VT VT - Brianna Maitland, 17, Montgomery, 19 March 2004

New Posts

Happy 18th Birthday, Bri!

We pray that you are able to come home soon!
 
Bumping for Bri!

She was featured last week on Without A Trace...I hope and pray someone recognizes her!
 
Parents’ worst nightmare

Maitlands pursue missing daughter through bad dreams, empty leads

By Sam Hemingway

EAST FRANKLIN -- Even in sleep, Bruce and Kellie Maitland are on the lookout for their 18-year-old daughter, Brianna.

"In my dream," Kellie Maitland said, patting the kitchen table, "I am talking to people and I ask them: ’Do you know where Brianna is?’

"I feel they are on the verge of telling me where she is, and then I wake up."

Nearby, Bruce Maitland looked down at the floor of their small home in the woods near the Canadian border.

His dreams, he said, are often a rerun of his waking life over the past eight months, haunting images of looking for his daughter’s remains in roadside ditches or in woods or in garbage bags mixed with the intense hope he won’t find anything. Once, he said, he dreamed he was Brianna: "I am running, trying to get away and hide from the people chasing me."

March 19, Brianna Maitland, then 17, finished her nighttime shift as a dishwasher at the Black Lantern Inn in Montgomery, walked out the door and vanished.

The next day, her car was found rammed backward into an abandoned house just west of town; her two paychecks lay on the seat. There was no note. She took no clothes.

No one, including police, has a substantive clue as to where she could be. Organized search parties, posters on utility poles from Montreal to New York City, Border Patrol helicopter flights, a BringBriHome.org Web site, even a court inquest have proven fruitless.

"It’s still wide open," Vermont State Police Lt. Tom Nelson said this week of the investigation. "We don’t have a really solid set of facts that lead us to understanding what happened after she left work."

Almost every day, Nelson said, another tip finds its way to his desk. Thursday, for instance, a hunter found clothes in the woods in Montgomery; they turned out to be unrelated. Police have interviewed 107 people in the Maitland case, Nelson said, but "nothing solid" explains her disappearance.

"They found Saddam Hussein in a spider hole, but no one can find our daughter," Kellie Maitland said during a recent conversation at her home. Bruce Maitland is convinced that his daughter -- alive or dead -- is not in Vermont. But that’s only a guess.

Painful search

Several times over the past eight months, the Maitlands thought their nightmare was over.

There was the time someone reported seeing Brianna performing at a strip club in Boston.

"We went down there, and we showed Brianna’s picture to a person there," Bruce Maitland said. "She said, ’Yeah, she works across the street in another club.’ And there was a girl there who, if you weren’t her father, you’d think was her.

"But it wasn’t her."

Another time, police found a garbage bag on a field near Montgomery. The Maitlands were told the bag contained a body.

It was a pig carcass.

"At first, they weren’t sure what it was," Kellie Maitland said. "I was such a nervous wreck when I left work. I didn’t have any fingernails left by the end of the day."

The harder they look, the harder it becomes to keep looking. They have looked along almost every road embankment from Interstate 87 in New York to Vermont 100. They have gone to New York and Hartford and Montreal and Syracuse and Albany. Nothing.

"The way we think now is not the way we did before," Kellie Maitland said. "I look at people going by in cars, looking for Brianna. I see some shape off the side of the road, just the gnarly part of a tree’s roots, and I think it’s a body."

Kellie Maitland works as a clerk in a local hardware store. She drives to work -- everywhere, really -- with her doors locked and a handgun nearby. She fears dangerous people might be responsible for her daughter’s disappearance.

Bruce Maitland describes the grimness of their task: "I’ll see buzzards flying somewhere, and I have to go see why. I say ’Oh, look, there’s a bag or there’s some clothes’ and I have to go poke at it to see what’s there. After a while, you can’t do it anymore."

Friends and neighbors have been supportive, he said, but the experience of searching for a missing child has made the Maitlands feel alone at times.

"I feel like there is a huge cloud following me around that everyone can see but me," he said.

Life goes on, barely

Since March 19, Brianna’s grandmother has died. So has a great-grandmother. In October, her 18th birthday came and went; it was acknowledged by a gathering of neighbors at Byam’s Quick Stop in town. Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie dropped by -- a quiet break from his re-election campaign.

Now Christmas is around the corner. Several boxes of holiday decorations -- including some handmade by Brianna -- sit by the kitchen counter. Kellie Maitland said she isn’t sure if she can bear to put them up.

The couple tried to get away for a few days this summer; they went to Nova Scotia for a week where they wandered the ocean beaches. One day, Kellie Maitland came upon a cavern in the rocks; there, in the sand at her feet, was a heart-shaped stone.

"The rock and the cavern seemed to magnify how I felt," she said. With the stone cupped in her hands, she broke out in tears. "How the sea cut this stone and left it there. I knew it was there for her, that she is always in my heart."

Contact Sam Hemingway at 660-1850 or shemingway@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com

http://www.bringbrihome.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=325
 
On Friday, be sure to go to Brianna's message board and post your well wishes to Brianna's mom, Kellie, for her birthday. There will be a special post made late Thursday night.

It has been a very tough year for Kellie with Brianna's disappearance, plus several deaths in the family.

Thank you for caring.

Kelly
 
Kelly,
Thank you for posting! I've posted on birthday wishes on board. This is so frustrating - someone, somewhere knows where Brianna is - if only...
 
Thank you for posting that. Kellie has been through so much this year. It's important for her to know how much we all care.

Kelly
 
Oh WOW!!!! This is certainly encouraging!
 
Hello,

Unfortunately, we do not know where Brianna is. We are asking family members to make a plea to Brianna in hopes that she is somewhere and is able to read our posts. We have not given up hope that Brianna is alive and well. Please visit her website at www.bringbrihome.org .

Bringbrihome
 
Bringbrihome,

You have my sincere apology for misunderstanding the posts on Brianna's site.....

I pray she returns to you soon.
-Amanda
 
bringbrihome said:
Hello,

Unfortunately, we do not know where Brianna is. We are asking family members to make a plea to Brianna in hopes that she is somewhere and is able to read our posts. We have not given up hope that Brianna is alive and well. Please visit her website at www.bringbrihome.org .

Bringbrihome
Click to expand...
Bringbrihome,
I am so sorry, I thought Bri had contacted her brother by the way the message sounded. I pray daily that Bri comes home. Keeping the faith!
 
The Caledonian Record is currently running a poll through Saturday, January 1 for the most important story of the past year.

Options are: [size=-2] The Phish concert.[/size]
[size=-2]Red Sox win the world series.[/size]
[size=-2]The Devenger brothers.[/size]
[size=-2]The disappearances of Maura Murray and Brianna Maitland.[/size]

Currently votes for the disappearance of Brianna and Maura are next to last.

Please, let's let the readers in NH and VT know that we place more importance on life than sports or concerts.

Please go to http://www.caledonianrecord.com/ to vote.

Thank you on behalf of the Maitland and Murray families.
 
Peabody said:
The Caledonian Record is currently running a poll through Saturday, January 1 for the most important story of the past year.

Options are: [size=-2]The Phish concert.[/size]
[size=-2]Red Sox win the world series.[/size]
[size=-2]The Devenger brothers.[/size]
[size=-2]The disappearances of Maura Murray and Brianna Maitland.[/size]

Currently votes for the disappearance of Brianna and Maura are next to last.

Please, let's let the readers in NH and VT know that we place more importance on life than sports or concerts.

Please go to http://www.caledonianrecord.com/ to vote.

Thank you on behalf of the Maitland and Murray families.
Click to expand...
Thanks for posting the link. Their story is getting a lot of votes now! Keep voting while you can! Show the authorities that these woman are important and the community would like to have them found.
 
A special Thanks to all of you for voting in the poll. Brianna and Maura are currently in the lead. The Caledonian was no longer covering the stories of the two girls. We are hoping that the poll will show that we are all still very concerned about these two missing girls. They must be found! We need to keep their stories in the forefront until they are home. If you have not voted, please do so.

Thanks, Bringbrihome
 
When I posted the request to vote for Brianna and Maura, "their story" had 80 votes and they were in next to last place..........this morning, THANKS to all of you, they have 800 votes and are leading the Red Sox story 2 to 1 :clap:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

DNASolves

Who is Escambia County John Doe (1989)?

Members online

... and 54 more.
Total: 4,199 (members: 55, guests: 4,144)

Online statistics

Members online
55
Guests online
4,144
Total visitors
4,199
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
592,490
Messages
17,969,772
Members
228,789
Latest member
Soccergirl500
Back
Top