Does Anyone Remember Melissa Brannen?

[Deleted User 670]

It's just a sad story all around. Hughes has never admitted to the crime or revealed what he did with the body. That sick bastard got parole because he was sentenced in 1991 and it wasn't until 1995 when parole was abolished. That little girl has been on my mind a lot recently too.

Melissa Brannen’s abductor, Caleb Hughes, will be freed from prison after 29 years

By Tom Jackman April 19 at 12:24 PM

If you lived in the Washington area in 1989, you remember 5-year-old Melissa Brannen. Starting in the Christmas season, she was repeatedly shown on the local news singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in a home video, as hundreds of police and volunteers scoured southern Fairfax County, Va., looking for her. At a Christmas party with her mother on Dec. 3, 1989, Melissa suddenly vanished. She has never been found.

As the searches continued, the name of a suspect quickly surfaced: Caleb D. Hughes, then a 23-year-old groundskeeper at the Lorton, Va., apartment complex where Melissa lived with her mother, Tammy Brannen. After a year of intense forensic examination by the FBI and Fairfax County police, Hughes was arrested and charged with abduction with the intent to defile. In March 1991, a jury convicted Hughes and sentenced him to 50 years in prison, on top of a four-year sentence he was serving for auto theft.

As the searches continued, the name of a suspect quickly surfaced: Caleb D. Hughes, then a 23-year-old groundskeeper at the Lorton, Va., apartment complex where Melissa lived with her mother, Tammy Brannen. After a year of intense forensic examination by the FBI and Fairfax County police, Hughes was arrested and charged with abduction with the intent to defile. In March 1991, a jury convicted Hughes and sentenced him to 50 years in prison, on top of a four-year sentence he was serving for auto theft.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-la ... 7759f498a3

[KnotaDinghy]

I wasn't living here then but I remember a couple years ago when he was rejected for parole. I hadn't read the entire story until now. Very sad.

I'd like to think people are good at heart and after all this time and him serving his sentence that he'd share the story and location of her body so the mom has closure. But not all people are really good at heart.

[Deleted User 670]

I wasn't living here then but I remember a couple years ago when he was rejected for parole. I hadn't read the entire story until now. Very sad.

I'd like to think people are good at heart and after all this time and him serving his sentence that he'd share the story and location of her body so the mom has closure. But not all people are really good at heart.

My niece was born that November, so that was a topic on the news up there when I would visit. I just cannot imagine what that family has gone through all this time. To have lost a child and 30 years later still not know what happened or where her body was dumped. I was living up there when Sophia Silva and Kirstin and Katie Lisk were murdered in 1996 and 1997. I was pregnant with my daughter when the Lisk sisters were killed. Man, that kinda shit scares the ever-loving daylights out of you and makes you hyper-vigilant. It's no wonder every mom in my townhouse subdivision was outside watching their kids and making sure they didn't leave their sight while playing.

[KnotaDinghy]

I wasn't living here then but I remember a couple years ago when he was rejected for parole. I hadn't read the entire story until now. Very sad.

I'd like to think people are good at heart and after all this time and him serving his sentence that he'd share the story and location of her body so the mom has closure. But not all people are really good at heart.

My niece was born that November, so that was a topic on the news up there when I would visit. I just cannot imagine what that family has gone through all this time. To have lost a child and 30 years later still not know what happened or where her body was dumped. I was living up there when Sophia Silva and Kirstin and Katie Lisk were murdered in 1996 and 1997. I was pregnant with my daughter when the Lisk sisters were killed. Man, that kinda shit scares the ever-loving daylights out of you and makes you hyper-vigilant. It's no wonder every mom in my townhouse subdivision was outside watching their kids and making sure they didn't leave their sight while playing.

definitely when a horrific crime happens and you can relate even a little it makes it that much more impactful and memorable.

[SouthernIslander]

I haven’t heard about it but very sad.

[mcginnisc]

I've never heard of the case. I was a junior in HS so I didn't really pay attention to the news back then since I was never home to watch it. That is very sad. That poor mother not having any closure at all.

[Billie.jeens]

Remember her? ?
Never heard of her.

[hockeymom87]

Never heard of her. I was 4 in 91 though.