The Brandon Lawson Update and Action Oriented True Crime with Cults, Crimes, and Cabernet
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Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics including violence, abuse, and murder. This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney and this is Voices for Justice.

Today's episode is going to be very different. Today I am speaking with Melissa and Whitney from the Cult, Crimes, and Cabernet podcast. I've known Melissa and Whitney for some time now, but the reason I wanted to invite them on the podcast was to discuss something very important. In January of this year, their team along with six other volunteers conducted a search to look for missing man Brandon Lawson.

If you haven't heard of Brandon's case, he went missing in 2013 under some very strange circumstances. I was actually in the process of putting together an episode about Brandon when the news broke. Their team found items most likely belonging to Brandon during that search. And when authorities followed up and conducted their own search, they did find human remains that are also likely to be Brandon's.

Now, we aren't really discussing Brandon's case today. That's because I'd really like to direct you over to their podcast to listen to their coverage of Brandon's case. Today, we are discussing their podcast, How We Met, this incredible update, and why action-oriented true crime is so important.

Because I truly believe if every single true crime podcast was more action-oriented, we'd be able to solve so many more cases. Also, please take a moment to support Brandon's family over on the Help Find Brandon Lawson Facebook page. Although this is a huge update, his case remains unsolved. Please go show his family some love, but also please respect their privacy during this extremely difficult time.

My thoughts are with the friends and family of Brandon Lawson. But without further introduction, this is my interview with Melissa and Whitney from the Colts Crimes and Cabernet podcast.

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I want to talk about how we met because I think it was pretty fun. And to be honest, I don't remember the exact moment we met. I just remember that we were at CrimeCon 2021. It was Austin and I was alone and you guys were the kindest and offered to bring me fruit, which sounds like the weirdest story, but it's 100% how we met.

It is. It truly is. It was the greatest. So CrimeCon 2021 was our first CrimeCon.

um, it's in my hometown. That's where I, well, not really hometown. It's where I live now. It's not where I'm from. You know what I mean? Uh, we, we were there. It was great. And we were literally overwhelmed. We were like starstruck by every person around us. We're like, okay, we have to, um, assimilate into this world. How do we do that? We offer fruit. That's what we offer Melissa's husband's muscles and fruit. And that's the only way we knew how.

I mean, it worked, though. I feel like we became fast friends. We did. And then we begged you for TikTok followers. So it's great. You did not beg me for TikTok followers. I was live streaming and I offered. I was like, have you hit a thousand on there so you can go live? We said no.

We said no. But we accomplished it by the end of the weekend. It was awesome. Yes, you got us to over 1,000 so we can go live ourselves on TikTok. Take the training wheels off. You can go live all by yourself. Get all the hate, all the craziness of TikTok all on your own. And we have had that, like 12-year-old little boys trying to ask to be our boyfriend. Yes, will you be my internet girlfriend? No, no we won't.

No. And then my husband gets annoyed at that and he blocks all of those people. You should. I'm like, whenever weird stuff with kids happen on TikTok, I'm like, hey, buddy, I don't think you should probably even be on my page. Like, it's probably not appropriate for you. It's all true crime content. Yeah. Block.

This is 18 and up content, so please move along. Exactly. Exactly. And I mean, do you guys feel like you got a lot out of CrimeCon while we're on the subject? Like, how was it for you? I really do. We made so many connections that year. I mean, the...

Just even walking around. So Melissa's husband is like the most extrovert extrovert you could get. I'm extroverted, so I can talk to anybody. But Chris goes above and beyond. He would like physically go to other booths and bring them to us. Yeah.

I mean, it did not matter who they were. He didn't, he doesn't care. And I am very introverted. So it was a great baby step for me to be like, okay, can I handle a big convention with all the people? And it went fine. It went better than fine. I absolutely loved every moment of it. But with Chris bringing people over, like he brought Dr. White over from the bathroom.

Yeah. Met him in the bathroom, brought him to our booth. And we're like, you don't bring Dr. White to our booth. You bring us to Dr. White. Like that's not how this works. He's like peeing next to Dr. White. And he's like, oh, my wife really likes you. Come to her booth. And Dr. White, here he comes.

He's just like, oh, nice to meet you. I met your husband twice in the bathroom. Twice. Twice. It took me two times to be convinced to come over here, but here I am. Yes. It's crazy. Crazy. But then, you know, our booth was next to Kat Townsend from Hell and Gone and Red Cogs.

And, you know, she had no clue how to set up her backdrop. And Chris, obviously, there's that muscle we pimped out again. He put that up together, put it all together for her. It re-engineered her entire backdrop. And she was forever grateful. And until CrimeCon was over, we didn't realize, like, how big Kat is in the true crime world or just even in the world in general.

until after crime con and we were like okay so we just sat next to and like hung out with i mean we went to and got wine with her one night to the bar after crime gone one night after crime con and we like basically fangirled over the moment yeah but she was like the best down to earth like i am so glad she was next to us because she is she's an awesome person like and i'm excited to see her again at um this next crime con in vegas

And then we met you and you're obviously like, I don't want to say true crime royalty because that's kind of a weird thing to say, but you're well known in the world because of the great advocacy you do. And that was like terrifying. Terrifying? Really?

So nervous. Oh my gosh. You guys are so sweet. That's so sweet. There's no need for that. And then you like came down. Yeah. You came down to our booth and we're like, oh my God, she came down to our booth. What do we do? I was like, hi friends. You gave me fruit. We are obviously best friends forever. You fed me. Besties.

Yeah. I mean, so the way to Sarah's heart is with food. It's true. It's true. It's 100% true. Well, it's just being alone at CrimeCon is really hard. Like, you know, I'm setting everything up. It's the whole booth. And I took being at my booth really seriously. Same. Like, if...

people are buying tickets to come see me like i'll be damned if i'm not at my booth as much as possible so they can come say hi like so i didn't want to leave and i didn't really know where to find food like at crimecon it's always like this hunt for food it's always really weird like next time i should just bring food but you guys literally like saved my life i was like i'm shaking like i'm like i don't know what to do like i need food but i'm not leaving this booth

Because I'm just stubborn like that or whatever. But yeah, so thank you. Thank you again for the fruit. Thank you for the friendship. And your guys, I mean, your guys' booth was really nice. You guys had the backdrop. You had the wine. You had the crates with the shirts. I was like...

Dang, I got to step up my game. To be honest, we thought we overdid it a little bit. We did. When we came in that very first night to set up, I was like... And we were the only ones there. We were the only ones there. So we set it all up and then we looked around and we're like...

There's too much stuff. There was only like two people with backdrops at that point. Yeah. And we're like, there's way too much stuff here. We look ridiculous. We're like the new kid coming in with the rolly backpack and like everything coming out. And like, we looked like newbies and I was freaking out at first. And Chris and Whitney, my husband, were like, just relax. Like, it'll come together. I was like, we have too much stuff. But.

We just had a lot of stuff because we didn't have to ship anything. I live here. So it came from my house to the convention center. Now at the next crime con, we probably won't be as extravagant because we don't, we're not going to ship all that there. We're not going to ship a second table. We're not going to ship a computer screen so that we can go live from our virtual booth. Like we went over the top, but we had all angles covered. I was like, listen, if we're going to do it, we're going to do a big. Yeah.

We did. It was awesome though. No, and it looked great. Like the thing is I, uh, I knew I was transitioning my logo. So, but I didn't, I wasn't ready to present the new logo. So I was like, here's all my old stuff. Um, which the timing was just bad. But if I do go to crime con this year, um,

I'm in Arizona. It's in Vegas. So I will be driving and I can bring hopefully I can have a very extravagant setup just like yours so that I can kind of make up for last year. But it is still TBD. But hopefully we'll get to hang out in person and have some drinks.

Absolutely. And if not, we will just come to Phoenix and cover a case in Phoenix so that we can hang out regardless. Yes. Well, and that's what I want to talk about, too, is, you know, basically your guys' podcast. So, I mean, over there at Colts Crimes and Cabernet, I'll never stop saying it. It's my understanding you guys do a quarterly deep dive. Is that correct? Yeah.

Yes. So we're a little bit different than your average podcast, which throwback to millennials, if you ever watched Mean Girls, you'll get that reference. If you didn't, if you're too young for that, it's fine. We're moving on. Sweet.

We started the podcast in the middle of COVID because we talked about whatever podcast we were listening to at the time. That's how Melissa and I became best friends almost instantly is because we had we both had an affinity for true crime. We were entranced by the thought of these horrible people creating these horrible acts and we wanted to talk about it.

And so we would have our Wednesday dinners and we would talk about what podcast did you listen to this week? Oh, I listened to this one. You know, Melissa's like, oh, I listened to True Crime Garage. Oh, I listened to this one. Oh, I listened to this one. And we'd talk about those cases. And then one day after we had been drinking quite a bit, I'm sure. I'm sure because there's no way you would have talked to me if I was completely sober. Yeah.

I threw it out there as, why don't we just do our own? And we're like, yeah, let's do it. Let's record it. Right? And see what happens. So, of course, we're sitting in Melissa's dining room. Yes. Which is adjacent to her kitchen, which is all tile. And it's a very open floor plan. So, like, the worst place to record. Absolutely. The best.

We have four boys from ages five to 15 running around playing video games. Like we're just like, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's no big deal. It's whatever. We're just going to record it. We recorded like six episodes before I put anything out.

we were like, we're going to do it. If we don't put it out, we're never going to do it. So we just decided every week we're going to meet. We're just going to, we were worried about consistency. So like our thought was if we're consistent with it, it'll become something if it's consistent. And it was just a hobby. If we're going to talk about it, let's record it. Who cares? I knew how to edit.

Basically, basic editing skills because I worked in the news. We both have full-time jobs, kids. This was just literally what we did to cool off and just enjoy a night of being kind of like just girls chatting. We started it. We recorded, I think, 10 episodes before we decided to completely change our format.

Now, episode six, we decided the kitchen wasn't the best place to do this. Fair enough. Fair enough. The best decision we made was to move to my bed. I love it. So comfy.

So then we lay in Melissa's bed and record episode six after we had been day drinking all day long. No, that's episode seven. Literally laying down. Episode seven. Horizontally laying down. Yes. Like on our stomachs. No, we were laying on our stomachs. We were on our stomachs, yes. We had drug your desk into next to the bed so we could set the microphone next to it. We had been day drinking and we'd covered a case about BTK and-

It's a funny episode that shouldn't have been funny. I will be honest about that. Yeah, BTK is one of the most horrendous serial killers ever. And I don't know what, I mean, it's probably because we were drinking. I don't know. But it is a hilarious episode all because Whitney is obsessed with panties. With underwear. With women's underwear. Yes.

And now that I have met Carrie, I wish we could so pull that episode, but I don't think I ever will because I want people to see how we have evolved in this industry because that is our lane. That's our growth. Because at this point, we didn't know what we were doing. We honestly thought four people would listen to us, maybe five if we were lucky enough.

I, our family, we didn't think anything would ever come of this. And then we went, we blindly registered for the crime con house arrest. Yeah. House arrest.

Never, ever in our wildest dreams with our like what, 100 downloads. Did we think they would allow us? They were accepting everyone because it was virtual. So it didn't matter. It didn't matter. No, they saw the potential, obviously. Maybe. Maybe they saw what we didn't see. Yeah.

But we met incredible people at that very, very first virtual crime con. People came into our booth. Shane Waters, Ashley from Uncovered came in. Like, it was an amazing experience and kind of, like, propelled us to be like, oh, crap, we can really do this. Like, this could be, like, we can help people.

And then it kind of like spiraled, spiraled from there. We quickly changed to this true crime comedy style, random people talking around a table style podcast, if you want to call it that, into what we thought could help.

And so we were like, okay, let's be serious about it. Let's cover it seriously. And this was around episode 10 or 11. We started to kind of like get more serious about it and not joke around near as much, not drink near as much so that we weren't making inappropriate comments, those types of things.

Figure out a direction. I figure like that's when we decided like Whitney and I both have a very volunteer spirit. Like we've been on countless volunteer positions, boards for various things because of our kids or, you know, just growth in our community. And we're like, let's take what we do as volunteer and actually put it to our podcast. Let's, you know, kind of combine the two.

We did have to get rid of some of our other volunteer work for this. Sure. But it's been amazing. And we also like to travel. So let's throw that out there. And we were like, how do we get a break as moms? Because it's a full-time job to be a mom. How do we get a break as moms also and turn this into something? And we decided on this once a quarter, we can afford to go on a quote unquote girls trip.

But put it to good use. So let's go cover a case. Let's go to where someone has gone missing. Someone has been murdered. A crime has been committed. Let's go there. Let's see the location. Let's do something about it. Let's meet with the family and figure out what we can do to help them. Because that's all we know how to do. All we knew was to be hands-on. What can I do to help you? Because that's what we do. We're volunteers. How can I volunteer my efforts for you?

And when we met Ashley at the house arrest, Ashley from Uncovered, she was like, y'all seem like great people. How do we grow this relationship? And she threw out this case in Texas because we weren't quite committed to like buy plane tickets yet. And it was COVID. So we really couldn't travel, but we wanted to do something. Like we're like, what can we do in Texas? What case do you think is...

is, you know, close by us that we can travel to and help out. And Ashley was like, hey, we have the Brandon Lawson case. I will give you a contact, reach out and see what you guys can work out type of thing. Yeah. So Melissa actually had heard of the case before and I'd heard of it minimally. I didn't know any details about it. I mean, I've grown up in Texas my whole life. So like the name comes across, you know, your...

news channel every once in a while. So it kind of clicked in my brain, but I couldn't put anything together. And Melissa was already a member of the Help Find Brandon Lawson Facebook page. She had already been part of that, already been following it. And so she just messaged it on a whim, hoping we could...

have a contact somehow. And luckily Ashley had known this contact as well. Melissa put it out there and said, Hey, we are a podcast. We're looking at coming out to that area. Would anyone be willing to talk to us? And it was like a blanket statement. Again, we still don't know what we're doing at this point. Remember that we are very babies in this industry, even today.

And we're still trying to figure it out. We've never reached out to anyone at this point. We just like do our own research. So this was so scary. And I remember being on a, like a call with Whitney and be like, we just got to do it. Like we have to put ourselves out there. Like we just have to do it. And the person that is in charge, one of the people that are in charge of that website or that Facebook page, I'm sorry, is Jason Watts. And he messaged not...

It was like the same the next day. Because it was late. Because I think I had to get up the nerve. It was very quickly that Jason responded. He responded and was like, yes, like I listened to you guys a couple. I know you guys are in this for the right reasons. Like, I would love to meet with you. And they kind of went from there. We quickly after that.

And that was in 2021, beginning January, January 15th, January 15th. We met with Jason and his friend Dylan at a coffee shop because we were like, we have to keep it public. We were, we were nervous. Like our husbands are like, you're meeting two, you're meeting a guy. We're doing what in the middle of nowhere. We're like, y'all are crazy.

We're going to be the subject of the podcast soon. Exactly. We're like, we will be careful. We will be safe. We promise. We're going to meet in a public place. We picked a cute little coffee house in downtown San Angelo. We're like, at least we're in public.

People will know we contacted that coffee company or that coffee shop. And we were like, hey, do y'all have any like private room, a separate area that we could like reserve for this meeting? And they're like, oh, we got a loft. Y'all can have it if you need to talk. They gave us the whole loft. I mean, it wasn't like super private. Yeah.

Or busy, even. It wasn't busy. But we did, in case Jason had told us things, you know, that obviously the public didn't know we didn't want a lot of people around. And he did, at that coffee shop, tell us a lot of things that isn't out there yet. And we kind of went from there. And then we went out to the site again.

of where Brandon Lawson went missing. But let me tell you a little bit about Jason. I know you know Jason, Sarah, but the general public doesn't know Jason. I mean, he's been on several podcasts. He is like the big brother I never had. Melissa has a brother. I do not. I have an older sister. But when we met, it was like instant connection.

I don't even know, like a connection, a relationship. He was like, I have faith in you girls. And we were like, listen, we don't have a lot of information, but this is what we have. We want to build on it. Please tell us things. And he told us a lot of things we could not find out there regularly. Yeah. And we talked about things and he's like, y'all do not go out to that site without me. He was very adamant about you will not go out there. You could get hit on the side of the road. Do not go out there alone. He is such a gentleman.

That just speaks volumes about like our safety. He's like, I want y'all to be safe. There's not necessarily great cell service out there as we have learned covering the Brandon case. Cell service is a little bit spotty out there. He's like, you do not stop on the side of the road.

Without someone else out there. Don't go out there after dark. Don't go out there. Like he was very clear on his instructions for us. He's like, follow us out there. We'll go out there with you. We went out there, the four of us, we stopped at Brandon's cross and literally we stepped out of the vehicle and like my heart sank because the world feels different in that spot. And I know that sounds very, um,

It's cliche almost like people talk about that all the time, but it is heavy there. Yeah, it is heavy in that spot. And like from that moment, I think Melissa and I both were like, this is what we need to do.

like we need to do this more. People don't realize it because you listen to a podcast and it's like, oh, it's the woods. And people imagine like the Pacific Northwest where there's pine trees everywhere and you can't see through it. Yeah, exactly. It is not like that in Texas. It is a very flat but ravenous. Is that a real word? Ravenous? I don't know. Lots of ravines. Like it's not necessarily flat, but it is flat. Like you can see a lot of land, but

But there's mesquite trees. And if you don't know what a mesquite tree is, if you've ever watched Lonesome Dev, which 90% of America probably hasn't because that just shows that I've been raised in Texas. It is a Western movie. I have not. But we have mesquite trees here in Arizona. Okay. There are trees with thorns on them that can poison you. So they're not conducive to like camping. You don't camp in mesquite trees.

You can be hurt by mesquite trees. There's cactus. It is 105 degrees on the day that Brandon went missing. It's hot. There's not a lot of water out there. It is not woods that people picture when you say woods. It is brush. It is hot. It is dry. It is...

the worst possible it's almost desert-ish but with taller trees with taller bushes yeah I mean the brush only gets to like about head high though so you're not getting a lot of shade though either because it's

And it's not leafy. It's not leafy. It's thorny. Yeah, exactly. Everything's designed to hurt you. That's how I always describe the desert. Everything is designed to kill or hurt you. Yes. The cacti are like the least hurting thing out there. Like that is like how I can explain it. Like it's ridiculous. But like Whitney said, going to that spot, knowing that a man went missing and

that had four children, a wife that was never seen again. It like, it does something to you. It just is like, it resonates like, holy crap. It could happen to any of us. And like their lives are changed forever from this one night. And so, yeah,

Just like the air. It was just the weirdest feeling ever. And that started off our journey of wanting to help even more. Like we were a nervous wreck and never thought that we could do anything like we did. I mean, we were so nervous.

I want to explain. So like I went to college for mass communications. I have what you would, what I would consider training in interview skills because I had to do that for college. I have a bachelor's of arts in mass communications. I worked at a TV station. I've interviewed people. I've created documentaries. I had to do that before I graduate college, but meeting Jason that day, I had no clue what the hell I was doing. All of my professors would be very disappointed in my interview skills. Oh,

That evening, like that day, I didn't do anything I was trained to do or learned to do. It was so different than anything I'd ever been a part of. And even that day, we went to that location. We looked further down the road because we thought, oh, well, what if he walks down this road? We looked there. We looked under the bridge because there's reports that he may have been under a bridge. We looked at the nearby gas station. We drove to the nearby town that he may have gone to. We...

looked everywhere he may have been. We tried to think how if someone was missing or someone ran away, where would you go from here? And we tried all of those options. And that night after we talked to Jason and he drove home that evening, he didn't stay in Brunt. We had dinner with him and he told us some more stuff about Brandon as an individual. We were like, we don't, we're not here to talk just about the case. We want to know who he was.

What was he like in high school? What was he, who is he as a person? Because he's still a person that's missing. It's not just about the case. It's about the individual. He has a family. He has kids. He was a high school student. He, you know, like Jason was bullied in high school and Brandon took up for him. And that's who Brandon was. And we wanted to know who Brandon was, not anything to do with whatever choices he may have made throughout his journey in life. And that's what we were there to discover. Yeah.

He told us all about that at dinner and he like, I mean, he was very passionate about how he talked about Brandon, which, you know, Jason, you know, exactly the conversation we had. You can see it. You can probably feel the conversation we had. I can hear his accent now.

He left that evening and Melissa and I, we went to back to the hotel and we're like, now what do we do? It was just a pile of information at this point. And we were like, what do we do with it? And we did tell Jason, like, we're not one and done type of like, we're not just going to cover his case and then just be like, move along with our lives. See you later, dude. This is just an interview. We're not those people. We're not. We're not.

I love you guys. The thing is, is like we've accepted these people into our lives. Like I have told you who I am as a person. I have,

We've made a connection. This is not a business transaction. This is a relationship connection. And I think that's what maybe set us apart from other podcasts is because we have feelings with this. And being there, feeling those feelings, talking with Jason, creating that connection. When we went back to the hotel that evening, we're like, where do we even start with our notes?

Like I was like, we have to write everything down or we're going to forget it. That's our big thing is I'm like, okay, how do you feel right now? Write it down, write it down. Cause we're going to forget. We are going to forget. We forget a lot. I totally get it. I do the same thing. I mean, you have to, and I mean, it sounds like to me and correct me if I'm wrong, cause I don't want to speak for you, but in my experience, when you talk to these families, especially when you go meet them in person, when you go to these sites,

You know, these cases are always real. But in those instances, it's like it makes it ultra real. And for me, those families and those victims stick with me. Like when I'm writing the episode and I, you know, I'm tired and I want to go to bed or maybe I'm just I'm ready for a break. I think about those people. And I just think when you visit those sites, when you meet these people, it becomes I don't know, you're invested on a whole other level. Is that how you guys felt? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Brandon like opened, this is going to sound so cheesy. So whatever you want to take this with, it like opened the door to our hearts. And I think if you listen to our episodes from Brandon's episodes on, you can feel the change in our episodes. You can tell that we really feel for the victims and their families and that we are, even our regular weekly episodes that we don't get to meet these families. You know, I just covered a missing person in Massachusetts that they don't even know who the person is.

Yeah. But I still feel for them. And I think that that's something that might be a little bit different. I don't know. Maybe every podcaster feels that way. No, they don't. It's rare. Give yourself credit. Give yourself credit. It's rare. Not everyone cares. A lot of people are in this industry just for the money and I'm not going to sugarcoat it. But that's exactly why I invited you guys on here today. That's exactly why I wanted to be friends with you guys at CrimeCon because it just

It seemed like you cared. And to be honest, you know, when I first met you guys, I was like, oh, cold crimes cabernet. Like, how much do they really care, you know, to be truly honest? And then I met you guys and I was like, no, like these these people are the real deal. And just the more time I spent with you, the more I talked to you.

I could realize that. And it obviously shows in your content. And like, that's, you know, I, I talk a lot about ethics and true crime, right? And that's what it is for me. I'm not out here to cancel anybody because they had a BTK episode where maybe they joke too much or whatever. You guys went through that, you grew, and now you're here doing amazing things. And that is like, I think best case scenario for any true crime content creator. Yeah.

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And we've talked about it. Like, we've talked about it. Thank you. Before I go on to that. Thank you. That means so much. You don't even know. Like, I'm really trying to pull back tears because I'm the crier of this podcast. She is. I will cry about literally everything. Hey, same. We have went back and forth, like, how many times, like...

they're like getting paid for doing this, getting not, not getting paid, doing events. Like that is our biggest struggle in the podcast industry because too much is like, Hey, I'm getting paid for your guys' suffering. And that is not like what we're about at all. Like we both have had to like overcome issues because I'm,

Yeah. That's all I have to say about that. Like it is very guilty. Guilt can be there. Yeah. Yes. For sure. Definitely. It's a fine line. Absolutely. And we've talked about pulling our earlier episodes of where we maybe didn't care as much. Maybe we didn't have the feelings that we had. We've talked about pulling them. We've talked about redoing them in a different light. And we, we will be redoing some of our earlier episodes because they just sound terrible. Yeah.

But we're not going to change. We're not going to change our scripts. It's still going to be the same notes that we had, the same information that we gave originally. But we're just going to make it sound a little bit better. Yeah. No, I totally get it.

We want people to see our growth. We want people to see our journey because we didn't start in this moment. We did not start with these feelings and we haven't grown so much and evolved. Like our podcast has changed so much. We've only been out for a year and a half. We started September of 2020.

But you realize that acknowledging that growth and talking about that growth is going to help so many other creators, right? Like, I feel like so many people just try to cover that kind of stuff up. Like, that never happened. And I don't need to grow and I don't need to change anything that I'm doing. And the fact that you guys are acknowledging that is huge to me. I just, I don't know. I hope it's an inspiration for other people.

And that's exactly why we're not changing it or we're not like we might just re-edit it, like re-record it just so that we have better sound quality. But we're not going to change who we were. We want people to come on this journey and we hope that people take our journey and use it as motivation for their own.

And like this Brandon case, you know, like we went out there that day, we covered the case. So on February 5th, we released the, no, February 8th, we released the episode of Brandon. We put together, and he's our only episode that has been two episodes because it's so much. Yeah. It's a big case. Yeah. It is a very big case. And we covered it. We put it out there. And I've never, I've,

been so anxious about one of our episodes as that first one. I was worried about the feedback we would get. I was worried about family doing the family justice. Yeah.

And when his wife messaged us and said it was great, when Justin told us – or excuse me, Jason told us that he thought it was really good. He's like, there's a couple of things I think you should tweak, which I appreciate all forms of constructive criticisms. Don't come at me with your negative Nancy nonsense. Be constructive. Exactly. But –

When he told us this is a great product, like you've done his family justice, that meant the world to us. When he said, Brandon would appreciate you putting this out there, that's all I needed. And that's all Melissa needed. No one else mattered at that.

point, except for Brandon and his family, like getting the word out about, even though like his case had been done a hundred times before. I don't think it was done at the level of humanity that we had done it at. So it was, it was, it's probably one of our favorite episodes. Like we love what we did with that. Yeah.

I will say when other podcasts ask for a episode drop, like if we could swap an episode, that's the one we go to. Our Brandon Lawson case, even though it was a year ago at this point, that's still our go-to. Yeah. And we weren't, I mean, like, I feel like we've grown so much even from that case, just like learning how to speak and produce. Sure.

Um, but it's still one of our best, like it's, it's insane. Like what we thought we did. And then we actually did, we only met Jason and Dylan that time when we went out, um, in 2020, 2020, 2021. Um, we didn't blend together. It's fine. Yes.

COVID period. We didn't meet Ledessa and Brandon's father until actually CrimeCon in Austin. And once we met them, it still shifted even more. We're like, we're a part of the family. It was...

No one's bar then. Yeah. When Jason introduced them to us, the first thing Ladesa did was hug our necks. Yes. Ladesa is the sweetest. The sweetest. I love Ladesa so much. They're so sweet. I just love that family. That moment, that feeling when she hugged my neck and said, thank you.

For doing what you're doing. That's when we knew like we are doing something right. Yeah. It was like, this is what we were made to do. Like we all had nine to fives and you're just like, ah, kind of just getting through until you can go to vacation or on the weekend. But like, this is our life now. Like, and I absolutely agree.

uh, love what we're doing and like, we're actually making a difference. And that brings us kind of to what we did on January 15th. Yeah. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about the huge discovery that I'm sure everyone is waiting for at this point. Yeah. They're like, okay, get on with it. We know what's coming. So when we went at, when Jason told us, Hey, there's going to be another foot search. I said, damn it, Jason, if you don't include us, like,

We're going to be pissed, right? We're not friends anymore. Not really. Not really. I was like, if you need something, let us know. We will be there hands on. From the beginning, we told Jason, let us know what you need. We will be there. That's kind of what we do for every family on our deep dives. Like, what do you need? We will volunteer our time, our money, whatever we're able to do. Like, just let us know what you guys are working on.

And in the process of this year that has passed now, we've covered other cases. We've participated in honking waves. We have provided flyers for families that need flyers. We have provided water for search parties when we couldn't be there. We have, we've done everything we can possibly do within our realm at this moment. I mean, obviously we're growing. We're hoping to do better, do more. That

That's like, I can prove to you on my phone, my background is do more. That is my life motto is do more. And so like, that's our goal in life is to do more and do better and do things for these families, whatever they need us to do, we will do it within like lawful reason. Like, yes, you know, like I'm not going, we're not rich. Yes.

Obviously that.

But the search was going to be on January 15th. And that was kind of the weekend we were planning on moving. But I said, hold up. We'll move the weekend after because like it wasn't like we didn't have to be there at any certain time. So I said, I need to be there for this search.

So Wednesday rolls around of this week, right? And we're getting weather reports and it's 50 mile an hour, gusted winds. And it's like 33 to 45 degrees weather. We're like, great, this is going to be a wonderful search. It's going to be freezing. It's going to be windy. We are not going to survive. And in the talks of the nine people that have agreed to do this search, um,

They're asking, should we cancel it? Should we push it a week? And I'm like, we can't push a week for Melissa to be there because she's moving next weekend. Like it has to be this week. Everything points to this week has to happen. Right.

We're like, if you guys are good to go, we don't care. We'll layer up. Let's go out and search. We already have permission. Let's not drag it on anymore because it's already been eight and a half years. So let's just do it. And this is never before searched property. So like this is an opportunity that you cannot pass up. If they said yes, go, we got to go. We got to go.

And so we layered up essentially. We're like, okay, we're going to get out there. We're going to start searching at 10. I had three layers on. I had leggings, I had jeans, and I had ski pants because I knew the terrain. And I was thinking ski pants will like push away the mesquite thorns. Like hopefully it won't penetrate three layers. Wrong. Oh, wow.

my husband and I, we drive about what, like three hours that morning. It's three and a half, four hours for both of us. Cause I come up from Austin and you came from the DFW area. So it was kind of like,

West halfway West, if you will. So, I mean, we got there about 10 o'clock. We left around six. My husband's super supportive of, you know, all of this. He's like, yeah, I'm not going to have you do this alone. Like I gotcha. And so we, we meet up, we're waiting for everyone to kind of,

come by, but we didn't want like the public or like the local people to know what we were doing. We wanted to keep it on the DL. It was very secretive. So let, hold on. Let's talk about that a little bit though, because it's a very small town, like less than a thousand people live there. So when one person doesn't show up to the coffee shop in the morning, the whole town is talking about it.

So if you have, you know, seven, eight vehicles showing up to do a foot search, the whole town is talking about it. So it needed to be kind of on the down low. There's a lot of already bad press, if you will, regarding this case because of Brandon's sordid past, which is not definitive of any human being in the world. If someone is missing, they deserve to be found regardless of their past or history or anything related to it.

And so like we were trying to be very covert, if you will, about this search. Except for we're not. We're not. We're not.

I wouldn't describe you that way. I'm not going to lie. So the first time Whitney and I had went to this town of Bront, going into the gas station, everybody stared at us because they knew we were not local. We were outsiders. Like that is how small it is. We went to get a water and to use the restroom. And they were like, where are you from? They were like, what's your address? It's crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. So we meet up, we get onto the property. It's, it's under lock and key. Like we had to have a code to get into this property because the owners don't live there. And so we get on kind of formulate a game plan at this point. I do want to say that my husband is also supportive of the podcast, but we have younger children that we can't leave at home alone. So my husband has to stay with my younger children. Someone has to watch the children. Makes sense. Makes sense.

And so essentially we're like, hey, we're going to start at point A. The front of the property. And we're going to walk in a grid style pattern. Like as close to get apart. However, this is very...

With like four C's. Four C's. So you can't necessarily just walk in a straight line. That's not going to happen. You have to like go around different brush, different type of things that you just can't get through. Yeah. And so sometimes we would deviate off. And like one time I had, Whitney had went around something and I couldn't see her. And like, I was freaking out that now she was lost.

Oh, yes. Remember that there's nine of us in a row. The person at each end of the line have a radio. And then Chris, Melissa's husband, who is the tallest of all of them, because he's like six, seven or whatever. He's not that tall, but he's really tall. He also had a radio. So we had communication. So at each end and at the middle, and you should be able to see everyone you would think in a radio.

Search of this. But the mesquite trees are so thick. We could be less than five feet apart and I could not see Melissa next to me because the mesquite trees are so thick and you're just like pushing yourself through, like you're putting your head down and like hoping you can make it through and look.

well for any evidence. I started going... Oh, sorry. I was going to say, worst case for searching in terms of the area, yeah. I started going backwards into the mesquite trees so that they wouldn't hit my face and then looking backwards. And I was walking backwards through all of these bushes and thorns that were hitting me and it was much better to do it that way. Smart, yeah.

And it's not mesquite trees. It's cactus. And these cactus don't just have like long thorns. They have these little bitty pieces that are like fiberglass. Oh, yes. You're in Arizona, so you understand cacti more than like the general public.

So they're these little bitty and they get in your skin and you don't see them for like weeks. And so until what, like three weeks ago, we were still pulling thorns out of our skin. I still have spots on my legs. I'm not going to lie. I'm like, my knees were the worst, but like I have little dots and I've tried to exfoliate everything I could to get these little buggers out, but it's not happening. It's 100% worth it. I'm just going to say that. So what? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, obviously. So we're pushing through this. We cover, what, 50 acres by like 2 p.m.? Mm-hmm.

We're making good progress, but like, obviously we're running out of steam. We all need water at this point. We need lunch, which I only brought granola bars. Like we brought granola bars for the whole team and water. And like, I was going to bring coffee, but you couldn't find coffee anywhere nearby because it was cold. I was like going to do coffee and hot cocoa so that we could warm up on our breaks. But there wasn't like, apparently.

Apparently, all of the gas stations anywhere in San Angelo was out of freaking hot water at the time. I went to three different ones. No hot water. There was three females. So me, Whitney, and another lady there. And so, of course, it's very difficult for us to use the bathroom out in the woods with 50 mile an hour winds. The guys are just going everywhere. And I'm like, it's been so many hours. We need a break.

So at two o'clock we take a break. We walk back to the vehicles, get a snack, get some water, kind of like get our bearings. So we're trying to decide on where to search next.

And we knew it was going to get dark soon because this is 2, 2.30 p.m. We're like, okay, we've only got probably two and a half hours left of daylight before the sun really starts going down. We do not want to be stuck out here at night, you know, trying to use our cell phone flashlights, trying to get back to vehicles. Because you could be walking and there will be a drop-off. There will be a drop-off. You could break an ankle, a cactus, a bush. Yeah.

There would be a huge cactus bush, like, as big as you are, and you would just fall into it. Like, it's not one cactus. It is, like, a row of humongous cacti. It's a bushel of cacti. It's dangerous. That you would just get sucked into. Like, I like to think of it as, now I can't even remember. Just kidding. Anemone. Anemone. Like, where, like, in the fish. Oh, it's being anemone. Yeah.

It's like that big. Like, it will just... It'll take you. End of story. And we're searching. Like, I want to explain the terrain a little bit better. Because we're searching this terrain and it is...

Basically all the same color. It's the middle of the winter. Every like foliage is dead. There's no green leaves. There's no green cactus. The dirt is brown. The cactus is brown. The trees are brown. It is you have to look you have to use your brain and it's exhausting.

To like differentiate all the different colors. Make sure you're not missing something. Because I know what's going through my head. And I know what's going through Melissa's head as well. Is like I'm going to be the one person that steps over a piece of evidence. And I'm going to screw this whole thing up. Because I didn't find it. Because I couldn't differentiate enough. And there are animal bones everywhere. Everywhere.

Oh, that has to be so confusing. Plus, the dead cacti is like a white color that looks like bone like nobody's business. I don't even know how many I stepped on or was like, oh, kind of trying to figure out if it was something of importance. And it was like, oh, this cactus is just dead. Yeah.

And so it was very frustrating, but there was not one. There's deer vertebrae. There's, but there's not like trash or like human, like human, human. There's no like beer cans or soda cans or like gloves or clothing. Like there's nothing that we have found of significance. We found several different deer carcasses. I mean, we found a very recently deer carcass, like still had fur on it. Carcass. It was gross. And then we found a hippocampus.

Then we found a foot bone. Then we found like a, you know, like all these different bones all this time. We go back to the, we needed a break. Let's just be real. We need a break. We go get water. We get granola bars. We're all like trying to regroup and we're trying to figure out the best possible way

of where to go on this property? Like what's the best use of our time? We're walking up the fence line. We go over to this other area and thank God there's less mesquite trees over there. There's less cactus. It's so much more open because we were all exhausted at this point fighting all of that stuff for hours.

And we line up again and we start our search. And within five minutes of this next section, we come upon some clothing items. Melissa's husband, Chris, finds a clothing item. And he's like, hey, I found some clothes. Within 30 seconds of him saying, I found some clothes, another member of our search team said, I found a shoe.

And this is the first like human anything we have found on this property. Wait, hold on. I take that back. At this point, we had found a cap early on in the search near the road, but it looked like it just like flew off a truck and like a trucker hat. Yeah. Yeah. Had blown off at a vehicle, but it wasn't of anything important. Like it didn't, it wasn't anything Brandon was last known to be wearing. It didn't have any significance to us.

So back at this back corner, we're searching this area. Chris says he found some shorts within 30 seconds. This other member found a shoe and we're like, okay, what kind of shoe is it? Well, another member of our search team had purchased the shoes that Brandon was last known to be wearing from eBay.

And so that we had something tangible, we could put our hands on it. We knew what we were looking for. It wasn't the right size. Who cares? It was the same style brand shoe that was on all of his missing posters. We knew what we needed to search for. We knew he was wearing camo shorts at that, that the night he went missing the MMA style camo shorts. That's what we were looking for. That's what Chris found. Chris found shorts everywhere.

Another member of our search party – and I'm not going to say her name because I don't know that she wants her name said. Of course. She found a shoe. We flipped it over. It said Nike Air Max. And she said, hey, I think I found –

the sole of a Nike Air Max shoe. And this is all like happening very quickly. Before I, we could like, I could scoot over to the shorts or before I, cause I was like dead center at that point. I could not go one way or the other. It all happened so fast. I walk over to Chris, I look at the shorts and they're inside out and they're sun bleached. They've been there many, many years. Yeah. Eight and a half years. We knew he was wearing MMA style camo shorts when he went missing.

With a stick, things were kind of moved around and the inside of these shorts are camo. My God. They flipped the sole of that shoe over and it is a Nike Air Max shoe.

It was, it was unreal. At that moment, we all, I don't, we weren't freaking, well, we wanted to vomit. We were freaking out. All, I have a video, like, I'm just like, oh my God, oh my God, like what just happened? Because you go on these searches and like, you want to participate and you want to help the family any way you can possibly can.

But the likelihood that you actually find something, it was a needle in a haystack. Like, it could be anywhere. The analytical side of your brain kicks in and you're like, come on, it's been eight and a half years. There's no way. No way. And the fact that we stumbled upon that is like the odds, because I'm always, I'm just like that. I just weigh the odds. Like it is crazy.

absolutely minuscule of how we found that. Like this was the last chance of us finding anything that day. We were done for the day. We were like, we're going to get this last corner and we're done. We'll call it quits. We'll come back another time. That's where we were at. We were all tired. We were cold. My face was chapped. Melissa's face was chapped. Like her lips, like it was miserable conditions. But the second we found that,

Jason got on the phone and talked to the private investigator that was involved around this case. I don't know that he wants his name shared either. So either way, he got on the phone with someone much more knowledgeable in this area than us. And that individual said, I think you found something. Hold tight. And we have someone standing with the shorts. We have someone standing with the shoe.

Chris continues on. A few of us others continue on looking for even further in the area because this was all found within 20 to 30 feet of each other, though. Yeah. Like very, very close proximity of each other. So we kind of keep moving on while Jason's on the phone. Because, of course, we're like, OK, there has to be more here. There has to be more. Absolutely. You want to find something else. Yeah. We're in this zone. And so my husband, like, keeps looking. He ends up finding the second shoe. Yeah.

The left shoe. Not too far away. And we're like, holy crap. By this time, Jason and the private eye are like, hey, halt the search. We need to call the sheriff and the sheriff's deputy to come in just in case it's a crime scene. Like, we need to have authorities here. We are not trained. We don't know what we're doing. We're here searching just as civilians. And we 100% do not want to affect any sort of...

investigation. We don't want to affect any evidence. Like we, we don't want to be the people that ruin something. Heaven forbid, worst case scenario, we have screwed up this investigation. We are not those people. We have found something. We are stopping immediately. They said, okay, mark your location, go back to your vehicles. So that's true. That trek back to our car seemed like forever. We're like, oh my God, where's our cars?

So we get back. We're waiting on the sheriff or the sheriff's deputy. And it just seems like forever. Like we're just sitting there. Time moves slow, slow. Yeah. Finally, the same deputy that was actually there the night that Brandon went missing. He was the one that came out again. Wow.

And he went out with the rest of us stayed at our vehicles while Jason, Chris, my husband and the deputy went out to like mark all the locations and check out the evidence. And just a little insight to our day. We really had to pee at this point because we hadn't gone to the restroom at all at this point. So we asked Dylan to run us down the street to the restroom.

And there you earned it. Yeah. So he runs us down the street to the restroom while we're waiting. When we get back, the sheriff walks back with Chris and Jason as well. And they say, he says, this is consistent with what Brandon was last known to be wearing. We need to call in the Texas Rangers. So they call in the Texas Rangers and he's like, I need you all to stay here. And we're like, okay. So we sit down and we wait until a Ranger arrives and,

When that ranger arrived, he walked out to that location that the items were. They marked it. They flagged it. They tagged it as evidence. They collected it together with Sheriff Deputy Neal, as well as the Texas Ranger that was on site. They all they bagged it up and he came back and he's like, I'm going to need all of your information, which, of course, we're borderline freaking out at this point. Like we are still like adrenaline's running, but.

To be honest, like Melissa and I talked earlier in that day and we in no way, shape or form thought we would find anything. It's been eight and a half years. Like let's... Well, the chances are slim. Yes. Yes. The probability, if you look at this analytically, the probability of us finding anything is very, very low. We talked about it. We didn't think anything was going to happen. We found it. The deputy is like, this is consistent. I need your information. We give them all of our information. We're like...

crazy like shaking we're hot like it's a crazy like moment hungry we're starving like dirty like hurting dark at this time it is like dark fall and the the ranger is like you don't understand what you have done this is a this is a very good thing you have done it was so sweet

He was so appreciative of our time and effort going out there. And that right there, I was like, this is it. Like Melissa and I sat in the car while we were waiting, while they were looking at the evidence and they were looking around. And of course, as night's falling darker and darker, they're obviously not going to find anything in dark. Right. And they're going to want to do their own investigation. But they did bag the evidence. They did collect it. They did take it for further testing. And Melissa and I are like, wow, wow.

Yeah, wow. Wow. I'm like tearing up over here. My gosh. It was insane. It was the best probably. I mean, I've had two kids, but let's just say it was probably the top five best events of my life to like just be a part of something that spectacular. Yeah.

Well, you changed the case forever and you affected this family forever. I mean, spoiler alert, it was 100% confirmed to be Brandon's items. Is that correct? Or is that still out? We haven't gotten a full on 100% confirmation. They said that there's

They don't see how it's anyone else. It couldn't be anyone else. I mean, the exact shoes, the exact shorts that he was last known to be wearing to be together in such close proximity. The probability of that is very, very low. Obviously, they're going to do further testing. This is also very early in the investigation. What they did say is that we were allowed to tell his family, but we were not allowed to tell anyone else at that moment.

They wanted to do their investigation on that property before the public and the media kind of went down that road. So we're like, okay, we told Brandon's wife or long-term girlfriend that night and his parents of what had happened, which was totally heartbreaking. But it was like the weird, and like I said earlier, I've never been so sad and happy at the same time.

It's a very difficult emotion to express listening to that phone call and being a part of that phone call. She asked for photos of it because she felt she could confirm the authenticity of the items. We did share those with her. She did feel that they were authentic in nature and that she did feel that those were actual items of Brandon's and listening to her voice and listening to his parents' voice and

I've never heard so much relief and pain at the same time. Yeah.

Because they've been searching for answers for eight and a half years. I just think about his kids, like his kids growing up thinking like, hey, did he run away? Like, I know you have your mom telling you, no, he would have never done that. Your dad loved you because that's, I mean, as any mom would do, but like, they just don't know where he's at. And I think

It was just it was horrible knowing and I know Ladesa told her children not too long after that that they had that we had found something and it just it breaks my heart for them to know like, hey, he didn't like it's it's relief like he didn't leave us. But then it's also like he was so close. Like, yeah, it's bittersweet. It's bittersweet. It is. I mean, it definitely is.

To your point, now they know that, you know, their dad didn't leave them. And I think that's huge. I mean, you gave that to them. I just, I can't give you enough credit. Just know that.

And that's something we have spoken with LaDessa about. She has told us, she's like, you don't know what kind of a gift you have given us. And she's like, is it the outcome we wanted? Does every family of a missing person out there hope and pray that their missing loved one is alive? Absolutely. That is the best of best case scenario, that they are unharmed and they are out there living the best life they can possibly live.

But the fact that they have something that they can bury, that they can hold on to, that they have that. It's tangible. They can feel it. That they can visit. That's something. That they can visit on birthdays and Father's Day. That they can go to a gravesite. Like, they have that now. Which is, like, I don't even think I've fully processed it yet. Like, there's, like, pieces coming in. And I'm like, holy crap.

But, yes. So after that, like, Texas Rangers said not to say anything. So obviously Whitney and I were like, mum's the word. We're not going to say crap until the investigation went on. It did take a couple of weeks because of some COVID-related issues for Texas Rangers actually to get out there and do their own search. Yeah.

And then what was the date, Whitney? February 1st, we got confirmation that Texas Rangers were on site at that property conducting their own search. Now, right before this, they changed the investigation from a cold case to a cold case homicide in order to get the proper search results.

a larger search party and resources to go out there instead of it just being like one or two guys, they were able to get an actual search party out there and do a full intensive search that the Texas Rangers needed to do. And we knew they were out there on that day. We waited and waited hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. It seemed like time was so slow that day, but we also thought maybe we won't know anything. Maybe they won't find anything. Or maybe they won't tell us. Yes. Sure. Yeah.

Let's be real. We thought, baby, they won't contact us and let us know. And around 7, 730-ish that evening, I don't remember the exact time because it's kind of a blur to me, honestly. That evening, we got a phone call that they considered Brandon is no longer a missing person because they did find human remains in the same vicinity, about 400-ish yards from the items that we found.

And that they would be sending that those items for DNA confirmation to a local DNA lab.

And that we still needed to kind of hold it until, well, I guess they didn't even tell us that we needed to hold it. They just said, this is what we found. This is what we're going to do. We decided where our ethics stand and where our morals stand as a podcast, even though we are technically considered a member of the press, we are not comfortable sharing information that the family has not shared. And I want to make that apparent that that's not why we are here. We are here for families alone. We're not here for...

The guts and glory, if that's what you want to call it. And we decided early on that when the family is ready to talk about it, we are ready to talk about it. So we waited. We knew this. And Melissa and I kind of were like, holy shit. I don't know if you trust on your podcast. You can say it. Don't worry. Yeah. Yeah. It was it was kind of a tailspin from Tuesday to.

And we knew the family was going to release something soon. This is a very publicized case. We knew the family was going to say something. And so we were kind of just waiting for them, kind of like figuring out where I wanted their whole family to know and them to grieve and them to process everything before we ever released anything and like let that happen.

crazy show start because this is a very highly publicized case. And so on Friday, without any knowledge to us that it was going to be released, we thought it was going to be much longer. I figured it would be much longer. So like, we're just doing our lives. I'm helping out my, my kids do virtual school. So I'm like doing that. Like we're just living our lives and it's,

LaDessa, the wife of Brandon Lawson, releases it on the help... A statement. A statement on the Help Find Brandon Lawson site. And we are like... From... Like, we had already been tagged in multiple things before we even realized that she had released something. And so we were like... From that moment... Like, I have anxiety issues, like I talk about on the show quite a bit. Right.

I was freaking out. Like I am not a public guy type of person. I don't like a lot of, and that's weird because I have a podcast, but she's the introvert of us. I don't like it. She's the introvert. Yeah. And we were tagged in it individually. Like our private pages were tagged in this post. And then within probably two minutes, maybe 30 seconds to two minutes. I don't even remember. It was all, like I said, it's all a blurb.

They messaged us on our little search group that said the family has gone public. We of course had prepared our statement for when this did happen, just because we are preppers that way, I guess you could say. And when she released it, we decided to release our statement. And this was all within, I would say by the time we had it out there, five minutes. And from there, um,

I called Melissa. She was slightly freaking out. I was slightly freaking out. I am not a crier. Like, let's just... I am very non-emotional. Whitney's the crier of this duo. Let's be real. I am very compartmentalized. And I am not emotional. And I was freaking out, bawling my eyes out. My husband wasn't home. And I was like, I need you home. I need you home. And he's just like, why? And he's like, you knew this was going to happen. And I'm like...

I just I can't deal with it. Like it is the family. And I read the dad's post and it was it was too much, too much emotion all in one one moment. I just I couldn't deal like in its sucky, but I had to shut everything off. No, it makes sense. It's very overwhelming. It's a big thing. Like I said, I mean, you've you've changed people's lives forever. That's huge.

And I don't know that we had fully felt the weight of what had happened until that moment. Yeah. And we sat, we released our information. We made our statement. I sat in the floor of my office, held my dog because she thinks she's my emotional support animal. And I just laid there and we cried and Melissa cried. I cried and we just like let go.

Let it ride. All of that emotion for like one year of, you know, meeting the family and being with them and kind of like being invited to vigil dinners and like just it sunk in at that moment. Like their lives are never going to be the same. You're exactly right. I mean, as the family member of a missing person,

And I cannot tell you enough how amazing I think you are and how incredible all of that is. And you guys went out there and you didn't have to. Most people don't. Most people don't go out to those sites. Most people don't go out to meet these families. I mean, hell, most people don't.

People don't even interview families. So, I mean, from the bottom of my heart, I know that obviously this doesn't affect me in any way in comparison to how it affects Brandon's family, but I just wanted to say thank you. And that's why I have you guys on here. And I wanted to just promote you and talk about the story and just really show everybody that true crime can be different. It doesn't have to be just listening. It doesn't have to be

this detached form of entertainment, it can be so much more. And if every podcast tried to reach out to a family, I mean, once a year, once every other year, whatever it is, if they tried to get more involved, I think we would see a lot more breakthroughs like this. And I really hope that other creators follow your suit because you guys are freaking heroes to me. And I think that you're amazing. And I don't want to cut you off or anything, but I would love to know

How is this inspiring you for the future? What are your plans now? How do you not just want to go to every search ever? That's how I feel. So I can start. Whitney and I, obviously, we're in a podcast. We're like, what if we make a break in a case? What if we do this? You have these pipe dreams of what you can accomplish. And honestly, they're pipe dreams. I mean, not that we're like we're never, because I mean...

We are who we are. We're nobody. We are not investigators. We are not police officers.

Law enforcement. We're not even going to privatize. We are just people that have a heart towards those that have been wronged. And that's where we're going out. And like, we're like one day we're going to do something. That was our goal in mind with this whole podcast. We're going to help a family, like regardless of money or fate, like none of that, like our goal was to help a case.

And the fact that we did it with and we don't like to give ourselves a lot of credit because like Uncovered did give us the case. Jason set up the search. So we're still like, oh, did we really do it? But you did. I mean, it was a collective effort, but you did. Yeah. We're very humbled in that aspect.

But like, we want to give everyone credit, like uncovered gave us the case to pursue. We did. Jason did every single bit of the legwork regarding this search. He 100% is responsible for this finding. Not us. We were just there to be muscle, to be feet on the ground, to be additional eyeballs. He did this, not us. But you know what?

We are stopping. Like, I mean, at the end of the day, we helped with this. And that is so much motivation to help further families. Like, it's ridiculous, the motivation that we have. And I'm like, this should be an inspiration to other, like, true crime community members that are like, oh, like, it's very difficult to find a missing person. This is

Brandon was missing for eight and a half years. Like, that's ridiculous. And this was one of the ones that Whitney and I were like, it'll never be solved. Like, this is one we have no clue. There's so many theories. There's so much conspiracy around Brandon's case. And honestly, there was so many searches already that have occurred. Like, we really thought, like...

Yes, there's so many. Like, why is there no answer to this? Someone just doesn't disappear. Like, no one disappears. No one spontaneously combusts. No one disappears into thin air. Aliens did not abduct this person. I was like, no aliens. Like...

So the fact that this happened by people that are not investigators should give motivation and inspiration to those that are just sitting at home. You know, just like the don't F with cats. Like you never know what your expertise can really bring to the table unless you try, unless you recognize that there's a need out there. There are so many missing people and we could help.

Yeah. Well, and I think that's what hope is. You know, I think you can recognize that the odds of...

helping solve a case, the odds of finding somebody, the odds of finding any type of evidence are slim. I think we can all acknowledge that while also saying, well, I'm going to do it anyway and I'm going to help anyway because there is a very slim chance that something could still happen. And I feel like that's what hope is in these cases. That's where this hope lies is just knowing that the odds aren't in your favor and doing it anyway because one, it's the right thing to do and two, because you just care about

So, yeah, I think that, again, not only is this going to inspire other creators, this is going to inspire other families to keep hope alive. You know what I mean? And yes, all credit to Jason Watts. You know, for those of you who've listened to Voices for Justice for some time, you probably listened to my panel with Jason at CrimeCon 2021. He was featured there as a family advocate, as BDT.

you know, the Brandon Lawson family advocate. And look where you guys are now. Again, huge shout out to everyone, but I have you two here now. So I just wanted to say again, thank you. And you guys are absolutely amazing. And I assume that you have even more deep dives coming in the future, hopefully in Phoenix, in my realm of the cacti.

Yes, we aren't stopping anytime soon. I can tell you that. If anything, this discovery has invigorated us more than anything possible. We know that even us as nobodies in this world, we've

We did something and every person out there is capable of doing something. And if you aren't a member, you know, in this world that you think enough, there's something that you can contribute. You may only be a, I don't know,

Maybe you really like antiques and you can tell us about a desk chair. You know what? The don't F with cats people solved a case over a doorknob. Like you don't know what power you have in a case. So if you think you have something, share it. Don't be afraid to use your voice because voices are important and someone will listen at some point. Be loud, keep going and do what you can because all we did was volunteer time and look what we did.

You did it. That's all you need. You did it. Before I thank you profusely for coming on the show and offer you to plug all the things. Is there anything else you'd like to say?

I don't know. I feel like we've talked this whole time and I feel bad that you didn't talk at all. You summed it up beautifully. This isn't about me. This is about you. This is about inspiring other people. This is about Brandon. It's about this amazing discovery. But yeah, I think you summed it up really beautifully. I just always do that. I'm always like, you have anything else you want to say? Because I feel really rude, like trying to cut people off and I'm not trying to do that. And end. And end. You're out of time. Goodbye. Good luck. Thanks for what you did. No, seriously, again, thank you for what you did. I mean, I was tearing up

when you're talking about the discovery, this whole thing makes me tear up because it really does. Like, I don't,

I think you guys are smart. I think you understand the ripple effect that this can have throughout the community, throughout these families, throughout everything. So again, I mean, you changed True Crime forever. You changed this case forever. You changed that family forever. You've affected his kids' lives positively forever. And I just thank you for that. So where can people find you? Where can they follow you? Where can they see more of your amazing deep dives and your amazing advocacy work?

Oh, let's see. We're on everywhere podcasts can be, I'm pretty sure. If not, tell me where we're not and we'll be there. We are Cults Crimes and Cabernet. On most social media, we are at Cults Crimes Cab on our

our website is cultcrimescavernet.com. If you have a case, if you have a missing loved one or a murdered loved one and you want us to cover the case, we do have an email that you can submit cases to. It's cases.ccc at gmail.com. Please send them to us. We are always looking for new cases to cover. If you...

I don't know, need us, reach out to us. We're pretty good at responding to almost all email messages, anything. If we haven't responded to you, send us another message because we're usually pretty good at responding to that.

I don't even know what else to talk about. I do. You guys are going to be at CrimeCon? Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. No. I was like, Twitter's a little bit different though, right? No, we're called Crimes Cab. Oh, is it? Okay. Sorry. I don't know any of the social media, but yes, we will be at CrimeCon in Vegas. So if you are going to be in the Vegas area or if you want to travel to CrimeCon, hey, you can always use our code, Cabernet, get 10% off.

Use their code. And also, I heard that you guys have an upcoming tour that is maybe happening in like days. Yes, it starts on Thursday, which we are sold out for our Thursday show because it is a smaller venue on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, though we will be in Littleton, Colorado on Friday, Denver on Saturday and Sunday. So like if you're not into...

Super Bowl, come see us. If you're into Super Bowl, we will be done before the Super Bowl kicks off at Grandma's house of all places. It sounds like a really great place to be. Our tickets are available on Eventbrite. We are doing a virtual show. If you don't want to travel to Colorado, we know that...

COVID is a scary time. Friday night we are doing a virtual show. It's half the price of a regular ticket. It's all, again, all on Novemberite. Go check it out. You can find it on basically anywhere.

on our website on, we'll also be there with generation Y true crime, IRL, true consequences. You can find it on any of our social medias. It's out there all over the place. I was going to mention that we're there with other people. It's not just us. You guys talk about being so small, but you're literally on tour with gen Y. Um,

Okay. But also, yes, you guys know a friend of the podcast, especially Eric Carter Londine, who is Jacob Londine's older brother. He will be on tour with them. We love him here at this podcast. We love True Consequences. And now we love you guys too. Now you guys are officially a friend of the show or friends of the show, I should say, including your husband, who I will put to work at CrimeCon if I have to. Both of our husbands will be there. So we'll have double the muscle.

For double the level of booths, I guess. We're going to have a double, a two-story booth. Wouldn't that be something? It'll be great. It'll be something. Yeah, it'll be great. Go use their code, go to their tour, get the virtual live show tickets. They do, you guys still do live streams every Thursday right now. Is that correct? We do. Every Thursday except this week because we will be at a live show. So this Thursday we are off, but next Thursday we will be back live.

All right, perfect. And I'll have it all linked down below. But go check them out, you guys. They are doing absolutely amazing work. This is exactly what we're here for on this podcast. It's all about not just listening to these stories, but going above and beyond to help them. And that is exactly what these amazing women and the entire group that helped with this discovery has done. So again, thank you. Thank you for having us on. You don't know how much it means to us for you to invite us on.

Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney. For more information about the podcast, to suggest a case, to see resources used for this episode, and to find out more about how to help the cases I discuss, visit VoicesForJusticePodcast.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show in your podcast player. It

It really does help more people find the podcast and these cases in need of justice.