Katharina Buczek
“My daughter may have been an addict, but my daughter would beg for rides to try and go see her children,” Paula explained.
So, when Brianna failed to call her daughter, Elle, for her thirteenth birthday in March 2017, Paula had a gut feeling something was wrong and ultimately filed a missing person report with the Upper Burrell police.
Over the months after Brianna last left Paula’s home, she was reportedly spotted a couple of times. First, she was allegedly seen on Frankstown Road in Pittsburgh, where she is believed to have been living with her youngest daughter, Brayzee, and her daughter’s father.
Then, in mid-to-late February of 2017, she was last seen on East Liberty in Homewood. This was the last confirmed sighting of Brianna, and she never reached out for Elle’s birthday.
Since then, the circumstances surrounding Brianna’s disappearance have remained unclear, and she is still missing. According to Upper Burrell’s police chief Kenneth Pate, her case is “active but cold.”
“It’s probably intertwined with the company she was keeping. I don’t think she just up and relocated. In my mind, there’s definitely foul play,” Pate said.
“It’s one of those cases… that you just take with you. I just wish something would break.”
In the years since her daughter’s disappearance, Paula has held onto hope – especially for her grandchildren.
“Until we have closure, we’ll never give up that 1% hope. Not a day goes by that my Bree isn’t in my mind,” she said.
Paula also opened up about the community’s response to her daughter’s disappearance, particularly regarding Brianna’s struggles with addiction.
“A lot of people look at an addict who’s gone missing as, ‘Oh well, they’re just in the depths of addiction.’ Missing addicts are just people who went away to do drugs,” she explained.
