Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

You have seen established with same anybody, because I've had the entire town of Spring Creek asking me if I've killed Britain, and he might.

As well have.

If you didn't see, I think, well, it's another one.

You knew it was coming right.

This is Sword and Scale episode three hundred and eleven, the show that reveals that the worst busters are real?

Why did I say that so fast?

I still have a little time?

You want to you want to hang out or something?

This episode was written and produced by Elena Thomas, one of our senior producers.

Here towards Scale, I keep meaning to give them credit, but I keep getting bogged down and forget because I have to mention how awesome our plus service is.

If you haven't checked out the app lately, we've made all sorts of improvements, check it out.

Teenagers live in a world of contradictions.

They crave independence, but they lack experience.

That's why they say so many really stupid things on Instagram and Snapchat.

Oh and that Chinese spying app TikTok.

They trust too easily.

Their instincts are still underdeveloped.

It's a stage of life defined by growth, curiosity, and vulnerability.

A time when friendships feel unshakable, but they are shakable, they'll probably end, and most people you talk to right now as a kid won't be around in a couple of years.

It's a time when the world feels safe, but somehow, danger lurks around every corner.

These days, technology is the sun we all seem to orbit around, myself included, and teenagers are uniquely susceptible to both the wonders and the perils technology brings.

Apps like Snapchat promise the allure of privacy, letting users share photos and messages that disappear.

It's no secret this technology seems maliciously marketed towards underage users.

Why would a kid need access to an app with vanishing messages and photos?

Think about it.

It's a disaster waiting to happen.

Your kid buys drugs from someone over Snapchat and overdoses, well, too bad, those messages are gone.

Your kid agrees to meet up with someone in the middle of the night, well you may never find out where they went.

Kids tend to view Snapchat as infallible unless someone takes a screenshot of what you've sent them, and Snapchat does notify both users when that happens.

Teens can sleep easily knowing the photos they've sent or gone forever.

But this is how Snapchat used to work.

Its new features have opened doors for law enforcement.

This hasn't changed how kids interact with the app, though.

I mean, we've said it here a million times.

Kids are dumb.

I don't know any better.

It's interesting when something designed to make things disappear ends up the only witness to a heinous crime.

Spring Creek, Nevada, is a small town in Elko County, near the base of the Ruby Mountains.

It's located in the northeastern quadrant of the state for the population of just over fifteen thousand.

It's a place like so many others we've talked about in past episodes.

Everyone knows each other, everyone looks out for each other, blah blah blah, all that.

To the people of Spring Creek.

Danger is something that exists in other towns, not theirs.

For sixteen year old high schooler Brittany Ulicky and her family, Spring Creek was home.

Brittany was a bright, social teenager who loved working on the ranch almost as much as she loved hanging out with her friends.

Her mom, Alicia, worked as a nurse, often pulling long shifts, while her dad, Jim, a local musician, played shows with his band.

Though Alicia and Jim were divorced, they stayed connected through their kids, sharing a sense of pride in Brittany's growing independence.

But on Sunday, March eighth, twenty twenty, the routine predictability of Spring Creek life shattered.

The day started, like many others, Brittany spent the morning in nearby Elco at her dad's band practice, a regular event.

She was supposed to be spending the night at his place.

Brittany was good about checking in with her parents regularly.

Jim said, no matter what, Brittany called me every hour.

It was a little after three thirty PM when Brittany left band practice.

She told her dad that she had caught a ride, and they laughed about how Brittany would end up beating him home.

Later on, when Jim got in his truck to head back and called his daughter to let her know he was on his way, Brittany's phone went straight to voicemail.

At first, Jim tried to stay calm.

Maybe Brittany's phone battery died, or maybe she was home banger watching TV.

But when he arrived and found the house empty, he called her again and again and again.

By the third time, the unease was hard to ignore.

Meanwhile, Alicia was experiencing her own growing panic.

By the next morning, Alicia assumed Jim had called the police and made a report himself, but she discovered that he hadn't.

He's just very friendly.

When coming to Sure.

Okay, so is it son or daughter?

Daughter?

Yeah?

Okay, what is daughter's name?

Brittany?

We get a finished her name Britany.

She was supposed to be going home yesterday.

She was in town with her dad, okay, and she got her She told her him, I'm going to get a ride home with a friend.

I'll beat you home, and he says you better beat me because I'll be there in an hour.

And she goes, We're going right home, talking about coming here.

Do you know her dad lives in Southwark?

We're split up?

Okay, I don't know.

Her friend that had her I talked to him.

He dropped her off at the high school down here at four o'clock with some.

Guy, and I go, what guy?

And he goes, I don't know.

She just said my new friend, tall white, cowboy looking guy with a great drug and now no, we can find her.

No, no, her friends, her phone's not.

On Okay, I don't know where to did do?

So I have to ask the glurying question, when did you guys become extremely worried that she was missing?

I mean, because we're talking about now quite a long period of time between when she got dropped off with this male and I was.

On it last night.

Her dad was supposed to calling in any I asked heim this morning, did the cops?

Did you make the report?

And who's no?

So I made up all night.

Okay, so you assumed that dad was doing what you're doing.

Okay.

There are a million different possibilities in a situation like this.

Law enforcement has to get a good picture of what kind of team they're dealing with so they can decide whether this is a runaway or whether they're in Amber alert territory.

By the way, they were desperate to find Brittany.

Does she go here to Spring Creek High School?

She's actually doing homeschool.

Okay, she's got a lot of enemies, and I'm scared.

She has a lot of enemies.

Why would you say.

That she just does not in school?

Everybody wants the last time she went to a Rodier skeed jump by four girls, and I just I'm just.

You guys weren't in a fight or anything like that.

There'll be no reason for her to rebel or stay out.

No, I mean, I got lots of problems with her anyway, because she's seventeen, are almost seventeen, and Jesus, but.

Yesterday, in the last few days, we've been in a really good mole.

I talked to her FaceTime for an hour at like one point thirty.

Are youth English?

Just fine, stretches, happy, go lucky.

Everything was good.

Alicia's mother and grandmother wondered out loud whether there were any security cameras in the parking lot when Brittany was dropped off and got into that green pickup truck.

The eighteen year old boy, a close family friend, said that he had left Brittany in the Spring Creek High School lot at her request.

And all we know is that it was a marine truck.

We know nothing else about the individual.

No, the boy.

Said it was an ugwig green from the Earth two thousand.

Bryce Dicky is the kid that dropped her off.

Person that we know of that her.

I'm going to take this.

I'm going to get her entered, and then I'm going to go speep with my supervisor and see what the next course of action is going to be.

Okay, okay.

The next day, police worked a track down all of Britney's friends, including the one who had dropped her off at the high school parking lot, eighteen year old Bryce Dicky.

Bryce was out of town with his mom for some doctor's appointments, so detectives first spoke with him over the phone and later met up with him at the same parking lot that he left Brittany at the day before.

Hey, Bryce, I appreciate me there, so can tell me run me through so I can understand what's going on.

So I'm gonna stand in the shade over here for your wants, all right.

So Sunday round eleven, I started texting, got a few texts from Brittany and just asked her if I wanted to hang out.

I said sure, got ready and stuff.

Told me she could meet me at Angel Park because she said her dad was doing and practice, and then I went to town, called her when I got into town on fifth, and then picked her up at Angel Park.

Kept driving around and then we were over in the horsebow session and my dad called me, asking if I did come back home, so I told her I needed to go.

Pasked her if she wanted me to just drop her back off at Angel Park, and she said that she wanted to meet to drop her off at the high school to meet her new friend, and said her dad he was going to pick her up later.

So then came over here, pulled in right over there, give her a hug and stay, and then she got out.

I pulled out and then started hitting that way, and the F one fifty was over there, but I didn't know that was where she was going at that time.

They were both standing outside the truck.

And then I got to the turnout right over there by the middle school, and then that that F one fifty was in motion.

So you said, what was the F one fifty?

Yeah, it was the tritons, the ones that are really ugly looking up the sidestepping.

Uh, like that winter green, dark forest green, like a dark forest green.

Price's account matched what Britney's family had recounted from their conversation with them.

He talked about a green truck, an ugly one from the early two thousands, a toolbox and stickers on the rear window.

It looked decently dirty, but just like about as much as.

That the truck is right there, a typical truck.

That a typical spring treat to the truck, yeah, and then had a silver toll box in the bed, had stickers on the back window, but I didn't see it.

Any of them wore with such a clear and descriptive lead.

This case was about to move very quickly, but no one was less prepared for how everything would pan out than Brittany's mother, Alicia.

Brittany was always a very fiery, full of energy, funky little girl.

And she was always so full of passion right from the get go, you know what I mean.

She was just this.

Little ball of fire, light and just fun, you know, a very good girl.

She was born in Colorado Springs and we lived there for a while, and then we made the move over here to Elko because her dad got hired at the gold mines over here.

She would have been eight, so we made the.

Move over here which was exciting for me at first because.

I grew up over here, I went to high school over here.

We went to the same I went to Spring Creek High School, so it was kind of exciting, and I thought, oh, this will be fun.

This is such a safe.

Place, and the opportunities are going to be great over here for us.

And we came over here with a lot of high hopes.

The activities Elko County had to offer.

Spoke to Brittany.

She loved being surrounded by the mountains and the desert.

She instantaneously grabbed onto the bukaroo cowboy lifestyle of this place, you know, and that was her lifestyle.

That was her friend group, you know, just all a bunch of the kids that liked to ride horses and participate in rodeo.

And you know, Brittany was a real deal cowgirl on the ranch.

And there was no trophies, there was no judges, but there was you know what I mean.

She was a little bit more.

She wasn't an arena cowgirl.

Was just put it that way.

Brittany had a big personality, but deep down she was steady and determined.

She had plans for her future and worked hard to make them happen, surprising people with how driven she could be.

But public school wasn't easy for her because she had severe dyslexia and some issues with bullying.

Brittany's parents decided to pull her out just before her junior year and.

Homeschooler, and she was thriving.

She was on track to graduate early.

The Navy recruiters had definitely got to her, which I was not winning that argument with her because she was full steam ready to go.

But I'm telling you, she was so strong, you know what I mean, and like she would come and do more pull ups than the recruiter and he was just like oly cow kid, you know.

So she was on track.

She was going to graduate a year early.

She was going to join the Navy, and you know she.

Was doing it despite the hurdles.

Brittany wasn't one to give up.

Staying on track to graduate early while dealing with severe dyslexia is no small feat.

I feel like we were handling it really well.

We were adapting to the situation.

Things were going good, and then that day happened.

You know, I just blew everything up.

We were a very normal whatever you want called normal.

We're a very average family, you know what I mean, And then to have something like this come and happen is just unbelievable.

Everyone depended on Bryce to recall every detail of that day.

From Alicia's perspective, if Brittany had been abducted and was taken out of state, his description of the man and vehicle could be their only shot at finding her.

So I got a.

Little bit of the story as to what your involvement was, but I'm not clear on a lot of things, and I'm just trying to do the best job that i can do.

So so hopefully you ask you a question that you would like perfect.

Man, Thank you very much.

Now, what was kind of the nature of that conversation?

What's your relationship with her?

Brittany has been one of my closest friends since probably my seventh or eighth grade year.

Oh, because you known each other for a well yeah, okay, okay, And that.

Was one of the issues we had with the previously, is I think we're going over because there a phone in her name and my phone is little siss because she's called.

Me a big brother since freshman year.

And then he kept asking me, well, if she's your little assist, why didn't you know her better?

Because there was questions of that I.

Didn't know the answer to.

We won't make you sit through the whole story again.

But Bryce rec picking up Brittany at Angel Park.

They drove around for a while, and he details her routes and stops for detectives.

He says his dad called telling him to come home.

Brittany was on the phone in the passenger seat before asking Bryce to drop her off at the high school to meet a friend.

She gave him a hug, walked towards the green truck, and Bryce drove away.

And right before I got out.

And looked back over and I just saw her over at the f one fifty with someone that was it.

Could you see the type of clothing or anything on?

And nothing specific that I could just and was it a white head?

Black head?

It didn't look light, so I didn't don't think it was a straw happen.

I mean, they do make black straw hats like that.

So by this point, Bryce and some of Brittany's other friends had been out searching for one of the officers actually crossed path with a vehicle of kids as they drove around scouring the town and surrounding desert.

Bryce was the only one who knew what this guy looked like, though the line of sight he had from the gas station across the street gave him a vague picture of who was now known as the mysterious cowboy in the green truck.

Was there any conversation when you picked I'm sure there was conversation, But was there any conversation that kind of sticks out in your mind?

When you picked her up?

I had a ton of conversations.

There was a few because the coups had previously asked me if she was said anything about going anywhere.

Besides she said that she was planning and going to Texas after the summer with her friend.

You keep in contact with her pretty regularly even though she wasn't at school, or is it just kind of.

Kind of.

Talk to her a couple couple of times a week?

Okay?

Now, then the reason I'm asking, man, is, did she say anything about anyone that she was having problems with, or any people that she was interested in or anything like that.

We all knew she was talking with some guy that we think was in New York, but I mean she'd be talking to him for a while.

Okay, says that my Kaid told everyone knows a lot of people had problems with Brittany, but nothing that we would see this outcome.

Sure sure will openly be okay.

It sounded like Brittany might have been talking to a stranger online, one that she may have actually met up with.

Luckily, Spring Creek High School was right in town, and though there were no security cameras on the building itself, there were numerous businesses with a view of the parking lot.

Surely one of them had some helpful footage.

Brittany's friends and family tried not to lose hope, but the signs weren't looking good.

To make matters worse, her phone had been inactive this entire time.

And it's interesting that that's when me and Jimple are alarmed.

I started going off and we were starting to you know, and for Brittany, her phone was never off.

She was a little social media junkie if.

You well, you know what I mean.

It was all about snapchat selfy.

So it just got really, really really scary that her phone, you know, kept going off.

And then added into the fact that Dicky had told my son, well, I dropped her off with somebody you know what I mean.

So my brain is going, holy shit, somebody grabbed my daughter, you know what I mean, and they are they trafficked her?

There what something?

You know what I mean.

That's the thought that went through my head.

And because I was like, I don't I don't care if she didn't run away, If putting her as a runaway puts her in the system.

Fine she ran away.

Just get her in the system.

Something is wrong, you know, something is wrong.

A parent's intuition is very real.

It was just after five pm on March eighth, the day Brittany disappeared, when her phone pinged off a cell phone tower for the last time.

Investigators chose to keep this crucial information to themselves, with holding it not just from the public, but even from Brittany's parents.

This final ping gave detectives a defined area to search.

Then, on March eleventh, two days after Brittany was officially reported missing, they found something.

When sixteen year old Brittany Yuliki went missing, Spring Creek, Nevada, was suddenly a town full of questions.

Her parents, Alicia and Jim, were desperate for answers, and as words spread, the search for Brittany pulled in nearly everyone in the town.

She was tough, outspoken, and more at home on horseback than anywhere else.

But on March eighth, twenty twenty, she wasn't on the ranch.

She was in town, spending the afternoon with a friend, Bryce Dickie.

According to Bryce, he dropped her off at Spring Creek High School so she could meet someone.

A cowboy in a green four f one fifty pretty generic description if you ask me.

Then again, I live in Texas, So there's that.

That was the last time anyone saw.

Three days later, at one fifty in the afternoon, two men called nine one they had found what they thought might be a body near Berner Basin, a remote stretch of land between Elco and Spring Creek.

It looks like.

Looks like estavity in the dark.

That's it.

I'm pretty sure that's.

Our drag mark there.

All right, Well, I stopped right here.

He barked right there where he's at.

I stopped and I backed up right there.

So I don't know, guys, do the tire prance and all that or if that's all?

Yeah, well, shoot, we'll get a statement from you guys here in a second.

So all.

I we'll find out that, but.

First glance doesn't look good.

Drag mark right there.

Uh huh.

See, yeah, that's up.

Well that's the ten ninety two.

That's a body.

Yeah, let's get out.

Yep.

I'd like to see enough right now.

It looks like a girl's handless back out.

Nobody needed autopsy results to know who this was.

Brittany's partially clothed body was found lying in the desert sand and brush.

Someone had tried to cover her up with a tarp, but they didn't do a very good job.

There was blood evidence and even drag marks leading from the roadway to her final resting place.

Police collected a condom wrapper, a used condom, a pair of air pods, and a lanyard of keys with the name Brittany on it.

Just like the information about the phone ping.

Detectives decided to keep these discoveries to themselves, aside from Brittany's family.

After all, their interview process was far from over.

But I got a call that on Wednesday that you know, I needed to go down from my interview.

You know, they were going to dump my phone.

You know, it's a full on forensic interview at this point.

Apparently too, because that's when I got that scam phone call about we've got your daughter, We've kidnapped her.

She's not doing well from the drugs that we used, and she's going to die.

And if you don't send me twenty five hundred dollars, I'm in a feeder to my dogs.

What kind of sick person messes with the mind of a grieving parent like that.

I mean, Jesus Christ, is the Internet toxic?

Some of you people need to just be put down.

I think it's because I had put the missing poster out on some of these social media groups that I had that I knew would be more far reaching than the posters I just had here.

And I'll go because, like I said, I figured somebody had grabbed her, was on the road with her.

Somebody got ahold of the poster and got my number.

YEP.

And it was awful because as these messages are coming in, part of you is telling yourself, this is completely illogical, you know, I mean, this isn't But the other part of you is just panicking, going you know.

So I remember the detective Steake and and I want to say FBI agent was at my house that night trying to tap into this number or whatever.

And the next morning, when I was in there waiting for my interview to start, they started texting again, saying, I told you you know that whatever, we're going to kill her now.

And I'm just panicking in the waiting room, and so they said, well, we're going to take your phone anyway.

You know, they were going to do what they do with the phones anyway.

Then I went into the interview room and yeah, that's when he was just asking tons of questions.

And then he got up to leave, and he had.

Been gone for way too long, and I was I remember sitting there thinking to myself, God, I do not have time for this police interviewed tactic shit where you're trying to leave me in here to make me nervous.

Dude, I need to get out there at buying my kid.

Could you hurry this along?

I remember thinking that.

And then that's when he came back in and had told me, Hey, I got to talk to you, you know what I mean.

And he told me that they found a body.

He didn't even say my daughter's body.

He just said we found a body.

And that's the last thing I remember.

To be honest, I didn't remember anything about that until I watched the footage that they had of that, because I just I do remember going to the ground, and then the next thing I remember, I was sitting in the parking lot outside of the sheriff station on the ground, and I just remember just sirens and cop cars just flying past me on both sides, and then Buyer Department running up to me and putting me in an ambulance, and I was telling no, no, no.

No, no, I gotta go, I gotta go.

I gotta go find my son.

And they tapped the blood pressure being and they says, no.

No, honey, you're trying to have a stroke on me.

And they hit something in my arm and I woke up seven hours later.

When the tarp was removed, it was clear that what Brittany had gone through was horrendous.

She was face down in the dirt, with her hair splayed around her head in all directions.

Her pants and underwear had been pulled to her ankles, and her sweatshirt was pushed above her chest.

An autopsy revealed ligature marks around her neck and a fatal stab wound in the center of her neck, just above her collarbone.

By this point, footage of the high school parking lot was in and had been scrubbed for evidence, and one clip showed a dark colored truck with a silver toolbox in it.

Detectives printed out photos of all the vehicles that even loosely fit Bryce's description and line them up in front of them.

Then, sitting in the same interview chair that Alicia was interviewed in, Bryce took them back through the whole story once again.

So you're with Brittany on the eve, just talking through that from the beginning to the end.

Probably around eleven or so, started texting and she says she was in town Fordud's band practice and then.

Asked upon to hang out.

So got ready bent the town around one and then.

On the right over the fifth Street bridge, turned on the silver and called her.

She wanted me to pick her up at Angel Park, so she said she was.

Going to walk down, So I called her, got to Angel Park, picked her up, and then drove around town because we had no idea what we were wanting to do, and then my dad six and asking if I would come home, So I asked her.

She wanted me to drop her back off at the Angel Park or take her herd at band practice.

And then she got on her phone for a minute or so, and.

Then just as I could drop her off at the high school, and then pulled into the high school.

And that's when I actually drove right past that.

I find didn't realize that's why I was dropping her office.

Bryce had not mentioned this part before.

So pulled in front of high school, I gave her a hud, dropped her off, and I was.

Already pulling back off.

You when she's welcome back over there from fifty and then right about here, that is when you look back here and you saw Brittany standing over here and he said he was outside too.

Yeah, okay, and this is about where the truck was, Yeah, correctly.

And what time did you say this was about that you.

Dropped about I think it was for thirty thinks.

I literally just looked in my very mirror when I got there, and I just saw him and bringing outside the truck.

Okay, So when you saw both of them stand next to the truck, did you see the truck too or yeah?

I could.

I could see the truck, but also my mirrors on my Chevy er pretty worn, so it's not the best of the use.

If I recall you said something about your dad had called or something.

Yeah, he texted me.

Okay, so he texted you and that was to do that car or something.

Yeah, okay, So what what happened after that?

I just went straight back home.

And then.

That's why I had timeline after that for me, like starting to help coping, because the.

Questioned me after I left the high school.

I think I got on my phone for once.

In I was just at my dad's for about an hour and a half, I think, and then went over to my mom's house.

My parents are spit.

Even though everyone else had been through the same rigorous interview process, being asked to retell his story so many times made Bryce feel like he was in the hot seat.

In a Snapchat message thread with a mutual friend of his and Brittany's, he shared his fears.

Remember, at this point, nobody but her family knew that Britney's body had been found.

I just got interrogated for what the Britney shit?

What they ask you literally everything, like every goddamn inch of that day.

Damn, you're not in trouble though, are you not?

Right now?

But he was really digging like I did something to her.

It was a legit interrogation had me freaked out.

Dude, you and her are like dumb and dumber.

There's no way you would ever hurt her.

Yeah, he saw that her name in my phone was little Sis, and he kept questioning me about it, and it seemed like he was making it sound like I wasn't close to her and that it was suspicious.

Did you have an alibi for after you got home?

Sort of?

But I don't even remember what time I got home.

I wasn't on my phone at all.

Do you think she would run away?

Honestly?

No, but I don't know.

I'm at a loss right now.

We all kind of are.

Nothing seems to make sense at all.

My mom's friend is a sheriff, and she's asked him if he thinks that when she gets found, if she'll be found alive, and he said yes, I believe very much.

So well, that's relieving.

Yeah, I don't think she's dead somewhere.

Either someone's holding her somewhere or she really just up and left.

I'm sure she'll turn up.

It'll just take time, I sure hope.

So he probably came into the picture where I can really remember it, probably about eighth ninth grade.

He had been in my house multiple times, and I remember my first impression, which I don't think now, but as I used to just think, Oh, look at what a shy little kid he is, because he just kind of look at his feet.

He'd never really look up.

You know.

It's not so different with some of these little cowboy kids.

You know, a little shy cowboy guy kicking his boots looking down, you know.

And that's kind of what I thought it was.

He always had her home when she was supposed to be home, Like there was there was a weird pattern of trusts, I guess, because so many times he would be he would make sure that she was home exactly when they said they were going to be home, and you know what I mean, So there was a there was a trust there.

Brittany was not a boy crazy girl in any way, shape or form.

She just didn't have time for that.

Yet.

I'm not saying that wouldn't have come.

But again, there was nothing special about Dickie.

She was just a sweet soul and she would do things for people that like, he couldn't even be in the main building at school.

He had to be in the trailers because you know what I.

Mean, he couldn't get to school.

He was having all these troubles, so he was all on his own, isolated out in these.

Trailers to go to school.

And Britney would feel bad about it, and she'd be like, oh man, Mom, can you get me a blue gatorade.

And some and a pizza so I could take it to him so that he can have a good day, you know what I mean.

But that was just Britney.

Behind the scenes.

While keeping Britney's death, the findings of the surveillance footage and other key pieces of evidence secret police, we're also using snapchat, of all things to paint a picture of Britney's final moments.

Geolocation data showed both Brittany and Bryce at the Berner Basin Spot, a location off of Boyd Kennedy Road, at around four thirty pm.

Bryce had not mentioned this trip during any of his interviews.

Soon enough, the discovery of Britney's body was publicized, and her friends and family set with the reality that she was gone forever.

I can't believe this.

I don't know what to think or say or do.

I'm so sorry, Bryce.

I just found out.

I love you.

If you need anything, text me, I'm so sorry this happened.

I have a lot of regrets that I can't take back, and that's on me.

But I hope you guys don't blame me.

If so, then you have the right to.

But thank you for being here for me.

It means the world.

Bryce.

We definitely do not blame you one bit.

None of this is your fault, none of it.

The only one who is at fault is whoever did this to her.

We love you too, Bud.

Keep your head up.

We're here for you no matter what.

If you need anything, you know how to get a hold of us.

Stay strong.

They'll find who did this.

Yeah, I'm not letting my girl go anywhere alone.

I'm having her friend at work walk her to her truck at night because I trust him.

On Facebook, where the Cattle Run Free, Bryce posted this yesterday, we all received news that made us hit the floor.

At around eight in the morning, we all started meeting up at my house to grieve and mourn Brittany's life, which was taken far too soon.

That day, I had tears of pain and joy.

I wish she could have seen the amount of us that came together to honor you.

Sis.

We love you so much.

Just know you won't ever be forgotten.

Me and Jim had actually we took the dress and the boots down to the funeral home that she was going to be cremated in, and we had just dropped him off, and we were driving home and Nick called me and he said, Alicia, there will be an arrest within the next three hours.

He goes, whatever time it was right, and he goes.

Can you meet me at the station in such and such time?

And still didn't tell me anything.

Still did not tell me anything.

I had no idea he had been arrested until I got down there.

To the station that day.

I had no idea that he had arrested him.

No, one did not yet Anyway, She was mourning, trying to hold on to what little she had left of her daughter.

But as they drove toward the police station, drawing closer to that cramped interview room, Bryce Dickey was losing his grip.

Every lie he told was turning against him, suffocating him.

He tried to hold the story together, but much like the rest of his life, it was already starting to fall apart.

Eighteen year old Bryce Dickie had spent days weaving a story, a good one, too.

He lied effortlessly, which is amazing on those interviews, convincing Britney's friends and family that he was just as desperate to find her as they were.

But behind closed doors, detectives weren't buying it, and they had this feeling since the very beginning.

Snapchat geelocation data had placed him near Berner Basin, the place where Britney's body was found.

At the time, he claimed he had already dropped her off with a cowboy in a green truck.

Surveillance footage contradicted his timeline, and one by one, his lies collapsed.

After hours in the interrogation room, his explanations were no longer cutting it.

He wasn't dealing with the alkopd anymore either.

He had entered into the big leagues and now Bryce Dickey had nowhere to run.

If you could say something that Britany, what would you say?

I love you?

Maybe the first thing I would saying about the second, I'm sorry because myself for this, even though what we're.

Playing myself, I mean, I know that I didn't know what was going to happen, but I am.

I'm the last one that even sorr before she's dead.

No, just out of curiosity and promise won't tell your girlfriend.

Had you ever been time?

I got that question the last two times.

Brittany and I have never been an intimate anyway.

I mean, like a lot of people get.

Their wrong attentions because I mean do with all my friends, but like calling females.

My female friends love and stuff like that.

But that's just kind of the way I was raised in a sense, the grammar wise, But Brittany and I have and I have never had relationship or had been intimate.

And that's why my girlfriend was comfortable with her.

Has never started with me or anything like that.

Did you really want to be No?

Never, I never had that honorge or anything.

I literally saw Brittany as my little sister.

Then they confronted Bryce with the discrepancies between his statements and what surveillance footage revealed.

An image is worth a thousand words and possibly a conviction or two.

He had repeatedly told investigators that he picked Brittany up at Angel Park at one thirty PM, but the cameras told a different story, showing her getting into his truck two hours later at around three point thirty pm.

Not only that, but surveillance footage showed that Bryce's truck with Brittany still inside, never stopped at the high school parking lot, where he aimed she got out and got into that green F one fifty.

Instead, the truck drove right past the school and continued down BOYD Kennedy Road.

What was that at the end of that road?

You might wonder, well, Berner Basin, wonder.

If I told you we had surveillance British that a period of truck kept going out for Kenny Road.

Okay, Well, here's the thing.

If you're sitting here talking, I just want to clear this up.

Okay, I just.

Want to clear everything up and get.

Your explanation for this, okay, because you seem like you say, we didn't sitting here chatting and stuff like that, okay, And I just want to kind of help you through this so that way we can kind of explain myself, okay.

Okay, So with these you could kind of see from my perspective when I'm living at this what that looks like.

Right, Yeah, I can see.

I'm I can't remember.

I got startled after the the third cop I talked to them that called me down to the high school because called me a liar about three times and.

Kept asking me if I killed Britney.

So okay, and it honestly startled the ship animal and I don't want to I know, I mean, only been eighteen for a little bit now, but I know I'm eighteen now, so even.

Changing a little bit on the story isn't a big thing.

Well, it is good, okay, That's why I'm trying to sort through it.

Okay.

So when he talked to me, I went down Boyd a little bit but not far, and then I took that.

First left off of the Boyd Kennedy which goes straight back to the right to the bottom of the trailer session, and then I went back to the high school being that boy kind of you at the same time, which wouldn't miss it worried me because I didn't want I I lied because I was scared of people think he is, which a lot of problems understanding person, yeah, which honestly scares me.

But I see that there's issues with me, honest.

And let everything out.

Bryce looks uncomfortable at this point.

He's picking at his fingernails and looking down at his feet.

If we couldn't see that he's sitting inside of an interrogation room.

You'd almost think he's one of those shy cowboy types.

I kind of have, like a said, little thing of loops that I do when I get more dragon on the screen creak so and that's one of the ones that I do a lot of.

And but being so close to him, being on what Kennedy and this is, people were saying that's where she went missing.

I kind of got scared.

I have one other constauant.

Okay, okay, And like I said, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on, and I just want Okay, you located.

Some items or item.

Okay, do you have any idea what that item might be left?

Okay?

What if I told you to have both yours and.

Britney's DNA a decade?

I don't have any idea.

Now it's the time to be the truthful.

I'm being a hundred percent sir.

I don't know what you're referring to.

And you told me before that you and Brittany had never been intimate in a sexual way.

Okay, what if I said I had evidence, it shows that that might not be accurate either.

I'm not lying.

I've never kissed, I've never had sex with Brittain, I says, hugging, and that's I've never had sex or any intimate.

Relationship with Brittany.

Okay.

Have you ever watched TV and seen DNA comparisons?

I mean, I've watch your term shows, but I haven't really paid attention to it.

So you gave a DNA sample a way, Yes, we found a condom, all right, and we found Brittany, and we have Brittay's DNA we have already.

It can be it is I I've never had sex with Brittany.

I swear I've never had sex with Brittany.

Okay.

So then explained to me, I don't I don't know.

I'm freaking out right now because I've never had sex with Brittany.

Okay.

I've never had sense to me how I condom as your DNA and side on the outside.

There could be no other explanation for something like that.

I'm going to say, the evil that he is, I think he thought about it for a while.

I think that's why they got him on premeditated too, because I think that I absolutely think he thought about it.

I had heard some weird stories about his journals.

I never continued to like ask or push for them.

But now I think he's a sick six son of a bitch, and I think he sat and probably thought about it and fantasized about it a lot.

I want to hear one of these sick puppies poems.

Of course you do, because you're also sick puppy, and that's probably why you're here.

This lovely passage is called the sick truth.

Okay, so you ready, There we go.

I'm laying in the dark of night.

My mind is fighting, turning my thoughts into a game like Russian Roulette, slowly pulling its trigger, trigger, trigger, waiting for the moment the fight will end.

I hate the way I feel tonight.

I open my eyes, yet nothing changes.

I hear him screaming in my dreams, that dream in my head.

But wait, I'm awake.

It's me, it's me, it's me, I am screaming.

The gun didn't kill me, It only stirred the pot.

Now the demons have awoken.

They will no longer lurk in the dark.

They crawl out of my dream and into day, a predator hunting my actions.

I turned my cheek to pretend it's not there.

He's waiting for me.

To slip.

My weakness feeds the beast, for each step I take is filled with fear.

Help me, please, I'm begging.

I know you can't hear me screaming.

I can't startle the demons, but I'm leaving you a trail of breadcrumbs.

You won't see it, though, will you.

I'll have to fight this day by my own persistence.

My silence is not a phase.

It's me hiding.

Thank you for teaching me what it's like to feel, to have nights screaming like I'm dying, learning how to put a mask over my drained body.

Without you, I wouldn't no pain.

But while everyone's moving on, I still hold my sights on the back of your skull.

Goal go slowly squeezing the trigger, waiting for the moment the pain will unfold.

They will not understand why I pulled it.

I was not an action of easy consequence.

In the end, your breath was far too much to take.

I hope it was worth it, because now we shall both be on our sentence to hell.

And some of you call me edgy.

The closest thing that we could compare him to is Dahmer.

He's that sick he's that twisted.

He's a necrophiliac.

He's a control freak, you know.

Okay, so maybe he liked girls.

But the level of disgusted twistedness is Jeffrey Dahmer level with dot kid.

Well, you know, I know as our mother, you know, I think backwards in time, and when she would see things on TV, she would tell me, I just want you to know that if anybody tries to rape me, they will kill me because they'll never rate me.

And he absolutely desecrated her dead body, which blows the defense's theory out of the water.

And I think that I think.

Actually that's what happened because the defense was running with this theory.

Well there was no tearing or there was no you know, the normal signs of rape and are phenomenal DA because he's amazing.

I think he stood up and he asked one question and he goes.

My question is if the you know, the person is decease when those kinds of things happen.

She's like, nope, absolutely not.

So absolutely I will peg him to the world as a necrophiliac.

Answer a question, I going to get a confession.

I'm trying to figure out how your DNA gone on a condom on the inside that has her DNA on the inside.

I need to figure out what.

Happened with that condom.

Our job is to work.

Is hard to prove innocence as it is good if you need to do this.

What works in the end of the earth to prove that you needn't do this, But that requires.

Honesty on your end, because the stuff we have indicates hasn't been there.

Bryce ends up telling detectives that Brittany performed oral sex while they were in the truck and when she was done, she threw the condom out the window.

This was another lie, of course.

When I was at the scene with Brittain, I found a condom where one of our people found a condom that was you know, Brittany was at.

And there was also a common after that was on the roadway as well.

In that commum that I told you about is much closer to where Brittany was found.

And this is not where Brittany was fout.

Okay, I just told you.

I just want to try.

I'm telling the truth.

That is where I That's where it happened.

What happened for Brittany and my head.

I don't know if it's count of sex.

I think it's a sexual acts.

So that is where Brittany and I had sex, and then straight after I went straight to the trailer section and that was that was it, okay?

And did you ever have any sort of intercourse or or otherwise anywhere else with Britain?

Just just the blow job that was since like two maybe three kisses, and that was about it.

Honestly, there wasn't my sheep.

It was almost didn't seem real in a sense because she literally just asked if I wasn't a blow drop.

It did not quite seem real almost.

That's because it wasn't real, duh.

Her testing her friend actually did happen.

And she asked me to drop her off with somebody I don't know who it was, and he actually had met us on Voyd and I didn't actually meet the guy or anything.

I get through this together.

Everything everything mess ups on the timeline is true.

That was the exact same track that I saw.

I honestly couldn't tell you how the gut was that close to Brittany's body.

I don't know how that happened, because Brittany was still alive by the time.

I dropped her off on the road with whe the guy was.

I just wasn't thinking at all and I dropped her off and we just drew her off price.

Okay, I'll let you look at from my perspective.

Okay, you've told us several different versions.

Okay, do you really expect me to believe that you met a die after you.

Guys had had sex and you just dropped.

Britain off with him and you don't know who that was?

You're you're a smart guy.

I'm a smart guy.

Okay, I have it, but I honestly don't know who is.

So I need you.

Okay, you just think about it from my perspective.

When we started out today, I just I just wanted to tru okay, and then the story changed.

The story has changed it again, the stories.

Even after being called out for changing his story so many times, Bryce was about to do it again.

What a fucking idiot.

He points his guilty finger directly at an innocent kid named Chaz Randall.

Poor Chazz didn't even know we gave it was.

Back in town.

It was the Chaz random is the one I picked her up.

I swear, I swear it was Jazz rand That kid's kind of distinguishable.

So you're telling the jazz Randall that you're on the road.

I told you what and you've known the chance, random Brittany, and you're just waiting to say something.

Do you love yourself as a person to see who are alive?

You expects us to believe that you might be I was the last person to see you alive.

I put myself in that position, and I'm going to stay here for a week and a half letting you what to think.

I was the last one to see you alive when I know who's the last person your live?

Do you think we're going to believe that you're smarter than that?

I that's okay.

You guys are just looking for a confession.

I'm looking for the fast matchup.

What facts don't match up?

Right now?

Okay?

I think you know I don't like it lost.

Do you think we've been doing nothing for the last week?

No?

I think you guys are working to a ton of people.

Your name is kind of a lot, and the conversations they've had with you, but your story is to us don't And.

I don't know how that is.

So you're what's that nice to believe that you drop her off?

And her body and appear where the kind and by some strange frequency.

I did not kill.

Brittany, but I imagine being in my position trying to explain.

This if you she ended up dead, but I realized she disappeared on the eighth.

You've been sitting in this knowledge without saying.

Because I've had the entire town of Spring Creek asking me if I've killed Brittany.

And you might as well have if you didn't see it, I think.

Okay, sorry, Yeah, So this is the story that you're gonna still with.

Sir.

Fee.

It was March nineteenth, twenty twenty eleven, days after Brittany's disappearance and her killer was finally in handcuffs.

The people closest to Brittany had trusted Bryce.

They trusted this kid.

He'd been part of their lives, part of their search, and part of their grief.

But looking back, perhaps some had felt it that's something just wasn't right.

Jim tells me that he was instantly suspicious of him.

I don't know why I wasn't.

I just guess they just lived in this fantasy world, which.

Is maybe partly why I want to do her story so much.

As people need to understand that you need to have a little bit of healthy dose of reality and fear, you know what I mean, and maybe question people more than I did, because I had I didn't think he had it in him.

Most people were blindsided by the arret, especially Bryce and Britney's mutual friends.

Bryce couldn't read a snapchat messages behind bars, but his phone was digging away with an onslaught of verbal attacks.

If words are violence, which they're not, by the way, then this was an outright execution.

You're a serious piece of shit.

We were all there for you, cried with you, and all you did was play us all like a fucking puppet master.

All I can say is, don't ever dare to show your face in this town again.

I think I didn't.

I think I didn't know what to say.

I think I probably sat quiet for that whole night because I just couldn't.

I just couldn't.

Bathom what I had just been told, you know what I mean, Because first off, you should have seen that little girl throw a haybell.

And I don't know if you've picked up a haybell, but them things suck heavy.

She could throw him, you know what I mean?

Like he probably truly had to think about how he was going to come at her so that he could get the upper hand, because this little girl was no weak little girl, and Dicky was a geek that had get his ass kicked by anybody.

I still don't understand.

His body type is unathletic and dowe and weak.

I still don't understand.

The only thing I can think of is it was she was taken by such surprise, and I guarantee who came from behind, you know, because she had his DNA under all ten of her fingernails.

As you know that all ten of her fingernails had his DNA under them.

So she fought, but he managed to keep out.

Like sometimes I wish that we could go back and make him take his shirt off in those first couple interviews with you know what I mean, because I would love to have seen where she got him, because she got him, you know what I mean.

She got him.

Bryce Dickey was booked and charged with first degree murder and sexual assault with a deadly weapon.

There was no bail set.

Bryce, who was almost certainly cooking up another story to explain away Brittany's death, pleaded not guilty.

No surprise, there Why would you take accountability, you fucking psychopath.

At trial, Bryce's mother, Cynthia, was served with a subpoena to testify against her son.

She shared that Bryce had been seeing a counselor for bipolar disorder and depressive tendencies, but he wasn't on medication.

It's hard to feel sympathy for the killer's parents, but I mean, what else could you do.

You're seeking treatment for your son.

You're doing all the right things, and sometimes that's just not enough.

Bryce's ex girlfriend also testified that he choked her during sex without consent on multiple occasions.

They were clues, but they were scattered and probably kept private.

Though it was probably uncomfortable for Bryce to sit through his former loved ones making a case against his character, no one was more unhappy about having to endure a trial than Britney's parents.

Jim and Alicia sat in the courtroom every day, forced to watch Bryce's parents fan the flames of romance as prosecutors showed photos of their daughter's bloodied corpse.

The murder of my daughter brought those two back together.

It was quite disgusting to watch.

They had been divorced, and then when we were going through a trial.

Those two disgusting humans sat there, loving on each other and cuddling.

Like it was a movie gate.

I wanted to rip their hair out.

I'm not gonna lie.

Sitting in that courtroom for that trial was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.

It had been pounded into my head so much.

Don't do anything that could you know what I mean?

Oh I didn't, But I tell you what.

I had a friend though, that let her have it.

When the verdict got read.

You know, the bail up even came after my friend and was like, you need to be quiet, you know, But because yeah.

You can't, you can't say anything.

You can't have any emotion, which is really hard in a trial.

Everything had happened, and I have my own questions, you know, I still have my own questions about his mother.

I'm not sure that anybody will ever convince me that she didn't help him clean up.

I don't think that she knew about it.

I don't think anything like that.

But you'll never convince me that she didn't help him clean up and get rid of things.

You'll never convince.

Me of that.

The jury's verdict was a resounding guilty.

Initially, he received twenty years to life in prison with the possibility of parole, but that was before the court tacked on an additional fifty years for the use of deadly weapons.

Bryce Dickey had a life sentence that he very much deserves.

But what many people forget is the life sentence suffered by the families of the murdered victims.

When all the hooplah goes away, you're left with the reality that your loved one is never coming back.

That's been actually a huge journey for me because he did sentence me to a lifetime of rage and anger, and it is intense.

And I remember a couple of years ago, I just was looking in the mirror and I'm like, okay, self, you know.

This rage, of this anger that you're feeling.

We've got to find a more healthy way to do this, because your heart is pounding out of your chest.

You're adrenaline is busting so much that all you do is shake and thank goodness, he is not where I could.

Get my hands on him.

I'm not like him, and I don't think I guarantee you I wouldn't take his life, but oh I would beat him silly with a shoe.

Okay, would I know?

The rage is really hard to deal with.

Actually, it's something that I fight daily and it affects every aspect of my life.

Britney's key phrase is flowers makes everything better.

Go ahead and take the extra five minutes out of your day to be extra nice to somebody, because that's what Brittany was about.

She was about taking the extra couple minutes that it might take to make people smile and make people feel loved and make people feel safe in a very unsafe world.

So if you're going to.

Ever be like Brittany, take five minutes and be humble, be kind, and make somebody smile, because that was Brittany's life and you would have never found a better advocate for somebody to love people as Brittany.

And just everybody just be nice, emulate Brittany, make people feel safe, and always remember a healthy dose of distrust is a very good thing.

And what does a healthy dose of distrust look like in a situation where there are no red flags?

I've thought about that and the only thing I could come up with, the only thing.

That I could come up with is be insistent.

On more than two.

If there would have been one more person there, Okay, three or more.

That's the only thing because, believe me, for the last what almost five years, I've gone over that almost daily in my head, and the only thing.

I could think of is really.

Push that issue that groups are where it's at, not two people.

If one more person would have been in the truck that day, I promise you that wouldn't happened.

You know, so I'd say.

That's the only thing I've been able to come up with is never be too.

Unfortunately, the world sucks, especially for kids nowadays.

It's sad, but never be so comfortable with somebody that you think you can just take off down a dirt road, which is you and one other person.

Always make sure there's three or more.

You grow up being told to watch out for strangers, to be wary of the dark alley, the unknown number, the unfamiliar car pulling up to the curb.

But the truth is danger doesn't always look like danger, you know that, right, and trust, well, trust is a dangerous thing.

Brittany trusted Bryce, her family trusted Bryce, and in the end that trust was misplaced.

So turned to Snapchat.

She, like so many others, believed what the app promised that messages, locations, and memories could vanish with the tap of a button, that no one could ever trace where you had been or who you had been with.

But Snapchat doesn't make things disappear, not really, Because when Brittany went missing, the app she relied on to erase her footsteps became the very thing that exposed them.

The digital trail she thought was gone was still there, waiting to be found.

Kids are dumb if you don't realize that, in twenty twenty five you have no privacy whatsoever.

I don't know what to tell you other than you're dumb too.

Sorry.

It is what it is.

Nothing really disappears, not in life, not in death, and certainly not in truth.

You can obfiscate it all you want, but truth finds a way of revealing itself.

Technology changes, laws change, but human nature the stuff we talk about here, that pretty much stays the same.

We trust because we want to believe the good in people.

We want to believe that people around us are inherently good.

Makes life easier.

In fact, we trust because it's easier than considering the alternative.

Nobody wants to live in paranoia.

Believe me, it's exhausting.

But trust is also a choice, and as Alicia said, a healthy dose of distrust just might be the thing that keeps you safe.

You ever finished an episode and feel emotionally exhausted, No, of course you don't.

You don't have a podcast.

It's lovely here anyway.

We say this every week, but I mean stay safe, and please, please, please take that extra effort to keep your kids safe.

They may seem real independent and real mature and real adult like, but do not be fooled.

It's a very, very scary world out there, and kids just don't know any better.

They're dumb.

It's not their fault.

They haven't figured it out yet.

It's up to you, the parent, to do it for them, all right, See you next week, su