Whereabouts of Vermont teen still a mystery

Rob Stafford Correspondent • Profile

VERMONT -

People who knew her say Brianna Maitland had a lot of life, happiness and spontaneity. Just life sparking from her eyes. They say she had poise — everybody would turn around and look.

She's the kind of girl that attracted a lot of attention

Brianna has drawn a lot of attention from folks in rural, upstate Vermont, an area known for its rustic beauty and solitude. But the tranquility here has been shattered by a disturbing possibility — that  something horrible may have happened to the beautiful girl with the broad smile, who vanished more than two years ago.

The mystery surrounding 17-year-old Brianna began on March 19, 2004.  The day had gone well enough, according to her mother, Kellie.

“I was with her most of that day,” she recalls. “We went out for breakfast. We went shopping. It was an upbeat day.”

Kellie was happy to have the time with her daughter.  Months earlier, Brianna, who had just earned her graduate equivalency degree and was anticipating college, had moved out and was living with a girlfriend.   Her independent streak had become a sore subject with both her mom and her father, Bruce.

“I didn't want her to be out living on her own,” Bruce says. “It was an arrangement that we didn't like, but we tolerated.”

“We didn't have a choice,” Kellie says.

To support herself, Brianna had taken a job as a dishwasher at a local  bed and breakfast.  That Friday, after shopping with her mom, Brianna went on to work.  Bruce and Kellie happened to pass by the inn that night, and thought about stopping to say hi, then changed their minds.

“She hadn't worked there that long, and it was like, well, you know, maybe she wouldn't want her parents coming in and you know, hi, here we are type thing, so we didn't stop,” Bruce says. “And you know -- I mean, you know, now I wish very much that we would have stopped.”

At 11:20 p.m., Brianna clocked out, and according to detective Brian Miller of the Vermont State Police, had left a note with her roommate, saying she would be home after work.

Rob Stafford, Dateline correspondent: Does anyone see her get into her car at the restaurant?
  
Brian Miller, Vermont State pollice: Yes.  Other employees recalled her leaving the restaurant and getting in her car, driving away.

Within seconds, she disappeared into the cold and gloom of that late winter night.  No one has reported seeing her since.

Stafford: In talking to the people at the restaurant, how did Brianna seem at work that night?

Miller: She seemed fine.  She was — seemed herself. 

Stafford: Did she seem upset in any way?

Miller: No.

Precious time would pass before anyone realized she was missing. Her roommate assumed Brianna had changed her mind and gone to her parents house. Bruce and Kellie had no idea their daughter was missing until three days later when the roommate called looking for Brianna.

“A few minutes into the conversation, you know, we think something's pretty seriously wrong, but I'm not into a full-fledged panic yet,” Bruce says. We think, 'Well, okay, Brianna, she just went to another friend's or something that she had and decided to stay there for a couple of days.'”

Stafford: But those feelings are about to change.

Bruce: Yeah.

The change in their quiet lives would be dramatic and frightening.  First, they went to the state police, to see if they had any news about their daughter. On a hunch, police showed them a photograph.

“And he pulls this picture of Brianna's car out of the file and says, "is this your daughter's car?" Bruce says. 

“My stomach rolled,” Kellie says. “I started to shake. I saw evil in the picture.”

“Now you're terrified to know that — something really bad has happened,” Bruce says. 

The night Brianna vanished, her car was spotted at an abandoned farmhouse, about a mile from where Brianna worked. Police assumed the car had been ditched, and had it towed to a local garage. Now, as her parents looked at the picture, they panicked. The tail end of the car had been slammed backwards into the side of the building. Did Brianna have an accident, or did something more sinister happen?

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