SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — Marilyn Sullivan sweeps her brother Frank's gravestone at Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego.
For more than 16 years, Frank Bresson was buried at the South San Diego cemetery in an unmarked grave, without Marilyn or any of the family knowing where Frank was, if he was alive or dead, hurt or healthy.
That sixteen-year gap, as Frank lay under a nondescript patch of grass, was due to a simple clerical error in Riverside.
Now, 29 years after Frank Bresson went missing from his Riverside home, his big sister Marilyn drives to the Mount Hope Cemetery from her Orange County home a few times a month to be near her brother. She does so to try and make up for the 16 years he lay buried without any acknowledgment of who he was, without any sign of him ever being alive.
More importantly for Marilyn, she holds onto hope that one day her brother's murderer will be found and justice will come for her long-lost little brother.
Frank Bresson Goes Missing
Marilyn Sullivan knew her 22-year-old brother Frank was battling substance abuse. Sullivan knew Frank was hanging out with a dangerous crowd. When he didn't show up at home, Sullivan feared the worst.
"I felt guilt," Sullivan said. "He had been to my house several times asking for help, and that last time when I turned him away, and I didn't help him, I felt very guilty for not helping him and because I didn't help him."
Marilyn and her parents filed a missing persons report with the Riverside Police Department to track Frank down.
"When someone just disappears, it leaves a hole in your heart," said Sullivan. "You just are constantly watching over your shoulders, living in limbo. You ask yourself, 'Was that him walking down the street?' I would think I saw him driving or at the gas station. On holidays, I wondered if he was looking in through the window and wanting to be with us, but he couldn't be there for some reason."
Sullivan said Frank's disappearance tore her family apart and still does to this day.
"I tried to do the best for my brother, but it was his choice to go down the path that he was living," said Sullivan. "It took a long time to come to the conclusion that it wasn't my fault. It was his. But trying to wrap your head around that, when you get the details of how he was murdered, it was very difficult."
The Unidentified Body
Less than fifty miles to the south of Bresson's family home, in a remote stretch of wilderness on the banks of the Santa Margarita River, a hiker discovered a grizzly scene. A man, his hands bound, face blindfolded, dead along the trail.
San Diego Sheriff's Deputies were called to the scene.
"This unidentified white male, estimated to be in his 20s at the time of the autopsy, was found dead with a blindfold-like cloth material around the head and evidence of two gunshot wounds," reads the August 14, 1995, Sheriff's death investigation.
The man was shot twice at close range, once in the head and a second time in the heart.
The man had no identification, leading deputies to treat him as a John Doe.
"Right now, we are checking for reports about missing persons. We haven't identified him yet, but we are following that path," a Sheriff's detective told CBS 8 during the department's investigation.
However, San Diego Sheriff detectives found no missing persons' reports in the system or from neighboring counties.
Without any identification and no leads, the County of San Diego County buried the unidentified man in an unmarked grave at the Mount Hope Cemetery in 1995.
A Sister's Search for Answers
Each year for sixteen years, Sullivan called the Riverside Police Department for updates. Each year, Sullivan said the department would tell her they had no updates.
In 2010, that changed.
Sullivan said a new person answered her phone call in 2010. The police department employee told Sullivan that she was not finding any paperwork on Sullivan's brother.
A few days later, the employee called Sullivan back.
"They called me back and said they couldn't find him because his paperwork wasn't entered correctly," said Sullivan. "She told us to come and give DNA. My family went down and gave their DNA. They told us it would take six months to a year, and in two months, they had the results."
The results: Frank Bresson was the body that San Diego Sheriff's Detectives found on a remote trail near the Santa Margarita River on August 13, 1995, just days after Bresson went missing.
Sullivan and her family then learned that Frank was buried in an unmarked grave in Mount Hope Cemetery.
"It was very heartbreaking to hear that somebody could take someone's life like how they took my brother's and just be living out there, you know, carefree," said Sullivan.
Who Killed Frank Bresson?
Trying to solve a murder from nearly 30 years ago is not an easy task, especially when so much time passed without knowing who the victim was.
The San Diego County Sheriff's Cold Case Unit hopes to do just that. Detectives are giving Bresson's murder a fresh look.
Detective Brent Spencer is one of the detectives in the Sheriff's Cold Case Unit. Detective Spencer says there are key details in the case that could provide some answers into who killed Frank Bresson.
"The scene is incredibly important, and detectives are looking at the scene to figure out why, here, in the middle of nowhere? Said Spencer. "The details of the murder, How was he killed? Was he killed? He was killed in the middle of nowhere, meaning this was possibly a planned event."
Spencer told CBS 8 that the unit currently has a number of people they have deemed to be persons of interest in Bresson's murder.
"There's somebody that knows something out there, whether that be the person that did this to Mr. Bresson or planned this and had it carried out, there's some information out there," said Detective Spencer.
Spencer admitted that the time lost from the clerical error presented obstacles to the case, but the department is confident they will make progress in finding answers for Bresson's family.
"We can put a person to the face and now delve into that investigation further. It's disappointing that it took that long and that information wasn't shared as it should have been initially in the investigation to help us, but we're going to press forward and still try to solve this case, even with that lapse in time," said Spencer.
Spencer said Sheriff's detectives are looking into the people Bresson was hanging around and those connected to the area near where Bresson was murdered. Spencer and the department urge anyone with information to contact the department.
Marilyn Sullivan, Frank's older sister, hopes she will one day find justice for her baby brother.
"I do have hope," said Sullivan. "I do believe that we will eventually find the person who is responsible for this horrible action."