Naman Shrestha
After Dana Lynn Dodd unexpectedly disappeared in 2006, it took the investigators more than a decade or so to identify her body. A similar case to hers occurred in 2006 as Brandi Wells went missing from a nightclub in Tyler, Texas. However, unlike Dana’s case, Brandi’s body was not found even after a decade. Although the murder case of Dana and her perpetrator, Joseph Wayne Burnette, is the primary focus of NBC’s ‘Dateline: The Woman with No Name,’ the mysterious case of Brandi is also explored in the episode.
Brandi Wells Disappeared After a Night at a Club in 2006
Brandi Ellen Wells was born on November 28, 1982, to Ellen Tant, who doted upon and raised her to be a kind and compassionate woman. After graduating from Tyler’s Chapel Hill High School in 2006, Brandi reportedly got married and began studying at the University of Texas. However, things didn’t work out between them. Therefore, she divorced her husband and relocated to San Antonio before settling down in Brownsboro with a roommate. Despite being miles away from her mother, Brandi took time out to visit her mother in Tyler regularly. Apart from planning to attend Trinity Valley Community College and live on campus, she also had a new job at Wal-Mart to look forward to. Her ultimate goal was to become a kindergarten or first-grade teacher.
Around 8 pm on August 3, 2006, Brandi visited her mother’s Tyler residence, where she changed clothes and got ready. Her mother was under the impression that she was going to a local club near the house with her friends, but it turned out that she drove down to the Graham Central Station on McCann Road in Longview. She arrived at the club around 10:30 pm after asking for directions multiple times and realized that her car had run out of gas. Worried about not being able to get back home in her car, she reportedly asked people around for some gas money. After spending less than a couple of hours, she left the club alone after midnight. This marked the last time Brandi was seen.
The Investigation Did Not Reap Fruitful Results
On the same night, Brandi Wells’ black four-door 2000 Pontiac Grand Prix also disappeared from the club along with her. Ellen Tant, her mother, became concerned about her daughter and reported her missing. The detectives launched an extensive search for Brandi and combed through the entire neighborhood but found no trace of her. Five days after she went missing, the investigators came across her abandoned vehicle on Interstate 20 at Texas Highway 31, just outside of Longview. Upon inspecting the car, they reportedly found her purse and her ex-boyfriend’s non-functional cell phone, but not her personal cell phone.
Besides that, the detectives detected no sign of a struggle inside the car, but they noticed that the driver’s seat was pushed back, indicating that a taller person was driving it. In the trunk of the car, they also found a plastic gas can, something that could not belong to Brandi as per the claims of her loved ones. At some point during the investigation, they also found her cell phone at a different location altogether. As the investigators checked for her cell phone activity, they learned that after her disappearance, three individuals had used it. The police asked them to take a polygraph test, and one of them failed it. What followed was a series of interviews, which did not lead to anything concrete. Since he was not seen as a possible suspect anymore, his identity was not revealed to the public.
Brandi Wells’ Mother Has Remained Hopeful During the Search for Her Daughter
Over the years, the case turned cold due to a lack of evidence. However, during the investigation of the murder case of Dana Lynn Dodd, the authorities produced her composite image from a CT scan in an attempt to determine her identity, which was still unknown to them. Finding striking similarities in the reconstruction of the unidentified victim, Brandi’s mother got in touch with the authorities. However, upon DNA testing, it was confirmed that it was not Brandi’s body. Later on, the police were able to find out that it belonged to Dana Lynn Dodd, who also went missing in 2006. Even 14 years after Brandi’s disappearance, Ellen was determined to find out the whereabouts of her daughter and believed that she might be alive.
She told KETK, “I always hear her in the back of my mind saying, ‘Mommy, I’m waiting for you. come get me, help me.’ You hear that all the time. It stays in your heart, that she knows she needs your help. And you don’t know how to help her, what to do, there’s nothing to go on. Another fear is she’s laying in someone’s fields with her bones just scattered everywhere and she deserved better than that. She deserved a burial.” The following year, she nearly broke down while talking to Longview News-Journal. She said, “You know people don’t realize what they do to not only the victim of the crime, but the family. The loved ones that are left behind with so many questions that are not answered because somebody is too chicken to come forward with it now.” Despite the best efforts of the authorities, her case remains unsolved.
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