Branson Kayne Perry was 20 when he vanished from his father’s home on West Oak Street in Skidmore, Missouri. On April 11, 2001, about 3:00 p.m., he told a friend he was taking a pair of jumper cables to a shed and would be right back. He never returned; his van and personal belongings remained at the house. A missing person report was filed on April 17 and Nodaway County police conducted searches and interviewed more than a hundred people in the following weeks.

Strange and unresolved details have dogged the case. The jumper cables reportedly were not in the shed at first but appeared just inside the shed door two weeks later. Tips tied Branson to a house near Quitman known for drug activity; that house burned less than a week after he disappeared. Investigators later looked at drug-related leads and at least one person of interest, Jack Wayne Rogers, whose online messages and a necklace found among his possessions drew attention, though he was never charged. Authorities announced a new suspect in 2022 but said they lacked the evidence to arrest without finding Branson’s body. Searches, including an FBI-assisted excavation of a well in the Quitman area, were carried out as recently as 2024 without recovery.

Who in the Skidmore or Quitman area might remember seeing Branson or his van around April 11, 2001?