Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: You have seen established with same anybody, because I've had
the entire town of Spring Creek asking me if I've
killed Britain, and he might.
Speaker 4: As well have.
Speaker 1: If you didn't see, I think, well, it's another one.
You knew it was coming right. This is Sword and
Scale episode three hundred and eleven, the show that reveals
that the worst busters are real? Why did I say
that so fast? I still have a little time? You
want to you want to hang out or something? This
episode was written and produced by Elena Thomas, one of
our senior producers. Here towards Scale, I keep meaning to
give them credit, but I keep getting bogged down and
forget because I have to mention how awesome our plus
service is. If you haven't checked out the app lately,
we've made all sorts of improvements, check it out. Teenagers
live in a world of contradictions. They crave independence, but
they lack experience. That's why they say so many really
stupid things on Instagram and Snapchat. Oh and that Chinese
spying app TikTok. They trust too easily. Their instincts are
still underdeveloped. It's a stage of life defined by growth, curiosity,
and vulnerability. A time when friendships feel unshakable, but they
are shakable, they'll probably end, and most people you talk
to right now as a kid won't be around in
a couple of years. It's a time when the world
feels safe, but somehow, danger lurks around every corner. These days,
technology is the sun we all seem to orbit around,
myself included, and teenagers are uniquely susceptible to both the
wonders and the perils technology brings. Apps like Snapchat promise
the allure of privacy, letting users share photos and messages
that disappear. It's no secret this technology seems maliciously marketed
towards underage users. Why would a kid need access to
an app with vanishing messages and photos? Think about it.
It's a disaster waiting to happen. Your kid buys drugs
from someone over Snapchat and overdoses, well, too bad, those
messages are gone. Your kid agrees to meet up with
someone in the middle of the night, well you may
never find out where they went. Kids tend to view
Snapchat as infallible unless someone takes a screenshot of what
you've sent them, and Snapchat does notify both users when
that happens. Teens can sleep easily knowing the photos they've
sent or gone forever. But this is how Snapchat used
to work. Its new features have opened doors for law enforcement.
This hasn't changed how kids interact with the app, though.
I mean, we've said it here a million times. Kids
are dumb. I don't know any better. It's interesting when
something designed to make things disappear ends up the only
witness to a heinous crime. Spring Creek, Nevada, is a
small town in Elko County, near the base of the
Ruby Mountains. It's located in the northeastern quadrant of the
state for the population of just over fifteen thousand. It's
a place like so many others we've talked about in
past episodes. Everyone knows each other, everyone looks out for
each other, blah blah blah, all that. To the people
of Spring Creek. Danger is something that exists in other towns,
not theirs. For sixteen year old high schooler Brittany Ulicky
and her family, Spring Creek was home. Brittany was a bright,
social teenager who loved working on the ranch almost as
much as she loved hanging out with her friends. Her mom, Alicia,
worked as a nurse, often pulling long shifts, while her dad, Jim,
a local musician, played shows with his band. Though Alicia
and Jim were divorced, they stayed connected through their kids,
sharing a sense of pride in Brittany's growing independence. But
on Sunday, March eighth, twenty twenty, the routine predictability of
Spring Creek life shattered. The day started, like many others,
Brittany spent the morning in nearby Elco at her dad's
band practice, a regular event. She was supposed to be
spending the night at his place. Brittany was good about
checking in with her parents regularly. Jim said, no matter what,
Brittany called me every hour. It was a little after
three thirty PM when Brittany left band practice. She told
her dad that she had caught a ride, and they
laughed about how Brittany would end up beating him home.
Later on, when Jim got in his truck to head
back and called his daughter to let her know he
was on his way, Brittany's phone went straight to voicemail.
At first, Jim tried to stay calm. Maybe Brittany's phone
battery died, or maybe she was home banger watching TV.
But when he arrived and found the house empty, he
called her again and again and again. By the third time,
the unease was hard to ignore. Meanwhile, Alicia was experiencing
her own growing panic. By the next morning, Alicia assumed
Jim had called the police and made a report himself,
but she discovered that he hadn't.
Speaker 2: He's just very friendly.
Speaker 4: When coming to Sure.
Speaker 5: Okay, so is it son or daughter?
Speaker 3: Daughter?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Okay, what is daughter's name?
Speaker 2: Brittany?
Speaker 6: We get a finished her name Britany.
Speaker 7: She was supposed to be going home yesterday. She was
in town with her dad, okay, and she got her
She told her him, I'm going to get a ride
home with a friend. I'll beat you home, and he
says you better beat me because I'll be there in
an hour.
Speaker 6: And she goes, We're going right home, talking about coming here.
Do you know her dad lives in Southwark? We're split up? Okay,
I don't know. Her friend that had her I talked
to him.
Speaker 7: He dropped her off at the high school down here
at four o'clock with some.
Speaker 1: Guy, and I go, what guy?
Speaker 6: And he goes, I don't know.
Speaker 7: She just said my new friend, tall white, cowboy looking
guy with a great drug and now no, we can
find her.
Speaker 2: No, no, her friends, her phone's not.
Speaker 3: On Okay, I don't know where to did do?
Speaker 5: So I have to ask the glurying question, when did
you guys become extremely worried that she was missing? I mean,
because we're talking about now quite a long period of
time between when she got dropped off with this male
and I was.
Speaker 4: On it last night.
Speaker 8: Her dad was supposed to calling in any I asked
heim this morning, did the cops?
Speaker 6: Did you make the report?
Speaker 4: And who's no?
Speaker 2: So I made up all night.
Speaker 5: Okay, so you assumed that dad was doing what you're doing.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: There are a million different possibilities in a situation like this.
Law enforcement has to get a good picture of what
kind of team they're dealing with so they can decide
whether this is a runaway or whether they're in Amber
alert territory. By the way, they were desperate to find Brittany.
Speaker 6: Does she go here to Spring Creek High School? She's
actually doing homeschool.
Speaker 2: Okay, she's got a lot of enemies, and I'm scared.
Speaker 5: She has a lot of enemies. Why would you say.
Speaker 6: That she just does not in school?
Speaker 8: Everybody wants the last time she went to a Rodier
skeed jump by four girls, and I just I'm just.
Speaker 5: You guys weren't in a fight or anything like that.
There'll be no reason for her to rebel or stay out.
Speaker 8: No, I mean, I got lots of problems with her anyway,
because she's seventeen, are almost seventeen, and Jesus, but.
Speaker 9: Yesterday, in the last few days, we've been in a
really good mole.
Speaker 7: I talked to her FaceTime for an hour at like
one point thirty.
Speaker 6: Are youth English? Just fine, stretches, happy, go lucky.
Speaker 2: Everything was good.
Speaker 1: Alicia's mother and grandmother wondered out loud whether there were
any security cameras in the parking lot when Brittany was
dropped off and got into that green pickup truck. The
eighteen year old boy, a close family friend, said that
he had left Brittany in the Spring Creek High School
lot at her request.
Speaker 5: And all we know is that it was a marine truck.
We know nothing else about the individual.
Speaker 2: No, the boy.
Speaker 8: Said it was an ugwig green from the Earth two thousand.
Speaker 6: Bryce Dicky is the kid that dropped her off.
Speaker 2: Person that we know of that her. I'm going to
take this.
Speaker 5: I'm going to get her entered, and then I'm going
to go speep with my supervisor and see what the
next course of action is going to be.
Speaker 6: Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: The next day, police worked a track down all of
Britney's friends, including the one who had dropped her off
at the high school parking lot, eighteen year old Bryce Dicky.
Bryce was out of town with his mom for some
doctor's appointments, so detectives first spoke with him over the
phone and later met up with him at the same
parking lot that he left Brittany at the day before.
Speaker 10: Hey, Bryce, I appreciate me there, so can tell me
run me through so I can understand what's going on.
So I'm gonna stand in the shade over here for
your wants, all right.
Speaker 11: So Sunday round eleven, I started texting, got a few
texts from Brittany and just asked her if I wanted
to hang out. I said sure, got ready and stuff.
Told me she could meet me at Angel Park because
she said her dad was doing and practice, and then
I went to town, called her when I got into
town on fifth, and then picked her up at Angel Park.
Kept driving around and then we were over in the
horsebow session and my dad called me, asking if I
did come back home, so I told her I needed
to go. Pasked her if she wanted me to just
drop her back off at Angel Park, and she said
that she wanted to meet to drop her off at
the high school to meet her new friend, and said
her dad he was going to pick her up later.
So then came over here, pulled in right over there,
give her a hug and stay, and then she got out.
I pulled out and then started hitting that way, and
the F one fifty was over there, but I didn't
know that was where she was going at that time.
They were both standing outside the truck. And then I
got to the turnout right over there by the middle school,
and then that that F one fifty was in motion.
Speaker 10: So you said, what was the F one fifty?
Speaker 11: Yeah, it was the tritons, the ones that are really
ugly looking up the sidestepping.
Speaker 10: Uh, like that winter green, dark forest green, like a
dark forest green.
Speaker 1: Price's account matched what Britney's family had recounted from their
conversation with them. He talked about a green truck, an
ugly one from the early two thousands, a toolbox and
stickers on the rear window.
Speaker 11: It looked decently dirty, but just like about as much as.
Speaker 1: That the truck is right there, a typical truck.
Speaker 11: That a typical spring treat to the truck, yeah, and
then had a silver toll box in the bed, had
stickers on the back window, but I didn't see it.
Speaker 1: Any of them wore with such a clear and descriptive lead.
This case was about to move very quickly, but no
one was less prepared for how everything would pan out
than Brittany's mother, Alicia.
Speaker 8: Brittany was always a very fiery, full of energy, funky
little girl.
Speaker 2: And she was always so full of passion right from
the get go, you know what I mean. She was
just this.
Speaker 8: Little ball of fire, light and just fun, you know,
a very good girl. She was born in Colorado Springs
and we lived there for a while, and then we
made the move over here to Elko because her dad
got hired at the gold mines over here.
Speaker 2: She would have been eight, so we made the.
Speaker 8: Move over here which was exciting for me at first because.
Speaker 2: I grew up over here, I went to high school
over here.
Speaker 8: We went to the same I went to Spring Creek
High School, so it was kind of exciting, and I thought, oh,
this will be fun.
Speaker 2: This is such a safe.
Speaker 8: Place, and the opportunities are going to be great over
here for us.
Speaker 2: And we came over here with a lot of high hopes.
Speaker 1: The activities Elko County had to offer. Spoke to Brittany.
She loved being surrounded by the mountains and the desert.
Speaker 8: She instantaneously grabbed onto the bukaroo cowboy lifestyle of this place,
you know, and that was her lifestyle. That was her
friend group, you know, just all a bunch of the
kids that liked to ride horses and participate in rodeo.
And you know, Brittany was a real deal cowgirl on
the ranch. And there was no trophies, there was no judges,
but there was you know what I mean. She was
a little bit more. She wasn't an arena cowgirl. Was
just put it that way.
Speaker 1: Brittany had a big personality, but deep down she was
steady and determined. She had plans for her future and
worked hard to make them happen, surprising people with how
driven she could be. But public school wasn't easy for
her because she had severe dyslexia and some issues with bullying.
Brittany's parents decided to pull her out just before her
junior year and.
Speaker 8: Homeschooler, and she was thriving. She was on track to
graduate early. The Navy recruiters had definitely got to her,
which I was not winning that argument with her because
she was full steam ready to go. But I'm telling you,
she was so strong, you know what I mean, and
like she would come and do more pull ups than
the recruiter and he was just like oly cow kid,
you know.
Speaker 2: So she was on track. She was going to graduate
a year early. She was going to join the Navy,
and you know she.
Speaker 1: Was doing it despite the hurdles. Brittany wasn't one to
give up. Staying on track to graduate early while dealing
with severe dyslexia is no small feat.
Speaker 2: I feel like we were handling it really well.
Speaker 8: We were adapting to the situation. Things were going good,
and then that day happened.
Speaker 2: You know, I just blew everything up. We were a
very normal whatever you want called normal.
Speaker 8: We're a very average family, you know what I mean,
And then to have something like this come and happen
is just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Everyone depended on Bryce to recall every detail of that day.
From Alicia's perspective, if Brittany had been abducted and was
taken out of state, his description of the man and
vehicle could be their only shot at finding her.
Speaker 3: So I got a.
Speaker 12: Little bit of the story as to what your involvement was,
but I'm not clear on a lot of things, and
I'm just trying to do the best job that i
can do.
Speaker 6: So so hopefully you ask you a question that you
would like perfect.
Speaker 12: Man, Thank you very much. Now, what was kind of
the nature of that conversation? What's your relationship with her?
Speaker 13: Brittany has been one of my closest friends since probably
my seventh or eighth grade year.
Speaker 12: Oh, because you known each other for a well yeah, okay, okay,
And that.
Speaker 13: Was one of the issues we had with the previously,
is I think we're going over because there a phone
in her name and my phone is little siss because
she's called.
Speaker 6: Me a big brother since freshman year.
Speaker 13: And then he kept asking me, well, if she's your
little assist, why didn't you know her better?
Speaker 6: Because there was questions of that I.
Speaker 2: Didn't know the answer to.
Speaker 1: We won't make you sit through the whole story again.
But Bryce rec picking up Brittany at Angel Park. They
drove around for a while, and he details her routes
and stops for detectives. He says his dad called telling
him to come home. Brittany was on the phone in
the passenger seat before asking Bryce to drop her off
at the high school to meet a friend. She gave
him a hug, walked towards the green truck, and Bryce
drove away.
Speaker 6: And right before I got out.
Speaker 13: And looked back over and I just saw her over
at the f one fifty with someone that was it.
Speaker 6: Could you see the type of clothing or anything on?
And nothing specific that I could just and was it
a white head? Black head?
Speaker 13: It didn't look light, so I didn't don't think it
was a straw happen.
Speaker 6: I mean, they do make black straw hats like that.
Speaker 1: So by this point, Bryce and some of Brittany's other
friends had been out searching for one of the officers
actually crossed path with a vehicle of kids as they
drove around scouring the town and surrounding desert. Bryce was
the only one who knew what this guy looked like,
though the line of sight he had from the gas
station across the street gave him a vague picture of
who was now known as the mysterious cowboy in the
green truck.
Speaker 12: Was there any conversation when you picked I'm sure there
was conversation, But was there any conversation that kind of
sticks out in your mind? When you picked her up?
Speaker 13: I had a ton of conversations. There was a few
because the coups had previously asked me if she was
said anything about going anywhere. Besides she said that she
was planning and going to Texas after the summer with
her friend.
Speaker 12: You keep in contact with her pretty regularly even though
she wasn't at school, or is it just kind of.
Speaker 8: Kind of.
Speaker 6: Talk to her a couple couple of times a week?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 12: Now, then the reason I'm asking, man, is, did she
say anything about anyone that she was having problems with,
or any people that she was interested in or anything
like that.
Speaker 13: We all knew she was talking with some guy that
we think was in New York, but I mean she'd
be talking to him for a while. Okay, says that
my Kaid told everyone knows a lot of people had
problems with Brittany, but nothing that we would see this outcome.
Speaker 12: Sure sure will openly be okay.
Speaker 1: It sounded like Brittany might have been talking to a
stranger online, one that she may have actually met up with. Luckily,
Spring Creek High School was right in town, and though
there were no security cameras on the building itself, there
were numerous businesses with a view of the parking lot.
Surely one of them had some helpful footage. Brittany's friends
and family tried not to lose hope, but the signs
weren't looking good. To make matters worse, her phone had
been inactive this entire time.
Speaker 8: And it's interesting that that's when me and Jimple are alarmed.
I started going off and we were starting to you know,
and for Brittany, her phone was never off. She was
a little social media junkie if.
Speaker 2: You well, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: It was all about snapchat selfy. So it just got really,
really really scary that her phone, you know, kept going off.
And then added into the fact that Dicky had told
my son, well, I dropped her off with somebody you
know what I mean. So my brain is going, holy shit,
somebody grabbed my daughter, you know what I mean, and
they are they trafficked her? There what something?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. That's the thought that went
through my head.
Speaker 8: And because I was like, I don't I don't care
if she didn't run away, If putting her as a
runaway puts her in the system.
Speaker 2: Fine she ran away.
Speaker 8: Just get her in the system. Something is wrong, you know,
something is wrong.
Speaker 1: A parent's intuition is very real. It was just after
five pm on March eighth, the day Brittany disappeared, when
her phone pinged off a cell phone tower for the
last time. Investigators chose to keep this crucial information to themselves,
with holding it not just from the public, but even
from Brittany's parents. This final ping gave detectives a defined
area to search. Then, on March eleventh, two days after
Brittany was officially reported missing, they found something. When sixteen
year old Brittany Yuliki went missing, Spring Creek, Nevada, was
suddenly a town full of questions. Her parents, Alicia and Jim,
were desperate for answers, and as words spread, the search
for Brittany pulled in nearly everyone in the town. She
was tough, outspoken, and more at home on horseback than
anywhere else. But on March eighth, twenty twenty, she wasn't
on the ranch. She was in town, spending the afternoon
with a friend, Bryce Dickie. According to Bryce, he dropped
her off at Spring Creek High School so she could
meet someone. A cowboy in a green four f one
fifty pretty generic description if you ask me. Then again,
I live in Texas, So there's that. That was the
last time anyone saw. Three days later, at one fifty
in the afternoon, two men called nine one they had
found what they thought might be a body near Berner Basin,
a remote stretch of land between Elco and Spring Creek.
Speaker 6: It looks like.
Speaker 5: Looks like estavity in the dark.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that's.
Speaker 3: Our drag mark there.
Speaker 4: All right, Well, I stopped right here.
Speaker 1: He barked right there where he's at.
Speaker 14: I stopped and I backed up right there.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, guys, do the tire prance and
all that or if that's all?
Speaker 10: Yeah, well, shoot, we'll get a statement from you guys
here in a second.
Speaker 3: So all.
Speaker 6: I we'll find out that, but.
Speaker 10: First glance doesn't look good. Drag mark right there.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 5: See, yeah, that's up.
Speaker 10: Well that's the ten ninety two.
Speaker 1: That's a body.
Speaker 10: Yeah, let's get out.
Speaker 6: Yep. I'd like to see enough right now.
Speaker 10: It looks like a girl's handless back out.
Speaker 1: Nobody needed autopsy results to know who this was. Brittany's
partially clothed body was found lying in the desert sand
and brush. Someone had tried to cover her up with
a tarp, but they didn't do a very good job.
There was blood evidence and even drag marks leading from
the roadway to her final resting place. Police collected a
condom wrapper, a used condom, a pair of air pods,
and a lanyard of keys with the name Brittany on it.
Just like the information about the phone ping. Detectives decided
to keep these discoveries to themselves, aside from Brittany's family.
After all, their interview process was far from over.
Speaker 8: But I got a call that on Wednesday that you know,
I needed to go down from my interview. You know,
they were going to dump my phone. You know, it's
a full on forensic interview at this point. Apparently too,
because that's when I got that scam phone call about
we've got your daughter, We've kidnapped her. She's not doing
well from the drugs that we used, and she's going
to die. And if you don't send me twenty five
hundred dollars, I'm in a feeder to my dogs.
Speaker 1: What kind of sick person messes with the mind of
a grieving parent like that. I mean, Jesus Christ, is
the Internet toxic? Some of you people need to just
be put down.
Speaker 8: I think it's because I had put the missing poster
out on some of these social media groups that I
had that I knew would be more far reaching than
the posters I just had here. And I'll go because,
like I said, I figured somebody had grabbed her, was
on the road with her. Somebody got ahold of the
poster and got my number.
Speaker 9: YEP.
Speaker 8: And it was awful because as these messages are coming in,
part of you is telling yourself, this is completely illogical,
you know, I mean, this isn't But the other part
of you is just panicking, going you know. So I
remember the detective Steake and and I want to say
FBI agent was at my house that night trying to
tap into this number or whatever. And the next morning,
when I was in there waiting for my interview to start,
they started texting again, saying, I told you you know
that whatever, we're going to kill her now. And I'm
just panicking in the waiting room, and so they said, well,
we're going to take your phone anyway.
Speaker 2: You know, they were going to do what they do
with the phones anyway.
Speaker 8: Then I went into the interview room and yeah, that's
when he was just asking tons of questions.
Speaker 2: And then he got up to leave, and he had.
Speaker 8: Been gone for way too long, and I was I
remember sitting there thinking to myself, God, I do not
have time for this police interviewed tactic shit where you're
trying to leave me in here to make me nervous. Dude,
I need to get out there at buying my kid.
Could you hurry this along? I remember thinking that. And
then that's when he came back in and had told me, Hey,
I got to talk to you, you know what I mean.
And he told me that they found a body. He
didn't even say my daughter's body. He just said we
found a body. And that's the last thing I remember.
To be honest, I didn't remember anything about that until
I watched the footage that they had of that, because
I just I do remember going to the ground, and
then the next thing I remember, I was sitting in
the parking lot outside of the sheriff station on the ground,
and I just remember just sirens and cop cars just
flying past me on both sides, and then Buyer Department
running up to me and putting me in an ambulance,
and I was telling no, no, no.
Speaker 2: No, no, I gotta go, I gotta go. I gotta
go find my son.
Speaker 8: And they tapped the blood pressure being and they says, no.
Speaker 2: No, honey, you're trying to have a stroke on me.
Speaker 8: And they hit something in my arm and I woke
up seven hours later.
Speaker 1: When the tarp was removed, it was clear that what
Brittany had gone through was horrendous. She was face down
in the dirt, with her hair splayed around her head
in all directions. Her pants and underwear had been pulled
to her ankles, and her sweatshirt was pushed above her chest.
An autopsy revealed ligature marks around her neck and a
fatal stab wound in the center of her neck, just
above her collarbone. By this point, footage of the high
school parking lot was in and had been scrubbed for evidence,
and one clip showed a dark colored truck with a
silver toolbox in it. Detectives printed out photos of all
the vehicles that even loosely fit Bryce's description and line
them up in front of them. Then, sitting in the
same interview chair that Alicia was interviewed in, Bryce took
them back through the whole story once again.
Speaker 14: So you're with Brittany on the eve, just talking through
that from the beginning to the end.
Speaker 3: Probably around eleven or so, started texting and she says
she was in town Fordud's band practice and then.
Speaker 6: Asked upon to hang out. So got ready bent the
town around one and then.
Speaker 3: On the right over the fifth Street bridge, turned on
the silver and called her.
Speaker 6: She wanted me to pick her up at Angel Park,
so she said she was.
Speaker 3: Going to walk down, So I called her, got to
Angel Park, picked her up, and then drove around town
because we had no idea what we were wanting to do,
and then my dad six and asking if I would
come home, So I asked her.
Speaker 6: She wanted me to drop her back off at the
Angel Park or take her herd at band practice. And
then she got on her phone for a minute or so, and.
Speaker 3: Then just as I could drop her off at the
high school, and then pulled into the high school.
Speaker 6: And that's when I actually drove right past that. I
find didn't realize that's why I was dropping her office.
Speaker 1: Bryce had not mentioned this part before.
Speaker 3: So pulled in front of high school, I gave her
a hud, dropped her off, and I was.
Speaker 6: Already pulling back off. You when she's welcome back over
there from fifty and then right about here, that is
when you look back here and you saw Brittany standing
over here and he said he was outside too.
Speaker 14: Yeah, okay, and this is about where the truck was, Yeah, correctly.
Speaker 6: And what time did you say this was about that you.
Speaker 3: Dropped about I think it was for thirty thinks. I
literally just looked in my very mirror when I got there,
and I just saw him and bringing outside the truck.
Speaker 15: Okay, So when you saw both of them stand next
to the truck, did you see the truck too or yeah?
Speaker 6: I could.
Speaker 3: I could see the truck, but also my mirrors on
my Chevy er pretty worn, so it's not the best
of the use.
Speaker 6: If I recall you said something about your dad had
called or something. Yeah, he texted me. Okay, so he
texted you and that was to do that car or something. Yeah, okay,
So what what happened after that? I just went straight
back home. And then.
Speaker 3: That's why I had timeline after that for me, like
starting to help coping, because the.
Speaker 6: Questioned me after I left the high school. I think
I got on my phone for once.
Speaker 3: In I was just at my dad's for about an
hour and a half, I think, and then went over
to my mom's house.
Speaker 6: My parents are spit.
Speaker 1: Even though everyone else had been through the same rigorous
interview process, being asked to retell his story so many
times made Bryce feel like he was in the hot seat.
In a Snapchat message thread with a mutual friend of
his and Brittany's, he shared his fears. Remember, at this point,
nobody but her family knew that Britney's body had been found.
I just got interrogated for what the Britney shit? What
they ask you literally everything, like every goddamn inch of
that day.
Speaker 9: Damn, you're not in trouble though, are you not?
Speaker 1: Right now? But he was really digging like I did
something to her. It was a legit interrogation had me
freaked out.
Speaker 9: Dude, you and her are like dumb and dumber. There's
no way you would ever hurt her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he saw that her name in my phone was
little Sis, and he kept questioning me about it, and
it seemed like he was making it sound like I
wasn't close to her and that it was suspicious.
Speaker 9: Did you have an alibi for after you got home?
Speaker 1: Sort of? But I don't even remember what time I
got home. I wasn't on my phone at all.
Speaker 9: Do you think she would run away?
Speaker 1: Honestly? No, but I don't know. I'm at a loss
right now.
Speaker 9: We all kind of are. Nothing seems to make sense
at all. My mom's friend is a sheriff, and she's
asked him if he thinks that when she gets found,
if she'll be found alive, and he said yes, I
believe very much.
Speaker 1: So well, that's relieving.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I don't think she's dead somewhere. Either someone's holding
her somewhere or she really just up and left. I'm
sure she'll turn up. It'll just take time, I sure hope.
Speaker 2: So he probably came into the picture where I can
really remember it, probably about eighth ninth grade.
Speaker 8: He had been in my house multiple times, and I
remember my first impression, which I don't think now, but
as I used to just think, Oh, look at what
a shy little kid he is, because he just kind
of look at his feet. He'd never really look up.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 2: It's not so different with some of these little cowboy kids.
Speaker 8: You know, a little shy cowboy guy kicking his boots
looking down, you know.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of what I thought it was.
Speaker 8: He always had her home when she was supposed to
be home, Like there was there was a weird pattern
of trusts, I guess, because so many times he would
be he would make sure that she was home exactly
when they said they were going to be home, and
you know what I mean, So there was a there
was a trust there. Brittany was not a boy crazy
girl in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2: She just didn't have time for that. Yet.
Speaker 8: I'm not saying that wouldn't have come. But again, there
was nothing special about Dickie. She was just a sweet
soul and she would do things for people that like,
he couldn't even be in the main building at school.
He had to be in the trailers because you know
what I.
Speaker 2: Mean, he couldn't get to school.
Speaker 8: He was having all these troubles, so he was all
on his own, isolated out in these.
Speaker 2: Trailers to go to school. And Britney would feel bad
about it, and she'd be like, oh man, Mom, can
you get me a blue gatorade.
Speaker 8: And some and a pizza so I could take it
to him so that he can have a good day,
you know what I mean. But that was just Britney.
Speaker 1: Behind the scenes. While keeping Britney's death, the findings of
the surveillance footage and other key pieces of evidence secret police,
we're also using snapchat, of all things to paint a
picture of Britney's final moments. Geolocation data showed both Brittany
and Bryce at the Berner Basin Spot, a location off
of Boyd Kennedy Road, at around four thirty pm. Bryce
had not mentioned this trip during any of his interviews.
Soon enough, the discovery of Britney's body was publicized, and
her friends and family set with the reality that she
was gone forever.
Speaker 9: I can't believe this. I don't know what to think
or say or do. I'm so sorry, Bryce.
Speaker 1: I just found out. I love you. If you need anything,
text me, I'm so sorry this happened. I have a
lot of regrets that I can't take back, and that's
on me. But I hope you guys don't blame me.
If so, then you have the right to. But thank
you for being here for me. It means the world.
Speaker 9: Bryce. We definitely do not blame you one bit. None
of this is your fault, none of it. The only
one who is at fault is whoever did this to her.
We love you too, Bud. Keep your head up. We're
here for you no matter what. If you need anything,
you know how to get a hold of us. Stay strong.
They'll find who did this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not letting my girl go anywhere alone. I'm
having her friend at work walk her to her truck
at night because I trust him. On Facebook, where the
Cattle Run Free, Bryce posted this yesterday, we all received
news that made us hit the floor. At around eight
in the morning, we all started meeting up at my
house to grieve and mourn Brittany's life, which was taken
far too soon. That day, I had tears of pain
and joy. I wish she could have seen the amount
of us that came together to honor you.
Speaker 9: Sis.
Speaker 1: We love you so much. Just know you won't ever
be forgotten.
Speaker 8: Me and Jim had actually we took the dress and
the boots down to the funeral home that she was
going to be cremated in, and we had just dropped
him off, and we were driving home and Nick called
me and he said, Alicia, there will be an arrest
within the next three hours.
Speaker 2: He goes, whatever time it was right, and he goes.
Speaker 8: Can you meet me at the station in such and
such time?
Speaker 2: And still didn't tell me anything. Still did not tell
me anything.
Speaker 8: I had no idea he had been arrested until I
got down there.
Speaker 2: To the station that day. I had no idea that
he had arrested him.
Speaker 1: No, one did not yet Anyway, She was mourning, trying
to hold on to what little she had left of
her daughter. But as they drove toward the police station,
drawing closer to that cramped interview room, Bryce Dickey was
losing his grip. Every lie he told was turning against him,
suffocating him. He tried to hold the story together, but
much like the rest of his life, it was already
starting to fall apart. Eighteen year old Bryce Dickie had
spent days weaving a story, a good one, too. He
lied effortlessly, which is amazing on those interviews, convincing Britney's
friends and family that he was just as desperate to
find her as they were. But behind closed doors, detectives
weren't buying it, and they had this feeling since the
very beginning. Snapchat geelocation data had placed him near Berner Basin,
the place where Britney's body was found. At the time,
he claimed he had already dropped her off with a
cowboy in a green truck. Surveillance footage contradicted his timeline,
and one by one, his lies collapsed. After hours in
the interrogation room, his explanations were no longer cutting it.
He wasn't dealing with the alkopd anymore either. He had
entered into the big leagues and now Bryce Dickey had
nowhere to run.
Speaker 6: If you could say something that Britany, what would you say?
I love you? Maybe the first thing I would saying
about the second, I'm sorry because myself for this, even
though what we're.
Speaker 3: Playing myself, I mean, I know that I didn't know
what was going to happen, but I am.
Speaker 6: I'm the last one that even sorr before she's dead.
Speaker 16: No, just out of curiosity and promise won't tell your girlfriend.
Speaker 3: Had you ever been time? I got that question the
last two times. Brittany and I have never been an
intimate anyway.
Speaker 6: I mean, like a lot of people get.
Speaker 3: Their wrong attentions because I mean do with all my friends,
but like calling females.
Speaker 6: My female friends love and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: But that's just kind of the way I was raised
in a sense, the grammar wise, But Brittany and I
have and I have never had relationship or had been intimate.
And that's why my girlfriend was comfortable with her.
Speaker 6: Has never started with me or anything like that.
Speaker 3: Did you really want to be No? Never, I never
had that honorge or anything.
Speaker 6: I literally saw Brittany as my little sister.
Speaker 1: Then they confronted Bryce with the discrepancies between his statements
and what surveillance footage revealed. An image is worth a
thousand words and possibly a conviction or two. He had
repeatedly told investigators that he picked Brittany up at Angel
Park at one thirty PM, but the cameras told a
different story, showing her getting into his truck two hours
later at around three point thirty pm. Not only that,
but surveillance footage showed that Bryce's truck with Brittany still inside,
never stopped at the high school parking lot, where he
aimed she got out and got into that green F
one fifty. Instead, the truck drove right past the school
and continued down BOYD Kennedy Road. What was that at
the end of that road? You might wonder, well, Berner Basin, wonder.
Speaker 16: If I told you we had surveillance British that a
period of truck kept going out for Kenny Road.
Speaker 6: Okay, Well, here's the thing. If you're sitting here talking,
I just want to clear this up.
Speaker 17: Okay, I just.
Speaker 4: Want to clear everything up and get.
Speaker 16: Your explanation for this, okay, because you seem like you say,
we didn't sitting here chatting and stuff like that, okay,
And I just want to kind of help you through
this so that way we can kind of explain myself, okay. Okay,
So with these you could kind of see from my
perspective when I'm living at this what that looks like.
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, I can see. I'm I can't remember.
Speaker 3: I got startled after the the third cop I talked
to them that called me down to the high school
because called me a liar about three times and.
Speaker 6: Kept asking me if I killed Britney. So okay, and
it honestly startled the ship animal and I don't want
to I know, I mean, only been eighteen for a
little bit now, but I know I'm eighteen now, so even.
Speaker 3: Changing a little bit on the story isn't a big thing.
Speaker 15: Well, it is good, okay, That's why I'm trying to
sort through it.
Speaker 6: Okay. So when he talked to me, I went down
Boyd a little bit but not far, and then I
took that.
Speaker 3: First left off of the Boyd Kennedy which goes straight
back to the right to the bottom of the trailer session,
and then I went back to the high school being
that boy kind of you at the same time, which
wouldn't miss it worried me because I didn't want I
I lied because I was scared of people think he is,
which a lot of problems understanding person, yeah, which honestly
scares me. But I see that there's issues with me, honest.
Speaker 2: And let everything out.
Speaker 1: Bryce looks uncomfortable at this point. He's picking at his
fingernails and looking down at his feet. If we couldn't
see that he's sitting inside of an interrogation room. You'd
almost think he's one of those shy cowboy types.
Speaker 6: I kind of have, like a said, little thing of
loops that I do when I get more dragon on
the screen creak so and that's one of the ones
that I do a lot of.
Speaker 3: And but being so close to him, being on what
Kennedy and this is, people were saying that's where she
went missing.
Speaker 6: I kind of got scared. I have one other constauant.
Speaker 18: Okay, okay, And like I said, I'm just trying to
figure out what's going on, and I just want Okay,
you located.
Speaker 17: Some items or item.
Speaker 6: Okay, do you have any idea what that item might
be left? Okay? What if I told you to have
both yours and.
Speaker 18: Britney's DNA a decade?
Speaker 2: I don't have any idea.
Speaker 4: Now it's the time to be the truthful.
Speaker 3: I'm being a hundred percent sir. I don't know what
you're referring to.
Speaker 18: And you told me before that you and Brittany had
never been intimate in a sexual way.
Speaker 6: Okay, what if I said I had evidence, it shows
that that might not be accurate either. I'm not lying.
Speaker 3: I've never kissed, I've never had sex with Brittain, I says, hugging,
and that's I've never had sex or any intimate.
Speaker 6: Relationship with Brittany. Okay. Have you ever watched TV and
seen DNA comparisons? I mean, I've watch your term shows,
but I haven't really paid attention to it.
Speaker 14: So you gave a DNA sample a way, Yes, we
found a condom, all right, and we found Brittany, and
we have Brittay's DNA we have already.
Speaker 3: It can be it is I I've never had sex
with Brittany.
Speaker 6: I swear I've never had sex with Brittany. Okay. So
then explained to me, I don't I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm freaking out right now because I've never had sex
with Brittany.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 14: I've never had sense to me how I condom as
your DNA and side on the outside.
Speaker 1: There could be no other explanation for something like that.
Speaker 2: I'm going to say, the evil that he is, I
think he thought about it for a while.
Speaker 8: I think that's why they got him on premeditated too,
because I think that I absolutely think he thought about it.
I had heard some weird stories about his journals. I
never continued to like ask or push for them. But
now I think he's a sick six son of a bitch,
and I think he sat and probably thought about it
and fantasized about it a lot.
Speaker 1: I want to hear one of these sick puppies poems.
Of course you do, because you're also sick puppy, and
that's probably why you're here. This lovely passage is called
the sick truth. Okay, so you ready, There we go.
I'm laying in the dark of night. My mind is fighting,
turning my thoughts into a game like Russian Roulette, slowly
pulling its trigger, trigger, trigger, waiting for the moment the
fight will end. I hate the way I feel tonight.
I open my eyes, yet nothing changes. I hear him
screaming in my dreams, that dream in my head. But wait,
I'm awake. It's me, it's me, it's me, I am screaming.
The gun didn't kill me, It only stirred the pot.
Now the demons have awoken. They will no longer lurk
in the dark. They crawl out of my dream and
into day, a predator hunting my actions. I turned my
cheek to pretend it's not there. He's waiting for me.
To slip. My weakness feeds the beast, for each step
I take is filled with fear. Help me, please, I'm begging.
I know you can't hear me screaming. I can't startle
the demons, but I'm leaving you a trail of breadcrumbs.
You won't see it, though, will you. I'll have to
fight this day by my own persistence. My silence is
not a phase. It's me hiding. Thank you for teaching
me what it's like to feel, to have nights screaming
like I'm dying, learning how to put a mask over
my drained body. Without you, I wouldn't no pain. But
while everyone's moving on, I still hold my sights on
the back of your skull. Goal go slowly squeezing the trigger,
waiting for the moment the pain will unfold. They will
not understand why I pulled it. I was not an
action of easy consequence. In the end, your breath was
far too much to take. I hope it was worth it,
because now we shall both be on our sentence to hell.
And some of you call me edgy.
Speaker 8: The closest thing that we could compare him to is Dahmer.
Speaker 2: He's that sick he's that twisted. He's a necrophiliac. He's
a control freak, you know. Okay, so maybe he liked girls.
Speaker 8: But the level of disgusted twistedness is Jeffrey Dahmer level
with dot kid. Well, you know, I know as our mother,
you know, I think backwards in time, and when she
would see things on TV, she would tell me, I
just want you to know that if anybody tries to
rape me, they will kill me because they'll never rate me.
And he absolutely desecrated her dead body, which blows the
defense's theory out of the water.
Speaker 2: And I think that I think.
Speaker 8: Actually that's what happened because the defense was running with
this theory. Well there was no tearing or there was
no you know, the normal signs of rape and are
phenomenal DA because he's amazing. I think he stood up
and he asked one question and he goes.
Speaker 2: My question is if the you know, the person is
decease when those kinds of things happen. She's like, nope,
absolutely not.
Speaker 8: So absolutely I will peg him to the world as
a necrophiliac.
Speaker 6: Answer a question, I going to get a confession.
Speaker 15: I'm trying to figure out how your DNA gone on
a condom on the inside that has her DNA on
the inside.
Speaker 4: I need to figure out what.
Speaker 6: Happened with that condom.
Speaker 4: Our job is to work. Is hard to prove innocence
as it is good if you need to do this.
What works in the end of the earth to prove
that you needn't do this, But that requires.
Speaker 19: Honesty on your end, because the stuff we have indicates
hasn't been there.
Speaker 1: Bryce ends up telling detectives that Brittany performed oral sex
while they were in the truck and when she was done,
she threw the condom out the window. This was another lie,
of course.
Speaker 15: When I was at the scene with Brittain, I found
a condom where one of our people found a condom
that was you know, Brittany was at. And there was
also a common after that was on the roadway as well.
In that commum that I told you about is much
closer to where Brittany was found.
Speaker 6: And this is not where Brittany was fout.
Speaker 20: Okay, I just told you. I just want to try.
I'm telling the truth. That is where I That's where
it happened. What happened for Brittany and my head. I
don't know if it's count of sex. I think it's
a sexual acts.
Speaker 3: So that is where Brittany and I had sex, and
then straight after I went straight to the trailer section
and that was that was it, okay?
Speaker 14: And did you ever have any sort of intercourse or
or otherwise anywhere else with Britain?
Speaker 3: Just just the blow job that was since like two
maybe three kisses, and that was about it.
Speaker 6: Honestly, there wasn't my sheep.
Speaker 3: It was almost didn't seem real in a sense because
she literally just asked if I wasn't a blow drop.
It did not quite seem real almost.
Speaker 1: That's because it wasn't real, duh.
Speaker 6: Her testing her friend actually did happen.
Speaker 3: And she asked me to drop her off with somebody
I don't know who it was, and he actually had
met us on Voyd and I didn't actually meet the
guy or anything.
Speaker 6: I get through this together.
Speaker 3: Everything everything mess ups on the timeline is true. That
was the exact same track that I saw. I honestly
couldn't tell you how the gut was that close to
Brittany's body.
Speaker 6: I don't know how that happened, because Brittany was still
alive by the time.
Speaker 3: I dropped her off on the road with whe the
guy was.
Speaker 6: I just wasn't thinking at all and I dropped her
off and we just drew her off price. Okay, I'll
let you look at from my perspective.
Speaker 17: Okay, you've told us several different versions.
Speaker 15: Okay, do you really expect me to believe that you
met a die after you.
Speaker 6: Guys had had sex and you just dropped.
Speaker 17: Britain off with him and you don't know who that was?
Speaker 6: You're you're a smart guy. I'm a smart guy. Okay,
I have it, but I honestly don't know who is.
Speaker 15: So I need you. Okay, you just think about it
from my perspective. When we started out today, I just
I just wanted to tru okay, and then the story changed.
The story has changed it again, the stories.
Speaker 1: Even after being called out for changing his story so
many times, Bryce was about to do it again. What
a fucking idiot. He points his guilty finger directly at
an innocent kid named Chaz Randall. Poor Chazz didn't even
know we gave it was.
Speaker 6: Back in town.
Speaker 3: It was the Chaz random is the one I picked
her up. I swear, I swear it was Jazz rand
That kid's kind of distinguishable.
Speaker 6: So you're telling the jazz Randall that you're on the road.
Speaker 19: I told you what and you've known the chance, random Brittany,
and you're just waiting to say something.
Speaker 21: Do you love yourself as a person to see who
are alive? You expects us to believe that you might
be I was the last person to see you alive.
I put myself in that position, and I'm going to
stay here for a week and a half letting you
what to think. I was the last one to see
you alive when I know who's the last person your live?
Do you think we're going to believe that you're smarter
than that?
Speaker 17: I that's okay.
Speaker 6: You guys are just looking for a confession.
Speaker 4: I'm looking for the fast matchup.
Speaker 6: What facts don't match up? Right now? Okay? I think
you know I don't like it lost.
Speaker 4: Do you think we've been doing nothing for the last week?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 6: I think you guys are working to a ton of people.
Speaker 19: Your name is kind of a lot, and the conversations
they've had with you, but your story is to us
don't And.
Speaker 6: I don't know how that is.
Speaker 19: So you're what's that nice to believe that you drop
her off? And her body and appear where the kind
and by some strange frequency.
Speaker 6: I did not kill.
Speaker 3: Brittany, but I imagine being in my position trying to explain.
Speaker 22: This if you she ended up dead, but I realized
she disappeared on the eighth. You've been sitting in this
knowledge without saying.
Speaker 11: Because I've had the entire town of Spring Creek asking
me if I've killed Brittany.
Speaker 4: And you might as well have if you didn't see it,
I think.
Speaker 17: Okay, sorry, Yeah, So this is the story that you're
gonna still with.
Speaker 2: Sir.
Speaker 9: Fee.
Speaker 1: It was March nineteenth, twenty twenty eleven, days after Brittany's
disappearance and her killer was finally in handcuffs. The people
closest to Brittany had trusted Bryce. They trusted this kid.
He'd been part of their lives, part of their search,
and part of their grief. But looking back, perhaps some
had felt it that's something just wasn't right.
Speaker 2: Jim tells me that he was instantly suspicious of him.
I don't know why I wasn't. I just guess they
just lived in this fantasy world, which.
Speaker 8: Is maybe partly why I want to do her story
so much. As people need to understand that you need
to have a little bit of healthy dose of reality
and fear, you know what I mean, and maybe question
people more than I did, because I had I didn't
think he had it in him.
Speaker 1: Most people were blindsided by the arret, especially Bryce and
Britney's mutual friends. Bryce couldn't read a snapchat messages behind bars,
but his phone was digging away with an onslaught of
verbal attacks. If words are violence, which they're not, by
the way, then this was an outright execution.
Speaker 9: You're a serious piece of shit. We were all there
for you, cried with you, and all you did was
play us all like a fucking puppet master. All I
can say is, don't ever dare to show your face
in this town again.
Speaker 2: I think I didn't. I think I didn't know what
to say.
Speaker 8: I think I probably sat quiet for that whole night
because I just couldn't.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't.
Speaker 8: Bathom what I had just been told, you know what
I mean, Because first off, you should have seen that
little girl throw a haybell. And I don't know if
you've picked up a haybell, but them things suck heavy.
Speaker 2: She could throw him, you know what I mean?
Speaker 8: Like he probably truly had to think about how he
was going to come at her so that he could
get the upper hand, because this little girl was no
weak little girl, and Dicky was a geek that had
get his ass kicked by anybody. I still don't understand.
His body type is unathletic and dowe and weak. I
still don't understand. The only thing I can think of
is it was she was taken by such surprise, and
I guarantee who came from behind, you know, because she
had his DNA under all ten of her fingernails. As
you know that all ten of her fingernails had his
DNA under them. So she fought, but he managed to
keep out. Like sometimes I wish that we could go
back and make him take his shirt off in those
first couple interviews with you know what I mean, because
I would love to have seen where she got him,
because she got him, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: She got him.
Speaker 1: Bryce Dickey was booked and charged with first degree murder
and sexual assault with a deadly weapon. There was no
bail set. Bryce, who was almost certainly cooking up another
story to explain away Brittany's death, pleaded not guilty. No surprise,
there Why would you take accountability, you fucking psychopath. At trial,
Bryce's mother, Cynthia, was served with a subpoena to testify
against her son. She shared that Bryce had been seeing
a counselor for bipolar disorder and depressive tendencies, but he
wasn't on medication. It's hard to feel sympathy for the
killer's parents, but I mean, what else could you do.
You're seeking treatment for your son. You're doing all the
right things, and sometimes that's just not enough. Bryce's ex
girlfriend also testified that he choked her during sex without
consent on multiple occasions. They were clues, but they were
scattered and probably kept private. Though it was probably uncomfortable
for Bryce to sit through his former loved ones making
a case against his character, no one was more unhappy
about having to endure a trial than Britney's parents. Jim
and Alicia sat in the courtroom every day, forced to
watch Bryce's parents fan the flames of romance as prosecutors
showed photos of their daughter's bloodied corpse.
Speaker 2: The murder of my daughter brought those two back together.
It was quite disgusting to watch. They had been divorced,
and then when we were going through a trial.
Speaker 8: Those two disgusting humans sat there, loving on each other
and cuddling.
Speaker 2: Like it was a movie gate. I wanted to rip
their hair out. I'm not gonna lie. Sitting in that
courtroom for that trial was probably one of the hardest
things I've ever done in my life. It had been
pounded into my head so much. Don't do anything that
could you know what I mean? Oh I didn't, But
I tell you what.
Speaker 8: I had a friend though, that let her have it.
Speaker 2: When the verdict got read.
Speaker 8: You know, the bail up even came after my friend
and was like, you need to be quiet, you know,
But because yeah.
Speaker 2: You can't, you can't say anything. You can't have any emotion,
which is really hard in a trial.
Speaker 8: Everything had happened, and I have my own questions, you know,
I still have my own questions about his mother. I'm
not sure that anybody will ever convince me that she
didn't help him clean up.
Speaker 2: I don't think that she knew about it. I don't
think anything like that.
Speaker 8: But you'll never convince me that she didn't help him
clean up and get rid of things.
Speaker 2: You'll never convince.
Speaker 6: Me of that.
Speaker 1: The jury's verdict was a resounding guilty. Initially, he received
twenty years to life in prison with the possibility of parole,
but that was before the court tacked on an additional
fifty years for the use of deadly weapons. Bryce Dickey
had a life sentence that he very much deserves. But
what many people forget is the life sentence suffered by
the families of the murdered victims. When all the hooplah
goes away, you're left with the reality that your loved
one is never coming back.
Speaker 8: That's been actually a huge journey for me because he
did sentence me to a lifetime of rage and anger,
and it is intense. And I remember a couple of
years ago, I just was looking in the mirror and
I'm like, okay, self, you know.
Speaker 2: This rage, of this anger that you're feeling.
Speaker 8: We've got to find a more healthy way to do this,
because your heart is pounding out of your chest. You're
adrenaline is busting so much that all you do is
shake and thank goodness, he is not where I could.
Speaker 2: Get my hands on him.
Speaker 8: I'm not like him, and I don't think I guarantee
you I wouldn't take his life, but oh I would
beat him silly with a shoe.
Speaker 2: Okay, would I know? The rage is really hard to
deal with.
Speaker 8: Actually, it's something that I fight daily and it affects
every aspect of my life. Britney's key phrase is flowers
makes everything better. Go ahead and take the extra five
minutes out of your day to be extra nice to somebody,
because that's what Brittany was about. She was about taking
the extra couple minutes that it might take to make
people smile and make people feel loved and make people
feel safe in a very unsafe world.
Speaker 2: So if you're going to.
Speaker 8: Ever be like Brittany, take five minutes and be humble,
be kind, and make somebody smile, because that was Brittany's
life and you would have never found a better advocate
for somebody to love people as Brittany. And just everybody
just be nice, emulate Brittany, make people feel safe, and
always remember a healthy dose of distrust is a very
good thing.
Speaker 1: And what does a healthy dose of distrust look like
in a situation where there are no red flags?
Speaker 8: I've thought about that and the only thing I could
come up with, the only thing.
Speaker 2: That I could come up with is be insistent.
Speaker 8: On more than two. If there would have been one
more person there, Okay, three or more. That's the only
thing because, believe me, for the last what almost five years,
I've gone over that almost daily in my head, and
the only thing.
Speaker 2: I could think of is really.
Speaker 8: Push that issue that groups are where it's at, not
two people. If one more person would have been in
the truck that day, I promise you that wouldn't happened.
Speaker 2: You know, so I'd say.
Speaker 8: That's the only thing I've been able to come up
with is never be too.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, the world sucks, especially for kids nowadays.
Speaker 8: It's sad, but never be so comfortable with somebody that
you think you can just take off down a dirt road,
which is you and one other person.
Speaker 2: Always make sure there's three or more.
Speaker 1: You grow up being told to watch out for strangers,
to be wary of the dark alley, the unknown number,
the unfamiliar car pulling up to the curb. But the
truth is danger doesn't always look like danger, you know that, right,
and trust, well, trust is a dangerous thing. Brittany trusted Bryce,
her family trusted Bryce, and in the end that trust
was misplaced. So turned to Snapchat. She, like so many others,
believed what the app promised that messages, locations, and memories
could vanish with the tap of a button, that no
one could ever trace where you had been or who
you had been with. But Snapchat doesn't make things disappear,
not really, Because when Brittany went missing, the app she
relied on to erase her footsteps became the very thing
that exposed them. The digital trail she thought was gone
was still there, waiting to be found. Kids are dumb
if you don't realize that, in twenty twenty five you
have no privacy whatsoever. I don't know what to tell
you other than you're dumb too. Sorry. It is what
it is. Nothing really disappears, not in life, not in death,
and certainly not in truth. You can obfiscate it all
you want, but truth finds a way of revealing itself.
Technology changes, laws change, but human nature the stuff we
talk about here, that pretty much stays the same. We
trust because we want to believe the good in people.
We want to believe that people around us are inherently good.
Makes life easier. In fact, we trust because it's easier
than considering the alternative. Nobody wants to live in paranoia.
Believe me, it's exhausting. But trust is also a choice,
and as Alicia said, a healthy dose of distrust just
might be the thing that keeps you safe. You ever
finished an episode and feel emotionally exhausted, No, of course
you don't. You don't have a podcast. It's lovely here anyway.
We say this every week, but I mean stay safe,
and please, please, please take that extra effort to keep
your kids safe. They may seem real independent and real
mature and real adult like, but do not be fooled.
It's a very, very scary world out there, and kids
just don't know any better. They're dumb. It's not their fault.
They haven't figured it out yet. It's up to you,
the parent, to do it for them, all right, See
you next week, su