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More help is needed, says the man who is putting together the privately-organized search for 19-year-old Brandon Swanson of Marshall.

“If we could get 100 volunteers we could get this thing wrapped up,” Gary Peterson said.

Peterson would like more volunteers to gather at 8 a.m. Saturday on a farm near the search site.

Swanson has been missing since May 14 after he abruptly lost cell phone contact with his father.

The search the past three weeks has been in an areas in Lyon and Lincoln counties between Taunton and Porter, near Minnesota Highway 68 and the Yellow Medicine River and near the Lincoln and Lyon County road line.

Peterson is a private investigator working with Swanson’s parents, Brian and Annette Swanson, and the Jon Francis Foundation, a group that provides a search manager, trained search and rescue volunteers and other services to help families search for missing relatives.

Peterson is the search manager for the family and the Foundation.

Peterson said the search this coming weekend will focus on an area “just north of Taunton.” More of a straight line from Swanson’s car to Taunton and the light at the top of the elevator in Taunton in Lyon County, Peterson said.

“I know he’s out there,” Peterson said. “Nothing else tell me he is any place else. One thing we realize is we think that he is in the water.”

Peterson, who has worked on other missing persons incidents before, said “three weeks is a lifetime to a lot of people, including the family.”

But, “you could search the river every hour for 10 days and never see anything,” Peterson said.

It’s also not unusual for searchers to walk and area that’s already been covered and find the missing person, Peterson said.

“I’ve had this happen before where we will find the person and everyone will look at each other and say, ‘I walked 10 feet away and didn’t see him,’” Peterson said.

Searchers organized by the Foundation and Peterson were out this past weekend and found no trace of Swanson.

Lincoln County Sheriff Jack Vizecky said two search and rescue dogs used by his office found no sign of Swanson this past weekend.

Peterson said he tells families and volunteers to not get discouraged as the search continues. “It’s a process of elimination to find out where he’s at,” Peterson said.

“He’s out there some place, we know he is,” Peterson said.

Volunteers who want to participate Saturday should go to the first intersection past the intersection of Highway 68 and the Lyon-Lincoln County line. Take a right off Highway 68 and travel about one-and-a-half miles on a gravel road and the farm site will be on the left with a long driveway.

 

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