Six years to the day after Brandy Hanna disappeared, North Charleston police said they have found perhaps the most significant clue yet in the case: a shoe.
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North Charleston police find shoe in search for woman who disappeared in 2005
Brian Hicks, May 20, 2011
Six years to the day after Brandy Hanna disappeared, North Charleston police said they have found perhaps the most significant clue yet in the case: a shoe.
Donna Parent, Hanna’s mother, said Friday that a tennis shoe found by detectives near the old Navy base almost certainly belonged to her daughter. It is a white Nike with a light blue stripe, and it is Hanna’s size.
It is the first break in the mysterious missing persons case, which detectives have called bizarre for the startling lack of evidence associated with it.
“We’re 99 percent positive,” Parent said. “It’s the same color, the same brand and it is dated 1/29/05. There are no guarantees, but they want to look at every place they can. Brandy is going to be found, I have no doubt.”
The shoe was found about a mile from the Florida Avenue apartment where Hanna was last seen before she vanished without a trace. The area is behind a fence on the former base just south of Riverfront Park and is inaccessible to the public. A team of volunteers will begin a search there Monday, led by state archaeologist Jonathan Leader.
Leader said there are no guarantees in a situation like this.
“We are looking at an area of interest,” Leader said Friday. “It’s been six years, so there’s not really any way to tell what may have been there.”
Because archaeologists are accustomed to searching for small clues in such settings, the state often has its archaeologists help out in cold cases such as this. And there is no case colder than this one.
On May 20, 2005, Hanna worked an early shift at Alex’s Restaurant on Dorchester Road before getting a ride home that afternoon from a customer. She had big plans for the weekend -- shopping Friday night, a trip to the beach Saturday and breakfast with her mother and brother Sunday.
Parent talked to her daughter by phone that evening. Hanna sent a text message to a friend at 8 p.m., and another to a boyfriend just after 10 p.m.
And then nothing.
Hanna left behind her clothes, money and an apartment devoid of clues. Police questioned her boyfriend at the time, Zeke Lankford, as well as a former boyfriend, Ray McAdams. Both men passed polygraph tests, and lacking any other clues, the case has languished for years. McAdams has since died.
Parent said detectives renewed its interest in the case earlier this year, going back to reinterview potential witnesses, as well as poring through case notes. North Charleston Police Capt. Scott Deckard said Friday that detectives searching the Navy base found the sneaker.
“The search is based on investigative information, and there is no physical evidence confirming that it is Brandy Hanna’s shoe that was found,” Deckard said in a news release.
Parent said the lid of an old barrel caught a detective’s eye, and he pried it out of the marsh with a shovel. When he did, the shoe came up with the lid.
Over the years, Parent has tried to keep a spotlight on the case, hosting candlelight vigils on Hanna’s birthday, Nov. 16, and the anniversary of her disappearance, including one Friday evening.
Parent has lived for six years now with the agony of not knowing what happened to her eldest child, going through a roller coaster of emotions every time an unidentified body is found. She has engaged national missing persons organizations and even talked to psychics. Parent said Friday that a psychic she talked to led police to the location where the shoe was found.
As Leader’s team begins it search Monday -- a dig that is scheduled to last three days -- Parent said she doesn’t plan to watch the crew work.
“I want them to go out there and I want them to find her,” Parent said. “If they find her, I don’t want to see it. That is not the last image of my child I want.”
