Where is Brianna Maitland? Was She Murdered Over Drug Money?

Brianna Alexandra Maitland had life sparkling in her eyes. She was happy and spontaneous. She was very open and friendly and saw everyone in a good light.

She was born in Burlington, Vermont on October 8th, 1986 to Bruce and Kelly Maitland. She was raised with her older brother on their parents' farm near the U.S.-Canadian border. She was extensively trained in a Japanese close combat, martial art known as jiu-jitsu. She attended Missisquoi Valley Union High School before transferring to Enosburg Falls High School in Enosburg Falls during her sophomore year.

On her 17th birthday in 2003, Brianna decided she wanted more independence, so she moved in with her friends who lived 15 miles away. She enrolled at her friends' high school. Her living arrangements were unstable as she moved in and out of several friends' homes. By the end of February 2004, she had dropped out of school and moved in with her childhood friend, Jillian Stout, in Sheldon, Vermont. To complete her education, Brianna enrolled in a GED program.

About three weeks before her disappearance, Brianna was at a party when she was attacked by a girl named Keallie Lacross. Some say that the fight stemmed from jealousy over a boy at the party. For some known reason, Brianna didn't defend herself or fight back and was subsequently hit in the face several times while she was seated in a truck.

After the attack she went to the hospital and receive treatment for a concussion, a broken nose, facial cuts and two black eyes. She filed a criminal complaint against her alleged attacker, but it was dropped after she disappeared.

On the morning of Friday, March 19, 2004, Brianna passed her GED examination and had lunch with her mother to celebrate. Her mother said she seemed to be happy as they discussed her plan for college part-time. 

After lunch, Briana went with her mother to go shopping and do errands. While waiting in the check out line of a store, Brianna told her mother she would return shortly, and left the store. When Kellie completed her purchase and met Brianna in the parking lot, she noticed that her daughter seemed unnerved, shaken, and agitated. Briana told her mother that she needed to go home and prepare for her upcoming work shift as a dishwasher at the Black Lantern Inn, a restaurant in Montgomery.  It was Briana's second weekend working at the inn, frequented mainly by tourists in a remote ski town. Kellie did not ask what had happened, and dropped Brianna off at Stout's home between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. This was the last time she saw her daughter. Before leaving for work, Briana left a note for Stout saying she'd return after work that evening. Briana then departed for the Black Lantern Inn in a 1985 Oldsmobile sedan registered to Kellie.

After work, Briana clocked out and left at 11:20 p.m. Her co-workers asked her to have dinner with them, but she declined and told them she needed to get home and rest before working the next day at her second job in St. Albans. She was alone in her vehicle when she left. She never arrived and her friend assumed she had moved back in with her parents and brother. 

On March 20th, Brianna's vehicle, a pale green four-door 1985 Oldsmobile sedan, was found back into the side of a  abandoned house on Route 118 in Richford, about a mile from the Black Lantern Inn. Known locally as "the old Dutchburn house," the siding of the home had been breached by the rear end of the car. A piece of plywood that had been covering a window lay on the car's trunk. The car doors were unlocked and Briana's paychecks were on the front seat of the car.  Her ATM card, wallet, glasses, contact lens case, and migraine medication had also been left inside. Outside it, law enforcement observed loose change, a water bottle, and an unsmoked cigarette. A woman's fleece jacket was found in a field near Brianna's car, but it apparently did not belong to her. It was assumed the car had been abandoned by a drunk driver, and a towing company took the vehicle to a local garage.

The friend that Brianna was supposedly staying with called Brianna's parents on March 23 and found out Brianna wasn't there. That is when she was reported missing. Thursday, March 25, Kellie and Bruce gave photos of Brianna to Vermont State Police in St. Albans. They were showed the picture of the car that crashed at the Dutchburn house and identified is the one that Brianna drove.

When Brianna's car was found, the ground was frozen, so there was no footprints. Even though there was no signs of a struggle, investigators later came to believe the accident may have been staged and that foul play might be involved in Brianna's disappearance. 

In the week after Brianna disappeared, the Vermont State Police received an anonymous tip claiming that she was being held against her will in a house in nearby Berkshire, Vermont. The rented house was occupied by Ramon L. Ryans and Nathaniel Charles Jackson, two known drug dealers from New York. The house was raided by police on April 15, 2004 and various drug paraphernalia were discovered inside, as well as substantial amounts of cocaine and marijuana. There was no sign of Brianna, but she supposedly knew both Ryans and Jackson from her past experimentation with hard drugs. 

In late 2004, police received a statement from an anonymous "older female" who implicated both Ryans and Jackson in Brianna's disappearance and alleged murder. In the signed affidavit were detailed claims about Brianna being murdered approximately a week after her disappearance. The woman claimed that Ryans murdered Brianna during an argument over money she had lent him to purchase crack, and that her body had been temporarily stored in the basement of a recently incarcerated local woman's home. Her body was then allegedly dismembered with a table saw and disposed of on a pig farm. Law enforcement was unable to corroborate these claims.

The Maitland family additionally reported that they had received several uncorroborated anonymous phone calls from persons claiming Brianna was "tied to a tree in the woods," and that she had been disposed of at the bottom of a lake.

In 2006, security footage at Caesars World casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey showed a woman resembling Brianna sitting at a poker table. The woman was never possibly identified.

In March 2016, investigators revealed to a local television station they had recovered DNA samples from Brianna's car. The results of the DNA tests were not made public. In July 2016, the farmhouse where Brianna's vehicle was discovered was destroyed in a fire.

At the time of her disappearance Briana was between 5'3 - 5'5, 105 to 118 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes. She had a faint scar extending from her left eyebrow to her forehead. Her left nostril was pierced. She wore a small ring or stud in it at the time of her disappearance. She wears contact lenses, but they were left behind when she vanished along with her glasses.

Anyone with information is asked to contact: Vermont State Police at (802) 524-5993; the State Police Crime Information Tip Line at (802) 241-5355; or submit an anonymous tip at www.vtips.info or by texting "CRIMES" (274637) with keyword: VTIPS.