Shortly after midnight on May 14, 2008, Brandon Swanson (born January 30, 1989)[1] of Marshall, Minnesota, United States, drove his car into a ditch on his way home from celebrating the end of the spring semester with fellow students from Minnesota West Community and Technical College's Canby campus.

[2] In the morning, Swanson’s parents reported him missing to police, who advised them to wait as such behavior was not uncommon for young men his age.

[3] Later that day, the circumstances of his disappearance became more complicated when his cell phone records showed he had been near Porter, 25 miles (40 km) from where Swanson had said he was, in a different direction.

His parents successfully lobbied the state legislature to pass Brandon's Law, which requires that police begin investigations of missing adults promptly.

He then chose to study wind turbines for a year at the Minnesota West Community and Technical College campus in Canby.

Just before 2 a.m., he called his parents on his cell phone, telling them he had driven his Chevrolet Lumina off the road and into a ditch from which he could not remove the car.

[3] Annette and Brian Swanson got in their pickup truck and drove out to where they thought he was, keeping him on the phone despite occasional hangups and drops.

[3] Brandon finally gave up and told them he was leaving the car to walk toward lights he could see that led him to believe he was near Lynd, a small town roughly 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Marshall.

[4] He told the media that the Lumina had gotten hung up on the top of an incline at the edge of the road, not seriously enough to damage the car but enough to keep the wheels from touching the ground on that side.

There was nothing else found amiss with the car, and due to the grass and gravel in the area surrounding it, there were no tracks and thus no way to tell what direction Brandon might have started walking.

[4] A team of bloodhounds from nearby Codington County, South Dakota, picked up a 3-mile (4.8 km) scent trail that largely followed the field roads west-northwest to an abandoned farm, then along the Yellow Medicine River to a point where it appeared to enter the stream.

On the theory that Brandon might have drowned, boats from the state's Department of Natural Resources were deployed along the river, and gates were installed.

By that point, when official searches resumed, the area of interest had moved towards Mud Creek, a tributary of the Yellow Medicine north and northwest of Porter.

[3] Brian Swanson also recalls that, any alcohol his son had consumed earlier in the evening notwithstanding, he did not seem disoriented or confused during their phone conversations.

[3] After the searches, Annette Swanson was still struck[3] by the initial response of the Lynd police that her son had "a right to be missing" when she told them how old he was.

[8] Annette met with Marty Seifert, minority leader of the state House of Representatives at the time, whose district included Marshall, in a local restaurant.

After it passed both houses,[11] including unanimously in the lower chamber,[9] in May 2009, Governor Tim Pawlenty signed it into law[11] with the Swansons and their daughter Jamine in attendance at the ceremony.