Brianna Maitland: The Car at the Farmhouse

On March 19, 2004, 17-year-old Brianna Maitland passed her GED exam, went shopping with her mom, and then headed to her evening shift as a dishwasher at the Black Lantern Inn in Montgomery, Vermont. She clocked out at 11:20 PM, told coworkers she needed sleep before her other job the next morning, and walked out to her pale green 1985 Oldsmobile Delta 88. About an hour later, a driver spotted that car backed at high speed into an abandoned farmhouse on East Berkshire Road, its trunk partially inside the structure. Brianna was never seen again.

A Life Built on Independence

Brianna grew up in rural East Franklin, Vermont, near the Canadian border. She was tough, trained in Jiu-Jitsu, and known for her kind-hearted, trusting nature—once picking up a teenage hitchhiker despite her mother’s warnings. She was also fiercely independent. After her parents decided to mend their marriage rather than separate, Brianna moved out on her 17th birthday in October 2003, first staying with a friend, then couch-surfing and living with on-and-off boyfriends. By early 2004, she had settled in with childhood friend Jillian Stout in Sheldon, held down two jobs, and was preparing for her GED. Her friend Shauna Lebelle recalled that Brianna had lost interest in partying and was grounding herself, focused on getting into college.