Jody Lynn Brant

Jody resided with her family in Lawrenceville, Georgia in 1994. She departed from their home during the evening hours of May 27, 1994 and planned to drive to her cousins' residence in Pontiac, Michigan. She was traveling alone, driving her black two-door 1987 Ford Escort with the Georgia license plate number FRY137.

At some point during the trip on May 28, Jody called her cousin and said she thought she was in Erie, Ohio and that she was lost. Police think she may have actually been calling from either the Toledo, Ohio area or from Erie, Michigan.

That same day, Brant called one of her friends and left a message on the friend's answering machine, saying she'd arrived in Pontiac and was doing okay. She was never seen or heard from again. Investigators believe she may have been forced to make the last call to her friend's answering machine.

Jody's vehicle was discovered abandoned and burned along a rural road near the intersection of Turk Road and Consear Road in Ottawa Lake, Michigan, near Interstate 75 and two miles north of Toledo, Ohio, at 7:00 a.m. on May 29, 1994. Authorities determined the fire had been intentionally set on the front seat of the car, sometime after 10:00 p.m. the previous night.

The keys were in the ignition when the fire began, and Jody's suitcases, severely burned, were still inside the car. The driver's seat had been pushed all the way back; Jody drove with the seat pushed forward. There was a dent in the car's back fender that hadn't been there before. There was no sign of Jody at the scene and an extensive search, with dogs and a helicopter, turned up no sign of her.

Jody's home life was somewhat chaotic, as her mother struggled with addiction issues. She had dropped out of high school and taken a job at a fast food restaurant; she bought the car with her earnings.

Several days before her disappearance, she had driven about ten pounds of marijuana from Georgia to Michigan with two male friends, and was paid a few hundred dollars for doing so. She drove straight to Michigan and straight back, and as soon as she got home she began doing laundry and packing for another trip to Michigan, which turned out to be her last. The last trip wasn't a drug run but was only to visit her relatives.

It's unknown whether Jody's involvement with drugs had anything to do with her disappearance. No suspects or persons of interest have ever been named in her case, which remains unsolved.