Disappearance
On October 13, 2008, Brandon was involved in an argument with his parents over what his parents described as obsessive playing of the Xbox 360 video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, after they took the system away. Brandon filled a yellow and grey backpack with clothes and left home riding his bicycle. His parents allowed him to leave and expected "he would be home later that day with his tail between his legs".
According to police, two witnesses claimed to have last seen him on a trail near Shanty Bay, Ontario. The first reported that he had seen him having mechanical trouble with his bicycle on the trail. The second witness reported seeing Brandon later walking along the trail further east, but due to communications mix-ups this information was not passed along to searchers until the end of October. Brandon's missing person file was flagged nationally by the Canadian Police Information Centre.
Brandon's parents reported him to Barrie Police Service as missing on the morning of October 14. Police began their search October 18, using heat-sensitive cameras and officers with the K-9 unit. On October 20, police located his mountain bike, which had originally been abandoned near where he was last witnessed.
Concerned members of the public organised their own search parties, at times consisting of over sixteen hundred individuals, some from areas as far away as London, Ontario.
On October 27, Microsoft announced that they would be adding C$25,000 of matching funds to the reward already offered by a local newspaper and the Crisps' Internet service provider, bringing the total reward to $50,000. As the ground searches were progressing, there was also speculation that Brandon had been lured by a fellow Xbox Live player, despite there being no evidence for this; Microsoft offered assistance to the police effort by helping to identify players on Brandon's online friends list.
Read more about this topic: Disappearance Of Brandon Crisp