[narrator] Brian Klecha disappeared on December 26, 2017.
I would call him at different times of the day.
One time I woke up in the middle of the night and tried to call him.
And then I got really worried and I know something horrible had happened to Brian.
[narrator] His family is desperate for answers.
[man] My first, uh, reaction was that he just ran away.
That he needed to just be by himself.
But he would've never left his cats. That... really scared me.
It's just been difficult. How could he not be here?
[narrator] This episode of Disappeared retraces Brian's last known steps.
Brian's ex-boyfriend, AJ, said that Brian was somewhat obsessed with him.
And very upset because AJ has moved on to a new relationship.
There was a very uncomfortable, very palatable
amount of tension in the house.
So you had this very crazy triangle of drama.
Like a... on a gasoline. It was... It was pretty bad.
[narrator] The more people who know Brian's story...
the greater the chance of bringing him home.
[narrator reading]
Help find him.
[narrator reading]
I'm Kathy, Brian Klecha is my son.
December 26th in 2017 was the last time I heard from him.
Brian is kind, very giving.
Just a really nice person.
Brian always liked people.
I don't know if it was because he was an only child.
But I can remember waking him up for school,
and telling him if he didn't get up,
he would miss school and miss all the other kids there.
And that worked.
I'm Nate, and I am Brian's good friend.
I met Brian in about 2014.
We actually met at a gay bar that I was working at.
Brian had a childlike innocence about him that really struck a chord with me.
Our personalities just clicked. We became really close really quick.
He liked to, uh, go on adventures and stuff.
One time we got to go to Oklahoma city,
it was snowing, and Brian was like,
"What are you doing right now? Do you have anywhere to go?"
And I was like, "No". And he was like, "We're gonna go sledding."
It was my first time ever sledding. That was a lot of fun.
Just, wee!
That's one of my favorite memories of him.
I definitely feel blessed that Brian came into my life.
I used to have a really bad drinking problem. I was almost at rock bottom.
And he was the first person to get it through my head
that I might have a drinking problem.
And we went and checked out rehab places.
He knew that I wanted to quit as much as he wanted me to quit.
One time I went down to visit him, and he took me to the beach for the first time.
And we got to swim around,
and play in the water, which I'd never got to do before.
And he got to meet the sober me,
It was very special.
[Kathy] Since Brian was little, he's always loved Christmas.
When Brian was grown, he told me he's rather have money for Christmas.
So I would-- Instead of me buying him stuff,
so I would just send him, um, transfer money to his bank account.
On December 26th, 2017,
he texted me and asked me, have I sent him my Christmas present. [chuckles]
He texted me and asked me, have I sent him my Christmas present. [chuckles]
And so, I called him, and I said, um,
I sent it on the 24th. It should be in your bank account,
if not today, tomorrow.
He said, "Thank you." And he said, "I'm in a hurry, Ma.
"I have to go." And, "I'll call you back later."
But I didn't hear back from him.
My name is Andrew Dowler, and I was Brian Klecha's roommate.
I first met Brian around December 15th, 2017.
I owned a house, had a roof to rent.
And a roommate, AJ, said he knew a guy named Brian.
Needed a place to stay, vouched for him, I said, sure. No problem.
When I first met him, he, uh, seemed very shy, very soft-spoken.
When you see him, you just wanna give him a hug.
That-- I just can't describe it any other way.
You know, he's got the two cats.
He loves cats. He referred to them as his fur babies.
He was a very private person.
Especially about him being gay.
Definitely very lowkey.
If you saw him on the street, you would not know he was gay.
The dynamic between AJ and Brian was very confusing.
I have no idea exactly when they met,
or how long they've known each other.
But they both used the term 'boyfriend' at a different time.
But AJ was far more guarded with that term.
The time that Brian moved in, it was very hectic.
I have a fulltime job, Brian had his job,
I didn't get to see him a lot.
So on December 22nd, 2017,
7:47 am, I left the house to go on vacation.
The last sight I have of Brian was leaving the hallway from my bedroom.
His door was wide open, I just remember him lying there.
The two cats were curled up with him.
And, uh, that was the last time I saw him.
When I first didn't hear from Brian,
I thought, hmm, wonder am I... If he's ignoring me, or if he's really busy.
Brian had told me he had found brand new roommates.
But I didn't know where Brian was currently living, I didn't know get the address.
I knew he was working.
Brian loved theme parks.
He worked at one in high school.
And had then recently worked at one in Orlando.
He was a bus driver.
And also, after he got off work,
he would work as an Uber driver for extra money.
Sometimes he would call me, you know, like every three days.
And sometimes it might be six months.
I just thought he must be busy.
[Andrew Dowler] When I came back from my vacation he wasn't at the house.
I'm just assuming I'm gonna see him at some point or what not.
But couple of days did go by and uh, Brian's not there.
As time goes on, I realize, "Hey, wait a second. His cats are still there."
So, where is Brian?
I was very worried for him. I did not have his phone number.
When I didn't hear from Brian, I would call him at different times of the day.
One time I woke up in the middle of the night and tried to call him...
You know, I thought, maybe be might wake up and pick up the phone.
I texted him, I emailed him, but no response.
I started to call his work, probably I would say, eight to ten times
and talk to their security office.
They told me they would get back with me.
No one ever got back with me.
So, finally I went up to his work,
and I didn't really get a response either.
I started driving around in...
the state of Florida looking for my son.
But I couldn't find him.
It was really hard.
And then I got really worried.
[stutters] It was just a horrible panic mode.
I knew something horrible had happened to Brian.
[Nate Bossea] Me and him haven't talked for, uh, about a month.
And I was nervous 'cause he wasn't answering the phone or anything like that.
I thought he had gotten tangled up with a boy.
And then, finally his mom contacted me and...
said, "Brian's been missing."
Instantly I hung up and tried calling Brian again.
And, um, it just went straight to voicemail.
That really scared me.
[Kathy] In March of 2018, I made a police report.
They told me to take it to Tampa Police.
But Tampa, Tampa Police told me it really wasn't their responsibility
because he lived in Polk County.
That was really frustrating to me that nobody would investigate
because they told me it was somebody else's jurisdiction.
And it wasn't their responsibility.
The Tampa Police detective that I talked to
told me he would try to call someone he knew at the State Police.
My name is Chuck Massucci.
I'm with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
I was assigned as the lead agent in the disappearance of Brian Klecha.
FDLE, Florida Department of Law Enforcement is a State Police agency.
We are the investigative branch to the State Police.
[Kathy] In March of 2018, Chuck came to my house.
[Chuck Massucci] I wanted her to meet me face-to-face.
I wanted her to know who's gonna be responsible
for moving this investigation forward.
I had many questions going through my head.
[Chuck] She wanted to know what happened to Brian, and where is he.
The cats being left behind was suspicious.
His mother felt that Brian would not have left his cats behind
if he had left on his own volition.
I could see her concern.
Brian's mother loved her son.
When a parent loses a child, it's one of the worst tragedies we can experience.
But Brian's mother, in particular is in a position where she's lost a child
and doesn't have a resolution. It's heart-breaking.
I remember he did tell me the hardest part is just not knowing where...
your child is.
[Chuck] I recognized that...
this was gonna be a difficult investigation from the get-go.
Brian's disappearance was problematic
because we didn't have a good handle of
where specifically he went missing from.
[Kathy] I had made a flyer to let people know
that my son was missing. And if they have any information
to contact the police.
The next thing I do is...
set up a Facebook page and message some of his friends.
And let them know that Brian is missing
and had they had contact with him.
And many people had contacted me back and said, no.
My name is Ryan Williams-Jent.
And I'm the managing editor for watermark.
Watermark is the LGBTQ news source
for central Florida and Tampa Bay.
We basically just highlight LGBTQ voices throughout the area.
Brian's disappearance did not seem to get much traction in the press.
So we wanted to cover the story.
I really wanted to help spread the word.
[Nate] I went on a lot of the dating apps.
I just started sending the missing poster to people.
Most places, the gay community is really close-knit.
And so...
I was really hoping that somebody would've seen that and...
known what happened.
But I hadn't go any leads.
That really frustrated me.
I felt like there wasn't enough that I could do.
[Chuck] Finally in April of 2018,
I get a lead that helped in this investigation.
I learned that on the 27th of December
the last withdraw was made from Brian's Credit Union account.
To verify that it was Brian that made the withdrawal,
I contact the bank and they provide me still pictures from a surveillance video.
It shows Brian driving his jeep,
and it shows Brian walking into the bank.
[Nate] I saw the video when he was in the bank.
It just looked like he was normally there to do a withdrawal.
I didn't see anything out of the ordinary about it.
[Nate] I learned that $200 had been withdrawn.
And he did not appear to be under any duress
as he walked in and exited the bank.
It was $200 that I sent him for Christmas that he took out of the bank.
That was the last time
that he has been recorded or seen.
That he has been recorded or seen.
I just thought, this doesn't make sense. Where is my son?
[Andrew] I last see Brian before Christmas,
and then he just falls off the fact of the earth.
There's just this... of, of not knowing.
And then AJ leaves weeks later.
I didn't see Brian when I returned home from Christmas.
But I did see him in my inbox. He had written me this email.
He was expressing his hesitancy about if he's gonna be able to stay there.
With the whole dynamic, I can understand why he would not want to stay here.
So him leaving kind of fit in partially with the story of like,
mm, maybe he just disappeared.
[Kathy] The email, it just was weird.
It just didn't sound like Brian.
Brian had masters in reading and literature.
The email, it just wasn't the style of his writing.
It just wasn't Brian's words, it wasn't his spelling.
I do believe the email wasn't sent by Brian.
[Chuck] So my starting point was Brian's house.
I would generalize the neighborhood as being, um, working class.
The neighbors seemed to watch for vehicles that shouldn't be there.
It is a safe neighborhood if you belong there and you're known to be there.
[Ryan Williams-Jent] From my reporting in Brian's disappearance,
I was able to determine that Brian had moved into a a residence
in Lake Glens 12 days prior to his going missing.
Which I understood to be sort of a communal residence.
That is not uncommon for members of the LGBTQ community.
Florida is increasingly expensive.
We're also a state where many folks from many states come to live.
Sometimes without any family
because that family doesn't accept them in the community,
or because they just wanted a change.
I myself am from Ohio and when I moved here,
I was in a communal situation with friends.
[Chuck] I identify Andrew Dowler
as the owner of the home through property records.
I... find him at his place of employment.
When I first hear, "Hey, can you come down to HR...
"the police are here to see you."
I immediately know in my head, it's for, it's something with Brian Klecha,
I'm either gonna find out he died somewhere, I'm gonna get the news.
Oh, my gosh.
And I'm like, my hearts beating,
I'm like, oh, what happened? What happened? What happened?
I come to find out they don't know where he is.
[Chuck] I'll tell you this about Andrew.
He was cooperative, and I would say, forth-right
from the beginning of our conversation.
After talking to Andrew, I learned that Brian was introverted,
spending majority of his time in his room.
I wanted to understand the timeline
of when Brian moved into the house.
I learned that when Brian moved in,
the relationship that he had had with AJ is ended.
At least in AJ's mind.
To complicate Brian's situation,
AJ has moved onto a new relationship.
[Andrew] AJ tells me he has a second friend.
Dillion, it's an emergency. He needs a place to stay.
And seeing how, how great Brian was working out,
I agreed. But, come to find out,
AJ likes Dillion, like a lot.
So we have got Brian in one room,
you've got Dillion in another,
and AJ in another room.
And since he likes Dillion,
there's a very uncomfortable, very palatable
amount of tension in the house between...
AJ's attention going to Dillion.
Brian getting jealous.
So you had this very crazy triangle of drama
that, uh, erupted that I never saw coming.
And, uh... Throwing flame on a gasoline. It was... It was pretty bad.
[Chuck] I learned that Brian is very distressed
and very upset about the break up with AJ
and AJ's current relationship with the other roommate.
And AJ's current relationship with the other roommate.
[Nate] In my opinion, AJ is somebody that took advantage of Brian
and treated him badly.
I know that I received several phone calls from Brian, upset.
He would tell me, AJ did this, AJ did that.
[Andrew] Brian's emoting and brooding,
and pacing and worrying.
And, I'm like, why? Why are you doing this to yourself?
You're such a good guy.
I can see this spiral, I can see... Oh, this is not goof.
There was one time I remember he laid against the wall of one room...
And it was almost like he'd have his ear to the wall
so he can try to listen to what's going on in Dillion's room.
I just remember, his face was so sad.
I was very worried for him.
[Nate] Suicide did cross my mind
as he has a suicide attempt at my house.
I found him in his closet. He had taken a lot of pills.
I had to be the one to call 911 and... we got him to the hospital.
It was really scary.
[Ryan] Suicide, it certainly is a concern for members of the LGBTQ community.
Many members do struggle with mental health because of a lack of acceptance.
The Trevor Project, which is the nation's largest
LGBTQ focused organization that deals with suicide.
They found in one of their larger studies
that 45 percent of LGBTQ youth had considered suicide
in that last year.
[Nate] But in Brian's case, I don't feel that he would do it in a way where
we wouldn't find his body.
So the fact that we haven't found one
leads me to think that it wasn't suicide.
[Ryan] It's not something that would be ruled out necessarily.
But our reporting didn't find any indication
that that would, would've been the case with Brian.
That that would, would've been the case with Brian.
[Nate] My first gut reaction was that he just ran away.
That he needed to just be by himself.
But he would never have left his cats.
His cats were his prized possession.
And so, when I found out that he didn't take his cats,
that really scared me.
[Chuck] During my interviews, I'm hearing a variety of explanations
about what happened to Brian.
Specifically, AJ had told one friend,
that Brian went out for a walk and never returned.
He told another roommate that Brian returned to his family.
He told a second roommate that Brian went to a, uh, camp ground
that caters to the gay community.
[Ryan] Sawmill Campground, it's definitely an LGBTQ hotspot in Florida.
They have cabins, people bring their RVs.
There are multiple bars.
So a lot of LGBTQ people will visit to stay for
a day a week, you know, longer.
[Andrew] I was well aware of Brian's interest in going to Sawmill
because they had huge parties, they're epic.
He was looking forward to letting lose.
And I was both,
a little happy, and a little worried at the same time about that.
[siren wailing]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[Chuck] I followed up on all of the leads as possibilities.
We sent agents out to the campground.
We canvassed the neighborhood
and the area beyond the neighborhood looking for video,
and, or witnesses that would've seen him.
None of that panned out.
None of those stories were probably true.
[Andrew] So sometime into late January,
I feel concerned so I wanna email Brian.
It's my only means of communication with him.
But he's not responding to his emails.
And I'm like, where is Brian?
To complicate matters, AJ appears to be...
renting out Brian's car to people.
I'm seeing people come to the house,
the keys being handed over, money handed over,
And that is, that is unacceptable no matter how you slice it.
And then, I ask AJ, "You must know something. What's going on?
"Have you talked to him? Has he responded to you?
"He's not responding to me."
He's like, "Man, he hasn't, he hasn't responded."
Kind of felt a little cold at first, but...
I'm... I know not to worry. He does this all the time.
He disappears. He just seems so...
Just detached. Like, oh, it's all cool.
I, I'm getting very frustrated.
There's a point where I shove AJ against the wall.
And I'm like, where is Brian?
There was a moment I could see it. He looked at me with his eyes and I...
I was instantly scared.
I just didn't see that side of him at first.
Like, I had all the bells and whistles going.
Very shortly after, January 15th of 2018,
AJ has a friend come pick him up.
And I haven't seen him since.
[Chuck] On April 4th,
Andrew's very cooperative with me.
And he agrees to give me consent to search his home.
The house is a relatively small single family home
with three bedrooms.
Andrew directs me to the room where Brian was staying in.
And when I go to the door, my first observation is, there is no door.
It's being kicked in, and a sheet is hanging over it.
If a door gets kicked in or removed, you can suppose potential violence.
When I looked past the curtain, there is furniture, clothing, debris,
just piled up in there.
I was shocked how poorly maintained the room was.
I used this chemical called Bluestar,
and the Bluestar shows multiple locations
where there was potentially blood.
There was at least seven, or not ten
locations within the room that someone had a bloodshed.
Polk County crime lab and myself gathered the DNA by using swabs.
FDLE took possession of this swab evidence
and turned it over to the FDLE crime lab for analysis.
I was a little surprised and disheartened at the results.
I learned that Brian was not the only person that had lived in that room
in the weeks and months prior to his disappearance.
Andrew allowed multiple individuals to stay in that room.
Some permanently, some very temporarily, a night or two.
Based on the amount of people that stayed there,
based on the activities that occurred,
our swabs picked up three to five contributors
and those are not able to be analyzed.
Uh, a profile cannot be created.
It was that many biological contributors
the data was undeterminable.
Next, we checked the park's vacant land around his house
in the event Brian wandered off and something happened to him.
We started by searching the local waters around Brian's home.
We sent the boats out and we checked the shorelines by foot.
We began to look at parks and open fields.
None of the searches that we did... revealed Brian's location
or provided us any other further leads into his whereabouts.
[Ryan] To our knowledge, FDLE was able to extensively search
areas where Brian may have been.
Areas where Brian may have been.
But they were unsuccessful,
and the search for Brian... continues.
[Chuck] At this point I wanna find out as much as I can about AJ
and conduct the first interview
to allow AJ to give me an accounting of his relationship with Brian.
I was curious on who this AJ was,
and what was he doing with my son's vehicle.
And why was he lending it to people?
It is my opinion, AJ knows where Brian is at.
I had this media page set up by LostNMissing,
a non-profit that helps families
and gives them advice for looking for missing family members or loved ones.
And I used it to contact all of Brian's friends and his social media pages
because I didn't know all of his friends.
I did get some tips back from people.
Brian's coworker had sent me the picture of AJ.
I put his picture on the flyer.
And this is the picture that she had sent me.
From the very beginning AJ was on our radar.
We weren't able to verify much when it came to AJ.
I do know that there was somewhat of a criminal history.
I do know that there were implications
via social media that he was involved with Brian's disappearance.
But we weren't able to verify much information.
Certainly from our reporting there wasn't much to go on there.
[Chuck] I had a difficult time locating AJ.
He doesn't have any vehicles registered in his name,
he doesn't have any home addresses of record.
He doesn't have any work employment.
So I had to rely on witnesses
from this case coming forward and identifying where he may be living.
I also had to track down some of his relatives
who may have been putting him up.
Who may have been putting him up.
Locating AJ has become at this stage, my highest priority.
[narrator reading]
[Chuck] My first contact with AJ
doesn't occur until the end of June.
I encountered AJ in the city of Tampa.
AJ invites me into his home.
He's very personable. He's very soft spoken.
I believed that AJ had a lot of casual relationships
with different men in the gay community.
I wouldn't identify him and a significant drug dealer,
but I believe that he did dabble or peddle at it.
[Andrew] Drugs were always at the house at that time.
AJ was the supplier.
He made it very clear when he was going to pick stuff up, when he was delivering.
[Ryan] There was many folks in the LGBTQ community
who do struggle with addiction, who do struggle with drug use.
For years and years and years,
the only place that many members of the LGBTQ community could be themselves,
were in bars and nightclubs.
Places where drug use, alcohol use may be more prevalent.
And that certainly, and not to say
that all members of the LGBTQ community are doing that.
That all members of the LGBTQ community are doing that.
But it can be an issue.
[Nate] I know that Brian was involved with people that were doing drugs.
I don't want people thinking that he was on drugs.
He was very adamant about not liking drugs,
and he hated addiction.
That's one of the reasons I was shocked to... find out he was putting up
with somebody who was on drugs.
But I think he was trying to "fix them."
The priority of this interview with AJ
is to allow AJ to give me an accounting
of his relationship with Brian.
And the actions and activities of Brian
around Christmas 2017.
AJ describes his relationship with Brian as unbalanced.
Specifically Brian wanted... a monogamous committed relationship,
and AJ was not comfortable with that.
And that was the conflict between them.
AJ told me that on a specific morning,
right after December 27th, that the two of them had been arguing...
and the two of them had been the only two at home.
And that Brian left on his own volition.
And that was the last time he saw Brian alive.
[Nate] In my opinion, AJ, he was not treating Brian right.
Brian would tell me that AJ had taken money out of his wallet and stuff.
And we wouldn't really understand it,
because Brian is the type of person,
if you just ask him for money, he will give it to you.
What really made, uh, made it hit home
is when I found out about AJ giving away Brian's car.
That scared me, when I found that out.
[Nate] My understanding is that AJ was found with some of Brian's belongings.
It certainly raises a lot of questions.
There's a lot of social media chatter about AJ.
But, you know, I was never able to verify...
what their sources were.
And there was really nothing that we could securely...
report on.
[Chuck] During my interview with AJ, what I went to discuss,
him taking possession of Brian's property,
AJ stated, Brian would want him to use those things.
Their relationship allowed for that.
There was no need for overt...
conformation, authorization.
It was just had understood between them.
But he never makes any admissions that he committed theft,
or that he had anything to do with the disappearance of Brian.
But I felt like there were certain situations in this case,
that I felt were untruthful.
I never call a person a liar until I came them in a lie.
I did confront AJ with those points.
The specification I prefer not to talk about at this point,
because we're dealing with an open investigation.
But I can say this that AJ did not put my mind to rest.
It adds to more suspicion as to his behavior.
But until Brian is located, alive or dead,
I cannot eliminate the possibility
of him being out there on his own volition.
So I don't wanna throw too much accusation or dispersion
until I rule that out.
How do you rule out the fact that he's out there alive and well?
You find the body.
[Ryan] So after Brian had been missing for around a year,
the reward went up.
So it went from $5,000 to $10,000.
If anyone has any information about what happened
you're asked to call crime stoppers of Tampa Bay.
They are offering that $10,000 reward.
[Chuck] Around April of 2019,
I started receiving a series of tips
that all seemed unconnected.
The first calls that came in to FDLE,
individuals wanted to remain anonymous.
Then I started receiving the formal crime stopper tips.
The tips indicated that
Brian had been killed.
And, or Brian was buried under concrete.
I probably conducted 12 to 15 interviews related to these tips.
And it led me to two searches
of two different properties using cadaver dogs.
Cadaver dogs are trained to pick up on the scent of human enzymes or human proteins.
They are an effective tool for law enforcement
when you believe a body has been dumped, and, or buried.
After completing the search,
we came up with absolutely nothing.
It's frustrating. None of the leads, none of the tips I've received
have really come to any fruition.
I would repost on Facebook explaining,
hey, you know, help us out here.
The amount of rumors are, was just...
I was drowning in false information
because people were popping off about things that
they clearly didn't know anything about.
I'm like, those types of things are interfering with the real investigation.
Let's... Let's get back to, where's Brian Klecha?
[Chuck] As recently as September of 2021,
we were notified by the county that they were looking at some unidentified remains.
We were notified by the county that they were looking at some unidentified remains.
FDLE has a flag out on Brian.
Any time a body is located or recovered in the state of Florida,
or the United States for that matter,
we receive a notification that...
the body was recovered and we look for similar details.
[siren wailing]
Though agent Massucci tells me a body has been discovered,
it matches Brian's description.
And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I am shocked!
In my heart, I felt like, oh, they found Brian.
[Andrew] Sometime in the middle of 2021,
the police send me a confidential at the time...
that a body has been discovered in a park.
It matches basically Brian's description.
Although the body was badly decomposed,
the basic dimensions of the height...
It was male, possibly Caucasian.
They all seem to match.
And also, the time frame of when the body was discovered
matches the window of when he went missing.
DNA testing takes a long time apparently.
So they asked if I could identify the clothing.
So agent Massucci sends me pictures of clothing.
And the clothes were the same brand that Brian was known to have in his closet.
So in my heart, I, I felt like, oh, they found Brian.
[Kathy] Probably over the last four years,
I spent thousands of hours,
you know, doing research and looking for Brian online, or information.
I was very frustrated, I was very angry.
Where is my kid?
[Nate] It's hard 'cause
it seems like in Florida there's always bodies being found.
And you don't wanna get your hopes up.
Because you don't wanna believe that he's gone.
But on the same point you want closure.
[Chuck] Once you get to this point of an investigation,
you're almost in a waiting position, you're waiting for things to come to you.
And I will say this that Brian's mother has gone above and beyond
to keep this case in the media, specifically social media.
She's done a lot.
[Kathy] My hope is that if I continue to send out these flyers,
it will get somebody's reaction.
They will remember Brian's face, maybe see him.
Call the police, and he will be found.
[Ryan] So Brian has been missing for five years almost.
Brian's story may not have gotten a lot of coverage for a number of reasons.
It could've been that he was a member of the LGBTQ community.
It could've been his socio-economic status.
I think that knowledge is power. It's why I do what I do.
It is always better to have more eyes and more ears on every story.
It helps lead to answers.
And answers can bring closure.
[Chuck] Myself and FDLE
are almost five years into this investigation.
It's been difficult, it's been frustrating.
But not nearly as difficult, frustrating and painful it has been for Brian's mother.
She doesn't have a resolution,
doesn't have, I don't really like the word, but, let's use the word 'closure'.
If Brian is out there, we would encourage him to come in.
If someone is aware of Brian's presence,
we would encourage them to come forward.
If something bad happened to Brian...
suicide or homicide,
we would encourage anybody with knowledge to close the investigation,
to bring some closure to the mother,
just do the right thing.
Just do the right thing.
[Kathy] It's just been difficult.
When you're own kid, when you're trying to... You just think...
How could he not be here?
I do believe that some kind of harm came to him,
even though I wish and I pray, and I hope
that it didn't. That I am so wrong.
My opinion is, AJ knows what happened to my son.
[Nate] About a year ago, I learned that AJ had moved to Puerto Rico.
It infuriates me that AJ is just living scot-free right now in Puerto Rico.
I feel that he knows something,
and that he needs to be brought to justice.
Even if he didn't do anything to Brian, I feel like he knows where Brian is.
I'm still holding out hope. I...
I don't wanna grieve yet.
I, I... I wanna just hope that he ran away.
'Cause I don't wanna admit that anything worse could've happened.
It's an emotional roller-coaster, every time you hear anything like that.
[Kathy] I do hold out hope that Brian is somewhere.
And safe and healthy and happy.
But it's hope, it isn't based on evidence.
[Nate] I definitely feel like we're at a dead end
and somebody out there knows something.
If I could ask the viewers one thing,
I would really like them to be on the lookout for Brian,
and that if they know something, to please come forward.
I would really like to see him safe again.
We wanna bring Brian home.