Episode 311

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

You've been sitting on this lounge without seeing from anybody?

Because I've had the entire town of Spring Creek asking me if I've killed Britain and he might as well have if he didn't see anything.

Well, it's another one.

You knew it was coming, right?

This is Sword and Scale, episode 311.

A show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

Why did I say that so fast?

I still have a little time.

You wanna hang out or something?

This episode was written and produced by Elena Thomas, one of our senior producers here at Tornscale.

I keep meaning to give credit, but I keep getting bogged down and forget, because I have to mention how awesome our Plus service is.

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Teenagers live in a world of contradictions.

They crave independence, but they lack experience.

That's why they say so many really stupid things on Instagram and Snapchat.

Oh, and uh, that Chinese spying app, TikTok.

They trust too easily.

Their instincts are still underdeveloped.

It's a stage of life defined by growth, curiosity, and vulnerability.

A time when friendships feel unshakable.

But they are shakable.

They'll probably end, and most people you talk to right now as a kid won't be around in a couple years.

It's a time when the world feels safe, but somehow danger lurks around every corner.

These days, technology is the sun we all seem to orbit around, myself included, and teenagers are uniquely susceptible to both the wonders and the perils technology brings.

Apps like Snapchat promise the allure of privacy, letting users share photos and messages that disappear.

It's no secret this technology seems maliciously marketed towards underage users.

Why would a kid need access to an app with vanishing messages and photos?

Think about it.

It's a disaster waiting to happen.

Your kid buys drugs from someone over Snapchat and overdoses?

Well, too bad.

Those messages are gone.

Your kid agrees to meet up with someone in the middle of the night?

Well, you may never find out where they went.

Kids tend to view Snapchat as infallible.

Unless someone takes a screenshot of what you've sent them, and Snapchat does notify both users when that happens, teens can sleep easily knowing the photos they've sent are gone forever.

But this is how Snapchat used to work.

Its new features have opened doors for law enforcement.

This hasn't changed how kids interact with the app, though.

I mean, we've said it here a million times: kids are dumb.

They don't know any better.

It's interesting when something designed to make things disappear ends up the only witness to a heinous crime.

Spring Creek, Nevada, is a small town in Elko County, near the base of the Ruby Mountains.

It's located in the northeastern quadrant of the state.

With a population of just over 15,000, it's a place like so many others we've talked about in past episodes.

Everyone knows each other, everyone looks out for each other, blah blah blah, all that.

To the people of Spring Creek, danger is something that exists in other towns, not theirs.

For 16-year-old high schooler Brittany Ulicki and her family, Spring Creek was home.

Brittany was a bright, social teenager who loved working on the ranch almost as much as she loved hanging out with her friends.

Her mom, Alicia, worked as a nurse, often pulling long shifts while her dad, Jim, a local musician, played shows with his band.

Though Alicia and Jim were divorced, they stayed connected through their kids, sharing a sense of pride in Brittany's growing independence.

But on Sunday, March 8th, 2020, the routine predictability of Spring Creek life shattered.

The day started like many others.

Brittany spent the morning in nearby Elko at her dad's band practice, a regular event.

She was supposed to be spending the night at his place.

Brittany was good about checking in with her parents regularly.

Jim said, no matter what, Brittany called me every hour.

It was a little after 3.30 p.m.

when Brittany left band practice.

She told her dad that she had caught a ride, and they laughed about how Brittany would end up beating him home.

Later on, when Jim got in his truck to head back and called his daughter to let her know he was on his way, Brittany's phone went straight to voicemail.

At first, Jim tried to stay calm.

Maybe Brittany's phone battery died.

Or maybe she was home napping napping or watching TV.

But when he arrived and found the house empty, he called her again.

And again.

And again.

By the third time, the unease was hard to ignore.

Meanwhile, Alicia was experiencing her own growing panic.

By the next morning, Alicia assumed Jim had called the police and made a report himself, but she discovered that he hadn't.

He's just very friendly.

You want to come and sit down?

Sure.

Okay, so

is it son or daughter?

Daughter.

Daughter?

Yeah.

Okay.

What is daughter's name?

Brittany, you want to pick me a picture?

Her name's Brittany.

Okay.

She

was supposed to be going home yesterday.

She was in town with her dad.

Okay.

And she got her, she told him, I'm going to get a ride home with a friend.

I'll beat you home.

And he says, you better beat me because I'll be there in an hour.

And she goes, we're going right home.

Talking about coming here?

You know, her dad lives in South Fork.

We're split up.

Okay.

And

her friend that had her,

I talked to him.

He dropped her off at the high school down here at four o'clock with some guy.

And I go, what guy?

And he goes, I don't know.

She just said my new friend.

Tall, white, cowboy-looking guy with a green truck.

And now nobody can find her none of her friends her phone's not on okay

all right i don't know where to find her what did you

so i have to ask a glaring question

when did you guys become extremely worried that she was missing i mean because we're talking about now quite a long period of time between when she got dropped off with this mail

and

i was on it last night her dad was supposedly calling, and then I asked him this morning, did the cops, could you make the report?

And he goes, no.

So I've been up all night.

Okay, so you assumed the dad was doing what you're doing now.

Okay.

There are a million different possibilities in a situation like this.

Law enforcement has to get a good picture of what kind of teen they're dealing with so they can decide whether this is a runaway or whether they're in amber alert territory.

Either way, they were desperate to find Brittany.

Does she go here to Spring Creek High School?

She's actually doing homeschool.

Okay.

She's got a lot of enemies, and I'm scared.

She has a lot of enemies?

Why would you say that?

She just does.

It's my non-school.

Everybody wants the last time she went to a rodeo scout job by four girls.

And I just, I'm just worried.

You guys weren't in a fight or anything like that recently.

Would there be no reason for her

to

rebel or stay out?

No.

I mean, I got lots of problems with her anyway because she's 17, you know, almost 17.

But

yesterday in the last few days, we've been in a really good low.

I talked to her FaceTime for an hour at like 1:30.

Everything was just fine.

She was just

happy-go-lucky.

Everything was good.

Alicia's mother and grandmother wondered out loud whether there were any security cameras in the parking lot when Brittany was dropped off and got into that green pickup truck.

The 18-year-old boy, a close family friend, said that he had left Brittany in the Spring Creek High School lot at her request.

And all we know is that it was a marine truck.

We know nothing else about the individual.

No, I didn't.

The boy said it was an ugly green F-150 from the early 2000s.

They had dropped her off.

Bryce Dickey

is the kid that dropped her off.

So that's the last person that we know of that's seen her.

Well, I'm going to take this.

I'm going to get her entered.

And then I'm going to go speak with my supervisor and see

what the next course of action is going to be.

Okay.

Okay.

The next day, police worked to track down all of Brittany's friends, including the one who had dropped her off at the high school parking lot, 18-year-old Bryce Dickey.

Bryce was out of town with his mom for some doctor's appointments.

So detectives first spoke with him over the phone and later met up with him at the same parking lot that he left Brittany at the day before.

Hey, Bryce.

How's it going?

I appreciate you meeting you here.

Yeah, no problem.

So, kind of tell me, run me through it so I can understand what's going on.

So, I'm going to stand in the shade over here if you don't mind.

Good point.

Alright, so

Sunday, around 11,

I started texting, got a few texts from Brittany and just asked if I wanted to hang out.

I said sure, got ready and stuff, told me she could meet me at Angel Park because she said her dad was doing band practice.

And then

went to town.

Called her when I got into town on 5th

and then

picked her up at Angel Park.

kept driving around and then we were over in the horse pile section and my dad called me asking if I could come back home.

So I told her I needed to go, asked her if she wanted me to just drop her back off at Angel Park and she said that she wanted to

me to drop her off at high school to meet her new friend

and

said her dad was gonna pick her up later so then

came over here, pulled in right over there, gave her a hug and stuff, and then she got out.

I pulled out and then started heading that way.

And the F-150 was over there, but I didn't know that was where she was going at that time.

They were both standing outside the truck, and then I got to the turnout right over there by the middle school, and then that the F-150 was in motion.

So you said what was the F-150?

Yeah, it was

that Tritons, the

ones that are really ugly looking, have the sidestep on them.

Like that winter green, dark forest green.

Look at dark forest green.

Bryce's account matched what Brittany's family had recounted from their conversation with him.

He talked about a green truck, an ugly one from the early 2000s, a toolbox, and stickers on the rear window.

It looked decently dirty, but just like about as much as that truck is right there.

A typical truck that's...

a typical Spring Freak truck.

At this time of year.

Yeah.

And then

had a silver toll box in the bed.

It had

stickers on the back window, but I didn't see what any of them were.

With such a clear and descriptive lead, this case was about to move very quickly.

But no one was less prepared for how everything would pan out than Brittany's mother, Alicia.

Brittany was always a

very fiery, full of energy, spunky little girl.

And

she was always so full of passion right from the get-go.

Do you know what I mean?

She was just this little ball of fire, light, and just fun, you know.

She's a very good girl.

She was born in Colorado Springs, and we lived there for a while.

And then we made the move over here to Elko because her dad got hired at the gold mines over here.

She would have been eight.

So we made the move over here, which was exciting for me at first because I grew up over here.

I went to high school over here.

We went to the same,

I went to Spring Creek High School.

So it was kind of exciting.

And I thought, oh, this will be fun.

This is such a safe place.

The opportunities are going to be great over here for us.

And we came over here with a lot of high hopes.

The activities Elko County had to offer spoke to Brittany.

She loved being surrounded by the mountains and the desert.

She

instantaneously grabbed on to the buckaroo cowboy lifestyle of this place, you know, and

that was her lifestyle.

That was her friend group, you know, just all a bunch of the kids that liked to ride horses and participate in rodeo.

And, you know,

Brittany was a real deal cowgirl out on the ranch.

And there was no trophies, there was no judges, but there was, you know what I mean?

She was

a little bit more,

she wasn't an arena cowgirl.

We'll just put it that way.

Brittany had a big personality, but deep down, she was steady and determined.

She had plans for her future and worked hard to make them happen, surprising people with how driven she could be.

But public school wasn't easy for her because she had severe dyslexia and some issues with bullying.

Brittany's parents decided to pull her out just before her junior year and homeschool her.

And she was thriving.

She was on track to graduate early.

The Navy recruiters had definitely got to her, which

I was not winning that argument with her because she was...

full steam, ready to go.

But I'm telling you,

she was so strong.

You know what I mean?

And like, she would come and do more pull-ups than the recruiter.

And he was just like, holy cow, kid, you know?

So she was on track.

She was, she was going to graduate a year early.

She was going to join the Navy.

And,

you know,

she was doing it.

Despite the hurdles, Brittany wasn't one to give up.

Staying on track to graduate early while dealing with severe dyslexia is no small feat.

I feel like we were handling it really well.

We were adapting to the situation.

Things were going good.

And

then that day happened, you know, and just blew everything up.

We were a very normal,

whatever you want to call it, normal.

We were a very average family.

You know what I mean?

And then to have something like this come and happen is just unbelievable.

Everyone depended on Bryce to recall every detail of that day.

From Alicia's perspective, if Brittany had been abducted and was taken out of state, his description of the man and vehicle could be their only shot at finding her.

So I got a little bit of the story as to what your involvement was, but I'm not clear on a lot of things, and I'm just trying to do the best job that I can do.

So hopefully you can ask any question that you would like.

Perfect, man.

Thank you very much.

Now, what was kind of the nature of that conversation?

What's your relationship with her?

Brittany has been one of my closest friends since probably my

seventh or eighth grade year.

Oh, because you've known each other for a while.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Non, that was one of the issues we had with the cop previously is

that we were going over because

her name on my phone is Lil Sis because she's called me Big Brother since like freshman year.

And then he kept asking me, well, if she's your little sis, why didn't you know her better?

Because there was questions that I didn't know the answer to.

We won't make you sit through the whole story again.

But Bryce recalls recalls picking up Brittany at Angel Park.

They drove around for a while and he details her routes and stops for detectives.

He says his dad called telling him to come home.

Brittany was on the phone in the passenger seat before asking Bryce to drop her off at the high school to meet a friend.

She gave him a hug, walked towards the green truck, and Bryce drove away.

And right before I got out, I looked back over and I just saw her over at the F-150 with someone.

That was it.

Could you see any type of clothing or anything on them?

Nothing specific that I could see.

Was it a white hat, black hat?

It didn't look light, so I

don't think it was a straw hat, but I mean, they do make black straw hats and stuff like that, so.

By this point, Bryce and some of Brittany's other friends had been out searching for her.

One of the officers actually crossed paths paths with a vehicle of kids as they drove around scouring the town and surrounding desert.

Bryce was the only one who knew what this guy looked like, though.

The line of sight he had from the gas station across the street gave him a vague picture of who was now known as the mysterious cowboy in the green truck.

Was there any conversation when you picked up, and I'm sure there was conversation, but was there any conversation that kind of sticks out in your mind when you picked her up?

Um

I had a ton of conversations.

There was a

few because the co-host had previously asked me if she said anything about going anywhere besides

she said that she was planning on going to Texas after the summer with her friend.

You keep in contact with her pretty regularly even though she wasn't at school?

Or is it just kind of nervous?

Talk to her a couple times a week.

Okay.

Now, then the reason I'm asking that is did she say anything about anyone that she was having having problems with or any

people that she was interested in or anything like that?

We all knew she was talking with some guy that we think was in New York, but I mean she'd be talking to him for a while.

Okay.

Besides that, and then like I told everyone else, a lot of people had problems with Brittany, but nothing that we would see with this outcome.

Sure.

Sure.

Well, hopefully, yeah, okay.

It sounded like Brittany might have been talking to a stranger online, one that she may have actually met up with.

Luckily, Spring Creek High School was right in town, and though there were no security cameras on the building itself, there were numerous businesses with a view of the parking lot.

Surely one of them had some helpful footage.

Brittany's friends and family tried not to lose hope, but the signs weren't looking good.

To make matters worse, her phone had been inactive this entire time.

And it's interesting that that's when me and Jim both, our alarm bells started going off and we were starting to, you know,

and

for Brittany, her phone was never off.

She was a little social media junkie, if you will.

You know what I mean?

It was all about Snapchat selfie.

So it just got really, really, really scary that her phone,

you know, kept going off and then added into the fact that Dickie had told my son, well, I dropped her off with somebody.

You know what I mean?

So my brain is going,

holy shit, somebody grabbed my daughter.

You know what I mean?

And they are, they've trafficked her.

They're what something.

You know what I mean?

That's the thought that went through my head.

And

because I was like,

I don't care if she didn't run away.

Putting her as a runaway puts her in the system, fine, she ran away.

Just get her in the system.

Something is wrong.

You know, something is wrong.

A parent's intuition is very real.

It was just after 5 p.m.

on March 8th, the day Brittany disappeared when her phone pinged off a cell phone tower for the last time.

Investigators chose to keep this crucial information to themselves, withholding it not just from the public, but even from Brittany's parents.

This final ping gave detectives a defined area to search.

Then, on March 11th, two days after Brittany was officially reported missing, they found something.

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When 16-year-old Brittany Uliki went missing, Spring Creek, Nevada was suddenly a town full of questions.

Her parents, Alicia and Jim, were desperate for answers, and as word spread, the search for Brittany pulled in nearly everyone in the town.

She was tough, outspoken, and more at home on horseback than anywhere else.

But on March 8th, 2020, she wasn't on the ranch.

She was in town, spending the afternoon with a friend, Bryce Dickey.

According to Bryce, he dropped her off at Spring Creek High School so she could meet someone, a cowboy, in a green Ford F-150.

Pretty generic description, if you ask me.

Then again, I live in Texas, so there's that.

That was the last time anyone saw her.

Three days later, At 1.50 in the afternoon, two men called 911.

They had found what they thought might be a body near Burner Basin, a remote stretch of land between Elko and Spring Creek.

All right, well,

I stopped right here.

He parked right there where he's at.

I stopped and I backed up right there.

So I don't know if you guys do the tire print and all that, or if that's all TV.

Yeah, we'll

shoot.

We'll get a statement from you guys here in a second.

Alright.

Ah, we'll find out here in a minute.

But

first glance, doesn't look good.

Drag marked right there.

Uh-oh.

See that?

Yep.

That's not difficult.

Oh, that's a 1092.

That's a body.

Let's get out.

Yep.

I can see enough right now.

Looks like a girl's hand.

Let's back out.

Nobody needed autopsy results to know who this was.

Brittany's partially clothed body was found lying in the desert sand and brush.

Someone had tried to cover her up with a tarp, but they didn't do a very good job.

There was blood evidence and even drag marks leading from the roadway to her final resting place.

Police collected a condom wrapper, a used condom, a pair of AirPods, and a lanyard of keys with the name Brittany on it.

Just like the information about the phone ping, detectives decided to keep these discoveries to themselves aside from Brittany's family.

After all, their interview process was far from over.

But I got a call that on Wednesday

that, you know, I needed to go down for my interview.

You know, they were going to dump my phone.

You know, it's a full-on forensic interview at this point.

Partly true, because that's when I got that scam phone call.

About, we've got your daughter, we've kidnapped her, she's not doing well from the drugs that we used, and she's going to die.

And if you don't send me $2,500,

I'm going to feed her to my dogs.

What kind of sick person messes with the mind of a grieving parent like that?

I mean, Jesus Christ is the internet toxic.

Some of you people need to just be put down.

I think it's because I had put the missing poster out on some of these social media groups that I had that I knew would be more far-reaching than the posters I just had here in Elko.

Because, like I said, I figured somebody had grabbed her and was on the road with her.

And

somebody got a hold of the poster and got my number.

Yep.

And

it was awful because as these messages are coming in, part of you is telling yourself, this is completely illogical.

You know what I mean?

This isn't.

But the other part of you is just panicking, going, you know.

So I remember that Detective Stake and, God, I want to say FBI agent

was at my house that night trying to tap into this number

or whatever.

And the next morning, when I was in there waiting for my interview to start, they started texting again saying, I told you,

you know, that whatever, and we're going to kill her now.

And I'm just panicking in

the waiting room.

And so they said, well, we're going to take your phone anyway.

You know, they were going to do what they do with the phones anyway.

Then I went into the interview room.

And

yeah, that's when he was just asking tons of questions.

And then he got up to leave.

And he'd been gone for way too long.

And I was, I remember sitting there thinking to myself, God, I do not have time for this police interview tactic shit where you're trying to lead me in here to make me nervous.

Dude, I need to get out there and find my kid.

Could you hurry this along?

I remember thinking that.

And then that's when he came back in and had told me, hey, I got to talk to you.

You know what I mean?

And he told me that they found a body.

He didn't even say my daughter's body.

He just said, we found a body.

And that's the last thing I remember.

To be honest, I didn't remember anything

about that until I watched the footage that they had of that.

Because I just, I do remember going to the ground.

And then the next thing I remember, I was sitting in the parking lot outside of the sheriff's station on the ground.

And I just remember just sirens and cop cars just flying past me on both sides.

And then the fire department running up to me and putting me in an ambulance.

and I was telling them,

no, no, no, no, no, I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go find my son.

And they tapped the blood pressure thing and they says, no, no, honey, you're trying to have a stroke on me.

And they hit something in my arm and I woke up seven hours later.

When the tarp was removed, it was clear that what Brittany had gone through was horrendous.

She was face down in the dirt, with her hair splayed around her head in all directions.

Her pants and underwear had been pulled to her ankles, and her sweatshirt was pushed up above her chest.

An autopsy revealed ligature marks around her neck and a fatal stab wound in the center of her neck, just above her collarbone.

By this point, footage of the high school parking lot was in and had been scrubbed for evidence.

And one clip showed a dark-colored truck with a silver toolbox in it.

Detectives printed out photos of all the vehicles that even loosely fit Bryce's description and lined them up in front of him.

Then, sitting in the same interview chair that Alicia was interviewed in, Bryce took them back through the whole story once again.

So here with Brittany on the 8th,

just talk me through that from the beginning to the end.

Okay, probably around

11 or so,

started texting and

she said she was in town for her dad's band practice

and then asked if I wanted to hang out.

So got ready,

um, went into town around

between twelve and one, I think.

And then

when I got on the right over the Fifth Street Bridge, I turned on a silver and called her because she wanted me to pick her up at Angel Park.

So and she said she was gonna walk down.

So I called her, got to Angel Park, picked her up, and then

drove around town because we had no idea what we were wanting to do.

And then my dad texted me asking if I could come home.

So I asked her if she wanted me to drop her back off at Angel Park or take her back to her dad at band practice.

And then she got on her phone for a minute or so and then just asked if I could drop her off at the high school

and then

pulled into the high school

and that's when I actually drove right past that F-150 to realize that's where I was dropping her off with.

Bryce had not mentioned this part before.

So pulled in front of the high school, I gave her a hug, dropped her off and then

I was already pulling back off and then she was walking back over to the F-150.

And then right about here is when you look back in your your rearview mirror and you saw

Brittany standing over here and you said he was outside too?

Yeah.

Okay.

And this is about where the truck was.

Yeah, roughly.

And what time did you say this was about that you dropped off?

I think it was

4.30, I think.

I literally just...

Looked in my rearview mirror when I got there and I just saw him and Brittany outside the truck.

Okay.

So when you saw both of them stand next to the truck, could you could you see the truck too?

Or?

Yeah, I could I could see the truck but also my my mirrors on my Chevy are pretty worn so it's not the best of views.

Okay.

If I recall you said something about uh

your dad had called or something.

Yeah, he texted me.

Okay, so he texted you and uh that was

to go back home or something?

Yeah.

Okay.

So

what happened after that?

I just went straight back home and then

that's why

timeline after that for me, like, because when I went into L Co PD, because they called me in there to

question me.

After I left the high school, I think I got on my phone probably once in the next two hours.

I was just at my dad's for about about an hour and a half, I think, and then went over to my mom's house to my parents' response.

Even though everyone else had been through the same rigorous interview process, being asked to retell his story so many times made Bryce feel like he was in the hot seat.

In a Snapchat message thread with a mutual friend of his and Britney's, he shared his fears.

Remember, at this point, nobody but her family knew that Britney's body had been found.

I just got interrogated.

For what?

The Britney shit.

What they ask you.

Literally everything.

Like, every goddamn inch of that day.

Damn, you're not in trouble, though, are you?

Not right now.

But he was really digging like I did something to her.

It was a legit interrogation.

Had me freaked out.

Dude, you and her are like dumb and dumber.

There's no way you would ever hurt her.

Yeah, he saw that her name in my phone was Little Sis, and he kept questioning me about it.

And it seemed like he was making it sound like I wasn't close to her, and that it was suspicious.

Did you have an alibi for after you got home?

Sort of, but I don't even remember what time I got home.

I wasn't on my phone at all.

Do you think she would run away?

Honestly, no, but I don't know.

I'm at a loss right now.

We all kind of are.

Nothing seems to make sense at all.

My mom's friend is a sheriff, and she's asked him if he thinks that when she gets found, if she'll be found alive, and he said yes.

I believe very much so.

Well, that's relieving.

Yeah, I don't think she's dead somewhere.

Either someone's holding her somewhere, or is she really just up and left?

I'm sure she'll turn up.

It'll just take time.

I sure hope so.

He probably came into the picture where I can really remember it, probably about eighth, ninth grade.

He had been in my house multiple times, and I remember my first impression, which I don't think now, but as I used to just think, oh, look at what a shy little kid he is because he'd just kind of look at his feet.

He'd never really look up, you know.

It's not so different with some of these older cowboy kids, those, you know, a little shy cowboy guy kicking his boots, looking down, you know, and that's kind of what I thought it was.

He always had her home.

when she was supposed to be home.

Like there, there was, there was a, a, a weird pattern of trust, I guess, because so many times he would be, he would make sure that she was home exactly when they said they were going to be home.

And you know what I mean?

So

there was a trust there.

Brittany was not a boy crazy girl in any way, shape, or form.

She just didn't have time for that yet.

I'm not saying that wouldn't have come, but again, there was nothing special about Dickie.

She was just a sweet soul and she would do things for people that,

like, he couldn't even be in the main building at school.

He had to be in the trailers because, you know what I mean?

He couldn't get to school.

He was having all these troubles.

So he was all on his own, isolated out in these trailers to go to school.

And Brittany would feel bad about it.

And she'd be like, oh man, mom, can you get me a blue Gatorade and a pizza so I could take it to him so that he can have a good day?

You know what I mean?

But that was just Brittany.

Behind the scenes, while keeping Brittany's death, the findings of the surveillance footage and other key pieces of evidence secret, police were also using Snapchat, of all things, to paint a picture of Brittany's final moments.

Geolocation data showed both Britney and Bryce at the Burner Basin spot, a location off of Boyd Kennedy Road at around 4:30 p.m.

Bryce had not mentioned this trip during any of his interviews.

Soon enough, the discovery of Brittany's body was publicized and her friends and family sat with the reality that she was gone forever.

For me, it means the world.

Bryce, Bryce, we definitely do not blame you one bit.

None of this is your fault.

None of it.

The only one who's at fault is whoever did this to her.

We love you too, bud.

Keep your head up.

We're here for you no matter what.

If you need anything, you know how to get a hold of us.

Stay strong.

They'll find who did this.

Yeah, I'm not letting my girl go anywhere alone.

I'm having her friend at work walk her to her truck at night because I trust him.

On Facebook, where the cattle run free, Bryce posted this.

We love you so much.

Just know you won't ever be forgotten.

Me and Jim had actually,

we took the dress and the boots down to the funeral home that she was going to be cremated in.

And we had just dropped them off.

And we were driving home.

And Nick called me and he said, Alicia,

there will be an arrest within the next three hours.

He goes,

whatever time it was, right?

And he goes, can you meet me at the station in, you know, such and such time?

And

still didn't tell me anything.

Still did not tell me anything.

I had no idea he had been arrested until I got down there to the station that day.

I had no idea they had arrested him.

No one did.

Not yet, anyway.

She was mourning, trying to hold on to what little she had left of her daughter.

But as they drove toward the police station, drawing closer to that cramped interview room, Bryce Dickey was losing his grip.

Every lie he told was turning against him, suffocating him.

He tried to hold the story together, but much like the rest of his life, it was already starting to fall apart.

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18-year-old Bryce Dickey had spent days weaving a story.

A good one, too.

He lied effortlessly, which is amazing on those interviews, convincing Brittany's friends and family that he was just as desperate to find her as they were.

But

behind closed doors, detectives weren't buying it, and they had this feeling since the very beginning.

Snapchat geolocation data had placed him near Burner Basin, the place where Brittany's body was found at the time he claimed he had already dropped her off with a cowboy in a green truck.

Surveillance footage contradicted his timeline, and one by one, his lies collapsed.

After hours in the interrogation room, his explanations were no longer cutting it.

He wasn't dealing with the Elko PD anymore, either.

He had entered into the big leagues, and now Bryce Dickey had nowhere to run.

If you could say something to Brittany, what would you say?

Easy, early.

Maybe the first thing I would say.

Or about the second.

I'm sorry.

Cause I kinda

been so focused.

Even though.

I mean, I know that I didn't know what was gonna happen, but I

I'm the last one that

saw her before

she's dead.

No, just out of curiosity, and you promise we won't tell your girlfriend.

Had you ever been

I got that question the last two times.

Brittany and I have never been been intimate in any way.

I mean

like a lot of people get the wrong intentions'cause I mean do it with all my friends but like calling females my female friends love and stuff like that but that's just kind of the way I was raised in a sense, the grandma wise but Brittany and I have and I have never had a relationship or have been intimate in any way.

That's why my girlfriend was comfortable with her is'cause she never flirted with me or anything like that.

Um, did you ever want to be?

No, no.

Never.

No, I never had that want or urge or anything.

I literally saw Brittany as my little sister.

Then they confronted Bryce with the discrepancies between his statements and what surveillance footage revealed.

An image is worth a thousand words and possibly a conviction or two.

He had repeatedly told investigators that he picked Brittany up at Angel Park at 1.30 p.m., but the cameras told a different story, showing her getting into his truck two hours later at around 3.30 p.m.

Not only that, but surveillance footage showed that Bryce's truck, with Brittany still inside, never stopped at the high school parking lot where he claimed she got out and got into that green F-150.

Instead, the truck drove right past the school and continued down Boyd Kennedy Road.

What What was at the end of that road you might wonder?

Well

Berner Basin.

What if I told you we had surveillance footage that appeared your truck kept going off Boyd Kennedy Road?

I

think Boyd Kennedy Road.

Okay, well here's the thing though.

We've been sitting here talking.

I just want to clear this up, okay?

And

I just want to kind of clear everything up and get your explanation for this, okay?

Because

you seem like a decent guy.

We've been sitting in here chatting and stuff like that, okay?

And I just want to kind of help you through this so that way we can kind of explain this stuff.

Okay, okay.

So, with these, you can kind of see from my perspective when I'm looking at this what that looks like, right?

I can see 100%.

Okay,

um,

can remember, I

got startled after the

uh the third cop I talked to, the one that called me down to the high school, because um

called me a liar about three times and kept asking me if I killed Brittany.

So I

asked you if you killed Brittany?

I definitely did.

And it honestly startled the shit out of me.

And I don't want to I know I'm I'm eight

only been 18 for a little bit now, but I'm I know I'm 18 now so even changing a little bit on the story isn't a big thing.

Well it is what it is.

Okay, that's why I'm trying to sort through it.

Okay.

So when

he talked to me and

I went down Boyd a little bit but not

far and then

I took that

first left off of the Boyd Kennedy, which goes straight back to the right to the bottom of the trailer section, and then

went back to the

high school, but at

being

that

Boyd Kennedy at the same time, which I missed a bit,

it worried me, because I didn't want

I lied because I was scared of people thinking it was gonna be

which a lot of people were.

Well, that's understandable.

You're the last person I see there live.

Yeah, which honestly scares me, but I see that there's issues with me telling the other stuff.

You need to be 100% honest.

I need to let everything out.

Bryce looks uncomfortable at this point.

He's picking at his fingernails and looking down at his feet.

If we couldn't see that he's sitting inside of an interrogation room, you'd almost think he's one of those shy cowboy types.

I kind of have like a set little thing of loops that I do when I get more driving around Spring Creek.

So

and that's one of the ones that I do a lot.

And

being so close to being on board with Kennedy and as soon as people were saying that's where she went missing, I

kind of got scared.

I have one other concern.

Okay.

Okay.

And like I said, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on, and I just want to be honest with you.

Okay.

You located some items or an item.

Okay.

Do you have any idea what that item might be?

No.

Okay.

What if I told you that it had both yours and Brittany's DNA on it?

What would that be?

Do you have any idea?

No.

Now's the time to be the truthful.

I'm being 100%, sir.

I don't know what you're referring to.

Now you told me before that you and Brittany had never been intimate in a sexual way.

No.

Okay, what if I said I had evidence that shows that that might not be accurate either?

I'm not lying.

I've never kissed.

I've never had sex with Brittany.

I've, besides hugging and that, that's...

I've never had sex or any intimate relationship with Brittany.

Okay.

Have you ever watched

TV and seen DNA comparisons?

No, no.

I mean I've watched drama shows, but haven't really paid attention to

so

you gave a DNA sample, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Um we found a condom

and we found Brittany

and we have Britney's DNA

We have your DNA and we have a condom

That can't be It is

I've listened I've never had sex with Brittany, I swear.

I've never had sex with Brittany.

Okay, so then explain to me.

I don't, I don't know.

I'm freaking out right now because I have never had sex with Britney.

Okay.

Explain to me how a condom has your DNA on the inside, not her DNA on the outside.

There could be no other explanation for something like that.

I'm going to say the evil that he is, I think he thought about it for a while.

I think that's why they got him on premeditated too, because I think that

I absolutely think he thought about it.

I had heard some weird stories about his journals.

I never continued to like ask or push for them.

But

no, I think he's a sick, sick son of a bitch.

And I think he sat and probably thought about it and fantasized about it a lot.

You want to hear one of these sick puppies' poems?

Of course you do, because you're also a sick puppy, and that's probably why you're here.

This lovely passage is called

the sick truth.

Okay?

So, you ready?

Here we go.

I'm laying in the dark of night.

My mind is fighting, turning my thoughts into a game, like Russian roulette, slowly pulling its triggers,

waiting for the moment.

The fight will end.

I hate the way I feel tonight.

I open my eyes, yet nothing changes.

I hear him screaming in my dreams.

That dream in my head.

But, wait, I'm awake.

It's me.

It's me, it's me.

I am screaming.

The gun didn't kill me.

It only stirred the pot.

Now the demons have awoken.

They will no longer lurk in the dark.

They crawl out of my dream and into day.

A predator hunting my actions.

I turn my cheek to pretend it's not there.

He's waiting for me me to slip.

My weakness feeds the beast.

For each step I take is filled with fear.

Help me.

Please, I'm begging.

I know, you can't hear me screaming.

I can't startle the demons.

But I'm leaving you a trail of breadcrumbs.

You won't see it, though, will you?

I'll have to fight this day, by my own persistence.

My silence is not a phase.

It's me hiding.

Thank you for teaching me what it's like to feel.

To feel, to feel, to have nights screaming like I'm dying, learning how to put a mask over my drained body.

Without you, I wouldn't know pain.

But while everyone's moving on, I still hold my sights.

on the back of your skull,

slowly squeezing the trigger, waiting for the moment the pain will unfold.

They will not understand why I pulled it.

I was not an action of easy consequence.

In the end, your breath was far too much to take.

I hope it was worth it.

Because now we shall both be on our sentence to hell.

And some of you call me Edgy.

The closest thing

that we could compare him to is Dahmer.

He's that sick.

He's that twisted.

He's necrophiliac.

He's a control freak, you know, okay, so maybe he liked girls, but the level of disgusted twistedness is Jeffrey Dahmer level with that kid.

I know,

you know, I know as our mother, you know, I...

I think backwards in time and when she would see things on TV, she would tell me, I just want you to know that if anybody tries to rape me, they will kill me because they'll never rape me.

And

he absolutely desecrated her dead body, which

blows the defense's theory out of the water.

And I think that I think actually that's what happened because the defense was running with this theory of, well, there was no tearing or there was no, you know,

the normal signs of rape.

And

our phenomenal DA, because he is amazing, amazing.

I think he stood up and he asked one question and he goes, my question is if

the person is deceased, would those kind of things happen?

And she's like, nope, absolutely not.

So absolutely, I will peg him to the world as a necrophiliac.

Can I ask a question?

Let's go ahead.

Are you guys trying to get a confession from Kelly Brayman?

I'm trying to figure out how your DNA got on a condom on the inside that has her DNA on the outside.

I need to figure out what happened with that condom.

Our job is to work as hard to prove innocence as it is guilt.

If you didn't do this,

no work to the end of the earth to prove that you didn't do this.

But that requires

100% honesty on your end because the stuff we have indicates that it hasn't been there.

Bryce ends up telling detectives that Brittany performed oral sex while they were in the truck.

And when she was done, she threw the condom out the window.

This was another lie, of course.

When I was at the scene with Brittany,

I found a condom, or one of our people found a condom that was near where Britney was at.

And there was also a condom wrapper that was on the roadway as well.

Okay.

And that condom that I told you about was much closer to where Brittany was found.

And this is not where Brittany was found.

Okay, I just told you, I just want the truth.

I'm telling the truth.

That is where I...

That's where it happened.

Where what happened?

For Brittany and I had...

I don't know.

Does that count as sex?

I think sexual acts.

It's a sexual act.

So that is where Brittany and I had sex.

And then straight after, I went straight to the trailer section, and

that was it.

Okay.

And did you ever have any sort of intercourse or

otherwise anywhere else with Brittany?

Just

the blowjob.

That was besides

like two, maybe three kisses, and that was about it, honestly.

There wasn't much

it was almost didn't seem

real in a sense, because she literally just asked if I wanted a blowjob.

It did not quite seem real, almost.

That's because it wasn't real.

Duh.

Her

texting her friend actually

did happen, and she asked me to drop her off with somebody, but I don't know who it was.

And

he actually had

met us on board.

And

I didn't actually

meet the guy or anything.

How could you be so stupid?

How could you be so stupid?

How could you be so stupid?

How could you be so stupid?

You and I will get through this together.

So just take this,

okay.

Everything

mess-ups on the timeline is true.

That was the exact same truck that I saw.

I

honestly couldn't tell you how the gun was that close to Britney's body.

I don't know how that

happened.

Because

Brittany was still alive by the time I had dropped her off on the road with whoever the guy was.

I just wasn't thinking at all.

I dropped her off and we just drove off.

Now, Bryce, okay, how don't you look at it from my perspective?

Okay.

You've told us several different versions.

Okay.

So do you really expect me to believe that you met a guy after you guys had had sex

and you just dropped Brittany off with him and you don't know who that was?

You're a smart guy.

I'm a smart guy.

I have met him, but I honestly don't know who he is.

I need you to be honest with me.

Okay?

You guys think about it from my perspective.

When we story about it today,

I just wanted the truth from you.

Okay?

And then the story changed.

The story's changed again.

The story's changed again.

Even after being called out for changing his story so many times, Bryce was about to do it again.

What a fucking idiot.

He points his guilty finger directly at an innocent kid named Chaz Randall.

Poor Chaz.

Didn't even know the kid was back in town.

It was um the Chaz Randall kid is the one who picked her up.

But I swear it I swear it was Jazz Randall because that

kid's kind of distinguishable by the deuce.

So you're telling me Chaz Randall met you on the road?

I told you.

What?

And you've known that Jazz Randall killed Brittany all this guy and you're just waiting to say something?

You let yourself

to see her alive?

You expect us to believe that I might be, I was the last person to see you alive.

I put myself in that position, and I'm going to sit here for a week and a half letting everybody think.

I was the last one to see you alive when I know who the last person to see alive is.

You think we're going to believe that?

You're smarter than that.

I call Boltroom.

Listen, okay.

You guys are just looking for a confession.

Yes, sir.

I'm looking for the facts to match up.

What facts don't match up right now?

Okay, I think you you know.

But I don't I'm

lost.

Do you think we've been doing nothing for the last week?

No, I think you guys are working your asses off.

We talked to a ton of people.

Your name is kind of a lot.

And the conversations they've had with you, that your stories to us don't match.

And I don't know how that is.

So you're still expecting us to believe that you dropped her off and her body randomly appeared where the condom and countermeant of her.

By some strange free coincidence.

I did not kill Brittany,

but I

imagine being in my position trying to explain this.

And we're trying to figure out how she ended up dead.

But I realized

she disappeared on the 8th.

You've been sitting on this knowledge without seeing

anybody?

Because I've had the entire town of Spring Creek asking me if I've killed Brittany.

And you might as well have if you didn't see, I think.

Okay.

Sorry.

I'm sorry.

I didn't swear.

So this is the story that you're going to stick with?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Go ahead, stand up and face that one.

Separate your feet.

Put your hands behind your back.

It was March 19th, 2020.

11 days after Britney's disappearance and her killer was finally in handcuffs.

The people closest to Brittany had trusted Bryce.

They trusted this kid.

He had been part of their lives, part of their search, and part of their grief.

But looking back, perhaps some had felt it, that something just wasn't right.

Jim tells me that he was instantly suspicious of of him.

I don't know why I wasn't.

I just, I guess, I just lived in this fantasy world, which is maybe partly why I want to do her story so much.

People need to understand that you need to have a little bit of a healthy dose of reality and fear.

You know what I mean?

And maybe question people more than I did because

I didn't think he had it in him.

Most people were blindsided by the arrest, especially Bryce and Brittany's mutual friends.

Bryce couldn't read his Snapchat messages behind bars, but his phone was digging away with an onslaught of verbal attacks if words are violence which they're not by the way then this was an outright execution

you are a serious piece of shit

we were all there for you cried with you and all you did was play us all like a fucking puppet master all i can say is don't ever dare to show your face in this town again

i

think i didn't i i think i didn't know what to say.

I think I probably sat quiet for that whole night because I just couldn't,

I just couldn't fathom what I had just been told.

You know what I mean?

Because first off, you should have seen that little girl throw a hay bell.

And I don't know if you've picked up a haybell, but them things suck heavy.

And she can throw them.

You know what I mean?

Like

he probably truly had to think about how he was going to come at her so that he could get the upper hand because

this little girl was no weak little girl.

And Dickie was a geek that would get his ass kicked by anybody.

I still don't understand.

His body type is unathletic and doughy and weak.

I still don't understand.

The only thing I can think of is it was she was taken by such surprise and I guarantee you he came from behind.

You know, because she had his DNA under all 10 of her fingernails.

Did you know that?

All 10 of her fingernails had his DNA under them.

So she fought.

But he managed to keep out.

Like,

sometimes I wish that we could go back and make him take his shirt off in those first couple interviews.

With, you know what I mean?

Because I would love to have seen where she got him because she got him.

You know what I mean?

She got him.

Bryce Dickey was booked and charged with first-degree murder and sexual assault.

with a deadly weapon.

There was no bail set.

Bryce, who was almost certainly cooking up another story to explain away Brittany's death, pleaded not guilty.

No surprise there.

Why would you take accountability?

You fucking psychopath.

At trial, Bryce's mother, Cynthia, was served with a subpoena to testify against her son.

She shared that Bryce had been seeing a counselor for bipolar disorder and depressive tendencies, but he wasn't on medication.

It's hard to feel sympathy for the killer's killer's parents, but I mean, what else could you do?

You're seeking treatment for your son, you're doing all the right things, and sometimes that's just not enough.

Bryce's ex-girlfriend also testified that he choked her during sex without consent on multiple occasions.

So there were clues, but they were scattered and probably kept private.

Though it was probably uncomfortable for Bryce to sit through his former loved ones making a case against his character, no one was more unhappy about having to endure a trial than Brittany's parents.

Jim and Alicia sat in the courtroom every day, forced to watch Bryce's parents fan the flames of romance as prosecutors showed photos of their daughter's bloodied corpse.

The murder of my daughter brought those two back together.

It was quite disgusting to watch.

They had been divorced and then when we were going through the trial,

those two disgusting humans sat there loving on each other and cuddling like it was a movie date i wanted to rip their hair out i'm not gonna lie sitting in that courtroom for that trial was probably one of the hardest things i've ever done in my life it had been pounded into my head so much don't do anything that could you know what i mean so

i didn't but i tell you what

i had a friend though that

let her have it when the verdict got read you know the bailiff even came came after my friend and was like, you need to be quiet.

You know, but

because yeah, you can't, you can't say anything.

You can't have any emotion, which is really hard in a trial.

Everything had happened.

And then I have my own questions.

You know, I still have my own questions about his mother.

I'm not sure that anybody will ever convince me that she didn't help him clean up.

I don't think that she knew about it.

I don't think anything like that, but you'll never convince me that she didn't help him clean up and get rid of things.

You'll never convince me of that.

The jury's verdict was a resounding guilty.

Initially, he received 20 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole, but that was before the court tacked on an additional 50 years for the use of deadly weapons.

Bryce Dickey had a life sentence that he very much deserves.

But what many people forget is the life sentence suffered by the families of the murdered victims.

When all the hoopla goes away, you're left with the reality that your loved one is never coming back.

That's been actually a huge journey for me because he did sentence me to a lifetime of rage and anger, and it is intense.

And I remember a couple years ago, I just was looking in the mirror and I'm like, okay, self, you know,

this rage, this anger that you're feeling, we've got to find a more healthy way to do this because

your heart is pounding out of your chest.

Your adrenaline is busting so much that all you do is shake.

And

thank goodness he is not where I can get my hands on him.

I'm not like him.

And I don't think I, I guarantee you, I wouldn't take his life, but oh, I would beat him silly with a shoe.

Okay.

I know.

The rage is really hard to deal with, actually.

It's something that I fight daily daily and it affects every aspect of my life.

Brittany's key phrase is, flowers makes everything better.

Go ahead and take the extra five minutes out of your day to be extra nice to somebody because that's what Brittany was about.

She was about taking the extra couple minutes that it might take to make people smile and make people feel loved and make people feel safe in a very unsafe world.

So if you're gonna ever be like Brittany, take five minutes and be humble, be kind, and make somebody smile because that was Brittany's life.

You will have never found a better advocate for somebody to love people as Brittany and just everybody just be nice, emulate Brittany, make people feel safe,

and always remember a healthy dose of distrust is a very good thing.

And what does a healthy dose of distrust look like in a situation where there are no red flags?

I've thought about that and the only thing I could come up with, The only thing that I could come up with

is

be insistent on more than two.

If there would have been one more person there, okay, three or more.

That's the only thing.

Because believe me, for the last, what, almost five years, I've gotten over that almost daily in my head.

And the only thing I can think of is

really push that issue that groups are where it's at, not two people.

If one more person would have been in the truck that day, I promise you that wouldn't have happened.

you know

so i'd say that's the only thing i've been able to come up with is is never be too

unfortunately the world sucks, especially for kids nowadays.

It's sad, but never be so comfortable with somebody that you think you can just take off down a dirt road with just you and one other person.

Always make sure there's three or more.

We grow up being told to watch out for strangers, to be wary of the dark alley, the unknown number, the unfamiliar car pulling up to the curb.

But the truth is, danger doesn't always look like danger.

You know that, right?

And trust,

well,

trust is a dangerous thing.

Brittany trusted Bryce.

Her family trusted Bryce.

And in the end,

that trust was misplaced.

She also turned to Snapchat.

She, like so many others, believed what the app promised, that messages, locations, and memories could vanish with the tap of a button.

That no one could ever trace where you had been or who you had been with.

But Snapchat doesn't make things disappear, not really.

Because when Brittany went missing, the app she relied on to erase her footsteps became the very thing that exposed them.

The digital trail she thought was gone was still there, waiting to be found.

Kids are dumb.

If you don't realize that in 2025, you have no privacy whatsoever.

I don't know what to tell you.

Other than

you're dumb too.

Sorry.

It is what it is.

Nothing really disappears, not in life, not in death, and certainly not in truth.

You can obfuscate it all you want, but

truth finds a way of revealing itself.

Technology changes, laws change, but human nature, the stuff we talk about here,

that pretty much stays the same.

We trust because we want to believe the good in people.

We want to believe that people around us are inherently good.

Makes life easier.

In fact, we trust because it's easier than considering the alternative.

Nobody wants to live in paranoia.

Believe me, it's exhausting.

But trust is also a choice.

And as Alicia said, a healthy healthy dose of distrust just might be the thing that keeps you

safe.

You ever finish an episode and feel emotionally exhausted?

No, of course you don't.

You don't have a podcast.

It's lonely here.

Anyway, we say this every week, but I mean it.

Stay safe.

And please, please, please take that extra effort to keep your kids safe.

They may seem real independent and real mature and real adult-like, but do not be fooled.

It's a very, very scary world out there, and kids just don't know any better.

They're dumb.

It's not their fault.

They haven't figured it out yet.

It's up to you, the parent, to do it for them.

All right.

See you next week.

It's Bretzky Baby, and I don't know why they let me on the radio, but I do know you're in California, which means you can play on SpinQuest.com with over a thousand slots and table games absolutely free and with the ability to win real cash prizes with instant redemptions.

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