Brandy Hall, a 32-year-old Florida volunteer firefighter, left her shift around 10:50 p.m. on Aug. 17, 2006, the day before she was supposed to testify on her husband’s behalf at his sentencing hearing.
She missed that court appearance. Around the time of the hearing, a fisherman found her fire gear floating in a pond.
Police divers later found Brandy’s truck in the same pond about two miles away from the Malabar Volunteer Fire Department. She wasn’t in the vehicle, but a large amount of human blood was found on the driver’s side, according to law enforcement.
Brandy Hall is seen with her husband Jeffrey in an undated photo. She went missing in 2006.
Courtesy Hall family
Authorities said all the evidence surrounding her disappearance suggested foul play, but they lacked a suspect with a clear motive.
The eighth episode of “Somebody Knows Something,” “Secrets in the Swamp,” premieres Monday, Sept. 14 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Freeform, and streams the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
Host Kara Robinson Chamberlain, a true crime influencer, kidnapping survivor and former law enforcement officer went to Hall’s hometown of Palm Bay to investigate her disappearance.
Chamberlain met with Hall’s daughter Taylor, who was 10 years old when her mother disappeared, for her first on-camera interview.
“My mom was a very big tomboy,” Taylor Hall told Chamberlain. “She loved hunting and fishing, or even just building things. People tell me that we used to be attached at the hip.”
Taylor Hall discusses her mother Brandy Hall, who vanished in 2006.
ABC News Studios/Freeform
At the time of her disappearance, Brandy Hall was working odd jobs after being fired from her job at Palm Bay Fire Rescue. She was suspected to have helped her husband, Jeff Hall, cultivate marijuana. The charges against her were dropped, but her husband was found guilty, with his sentencing hearing set for the day after Brandy disappeared.
“Before Jeff went to prison, he was subjected to lie detectors and several interviews,” Detective Casey Rae of the Palm Bay Police Department said. “And he passed … I just didn’t see a motive. He was facing prison time, and he absolutely loved his children, so wanting to do anything to her just didn’t make sense.”
Brandy wasn’t the only person who failed to attend Jeff’s hearing — Randall Richmond, the Palm Bay Fire Department captain, was also supposed to be a character witness on his behalf. Richmond told investigators in 2007 that he called Jeff the morning of the hearing to explain why he wouldn’t be showing up to testify.
“I said you’ve got to remember, you know, the position I’m in, you know, as a public service employee and a captain at the fire department and everything else,” Richmond told investigators in his police interview. “I just can’t do it. I don’t think it’s going to look good. You know, I don’t think it’s going to do my career any good.”
Richmond was also having an affair with Brandy.
According to Detective Rae, Richmond was interviewed about the night Brandy was last seen and denied having an affair. A few days later, he came forward to tell investigators he lied, and that not only was he having the affair, but also spoke to Brandy that day she vanished.
A police officer reported to authorities that she saw a vehicle matching the description of Brandy’s truck in a Home Depot parking lot 10 minutes after she left the Malabar fire station.
Detective Casey Rae of the Palm Bay Police Department talks to “Somebody Knows Something” host Kara Robinson Chamberlain about the 2006 disappearance of Brandy Hall.
ABC News Studios/Freeform
“At the time, there wasn’t anything suspicious about this truck,” Detective Rae told Chamberlain. “But she also saw a captain’s truck of the Palm Bay Fire Department parked nearby. Those vehicles are assigned to the captain that is on duty, which was Randall, but there was no call for service there.”
Richmond had told police he was at work that entire evening and only left the station during one call for service, when a house was on fire that evening.
Investigators were also suspicious of Randall’s wife, Annie Marie Richmond, after bystanders told them they witnessed a heated altercation between her and Brandy at the Grant Seafood Festival.
Anne told investigators that she was at work as a nurse from 3 to 11 p.m., during the time that Brandy disappeared.
Randall and Anne Marie Richmond turned down requests for comment through their attorney, Alan Landman. He addressed the case in a 2015 statement.
“Both of my clients stand by their prior positions that neither one of them, individually or collectively, has ever had any knowledge of the whereabouts of Brandy Hall nor did they have any involvement in anything to do with her alleged disappearance,” Landman said.
Taylor Hall still hopes, 20 years after her mother’s disappearance, that she’ll still get answers about her mom.
“Even if like her body isn’t found, if there was like a confession, that’s still some type of closure,” Taylor Hall said. “So we can remember her for who she was, and not this horrible thing that happened to her.”
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If you have any information about this case, please call the Palm Bay Police Department at (321) 952-3546.