Perhaps I’m misreading it, but several articles and sources I’ve read seem to specify that either right before or shortly before the famous “oh sh*t,” Brandon had made another comment about there being a fence. “Not another fence” or “dang another fence.” He was on the phone with his dad throughout his walk, describing his surroundings, plus they have a dog trail. My question is, did the trail ever lead to a fence, and was the fence near water or some type of incline/small cliff or even a hole?

My theory is that he dropped/lost/broke his phone and either became separated from it or unable to use it. We know that he was describing his surroundings to his father but never mentioned trudging through the river. We also know from the dog scent trail that at some point he entered the river and crossed out the other side. What this seems to tell us is that the moment he screamed “oh sht” was NOT the moment he ultimately went missing/died, but rather was just the moment he lost his phone. I’ve heard various versions of the story, some where he mentions seeing or hearing running water and some mentioning the fence. If there was a fence that ran alongside the river at some point, that could give us a clue. What I think we can certainly ascertain however is that because he definitely went through a river and never mentioned wading through a river to his father, he clearly kept traveling beyond the point when he was last heard shouting “oh sht.” In other words, he didn’t fall down some hole or off a cliff to his death, at least not at that moment. I don’t think his father heard him die. My belief is that he dropped his phone and either couldn’t find it or was no longer able to use it because it got damaged somehow and he continued on, walked through the river at some point and subsequently developed hypothermia. There was a property beyond the river where his scent was found on a piece of farm equipment and the owner wouldn’t let police search the property. I would bet that the boy became disoriented and looked for a place to curl up and rest, at some point considering the farm equipment as a place to rest under and eventually curled up and died somewhere on the property. Depending on the size of the property, I don’t think it can be said definitively that the owner ever knew or even still knows that there’s a body out in the fields, but I bet that if some day, someone goes out there with a metal detector they’ll find a skeleton and a silver chain that belonged to Brandon Swanson.