Brookfield residents plan to gather in the town common Friday night, a day that marks two years since Brittany Tee, a 35-year-old Brookfield woman, went missing.
“This will undoubtedly be a difficult day for Brittany’s friends and family, and a time when they will need the support of their community both in their grief and in their fight to keep the search for Brittany going,” according to an event description for the vigil on Facebook. “No one should hold such tremendous grief or carry the burden of searching alone.”
Last year’s vigil brought about 100 people together at the Brookfield Common, giving friends and family a chance to reminisce about Tee, the Telegram & Gazette reported in January 2024.
Missing Brookfield woman Brittany Tee, 35, was last seen leaving a residence in Brookfield around 8:30 p.m. Jan. 10. She was last seen wearing a black winter coat, hoodie, jeans and work boots, officials said. (Worcester District Attorney’s Office)
Three days before she went missing in January 2023, Tee was last seen in the area of Lewis Field on Main Street in Brookfield. Her family then reported her missing to Brookfield police, resulting in extensive searches in the weeks that followed.
Search teams included the Massachusetts State Police and its Special Emergency Response Team, the State Police K-9 Unit, the State Police Air Wing, the State Police Marine Unit, the Massachusetts Environmental Police, the Brookfield Police and Fire Departments, and the Worcester Police Department.
In a short statement, a spokesperson for Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr.’s office said on Wednesday that the investigation into Tee’s disappearance “and search for her whereabouts remains ongoing.” So far, no upcoming ground searches are planned, Massachusetts State Police spokesperson Tim McGuirk told MassLive.
Speaking with the Telegram & Gazette, Tee’s sister, Bethany Tee, said there have been no new developments pointing to where the missing woman is.
“It continues to be very difficult,” she told the newspaper on Monday. “Every day we think of her.”
In September 2024, Tee’s family approached Private Investigations for the Missing to look into the case, the Telegram reported. A page on the organization’s website gives a description of Tee, what she looks like, where she was last seen and that she would be 37 years old now.
Case manager Louis Barry, who is also on the organization’s board, told the Telegram that they took on the case because “there may be some solvability to it.”
“We obviously don’t guarantee anything at all, except that we’ll try,” Barry said to the newspaper. “Many times, the police are not overly communicative with the family as to what is or is not happening in the case, and the families get frustrated. At least with a private investigator, they know somebody is working on the case, and that gives them some hope that that there’s going to be a resolution to it.”
On Jan. 22, 2023, state police said they covered 250 acres during search efforts, with other search efforts done in a large area of woods near her Brookfield home and along routes 9 and 148.
Early’s office has previously repeated that the search is not a criminal investigation. People who authorities have spoken with during the investigation have been cooperative.
On Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, state police conducted a search of 18 Main St. in Brookfield, the address where missing Brookfield woman Brittany Tee was last seen.
Prior searches conducted by State Police divers and the marine unit and Massachusetts Environmental Police searched the Quaboag River, Quaboag Pond, and Dunn Brook and surrounding marshland yielded no results.
Tee is described as 5′6″ inches tall and 120 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a black winter coat, a hoodie, jeans and work boots when she was last seen.
Anyone with information is encouraged to call the tip line at 508-453-7589 or email WorcesterDAUnresolved@mass.gov. Tips can be left anonymously.
