Tashi Coleman

Thin Air podcast

Episode 7: MAGGIE

NARRATOR: Since we arrived in Mississippi, we always knew that Maggie Powers, now Maggie Colson, was the heart of the Brandon Taylor investigation. Once the teenage girlfriend of Brandon, and later the wife of someone we believed to be a possible suspect in his killing. She was key to both the modern world of Tibbehah County and memories of Brandon’s final summer. We made many mistakes during the telling of this story, most notably being led astray by false rumors of her husband’s involvement, but were always grateful for her insight into and memories of Brandon. She knew him over two summers, 1996 and 1997. When they weren’t together, they corresponded. He sent her mix tapes full of Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, and George Strait. They talked about one day running away and getting married. He gave her a silver locket after they were intimate. In the fall of last year, Maggie Colson took us to Choctaw Lake, where they’d spend many long nights together. It was a warm day, the sun gold across the water.

TASHI: What did you think had happened to him?

MAGGIE: I guess, at first, I blamed myself. My God, I was only fifteen. He was the only boy I’d been with and then I heard he’d killed himself. I had all kinds of religious guilt at the time. Did I do something wrong? Had we sinned? It was all so confusing. I couldn’t share anything with my mother. My father was a straight-and-narrow Baptist truck driver, he didn’t want to talk about feelings and guilt. I just swallowed it up whole.

[WALKING ON GRAVEL. BIRD SOUNDS. A WOODPECKER KNOCKING ON A TREE. A BOAT MOTOR FAR OFF ON THE LAKE.]

TASHI: But you said you never believed it. That you thought there had to be more?

MAGGIE: We exchanged a lot of letters. I went through them piece by piece, like some kind of jigsaw puzzle. And there was no sadness or guilt. He wrote me only about our future and finally seeing him again that summer. He was excited. We even talked about maybe meeting up during spring break in Gulf Shores.

TASHI: When did he start to mention the money?

MAGGIE: That fall. Maybe a month since I’d seen him last. And before we kind of broke up. He said he’d gotten his truck fixed and there wasn’t anything to stop him doing what he wanted to do. He railed a lot against his dad, his dad always wanting Brandon to be like him and do the things he thought were important. The SEC football obsession and gun collection. Brandon said this thing he had going would make him independent. He could live his own life.

TASHI: Did he ever tell you what that was?

MAGGIE: Not really. But I had the feeling it wasn’t good. He wrote about it like he’d been stealing something. Or doing something dishonest for the right reasons. I wasn’t worried about it then. But reading back what he said later, I wish I could’ve warned him. There was something dangerous and reckless about the whole thing. I couldn’t get a feel for it other than he’d come into a lot of money. Or at least started to brag about it.

[MORE CRUNCHING OF GRAVEL. WIND THROUGH TREES. GENTLE ROLLING OF A CREEK RUNNING OVER ROCKS.]

TASHI: This is the place?

MAGGIE: It is. This is where we came when we wanted to be alone and not seen. When I first came back, after my grandmother died, I drove out here and stayed for a long time. I put on a Garth Brooks CD and said a little prayer for Brandon. That crazy kid will always be fifteen, lying on his back, looking up at the stars, coming up with the craziest ideas. We were going to get married. Move out to Nashville or L.A., where he could work on his music and photography and maybe be in movies. None of it I believed. I just loved to hear him talk. He always had some kind of thing working.

TASHI: And that’s what killed him?

MAGGIE: None of us know what will come from this. I’m not so sure that I believe in a heaven and a hell. But I believe in a right or wrong, that arrogant people can’t just decide who lives or dies, making an example of a kid like Brandon Taylor. I loved him. I really did. What happened in this county ripped my damn heart out of my chest and made me grow up real quick. I don’t like the words revenge or retribution. Everyone gets busted up in the world. That’s just part of the deal. I just want people to know Brandon as he lived and breathed and why he was killed. This whole thing destroyed his family, nearly destroyed me. The truth is all we can hope for. You can’t hide in a pocket of lies like some kind of animal. Karma is real, and I do believe it’ll come back on you like a ton of bricks.

TASHI: You sound like you believe that there will be some justice?

MAGGIE: That crazy kid deserves it.

[SOUNDS OF CRYING. A LONG MOMENT OF SILENCE.]

TASHI: Are we going to play it?

MAGGIE: Sure. OK. Damn straight.

[THE FIRST CHORDS OF GARTH BROOKS’S “SHAMELESS” ACCOMPANY THE SOUNDS OF THE RIPPLING CREEK, SOUNDING TINNY AND SMALL IN THE VAST WOODS DOWN BY THE LAKE.]

TASHI: Memories?

MAGGIE: So damn many.