warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
police discover a body that appears to have been killed by strangulation.this marks the beginning of an intense investigation and a killer we know almost nothing about.
on monday , march 8th , a women named Alicia called the police to report that her 16 year old daughter,Britney Ujlaky .
Britntey had been expected to return home the night before with a friend,but since then,there ‘s been no sign of her.
Britney was a happy 16 year old girl who lived with her dad Jim in Elc County , Nevada . she loved horses, spent alot of time outdoors and had dreams of joining the Navy after finishing shool.
that sunday started of like any other her dad had band practice, and Britney usually tagged along enjoying the music and making jokes.
while the band played , Britney was on Snapchat chatting along with friends .at some point, she told her dad that her friend Bryce was coming to pick her up her up . before leaving,she said she’d be back before him.
Jim didn’t think much of it.Bryce was a friend she’d known for years from the rodeo.he was someone the family trusted.
but later that evening , Jim got home around 7:30 and Britney wasn’t there.her phonewent straight to voicemail. he called her mom, Alici who also couldn’t reach her .
that’s when the worry really kicked in. Britney always had her phone on . they started contacting friends, Bryce finally responded saying he dropped Britney off at Spring Creek high high school to meat someone. else .a new friend of hers.
he descirbed the guy as a tall white man with a cowboy look driving an old Green F-150 truck .hearing that , Alicia’s heart sank.
hearing that Alicia’s heart sink ,the thought of her daughter getting into a truck with a random stranger terrified her.
that night,nobody slept and the next morning Alicia made a the call to the police.Brittney was officially reported missing.
at this point,the only person kwnown to have seen Britney before she disappeared was Bryce.police quickly got in touch with him and asked him to stay in the school parking lot after class.
they wanted one of their investigators to meet with him in person tobetter understand what really happened that night.
with their only lead being the green Ford F-150, the Elco county sheriff’s office issued a press release annoucing Brittney was missing at the same time they tried to track her phone hoping it would give them a location.
eventually her phone pinged near a remote road, Boyd kennedy road.deputies rushed to search the area while friends and family organized their own searches around town.
Britney’s close friend ,selena , asked Bryce if there anywhere else that we hand’t checked?”Bryce suggested the spring creek mountains. then he added something strange.” i love you,i’m so sorry this happened.i hope you guys don’t blame me.” Selena reasured him. no one blamed him .
as the hours passed with no sign of Britney ,her mother Alicia, printed over 500 missing person flyers and shared shared her daugher’s photo all over facebook.
A tip line was flooded with calls,every 2 to 3 minutes.someone had something to say.but things took a terrifying turn 36 hours after Britney vanished.
Alicia received a chilling text message from an unknown numer .the message claimed the sender had Britney.
they demanded $ 7,000 or they’d kill her .they also claimed Britney had been drugged and was dying.
Alicia immediately showed the texts to detectives.they warned her not to reply while they worked to trace the number.
while the search was still ongoing , those two locals had called the police. and that’s when Brittany’ s body was discovered.
detective stake, who was supposed to meet with Alicia to go over the ransom messages, now had to deliver the worst possible news before heading to the crime scene himself.
let’s go back to the crime scene with detective stake and see what investigators discovered.the first thing that caught their attention were blood stanis right in the middle of the road.several patches of dirt were soaked in blood.
at the edge of the roadway ,they noticed drag marks leading from those stains to a body partially covered by a loosely draped blue tarp. when officers pulled the tarp back, they found the body of a young girl lying face down.
there was also puncture wound on her neck with blood pool nearby.
just north of the body, a keychain with the name Brittany engraved on it was discovered.
as sergeant fisher continued to search the area, he spotted a pear of white apple earbuds and nearby, a used condom lying in another bush.
late,abouyt half a mile from the body ,they found a severely damaged phone. it looked like it had been smashed and thrown from a moving car.
it matched the description of Britney’s iPhone.10 R.
the body was sent for autopsy , and dental records confirmed the tragic newsit was Britney.the first person to be informed was britney’s father.
as soon as he heard the news,he immediately called Alicia to let her know,but she already knew.
her brother, James , woke up to a flood of condolence messages .at first,he refused to believe his sister was gone. he described feeling numb and completely lost.
soon thje news had spread everywhere.Bryce ,the last person who saw Britney alive, posted a message on facebook after hearing what happened.
now it was time to go back one by one with detective stake , examining each piece of evidence that could lead them to Britney’s killer.
the first thing they looked into was the threatening messages Alicia had received. after tracing the number, it turned out to be a spoofed line , and it wasn’t even from Nevada.
based on the writing style and the phone’s location,police concluded the messages were likely just a scam and had no real connection to Britney’s murder.
they believe the sender had probably gotten Alicia’s number from one of her facebook posts.the person behind those messages was never identified.
Detective stake then headed to the coroner’s office,hoping the autopsy would finally give them a solide lead.
the results were heartbreaking.
a rape kit was performed and samples were taken from her neck and under her fingernails. she also had bruises on her hands, small but clear signs she had fought back.
detectives rushed to get the DNA evidence tested.
items from the scene, like the used condom,were sent to the crime lab with an urgent request.”processs everything as fast as possible.”
while they raited for the DNA test results to come in ,detectives turned their attention to the most promising lead they had so far.
a man known only by the initials JT,a cowboy who drove a green Ford F-150. with the threatening messages now ruled out as a scam, the motive behind the crime seemed to be sexual.that made the hunt for JT even more urgent.
police began tracking down every JT in the area who owned a green F-150.
they identified two potential matches but after thorough interviews and verifying whereabouts at the time Britney’s disappearance, both were cleared.
so, investigators shifted focus, they pulled surveillance footage from several businesses near Spring Creek High School,hoping to spot the green F150 Britney was last seen getting into.
but instead , something else caught their eye.Bryce’s blue chevy truck.
footage show his truck passing the entrance to Spring Creek High School and heding straight down Boyd Kennedy road, the same direction Britney’s body was later found.
detectives realized they’d been misled.so , they called Bryce back in, telling him it was just to access his phone data.but in truth,they had something else in mind.they wanted his DNA.
after collecting the samples, Bryce was temporarily released while they waited for lab results. 4 days later,the results came in and they changed everything.
the DNA found on the used condom matched both Bryce and Britney.
even more damning, the swaps taken from Britney’s neck and underneath the fingernails also came back as match for Bryce’s DNA.
with this solid evidence in hand,detective stake brought Bryce back in.
this time for a very different kind of konversation.the next round of question wasn’t about help or cooperation.it was about getting to the truth.
on march 19th 2020 , it finally happened. Bryce Dicki was arrested and charged with the murder of his 16 year old friend Britney.
when Britney’s parents, Alicia and Jim,heard the news. they rushed to the sheriff’s office. but Alicia couldn’t believe it. she kept saying it didn’t make sense.
it was Bryce.someone Britney trusted .someone they all truested.her brother James got a call from Alicia.he was stunned.the news completely shook him.
after Bryce’s arrest, more evidence started to serface.investigators got access to snapshat memories from both Britney and Bryce.
photos showed Britney together inside his truck after the time he claimed he dropped her off.GPS data placed both of them just a few hundred feet away from where her body was later found.
even worth, Bryces GPS showed him driving back to Spring Creek about an hour after Britney’s last phot was taken.everything pointed to him .
2 years later bryce went on trial for the rape and murder of Brittney. her father, Jim, was there every single day,watching and listening to every painful detail, trying to hold on long enough to see justice done.
friends of Britney ,testified that she had rejected Bryce after he told her he had feelings for her.
after 9 days of trial , the jury only needed 4 hours to decide.the verdict was clear.guilty.of first degree -murder and sexual assault.Bryce Dicki was sentenced to life in prison with a chance of parole after 46 years.
after the sentencing, Britney’s brother James, said
” if i could talk to her again, i’d tell her that everything i’ve done since she passed has been for her. the world lost an amazing soul.”
Britney Ujluky had her whole life ahead of her ,but it was taken away by someone she thought could trust……