The Disappearance of Brianna Maitland (Vermont)

When a 17-year old girl left work one night in March of 2004, it began what would become one of the most well-known missing persons cases in New England. Her father and a duo of private investigators have dedicated years in their own pursuit of answers. More than anything, they just want to find her.

Discovery of Car

It was around 1:15 p.m. on Saturday, March 20, 2004 and a Vermont State Trooper had just been dispatched for a report of an abandoned car. As he approached the scene along Route 118 in the village of Enosburg Falls, he tried to make sense of the odd sight in front of him. There was a vintage boxy boat of a car backed into a weathered old farmhouse.

As described by private investigator Lou Barry, “It was found literally backed into and up against, in fact, hung up on the foundation of an abandoned house called the Dutchburn House.”

The Dutchburn House was an old farmhouse once occupied by brothers Harry and Myron Dutchburn. It had been abandoned since the 90s some years after a violent home invasion that left the farmers severely injured. Before they boarded the place up, the brothers had seen more than a couple drivers go off the road and right into their yard.

“It’s right on a curve, so cars would go off that curve sometimes when they’re driving too fast, so they’d go into the field, get stuck in the snow or the mud or whatever, and they’d come and they’d bang on the Dutchburn’s door there and they’d get up and get the tractor and haul them out of there,” Lou explained.

Whether it be slide-offs during inclement weather or a novice driver failing to navigate the curve, or someone getting behind the wheel while intoxicated, seeing a car off the road right in that very spot wasn’t all that unusual.

Lou said, “When the trooper responded, his initial reaction was, oh, okay, we had a drunk driver who went off the road, got into an accident, and got a ride home.”

The car had to have hit the side of the house with some force to end up the way it did…Hard enough that a piece of plywood covering a window on the house fell off and onto the trunk. The front tires were cut hard to the driver side of the vehicle. The lights were off and the doors were closed but unlocked.

The trooper saw some things on the ground around the car; some loose change and a necklace. Glancing around inside the vehicle, the keys weren’t anywhere to be seen, but he found two paychecks from The Black Lantern Inn. On the pay line was the name Brianna Maitland. 

At that moment, the trooper made a decision. It’s not known for sure if the trooper ran the license plates on the vehicle. If he did, they would have come back registered to a Kellie Maitland, but either way, instead of contacting the car’s registered owner, he decided to track down the establishment and the person listed on the paychecks.

So, the trooper called for a tow truck and set off to The Black Lantern Inn…But the restaurant was closed. The car and its driver became a problem for another day as the trooper signed off duty.

It would take several days before anyone realized the boxy old boat of a car backed into the abandoned house was connected to the disappearance of 17-year old Brianna Maitland.

The Life of Brianna Maitland

Brianna Maitland grew up with her parents, Bruce and Kellie Maitland, and her brother Waylon, so far north in Vermont that the US-Canadian border was walking distance from their house. They lived off the grid, relying on solar and water power for electricity and heated their home with a wood burning fire. 

The rural lifestyle played a part in Brianna’s hobbies. She was into hunting and snowmobiling and spending time outdoors, but that same rural lifestyle became more isolating for Brianna as she got older. She wanted freedom and a social life. After some conflict in his marriage, Bruce considered moving out of the house, and Brianna planned to go with him. However, when Bruce ultimately decided to stay, Brianna did not.

Bri moved out of her parents’ home in October of 2003. She stayed with various friends and sometimes her new boyfriend, James, who she started dating around the same time she moved out. Lou says she also occasionally spent the night in her car, but eventually settled in with her childhood friend Jillian and Jillian’s father in the town of Shelburne.

Lou says Bruce and Kellie more or less approved of Bri’s decision to move out. Though she decided to leave high school in November or December 2003, Brianna was pursuing her GED while working two jobs to support herself. She was seeking freedom and claiming it, but it’s not like she had completely cut ties with her family. 

In fact, on Friday, March 19, 2004, Bri and Kellie spent a few hours of quality mother-daughter time together. According to reporting by Sam Hemingway for the Burlington Free Press and an op-ed written by Kellie Maitland published in the same newspaper, that morning, Kellie and Bri got breakfast together before Bri went to take a math test at the Community College of Vermont, the final step to earning her GED certificate. Bri passed the test and she was in a great mood as she and her mother continued on to do some shopping in St. Albans.

At one point that afternoon though, Brianna’s mood shifted.

“According to her mother Brianna said I’m going outside for a few minutes. And then when they left, her mother said she seemingly was a little agitated, a little anxious,” Lou explained.

A lot has been made of this. Some of the speculation out there is that Bri saw someone or talked to somebody who put her in that mood…But Lou thinks there’s a different explanation.

“Brianna smoked cigarettes, her mother didn’t approve of it,” he continued, “She’d been with her mother all day. We think Brianna went outside to have a cigarette. And if she was agitated, according to her father, that happened a lot with her mother. She would get agitated as probably every teenage girl does, right?”

Brianna also had to be to work soon and still needed to go home to change and get ready first, so it’s possible that she was just a little antsy.

Brianna’s mother dropped her back at Jillian’s house around 2:45. Jillian wasn’t home from school yet so before leaving for her shift, Brianna jotted a quick note. It said something like ‘I get off work between 10 and 12. I’ll see you after.’ The note also included the phone number to the Black Lantern Inn where Brianna worked. 

Bri hopped in her 1985 pale green Oldsmobile Delta 88 and drove to The Black Lantern Inn about 30 minutes away in Montgomery. The Black Lantern Inn, or simply The Lantern, is a cozy New England inn housed in a brick building with stately white pillars surrounding its front porch. During the colder months, there might be a woodstove blazing inside. The atmosphere at the Inn’s restaurant is laid back and homey. While there may have been a bar, it wasn’t a bar where you might see a party crowd or a rowdy bunch after dark. This was a relaxed, quiet spot in a relaxed, quiet town. 

As far as Lou has learned, there was nothing remarkable about Brianna’s shift that night. She worked as a dishwasher so she spent most of her time in the kitchen. Sometimes after the restaurant closed down, the staff would hang out for some food and maybe a drink, but that night Bri told her coworkers she couldn’t stay. She had just started a second job at a diner in St. Albans and she had an early shift the next morning.

Some previous reporting on Brianna’s case suggests Brianna had plans to go out socializing after work or that she was planning to take a short trip out of town. Lou says there’s absolutely zero evidence she had plans one way or another, and these stories are an example of the misinformation and speculation that made its way into the public sphere, particularly at the beginning of the case.

Here’s what we know for sure: Brianna punched out at 11:20 p.m. and walked through the door into the night. Where she went next, that is the big unknown.

Brianna Maitland’s story continues on Dark Downeast. Press play to hear the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.