Every Town - The Mysterious Disappearance of Branson Perry: An Unresolved Enigma in Skidmore, MO

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

Branson Perry stands as a very strange and unsettling mystery that no matter how deep you get into, just doesn’t add up. Because In 2001, Branson just straight up disappeared from his home and despite 100’s of interviews, lie detector tests, and even a couple of serious suspects….no one appears to know what happened to him and to this day, more then 22 years later nobody knows where he is. 💥 Watch Episode On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scarymysteries 🎃 Exclusive Content & Perks: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 🎧 Our Other Podcast - Scary Mysteries: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkT 👁 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald 💀 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg 💥 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial 🗣 Business Inquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between.

With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime. Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everytown has a dark. side. In Skidmore, Missouri, a peaceful town with a hidden undercurrent of darkness, the disappearance of Branson Perry stands as a very strange and unsettling mystery that no matter how deep you get into,

just doesn't add up. Because in 2001, Branson just straight up disappeared from his home, and despite hundreds of interviews, lie detector tests, even a couple of serious suspects, no one appears to know what happened to him. And at this day, more than 22 years later, nobody knows where he is. Hey guys, it's Andrew, and welcome to another episode of Everytown, where today we're digging into a story that has a bunch of twists and turns as we try and find the missing puzzle piece that will finally solve the mysterious vanishing of Branson Perry.

Because in a small town like Skidmore, chances are somebody knows what happened, but they just aren't talking. Skidmore is a rural town nestled in the heartland, of Notaway County, Missouri. It's located about an hour and 45 minutes north of Kansas City, with its population hovering just around 250 people, so it's pretty small. It's mainly flatlands, there's a lot of open fields that characterize the landscape here. And interestingly, even with just a few hundred people living there, the town has had its share of strange

happenings over the years. You might be familiar with the story of Ken McGillery, It's sort of a famous one among true crime enthusiasts. Well, Ken was a known bad guy, a criminal and essentially a big bully around town. Back in 1981, after he left a busy bar that day, he got in his truck with his wife and was shot dead by somebody. And despite there being up to 46 witnesses there, no one came forward with any information as to who pulled a trigger, not even his wife. It's a fascinating story because essentially the town without a town without a woman. ever planning it, banded together and just decided that Ken needed to go. And so to this day, no one has ever been charged with the killing. So that sort of gives you an idea of just how tight-knit

this community can be. If something or someone is off in the town, they can hone in on it, which is why the story of Branson Perry vanishing without a trace is such a strange one. No one in town seems to know what happened, and yet a lot of people were looked into. It happened 20 years, years after Ken's killing in April of 2001, you know, the two stories are unrelated, they do show that sometimes small-town crimes can be the hardest to crack. His authorities only have so many people to talk to, and if they don't want to give up any information, pretty quickly, your investigation can reach a dead end. Perry was just 20 years old when he disappeared. He lived a life that was fairly unremarkable. That's not to be meant as an insult of any kind, but he was a regular guy and

there's millions of others just like him. He was a young man living in Middle America. He graduated from Notre Way Holt High School in 1999, and after that bounced around to a couple of jobs, which reflected more on the limited job opportunities in a small town like Skidmore, rather than his work ethic. Branson was a good kid by most standards. For money, he mainly worked as a root and when that dried up, he picked up a job assisting with a traveling petting zoo as he looked to find more roofing jobs. In his off time, he liked to work out, despite suffering from tachycardia, which is a condition that can make the heart race. He worked hard in martial arts and received a black belt and haptito. He stood around six feet tall, had a lean frame, short blonde

hair, and a welcoming smile. His interests were typical of young men as age, sports, music, and spending time with friends. His parents were divorced, and while his mom was very much a part of his life, he lived with his dad Bob at 304 West Oak Street in Skidmore. The Perry Home was a modest single-story structure, indicative of the town's overall unassuming lifestyle. So that gets you up to speed on who we're dealing with, but sometimes there's more to someone than what's on the surface.

If you ever read an obituary, it covers the basics, but the most definitely doesn't tell you the whole story about who a person was. A few days before the vanishing of Branson, an encounter with Jason Bierman should be mentioned, as it could have implications into the crime, but that all depends on how you view it because nothing has been proven. Jason was a neighbor. He was a bit of a sketchy dude, a little older than Branson, but they were friendly enough to hang out. On the day of April 7th, four days before he disappeared, Ransom went over to Jason's house, and as can typically happen in a small town in the middle of nowhere, the two were looking to kill their boredom.

So allegedly, Jason gave Perry an unidentified drug that made him act a little crazy. I'm speculating, but it sounds like he took something along the lines of meth or PCP, because Perry ended up taking all his clothes off and dancing around the house. According to Diane Fanning, who was a true crime investigator who looked into this case heavily, And Perry then shaved off all his pubic hair before engaging in sexual activity with Bierman. What exactly they did and how consensual it was, though, is unknown. Many people who knew Branson had always suspected that he was gay, including his father, Bob. However, Branson had never come out and told anybody.

It was something he hid for his own reasons, but it probably ate him up inside, which was at least part of why he was taking drugs in the first place. The following day on April 8th, Branson visited the hospital where his dad had been recovering following his sickness and surgery. Every day he would go see him, check in, and this is when he told his dad about what had happened at the neighbors. Bob was furious because in his eyes, Branson was still his boy. He was mad that their neighbor had seemingly drugged his child before taking advantage of him.

While he wanted to confront Jason over this, he was, of course, stuck in the hospital. There would never be any real confrontation between Bob and Jason that we know of, because by the time Bob got out, his son was gone, and so we had to focus on that. But this whole incident is some strange timing, given the disappearance that occurred just a few days later. Jason was never officially a suspect. He was questioned, but you have to wonder if perhaps there's more to this angle. Maybe there was something more to the story as to what actually happened that day. Maybe Jason thought he was going to get in trouble for something, and so he had to do something about it. Or perhaps the drug Perry took, whatever it was, had long-lasting effects, and it did something to his brain that directly led to his disappearance in one way or another.

Maybe he decided to leave or maybe got involved with the wrong person. All these are the questions that we and the authorities are seeking to answer. And so to get a better idea, the mystery at hand, let's head over to the day that it all happened. It was Wednesday, April 11th of 2001, and the day's actions were fairly mundane. Branson was doing a deep clean at his dad's house in anticipation of him returning from the hospital at any time. He called up his good friend, Jenna Crawford, to come over and she was there to help out. The family car in the driveway was in dire need of a new alternator. and Branson was looking to get that fix for his dad too, so two mechanics were around that day to work on that.

With them outside tinkering away, Perry and Jenna got to work vacuuming, windexing the windows, and wiping down the countertops. At some point in the early afternoon, Jenna watched as Perry hastily grabbed something from the kitchen cabinet before darting outside. In the moment, it seemed a little odd, but Jenna wouldn't have given it a second thought had Perry not to say. disappeared a few hours later. But looking back, she now wonders what it was he snatched up and where he put it, or perhaps who he sold it to, because when he returned to the house shortly after, he had nothing with him. With the chores all done for the day, Crawford took a shower before she went downstairs to grab a drink. Once in the kitchen, that's when she saw one of those mechanics rifling through the very same cabinets where she had seen Perry. The man startled her a bit,

just because what was even doing inside the house, so she asked him what it was he was looking for. After all, she knew her friend's house well, and it just cleaned the place, so she could find most things. The mechanic just told her, nothing. He closed the drawers and then walked back outside. After that, Jenna went upstairs to lay down for a bit, and that's when she saw Perry on the lawn out front. She yelled at him from the open window, asking him what he was doing, to which he replied, I'm going to put away the jumper cables and then run out for a bit. I'll be back in a few minutes. And those were the last words he ever said to anyone, at least that we know of.

According to Jenna, that was around 3 p.m. And presumably he was heading to the shed on the property where the cables were kept along with the rest of the tools. But after that, who knows what happened? Nobody actually saw him leave the property. not Jenna or the two mechanics or any neighbors, and no one knows where exactly he intended to go. He never said anything. He left behind his wallet, keys, and a recently cash paycheck,

suggesting he intended to return shortly. And after a while, Jenna would eventually go home, not thinking anything bad had happened, and he just got sidetracked. The two mechanics then did the same. It would be Branson's grandmother, Joanne Stinnett, who first realized that something was seriously wrong when the following day, she went to visit her son Bob at the hospital. It was there that she asked about Perry, and Bob told her that Branson didn't come visit him the day prior.

And he wasn't sure why exactly, because, in fact, he hadn't heard from him at all. And this was a bit concerning since Branson had been visiting his dad every single day at least once without fail. Joanne wasn't all that worried at this point, but on her way home, she stopped by the Perry House to check in on her grandson. That's when she found the front door unlocked but no Branson inside. She waited for a few hours for him to return and in the meantime called around to some friends to see if they had heard from him, but of course no one had. Branson wouldn't just disappear like this without a word to his family. So by nightfall, Joanne called the police which triggered the start of a frantic search.

The hunt for Branson was extensive and involved multiple agencies, including local police, Missouri State Highway Patrol, and numerous volunteers. Air and ground searches were conducted, covering the surrounding areas, fields, and woods. They covered around a 15-mile diameter. And as the investigation deepened, it was revealed that Perry may have been more involved in drugs than many people knew about, not even his family and close friends. He had apparently been hiding his addiction well, but he was planning on going to rehab shortly to try to get himself back on track.

This would help explain why he told his dad in the first place about what he had done at the neighbor's house. Branson was 20 years old, so a grown man. It wasn't so much that Bob was mad because he felt his son was taken advantage of by Jason the neighbor. But the rage was because he was giving Branson access to his family. drugs when he was trying so hard to get off them. Because of this, checkered pass with drugs, plus Branson's personal belongings and cash being left behind, authority suspected foul play might be involved. They thought it was possible that what he grabbed from the cabinet that day were drugs,

perhaps his own personal stash that he was going to sell before heading off to rehab. And whoever he met up with, likely held the key to knowing what happened to the young man. However, In this case, would go on to take a very unexpected turn, when a suspect no one expected eventually got on the cop's radar. Over the course of a few months, hundreds of people were interviewed, including known druggie friends, but nobody was talking or had any information to give. So lie detector tests were administered, mainly to individuals who were last known to have seen Branson, including the two men working on the car at his house, his friend Jenna, and the neighbor. but remarkably all of them passed, and so this only deepened the mystery.

Over time, this case eventually went cold. But then just one day shied the two-year anniversary. A disturbing suspect was arrested on unrelated charges. But what police found while searching his belongings led them to believe that he may acknowledge as to what happened at Perry. And it was pretty dark. On April 10th of 2003, 59-year-old Jack Rogers was arrested on charges of first-degree assault and practicing medicine without a license and a makeshift gender reassignment surgery at a hotel in Columbia, Missouri.

Rogers was on the outside an upstanding member of society who was a Presbyterian church minister and even a Boy Scout leader looking after the youth of America, making sure to shape and mold them into the men they'd someday grow up to be. The police went to his house to investigate his belongings and computer, and that's when they uncovered a whole bunch of pictures of young people, the kind of pictures that no one should have, let alone a 59-year-old minister. Digging further, they found he was very active on various message boards, or under usernames like buggerbud and extreme body mods.

He posted graphic stories about the mutilations of people that he had conducted firsthand. And why he got on the radar of authorities for being involved with Branson was one because of his proximity to Skidmore, but also because he told a story of picking up a hitchhiker. And this person, looking for a ride was a young, blonde man who he eventually tortured, mutilated, and then murdered, leaving him buried somewhere around the Ozarks. Looking more through his property, they found a turtle claw necklace in one of his cars that looked very similar to one owned by Branson. Despite all this, though, he claimed to have not been involved with Branson, and that what he wrote was just pure fiction. At his sentencing for the other crimes, Perry's mother begged for Rogers to reveal his whereabouts.

Rogers denied being involved in the disappearance, and ultimately, she says she believes in. Without his body, at this point, it's nearly impossible to connect anyone to the crime, but it's well believed that Branson is deceased. The chances of no one seeing or hearing from them would be a tough feat for anyone to pull off in this day and age. Added to this, the fact that Branson had nothing to run from. Through the years, law enforcement has stated that they have their suspects and that they are from the town of Skidmore, but they're unable to make a real move until they get some hard evidence. In 2009, for example, they received a very credible tip that Branson had been buried in Quitman, Missouri. So they spent two days digging where they thought he was only to come up empty-handed.

And Joanne, his grandmother said in 2011, Around town, we searched every oil well, every outside toilet. We searched everywhere that was possible for us to think that something could be there. His father Bob passed away in 2004. His mother died in 2011 after a long battle with melanoma. She was buried beside an empty plot for Perry. That lists his date of death as April 11, 2001, the same day he disappeared. Today, Branson Perry's disappearance remains an open case.

As recently as August of 2022, Notaway County Sheriff Randy Strong announced a serious suspect is on their radar for that they need some more evidence before bringing them in. So until then, the dark cloud hangs over the small town of Skidmore. We can only hope that someday someone will talk or, that Branson will be found. The Perry family can finally close the book on what really happened to 20-year-old Branson all those years ago. So that's it for this week's episode of Everytown.

Hope you guys enjoyed it. Go check out this episode in video form over on our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries. And for more podcasts from us, check out the Scary Mysteries podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. Remember to come back next week for another episode filled with Scary Mysteries. strange and mysterious stories, because you never know. Maybe your town will be next.