On the night of March 19, 2004, Brianna Maitland was looking for some rest after finishing her shift washing dishes at an upscale Vermont inn.
She had an early morning shift working at a diner the next day and had to go back to the friend’s house she was staying with at the time to get some sleep. The 17-year-old has spent the past year couchsurfing with her various friends instead of staying at her family’s solar-powered mansion.
Maitland’s co-workers saw her leaving the Black Lantern Inn in Montgomery in a 1985 Oldsmobile 88 on the night of March 19, but she never returned to a friend’s house. There was no.
Later that night, authorities found her car rear-ended into an abandoned farmhouse in a rural area off Route 118, about a mile from the Black Lantern Inn. Mr. Maitland has not been found.
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FBI Special Agent Craig Tremaroli announced a $40,000 reward for information leading to Brianna Maitland’s recovery at a press conference Tuesday. (Vermont State Police)
“March 19th is a very difficult day for me,” his father Bruce Maitland told FOX News Digital. “…I have learned over the years to cope. I miss Brianna so much. I still think of her every day. But…I have to find a way to move forward with my life. not.”
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FBI Special Agent Craig Tremaroli, who heads the Albany, New York, field office, announced Tuesday a $40,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of Maitland’s body.
Brianna Maitland was 17 years old when she disappeared on the night of March 19, 2004. (Facebook)
Bruce Maitland, who now runs Private Investigations for the Missing, an organization that helps families who can’t afford private investigators find their missing loved ones, said he was hoping for a new reward for the case. pointed out the importance of the fact that it does not require arrest and conviction. . Rather, it is provided solely for information that may lead investigators to the daughter’s body.
“Too much time has passed and it’s time to come forward.”
“We will not rest until our partners at the Vermont State Police help bring her home,” Tremaroli said at a news conference, adding that “someone” has information that could help authorities solve the case. He added that there is.
VSP Director Matt Birmingham said: “No tip is too small” regarding the Brianna Maitland case. (Vermont State Police)
VSP remains the lead agency in this case.
“My relationship with the police was very bad at the time, but over the years, the relationship has evolved and the police have evolved,” Bruce said. “They’ve made a lot of changes in some of their research and methods and certainly in the way they deal with parents. …Certainly over the last 17 years…I’ve had a good working relationship with them. I think they have a good working relationship with the parents. They’re doing the best they can.”
A photo of Brianna Maitland as a teenager is juxtaposed with a digital rendering of what she looks like today. (FBI)
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VSP initially believed Maitland may have fled, but later determined she may have been the victim of foul play.
Maitland’s Oldsmobile was in Montgomery, a small town in Vermont near the Canadian border, when her purse, paycheck and other belongings were still in the car.
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“The first person to find the car said the door was open and the headlights were still on,” Bruce explained. “Her belongings were scattered on the ground, so it was clear there were signs of some kind of struggle. Someone had pulled her out of her car.”
“Someone pulled her out of the car.”
Bruce said the back of her daughter’s car had been “slammed” into an old house, “kind of putting her in the direction she was heading.”
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Brianna Maitland’s father suspects there was “some sort of dispute” before his 17-year-old daughter disappeared in March 2004. (FBI)
“So the only way it physically could have happened is that she probably stopped outside the house and then backed into the house,” he said. “I always thought about it myself…that for some reason she was stopped, and then she realized she was in a bad situation and was probably trying to turn the car around and go back to the inn. Maybe. That would have been the smartest thing to do because there were people there. ”
“My own thoughts about it all the time…was that for some reason she was stopped, and then she found herself in a terrible situation.”
Rumors have been circulating in this small town over the years, but there haven’t been many important clues that reveal the full story of what happened to the 17-year-old boy 20 years ago.
Brianna Maitland had only been working two weekends as a dishwasher at Black Lantern at the time of her disappearance. (Google Maps)
“I was always worried about some of her relationships, and [those were] “That was part of what the police initially investigated,” Bruce said, “and I’ve talked to some of those people myself. . . . As it turns out, those people that we originally thought were involved. . . . I can’t believe it anymore.”
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Shortly before her disappearance, the 17-year-old had completed her GED and was out shopping with her mother, Bruce said.
Brianna Maitland’s car was found in an abandoned house in Montgomery, Vermont after she disappeared with her belongings still inside. (FBI)
VSP Maj. Glenn Hall previously told Fox News Digital in 2014 that Maitland had only been working two weekends as a dishwasher at Black Lantern at the time of her disappearance.
State police note on their website that Maitland transferred high schools in the fall of 2004 to be with friends and then couchsurfed with various friends and boyfriends.
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Bruce Maitland described his daughter as “fiercely independent” from an early age. (FBI)
Bruce confirmed this, saying she lived with another friend and at one point with her boyfriend’s grandparents. Bruce said he did the same thing when he was her age, and although he didn’t entirely approve of her lifestyle, he and his wife still He said he made time to visit her daughter several times.
“Brianna has always been very independent.”
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Maitland’s parents have set up a Facebook page titled “Brianna Maitland Missing – Family Page.”
