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