Brianna Maitland was born in Burlington, VT to Bruce and Kellie Maitland.  Raised on the family farm in East Franklin, near the Canadian border, Brianna grew up with a strong work ethic and close to her family.  By all accounts she had a happy childhood filled with love, friends and family.  She attended Missisquoi Valley Union High School her freshman year, and then transferred to Enosburg Falls High School the following year.  She was always athletic as a child and even became extensively trained in martial arts, focusing on jiu-jitsu.  In October of 2003, Brianna hit a milestone accomplishment, turning seventeen.  On the cusp of graduation and craving independence, Brianna decided to strike out on her own.  She left the family farm and began couch surfing at various homes of her friends.  

By February of 2004, Briana had dropped out of high school.  She moved in with her childhood friend, Jillian Stout in Sheldon, VT.  Brianna appeared to be getting her life back in order.  She had a job at the local Black Lantern Inn and had enrolled in a program to obtain her GED.  Around the end of February, Brianna attended a party where she got into some kind of altercation with another woman.  This woman, Keallie Lacross, attacked Brianna while she was sitting in a pickup truck.  Despite Brianna's training, she never hit Keallie back.  It appeared that the attack was a result of Brianna talking to a guy at the party Keallie liked, but that rumor had never been substantiated.  Brianna went to the hospital and the the police department.  She ended up with facial lacerations, a broken nose and a concussion.  She filed a police report that night. 

Three weeks later, on March 19th, Brianna woke up and went to take her GED exam.  Once she passed, her mother took her out for lunch and then a day of shopping to celebrate the accomplishment.  While out shopping at a local strip mall, Brianna noticed something outside and went out to check it out while her mother finished shopping. When Kellie came out of the store and noticed that Brianna looked unnerved, shaken, and agitated. Brianna asked her mother to take her back to Jillian’s so she could get ready for her shift at the Black Lantern Inn. The Black Lantern Inn is a restaurant where Brianna worked in Montgomery, VT. Not wanting to pry about the incident, Kellie took her daughter home and dropped her off between 3:30pm and 4pm. Before Brianna left for work, she left a note on the counter for her roommate saying that she would return home after her shift ended that night. Jillian had left for the weekend to spend time with her boyfriend.

Approximately 11:20pm, Brianna left the Black Lantern Inn, telling coworkers that she had to get home and rest before going to her second job in St. Albans the next morning. She got in her 1985 Oldsmobile sedan and headed home, presumably alone. The following morning, a Vermont State trooper was dispatched to an abandoned house in Richford, approximately one mile from the Black Lantern Inn. A car had been found abandoned and backed into the side of the house. When the trooper looked inside, he found two paychecks on the front seat. The name on the checks were Brianna Maitland and the employer was the Black Lantern Inn. Outside the car he found loose change, a water bottle, and an unsmoked cigarette. Police went to the restaurant in attempt to contact Brianna, but the restaurant was closed. Meanwhile, the car was towed to a local impound lot and written off as a drunk driving accident. On March 21^st, Jillian came home and realized the note Brianna had left was still on the counter from two days prior. The following day, Jillian contacted Kellie Maitland and began asking if Brianna had gone back home. Kellie informed her that she had not talked to Brianna in a couple of days and she was not home. Kellie began calling Brianna’s friends, co-workers, and anyone that she could think of hoping to find her daughter, but to no avail. Brianna had disappeared.

On March 25, 2004, a Vermont police officer went to the home of Kellie and Bruce Maitland and showed them a photograph of a vehicle registered to them that had been involved in a crash and abandoned. Kellie immediately identified the car as their daughters and inquired about her whereabouts. Police told her that Brianna had not been found with the car, in fact nobody had been found with it. Kellie went to the police department and immediately filed a police report. It had now been five days since the teenager was last seen.

For the first few months, the Vermont state police led the investigation into Brianna’s disappearance. They were skeptical that any foul play was involved and considered the teenager a runaway instead. Police searched the abandoned house by foot with search dogs but found no trace of Brianna. The state crime lab processed the car on March 30^th, ten days after it was impounded. Once the vehicle was returned to the family, Bruce found Brianna’s ATM card, glasses, contact lens cases and her migraine medicine inside. This told him that there is no way his daughter ran away. Without taking her ATM card or migraine medicine. Police finally concluded that due to the circumstances that foul play was a possibility in Brianna’s disappearance.

Shortly after the disappearance, an anonymous tip came into police headquarters. The tipster said that Brianna was being held captive in a home in Berkshire, VT. The house was being rented by two men, Ramon L. Ryans and Nathaniel Charles Jackson. They were two known drug dealers from New York. On April 15^th, police raided the house. Drug paraphernalia was found along with cocaine and marijuana but not signs of Brianna. Ryans was arrested for drug charges. He cut a deal with the prosecution that landed with a 45-day sentence which equated to time served. He then left Vermont and moved back to New York, which raised some flags with the Vermont state police. As of today, neither man has been charged in Brianna’s disappearance, but it was determined that she had been an acquaintance of the two men at one time. Later in 2004, a signed affidavit from an older woman, implicated Ryans and Jackson. It said that they were both involved in Brianna’s disappearance and alleged murder. The affidavit made allegations that both men had been involved in the murder and gave graphic details. It alleges that Brianna was killed a week after her disappearance. She allegedly had an argument with Ryans over money she lent him to buy crack. It says that Ryans killed Brianna during the argument and he temporarily stored her body in the basement of the woman’s house. Then he used a table saw to dismember Brianna’s body and dispose of it at a local pig farm. Nothing in the letter was able to be corroborated by law enforcement.

In 2007, the FBI joined the search for Brianna. They created a flyer and stated that the vehicle appeared to be staged to appear like an accident. Due to her extensive training in jiu-jitsu, her parents argued that multiple people may have been involved in their daughter’s disappearance. By March of 2016, twelve years after Brianna disappeared, investigators revealed they retrieved DNA samples from Maitland’s vehicle but have not revealed if any matches have been made so far. In July of 2016, the farmhouse where her car was found suspiciously burned to the ground. Possibly taking any evidence it held with it.

There are numerous theories out there about what happened to Brianna. One was the theory that Brianna had been held captive in the house that was raided in 2004. Another was an alleged sighting of a woman sitting at a table in a casino video in 2006 in Atlantic City, NJ. The woman in question has never been positively identified. Probably two of the most popular theories came shortly after the disappearance. A serial killer named Israel Keyes was known to have raped and murdered women in Vermont, New York, and the Pacific Northwest. He was ultimately ruled out after committing suicide in Alaska. The final theory is that Brianna’s disappearance may be related to another popular missing person’s case that happened just a month prior in Vermont. Maura Murray went missing one month prior to Brianna. The location of where the two women went missing is only about 90 miles apart. Some theorize that the striking resemblances of both disappearances are linked and possibly committed by the same person or persons. Now, the Vermont state police has partnered with Ortham Labs to help use the DNA found in Maitland’s car. Their goal is to identify the DNA in hopes of getting new leads on what happened to her and who is responsible for her disappearance.

Today Brianna would be 34 years old. At the time of her disappearance, she was between 5’3” and 5’5” tall, weighing between 105 – 118 pounds. She had brown hair and hazel eyes. She had a piercing in her left nostril and a faint scar beginning above her left eyebrow and going to her forehead. If you or someone you know has any information about Brianna Maitland’s disappearance, please contact Vermont State Police at (802) 524-5993. NamUs Case # MP2030.