're talking to and, and what you're lying about, then it's over. It's over. She knows everything.

• 36:16Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, she's on, it's a, it's, it's a bloodhound with a scent. It's over for you.

• 36:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's literally over.

• 36:23Derrick Levasseur?

  And they also know your mannerisms, your behaviors. So when you're off at all, they're 10 times what a detective would be. Because we talk about developing baselines during interrogations. They have the ultimate baseline.

• 36:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  They have the ultimate baseline. And then suddenly you're like, okay, this date, oh, I remember that date. Randall came home and his energy was weird and he was an hour late. And he said, he was, he was at work.

• 36:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Took a shower right away or whatever.

• 36:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but now I'm, I'm seeing that actually his car was located in the, yeah, exactly. So. That's what the VDOC Society said, at least. Now, in August of 2011, it was reported that Brevard County was seeking the help of the FBI to help them reinvestigate Brandy Hall's case. Detective Ernie Diebel spoke to the media. He told them that the case was solvable and, quote, "Someone out there knows something," end quote. He was also like, "Hey, we know that when Brandy left the fire station the night she disappeared, she made one call to Randall Richmond." He was dropping names, okay? And Ernie Diebel mentioned that the police were interested in talking to Randall again, as well as his wife, Anne Marie. Quote, "Since he was last spoken to, there have been a number of things

• 37:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  that came up, new things that we would like to speak with him and see what he has to say about it. Also, we'd also like to have his DNA and fingerprints to compare to some things we have," end quote. So maybe the police were able to get some touch DNA off the stuff in Brandy's backpack, but Randall never gave his DNA, so they couldn't compare. Police said that they wanted Randall and Anne Marie to take polygraphs, and they wanted to look more into the public argument that had happened between Brandy and Anne Marie Richmond. News reporters then went to Randall's house, and he was home, and he answered the door, and he told them that when he had last talked to Brandy, she had told him she was leaving. And he said he was surprised the police still wanted to talk to him, and he said that neither he nor his wife were anywhere around or had anything to do with

• 38:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  it. In fact, Randall said, quote, "Neither of us were anywhere around. Neither one of us had anything to do with it. They've said that," end quote. And when I think he's saying "they," he's talking about the police. And in response, Detective Ernie Diebel said, quote, "I can't rule them out because of their statements. I wouldn't say they're incomplete, but there's still more questions to be asked and answered," end quote. So it had been announced by law enforcement that Jeff Hall, Brandy's husband, had been ruled out as a suspect. And Randall said he didn't understand why the police were having such a hard time ruling him and his wife out as well. Randall said he had just had knee replacement surgery, and he couldn't talk to reporters for long. But when asked what he thought had happened to Brandy, he said, quote, "Sometimes I think she's somewhere

• 38:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  hidden in the woods. Sometimes I think she fell in foul play, wrong hands." End quote. So that's interesting.

• 39:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Hmm.

• 39:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  And before he passed away, retired detective Sid Ladeau, he said he had ruled Ann Marie Richmond out, at least in his mind. He said that he had talked to several people and he believed that Ann Marie had gone home, right home, after she got out of her shift at the hospital at 11:00 PM. And Ann Marie was known to religiously go home right after work because she and Randall had three sons together and she wanted to make sure they were in bed and not burning the house down. That's from retired detective Sid Ladeau. The police themselves, I don't believe, have ever come out and said, "We've ruled anyone out besides Jeff Hall." So by the time the FBI came on, not only had Jeff Hall been ruled out as a suspect,

• 39:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  but they had investigated the possibility that something or someone connected to Jeff's marijuana business could have contributed to Brandy's disappearance and they had ruled that out as well. So one of the things the police wanted the FBI to do was develop a profile on Brandy to see if there was any truth behind Randall's claims that she had voluntarily left her entire family and life behind. And the profile stated that due to her job loss and Jeff Hall's legal issues, Brandy was dealing with limited financial means, which pretty much means like she can't just go and start a new life over. She didn't have money to do that. And they also said that nothing about Brandy indicated she would have disappeared of her

• 40:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  own free will. They had monitored her bank account activity, her social media activity, phone activity. There had been none. Brandy had not only left her truck behind, but if she'd been the one to drive it into the pond, she'd also damaged it. And according to everyone the FBI talked to, quote, "The truck was like a kid to her. She valued that truck highly," end quote.

• 40:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I know I'm never someone to close the door completely on any theory that I can't. With 100% certainty, say is no longer viable. But I, I would say as close as I can to a 100% certainty. It is not viable that, that Brandy left on her own. If anything, she had more of a reason to stay now more than ever. Because Jeff was going away more than likely. And she was finally going to get the opportunity to be with the man that she had been seeing secretly for 10 years. And I'm sure it was weighing on her. So if there was a time for her to be excited about being where she was. It was in that moment.

• 41:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, she's not like, I'm just gonna like waste my time with you for 10 years. And then the second we have a window, I'm like, I'm out.

• 41:32Derrick Levasseur?

  Absolutely not, no. And, and, and as you mentioned, the bank cards, the taking of nothing that belonged to her, her vehicle. Where's she going? How's she getting there?

• 41:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 41:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Unfortunately, it is highly likely that Brandy is no longer with us. And that's coupled with everything else that we've talked about over these last three episodes. Plus the amount of blood that was described to be in the vehicle where unless she received medical attention, according to investigators, she would not have survived those injuries. So it's just a matter of where she is now, right? Like what was done to her?

• 42:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, that's what they said too. The FBI said the significant amount of blood found in Brandy's truck suggested that at the very least, she'd been severely injured. And it would have been unlikely that she walked away of her own accord.

• 42:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 42:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  So the possibility that Brandy had just walked away and vanished voluntarily, that was firmly dismissed at that point. And that same year, the police in Sid Lado searched property adjoining Randall Richmond's property with ATVs and cadaver dogs. Uh, so they're still, you know, they're still looking into Randall and they're making it not a secret necessarily. And in December of 2011, an attorney representing the Richmonds told the media that his clients were sick of it and they were sick of the perception that it was giving to the public. And they asked if the police could quickly clear the air of suspicion surrounding their quote unquote links to Brandy Hall. In 2018, Florida Today's True Crime Podcast Murder on the Space Coast devoted its third season to Brandy Hall's disappearance. The season began

• 43:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  On March 15th, and it was hosted by Florida Today columnist John Torres. After its release, the podcast noticed someone on social media who was following the podcast on SoundCloud using the name Brandy and a photo of Brandy that the podcast producers had never seen before. And of course, they're producing a podcast, so they'd gotten all the pictures they could from Brandy's husband, her parents, et cetera. So they were like, well, this picture had to have come from somewhere, maybe social media. They reverse Google image the search. They tried to find that photo somewhere on the internet, but they were unable to. Now, John Torres described the photograph to Brandy's mother, Debbie, explaining the photo appeared to have a crease through it and apparent wear and tear, as if it was

• 43:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  a picture of a photograph.

• 43:50Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 43:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  And Debbie recognized the photo immediately when he was describing it. She said, yes, this photo exists. It's a photo that Brandy's father kept in his wallet, and he had only recently put it into a drawer in their home. So to be sure they were talking about the same picture, Debbie went into the drawer, took a picture of the photo, and sent it to John Torres. And he said it was identical to the one the social media user who was following the podcast was using. So it appeared that someone had taken a picture of that photo and then started using it on the internet. But how would they have done that when the photo had been in Brandy's father's wallet for years, up until recently, when it was in a drawer in their house?

• 44:31Derrick Levasseur?

  Interesting question.

• 44:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  Debbie said that she and her family had never used that photo anywhere on the internet or social media. They'd never given that picture to anyone. No one else had it. And like I said, the person following the podcast, using Brandy's name and picture, had been following on SoundCloud, so they were using a SoundCloud account. The Palm Bay Police Department was also unable to locate that picture anywhere on the internet, and so they began the process of getting a subpoena through SoundCloud to figure out who the account belonged to.

• 44:59Derrick Levasseur?

  Thank God. I was hoping you were going to say this and that they didn't, didn't just let it go by. So, okay, let's see where this goes. Let's see where this goes.

• 45:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  They didn't. But the last update that we have from this piece of the puzzle was in October of 2019, when Detective Rebecca Spears of the Palm Bay Police Department informed John Torres that they were having a very hard time obtaining information because SoundCloud is a German company, and their efforts to work with law enforcement in Germany had been unsuccessful.

• 45:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, not a surprise here when you have corporations from foreign countries. People think it's easy, even locally, like even statewide where I've tried to get certain pieces of information. There's a legal team, whether it's for AT&T or Verizon. And understandably, they want to protect their customers' privacy because if it gets out that they provided information to law enforcement on a customer that they weren't legally entitled to, that's going to affect business. So I understand it. But yeah, these companies, they are very careful about disseminating information because it doesn't only affect that person, it affects their entire marketing strategy, right? If it gets exposed, what was it recently?

• 46:07Derrick Levasseur?

  Forgot what it was. I would think it was Ring, where Ring was allowing a pet option. They had promoted it during the Super Bowl or something like that, where essentially Ring cameras were now allowing a pet location service where you could use other Ring cameras in the area to identify a lost pet. And people went nuts, basically saying like, so you're able to access my camera footage without my consent? Regardless of what it's being used for.

• 46:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  That is weird. I agree. Yeah.

• 46:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. And I agree with it as well. And so.

• 46:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, I get the concept behind it and it's a great concept, especially if you're a pet owner. Yeah.

• 46:44Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. You should have to opt into it. But my point being, this was something that was supposed to be good, but because it exposed that customers' information, personal data, was being disseminated to people they didn't know, it affected them. Stock prices went down. And so it's a similar thing here with SoundCloud or anybody else for that matter, where they usually try to stop you from getting this information because it can have a negative impact on the overall stock prices.

• 47:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  Even if it had been like an Instagram or a Facebook profile, that might have been easier to get than the SoundCloud. And that still, it would be very difficult because you'd have to prove no one had access to that picture. And all you have is now Debbie and her husband's word that he's had in his wallet and no one had access to it.

• 47:33Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. Never shared it.

• 47:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, what I think is Brandy probably knew that picture was there. Maybe it was a picture of her when she was younger and she sent it to someone that maybe she was like dating or something like, this is what I looked like when I was younger. You know how you do that when you're together?

• 47:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, we've all done it. Yeah.

• 47:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. So I think that's how the person got it, that Brandy sent it to them. But. Somebody's following the Murder on the Space Coast podcast using Brandy's name and a picture that no one has access to.

• 48:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Which is stupid because why wouldn't you just make a fake name that has nothing to do with the case?

• 48:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Why wouldn't you just burn the book bag, like you said, instead of throwing it in a canal?

• 48:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense. If you're trying to secretly follow the page, why would you draw any attention to yourself? Why not just call yourself John Smith and put up a fake profile picture of someone who has nothing to do with the case? But I mean, I will say, that's 2019. I would hope that although difficult, they still went through the process and whatever hurdles they faced, they overcame them eventually and maybe they just haven't released the outcome. I would hope that they didn't just say, oh, this is too difficult, we're gonna stop.

• 48:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I mean, that was the last update we had.

• 48:42Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, they might have more that they just haven't shared. Or maybe it led nowhere.

• 48:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like, if I'm Anne Marie Richmond and I want Randall to know that I know he got this picture from Brandy, maybe I found it in like his electronics or something, right? Now I'm using it as a profile picture and using the name Brandy, so it's almost like someone's trying to taunt the person who killed Brandy, right? Like, I know, you know, or to almost make the person who killed Brandy, because why would the person who killed her do that? Unless they knew for a fact that SoundCloud would never reveal their information.

• 49:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't know.

• 49:23Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I doubt that.

• 49:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  And there's one more piece of this case that adds to the mystery of it all. So remember that we had talked about how on the morning after Brandy went missing, Randall Richmond called Brandy's husband Jeff Hall twice. The first time Jeff claimed Randall was crying and told him that he couldn't show up for him in court that morning. The second time Randall called was a few hours later at 10:04 a.m. and that call lasted only one minute and had to do with a skid steer. So this particular skid steer was Brandy's. She had needed to get it about four months prior so that she could get more side jobs like the one she had with Holiday Builders, but she and Jeff hadn't been able to afford one. At that time, a skid steer would run you about between $30,000 and $50,000.

• 50:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  So through one of his businesses, Randall Richmond had secured a loan for the skid steer and Brandy made the payments to him. And remember, during his 2007 police interview, Randall had mentioned all the things he had done for Brandy and Jeff, and he mentioned never having to make a payment on something. He was talking about the skid steer, meaning Brandy had never missed a payment. Now, at the time of her disappearance, Brandy had the skid steer for four months, but a man named Charles McClellan did make a few of those payments, or at least gave Brandy the money to make the payments. And Charles McClellan was the same person who had given Brandy $1,000 to bail Jeff out of jail when he'd been arrested. And Charles said, over the years, Brandy had borrowed money from him,

• 50:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  and she had repaid him by doing odd welding jobs for him and building him an airboat once. And at first, you're thinking like, well, maybe is she got something going on with Charles McClellan? No, he was an older man. He was the father of a childhood friend of Brandy's. So basically, he had grown up with Brandy. Well, his daughter had grown up with Brandy, and so they were very close. You know, she and the friend were close, and so she was always at his house. So it was kind of more like a father-type thing, like, I'll help you out if I can. Now, Randall told Florida Department of Law Enforcement Agent Wayne Ivey that the skid steer had been having some issues that were covered under warranty. I think it was issues with the joystick. And Brandy had been telling him that she was going to drop it off at Ring Power.

• 51:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  And Ring Power is a Caterpillar authorized dealer. They sell, rent, lease, service, and provide parts for Caterpillar's heavy equipment. Caterpillar, in case anybody didn't know, is, they make like, heavy equipment like that for like, construction and stuff. It's usually got like, you would probably know more than me, but it usually has a big CAT on the side, right?

• 51:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 51:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  So Randall claimed that the morning after Brandy went missing, he had called Ring Power to see if Brandy had dropped the skid steer off for servicing yet, and they said no. So he called Jeff, and Randall said, quote, "I think I asked Jeff, maybe it was the same conversation, or maybe a different one. Um, where's the machine? Did she drop it off?" He said, "No, the machine is sitting in the yard on the trailer. And I think I asked him, can I go and unload the machine off the trailer so Cat can come and fix the warranty issue?" end quote. So Randall told the police that he went over to Brandy's house. During a time when no one else was there and he knew that no one else was there, he knew Jeff was at court, he knew that most of Jeff and Brandy's family and friends would be at the courthouse to support Jeff, and he knew that the hall children were at school.

• 52:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Randall said that all he did was remove the skid steer from Brandy's trailer so that Ring Power could go over to Brandy's house and work on the skid steer there, since Brandy hadn't dropped it off. According to private investigator Nick Sandberg, who did some work for Brandy's family, Ring Power could not find any record maintenance for the skid steer in those four months that Randall had owned it and Brandy was using it. And he said that Ring Power would usually charge a service fee or a surcharge for having to go out to a site and do warranty work on a machine as opposed to it being dropped off, which was what was supposed to happen. Another P I. who worked on the case, John Lind, said, quote, "It's strictly circumstantial, but perhaps what's interesting about this is that Randall goes to deal with this equipment

• 53:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  the very morning that he was due at court and informed Jeff a short time later that he was actually going to his house to deal with this piece of equipment that would have been something that is still at Brandy's house and she would have still been currently using for jobs." So he not only had an appointment in court, but also has an appointment for the repair on the same day he's there the very morning she disappears, end quote. So here are some questions that were left with after learning this skid steer information. The loan for the skid steer was under Randall's name, which means if there was a service fee charged, it would be charged to his account with Caterpillar and Ring Power. Ring Power was only a few miles down the road from Brandy's house. Why wouldn't Randall have left the skid steer in the trailer that was hooked up to the truck

• 54:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  at Brandy's house and then asked Jeff if he could drive the truck over to Ring Power and have the machine serviced there? Or he could have even hooked up the trailer to his own truck and drove it there, which had been the whole plan the entire time, to have the machine brought to Ring Power so they could service it and avoid the surcharge? And why was Randall so intent on having the skid steer serviced that specific morning, especially after talking to Brandy the previous evening and hearing that she was quote unquote "leaving," and he didn't know whether that meant for five minutes or forever? And Why wasn't he concerned when he heard she was leaving to be like, hey, I just got you like a $50,000 skid steer four months ago that you're making payments on. So if you're quote unquote, leaving, how long are you leaving for? Because you got to make these

• 54:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  payments. Like, are you going to be back in time to make your next payment? Are you never coming back? Like, is this going to be something I have to deal with? Because I don't need a skid steer, you know? Now, according to the police, the skid steer was found removed from the trailer, and they didn't believe it had ever been taken off the property. It was just taken off the trailer. So a skid steer, for those who don't know, it's primarily used for digging, grading, leveling, moving materials like gravel or dirt. And after finding out about Randall's visit to Brandy's home the morning after her disappearance, private investigator Nick Sandberg looked up images on Google Earth where he found a depression and an obvious sandy area in Brandy's backyard that was there shortly after she went missing. These were areas of noticeable interest that had

• 55:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  not been in the backyard in the weeks before August 16, 2006, when she went missing. So this led the police to wonder if Randall or someone had used the skid steer to dig a grave for Brandy on her own property.

• 55:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that would make things difficult, too, because you can dig up a lot of ground very quickly.

• 55:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, with the skid steer?

• 55:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 55:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  So two different cadaver dogs with Peace River Canine Search and Rescue were brought there. They both alerted in the same areas. And then a technician with ground penetrating radar also confirmed disturbances roughly five feet below the surface in the ground. And this led to an August 2019 search of those same areas carried out in a joint operation between the Brevard County Sheriff's Office and the Palm Bay Police, focused on three locations that had been identified as potential grave sites. So after the search and after digging in these locations, Sergeant Jeff Spears with the Palm Bay Police announced, quote, "Based on the cadaver dogs and the indication they gave us, as well as ground penetrating radar, it gave us some hope that there would have been some disturbed areas

• 56:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  underground, and we checked that area thoroughly. And unfortunately, we did not locate any human remains," end quote.

• 56:37Derrick Levasseur?

  Kudos, though, for the effort. You know, we see sometimes that law enforcement just phones it in. They're trying. They're trying. And it's clear that they think Randall's involved.

• 56:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, I think that's, I think that's what we're seeing.

• 56:48Derrick Levasseur?

  They're trying not to show their cards, but they are. Indirectly, or I would just say directly, they're trying to find the evidence to link Randall to this crime at this point. They believe he did it. They just don't have the evidence to prove it.

• 57:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  I mean, it does seem like if they thought that Randall may have gone in there with the skid steer and dug a hole and put Brandy in it on her own property, he might be trying to make it look like Jeff Hall did this because it's the only other viable person, right?

• 57:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Honestly, it's a smart move. It would be smart to do that because if she's found-

• 57:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's reasonable doubt.

• 57:18Derrick Levasseur?

  -on his property, meaning Randall's property, you're screwed, right? But if it's found on Jeff's property, aka Brandy's property, now you have an argument. Hey, listen, why would I bury Brandy's body on Jeff's property? That doesn't make sense.

• 57:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  And if it goes to trial, a jury might hear that-

• 57:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, and think Jeff's the guy.

• 57:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, and be like, well, yeah, it doesn't make sense. Why would Randall do that, you know?

• 57:40Derrick Levasseur?

  We talked about in David's case, all you need is one person, one person to say, I don't think he did it.

• 57:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 57:44Derrick Levasseur?

  And you walk.

• 57:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  So that leads us to another weird twist because remember that Jeff Hall was running this pretty substantial marijuana grow operation. And he has always claimed that Brandy had no idea what he was doing and that she was furious when she found out about it when he was arrested. Brandy has also always denied knowing about the grow operation, but Randall Richmond told Florida Department of Law Enforcement Agent Tom Davis that Brandy did know, stating, quote, "She swore up and down telling me that she had nothing to do with it, that she was aware of it, that she had knowledge of it, but she never did anything," end quote. So private investigator Nick Sandberg told Florida Today reporter John Torres that he'd found out from police interviews that maybe Randall didn't know about Jeff Hall's illicit

• 58:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  drug operation just from talking to Brandy because apparently people interviewed by the police had seen Randall Richmond at the property where the grow operation was happening, not once, but several times.

• 58:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, we talked about this, right? It's not across the board, but in my experience, significant other, living under the same roof- There's coming, there's comings and goings that happen at the house, right? There may have been phone calls that Jeff was having, unless he was completely secretive about it, which I have seen before. She would have an inclination of what was going on. It'd be difficult for her not to. This is her significant other, living under the same roof. You can have some level of plausible deniability if it ever goes to, you know, the criminal level, which is maybe, maybe that was done intentionally. But it would be hard for me to believe that Brandy didn't know what was going on. I don't know if it's relevant to what happened to her here. I'm just saying, when you put that in a vacuum,

• 59:25Derrick Levasseur?

  in my professional opinion, most of the time, the significant other is aware of what the person is doing and they just, you know, they kind of turned a blind eye to it.

• 59:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's interesting that Randall says that, you know, Brandy knew, but it also appears that Randall knew about it too. And he's like, I can't come and support you, Jeff. You know, what would it say about my standing? And it's like, well, if, if you knew about it, if you were at the property while it was happening, there's questions about like how involved you were. And it also, you know, if Randall knew about it, then Brandy knew about it.

• 1:00:01Derrick Levasseur?

  No doubt. Yeah, he, he would have only known about it more than likely from Brandy. She would have been confiding in Randall. Again, this was more than just sexual in nature. This was a romantic, emotional relationship. This was basically her boyfriend. And those trials and tribulations that come up with Jeff and what he's going through and what he's involved in, she would be talking to Randall about that.

• 1:00:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:23Derrick Levasseur?

  I mean, that's, it's common sense.

• 1:00:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but I mean, also like, I think if Randall knew and Brandy didn't, that's unlikely because he would have had wanted to take any opportunity to be like, your husband's doing this and yeah.

• 1:00:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Of course, they, if Brandy knew, Randall knew, vice versa, right?

• 1:00:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:00:40Derrick Levasseur?

  I think, I think that Brandy was well aware of what was going on. I'm not saying she was directly involved, but I think she knew what was happening under her own roof, if you will.

• 1:00:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  I kind of feel like it, even if. Jeff hadn't told her directly, so maybe Jeff wasn't even aware that she knew.

• 1:00:56Derrick Levasseur?

  Possible.

• 1:00:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Which is why he says to this day, like, no, she didn't know. She was furious.

• 1:00:59Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Maybe he didn't even know how much she knew.

• 1:01:02Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 1:01:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  But she'd done her own investigation and had figured out what he was doing and it just wasn't worth it for her to...

• 1:01:07Derrick Levasseur?

  To make a big deal out of it?

• 1:01:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, to make a big deal out of it, because like we said, you know, she was doing her own thing and she's like, "Whatever, if this distracts him, keeps him busy."

• 1:01:13Derrick Levasseur?

  And to Brandy's defense, she wasn't charged with a crime relating to this. So when investigators looked at this, they didn't find any evidence to charge her with any criminal act. So that is worth mentioning here. She may have had an understanding, a knowledge of it. It's not my opinion that she was directly participating in it.

• 1:01:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't think she was, no.

• 1:01:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. There's a big difference there.

• 1:01:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's also at one point, it's kind of like, hey, you can tell somebody until you're blue in the face, "This is dangerous. You're putting us in danger." But if they keep doing what they're doing, how much control do you have over it?

• 1:01:45Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, until you start the car wash to launder the money.

• 1:01:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:49Derrick Levasseur?

  All right, I'm just kidding. That's for Breaking Bad in case anyone wanted. Sorry, sorry, I couldn't help it. I almost made a full episode without a BB reference, but didn't get there.

• 1:01:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Because you're thinking of Brandy being like Skye, right?

• 1:01:59Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. Starting the car wash, get rid of the money, you know, because if she wasn't for it, she was totally against it.

• 1:02:04Stephanie Harlowe?

  Until she saw the money.

• 1:02:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Until she wasn't. And then she became a stone cold killer.

• 1:02:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  I also think for Skye, some of it was like, okay, he's finally like happy and like passionate about something after like so long of being depressed and like unplugged and like,

• 1:02:16Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  I see my husband's coming back a little bit, even though it obviously went too far, but yeah. Anyways, what I'm thinking is Brandy apparently was really bad with money. Like according to everybody who had kind of looked into it, I think that she, they said like Jeff would give her money and she could just spend it. Like she wasn't good at saving money. She wasn't thinking about the future, really. I think it was Sid Liddo that said her kids had two of everything, computers, dirt bikes. Uh, she bought a lot of like gold chains and jewelry and stuff, so. I don't, I don't necessarily think she was in the books, like in the bank accounts. She wasn't the one who was doing that. So she wouldn't necessarily have known that there was a lot of money coming in. But once again, as a woman, you know when your husband's distracted by something.

• 1:02:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  So that brings us to a very recent update reported by WFTV News 9 on March 20th, 2026. So just about a month and a half ago. It says, quote, "Nearly 20 years after Brandy Hall vanished, Palm Bay Police say new leads are bringing movement to the case," end quote. The update claims that detectives say a recent reexamination of the case and new interviews have uncovered fresh information pointing to an undisclosed area of interest, and that location was searched twice that week in March of 2026. Apparently, a tip came in from an anonymous source claiming that Brandy Hall was buried in this location that has not been disclosed to the public to maintain the integrity of the case. Palm Bay Police said that since news of the new lead became public, detectives have received

• 1:03:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  several additional tips that they are actively following up on. In a statement to News 9, Brandy's daughter, Taylor, who was only 10 in 2006 when her mother vanished, she said, quote, "Even though this specific tip did not lead to finding my mom's remains, I still stand by that feeling. Something about this time and the team working her case feels different. I truly believe we are finally moving in the right direction towards finding my mom's remains and holding everyone involved in her murder accountable," end quote. So it kind of sounds like Taylor thinks more than one person might know something.

• 1:04:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, I would imagine that she's referring to Randall and Anne.

• 1:04:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  And maybe Anne Marie, yeah.

• 1:04:20Derrick Levasseur?

  Where if Anne knew what Randall did, Randall could have gone to her and said, "Listen, I had to do this. She was gonna whatever. I don't know." I think it's, we don't know. Everyone's innocent as of right now.

• 1:04:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or maybe Anne Marie told Randall, "Prove that you don't care about her."

• 1:04:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  And kill her.

• 1:04:39Derrick Levasseur?

  And they're divorced now. So if that, if she knew something and she wasn't directly involved, now would be the time to talk.

• 1:04:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right.

• 1:04:46Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't know.

• 1:04:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  So I did some of my own research into the area where Brandy Hall lived, worked, and went missing. And as we've already talked about, when I described the, the area to you, it's pretty wild in a lot of places. There's plenty of spots to put a body and have it disappear completely. So a place that I found that grabbed my attention is known as The Compound. It's a roughly 2,800 acre area in the southwestern section of Palm Bay that has developed a reputation for being a place where bodies can be hidden and where disposal of bodies is easier because the terrain is pretty rough and wild and there's limited oversight. So The Compound was originally part of a planned GDC development that began in the 1980s and GDC stands for General Development Corporation. It's the Florida Land Development

• 1:05:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  Company, responsible for several of the planned communities in the area, including parts of Palm Bay and Port Malabar. But then GDC went bankrupt in 1991, which caused the project to come to a halt. And what was left behind, it's kind of weird and creepy. It was basically the skeleton of a future suburb. Miles and miles of roads, a street grid, lots of land, but very few homes, businesses, lights, or regular daily activity. And that's why it has such an eerie reputation. It looks like a city that was started and then abandoned before people arrived. There are paved roads with street names, intersections, blocks, and a grid pattern, but instead of neighborhoods, much of it is overgrown lots, brush, empty

• 1:06:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  land, and long stretches where someone can drive without encountering many witnesses. Local coverage has called it a magnet for criminal activity and WESH reported in 2023 that in less than a year, five bodies had been dumped there with others found in prior years. It's large and isolated. A few thousand acres is a lot of space, especially when much of it is undeveloped and overgrown. It has road access without normal neighborhood visibility. So the old GDC roads mean someone can drive deep into the area, but there are not residents there. Or doorbell cameras, or businesses, or streetlights, or passersby's that you'd expect in normal subdivisions. It has a longstanding illegal dumping and trespassing problem.

• 1:06:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  The Palm Bay Police Department specifically warns that, quote, "The compound is not a recreation area," and it says the area is privately owned in many places, it's hazardous, and subject to trespassing enforcement. The city also notes that the area has been associated with unauthorized off-roading, illegal dumping, and unsafe activity. And unfortunately, the reputation has been reinforced by real cases. Local outlets have covered multiple death investigations there. In December of 2022, two teenagers, Jeremiah Brown and Trayvon Anthony Jr., were found shot in an open field inside the compound. In 2023, several other bodies or remains were found in the area, including the dismembered remains of Nancy Howery and the body of Nicholas Mitchell, according to local reporting summarized

• 1:07:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  in later coverage. More recently, in 2026, Palm Bay Police responded to the area after reports of a suitcase, and they found human remains, again renewing debate over the compound's crime issues and stalled development. So I'm just throwing it out there. I don't even know how an organized search of that area would work, how you would do it. I don't know the logistics, but it is interesting in a place that exists like this, in the same landscape where Brandy Hall disappeared.

• 1:08:09Derrick Levasseur?

  I do think it's interesting, and I think there's more than one place like this that would fit this box, right? Where it's got promise when it comes to a potential dumping ground. For me, as we're kind of wrapping this episode up, I think if this case does have a resolution, more than likely it will be a charge from a no-body homicide, where they may not find Brandy, but due to the totality of circumstances, they take a shot and go after someone. I wanted to end, this is kind of wrapping up what we know, not what we're speculating about, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of these facts, just based on how you've described them over the last three episodes. Brandy was at work. She was supposed to spend the night there.

• 1:08:52Derrick Levasseur?

  She abruptly decided to leave and she told her supervisor that she had to get ready for the trial in the morning and that she was going home, or she didn't feel well, right? So she lied. No doubt about it. She lied because we know that when she left there, she didn't go home. She drove right by her street. So the first question you ask yourself is why did she lie? She knew she was doing something that she could not disclose to the chief. So to me, we know that for whatever reason Brandy didn't want people knowing what she was about to go do or who she was about to go meet up with. So we take it a step further. We go back to the officer's description from that night. A vehicle matching Brandy's description was seen in the parking lot of a Lowe's or Home Depot. Which one was it?

• 1:09:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  Home Depot.

• 1:09:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay, why is that important? Well, when we talk about the idea that someone like an Anne Marie or it could a random act of violence occurred where Brandy was caught off guard, according to law enforcement, according to that officer, Brandy allegedly was inside that vehicle with someone else. If it was her vehicle and it was in fact Brandy, she was voluntarily in that vehicle with another person. So this wasn't like Anne Marie showed up and was like surprised and they decided to get in the car and talk about it. Because even more to that point, according to this officer, after seeing that vehicle, the vehicle moved, right? So there was a reason that those two people decided to move from that location to a secondary location because they didn't want to be seen together.

• 1:10:19Derrick Levasseur?

  And if it was Anne Marie and it was Brandy, maybe they would have moved, but I don't think the conversation would have been as civil inside their vehicle. So then it moves to the secondary location. You're talking about a body of water that would be not be known to many people, but I would point out that firefighters from that community would be very familiar with these bodies of water. I don't think I mentioned it previously when you talked about it, but even as police officers, we didn't have a lot of bodies of water in my town where I worked, in my city where I worked. But the ones that we did have, we had the Blackstone River, you had to be familiar with that body of water in case we received a call for an emergency there. So firefighters, even more so with their dive teams, would have to be familiar with all the bodies of water, where they're located, how deep they are, etc., all the information surrounding it.

• 1:11:04Derrick Levasseur?

  So we have Brandy's vehicle being found in this area later, which is close to this parking lot. That's what we know. So it's my belief. From that information that Brandy left the station voluntarily to meet up with someone and that someone was an individual that she didn't want other people knowing she was going to meet up with. Right. There was something there that it would have been frowned upon. And whoever that person was, if this vehicle was in fact her in the parking lot, that was the individual she was with, that was the person she planned on going to meet up with. And then they ended up at the, at the body of water where the truck was found. Now you add other wrinkles into it, like who could that person have been?

• 1:11:46Derrick Levasseur?

  We have her phone records. We know that she had been speaking to Randall. We also have a supervisor's vehicle being found at the Hess gas station, a short distance from where this car was found in this parking lot. What'd you say it was? Lowe's or Home Depot?

• 1:12:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Home Depot.

• 1:12:01Derrick Levasseur?

  Home Depot. So now we're starting to get something. And then for me, it's not a smoking gun, but you've talked about a lot over these last three episodes with the radio being on, you know, the portable radio for Randall. But to me, one of the most compelling things that doesn't look good for him is the fact that this was a guy who did not know something had happened to her, was talking to her or interacting with her 12 to 15 times a day. And yet after that night in question, never tried to contact her.

• 1:12:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  12 to 15 times, like 50 on average and more that day.

• 1:12:32Derrick Levasseur?

  More that day. Okay. So 50, I'm sorry, I apologize, 50, not 15. But after that day, before even knowing if something had happened to Brandy or if she had just left on her own, he never contacted her again. Doesn't look good for Randall. I don't think I'm going out on a limb here saying he would be a person of interest at minimum. I think it's also pretty clear that law enforcement believes he's a person of interest. And they're just trying to tie in enough information where they feel like a grand jury could, could potentially indict him. But at this point, you know, if you don't have enough, you don't have enough. And you haven't been able to rule everyone else out, which does raise some concerns because you only get one shot at it.

• 1:13:15Derrick Levasseur?

  If you miss, that's it forever. But the question does become, how long do you wait? With the advancements in science and technology and new investigators with a fresh perspective looking at it, there is a high likelihood they may find something that was missed in the past. So I think it's worth taking a second look at it and seeing what you come up with. But It's very clear to me that Brandy did not leave to go run off and be somewhere else. She was going to meet up with someone.

• 1:13:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:13:42Derrick Levasseur?

  The question is who? Because whoever that person is.

• 1:13:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Maybe the last person she talked to before she went missing.

• 1:13:47Derrick Levasseur?

  That would be, that would be, that would make sense, right? Because I know there may be some people who say, okay, she could have left. Maybe she was going to meet up with someone, but never got there. And there's this random act of violence.

• 1:13:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, because she said she was meeting them at the gas station where she was filling up the Sunoco.

• 1:14:01Derrick Levasseur?

  That's right.

• 1:14:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:02Derrick Levasseur?

  But my point being, if you're in the camp of, oh, before she got there or whatever, there was a gunman or a carjacking or robbery gone wrong. We know that she was in a parking lot with an individual. Do you think the carjacker would have parked at the Home Depot with her? And sat there and had a conversation with her? We also know that, according to the blood spatter, Brandy was in the driver's seat. So she was driving this person around. I don't know. You do your own math there, but I think the writing is on the wall of who we're looking at. And is it possible that it's just an unfortunate set of circumstances for Randall? Maybe.

• 1:14:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's really unfortunate.

• 1:14:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Really unfortunate. It does not look good. And I, you know, this isn't something that he doesn't know. I think everyone in that community, we've actually received some emails on it, by the way, where people have said anonymously that it's a very well-known thing, that everyone from that community believes that Randall is responsible for it. But just my legal disclaimer, he's not been charged with a crime. He's innocent until something happens, if it goes to court. And even if it does go to court, he's innocent until there's a verdict. So it may not look good, but clearly there's not enough after 20 years to charge anyone.

• 1:15:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, and you know, you kind of know where I'm at with this.

• 1:15:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I mean, how could you not be? How could you not be?

• 1:15:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  But we will keep you updated. It looks like they're kind of reinvigorating the case. Like Brandy's daughter said, she feels like this time it's different. Like they're going to get some answers. It sounds like they're looking at it and they have new leads coming in. So if something does come in, we will do an update.

• 1:15:32Derrick Levasseur?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:15:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  On Crime Weekly News and we will keep you guys up to date on any new kind of leads or theories. And if you guys are from the area and you know something or you have some sort of insight, let us know and then we'll tell the police.

• 1:15:46Derrick Levasseur?

  I'll also throw out there, I mentioned it last episode, Criminal Coffee is now donating to organizations in need of funds to solve cases or to assist in investigations. We don't have to do the investigations ourself, but if anybody from those agencies working this case decides, hey, you know what would be really cool? If we were able to incorporate this technology into our investigation, we'd love to go out with this equipment and check this particular area, reach out to us. We're not hard to find. We do have funds available. We would be more than willing to help if there's something viable that you need to explore, but unfortunately, the funds just aren't there. That's what we do. That's why we're so passionate about Criminal Coffee. My final words, just to end it on a good

• 1:16:28Derrick Levasseur?

  note, shout out, I said it on Crime Weekly News, I'll say it here because not everyone is following Crime Weekly News, and if you're not, you should be. I had mentioned a couple episodes ago that we were trying to get to 10,000 reviews on Apple. We've now surpassed 10,000 on Apple and on Spotify. Shout out to a couple people for leaving a review after we asked for it. I had some funny names. Anxious Human was one of them. RC3 Photography was another. Hollis G.

• 1:16:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Go Bills.

• 1:16:56Derrick Levasseur?

  There was also the, you're gonna make me say that one again, aren't ya? One Nikki was another one. Katie Go Bills. And then we have KCY40 and Tiff Gibb. We have a bunch. Common Mama. Really appreciate it. It doesn't seem like it means a lot for you to take two minutes and just put that, you know, click the five stars, but what it does is it allows Apple and Spotify to promote our episodes in the algorithm, which allows more people to see what we're doing over here. And it all is connected, whether it's Crime Weekly or Criminal Coffee and trying to solve cases, it's all in one ecosystem and we wouldn't be where we are without you guys. So we greatly appreciate it. We're gonna be back next week with a new case. I've kinda got a little bit of insight into what it is. It's a really

• 1:17:37Derrick Levasseur?

  interesting story. It's a multi-parter. I'm looking forward to it. I'm ready to get into it right now. Any final words from you before I wrap this one up?

• 1:17:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Nope, that's it from me.

• 1:17:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Good case. We hope there's an outcome. Like Stephanie said, if there is, we'll let you guys know. Until next week, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.

• 1:17:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bye.