School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
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On November fifth, two thousand and five, a jogger was out running beside a lake in Lake Charles, Louisiana, behind the Civic Center, when they saw something floating in the water. When the jogger took a closer look, they realized it was the body of a woman. Police identified the victim as thirty two year old Brandy Renee Dyson, a mother of three who had recently been made homeless after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Those hurricanes devastated the state of Louisiana.
It's been almost twenty years. There's been one arrest and a lot of controversy, but Brandy's case is still unsolved. There's a lot we don't know about Brandy's murder, but we do know that it was violent. Her father, Adley Dyson told a local news station, quote, we had to bury her in a turtle necktwater because she was strangled and she was thrown in the lake end quote.
I'm Catherine Townsend.
Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast, Healing Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing as a small town where murder never happens. I've received hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four or five.
That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. A lot of time periods in Brandy Dyson's life are still unaccounted for. We and even the people closest to her didn't always know what was going on. What we do know were piecing together through her sister Miranda and her daughter Holly. Brandy
Dyson was born on November one, nineteen seventy three. Growing up, her family was mostly based in Louisiana, and both her daughter Holly and her sister Miranda told us that Brandy had a tough life. She struggled with mental health issues and addiction. Brandy had three children, a son who she had when she was around seventeen years old and later gave up for adoption, a daughter, Holly, and a second son who she gave birth to a few months before
she died. Brandy was out of contact with a lot of her family for several years before she was killed, and finding information on where she lived during that time period is challenging. American Press did a story on the case, and there's a video on YouTube with comments under it. One of the commenters said that they knew Brandy from when Brandy was in Texas for a job corp job at the age of sixteen. Later from her family, we know that Brandy lived in New York City for several years.
She didn't like small town life.
We came from a small town.
She didn't like that lifestyle.
You know, like it was too slow for her. She went to New York City. She stayed there for ten years.
She liked that.
We talked to Miranda. She talked about Brandy's trouble times when she was a teenager. After living in different places on and off, at some point, her family thinks about a year before her death, Brandy came back to kinder. Now, her daughter, Holly, who was just ten years old when her mom was brutally murdered, has been reaching out to true crime podcasters, media, and anyone else who she thinks may help spread the word and hopefully get answers and justice.
Holly was raised by her aunt and uncle. She said that while it was hard to grow up without her mother, Brandy made what she believes was the most loving and unselfish decision that she could have in those circumstances to give her children up so that they could be raised in more stable homes.
You know, she had a baby very very young and gave them up for adoption. I know she had some issues within her own family. Two three times she had to make that impossible decision to let somebody else take care for baby and when I drop my son off at daycare, I feel mom guilt and I can only imagine what she went through with that. But she did the right thing and I will always admire her for that.
She had her issues. She had schizo effective disorder, which at the time she had a bipolar in schizophrenia, but now what we call it is gizo effective disorder.
Both Miranda and Holly believed that Brandy, due to circumstances, might have turned to sex work a few times in her life. Now, I want to be clear, I do not judge her for her lifestyle, but I do believe it's important to mention here because if that is the case, there could be a larger pool of suspects to consider. From what we understand, it appears that Brandy was not taking medication for her schizo effective disorder, but at times she did self medicate with alcohol.
She kind of just never felt at peace in this world, and I think her demons kind of reared its head through drinking. You know. I remember her writing these for a couple of and I didn't know this at the time. My nana has told me this when I had gotten older, but she wrote me from rehabs that she was in or like Jill's, you know.
Miranda said that her and Brandy's parents agreed with Brandy's decision to give up her son at age seventeen because even then Brandy was struggling with substance abuse.
Even then, Brandy had some mantal illness.
She drank young, so like.
Sixteen seventeen, and that's when she would have her her manic failed.
When she would drink.
As long as she was sober, they needn't have any.
You know, she was good.
There is still a lot of very basic information that Holly doesn't know about her mother's life. There are a lot of blank spaces and blank years.
I don't know if she was working. I don't know really what she did for work.
It's not like she had like a trade or whatever.
So yeah, I think she's pretty broke most of the time.
Holly said that when Brandy came back to kinder Louisiana, she was pregnant.
She was living with her uncle.
She gave birth to her baby son in July two thousand and five, and then she moved into her own apartment, and for a while, Brandy appeared to be on a more stable path.
I remember talking to her after she had my little brother.
And we were both so excited for him to come into this world because I always wanted a baby brother.
And she thought that, you know, maybe that would help her get her stuff together. But after she got displaced from the hurricane, after she she took on those people that were displaced by the hurricane, I think that kind of knocked her back down a little bit, and I think she started drinking again.
What Holly's talking about is that when Hurricane Katrina hit in two thousand and five, a lot of people evacuated to Kinder, Louisiana. Brandy took in refugees in her apartment, but that decision resulted in her being evicted, so she
left her newborn son with her uncle. I'm not actually sure if she left her son with her uncle before or after she was evicted, but in any case, her son was not with her when she left and moved in to the Late Charles Civic Center, about forty minutes away from Kinder, where many people in Louisiana were sheltering after having to evacuate their homes from the storm.
And I want to back up a minute here.
And go over some of the chaos that was happening in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in August twenty ninth, two thousand and five. To help give some context for Brandy's final days, this storm was absolutely devastating for the state of Louisiana. After Katrina hit New Orleans, thirty thousand evacuees built the New Orleans Supernome. They were trapped inside there for days with no power and running out of supplies, and then FEMA left the area for their own safety.
I remember seeing footage of this on television and it was absolutely horrifying. There was a breakdown in law and order. There were no working bathrooms, there were feces on walls, fights breaking out over food and water, and multiple reports of rape and sexual assault. Some of the more horrific rumors, like bodies of children piling up in the basement, were
later disputed by law enforcement. A report on NPR pointed out that while some of them were outrageous claims may have been proven false, others, like sexual assaults, were almost certainly underreported. According to the state Department of Health and Hospitals, there were ten deaths in the Superdome, including two suspected murders, and then, while the state was still reeling from the horrific impacts both environmental and social, of Katrina, Hurricane Rita
hit just a few weeks later. Hurricane Rita made landfall on September twenty fourth, two thousand and five.
In Cameron Parish.
It was a Category three storm with storm surges of up to eighteen feet and sixteen inches of rain. Even though it didn't get as much media attention at the time, the devastating flooding caused by Rita literally white towns off the map. Parishes in southwest Louisiana were overwhelmed, Levies and New Orleans finally broke. There was a rise in crime
and a loss of police manpower. Rita, by the way, has been called the forgotten storm because most people remember Katrina and the images of people on top of their cars begging for someone from the government to come help, or the images of people at the Superdome.
In New Orleans.
The storm surge flooded downtown Lake Charles and damaged the Civic Center, where the evacuees were seeking shelter and where Brandy was living after being evicted from her apartment, and it was here at the Civic Center where Brandy's life, which had been on the road stability, started to spiral
out of control. After she was evicted from her apartment, Brandy moved into the Lake Charles Civic Center, where a lot of evacuees from the hurricanes were staying, and it was around this time that Brandy started drinking again.
She's staying at the Civic Center, she gets picked up or disturbing the peace, so they kick her out of the civic center, so she makes a makeshift shelter outside of the city center.
So drinking broke the civic center's rules. Brandy was kicked out of the civic Center, but she stayed close to the building. According to reports, she set up camp in the area of the pier, which was just a few feet away from the Civic Center. Polly said she was unsure who her mom's friends were at the time of the storm, or even if Brandy had a cell phone, but there was someone hanging out with Brandy at her
shelter on November fourth. Police have said that this was a man named Jeremiah Salazar, and according to Holly, they had been hanging out prior to that. Miranda said detectives told her how they figured out that JEREMIAHS and Brandy had been hanging out.
The only things that I know about him is what the detective told me, Like, we didn't know him.
We were all this place, we were all homeless.
I was living in Alabama when she died, So this is how they got to kid him. So when Brandy was found, her fingerprints was in the system because she had been arrested a few days before, so they were able to identify her really fast because of it. But when they ran her name or they might have found.
This ticket because she was living off that pier m HM.
Instead there was another ticket tied to that ticket for her in sala'sorber going to Tacoma, Washington together. Well, her body comes up, so they think that he's going to change his course, but they have police waiting to see if he's going to or not.
After Brandy was murdered, Apparently, JEREMIAHS did follow through on his plans to go to Tacoma, but detectives were able to arrest him and extradied him back to Louisiana. He denied having anything to do with Brandy's murder and what happened the night of November fourth, leading into the early morning hours of November fifth, is still a mystery. Miranda and Holly were told by detectives that Brandy and Jeremiahs went to a bar close to the civic Center called
Crystals on the night of November fourth. Now, reviews of this bar online indicate that it was apparently a gay bar, but it was also one of the only bars that was openly after the hurricane hit.
They believe something happened at that bar.
Now, one theory that Brandy's family told us detectives mentioned to them was that Jeremias could have gotten annoyed when he saw Brandy talking to or possibly flirting with another man, and that Jeremiahs left that bar without Brandy. Holly talks about this now, again, this is just speculation on her part. She's describing what members of her family have heard from the Lake Charles Police detectives over the years.
I think that they were probably more just like drinking buddies, or they might have had a relationship, but all of that has been kind of kept in the dark from us.
And.
My family in Louisiana didn't know who who he was either. They had never heard of.
Him, but it wasn't unusual for her to kind of keep it, yeah, cease communication for some weeks or.
Some months, you know.
And it just said they had a relationship, that didn't say what typ.
Yeah, I think that it was. I think it was somewhat romantic, actually, but that's just me speculating.
And she was seen going to the bar Crystals with him from midnight to two am, and then he left, she staved and drank, and then the theory is that she became intimate with another man. He came back and saw that he became upset.
We don't know for sure what happened after Brandy went to this bar. What we do know is that the next morning, November fifth, that jogger found Brandy's body. We also don't know much about the condition of Brandy's body. We have sent boy a request for the case file, but so far we've been denied due to this being an open investigation. Polly has requested a copy of Brandy's autopsy as a family member, but so far we have not heard back.
We will keep you posted.
The Lake Charles Police Department was able to identify Brandy through fingerprints. They told Brandy's family the murder had been violent, and that they believed that Brandy had been strangled, exphyxiated, and thrown into the lake. Police found a few clues there was a Halloween mask near Brandy's body, but even though according to Brandy's family, she had DNA inside her, detectives apparently concluded there was no evidence of sexual assault.
Holly remembers the funeral and the shock of losing her mother so suddenly, and of saying goodbye to her. Over the years, Holly has reached out to her older brother, the one who was given up for adoption when Brandy was seventeen. Holly talked about the emotion of finding him and telling him that he had a sister and that his biological mother had been brutally murdered.
He didn't know about my mom.
We're not super super closed.
I think I talked to him like last Christmas, but I remember my mom telling me about him and I had always loved him, and just telling him that, Hey, like, I know this is a lot for you, but I just want you to know that I have always thought about you. I have always cared about you. Your mom always loved you. She talked about you, and I think he had a really good life. His adoptive mom did a great job. He is happy.
From what Holly has been told by detectives, the last time that Brandy was seen alive was between midnight and two am on November fifth, two thousand and five, at the nightclub with a man. From witness descriptions, police were able to draw sketch of a man whom Brandy was seen hanging out with at the club. From that and from other clues, they identified JEREMIAHS.
Salzark.
At the time, he had long brown hair. He was also six feet tall. We don't know much about JEREMIAHS.
Either.
We know that he's from Leveland, Texas, and that he did have some prior arrests, but we can't find a record of him being arrested for anything violent. There were some drug charges, also some glittering and indecent exposure charges that, based on his history, could possibly have come from him camping out in populated areas. By the time detectives identified him, JEREMIAHS had already left Louisiana.
He was on his way to Tacoma, Washington, so they drove back.
He called.
There was an s There was an evidence for an indictment, so.
Late Charles police went to Washington.
They went through the process of having JEREMIAHS arrested and extradited back to Louisiana. Police said they believed JEREMIAHS and Brandy knew each other. Sergeant Mark Krause with the Lake Charles Police Department told a news station, quote, there was some relationship, whether it be friends or something more substantial between the two, and that's where we began our investigation end quote. And three months after Brandy's body was found
in that lake behind the Civic Center, JEREMIAHS. Salazar was charged with her murder. In January of two thousand and six, four months after Brandy was brutally murdered in Lake Charles, JEREMIAHS. Salazar was charged with Brandy's murder. Police got him extradited from Washington State. He was brought back to Louisiana and incarcerated in the Calcashu Jail. His bond was set at a million dollars. But then there was a shocking turn
of events in this case. At first, the grand jury returned true bill, meaning they believe there was enough evidence to indict Jeremiahs. But then they met again this time, they returned a no bill, which means they no longer believed that there was enough evidence to charge him. I want to put in a quick caveat here. There's a lot we don't know about this DNA sample. We don't know how much of a sample there was, how much of it was degraded, or if there were issues with testing.
There's no evidence that that was the case, but I just want to put it out there. I found an interview with the district attorney in the case from back in twenty eleven, six years after Brandy's murder on American Press. In that interview, the DA says that DNA testing quote
excluded Jeremiahs. The district attorney said at that time the grand jury felt that there was not sufficient probable cause to go forward, but he added that if law enforcement got any new evidence, they could reindict Jeremiahs or indict another defendant. Miranda said she had regular contact with the detectives on the case until Jeremias was taken in front of the grand jury. She said the no bill decision was devastating for their family. So now there were a
couple of questions outstanding. Some detectives apparently thought maybe Brandy had sexual intercourse with someone else, someone other than JEREMIAHS, and that JEREMIAHS had attacked her in a jealous rage, But of course a very real other possibility is that it was someone else. Entirely after Jeremiah was released, no
new suspects were ever arrested. In the same interview where Brandy's father had mentioned that they had to bury her in a turtleneck, he pointed out there had been a police officer murdered and brought to justice within a few days at around the same time Brandy was murdered. He said, just because Brandy was homeless and had mental health issues and addiction issues, that did not mean that her case was any less important. The Lake Charles Police Department said
that they had tried to solve this case. They had even gone so far as to go to another state file charges extradite someone back, and they said they would pursue any additional information that was given. However, the reality is that in Louisiana, both during and after Katrina and even today, law enforcement has a vast number of cases they need to clear, and new ones are piling up
every day. Another thing that Holly has wondered over the years, is if Brandy's case could have any connection to other cases, including the eight women who were killed in Jefferson Davis Parish that's right next to Calcashu Parish. They're known as the jeff Davis a or the Jennings. A. Journalist Ethan Brown wrote a book about these unsolved murders and corruption in the parish. It's called Murder in the Bayou. The
first body was found on May twentieth, tive. A twenty eight year old named Loretta Lynn Chase and Lewis was found in a canal in Jennings in the Jefferson Davis Parish.
Loretta was addicted to crack.
A lot of these cases were linked to the drug trade that went down Interstate ten. There's also By the Way, an investigation discovery show based on Ethan's book, also called Murder in the Bayeux. On June eighteenth, two thousand and five, a thirty year old sex worker named Ernestine Marie Daniels Patterson was also found in a canal south of Jennings. Her throat had been slashed, her wrists were bound together.
This was a violent struggle to the death in Ernestine's case, two men were arrested in charge with her murder, but the charges were later dropped. On March eighteenth, two thousand and seven, the nude body of twenty one year old Kristin Lopez was found in a canal near Jennings. Kristin was wearing only one sock on her left foot. Again, two people were arrested in charge with Christian's murder, but
they were later released due to lack of evidence. Over the next year and a half, four more victims were found in that area. Twenty six year old Whitney Dubois, twenty three year old Laconia Muggy Brown, twenty four year old Crystal shab Bin Wazino, and seventeen year old Britney Gary. All of these women were found in or around Jennings. All of them reportedly had ties to sex work. Almost all of the killings, according to police, were believed to
be caused by strangling or asphyxia. Only one Ernestine's involved a stabbing. In August of two thousand and nine, twenty six year old Nicole Gilliery was found. This was in a neighboring parish, Acadia Parish, but also near the iten.
So a task.
Force was formed between local law enforcement and federal and state authorities, but progress was slow and they seemed to have a lot of different theories about who was killing these women. It's interesting because the sheriff and Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriff Edwards said he believed the killings could be the work of a common offender, which a lot of people took to mean one serial killer work in the area. But after reviewing a lot of public information and reading
Ethan Brown's excellent book, I agree with him. I think the evidence does not point to one single serial killer. What we do see are a lot of allegations of police corruption and certain members of local law enforcement possibly being involved in drug deals, and of law enforcement looking the other way when certain types of crimes occurred. In fact, one of the most shocking statistics I saw in Ethan
Brown's book was one about homicide clearance rates. He said, in Calcashu Parish, where Brandy was murdered, the homicide clearance rate is seven percent. I couldn't believe I read that right. I had to read that a couple times. That means, presumably, if that's correct, in that pair, you have a ninety three percent chance of getting away with murder, which I
find shocking. Holly hasn't been sure what to think. There seemed to be no evidence that jeremiahs had actually harm Brandy, But could he, as detectives apparently wondered, have hurt her mother because she had consensual sex with someone else? Or could someone else, maybe the person whose DNA is inside Brandy, have assaulted and murdered her. Holly hasn't been sure what
to think. There seemed to be no evidence that Jeremiah harm Brandy, But could he, as detectives apparently wondered, have hurt her mother because Brandy had consensual sex with someone else? Or could someone else, maybe the person whose DNA is inside Brandy, have assaulted and murdered her. Her mother's death wasn't Holly's last brush with tragedy. In two thousand and four,
her father, Daniel Cercy, was murdered tenty sixteen. A man named Sean Pinson, who is twenty eight years old at the time of the murder, was sentenced to seventy years in prison for Daniel's murder. Daniel's body was bound at the hands and feet with zip tized speaker wire and an electrical cord. According to an arrest report, there were cleaning supplies and a scented candle and a fan being
directed through the chimney to mass the odor. The arrest report stated that Sean had given a friend money to buy supplies, including bleach and an air freshener from Walmart. A former employee and friend of Shawn's testified that Shawn told him he wasn't going to lie anymore and that Sean had led him to see Daniel's body. Holly said to this day she questions whether there may have been other people involved in her father's death, people who have never been brought to justice.
I do believe that there are others walking free Almongos that were involved did my dad's death. But one thing that I have had to realize, and it took me a long time to realize, is that I'm not going to know everything. I'm not going to know everything about my mom, I'm not going to know everything about my dad's case, and I just have to kind of make
my own closure. And this is like a form of me doing that, you know, with the Justice for Brandy Dyson and reaching out to the podcast I'm just trying to make some foremost closure because really, my son had both of his grandparents taken away from him. They will never know him, and that makes me so sad for all of them. So yeah, I've had to like make closure. I've had to become at peace with not knowing every again.
Police had denied our foy requests. Holly, since she's next of Ken, is trying to get access to Brandy's autopsy. If we had the autopsy, we could possibly find out if there was water in Brandy's lungs, possibly what other tests were done, and if there is any other evidence that police may have overlooked. Plus we would know what
types of samples they took. In the meantime, she's had frustrating encounters with the Lake Charles Police Department, especially when it comes to asking about the Jeff Davis A.
There are eight unsolved cases thirty five miles away from where my mom was murdered, and I think that all of those people deserve kind their cases looked at. And I think this is not only I think it's is like not only a department full issue of Louisiana. It's a systematic issue because those women were also of a high risk lifestyle. Let me tell you exactly what they said. The case has not been reassigned. We have four violent
crime detectives. We are investigating a homicide that occurred on twelve, twenty nine, and we're investigating another that occurred on twenty one before the weather of it here in els, to my knowledge, our agency has never been the lead investigating to since e on a case, only to pass it off to another inner agency. And I contacted crime stoppers in the parish and they informed me that LCPD needs to request to feature their case on Facebook. Would you be able to reach out to them on her behalf.
I know how underfunded and understaffed police departments are, but that that does not give me peace, but does not giving me justice. And I would like somebody to care from the LCPD. It's just so that to me, I'm so, I'm a recovering addict. I have five years sober, and you know a lot of my addiction has dealt with the traumas of losing my parents, and like people like me, people like my parents don't deserve to be thrown away, you know.
Meanwhile, Brandy's family needs someone to come forward, Someone who may have seen Brandy at that night club or who may have been in the area on November fourth or November fifth, two thousand and five. There are pieces of evidence, like the Halloween masks? What kind was it? Could it
be traced? Was their DNA taken off the mask? Also, we have not received any part of the case file, so we don't know if it was something her killer wore, or if she was wearing it for some reason, or if it was just randomly there trash that someone chucked in the water from Halloween which had been four days earlier. There's a killer on the loose, one who got away with it in two thousand and five, and you very well could still be out there.
Yeah, absolutely, Like what like, we've just let this person be on the streets and other people could be going through the same thing that I was, and they had them. I try to stay.
Out of the what is uh? Yeah, there could be Oh.
There's so many what if you know? And with no information or hardly any information, it's just it's hard.
Next week, we're gonna dig deeper into Brandy's murder. We're going to try to retrace her steps on the night she was killed and explore the possibility of DNA testing and find out what the next steps could be. We're gonna try to do a deeper dive into these parts of Louisiana and find out why apparently in some corners of that state, people have a greater than ninety percent chance of getting away with murder. We want to understand why are so many disadvantaged women being killed and dumped here.
I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Noah Kamer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Salek. Executive producers are Virginia Presco, Brandon Barr, and LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus.
Channel on Apple Podcasts.
If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonpod. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six one four or five.
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