In a small Nevada town where rodeos double as social calendars, a 16-year-old cowgirl trusted an older friend so completely that she called him her big brother. That trust, investigators say, is exactly what he used to get her alone in the desert and kill her. The case of Gabrielle Britney Ujlaky is not just a brutal crime story, it is a gut punch reminder of how predators can hide in plain sight, wrapped in the language of family.
What unfolded after Britney vanished pulled back the curtain on a young man the community thought it knew. As detectives dug into his shifting stories, a trail of digital clues, desert tire tracks, and forensic evidence slowly stripped away the “protective brother” image he had sold to everyone around him.
The Cowgirl And The “Big Brother” She Trusted
Gabrielle Britney Ujlaky grew up in Nevada ranch country, the kind of teenager who spent her free time around horses and dusty arenas instead of malls. Friends and relatives described her as a cowgirl through and through, a girl who felt at home in boots and jeans and who leaned on a tight circle of people she believed had her back. Among them was a slightly older family friend, Bryce Dickey, a man she trusted enough to label her “big brother” in conversations with others, a bond that made sense in a small community where neighbors often blur into extended family, according to early coverage.
That sense of comfort is what made her disappearance so jarring. Gabrielle Britney Ujlaky vanished on March 8, 2020, after leaving to meet friends, a routine outing that did not initially set off alarm bells. When she did not come home, though, the same people she trusted scrambled to find her, including Dickey, who presented himself to law enforcement and the community as a worried protector. He told police he had dropped her off safely and had no idea what happened next, a claim that would later collide with a growing pile of evidence that pointed straight back at him, as detailed in later reporting.
A Desert Discovery And A Story That Kept Changing
The search for Britney ended in the Nevada desert, where her body was found in a remote area that looked like the kind of place only locals would know. A coroner determined the girl had been sexually assaulted and strangled, a level of violence that shattered any lingering hope she might have simply run away. The location itself became a clue, a lonely stretch of land that matched the rugged backdrop in photos and posts tied to the same social circle, including images that showed how comfortable some of those young people were off-roading far from town, according to investigators who later walked through those desert routes.
From the start, Dickey put himself in the middle of the narrative, telling officers he had given Britney a ride and dropped her off near a park, then watched her walk away. That version of events shifted as detectives pressed him, and the inconsistencies only grew more obvious once they started comparing his statements with physical evidence. Tire impressions, phone records, and the timing of his movements did not line up with the story he was selling, and each new interview seemed to add another crack. The more he tried to explain, the more it sounded like someone scrambling to stay ahead of facts he could not control, a pattern that would later be laid out in detail in case summaries.
Digital Breadcrumbs And A Haunting Photo
As the investigation deepened, detectives turned to the digital trail that modern life leaves behind. They pulled data from phones, social media, and messaging apps, looking for gaps between what people said and what their devices showed. In Dickey’s case, that search turned up something that made seasoned investigators stop short. They found a photograph of him posing in a desert landscape that looked eerily similar to the spot where Britney’s body had been discovered, right down to the scrubby vegetation and the contours of the hills, a detail that prompted them to call him back in for more questions, according to investigators.
That image was not the only digital clue, but it became a kind of symbol of how brazen and casual the violence was. It suggested a level of familiarity with the area that undercut any claim he had simply driven her around town and left her in a safe place. When detectives confronted him with the mounting contradictions, his explanations shifted again, moving from denial to partial admissions that still tried to minimize his role. By then, though, the pattern was clear. The same person who had publicly mourned Britney and framed himself as a devastated big brother was, according to the evidence, the one who had taken her into the desert, sexually assaulted her, and left her to die, a conclusion that would later be echoed in detailed case reconstructions.
From “Family Friend” To Convicted Killer
By the time the case reached a Nevada courtroom, prosecutors had a clear narrative they believed the evidence supported. They described how Dickey, a young man who moved in the same circles as Britney’s family, used that access to groom her trust and then isolate her. Jurors heard that she had called him her big brother, a phrase that once sounded affectionate but in hindsight underscored how completely he had disarmed her. The charges were blunt: rape and murder of a teen family friend, with the state arguing that the sexual assault and killing were part of a single, calculated attack, a framing that matched later summaries of the trial.
Jurors ultimately convicted Bryce Dickey of raping and murdering the teenager, accepting the prosecution’s argument that the man she saw as a protective older brother was in fact her killer. The verdict formally labeled him what the evidence had long suggested: not a grieving friend, but a predator who had hidden behind the language of family. For Britney’s relatives, the conviction brought a measure of legal accountability, but it could not restore the easy trust that once defined their small-town relationships. The idea that someone they had welcomed into their lives as a “big brother” figure could turn out to be a rapist and murderer left a scar that went far beyond the courtroom, a reality captured in later reflections on how Called Him Her and never saw the danger coming.
The Quiet Fallout In A Small Nevada Town
In the years since Britney’s death, her story has lingered in Nevada ranch country as a kind of cautionary tale that no one wanted but everyone now knows by heart. Parents who once felt comfortable letting their kids roam from arena to arena now ask more questions about who is giving them rides and where they are going after dark. The image of a smiling cowgirl who trusted the wrong person has become a shorthand reminder that danger does not always arrive as a stranger in a dark truck. Sometimes it looks like the guy who has been at every barbecue, the one who jokes with your parents and calls your little sister “kiddo,” a dynamic laid bare in detailed profiles of Gabrielle Britney Ujlaky and her circle.
More from Decluttering Mom: