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On Saturday, November two, twenty twenty four, fifteen year old Trip Brazil headed out of his house in Forest City, Arkansas on a four wheeler. Trip grew up and when he had been hanging around with his uncle and aunt that day, His mother, Jennifer Brazil, told us that Trip, her brother, and her sister in law went to a
party at a friend's house. They were in the area of Saint Francis County Road four O nine, near Forest City after dark and into the early morning hours of Sunday, November three, They continued to hang out in a part of the woods called Crow Creek, riding ATVs, which are also called four wheelers. Trips aunt and uncle were on one four wheeler, Trip was on the other. One of his friends was also there at some point riding another atv.
Now it's mostly illegal to ride four wheelers on paved roads in Arkansas and in many other places, but out there in the country it is a common mode of transportation for teens. His mother, Jennifer Brazil, told us that Trip was homeschooled and also had a job at a carpet store.
They love being outside, sweet, respectful kids. He knew how to actuards his elders. They had been riding fullers all day, actually, his brother and sister. I'm glad that they got to send the day with him. Then he went by our friend's house, so they were having a party. And if it comes back you had alcohol in this system, that's not going to shock me. But as far as drugs, no, Trip was not a drug user. He told his friends to try to stop smoking weeds. Trip was very scared of drugs.
There were police officers near the teens in the woods that night. Deputy Tray Bonham and Sergeant David Kenney from the Saint Francis County Sheriff's Office had been out there responding to a call dealing with a missing eleven year old and twelve year old girl and boy from Cross County. So Sergeant Kenny and Deputy Bonham got called out to an area near Highway three eight because one of the missing Cross County kids phones was pinging in that area.
Deputy Bynham wrote in his report that while they were checking out a residence in the woods, they heard ATVs driving around erratically. When they finished up and got back to their vehicles, Sergeant Kenney went to go find those ATVs. He was the first one to make contact with Trip and his family members. In his report, he said that he was talking to the people who were on one of the four wheelers, basically telling everyone to slow down.
As Deputy Bontam approached, he saw one of the four wheelers slow down like it was about to stop, but then, he said, the four wheeler took off and passed him at a high rate of speed. The driver of that ATV was Trip Brazil. The police started talking to Trip's aunt and uncle and one of Trip's friends.
Then He was riding with my brother and sister in law who her dad is a state trooper, and the cop pulled up to the stop sign and said what are y'all doing? They said, oh, we'll just stop riding. Looks a little way y'all need to go.
Sergeant Kenny was interviewed about this incident.
There's two four wheelers and four individuals there. They all looked to be leaked teen's early twenties. As I got out of my truck and walked around in front of my vehicle, one of the four wheelers took off going south on two eighty four. He went a couple hundred yards and stopped, looked over his shoulder. I said, where's he going. One of the kids popped up and said, we don't know, sir. I said, so he's just going to leave y'all here. He said, that's what it looks like.
Will he come back by? And he was approaching. He was slowing down like he was going to stop.
At that point, Deputy Bonham started his pursuit of the four wheeler. He was trying to pull trip over. Sergeant Kenny said he just wanted the driver of that ATV to slow down. He said. He called out on the radio to the driver, telling him to watch the hairpin turns on the roadway. Trip didn't stop. Instead, he turned onto another road, Highway four O nine, and sped away, so Deputy Bottom followed him. This high speed chase went
on up a hill and back down a hill. Technically it was a dirt burm, but that's how the deputies described it. And that's when something happened, something that caused Trip to abruptly stop and jump off his four wheeler at twelve forty two am. This is the bodycam footage of that chase. In real time. You can hear the deputy yell at Trip, but he'd already gotten off the four wheeler and was running. Trip was wearing a camouflage hoodie, blue jeans, and boots as he took off through the woods.
In that bodycam footage, it looks like he jumped over a barbed wire fence and took off across a field. Trip didn't stop or turned back. He fled into the woods and kept on running and then he disappeared. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast Helen 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 five. That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five, Or you can send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
In that police bodycam footage, you can see trips abandoned yellow and dark gray four wheeler. Deputy Bottom runs up to the barber Ware fence, where he stops with his gun drawn, but there's no sign of trip. He'd already run into the dark woods. So Deputy Bottom goes back to his vehicle and gets on the radio. Now some parts of this are kind of hard to understand, but he's saying that they wrecked and that he had the four wheeler he wrecked out.
I got the fooler.
I'm good, but we went up, bitch, I said, I'm good. When we went up that ditch right there, both of us, me and him both.
The second officer on the scene, Sergeant Kenny, shows up. They start talking about what happened.
There's gonna be a white male on a cam flies hoodie and blue jays. Looked like he went off that way.
Did he roll it or something?
Hey turned it and jumped off and took off running across the field.
At this point, it doesn't seem like they believe that this was a super serious situation. The deputy later said that he had followed his partner so that he would have backup if needed, but at this point they had no weapons drawn.
He had jumped over the fence and we looked called out, hey, come back to the road.
You've been fire a weapon or anything.
No sir, No sir.
Later police were able to figure out through examining the four wheeler that the connection to the battery was lost somehow. There was damage to the hot battery cable. Basically, something happened that made the battery die. This was a high speed chase, and both the police and trip went over a hill, so it might have happened. Then The impact was enough that the officers did check for damage on his truck, but they said they did not find any
significant damage. It turned out that after Trip came off that four wheeler and ran away, he started making phone calls. He called his mother, Jennifer, and was also in touch with his father, but at some point his phone died. Deputy Bottoms secured the four wheeler and Sergeant Kenny got a trailer to take it back to the station. Once they got there, they were looking for a VEN number
on that vehicle. Sergeant Kenny said they couldn't find one. Later, he said they figured out that the vehicle had been stolen. There is nothing else about that in the reports, so I need to say I have no idea if the four wheeler was stolen or who allegedly stole it, but from the reports, it does not look like that was
the police priority. They were focused on finding Trip. When Deputy Bynum and Sergeant Kenny were trying to pull over Trip, they said they didn't know who he was, but they didn't know his family.
This late at night would allowed for the waking folks of and I know his dad, I.
Know his mom, and I know his brother, but I wouldn't know him if he walked up and spit on it and I don't know if he recognized me, and that's why he took off and wanted.
To be the chasing Deputy Bonum said that another deputy, Deputy, Bradshaw, reached out to Tripp's father. This would have been at around one am. According to the incident report, Tripp's parents said he had still not come home and that they were going out to look for him, and according to Sergeant Kenney's report, Jennifer was in touch with Trip during this time and pleading with her son to come out and turn himself in, while at the same time trying
to calm him down. Both of Tripp's parents were trying to reassure him that they were on their way to find him. Jennifer said that after Trip was thrown off his four wheeler and walked through the woods for a period of time, that he called her to come and pick him up. So Jennifer and Gil headed out to Highway four oh nine to the area where Trip was
last seen. When they arrived, deputies were still there. Trip talked to other people too, and one of his friends, who was interviewed by police, said that Trip's location could be viewed on Snapchat live. At some point. Sergeant Kenney said that he got Trip's phone number. He said he sent Trip a text himself, but Trip never responded. He said, quote, I only wanted to tell the kids to not drive reckless at night. If he had only stopped, then I
would have just called his dad. His mother showed me a text where I was telling her that he was a screw up and apologies to both parents. End quote. That text was sent at one forty one am, but a few minutes after that, sometime around two am, Trip's phone went dead. Meanwhile, an anonymous phone call was placed to the Sheriff's office.
We got an unknown anonymous phone call, and the phone call whoever it was, stated that he was in the woods.
He was behind the church on Sec.
Four O nine in that area.
Deputy Bonhams said that an anonymous caller told him that Trip had been driving the four wheeler. He said that some deputies went out to that area behind the church and looked for Trip, but couldn't find him. Police talked to one of Trip's friends. This is from Deputy Tray Bonham's body camp. You can hear him talking to the friend asking him if he knows anything about Trip's whereabouts.
All right, man, you've been bored for a while.
He's up.
Tell me the truth.
It's the truth. You know what, Trips.
I ain't gonna fucking clue what Trip. I've been trying to find Trip, my damn hill to him, get.
The fuck home, not being a dat When I say this ranning, it's Raine ran out of his shoes. It's fourteen years old, and nobody's singing or hear.
Trip's friend shows the deputy where Trip's last location. Pinned. Trip was on Snapchat and his friend used a live location video to show the deputy trips last location.
So look right here, you got where four nine splits. That's f C four or nine goes two ways. That's where it was three hours ago. I'm sure that's where he left. The fool was right there over there and took off front of him for at the end of this day, in or one of the others. That's fourteen minute drive from here.
My main concern is if he's hurt.
Yeah, I mean the way y'all said he jumping.
Ran from the politics.
I got toldkay when he walked in, it's like a little brother to me.
I got his back like I had my little brother back.
But in this situation, I tell where my little brother was.
I have what tripple was.
I tell you well, I'm heard a bug out there. If you hear anything, lemon know.
Jennifer was also upset that, in her words, that the police seemed to be more concerned with securing and taking the four wheeler than they were about finding her son.
I last talked the trip at one and I made it to the woods at two o'clock, where his phone went dead and the full wheeler was already gone. There were no cops out theirs. I hollered, went in the woods, hollowed for trip nothing but within that amount of time that foll whelller was already gone. They weren't looking for my kids. They wanted the full wheeler. He followed his vehicle up on the embankment after the trip, where it looked like he could I possibly use the vehicle as
a deadly weapon. Actually called me and said they got the full wheeler because he was hiding. Apparently that's what it sounded like. And I said, okay, I'm coming to get you. He said, well, my phone's about to guy. I said, I've got your fans location on all my way. She said okay. I said I love you. He said love you too. So it wasn't like guy who was arguing with him or killing him on the feature foot when you get home. It was just coming to get you.
One I got a weird text message with another County Talk who at this time we found out was not even on night shift. Pe' dayshift, so why did you call my husband's phone at one nine? At the same time, I got a weird text on my phone from Trip and said they got tripped with then one until ocock the foiler was gone.
Jin and her husband kept searching for Trip throughout the night. The police search also went on late into the night and into the next day. At four twenty am, Sergeant Kenney asked the fire department to send out drones with thermal and night vision, but they found no trace of Trip. Later, Jen posted on social media that she found that suspicious the fact that the drones found no trace of Trip, even though he was supposed to have been running through
the woods. But drones that respond to body heat can have lots of obstacles. They don't always work perfectly. They can be impeded by trees or outdoor temperature, wind, and a lot of other factors. At seven twenty am, the East Arkansas Department of Corrections brought in their tracker dogs. The dogs were released where Trip had been when he fled the Saint but they were unable to get a tracking sent on him. Then they were taken to the area where Trip's cell phone had last panned. Still no luck.
The Arkansas State Police were called in to assist. So now you have the ASP, the Saint Francis County Sheriff's office, the Game and Fish Commission, and multiple other organizations, plus tons of local volunteers. Everyone in that county was looking for Trip Brazil. Local news crews were talking to Tripp's family and word got out fast, both on the news and on social media, and a lot of people were
asking how this happened. This was a kid who knew the area well, so they couldn't figure out how he had gotten lost out there and just disappeared, and why with all the people searching for him, he hadn't been found. Searchers fanned out all over the area where Trip was missing, a part of the woods near Crow Creek. The area near where Trip went missing is basically on the edge of Crowley's Ridge, which is a continuous range of rolling
hills that goes from Missouri across eastern Arkansas. The area got its name from the first white settler to reach the area, Benjamin Crowley. The ridges happened when the Mississippi River changed course at one point and kept cutting into the terrain, so you have this really unique geographical feature. It goes from flat Delta country to an elevation of two hundred and fifty feet really quickly. This terrain can be pretty unforgiving even for people who know it well,
and it's very easy to get lost up there. And told the local wrig news channel that she thought that maybe Trip would walk back to where he believed he had left the ATV, and then because the police had taken his vehicle, she said maybe he couldn't find it, So she reasoned that he may have started walking into
the woods, gotten disoriented somehow, and gotten lost. His mother said that Trip had last been in touch with him in the early morning hours on Sunday, that Trip was talking about the police chasing him, that he was scared, and that he wanted his parents to come get him. She said she believed that Trip jumped off his ATV and over a barb wire fence in order to escape the officer who was pursuing him. She was basing that on the fact that near that fence they found Trip's
hat in his shoe. This was just a few feet from where he came off as four wheeler and started running from police. They found something else on Monday too. Searchers found more of Trip's clothes, his other boot, his hoodie, his cell phone, and his wallet, and Jennifer said the way that his clothing was found was odd. His sweatshirt was lying on some leaves and his phone, wallet, screwdriver, and phone charger were laying on top of the sweatshirt.
So she wondered, why would Trip have left his stuff out there in the dark like that, or could something else have happened to him? Did someone else leave the stuff out there?
Later well, Monday morning, we mysteriously find his other boot and his hoodie and siphon and wallet. It wasn't their Sunday, but it was their Monday some reason. His sweatshirts, phone wallet, screwdriver, and phone charger were laying on top of his sweatshirt. But then he hundred yards up the other side of the ridge he found his boots. I don't understand that, because if I'm gonna go ahead and take off my sweatshirt that I have, I'm going to take off my
last boot that I had on. Anyway, I'm not gonna go further up and then put my boot there and then continue to walk. Because we found his boot and hat, and they brought dogs in and the dogs never hit on anything.
So now she was thinking that this was seriously odd. Why would he start taking off clothes in the middle of the night and keep running. And Jennifer said, this wasn't the first time that Deputy Bonham had gotten into some kind of a confrontation with her son and his friends over riding four wheelers in that area.
Just because Tripp had out Randim on the four wheler before, and he told people that he would get him, and he made sure that Trip was aware of that that he told people. It was supposedly said that this other boy he was chasing, he pulled up in their driveway one day and Trip his name was mentioned in that conversation that if he's seen him again, he would kill him.
But Deputy Bonham stated in his report that he had no idea that the driver who had doubled back and passed back by him and turned into a highway four O nine was Trip, even when he was close to it. On Monday, November fourth, the Arkansas State Police were called in to assist. They found Trip's iPhone in the woods. It had died, and it was turned over to police
and taken in for data extraction. Later that afternoon, at around four thirty pm, an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission officer saw something north of Benner State forty, near the two hundred and forty three point seven mile marker. It
was Trip's body. He was hanging from a tree at around four thirty in the afternoon on Monday, November fourth, thirty six hours after fifteen year old Trip Brazil got into a high speed chase with a police officer in Saint Francis County, Arkansas, his body was found hanging from a tree. We filed freedom of information requests and we were able to get copies of the incident report, though parts of it were redacted, probably due to Trip's age.
I wanted to cover this case because we get a lot of calls from parents and from other family members who believed that their loved one did not take their own life, and that there was some kind of foul play not suicide involved. We wanted to see what we could do to help Trip's family get answers. At first, we wondered if Trip's four wheeler incident could have been something else, Maybe the police truck had hit him, or
there was some kind of automobile accident. There has been quite a bit of publicity in recent years about the so called pit maneuvers in Arkansas. That's when police try to stop a high speed chase by forcing the other driver into some kind of a wreck. There have been fatalities as a result of some of these maneuvers, so we wondered if this could have been a pit maneuver. Deputy Bonham was interviewed about the police chase and he was asked why he was chasing Trip in the first place.
So we can get some clarifications on one thing. You know, of course it'll be brought up. The reason why he was chasing him was because it appeared to you he was fleeing from David Kitty. And do you know why David Kinny even stopped him for he was just was he just doing a welfare check on was there a reason for him? Stime was was there on a road that went to vote for Adam for wheelers?
It was on Highway two twenty four and in the area of that neighborhood was driving at the redick speed too?
Yeah, anxiously And so do y'all think that this person they may have been a part of that kid that may have been missing his opinion from Cross County?
Nosha, I don't these two, Like I said, it was eleven and twelve.
Years old, okay, So you just in that area, but then ran across to them and decided to check him on the reason why I was saying that because it's late at night.
Late at night to four, but there's a lot of people driving through there at that time. You know, someone's intoxicated and stuff like that.
That give me your reason for chasing him. That's I'm gonna make sure I understood your reason.
The blue lights and the sirens for the four wheeler to stop, and it didn't stop.
Okay, But what was the probable cause?
I guess what I'm trying to say, the excessive speeds and.
Did you clock them on radar? Just no, sir, No, I'm not trying you know what I'm saying. That's just what I won't because what the family gonna say is this and that another other you know what I'm saying.
He said that he estimated that his speed was around eighty miles an hour while chasing the four wheeler. Now, apparently some four wheelers can get to speeds of seventy to eighty miles per hour. The more average speed on four wheelers ranged generally from around fifty to ninety miles an hour, though again Deputy Bonum admitted that he had no way of checking and did not know how fast
the fore wheeler was actually going. Trip's mom said that he had traveled quite a distance from the spot where he left his four wheeler.
I think they said about sum orles and it's growth terrain. It was Crowley's ruge I means hold that you couldn't see that was covered up with leaves.
The police said that early indications pointed to suicide, but from the beginning Trip's parents felt that the circumstances around his death did not add up. Trip's body was found in the middle of some dense woods. He was hanging from a tree overlooking a gully. There was a deer stand thirty feet south of where the body was found, and police figured out that the green rope that was
removed from Trip's body was actually a ratchet strap. It was a match to the green one that was tied around the deer stand to secure it to a tree. Police cut Trip's body. He was taken to the Morgue in for At City, and that's where his mother, Jennifer, saw her son for the last time.
What they're saying, but it's hard to believe that he walked up far in the woods and in the creek. Did you say he didn't have any damage to the bottom of his seat. Nope, none, not a scratch. And I walked through those woods for two days and I had blisters on my feet and scratches from where Old Bob War was laying under leaves.
His mother wondered why that deer stand, in particular, why would he choose that location.
I didn't get to see him until after he was brought back to the funeral home, and the first thing I looked at wasn't the bottom of his feet, because hesedly went there footed and there was no scratch, no bruise. But they had his body to overed up. His doctor even came to the house that night and Chris were talking now and she said, it's not who Trip was. Trip was a I don't give a f kid.
She said that she was told that the police officer's body camera was recording when Trip's body was cut down, and the police told her they found no signs of foul play, which Jennifer said she found hard to believe.
Like, I said, there should be something wrong with the bottom of his feet, and I thought for myself that nothing was wrong with him. Yeah, bruising around the eyes, yeah, bruising around the neck, between his big knuckle and ring finger, there was a big gash like he had been in a fight, Like he was fighting. He was putting up a fight.
Now Trip's devastated family had to try to figure out what happened. What would cause a healthy and happy fifteen year old to take his own life just because of an incident with a four wheeler. Why would he kill
himself over something that seemed to be so minor. One of the questions that I had, and that a lot of other people have had in Saint Francis County and everywhere else, is how common suicide is and young teens and would this even be something that someone that age would do on the spur of the moment like that?
According to report from the National Library of Medicine, which looked at patterns and suicides in the United States from nineteen ninety nine through twenty twenty, In that twenty one year period, there were forty seven thousand, two hundred and seventeen adolescent suicide deaths, and hanging in exphyxiation is now right up there with firearms as having the highest age
adjusted suicide rates among Americans of every age. Death rates for all means of suicide on average increased annually from nineteen ninety nine to twenty twenty, but actually hanging in exphyxiation had the largest absolute increase among male and female adolescents in a nutshell. Sadly, this is becoming a more and more common choice for teens who may be at risk of suicide. The Arkansas State Police took over the investigation into Trip's death, and it was not long before
rumors were flying on social media. Suicide is not a common occurrence in Saint Francis County. According to data from the Arkansas Department of Health, Saint Francis County actually had zero suicides in twenty twenty three. However, we do have to keep in mind there are only just a little over twenty two thousand people in the entire county, so it is pretty sparsely populated, but suicide happens everywhere for children and teens trips age. The causes of suicide can
be pretty complicated to figure out. In around forty percent of use suicides, there is some sort of precipitating event like sexual abuse or the death of someone close to them, or even things like divorce, But that also means that in sixty percent of cases there is not an obvious cause. So in a lot of these cases, teens this age can and do make impulsive decisions that can be hard to understand. So Trip's devastated family was true trying to make sense of why he would do this, and they
also weren't sure about the police's version of events. Tripp's families say there were no mental health issues and zero indication that he could be thinking of taking his own life, but it turned out that Trip did send another text That night, we got more of the Foyer fileback, and one of the items that we got was a picture of a text message that was sent from Trip to a family member shortly after he disappeared at one forty
one am. It read, in part quote, look, I love y'all so much, and I'm so sorry to do this to y'all. I love you more than anything. I guess it took me till now to realize that y'all have been great parents to me. I guess I'm just a fuck up and I couldn't change that. I wish I could have. I'm sorry. None of this is y'all's fault, only mine. I love y'all. I'm sorry I should have stopped. I love y'all so much. My phone is about to die, so I got to go. I hope this makes it
to y'all. I never wanted to end this way, but I guess it has to end quote. His family reached out to him after that to say they were on their way, but Tripp never responded, and at some point his battery must have died out there. This is such a tragic story because I completely understand why Trip's parents and many other people in the community may have believed that there was some kind of foul play involved, but the evidence that we have seen does not support anything
other than a suicide. It seems as though Trip's death was a series of unfortunate events. Each one on its own might have seemed small, but taken together, unfortunately, it seems they led to a devastating consequence. I wish that I had a better answer for Tripp's family, but the reality is we may never know why he did what he did that night, or what was going on in mind.
But I believe that Trip's story is important to tell because part of this show's mission is helping families get answers, even when those answers may not be what they want to hear. In twenty twenty, there was one death by suicide in the United States every eleven minutes. I want to let you know there's now a national number that you can call for help. It used to be known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Now it's called the
nine eight eight Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. To reach out, you just dial nine eight eight and you'll be connected directly to a mental health professional. There are versions of this service for veterans. There are versions in Spanish. There's also a video version for people who may be hard of hearing or who use American sign language. There are also lgbt QI counselors. There are versions of this service
for everyone. Trip's death is an absolute tragedy and I can only hope that in some small way this might help someone else who's struggling out there to reach out for help. 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 and James Wheaton for
legal review. Noah camer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Sale. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and ELC 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 gonepod. 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 six seven eight seven four four six one four
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