Dead of Night (2 page)

Brianna’s mother, Bridgette, gave the officers a detailed description of her daughter. She said that Brianna was five feet tall and weighed ninety-eight pounds, with long dark brown hair, blue eyes, a piercing on the right side of her nose, and a noticeable scar on her left knee. There was nothing to indicate that Brianna had been involved in any kind of disputes with anyone. As far as everyone knew, she did not have any enemies; there was no one who would have wished her any harm.

“Someone walked into my house and took my friend and did God knows what with her,” a distraught K.T. said. “She is the nicest person, honest to God. She has such a good heart. It’s so sad this happened.”

At a loss to explain why the pretty blue-eyed brunette had disappeared, and terribly concerned that no one had heard from her, Brianna’s friends and family found themselves now trying to sort things out so that they would be able to help the police as much as possible with their investigation.

Long before he was finished taking statements from everyone at the house, Rhodes realized that they were very likely dealing with much more than a simple missing persons report. Because Brianna’s disappearance appeared especially suspicious, Lieutenant Robert McDonald, head of the Reno PD’s Robbery/Homicide Unit, ordered detectives and crime scene technicians to report to the house. It was McDonald’s day off; but because things did not sound at all good on this particular case from the start, he got dressed and went in to work.

Because of the serious implications, search dogs were brought in right away. However, they failed to pick up Brianna’s scent outside, leaving the cops wondering if she had walked out of her own accord or, more likely, had been carried out of the house by someone. As everyone began to assume the worst, the police called in utility personnel from Reno’s public works department. The men began removing manhole covers from nearby streets and checking to see if, by any chance, Brianna had been dropped down one of them and into a sewer. However, they failed to find any sign of her.

According to Commander Ron Holladay, of the Reno Police Department, investigators did not initially see any connections or “direct similarities” between Brianna’s apparent abduction and the other sexual assaults—at least one of which had involved a kidnapping—but that each case would be carefully examined to determine if there were any common factors between them. Holladay confirmed that those cases were still actively being investigated, and that one immediate, obvious similarity was that they had also occurred during the early-morning hours between four and five o’clock. This had happened quite nearby, within two to three blocks of the MacKay Court address.

“If they are the same suspect, we would like to catch him, obviously,” Holladay said.

Holladay also confirmed that a person on the street or sidewalk in front of the house would have had a clear view of the area where Brianna was sleeping, particularly while the lights were still on inside the house.

“Our hope is that Brianna will come home safely and walk through the door,” Holladay said. “Our hearts go out to her family, and we hope we can solve this in a favorable way.”

Chapter 2

Detective David Jenkins, a thirty-two-year veteran of the Reno Police Department who was nearing retirement and currently assigned to the Robbery/ Homicide Unit, was assigned as the lead detective in the investigation of Brianna’s disappearance. He arrived at the house soon after being notified of the unusual circumstances of the case. Almost immediately, Jenkins noted that the house was located in the immediate neighborhood where earlier sexual assaults against female UNR students had occurred. In fact, he noted, it was less than five hundred yards from where one of the young women, Virgie Chin, had been abducted by an unknown assailant and sexually assaulted after being driven to another location.

After being thoroughly briefed by Officer Rhodes and the other officers, and after conducting his own questioning of Brianna’s mother and the residents of the house, Jenkins saw for himself that the pillow Brianna had used to sleep on was, indeed, stained with what he visually recognized and believed to be blood. Before he could call it blood conclusively, it had to be tested, but his gut instinct from his years of experience with homicide cases told him it was blood. He also saw that the pillow had what appeared to be smears of mascara on it, along with some orange staining and what looked like mucus or phlegm. In fact, he noted that there were three distinct stains on the same side of the pillow, positioned below the mascara stains. Each stain was irregularly shaped and was approximately one inch to three inches in diameter. One of the stains was about the size of a silver dollar. It would require DNA analysis by the crime lab to determine if the bloodlike stains were actually Brianna’s, but it seemed likely to Jenkins that it was going to turn out to be hers. Jenkins also found a small bloodlike stain on the blanket that had been left lying on the floor in the kitchen.

After additional questioning, Jenkins learned that
both
the front and rear exterior doors to the house, not just the front door, were typically left unlocked by the girls who lived there.

So which door had the intruder entered the house through? Jenkins wondered. The front door or the back? It seemed likely that he would have used the same door for both entering and leaving the house, due to the comfort level he must have felt upon going inside.

As he walked through the house, Jenkins also noted that the curtains, shades, and other window coverings were limited or sparse. This provided anyone during the nighttime hours who might be outside looking in, from either the MacKay Court or College Drive sides of the house, with an unobstructed view of almost all of the downstairs interior. College Drive, just off North Virginia Street, runs east and west adjacent to MacKay Court. The only outlets from MacKay Court are Imperial Boulevard to the south and College Drive to the north. The house from which Brianna disappeared is nearest to College Drive, making that the most likely route that would have been used by whoever had snatched her—if it turned out that she had, in fact, been snatched. However, it was impossible at this point to say for certain which route had been used. Interviews with neighbors still had to be conducted to determine whether anyone had seen or heard anything suspicious during the hours in question.

Jenkins and the other officers who had reported to the scene believed that Brianna had to have disappeared sometime between 4:30 and 9:00
A.M.
After briefly examining her cell phone, Jenkins determined that her last known contact with anyone most likely had occurred at 4:23
A.M.
, when she had sent and received multiple text messages from her phone as she communicated with someone in Oregon. Checking out the phone number that the text message had been sent to, Jenkins soon confirmed that the person Brianna had been texting in Oregon had been her boyfriend. He was in Oregon at the time of Brianna’s disappearance and was immediately ruled out as being a suspect in any wrongdoing related to the case.

 

 

Detective Tom Broome, of the Reno Police Department, arrived at the house a short time later, accompanied by several members of the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO). Among the new arrivals were personnel from Forensic Investigative Services, including forensic investigator Candace Potts. They began carefully processing what they all believed would soon prove to be a crime scene. They looked painstakingly for any kind of clues that they hoped would give them an idea of what had happened there earlier that morning.

Potts photographed the house thoroughly, inside and out, and ran her flashlight along the doors in an attempt to illuminate any fingerprints that might be there. Her efforts paid off; a total of fourteen readable prints were found and retrieved. The latent lift fingerprint cards were sent to the crime lab for analysis. Potts and the forensic team also collected a number of swabs from eight sites in the house in hopes of locating and identifying potential DNA evidence.

Potts saw that there was an unidentified substance on the outside rear doorknob. She collected swabs from that location to analyze later at the Washoe County Crime Laboratory. The blankets and pillow that Brianna used were also photographed, bagged and tagged as evidence, and were taken to the crime lab, along with the other potential evidence that had been gathered at the house.

Before the day was over, officers canvassed the area and began interviewing the neighbors to see if any of them had heard or seen anything unusual on the night of January 19 and in the following early-morning hours. Unfortunately, only one man reported noticing anything that could potentially be a clue.

The man, Daniel Pitman, lived next door to the house from which Brianna disappeared. He told the officers that he had been sitting in his living room, at approximately four-thirty or five on the morning of January 20, using his laptop computer to check out eBay, when he saw a shadowy figure outside his house as it passed by a window, going in the direction of the MacKay Court address. Daniel said that the lights inside his house were off at the time, and it may have appeared to someone outside that no one was awake inside his house at that time of the morning. He also said that he had heard a noise, like someone was turning the door handle or pushing on the door itself. He said that he did not get up to investigate and had dismissed the incident as being nothing to worry about.

“I used to live in a fraternity,” the neighbor said. “I thought it was a drunk kid trying to find his way home and had the wrong house.”

 

 

During the time of the neighborhood canvass, police officers went through garbage cans and, with the help of search-and-rescue officers, also began looking through the bushes in the area to see if perhaps Brianna’s clothing, personal property, or even her body could have been lying hidden out there somewhere.

In the meantime, Reno police stepped up efforts to find the man who purportedly gave Jessica a ride home in his Suburban SUV early Sunday morning. They issued a description of the man and his vehicle, asking him to come forward for questioning. The police insisted that he was not a person of interest but merely a potential witness who, they hoped, might have seen something in the neighborhood while dropping off Jessica. It was also possible, the cops reasoned among themselves, that the man could have returned to the house later that early morning and abducted Brianna.

As their efforts to do whatever was necessary to find Brianna were under way, additional plans were put into place to begin a major search effort using dogs, search-and-rescue teams, and volunteers in the days that lay ahead. The Regional Sex Offender Unit, which is comprised of officers from the Reno PD and Sparks Police Department (SPD) and the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, geared up to begin interviewing all of the registered sex offenders living within a mile of the MacKay Court residence. There were at least a hundred sex offenders living within that relatively small area, but there were hundreds more living outside that boundary who would also have to be looked at if their initial efforts failed to turn up a potential suspect, according to RPD spokesman Steve Frady.

“It’s something that’s done in cases like this,” Frady said. “Police detectives are covering every aspect of the disappearance to try to obtain any new leads that can help bring Brianna safely home to her family.... We are continuing to talk to people.”

There were more than seventeen hundred registered sex offenders living at that time in Washoe County, including in and around Reno, whom the detectives planned to contact as part of their investigation. First, however, they would focus on the hundred or so sex offenders who had been identified as the ones who were living in the immediate area of UNR and MacKay Court, which was considered a low number when compared to the rest who were living in the county. The offenders being looked at had been convicted of all levels of sex crimes and were regularly monitored by the police.

Detectives were told that Brianna was always security conscious and responsible. Why, then, many people wondered, had she gone to sleep in a house with unlocked doors in plain view from the street through a glass-paned door and windows that were uncovered? It just did not make sense, given her reputation for being mindful about her safety and security. Even though she was very tired when she went to bed on the couch, and distracted by the disturbing series of text messages to and from her boyfriend, surely she should have noticed she was in full view of anyone outside.

 

 

On Monday, January 21, 2008, K.T. moved herself and her belongings out of the house on MacKay Court and into her parents’ home because she no longer felt safe after Brianna disappeared. Not only did she feel unsafe after what had happened at the house, she felt horrible not knowing what had happened to her friend whom she called “Bri.” She had, after all, gone to Reno High School with Brianna, and the two had remained close friends after graduation.

“I feel like I’m in a nightmare,” K.T. said. “I think this can’t be happening, but the more time that goes by, the more it sinks in. I just want Bri to come back home.”

Meanwhile, John Walsh, host of
America’s Most Wanted
(
AMW
), sent a television film crew to Reno to begin gathering information about Brianna’s case. He wanted to get as many details as possible for his next show, Saturday, January 26, 2008, in the hope that putting out the information about her disappearance as soon as possible might yield results. It would be only the first of several
AMW
shows that would be devoted to the case.

Chapter 3

By Tuesday, January 22, 2008, the Reno Police Department announced that the FBI had joined the investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Brianna Denison, according to spokesman Steve Frady. Reno police detectives had been in contact with the FBI’s local office since Brianna’s disappearance, and the FBI had officially opened its own case and assigned a special agent to work with the Reno police detectives. In the meantime, Frady said that the RPD investigators were continuing to talk to people, getting information and following leads, much of which they could not yet talk about publicly.

“It’s all very suspicious at this point,” Lieutenant McDonald said. “She hasn’t attempted to make contact with any of her family members or friends.”

In the two days since Brianna vanished, Reno officers continued to canvass the neighborhood of the MacKay Court residence and the adjacent areas, and continued to conduct searches of the vicinity. One area, that of nearby Rancho San Rafael Regional Park and its perimeter, was also searched extensively, and the effort included the use of helicopters and canine units. A day earlier, on Monday, the Reno Police Department had established a twenty-four-hour tip line in an attempt to generate new leads, which detectives followed up on as quickly as possible, almost as soon as they came in. The authorities also continued looking for the man who drove Jessica home in his SUV to determine if he had seen anything unusual when he dropped her off. So far, despite having obtained security camera surveillance photos that had been taken as the vehicle left the Sands Regency Casino and Hotel on its Arlington Street driveway, their efforts had failed to locate the man. They continued to emphasize that the man was not a suspect in the case, but only a person of interest.

The entire Reno community quickly rallied around the search effort for Brianna. Her photo was featured on casino marquees, and flyers with her pictures were circulated all over town and placed in many of the city’s businesses. The Denison family also offered a $100,000 reward in the case, and the local Secret Witness Program offered an additional $2,500.

On Thursday evening, January 24, 2008, a candlelight vigil was held for Brianna at Reno High School. More than three hundred people were there that evening, with most gathered in front of the school in a display aimed at showing that the community, family, and friends of Brianna had not given up hope for her safe return. In addition to holding candles, many wore blue ribbons and chanted, “Come home, Brianna.” Posters and signs were handed out to many of those in attendance. These featured her picture, along with text that read,
Please come home, Brianna!

“Brianna’s favorite color is blue,” said Nicole Bridges, a close friend of the missing girl. “Another friend of Brianna’s came up with the idea of making blue ribbons.”

During the following night, another vigil was held at the Lawlor Events Center on the UNR campus. It, too, had a large turnout in support of the missing teen. Family and friends were all wearing blue campaign buttons, sometimes referred to as metal or plastic pins, circular and often with images and text, like those sometimes used by politicians; T-shirts with Brianna’s picture were handed out to many people in the crowd.

“Now, with these T-shirts, we can really keep her image alive,” said Brianna’s aunt Lauren Denison. “Our rallying cry is, if the abductor sees this, open your heart and give her back to us. We want this god-awful person to be aware that he is not only putting a great deal of hurt on Brianna, her family, and friends, but also the people who know him. Please just give her back and run off if you need to. Bring Brianna back to us.”

The next evening, Saturday, January 26, 2008,
America’s Most Wanted
aired its first of many episodes about the case. Host John Walsh and others provided a detailed narrative of what was known so far by the police. Photos of Brianna were shown several times, and a plea for information was made. Although the airing produced a number of phone calls, none of them, unfortunately, provided any clues whatsoever to Brianna’s whereabouts.

Before the first week of the investigation into Brianna’s disappearance was over, the man who had driven Jessica home on the morning Brianna had disappeared—the motorist whom the police were actively seeking—finally came forward and identified himself after learning that law enforcement was looking for him. After being questioned, he was ultimately cleared of having had any part in the disappearance.

“We have eliminated him as having any involvement in the case,” Frady said. Apparently, Jessica had gotten very lucky that night. Fortunately for her, engaging in such risky behavior as flagging down a perfect stranger for a ride had not resulted in disaster.

 

 

Reno police continued their search for Brianna over the next several days, using search crews, dogs, and additional helicopters to comb the vast areas near UNR, the surrounding snowy foothills, and other isolated areas in the region. Police feared that their search dogs, which had failed to produce any results, might completely lose Brianna’s scent because of some approaching heavy snowstorm activity. Uniformed officers also continued going door-to-door through the neighborhood in a dedicated effort, ultimately hoping to find someone who may have seen or heard anything suspicious around the time that Brianna was believed to have been abducted. They gave it their very best effort, but they failed to turn up anything significant.

Officers and volunteers also searched other areas around Reno, including along the Truckee River, which runs through the center of town, and along the Union Pacific railroad tracks, with no results.

With no suspects and very few clues, Brianna’s family and friends, who wanted very much to believe their loved one was still alive, were frightened beyond description. They desperately hoped that Brianna was being held captive somewhere, and that her abductor would eventually let her go so that she could return home. Everyone, including the police, had come to believe that Brianna had been taken by a stranger. It was a case that had Reno investigators baffled.

“We’re hoping we get the one big clue that comes in and is really critical,” Frady said. “We’re going wherever we can go with this case.”

A little more than a week into the investigation, the local and national news media began to question whether Brianna’s disappearance might somehow be related to the earlier UNR sexual assaults against female students. Detectives, however, through Reno Police Department spokesman Frady, said that at that time, there did not appear to be such a connection. At least, there was not one that they had identified as of yet, other than the close proximity to the MacKay Court residence.

However, the police assured reporters that investigators were continuing to examine the earlier incidents, just in case the attacks and Brianna’s disappearance were, after all, connected. Detectives also told reporters that they were waiting for results of the crime lab analysis that was being conducted on the suspected blood spots on the pillow and blanket that Brianna had been using on the morning she disappeared.

 

 

Meanwhile, Brianna was described in media reports as being a good, responsible, considerate girl, who had maintained a very close relationship with her mother. In her family’s own words, she was known for possessing a “tremendous, outgoing nature” and “compassion” for others, as well as for her “million-dollar smile and sparkling blue eyes.” Born on March 29, 1988, Brianna was affectionately called “Breezy” by her mother, because she reminded her of a “breath of fresh air on a cool summer day.”

Brianna had spent much of her childhood in Reno, Nevada, as well as in Mendocino, California, where her mother was originally from. The family had moved to Mendocino after the sudden, tragic death of Brianna’s father, Jeff, who had committed suicide when Brianna was only six years old. The family moved back to Reno in 2002, when Brianna was in middle school, and she graduated from Reno High School in 2006. According to Lauren Denison, her aunt, and a Reno resident, Brianna was strong-willed and feisty as a child. She easily convinced her cousins and friends, no matter their gender, to dress up in girl’s clothing to attend her tea parties. Although the boys hated it, they still loved Brianna so much that they always went along with her wishes.

Following graduation from high school, Brianna left home to attend Santa Barbara City College, where she was a sophomore at the time of her disappearance. According to her aunt, she became motivated to study child psychology after undergoing art therapy following the death of her father. Family members described her as spiritual, and they said that she was respectful and trusting. She also loved children and animals, and was especially fond of her dog, Ozzy, a sheltie. She always thought of others, and was always concerned about the well-being of family members and friends.

“She never forgot a birthday or anniversary,” Lauren said. “Even when she went away to college, she really kept in touch.”

She also loved the beach and the sun, and family members said it was doubtful that she would have ever moved back to Reno on a permanent basis after college. She hated to be cold, her aunt said.

According to her family, Brianna loved to travel and had visited a number of places in the United States and Europe, including Hawaii, New York, Mexico, Jamaica, Japan, Egypt, Hungary, Austria, and France. She had also studied abroad for a year in Rome, Italy, while in high school. However, her friends and family did not believe that Brianna had gone traveling again; they feared something far worse had happened to their little girl. Utilizing local media sources, including the
Reno Gazette-Journal,
Brianna Denison’s family pleaded for the public’s help in finding her.

“You never know who could have caught a glimpse of something,” Lauren said. “This is a person’s worst nightmare. If anyone has seen or heard anything, call the police or the Secret Witness hotline. Call even if you just think you saw her.... This gives us fear, knowing the type of person she is. She would contact us if she could. We adore her and want her back.”

Brianna’s maternal grandfather, Bob Zunino, expressed similar feelings.

“From day one, it was love at first sight,” Bob said of his granddaughter. “If she’s with someone now, we want her back. We want her back.”

Fear for Brianna’s well-being naturally increased for her family with each passing hour following her disappearance. Despite the best efforts of everyone involved in the search for Brianna, detectives knew only too well that time would soon be working against them, if it wasn’t already. Nonetheless, her family was determined to keep Brianna and any information about her in the public eye and maintain a strong public face.

“We have completely decided to keep this alive for Brianna,” Lauren said. “We are real people with real emotions.... We have put them on the back burner to be strong to do what it takes to get her back. But we are hurting.”