Episode 356

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

**David Call** (0:14)
Madison, small, I mean, I'd take off.
I mean, if I would have killed her, I would have been gone. You guys would never have found me this day. I would never even went back to my apartment. I mean, that seems logical, right? Yeah.

**Sword and Scale** (0:29)
This is season 13, episode 356 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.
It's an overcast day in March 2018 The winter snow is finally giving way as the weather warms. Kevin and Jean Zimmermann sit in their living room with lights, a camera, and a local reporter staring back at them.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:45)
Does time sort of stop for you on that day on April 2nd? Absolutely. To in 2008?
Like, do you feel like you can, you know, that it is 10 years later?

**Kevin Zimmermann** (1:57)
No.

**SPEAKER_8** (1:59)
I don't.

**SPEAKER_9** (2:00)
No.

**Kevin Zimmermann** (2:01)
It's quite unbelievable.

**Jean Zimmermann** (2:03)
That is 10 years already.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:04)
It's completely unbelievable.

**Sword and Scale** (2:07)
They've done countless interviews over the years and are willing to do thousands more, anything to keep their daughter's case alive.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:16)
How often do you think about that day?

**Jean Zimmermann** (2:19)
Every day. Every single day.

**Kevin Zimmermann** (2:23)
We thought it was going to be solved right away. We didn't even consider that we'd be here 10 years later.

**Sword and Scale** (2:31)
Three days after this interview would mark 10 years since their daughter Brittany was killed.
In that decade, the case had passed through three police chiefs and four lead detectives. Years of work with little to show for it. Only once did they think they were close.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:49)
Why do you think there hasn't been an arrest or even seemingly like a person of interest or a major break in the case?

**Kevin Zimmermann** (3:02)
I mean, we thought there was. You know, it was two and a half years ago, Chief Colvall came to our door on my husband's birthday and said, we believe we have the person responsible for killing your daughter.
December 9th.

**Sword and Scale** (3:16)
That moment came in 2016, but two years later, there was still no arrest. All the Zimmermans could do was hold on to hope.

**Jean Zimmermann** (3:25)
That's all we have is hope. We can hope. Yeah. But realistically, I'm not real sure that they're ever going to solve this, at least not the way it's being handled right now. I just don't believe it.

**Sword and Scale** (3:42)
When parents lose a child, they're powerless to do anything but wait. Justice moves on its own timeline. And in the Zimmermans' case, that timeline stretched endlessly.
These interviews, these small acts of advocacy, were all they had control over. If speaking publicly could help or speed up catching Brittany's killer, they'd do it every day for the rest of their lives to make that happen.

**SPEAKER_5** (4:09)
What would you really tell people about why they should rack their brains?

**Jean Zimmermann** (4:15)
Because if it was your child, you'd want everybody in the world to rack their brains for you.

**Kevin Zimmermann** (4:21)
Put yourself in our shoes, just for a second.

**Jean Zimmermann** (4:24)
Just for a second, put yourself in our shoes.

**Kevin Zimmermann** (4:27)
And what we've been through.

**Jean Zimmermann** (4:28)
And knowing what this little girl meant everything to us. And she was never there to hurt anybody. She was always there to help people.

**Sword and Scale** (4:37)
Photos of Brittany still lined every wall of their home. A family scarred by tragedy, frozen in time, clinging to whatever hope remained. And wondering whether the case would ever be solved.
Meanwhile, the police department continued to work on their decade-old investigation.

**SPEAKER_10** (4:56)
This is not what I would consider been relegated to a cold case. This still has active leads that are worthy.

**Sword and Scale** (5:04)
The Zimmermanns knew little about the leads detectives were chasing. They only knew that two years earlier, the police chief had told them they had the guy.
But there had been no arrests. They were completely in the dark.

**SPEAKER_10** (5:21)
If I had the probable cause based on the totality of the evidence I had, don't you think I would have made an arrest?

**Sword and Scale** (5:31)
It turned out that the chief had spoken too soon. It was one of many missteps in an investigation that had been plagued by setbacks from the start.
One of the biggest was losing the long-time lead investigator. The emotional toll of the case eventually became too heavy to bear.