What happened to Brianna?

Ann Curry • Profile

FLATHEAD VALLEY, MONTANA - On a striking autumn day in Montana’s Flathead Valley, in the charming resort town of Bigfork, it was a day eagerly awaited: Homecoming.

Among those in the stands was a 15-year old sophomore, Brianna Torres-Moore. She played volleyball and soccer, tried out for the school play, and was still “the new kid,” learning what Montana living was all about after growing up in Idaho and California.

But on that festive evening, as darkness fell and the cheers went silent, Brianna was about to go missing.

Bridget Michlig, Brianna’s mother: The plan was that she would go to the game, and then go to the dance, and then come home.

At home that night, Brianna’s mother Bridget and stepfather Michael Michlig anxiously waited, watching the clock as their daughter’s curfew came and went.

Ann Curry, Dateline correspondent: At what point do you get nervous?

Michael Michlig, Brianna’s stepfather: 11 p.m. sharp. At our home we have rules, guidelines, and at 11 o’clock we were nervous.

Curry: What did you do?

Michael Michlig: Oh, by 11:15 we were on the road looking for her.

Where was Brianna? In rural Montana, potential dangers lurked everywhere – in narrow, windy roads and the lake.

Curry: Minutes are ticking by. It’s now, what, 11:30? 11:45?

Michael Michlig: Then midnight, and then one. We were driving along looking in a ditch hoping not to see the car overturned or our daughter in the water, in the ditch. We were terrified!

Curry: Panicked?

Bridget Michlig:  Panicked calling on the cell phone. calling anybody we could think of. And never once did I even begin to imagine that what had happened, happened.

Finally, after hours of driving and worry, with the sunrise came a phone call from a family friend. Michael and Bridget learned of a “kegger,” a beer bust to celebrate homecoming just a few miles away across the county line.

They rushed to the tumbledown trailer home where the party had been held.

Bridget Michling: I opened the door to the trailer. There’s sleeping kids all over the floor and on all the couches. It’s very dark, all the blinds are drawn, and I start moving through the living room and Bri was coming down the hallway.

Michael Michlig: Disoriented, tired… still intoxicated.

Curry: How could you tell?

Bridget Michlig: She reeked of alcohol, just reeked.

Curry: So you did what parents do. You admonished her? You yelled at her?

Bridget Michlig: I yelled at her.

Michael Michlig: Sure.

Bridget Michlig: I think I said, ‘What were you doing there? What were you thinking? How dare you go and do this. This isn’t how I raised you, this isn’t what we talk about. You know better than this!’

Curry: You feel guilty about this now?

Bridget Michlig: My heart aches for it.

And Brianna, still woozy, couldn’t tell her mother how glad she was to see her. Or about the secret she held.

Brianna: It felt so good to know that “Okay, well at least for today, there’s not going to be any more of this.”

Curry: Why didn’t you tell them immediately?

Brianna: Part of me, a lot of me didn’t want her to know. I figured that I could just pretend it never happened and it would be fine.

Curry: Bury it away and it would never come up again?

Brianna: Mm-hmm.

Despite Bri’s condition, the Michligs made her go to work that day at a local cafe. And as the day wore on, Michael and Bridget got a surprise. A friend told them her son had said something about Bri’s behavior the night before—something particularly upsetting for her parents.

Curry: What were the words that you heard that changed everything?

Michael Michlig: Our friend said, “Well, Nathan tells us that two young men at the party had sex with her.” We were appalled!

Curry: With your daughter?

Bridget Michlig: With my daughter. It’s like, oh my god, I know my daughter, I know what sorts of things she does. It doesn’t include this. And now I’m getting information that there were two men, two young men at that party who had intercourse with her!?

Curry: You didn’t believe it?

Bridget Michlig: That’s not my Bri. My child, my daughter, doesn’t choose to do things like that.

After work, Brianna was confronted by her parents.

Brianna: She asked me what had happened at the party. And I told her “nothing” that there’d been a bunch of kids and we just got really drunk and that was it. We just hung out. And she said, “No, I don’t think that that’s what happened. Something happened and you need to tell me.”

The Michligs were about to learn new details that would show them they apparently knew only part of the story.

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