October 28, 2020 • 36 mins
This season, private investigator Catherine Townsend and her team investigate the mysterious disappearance and death of Mitrice Richardson. Mitrice was arrested at a seaside restaurant in Malibu, California on September 16, 2009. Later that night, she was released but never seen alive again. Catherine talks with Mitrice’s mentor and family friend Dr. Ronda Hampton and begins to retrace Mitrice’s steps the night she went missing.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
School of Humans. It's Friday night, and we're driving down
the Pacific Coast Highway that winds through Malibu toward the
(00:29):
blue neon glow of Jeoffrey's Restaurant. On September sixteenth, two
thousand and nine, twenty four year old my Trees Richardson
took this same route in her nineteen ninety eight Honda Civic.
She went inside the restaurant and ordered a Kobe's Steak
and a sea breeze. Many diners and restaurant workers noted
(00:50):
her behavior as quote off. Before the night was over,
my Trees found herself in a Lost Hills Sheriff's Department
holding cell. The officers who took her to jail drove
way past the strip of sand called Billionaire Beach, home
to CEOs and Hollywood Royalty. My Trees was in the
(01:15):
back of the cruiser as it curved sharply into the
Santa Monica Mountains, near the gated communities of Calabasas that
Kim Kardashian West and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith call home.
But it's a long way from the surfers and the
celebrity hotspots up here. The roads have no shoulders, and
steep drop offs. Her final destination was the Lost Hills
(01:38):
Sheriff Station in the middle of nowhere, and that's where
on Thursday at twelve fifteen am, My Trees was released. Now,
this is the same sheriffs station where mel Gibson was
arrested for drunk driving. Even after a drunken rant, officers
safely drove Meil back to his car when he sobered up.
(02:01):
There was no courtesy ride for My Trees, the young
African American woman with no famous last name. She was
released into the pitch black night and had no car,
no cell phone, no money. She was forty miles from
home and had no way of getting back. My Trees
disappeared into the darkness and was never seen alive again.
(02:25):
To this day, no one knows what happened to My Trees.
I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone. So Catherine, where
(03:12):
are we going. We're going to Inglewood Cemetery and we're
going to talk to doctor Ronda Hampton at my Teresa's
grave site, because today is the anniversary of the day
that she disappeared. Take the next right onto East Florence Avenue.
Then your destination will be on the right, Sorry, excuse me.
(03:38):
Inglewood Cemetery is located right next to the airport. The
cemetery is huge, so huge that it's divided by two
way streets, beautiful, peaceful lots of palm tree line streets.
My Teresa's plot is located on fair Haven. Today, some
of her friends and loved ones have gathered to remember her. Oh.
(04:02):
Doctor Ronda Hampton organized the event today. Doctor Ronda is
a clinical psychologist who first met my Trees in two
thousand and six when My Trees was her intern. This
is where my Trees is laid to rest and next
to her great grandmother and her uncle. She's buried next
(04:23):
to her uncle who was shot and killed by police
in nineteen eighty six, and her great grandmother Mildred, who
my trace was living with when she went missing. Okay,
let's see this all right. Dear Father, God, would come
before you and we thank you that this is the
day that you have made. We are accepting Father, what
has happened to my Trees, but we are not accepting Father,
(04:47):
that justice is has happened. So Father, we're praying for
today that this would be a reminder for us that
we will all continue to work together to push forward
for justice, and even though the road becomes hard and difficult,
(05:07):
we thank you that we can rely upon your strength.
Doctor Ronda and mourners have brought dozens of sunflowers, my
Teresa's favorite. She sets up a memorial display with my
Teresa's graduation photo, and she brought gift bags for anyone
coming by today featuring the Justice for my Terre's logo,
a sunflower with a butterfly inside her masks, a sign
(05:30):
of the COVID times, and sunflower seeds. Anytime I see sunflowers,
that always makes me happy, I think because because my
trees love the flowers. And then when I see some
flowers for her, then it makes me feel really happy.
And actually I've been really scared to come to her
her sight. I don't even know why. Yeah, and this
(05:53):
is the first time you've been here since yeah, since
the service. Yeah, I don't know. This is the first
time that Ronda has been to my Teresa's grave site
since the day they buried her. And that is a
day she doesn't want to remember. And on that day,
you know, like it's not done, you know what I mean,
(06:14):
It's like, Okay, here we're burying her. It was like
a circus. It was like a media circus to begin
with no respect for her whatsoever, you know, Like the
sheriffs were talking shit. It's like, come on, let her
just be buried, you know. So that was just very frustrating.
And then and then on the day of her funeral,
(06:35):
I so this is what happened. I asked the forensic
anthropologist that was volunteering that whenever, whenever we found my
Teresa's body, would she come and do like an autopsy. Right,
So when she was found, then I called her and
I said, they found her. The thing is, she was
in England at the time, so she had to She says,
(06:57):
the way. The only day I can get back is
on September seventeenth, And that was the day that the
service was already planned, so like only hours before her funeral.
She uh was doing the autopsy just hours before. So
then right when the service was gonna start, right then,
(07:18):
that's when I get the phone call. Right, her body
had not been analyzed, her clothing were in the body bag,
clothing in the body bag, her body had not been analyzed.
And apologist is like, we gotta figure out what to do, right,
So we got like five minutes to make a decision.
(07:39):
What are we gonna do. I was at the church.
Everybody's rolling in. Yeah, so we were like, okay, so
we're just gonna have We're just gonna have to bury
because we were It's like if they would put her
clothing in the body bag to be buried, you know
(07:59):
that they're trying to high. So we had so we
had to We just had to have the funeral. So
all the time we're sitting there or I don't even
think I told her mom. I think I just had
to wait, like just sitting there. It's like, okay, so
we're just gonna let this uner what happens. So I'm preoccupied.
I'm not thinking about none of this. I'm thinking about
(08:21):
Colin Lee Baka in the corners and like what the fuck?
So all that, I'm not even thinking about it, none
of it. Sitting in the church, pissed off, right, Yeah,
so that's what happened on that day. So no, that
was not a beautiful day or whatever. I was there
(08:42):
a p occupied, getting the hell out of here and
just jamming up whoever needed to be jammed up. I've
been following my Teresa's case for a long time. I
first heard about it in late two thousand and nine
when I was living in LA and I remember seeing
a mention of the search in Malibu. The story seems
so strange, a woman who had been arrested, then let
(09:03):
go in the middle of the night, and then vanished
without I was actually working and training as a PI
during that time in Agra Hills, so I would have
to make the drive through the Calabasas area. I remember
seeing people holding signs and wearing have you seen my
Tree's t? Shirts. According to news reports, there were multiple
searches by police in Malibu, by the LAPD, and by
(09:25):
hundreds of volunteers, but then the story just seemed to disappear.
I never even knew that her remains had been found.
When I first read about my Teresa's story, it was
kind of presented as a girl who may have been
on drugs or on the streets, or possibly wandered into
the woods and was suicidal. As it turns out, it
wasn't like that at all. My Teres was a young
(09:47):
woman with a caring family who was vulnerable on one night,
and the people around her wanted her to be safe.
Then she went to what should have been the safest
place in the world the Lost Hills Sheriff Station, and
then just vanished. Another thing that interested me about the
area where this took place was the fact that it's
very remote. People have this misconception that this area is
(10:07):
buzzing because it's close to Malibu Beach in the Hollywood hangouts,
but the truth is, once you turn up toward the canyon,
the areas around there are cut off from anywhere you're
in the mountains within a couple of minutes up there.
It's all horse trails and very remote neighborhoods that are
cut off from the surrounding world by the Santa Monica
Mountains and the nearby communities of Agora Hills and Simi
(10:30):
Valley are also very different from Malibu and Los Angeles.
They're small town, predominantly white, very conservative, and heavily populated
by people who work in law enforcement. Side note, the
community of Simi Valley was the home of two of
the Ventura County jurors who acquitted the police officers who
beat Rodney King in nineteen ninety two, triggering the La riots,
(10:54):
and in the past couple of years there have been
several mysterious deaths in the area. In January twenty seventeen,
twenty year old a Lane Park had a date night
with her boyfriend. He said she left in the early
morning hours the next day. Her car was found abandoned
on Pacific Coast Highway a few days later, but she
(11:14):
was never seen again. Then, in twenty eighteen, Tristan Bodett,
a young father of two, was shot while sleeping in
his tent in the Santa Monica National Park campground. A
drifter named Anthony Rauta has been charged with Bodet's murder,
but there have been many other mysterious shootings in the area,
(11:35):
and a lot of people believe that Rauta is not
responsible for all of them. But what's so odd to
me about my Teres's case is the fact that you
can disappear so close to one of the most star
studded and populated places in the world. When my Terce
(11:57):
was taking the drive that night, she had a lot
on her mind. For the past several months, her life
had been in transition. She was interning with Ronda and
looking at graduate schools. Before we went to the cemetery
with Ronda, we gave her a call to get her
perspective on the case. She's been investigating my Teresa's death
(12:18):
for over ten years or else. Oh hi, doctor Hampton, Hi,
how are you. I'm good? Thank you for talking to me.
Ronda says she will never forget the first day that
my ries walked into her office. What was she like? So,
my Trees, I have to tell you when. Okay, So
(12:39):
I kind of had a little bit of an attitude
taking on an intern. I really didn't want to. My
daughter was just starting school that week, first grade, and
I just was really not interested in supervising someone because
it's quite you know, it's a bit of a responsibility, right,
And so on the very first day that she came
into my office was the first day that my daughter
started school, right, So I, you know, come rushing into
(13:04):
the office and she was already there. But I'll tell
you when I fell in love with her. I in
between clients, I overheard her talking to someone else over
the phone. Now I don't actually recall who it was,
but she was very clear in saying, well, this is
doctor Hampston's office and this is how she runs things.
And you know, I will take your you know, your message,
(13:24):
and I will pose it onto her, but she was
very stern and the way she said it, and I
was like, wait a minute, car she was just like
laying down the law. Its very in a very very
respectful manner, but really firm. So I absolutely I was
like just double take, like, way, who are we? And
a couple hours later I had a break and then
(13:45):
you know, we just it was just you know, it
was on, you know, and I was I had graduated
from cal State Polishes, so we had that in common.
And and she was just smart as a whip, so
it was nothing to kind of just really take her
under my wing and you know, just show her everything
that I possible it could. Yeah, she seemed like an
(14:08):
amazing She seemed like a really amazing person. The good thing.
She really was. And it's hard to you know, you
hear that stuff all the time, but it's like she
was so dynamic, you know, just just smart and very
pleasant and very very cheerful and you know, just respectful
(14:28):
and and inquisitive like all those things. And and and
also I learned very quickly that she definitely was uh
going to be a better therapist than than me. And
she had much more compassion natural combassion than I do
(14:54):
the week My Trees disappeared, she had scheduled lunch with
Ronda to talk about her grad school application. She wanted
to become a child psychologist, but until then she was
working to pay the bill. She worked a clerical job
with a shipping company, and on Friday nights she was
a go go dancer at an LGBT club in Long
Beach called Deborah's. My Trees lived with her great grandmother, Mildred,
(15:17):
in Inglewood, a neighborhood in South Los Angeles near lax.
Her father, Michael Richardson, had not been around much during
My Teresa's childhood, but she grew up. They started to
rebuild their relationship and they were in touch regularly. When
My Trees disappeared. My Trees had also recently come out
as a lesbian, and she started dating a boxer named Tessa.
(15:39):
Tessa and My Trees had broken up in the spring.
My Trees reportedly became fixated on a woman named Vanessa,
who was a regular at Deborah's, but Vanessa wasn't interested.
But My Trees also appeared to be suffering from some
mental health issues. After her disappearance, her mom, Lettie Sutton,
went through My Teresa's social media posts and what she
(16:02):
found there was disturbing. On my my Trees had posted
have you ever woke up at seven am crying on
a Saturday? Because now that you see the light, you
see all the people lost in the dark. Welcome to
my reality. In the days before her disappearance, my Teres
(16:22):
wrote on Facebook that she was not sleeping and her
thoughts appeared to be becoming more and more erratic and
had a kind of manic energy. Then on the day
she went missing, her boss said that she showed up
for work in a good mood. She went out for
lunch but didn't come back. This was totally out of
character for her. Then my Teres went back to her
(16:45):
great grandmother's house in Inglewood. She had some business cards
printed up with her dancer name Hazel on them, and
she pasted them all over the windows of the house.
After my Trees left that afternoon, my Teresa's aunt, Lauren,
found that she'd also left a strange note on her
husband's windshield with some nonsensical writing and the words black
(17:06):
woman scorned. Ronda also said my Trees had visited an
old professor of hers that day. The day before my
trees went missing. She had shown up to her old
college professor's office. So this is a woman who she really,
you know, liked a lot, so showed up and the
(17:27):
office staff told her My treats like, you know, she's
not going to be out for a while because she
was teaching a class. My treets waited there for a
long time, and then eventually the professor came and the professor,
I know because I talked to the professor. The professor
thought that my truf was acting odd. So she walked
the trees over to and to a psychologist that you know,
(17:51):
was in the same dome with her, in the hopes
that this person would get my treat some help. And
my treeth kind of picked up on it, and she
ran away and said, okay, that's fine, I'm just going
to go be with my friends. So she left and
then she met up with her friends and she was
crying because, you know, the progressor didn't believe her and
thought that something was wrong with her. So everybody was
picking up on that something was wrong with her. She
(18:12):
was just acting on and she was posting on Facebook
all kinds of odd things, probably for twenty four hours straight,
constantly posting, and so one of the things that she posted,
or I don't remember, she posted this a toll on
her friends. I'd have to look at my notes, but
that the ocean was calling her, and so we believe
that that's why she went to Malibu, because the ocean
(18:33):
was calling her. We're driving out to Jeffrey's to retrace
my Teresa's steps the night she went missing. Yeah, so
right now, we're going to Jeffrey's restaurant in Malibu, which
is along the Pacific Coast Highway, and it's the last
place where my Terse was. It's where she went the
night that she disappeared and where she was arrested and
(18:55):
taken into custody. So we're going to go and scope
it out, and then we're going to go to the
last hill Shriff station. Malibu, California, is one of the
most famous cities in the world, known for its spectacular
beaches and breathtaking views. It's also home to one of
the country's most impressive restaurants, renowned for its natural beauty,
(19:16):
impeccable service, and fabulous cuisine. Jeffrey's Malibu, an ocean side
dining experience. From the way that my Trees was acting
earlier in the day, we know that something wasn't quite right.
According to an LA magazine article written by Mike Kessler,
(19:37):
when my Trees got to Joffrey's, she did something pretty strange.
She got out of her car and into the valet's car.
Then the valet, Kenneth Cargle, asked my Trees what she
was doing there. She said it's subliminal and then started
muttering something about avenging the death of Michael Jackson. Kenneth
said he parked her car and when he came back,
(20:00):
he noticed that my Rise was still sitting in his
car going through a CD collection. Kenneth if he was
a music lover. When he said that he was, she
said she couldn't figure out how to get his car started.
Despite the strange behavior, Kenneth said that my Terse was
polite and friendly this entire time. Then my Teres asked
Kenneth if he had seen Vanessa, as if he knew
(20:21):
the person she was talking about. She told him to
keep an eye out for a girl with tattooed arms.
Vanessa was most likely the girl that my Teresa's friends
and family said she had a crush on my Terce
then went to the hostess dan. That's where Caroline Paris
was stationed that night. She'd been working at Jeffrey's for
a few months. Caroline immediately noticed that my Terse was
(20:44):
acting a little strangely. She arrived near the hostess stand
where I worked, so I greeted her and asked if
she was having dinner with us, and said, you know't
let you come over towards me and we'll put your
name in the computer because I think she was standing
in it a sense, and we'll check you in for dinner.
But she didn't. She didn't respond to me, so I
(21:08):
went back to the host to stand myself. I think
I'd gone up to her and I encouraged her to
come with me, but she didn't respond. So I went
back to the computer, saw what tables were available, got
a menu, and went back to her and said, you know,
you can follow me to a table, and she didn't
respond again, so I wasn't totally sure. Maybe she was
(21:31):
shy or I just led her to a table and
told her to enjoy her meal, and that's when she
responded for the first time, and she smiled back and
said thank you so much. After seating My Trees. The valet, Kenneth,
told Caroline that there was something off about My Trees
and told her about the odd comments My Trees had
made in his car. He also said My Trees had
(21:54):
told him she was there to avenge the death of
Michael Jackson. And the valet told me all this thing
that he didn't think she was dangerous. He just thought
something was off. That was a word we used that night,
if something was just off. So Caroline went over to
Jeoffrey's manager and said that they had a customer acting bizarrely.
(22:14):
He basically told her not to worry. This was Malibu,
which definitely saw it's share of eccentric characters. My Trees
sat at her table alone. She ordered an Ocean Breeze
cocktail and a Kobe steak. She started to eat, and
at some point she joined a large party of seven
people who were sitting nearby. Later, I did my rounds,
(22:35):
like walking around the tables, and I noticed that she
had gotten up from her table and moved to a
large party table, a table with several other people, and
she was talking and all the people were listening to her.
One of the customers got up from the table and
(22:56):
as they walked past me, I asked if everything was okay,
and they said that they used the word off, so
that something was off with the person who joined their table,
but she was harming anyone. I just at that point
just kept working. I didn't really think anything of it
because being in La things often seemed off to me.
(23:17):
They were really different than where I was from and Malibu.
We would get lots of different people out there, so
I just at that point wasn't concerned. And the depositions
of the people at the table my Teresa joined, They
said my Teresa's behavior was strange, but they said she
was friendly and animated. But it was not long before
the conversation took a turn for the bizarre. She said
(23:39):
she was from Mars and started talking about numerology and
how everything was connected. She said a soap opera character
had told her to drive there. Her server, Omar Martinez,
told Caroline and others that something seemed off. This is
the second person after the Valet to make that remark.
Omar had asked my Trees where she was from, and
(24:00):
he got a different answer from what she told people
at the table. Omar suspected my Trees might not pay
her bill. He said that he would make sure before
she left and let me know that she had paid,
and I said okay. He was said Genishal, probably just forget.
She might forget. I don't think it's that she doesn't
want to like. I think she just might forget to
(24:21):
do it, because you know, she's in some kind of
distracted state. At some point, the large party paid and left.
My Trees got up to leave as well. When she
got to the valet, the manager intercepted her and asked
her how she planned to pay her eighty nine dollars tab.
My Trees seemed surprised and said that the large party
(24:42):
should have covered her tab. My Trees then told him
that he wasn't understanding the language of numbers. She said,
it's okay for me not to pay the bill because
the language of numbers, when they coincide like this, it
makes sense. At this point, the manager is starting to
suspect that something is seriously wrong. He asked her if
(25:03):
she had any money in her pockets, and, according to
his deposition, Mitrees said, I am busted. She then told
him that she was from Mars and made a comment
about settling her debt with sex. The manager was really
patient with her, and she seems really jovial. She was
laughing and joking and very lighthearted and friendly. He then
(25:24):
told her that he was going to have to call
the police if she couldn't pay for her bill, and
she said, okay, Losci Shore Station definish if I can
help you, Hi, I'm calling from Jeffrey's Restaurant, Malibu. This
is one of the Jeffrey servers on the phone with police.
We have a guest here who is refusing to pay
her bill, and you think she may she sounds really crazy,
(25:46):
she may be on drugs or something. We're wondering if
someone to come by and pick her up. And is
she a white, Black, Asian Hispanic? She's young black girls,
probably in her twenties. Okay, what you're wearing. She's wearing
a black T shirt and I think blue jeans with
anybody else her With the police on the way, My
(26:13):
Trees sat at the bar and then went over to
the hostess stand. That's when Caroline had a longer conversation
with my Trees. She felt like they had a connection
because both of them were in times of transition in
their lives. Caroline had recently moved to La to pursue acting,
but was realizing that she didn't actually want to do it. Likewise,
my Rise was figuring out her next steps in life.
(26:35):
That's when we interacted, and no one was with us
while we hung out for a few minutes. I asked
her her name and she told me it was my
Trees and she spelled it. I can still kind of
see I can still kind of see her face as
she spell I'm sorry, she felt all her name. She
(26:57):
smiled really brightly and said, M I t R I C.
She said, it's like mitt Rice. I told her my
name and asked her what her age was, and she said,
I'm twenty four. Since we were almost the same age,
I told her that I was twenty five, and then
I told her and I told her my birthday and
that I was a Leo because I had heard her
(27:18):
mentioning signs to the table that she had joined earlier,
and she laughed and said, oh yeah, you Leo's are
the worst. We laughed, and we made small talk, and
then she made some additional odd comments about the language
of numbers, and I asked her if she was talking
about the binary system, and she said, what's that so
(27:41):
then I said, well, what do you mean about the
language of numbers? And she said, you know when a
number and a number coincide. You know what I mean, Caroline,
And it was like she was talking to old friends
when she engaged with me or the manager. And at
that time I thought she was under the influence of
a drug or had some sort of mental illness, But
again I was younger and didn't really know what I
(28:03):
know now based on the way she spoke to me
out a feeling she had a lot going on and
was trying to keep it together. Caroline asked if there
was someone that she could call. My Trees said she
had no parents, but My Trees did give Caroline her
great grandmother's phone number, so Caroline called Mildred, who offered
(28:26):
to pay my Trees's bill, but Jeoffrey's had no system
for paying over the phone without a signature. Mildred was concerned.
She said she couldn't drive up to Malibu because she
was ninety one years old. My Trees got on the
phone with Mildred and reassured her she was fine. At
around nine pm, Frank Brower and Armando Lurero, both deputies
(28:49):
from the Lost Hills Sheriff's station showed up on the scene.
A third deputy, John McKay, arrived as well. When they
showed up, the police showed up and one of them
got on the phone with the great grandmother. It sounded
like she was trying to get all the details from
(29:09):
what I based off of what I could hear. It
sounded like she was asking him details because he was
giving her details as to where my Treuth was going
to be taken. While one of the officers was on
the phone with her, my trace told one of the
other deputies that she was scared and asked her and
the deputy asked her, why are you scared, and she said, well,
(29:31):
the city where I live in. If three officers walk
up to a girl like me, then it's a bad sign.
She also said I've had an officer if they needed me. Once.
I remember there was one deputy who was really kind
and said, look, I'm a person just like you, just
a normal person. They just made me aware of this uniform.
My Treece said okay, and seemed to be comforted by that.
(29:55):
And she said, okay, I want to talk to you
to one of the deputies, and it seemed like a
kind of cordial exchange, and one of the deputies started
asking her questions. I at that point felt really sad
about what was happening, and I didn't want to watch
(30:17):
her get arrested if that was what was going to happen.
So I went to the break room for about five
or ten minutes, which so I didn't see what was happening.
Deputies McKay and Brower searched my Teresa's cluttered car. They
would later say the car looked like it had been
trashed and maybe even lived in. The deputies found my
(30:38):
Teresa's driver's license, along with marijuana scraps and partially finished
bottles of booze. In a later deposition, Brower said Lurero
told him that my Terce was possibly drunk making odd statements.
For this reason, Brower said he was instructed to administer
a field sobriety test. Brower said that he checked my
Teresa's eyes and pulse to complete the test to determine
(31:01):
that she was sober. He estimated the test took around
fifteen minutes, though Lrrero would later state in his deposition
that he did not order Broward administer any sobriety test.
Brower asked my trees if she was on medication and
if she had ever been placed on a seventy two
hour hold. My Treece said no, she was asthmatic and
(31:21):
had an inhaler, but that was it. At that point,
employees at Jeoffrey's considered paying my Teres's bill themselves so
she could walk with only a misdemeanor ticket for pot possession.
The manager and some of the other staff were worried
that my Treece may not be safe behind the wheel
of a car, so they did what they thought was
the safest thing for her. They made sure that she
(31:43):
went with the police. My Treece was charged with the
defrauding and innkeeper and possession of marijuana. She was placed
under arrest, put into the back of the police car,
and taken to the Lost Hill station. While my Triese
was still on the back of the police cruiser, her mother,
(32:05):
Latise called the station. I am calling. I'm a little
strapped up right now. I understand my daughter is being
brought into the station. My Terce Richard's son. Has they
made it to the station yet and she's been booked? Okay?
Is do you know where she's coming from? It's some
onstaurant out in Malibu, and I didn't even think to
(32:27):
get the name the manager. The only place we have
somebody that's in custody that they just announced on the
radio that they're coming up as from Jeffrey's in Jo Highway.
Is the only female that's bringing brought up to the
station as we speak. They actually just put it on
the radio right before you call it. Okay, okay, I'm
her mother, and are you guys want to book her
(32:48):
and then release her on her own recognian tonight because
it's dark, she doesn't have a car, and I don't
want her wandering out. I'm totally just taken aback because
it's so out of character for her, and you'll see
when she comes in she's well spoken. I think the
only way I will come and get her tonight is
if you guys are going to release her tonight, it's
(33:09):
going to be held in custody for some type of
arraignment tomorrow. Then I will wait until tomorrow. She definitely
has no place, you know, I mean, she's not from
that area, and I would hate to wake up to
a morning report so lost somewhere with her head chopped off.
So I guess I would have to come and get her.
Oh my god. Yeah, we're in a great hose. The
only thing is, at least in the station here she
(33:30):
will be separated, so nobody's going to be with her certainly,
that's you know, the fust thing. So she don't have
to worry about her safety. Oh yeah, no, I feel
safe with her being in custody. It's being released, but
I'm worried about it. It's crazy out here. Early the
(33:53):
next morning, Latise called the station again. This time she
talked to the jailer. She your own Cummings. Cummings told
the tease that my Trees had already been released. The
jailer said she had released my Trees at twelve fifteen am.
At this point, my Treese was forty miles from home.
Cummings has maintained that My Trees declined an offer to
(34:15):
stay in the lobby and said that she told Cummings
that she was going to meet friends. But the reality
is my Treece had no car, no purse, no money,
no cell phone, and no way home. And at night,
the area around Lost Hills Station is pitch black. All
the businesses are closed, there are no buses, there's no
(34:35):
public transportation. My trees walked out of the station at
around twelve forty am into the darkness. Later, Latisse called again.
This time she spoke to Kenneth Bombgardner. She asked him
how long she had to wait to follow missing persons report.
By this point you can hear the desperation in Latis's voice.
(34:59):
Ma Field Station bomb Gardener. Yes, Hi, my name is Latise.
That night car. That's too long ago regarding my daughter
my treats, which is how long before a missing person's
report can be found. This phone call led to months
of searching for my Trees. Next time on Helen Gone,
(35:20):
it just didn't ring true to me that she went missing,
and I think she was considered to be inexpendable, young
Likeaeloman from South la. It's a fifty mile long range
and you could theoretically walk for a long way and
not hit anything. And where my trease was found was
five steps from the starting area of the twenty seven
(35:42):
square miles that they were going to start looking. It
continues like this, I'm going to go ahead and say
there's no way she walked to herself. I'm now more
convinced that she did not walk here. Helen Gone is
a production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It's written
and narrated by me Catherine Townsend. Our producers are Gabby Watts,
Taylor Church and James Morrison. Music is by Ben Sale.
(36:06):
Mix is by Tunewelders. Our executive producers are Brandon Barr,
Elsie Crowley and Brian Lavin. Special thanks to Chip Craft
for use of footage from his documentary Loss Compassion, School
(36:35):
of Humans. School of Humans
School of Humans. It's Friday night, and we're driving down
the Pacific Coast Highway that winds through Malibu toward the
(00:29):
blue neon glow of Jeoffrey's Restaurant. On September sixteenth, two
thousand and nine, twenty four year old my Trees Richardson
took this same route in her nineteen ninety eight Honda Civic.
She went inside the restaurant and ordered a Kobe's Steak
and a sea breeze. Many diners and restaurant workers noted
(00:50):
her behavior as quote off. Before the night was over,
my Trees found herself in a Lost Hills Sheriff's Department
holding cell. The officers who took her to jail drove
way past the strip of sand called Billionaire Beach, home
to CEOs and Hollywood Royalty. My Trees was in the
(01:15):
back of the cruiser as it curved sharply into the
Santa Monica Mountains, near the gated communities of Calabasas that
Kim Kardashian West and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith call home.
But it's a long way from the surfers and the
celebrity hotspots up here. The roads have no shoulders, and
steep drop offs. Her final destination was the Lost Hills
(01:38):
Sheriff Station in the middle of nowhere, and that's where
on Thursday at twelve fifteen am, My Trees was released. Now,
this is the same sheriffs station where mel Gibson was
arrested for drunk driving. Even after a drunken rant, officers
safely drove Meil back to his car when he sobered up.
(02:01):
There was no courtesy ride for My Trees, the young
African American woman with no famous last name. She was
released into the pitch black night and had no car,
no cell phone, no money. She was forty miles from
home and had no way of getting back. My Trees
disappeared into the darkness and was never seen alive again.
(02:25):
To this day, no one knows what happened to My Trees.
I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone. So Catherine, where
(03:12):
are we going. We're going to Inglewood Cemetery and we're
going to talk to doctor Ronda Hampton at my Teresa's
grave site, because today is the anniversary of the day
that she disappeared. Take the next right onto East Florence Avenue.
Then your destination will be on the right, Sorry, excuse me.
(03:38):
Inglewood Cemetery is located right next to the airport. The
cemetery is huge, so huge that it's divided by two
way streets, beautiful, peaceful lots of palm tree line streets.
My Teresa's plot is located on fair Haven. Today, some
of her friends and loved ones have gathered to remember her. Oh.
(04:02):
Doctor Ronda Hampton organized the event today. Doctor Ronda is
a clinical psychologist who first met my Trees in two
thousand and six when My Trees was her intern. This
is where my Trees is laid to rest and next
to her great grandmother and her uncle. She's buried next
(04:23):
to her uncle who was shot and killed by police
in nineteen eighty six, and her great grandmother Mildred, who
my trace was living with when she went missing. Okay,
let's see this all right. Dear Father, God, would come
before you and we thank you that this is the
day that you have made. We are accepting Father, what
has happened to my Trees, but we are not accepting Father,
(04:47):
that justice is has happened. So Father, we're praying for
today that this would be a reminder for us that
we will all continue to work together to push forward
for justice, and even though the road becomes hard and difficult,
(05:07):
we thank you that we can rely upon your strength.
Doctor Ronda and mourners have brought dozens of sunflowers, my
Teresa's favorite. She sets up a memorial display with my
Teresa's graduation photo, and she brought gift bags for anyone
coming by today featuring the Justice for my Terre's logo,
a sunflower with a butterfly inside her masks, a sign
(05:30):
of the COVID times, and sunflower seeds. Anytime I see sunflowers,
that always makes me happy, I think because because my
trees love the flowers. And then when I see some
flowers for her, then it makes me feel really happy.
And actually I've been really scared to come to her
her sight. I don't even know why. Yeah, and this
(05:53):
is the first time you've been here since yeah, since
the service. Yeah, I don't know. This is the first
time that Ronda has been to my Teresa's grave site
since the day they buried her. And that is a
day she doesn't want to remember. And on that day,
you know, like it's not done, you know what I mean,
(06:14):
It's like, Okay, here we're burying her. It was like
a circus. It was like a media circus to begin
with no respect for her whatsoever, you know, Like the
sheriffs were talking shit. It's like, come on, let her
just be buried, you know. So that was just very frustrating.
And then and then on the day of her funeral,
(06:35):
I so this is what happened. I asked the forensic
anthropologist that was volunteering that whenever, whenever we found my
Teresa's body, would she come and do like an autopsy. Right,
So when she was found, then I called her and
I said, they found her. The thing is, she was
in England at the time, so she had to She says,
(06:57):
the way. The only day I can get back is
on September seventeenth, And that was the day that the
service was already planned, so like only hours before her funeral.
She uh was doing the autopsy just hours before. So
then right when the service was gonna start, right then,
(07:18):
that's when I get the phone call. Right, her body
had not been analyzed, her clothing were in the body bag,
clothing in the body bag, her body had not been analyzed.
And apologist is like, we gotta figure out what to do, right,
So we got like five minutes to make a decision.
(07:39):
What are we gonna do. I was at the church.
Everybody's rolling in. Yeah, so we were like, okay, so
we're just gonna have We're just gonna have to bury
because we were It's like if they would put her
clothing in the body bag to be buried, you know
(07:59):
that they're trying to high. So we had so we
had to We just had to have the funeral. So
all the time we're sitting there or I don't even
think I told her mom. I think I just had
to wait, like just sitting there. It's like, okay, so
we're just gonna let this uner what happens. So I'm preoccupied.
I'm not thinking about none of this. I'm thinking about
(08:21):
Colin Lee Baka in the corners and like what the fuck?
So all that, I'm not even thinking about it, none
of it. Sitting in the church, pissed off, right, Yeah,
so that's what happened on that day. So no, that
was not a beautiful day or whatever. I was there
(08:42):
a p occupied, getting the hell out of here and
just jamming up whoever needed to be jammed up. I've
been following my Teresa's case for a long time. I
first heard about it in late two thousand and nine
when I was living in LA and I remember seeing
a mention of the search in Malibu. The story seems
so strange, a woman who had been arrested, then let
(09:03):
go in the middle of the night, and then vanished
without I was actually working and training as a PI
during that time in Agra Hills, so I would have
to make the drive through the Calabasas area. I remember
seeing people holding signs and wearing have you seen my
Tree's t? Shirts. According to news reports, there were multiple
searches by police in Malibu, by the LAPD, and by
(09:25):
hundreds of volunteers, but then the story just seemed to disappear.
I never even knew that her remains had been found.
When I first read about my Teresa's story, it was
kind of presented as a girl who may have been
on drugs or on the streets, or possibly wandered into
the woods and was suicidal. As it turns out, it
wasn't like that at all. My Teres was a young
(09:47):
woman with a caring family who was vulnerable on one night,
and the people around her wanted her to be safe.
Then she went to what should have been the safest
place in the world the Lost Hills Sheriff Station, and
then just vanished. Another thing that interested me about the
area where this took place was the fact that it's
very remote. People have this misconception that this area is
(10:07):
buzzing because it's close to Malibu Beach in the Hollywood hangouts,
but the truth is, once you turn up toward the canyon,
the areas around there are cut off from anywhere you're
in the mountains within a couple of minutes up there.
It's all horse trails and very remote neighborhoods that are
cut off from the surrounding world by the Santa Monica
Mountains and the nearby communities of Agora Hills and Simi
(10:30):
Valley are also very different from Malibu and Los Angeles.
They're small town, predominantly white, very conservative, and heavily populated
by people who work in law enforcement. Side note, the
community of Simi Valley was the home of two of
the Ventura County jurors who acquitted the police officers who
beat Rodney King in nineteen ninety two, triggering the La riots,
(10:54):
and in the past couple of years there have been
several mysterious deaths in the area. In January twenty seventeen,
twenty year old a Lane Park had a date night
with her boyfriend. He said she left in the early
morning hours the next day. Her car was found abandoned
on Pacific Coast Highway a few days later, but she
(11:14):
was never seen again. Then, in twenty eighteen, Tristan Bodett,
a young father of two, was shot while sleeping in
his tent in the Santa Monica National Park campground. A
drifter named Anthony Rauta has been charged with Bodet's murder,
but there have been many other mysterious shootings in the area,
(11:35):
and a lot of people believe that Rauta is not
responsible for all of them. But what's so odd to
me about my Teres's case is the fact that you
can disappear so close to one of the most star
studded and populated places in the world. When my Terce
(11:57):
was taking the drive that night, she had a lot
on her mind. For the past several months, her life
had been in transition. She was interning with Ronda and
looking at graduate schools. Before we went to the cemetery
with Ronda, we gave her a call to get her
perspective on the case. She's been investigating my Teresa's death
(12:18):
for over ten years or else. Oh hi, doctor Hampton, Hi,
how are you. I'm good? Thank you for talking to me.
Ronda says she will never forget the first day that
my ries walked into her office. What was she like? So,
my Trees, I have to tell you when. Okay, So
(12:39):
I kind of had a little bit of an attitude
taking on an intern. I really didn't want to. My
daughter was just starting school that week, first grade, and
I just was really not interested in supervising someone because
it's quite you know, it's a bit of a responsibility, right,
And so on the very first day that she came
into my office was the first day that my daughter
started school, right, So I, you know, come rushing into
(13:04):
the office and she was already there. But I'll tell
you when I fell in love with her. I in
between clients, I overheard her talking to someone else over
the phone. Now I don't actually recall who it was,
but she was very clear in saying, well, this is
doctor Hampston's office and this is how she runs things.
And you know, I will take your you know, your message,
(13:24):
and I will pose it onto her, but she was
very stern and the way she said it, and I
was like, wait a minute, car she was just like
laying down the law. Its very in a very very
respectful manner, but really firm. So I absolutely I was
like just double take, like, way, who are we? And
a couple hours later I had a break and then
(13:45):
you know, we just it was just you know, it
was on, you know, and I was I had graduated
from cal State Polishes, so we had that in common.
And and she was just smart as a whip, so
it was nothing to kind of just really take her
under my wing and you know, just show her everything
that I possible it could. Yeah, she seemed like an
(14:08):
amazing She seemed like a really amazing person. The good thing.
She really was. And it's hard to you know, you
hear that stuff all the time, but it's like she
was so dynamic, you know, just just smart and very
pleasant and very very cheerful and you know, just respectful
(14:28):
and and inquisitive like all those things. And and and
also I learned very quickly that she definitely was uh
going to be a better therapist than than me. And
she had much more compassion natural combassion than I do
(14:54):
the week My Trees disappeared, she had scheduled lunch with
Ronda to talk about her grad school application. She wanted
to become a child psychologist, but until then she was
working to pay the bill. She worked a clerical job
with a shipping company, and on Friday nights she was
a go go dancer at an LGBT club in Long
Beach called Deborah's. My Trees lived with her great grandmother, Mildred,
(15:17):
in Inglewood, a neighborhood in South Los Angeles near lax.
Her father, Michael Richardson, had not been around much during
My Teresa's childhood, but she grew up. They started to
rebuild their relationship and they were in touch regularly. When
My Trees disappeared. My Trees had also recently come out
as a lesbian, and she started dating a boxer named Tessa.
(15:39):
Tessa and My Trees had broken up in the spring.
My Trees reportedly became fixated on a woman named Vanessa,
who was a regular at Deborah's, but Vanessa wasn't interested.
But My Trees also appeared to be suffering from some
mental health issues. After her disappearance, her mom, Lettie Sutton,
went through My Teresa's social media posts and what she
(16:02):
found there was disturbing. On my my Trees had posted
have you ever woke up at seven am crying on
a Saturday? Because now that you see the light, you
see all the people lost in the dark. Welcome to
my reality. In the days before her disappearance, my Teres
(16:22):
wrote on Facebook that she was not sleeping and her
thoughts appeared to be becoming more and more erratic and
had a kind of manic energy. Then on the day
she went missing, her boss said that she showed up
for work in a good mood. She went out for
lunch but didn't come back. This was totally out of
character for her. Then my Teres went back to her
(16:45):
great grandmother's house in Inglewood. She had some business cards
printed up with her dancer name Hazel on them, and
she pasted them all over the windows of the house.
After my Trees left that afternoon, my Teresa's aunt, Lauren,
found that she'd also left a strange note on her
husband's windshield with some nonsensical writing and the words black
(17:06):
woman scorned. Ronda also said my Trees had visited an
old professor of hers that day. The day before my
trees went missing. She had shown up to her old
college professor's office. So this is a woman who she really,
you know, liked a lot, so showed up and the
(17:27):
office staff told her My treats like, you know, she's
not going to be out for a while because she
was teaching a class. My treets waited there for a
long time, and then eventually the professor came and the professor,
I know because I talked to the professor. The professor
thought that my truf was acting odd. So she walked
the trees over to and to a psychologist that you know,
(17:51):
was in the same dome with her, in the hopes
that this person would get my treat some help. And
my treeth kind of picked up on it, and she
ran away and said, okay, that's fine, I'm just going
to go be with my friends. So she left and
then she met up with her friends and she was
crying because, you know, the progressor didn't believe her and
thought that something was wrong with her. So everybody was
picking up on that something was wrong with her. She
(18:12):
was just acting on and she was posting on Facebook
all kinds of odd things, probably for twenty four hours straight,
constantly posting, and so one of the things that she posted,
or I don't remember, she posted this a toll on
her friends. I'd have to look at my notes, but
that the ocean was calling her, and so we believe
that that's why she went to Malibu, because the ocean
(18:33):
was calling her. We're driving out to Jeffrey's to retrace
my Teresa's steps the night she went missing. Yeah, so
right now, we're going to Jeffrey's restaurant in Malibu, which
is along the Pacific Coast Highway, and it's the last
place where my Terse was. It's where she went the
night that she disappeared and where she was arrested and
(18:55):
taken into custody. So we're going to go and scope
it out, and then we're going to go to the
last hill Shriff station. Malibu, California, is one of the
most famous cities in the world, known for its spectacular
beaches and breathtaking views. It's also home to one of
the country's most impressive restaurants, renowned for its natural beauty,
(19:16):
impeccable service, and fabulous cuisine. Jeffrey's Malibu, an ocean side
dining experience. From the way that my Trees was acting
earlier in the day, we know that something wasn't quite right.
According to an LA magazine article written by Mike Kessler,
(19:37):
when my Trees got to Joffrey's, she did something pretty strange.
She got out of her car and into the valet's car.
Then the valet, Kenneth Cargle, asked my Trees what she
was doing there. She said it's subliminal and then started
muttering something about avenging the death of Michael Jackson. Kenneth
said he parked her car and when he came back,
(20:00):
he noticed that my Rise was still sitting in his
car going through a CD collection. Kenneth if he was
a music lover. When he said that he was, she
said she couldn't figure out how to get his car started.
Despite the strange behavior, Kenneth said that my Terse was
polite and friendly this entire time. Then my Teres asked
Kenneth if he had seen Vanessa, as if he knew
(20:21):
the person she was talking about. She told him to
keep an eye out for a girl with tattooed arms.
Vanessa was most likely the girl that my Teresa's friends
and family said she had a crush on my Terce
then went to the hostess dan. That's where Caroline Paris
was stationed that night. She'd been working at Jeffrey's for
a few months. Caroline immediately noticed that my Terse was
(20:44):
acting a little strangely. She arrived near the hostess stand
where I worked, so I greeted her and asked if
she was having dinner with us, and said, you know't
let you come over towards me and we'll put your
name in the computer because I think she was standing
in it a sense, and we'll check you in for dinner.
But she didn't. She didn't respond to me, so I
(21:08):
went back to the host to stand myself. I think
I'd gone up to her and I encouraged her to
come with me, but she didn't respond. So I went
back to the computer, saw what tables were available, got
a menu, and went back to her and said, you know,
you can follow me to a table, and she didn't
respond again, so I wasn't totally sure. Maybe she was
(21:31):
shy or I just led her to a table and
told her to enjoy her meal, and that's when she
responded for the first time, and she smiled back and
said thank you so much. After seating My Trees. The valet, Kenneth,
told Caroline that there was something off about My Trees
and told her about the odd comments My Trees had
made in his car. He also said My Trees had
(21:54):
told him she was there to avenge the death of
Michael Jackson. And the valet told me all this thing
that he didn't think she was dangerous. He just thought
something was off. That was a word we used that night,
if something was just off. So Caroline went over to
Jeoffrey's manager and said that they had a customer acting bizarrely.
(22:14):
He basically told her not to worry. This was Malibu,
which definitely saw it's share of eccentric characters. My Trees
sat at her table alone. She ordered an Ocean Breeze
cocktail and a Kobe steak. She started to eat, and
at some point she joined a large party of seven
people who were sitting nearby. Later, I did my rounds,
(22:35):
like walking around the tables, and I noticed that she
had gotten up from her table and moved to a
large party table, a table with several other people, and
she was talking and all the people were listening to her.
One of the customers got up from the table and
(22:56):
as they walked past me, I asked if everything was okay,
and they said that they used the word off, so
that something was off with the person who joined their table,
but she was harming anyone. I just at that point
just kept working. I didn't really think anything of it
because being in La things often seemed off to me.
(23:17):
They were really different than where I was from and Malibu.
We would get lots of different people out there, so
I just at that point wasn't concerned. And the depositions
of the people at the table my Teresa joined, They
said my Teresa's behavior was strange, but they said she
was friendly and animated. But it was not long before
the conversation took a turn for the bizarre. She said
(23:39):
she was from Mars and started talking about numerology and
how everything was connected. She said a soap opera character
had told her to drive there. Her server, Omar Martinez,
told Caroline and others that something seemed off. This is
the second person after the Valet to make that remark.
Omar had asked my Trees where she was from, and
(24:00):
he got a different answer from what she told people
at the table. Omar suspected my Trees might not pay
her bill. He said that he would make sure before
she left and let me know that she had paid,
and I said okay. He was said Genishal, probably just forget.
She might forget. I don't think it's that she doesn't
want to like. I think she just might forget to
(24:21):
do it, because you know, she's in some kind of
distracted state. At some point, the large party paid and left.
My Trees got up to leave as well. When she
got to the valet, the manager intercepted her and asked
her how she planned to pay her eighty nine dollars tab.
My Trees seemed surprised and said that the large party
(24:42):
should have covered her tab. My Trees then told him
that he wasn't understanding the language of numbers. She said,
it's okay for me not to pay the bill because
the language of numbers, when they coincide like this, it
makes sense. At this point, the manager is starting to
suspect that something is seriously wrong. He asked her if
(25:03):
she had any money in her pockets, and, according to
his deposition, Mitrees said, I am busted. She then told
him that she was from Mars and made a comment
about settling her debt with sex. The manager was really
patient with her, and she seems really jovial. She was
laughing and joking and very lighthearted and friendly. He then
(25:24):
told her that he was going to have to call
the police if she couldn't pay for her bill, and
she said, okay, Losci Shore Station definish if I can
help you, Hi, I'm calling from Jeffrey's Restaurant, Malibu. This
is one of the Jeffrey servers on the phone with police.
We have a guest here who is refusing to pay
her bill, and you think she may she sounds really crazy,
(25:46):
she may be on drugs or something. We're wondering if
someone to come by and pick her up. And is
she a white, Black, Asian Hispanic? She's young black girls,
probably in her twenties. Okay, what you're wearing. She's wearing
a black T shirt and I think blue jeans with
anybody else her With the police on the way, My
(26:13):
Trees sat at the bar and then went over to
the hostess stand. That's when Caroline had a longer conversation
with my Trees. She felt like they had a connection
because both of them were in times of transition in
their lives. Caroline had recently moved to La to pursue acting,
but was realizing that she didn't actually want to do it. Likewise,
my Rise was figuring out her next steps in life.
(26:35):
That's when we interacted, and no one was with us
while we hung out for a few minutes. I asked
her her name and she told me it was my
Trees and she spelled it. I can still kind of
see I can still kind of see her face as
she spell I'm sorry, she felt all her name. She
(26:57):
smiled really brightly and said, M I t R I C.
She said, it's like mitt Rice. I told her my
name and asked her what her age was, and she said,
I'm twenty four. Since we were almost the same age,
I told her that I was twenty five, and then
I told her and I told her my birthday and
that I was a Leo because I had heard her
(27:18):
mentioning signs to the table that she had joined earlier,
and she laughed and said, oh yeah, you Leo's are
the worst. We laughed, and we made small talk, and
then she made some additional odd comments about the language
of numbers, and I asked her if she was talking
about the binary system, and she said, what's that so
(27:41):
then I said, well, what do you mean about the
language of numbers? And she said, you know when a
number and a number coincide. You know what I mean, Caroline,
And it was like she was talking to old friends
when she engaged with me or the manager. And at
that time I thought she was under the influence of
a drug or had some sort of mental illness, But
again I was younger and didn't really know what I
(28:03):
know now based on the way she spoke to me
out a feeling she had a lot going on and
was trying to keep it together. Caroline asked if there
was someone that she could call. My Trees said she
had no parents, but My Trees did give Caroline her
great grandmother's phone number, so Caroline called Mildred, who offered
(28:26):
to pay my Trees's bill, but Jeoffrey's had no system
for paying over the phone without a signature. Mildred was concerned.
She said she couldn't drive up to Malibu because she
was ninety one years old. My Trees got on the
phone with Mildred and reassured her she was fine. At
around nine pm, Frank Brower and Armando Lurero, both deputies
(28:49):
from the Lost Hills Sheriff's station showed up on the scene.
A third deputy, John McKay, arrived as well. When they
showed up, the police showed up and one of them
got on the phone with the great grandmother. It sounded
like she was trying to get all the details from
(29:09):
what I based off of what I could hear. It
sounded like she was asking him details because he was
giving her details as to where my Treuth was going
to be taken. While one of the officers was on
the phone with her, my trace told one of the
other deputies that she was scared and asked her and
the deputy asked her, why are you scared, and she said, well,
(29:31):
the city where I live in. If three officers walk
up to a girl like me, then it's a bad sign.
She also said I've had an officer if they needed me. Once.
I remember there was one deputy who was really kind
and said, look, I'm a person just like you, just
a normal person. They just made me aware of this uniform.
My Treece said okay, and seemed to be comforted by that.
(29:55):
And she said, okay, I want to talk to you
to one of the deputies, and it seemed like a
kind of cordial exchange, and one of the deputies started
asking her questions. I at that point felt really sad
about what was happening, and I didn't want to watch
(30:17):
her get arrested if that was what was going to happen.
So I went to the break room for about five
or ten minutes, which so I didn't see what was happening.
Deputies McKay and Brower searched my Teresa's cluttered car. They
would later say the car looked like it had been
trashed and maybe even lived in. The deputies found my
(30:38):
Teresa's driver's license, along with marijuana scraps and partially finished
bottles of booze. In a later deposition, Brower said Lurero
told him that my Terce was possibly drunk making odd statements.
For this reason, Brower said he was instructed to administer
a field sobriety test. Brower said that he checked my
Teresa's eyes and pulse to complete the test to determine
(31:01):
that she was sober. He estimated the test took around
fifteen minutes, though Lrrero would later state in his deposition
that he did not order Broward administer any sobriety test.
Brower asked my trees if she was on medication and
if she had ever been placed on a seventy two
hour hold. My Treece said no, she was asthmatic and
(31:21):
had an inhaler, but that was it. At that point,
employees at Jeoffrey's considered paying my Teres's bill themselves so
she could walk with only a misdemeanor ticket for pot possession.
The manager and some of the other staff were worried
that my Treece may not be safe behind the wheel
of a car, so they did what they thought was
the safest thing for her. They made sure that she
(31:43):
went with the police. My Treece was charged with the
defrauding and innkeeper and possession of marijuana. She was placed
under arrest, put into the back of the police car,
and taken to the Lost Hill station. While my Triese
was still on the back of the police cruiser, her mother,
(32:05):
Latise called the station. I am calling. I'm a little
strapped up right now. I understand my daughter is being
brought into the station. My Terce Richard's son. Has they
made it to the station yet and she's been booked? Okay?
Is do you know where she's coming from? It's some
onstaurant out in Malibu, and I didn't even think to
(32:27):
get the name the manager. The only place we have
somebody that's in custody that they just announced on the
radio that they're coming up as from Jeffrey's in Jo Highway.
Is the only female that's bringing brought up to the
station as we speak. They actually just put it on
the radio right before you call it. Okay, okay, I'm
her mother, and are you guys want to book her
(32:48):
and then release her on her own recognian tonight because
it's dark, she doesn't have a car, and I don't
want her wandering out. I'm totally just taken aback because
it's so out of character for her, and you'll see
when she comes in she's well spoken. I think the
only way I will come and get her tonight is
if you guys are going to release her tonight, it's
(33:09):
going to be held in custody for some type of
arraignment tomorrow. Then I will wait until tomorrow. She definitely
has no place, you know, I mean, she's not from
that area, and I would hate to wake up to
a morning report so lost somewhere with her head chopped off.
So I guess I would have to come and get her.
Oh my god. Yeah, we're in a great hose. The
only thing is, at least in the station here she
(33:30):
will be separated, so nobody's going to be with her certainly,
that's you know, the fust thing. So she don't have
to worry about her safety. Oh yeah, no, I feel
safe with her being in custody. It's being released, but
I'm worried about it. It's crazy out here. Early the
(33:53):
next morning, Latise called the station again. This time she
talked to the jailer. She your own Cummings. Cummings told
the tease that my Trees had already been released. The
jailer said she had released my Trees at twelve fifteen am.
At this point, my Treese was forty miles from home.
Cummings has maintained that My Trees declined an offer to
(34:15):
stay in the lobby and said that she told Cummings
that she was going to meet friends. But the reality
is my Treece had no car, no purse, no money,
no cell phone, and no way home. And at night,
the area around Lost Hills Station is pitch black. All
the businesses are closed, there are no buses, there's no
(34:35):
public transportation. My trees walked out of the station at
around twelve forty am into the darkness. Later, Latisse called again.
This time she spoke to Kenneth Bombgardner. She asked him
how long she had to wait to follow missing persons report.
By this point you can hear the desperation in Latis's voice.
(34:59):
Ma Field Station bomb Gardener. Yes, Hi, my name is Latise.
That night car. That's too long ago regarding my daughter
my treats, which is how long before a missing person's
report can be found. This phone call led to months
of searching for my Trees. Next time on Helen Gone,
(35:20):
it just didn't ring true to me that she went missing,
and I think she was considered to be inexpendable, young
Likeaeloman from South la. It's a fifty mile long range
and you could theoretically walk for a long way and
not hit anything. And where my trease was found was
five steps from the starting area of the twenty seven
(35:42):
square miles that they were going to start looking. It
continues like this, I'm going to go ahead and say
there's no way she walked to herself. I'm now more
convinced that she did not walk here. Helen Gone is
a production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It's written
and narrated by me Catherine Townsend. Our producers are Gabby Watts,
Taylor Church and James Morrison. Music is by Ben Sale.
(36:06):
Mix is by Tunewelders. Our executive producers are Brandon Barr,
Elsie Crowley and Brian Lavin. Special thanks to Chip Craft
for use of footage from his documentary Loss Compassion, School
(36:35):
of Humans. School of Humans
Hell and Gone News
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.