Speaker 1: I've heard that there's a house that has some bodies
Speaker 1: in the basement.
Speaker 2: Somebody told you that Shakaia was a victim of human trafficking.
Speaker 3: I'm come to find out.
Speaker 1: This is like it exploded into this huge thing.
Speaker 4: I knew, I just knew something was wrong.
Speaker 5: Police say thirty three year old Jared Bridigan was shot dead.
Speaker 2: I kept calling his phone during the drive.
Speaker 6: Gunned down in front of his two year old daughter.
Speaker 1: It's a murder of the stun Jack Speach neighbors.
Speaker 5: His murder has attracted national attention, with the investigators saying
Speaker 5: he was targeted.
Speaker 4: Eventually, a police officer answered and told me to come
Speaker 4: to the police station.
Speaker 7: Justice is something that takes different shapes or formed.
Speaker 8: If you know something, heard something, please it's never too
Speaker 8: late to do.
Speaker 2: The right thing.
Speaker 6: So I'm Dana Thompson aka Body Movin, and.
Speaker 7: I'm John Green. For about a decade, Deanna and I
Speaker 7: spent a lot of time on the Internet, especially in
Speaker 7: the underbelly of the Internet, trying to identify and get
Speaker 7: animal abusers arrested.
Speaker 6: We spent countless hours scouring the dark web helping catch predators.
Speaker 6: We spent over a year and a half trying to
Speaker 6: get law enforcement to take us seriously about a man
Speaker 6: that was killing cats online and he was threatening to
Speaker 6: move on to kill humans. And that was Luca mcnauta.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you might have heard about the Netflix special called
Speaker 7: Don't Fuck with Cats.
Speaker 6: That's us. Well, now we're turning our online investigator skills
Speaker 6: to some of the most unexplained, unsolved, and just ignored cases.
Speaker 9: This is True Crimes, the production of iHeartRadio and Katie's Studios.
Speaker 6: This episode contains extremely graphic information and it's not appropriate
Speaker 6: for children. Okay, So a couple of recordings ago, I
Speaker 6: ran into cousin Sophie's post about Shakaya being missing and
Speaker 6: was going through the comments and found a post from
Speaker 6: a woman named Darla May posted and the name of
Speaker 6: a person named Rica Wallace and said he's the last
Speaker 6: known person to be with her when she left Billings
Speaker 6: And it's the same dude who raped my a minor
Speaker 6: daughter and drugged her. So of course, you know, at
Speaker 6: that time, I pulled him out and started looking into him,
Speaker 6: and I am continuing on with that right now. So
Speaker 6: I found two or three Facebook profiles for him. There
Speaker 6: was a flyer created and it has two of them,
Speaker 6: he spells his name different than his actual legal name,
Speaker 6: and I'll get into that. But there was two, and
Speaker 6: one is just Rica Wallace and the other is Raws
Speaker 6: and Hal raw And there's nothing really of interest on
Speaker 6: either of those Facebook profiles. Ross and Hale's pretty empty.
Speaker 6: And so again is his Rico Wallace page. So I
Speaker 6: did a search for Wallace or or Rico Wallace just
Speaker 6: on Facebook in general, and Tammy Bhaar comes out. Who
Speaker 6: is Shakaia's mother? Posted in December of twenty twenty one
Speaker 6: about Rico. It sounds to me like this post she
Speaker 6: is empathizing with another mother who is going through something similar.
Speaker 6: She says Shakaia was a bright and beautiful, young, slow
Speaker 6: soul who trusted the wrong people. She was also at
Speaker 6: Tumbleweed here in Billings where she met wiz Aka Rome
Speaker 6: big Day and Rico Wallace. Rico spent three months grooming
Speaker 6: her before she disappeared. I believe Rico knows where she
Speaker 6: is or where she went from Billings. I believe they
Speaker 6: have the info we are seeking. Luckily, Rico is being
Speaker 6: charged and held accountable for the rape of a minor
Speaker 6: and for criminal endangerment from a charred stemming from twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6: He's currently being all the Yellowstone County detention and has
Speaker 6: an upcoming court dates for both of these charges. Hopefully
Speaker 6: the family can take this as a win. I fought
Speaker 6: hard to get him off the streets, even if only
Speaker 6: for five or ten years. He can't earn anyone else's
Speaker 6: daughter right now, so that's a positive. Rico is the
Speaker 6: face of human trafficking. To me, he is the one
Speaker 6: I think of when I think of the many women
Speaker 6: who suffer at the hands of abusive and evil men.
Speaker 6: He is responsible for drug traffic into our great state
Speaker 6: and human trafficking. So Shakaia's mother posted that in December
Speaker 6: of twenty twenty one, and I took out the part.
Speaker 6: The important part to me was that you know when
Speaker 6: she says she was also at tumbleweedhar in Billings where
Speaker 6: she met wiz Aka, Rome big Day and Rico Wallace.
Speaker 6: So I want to know more about Rico and of
Speaker 6: course Rome Big Day or wiz So I'm going to
Speaker 6: dig into Rico right now. John, you know how Rico's
Speaker 6: name keeps coming up in the Chikaya case. I did
Speaker 6: some digging on him.
Speaker 7: Really, did you find anything good or useful well.
Speaker 6: His full name is Rico Adrian Wallace, and he's currently
Speaker 6: in Yellowstone County Jail facing several charges, one of which
Speaker 6: is rape. He's from San Diego, but he's lived in
Speaker 6: Phoenix as well and appears to be an aspiring rapper.
Speaker 6: He has a long criminal history, and he's had several
Speaker 6: social media accounts that have been deactivated and reactivated, but
Speaker 6: his actual social media is pretty bare. There just isn't
Speaker 6: much there.
Speaker 7: And we know that Shikaia's mother has posted about Rico
Speaker 7: and she seems to think that Rico seems to know
Speaker 7: what happened to Chikaia or where she is now. But
Speaker 7: I also think we need to talk to this other woman,
Speaker 7: Darla May, who Shakaia's mother seems to be interacting with
Speaker 7: on Facebook. Darla also seems to know a lot about
Speaker 7: Rigo too. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I've looked at Darla as well, and she advocates a
Speaker 6: lot for Chicaia as well, so she might know a
Speaker 6: little bit more about Rico, and I think would be
Speaker 6: really smart.
Speaker 5: To talk to her.
Speaker 6: Hello, Hi, Darla, so nice to talk to you. Thank
Speaker 6: you so much much for talking to us. I know
Speaker 6: that there was some apprehension and I totally understand. So
Speaker 6: we've been looking into the disappearance of Chakaya Blue Harding,
Speaker 6: and I'm sure you kind of already know that. In
Speaker 6: looking at like all the social media, we ran into
Speaker 6: Rico Wallace, you know, and Romelo Big Day, and we've
Speaker 6: just kind of been trying to like piece together some stuff.
Speaker 6: And I see you in your profile sharing a lot
Speaker 6: of the information about Rico, right, And I was like, man,
Speaker 6: I would love to talk to her, to see you know,
Speaker 6: because like it just feels like, you know that he's
Speaker 6: like in your heart of hearts, feel like he might
Speaker 6: be involved. He might not necessarily have done anything, but
Speaker 6: he knows what happened.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure he like sold her.
Speaker 6: How do you know Rico or not know him? But
Speaker 6: how did you run into him? What is your what's
Speaker 6: your information on him?
Speaker 1: Five months after Shakaia, my daughter was going through her
Speaker 1: own stuff and she was just turned seventeen and September
Speaker 1: of twenty eighteen, and she had been a runaway and
Speaker 1: had met a guy that went by Miguel Martinez. I
Speaker 1: took off with him and we were looking for her
Speaker 1: and a bunch of the kids were telling us, oh,
Speaker 1: Miguel Martinez has her, and so.
Speaker 3: We figured out because.
Speaker 1: Of who our connections are, kind of with that information,
Speaker 1: who he was, where he was from the house he
Speaker 1: grew up in his family's names. You know, mom passed away,
Speaker 1: he had a twin sister, et cetera, et cetera. I
Speaker 1: was out talking to his neighbors when I got his
Speaker 1: home addressed and we went there, law enforcement came.
Speaker 3: My daughter really.
Speaker 1: Wanted to keep seeing him, and it was this whole
Speaker 1: thing about, you know, really I need to see him.
Speaker 1: I'm going to run away.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to see them.
Speaker 1: He's my boyfriend, and so you know, I said, fine,
Speaker 1: you can date him, but it has to be at
Speaker 1: our home, like we're going to meet this guy. And
Speaker 1: after a little while of them dating, he'd asked me
Speaker 1: if he could take her on a date. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, but have her back by this time.
Speaker 1: And at that particular time, about two weeks prior to
Speaker 1: the incident where Rico, where I found out Rico was involved,
Speaker 1: he had taken her to Rico's house to meet Rico
Speaker 1: for no reason because took her there instead of a date,
Speaker 1: took her over there. So Rico was literally seeing if
Speaker 1: he wanted her at that time.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, that was like a screening of some kind. Yes,
Speaker 6: oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Okay, and that was Miguel, which law enforcement, when I
Speaker 1: spoke to the detective had told me that Miguel Martinez
Speaker 1: is a.
Speaker 3: One of the people who recruits.
Speaker 1: And so anyways, two weeks later, my husband had just
Speaker 1: got off of work and then I guess Rico had
Speaker 1: reached out and she'd seen him, and he told her
Speaker 1: that Miguel Martinez would quote slide.
Speaker 3: Through you know, that he would come pick her up.
Speaker 1: He picked her up about a block away off my
Speaker 1: security cameras and then drove her to his residence where
Speaker 1: at that time she handed the bottle over to Rico,
Speaker 1: and there was Wiz was there, and two females were
Speaker 1: also identified to be recruiters for Rico and Wiz, and
Speaker 1: so Wizz is Ramello big dig So there there she
Speaker 1: hands the bottle to them. They smokes the marijuana. He
Speaker 1: proceeds to go into the kitchen behind a wall and
Speaker 1: make a drink, brings it out to her. She takes
Speaker 1: a couple of SIPs. She thinks it's weird. She feels
Speaker 1: so weird.
Speaker 3: She doesn't want to come home.
Speaker 1: She's scared, so she's like, I need to go lay down,
Speaker 1: and Rico escorts her to his bedroom and this is
Speaker 1: where it's going to get graphic.
Speaker 3: Is that okay? Okay?
Speaker 1: So at that point he laid her down and she
Speaker 1: was out of consciousness. At some point later she woke
Speaker 1: up and she could see him over her, and he
Speaker 1: had later so that her butt was kind of almost
Speaker 1: off the bed and her legs were hanging off of
Speaker 1: the bed, and she woke up because she was in pain,
Speaker 1: and he had bit her from her clitoris to her
Speaker 1: anus and proceeded to rape her. And then the next morning,
Speaker 1: she literally carried her out of the apartment into his
Speaker 1: vehicle and dropped her off two blocks away and forced
Speaker 1: her to walk back home. At that point, she came
Speaker 1: home and said that she thought that an assault had
Speaker 1: taken a you know, taken had been done, and we
Speaker 1: went to the hospital and forensic before ran. And then
Speaker 1: at that point the police had told me because I
Speaker 1: called an asked for an update, and they said that
Speaker 1: it's basically her word against his. I said, at that point,
Speaker 1: he was twenty nine and I'd found out he was
Speaker 1: twenty nine, So I said, you know, how is it
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old to word against a twenty nine
Speaker 1: year old when she could describe to you the alcohol
Speaker 1: and the pipe. So later on, you know, time went on,
Speaker 1: nothing happened. I kept trying to call, I was getting
Speaker 1: the run around. Nobody knew where the fucking case was.
Speaker 1: So then I finally.
Speaker 7: Darla, Darla, Darla, real quick, when you say the police,
Speaker 7: are you talking Billings.
Speaker 3: Police, Billings Police Department?
Speaker 2: Okay, okay?
Speaker 3: And I talked to like.
Speaker 1: Even the chief of police, and I talked to the
Speaker 1: Human Trafficking Division here, and neither one of those places
Speaker 1: gave two shits about anything I had to say. Penny
Speaker 1: Ronning said she did talk to the chief of police
Speaker 1: and he was aware of who Rico was, but he
Speaker 1: never got back to me about anything else or anything
Speaker 1: until I started getting on Facebook and making a deal
Speaker 1: out of it.
Speaker 6: So the billing speed tell you it's basically his word
Speaker 6: against your daughters.
Speaker 1: Correct, And so eventually I get in touch with the
Speaker 1: prosecuting attorney and I demand to see him because I
Speaker 1: want to know why this case hasn't went any further.
Speaker 1: At that point, I guess he's the county attorney. He
Speaker 1: told us that the quote because he said they can't
Speaker 1: do you know, we can't get his DNA because he's
Speaker 1: not in custody. At that point, he was not in custody.
Speaker 1: And then they said that, you know, why what else?
Speaker 1: Why can't we use the crime scene photo she was
Speaker 1: bitten aggressively? Why can't we use those in court? And
Speaker 1: he said quote that that would make it look like
Speaker 1: she liked it rough? And I said, excuse me, Yes,
Speaker 1: he said those words to me, and I said, excuse me,
Speaker 1: how does a seventeen year old know how they like it?
Speaker 3: So that was a big red flag at that point.
Speaker 1: A little while after that, I well, I was posting
Speaker 1: about Rico because we did have the rape case. It
Speaker 1: was an open case, and so I was posting about
Speaker 1: him and I started investigating him. I had started posting
Speaker 1: him aggressively on Facebook, and he left the state.
Speaker 3: He left. He was actually arrested prior to coming to
Speaker 3: Montana and Idaho.
Speaker 6: So he left Montana because of that.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure, yeah, he took off.
Speaker 1: And then a little while after that is when detectives
Speaker 1: reached out to me about Chicaya and said, you know
Speaker 1: all of the information, can you help us?
Speaker 3: And I was like, holy crap.
Speaker 1: They took my daughter and had her go and do
Speaker 1: lineup and identify the people and talk to them about
Speaker 1: what had happened with her case, because obviously it's very
Speaker 1: similar and the same person is involved in both anyway,
Speaker 1: So I started researching Rico. I was finding out who
Speaker 1: his family members was. So I found out that Rico
Speaker 1: had lived in San Diego, California, and he's he's related
Speaker 1: to a man named Raheem Callaway and that they moved
Speaker 1: here together, and Raheem Callaway had started a wrap business
Speaker 1: like it's called Alpha Pride Entertainment. And I mentioned that
Speaker 1: law enforcement when I talked to that county attorney, and
Speaker 1: I had said, you know, it makes no sense that
Speaker 1: these men came up here all the way from San Diego,
Speaker 1: where they're like two hours from LA where the big
Speaker 1: dogs are, where real wrap is at West Coast rap
Speaker 1: to Podunk, Montana to start this business.
Speaker 3: And I also.
Speaker 1: Found out that Raheem Calloway's exit dress and there's a
Speaker 1: video on YouTube from I twenty nineteen and it's Joahim's
Speaker 1: first music video, and Rico was in it.
Speaker 3: And it shows the.
Speaker 1: Address is three thirty three Jackson and that's in the
Speaker 1: Monroe area where in Billings, Montana, there's this area and
Speaker 1: it's on the south side and it's like three blocks Monroe,
Speaker 1: Jackson and another one.
Speaker 3: I can't think of the third one right.
Speaker 1: Now, but there are three blocks of row houses and
Speaker 1: law enforcement tells me that that is known for human trafficking.
Speaker 3: I found out they all moved up here together. It
Speaker 3: made no sense to me.
Speaker 1: We realized when the chicaia had happened that this is
Speaker 1: most likely human trafficking.
Speaker 3: So I was thinking, you know, this.
Speaker 1: Is just some old pedophile, you know that likes to
Speaker 1: go for little younger women, you know, like date rates
Speaker 1: and hurts them.
Speaker 3: And come to find out this is like.
Speaker 1: It exploded into this huge thing, so much bigger than.
Speaker 3: What it looked like for the outside.
Speaker 1: When when I talked to county attorney and I said,
Speaker 1: how many times did you try to make contact with
Speaker 1: Rico in regards to my daughter's case, He said, we
Speaker 1: tried too, And I said, well how about Hikaya Blue
Speaker 1: Harding tell me that they never once went to his
Speaker 1: house to investigate it. They told me that they never
Speaker 1: want tried to knock on his door in relation to
Speaker 1: her case, and the only reason they did because I
Speaker 1: made a big deal out of it.
Speaker 3: But she's also white. She's white. They go to a
Speaker 3: white girl for a white girl, and.
Speaker 1: Girl actually they try to make contact, but don't at
Speaker 1: all for a Native American with a history, and I
Speaker 1: think that's absolute bullshit to the way that people look
Speaker 1: at Native Americans here is terrible.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, Darla has a ton of really important
Speaker 6: information about Rico. It's just awful what happened to her daughter.
Speaker 6: But wow, is she a fighter. She really advocates for
Speaker 6: her daughter.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there was a ton of information she gave us
Speaker 7: and there's a lot to unpack there, and I'm trying
Speaker 7: to put it all together as we did it. So
Speaker 7: I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 6: I mean? You know, I'm trying not to insert my
Speaker 6: own experiences into these cases, but it's hard not to
Speaker 6: be a little bit triggered when you hear such graphic
Speaker 6: detail about a sexual assault. From an investigative standpoint, you
Speaker 6: have to separate yourself, right, you have to separate yourself
Speaker 6: from the experience and what actually happened, And that's hard
Speaker 6: to do.
Speaker 7: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 7: a moment.
Speaker 6: Our conversation with Darla got me thinking, I think we
Speaker 6: also need to dig more into Chicaia's friend Aaron, since
Speaker 6: he was at Tumbleweed and saw Shakaia in the last
Speaker 6: days that she was seeing in July of twenty eight.
Speaker 6: He supposedly was concerned for her safety and gave her
Speaker 6: a knife before she went into see.
Speaker 7: Rico and sent. So much of the interaction between Chicaia
Speaker 7: and Rico and these other individuals happened around the Tumbleweed facility.
Speaker 7: I think we need to talk to somebody there. The
Speaker 7: current director is a woman named Georgia Caddy and get this,
Speaker 7: she used to be the human trafficking person there. If
Speaker 7: they have a position specifically for dealing with human trafficking,
Speaker 7: it must be a serious issue.
Speaker 6: And maybe she'll know something about Aaron as well.
Speaker 7: Hopefully our private investigator, Mike Tough can help track him down.
Speaker 6: It's worth a shot. I think we should call him.
Speaker 2: Hey, Deanna, you're there.
Speaker 8: Hey, Mike's on the line too.
Speaker 3: How are you doing Mike?
Speaker 5: Hey, Mike, I'm good. How are you guys?
Speaker 2: We're doing quite well. So the Chikaya case. Deanna and I.
Speaker 10: Were talking about it earlier, kind of going over the
Speaker 10: timeline of events and stuff, and so we're kind of
Speaker 10: stuck on that right now when we're trying to talk
Speaker 10: to people, and it sounds like when Chikaia left, her
Speaker 10: and her sister weren't talking and she probably doesn't know
Speaker 10: much that was going on in that like six month timeframe.
Speaker 8: So we're reaching out to people who Shakaia would have known.
Speaker 8: One of them is the guy Aaron Peterson.
Speaker 10: So you said you remembered the story about how Shakaia
Speaker 10: went walking to a park some guy saw her.
Speaker 8: She said I was going to meet some unknown male and.
Speaker 10: That he gave her a knife. So this is the
Speaker 10: person that gave her the knife, but the story is changing.
Speaker 10: He knew Shakaiya, he knew Shakaya, and when the sister
Speaker 10: reached out to him, he goes, here's w you should
Speaker 10: look at. You should look at this Rico guy, her
Speaker 10: ex boyfriend. He was very upset that she broke up
Speaker 10: with him, and he was threatening people like Erin. And
Speaker 10: so Aaron sees Shakaia talks to her. She says, well,
Speaker 10: I'm going to talk to him right now I'm going
Speaker 10: to take care of it right now, and he tries
Speaker 10: to talk her out of it, like, don't go by yourself,
Speaker 10: there's no no, no.
Speaker 5: He goes, well, here take this knife.
Speaker 2: And we think that happened.
Speaker 5: On July twenty third, right, Okay.
Speaker 8: So we're trying to get a whole to this Aaron
Speaker 8: person to see if we can talk to him and
Speaker 8: if he could fill in some.
Speaker 7: More holes with us.
Speaker 6: So Shawnee sent us a bunch of screenshots and one
Speaker 6: of the screenshots is I think from Shakaia's Facebook and
Speaker 6: it's it's basically a common thread, so I can't see
Speaker 6: you know where it happened, but I'm assuming it's Shakaia's Facebook, right.
Speaker 6: And in the screenshots, Rico says, where are you at?
Speaker 6: Hit me up? And Aaron replies and says leave her alone.
Speaker 6: Nobody likes you. You're the reason she's leaving. Then he
Speaker 6: goes on to say he says, I'm right here. You
Speaker 6: know if you want me, you can come find me,
Speaker 6: and he basically they're fighting on Facebook. Okay, it's not important, right, right,
Speaker 6: But Rico's posts had been deleted because he's it looks
Speaker 6: like he's talking to himself, right, So then the rest
Speaker 6: of the screenshots are messages that Shawnee sent him and
Speaker 6: they It starts off with do you know my sister?
Speaker 6: And he says, yeah, I know her. She was like
Speaker 6: a sister to me. And the person you probably need
Speaker 6: to be looking talking to is Rico. He was obsessed
Speaker 6: with her and they broke up, or she broke up
Speaker 6: with him. Shawne says, well, what can you tell me
Speaker 6: more about it? And he basically says, yeah, I saw
Speaker 6: her and she was walking to Rico's house and to
Speaker 6: settle some issues. And Shawne says, well what issues? And
Speaker 6: Aaron replied and he said she broke up with him
Speaker 6: and he got angry and was threatening people. And then
Speaker 6: when she saw that he was threatening me erin, she said,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna go talk to him.
Speaker 5: And that's the and then.
Speaker 6: Right he says, you know, I didn't want her to go,
Speaker 6: but yeah, he gave her the knife.
Speaker 5: So that's the night, and that's that's the last she's
Speaker 5: been seen, or that's days before that.
Speaker 6: We think it was the twenty third, We don't know
Speaker 6: for sure. That's one thing. I mean, we're assuming it's
Speaker 6: the twenty third because why do we think that? Oh,
Speaker 6: I know no. So that night she posted a picture
Speaker 6: to her Snapchat and it's a photo of her laying
Speaker 6: down with Rico. And that was the last thing she
Speaker 6: ever posted to any social media ever.
Speaker 5: Now, Rico's the guy in jail, right, right, he's.
Speaker 6: The guy in jail. He's the guy with the buick.
Speaker 5: And then the last photo that she posts of herself
Speaker 5: ever ever is with Rico laying in bed on Snapchat.
Speaker 6: Right, And we have the photo.
Speaker 2: You girls like.
Speaker 5: That, you know, they don't stop just out of the
Speaker 5: blue posting. I know the sapchat, I know that.
Speaker 6: And she was like prolific on Facebook, like she posted
Speaker 6: a lot of stuff.
Speaker 5: You don't just stop, you don't just stop. No, But man,
Speaker 5: that when you hear about if you know she's on
Speaker 5: Facebook constantly and suddenly she just stops, I know, that's
Speaker 5: that's the red flag. Either a all of her phones
Speaker 5: and she's she's held somewhere against her will, and that
Speaker 5: means she's not even human trafficked. She's in a basement
Speaker 5: somewhere like the Cleveland girls and has no access to anything,
Speaker 5: or she's deceased, correct, because if she was still prostituting
Speaker 5: by now, she'd have had.
Speaker 2: Access to something.
Speaker 5: There's no way she'd have been working the streets you know,
Speaker 5: by a guy, and he's not going to have that
Speaker 5: much control over her. Because even with the Johns, she
Speaker 5: could borrow one of their phones real quick, or the
Speaker 5: cops would have got her or something by now. So
Speaker 5: I think she's either held prisoner somewhere against her will
Speaker 5: totally and maybe being used as a sex slate for that,
Speaker 5: or she's deceased somewhere.
Speaker 6: The other thing too. Shawnee mentioned to us that she
Speaker 6: called the detectives to give them information and she doesn't
Speaker 6: feel she doesn't feel like they even wrote it down.
Speaker 6: I don't know if this is true or not right,
Speaker 6: but she doesn't feel like they even wrote the information
Speaker 6: down that she was giving them. So it mean, is
Speaker 6: it possible that the cops never questioned Rico one hundred percent?
Speaker 6: I'd like to think they would have, you know, or
Speaker 6: they are now you know, I mean it's an open investigation. Yeah,
Speaker 6: they're not going to tell They're not going to tell
Speaker 6: us that, you know, the idiot internet nerds what they're doing, right,
Speaker 6: and they might have looked into it, or they might
Speaker 6: still be looking into it right, like they might still
Speaker 6: be trying to get information from him. Those are things
Speaker 6: that we don't know.
Speaker 8: We don't want to make them look bad.
Speaker 2: It's not our intent.
Speaker 8: And if we found anything, the first thing we do
Speaker 8: is go to them, since they're handling the case.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I will email you guys are Eric and right
Speaker 5: away as soon as I know something.
Speaker 7: So, Georgia, just so you know, I'm recording this phone call. Okay, okay,
Speaker 7: So at first, if you could just tell us who
Speaker 7: you are and what you do, that would be helpful.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 4: I'm Georgia Katie, and I'm the executive director at Tumbleweed.
Speaker 4: I'm also the person who started the anti trafficking program
Speaker 4: here at Tumbleweed in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 7: Is trafficking a big issue in Billings, Montana? Human trafficking,
Speaker 7: I mean absolutely? How bad is it?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: I mean I guess that's like kind of relative. I
Speaker 4: mean one is too bad, right, And the type of
Speaker 4: trafficking we see with probably over eighty five percent of
Speaker 4: the folks that utilize our dropping center is a type
Speaker 4: of trafficking called survival sex. So it's for a place
Speaker 4: to stay, something to eat, a drug habit, a cell phone,
Speaker 4: that type of trafficking. Now we do also see the
Speaker 4: trafficking like you see on Lifetime movies. In twenty fifteen,
Speaker 4: when trafficking kind of hit the forefront for Montana, it's
Speaker 4: like a big sexy thing for everybody to get behind
Speaker 4: because oh my god, this is horrible. It can't be
Speaker 4: happening here. We hate this, and so really went about
Speaker 4: doing a bunch of awareness. But the piece of awareness
Speaker 4: that people don't like is I think it's like a
Speaker 4: crazy statistic, like you're fifty eight percent of victims of
Speaker 4: human trafficking or being trafficked by a family member or
Speaker 4: a friend.
Speaker 11: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4: So then that kind of puts the brakes on you, like,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, and it's only like nine percent, is
Speaker 4: like this stranger stuff.
Speaker 6: Do they even realize that that's happening to them if
Speaker 6: it's being done by a friend or a family.
Speaker 4: Member, Sometimes they do, I think, but it becomes a
Speaker 4: normalcy to it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: First trafficking victim, her mom and grandma gave her to
Speaker 4: the landlord every month since she was like four to
Speaker 4: pay the rent. So if that's happening to you, it
Speaker 4: just seems like it's what's part of your life. These
Speaker 4: people that are supposed to protect you and care for
Speaker 4: you are saying, this is okay. So this is what
Speaker 4: I do. And so when I do, when I speak
Speaker 4: about trafficking and our drop and center, or two young
Speaker 4: folks I come in contact with, they're like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: that's happening to me. You know, you can see this
Speaker 4: kind of verbalize, but you can see this light bulb
Speaker 4: kind of go off that they didn't really realize that
Speaker 4: that wasn't normal.
Speaker 3: So like a friend could be like a boyfriend too.
Speaker 4: Right, like, oh, claim to be a boyfriend. Worked with
Speaker 4: another young lady who I mean, small town Montana. You
Speaker 4: want to go see some stuff, right, and you don't
Speaker 4: have the resources. And so this young gentleman, I mean,
Speaker 4: he was very handsome. I only like three years age different,
Speaker 4: so it wasn't really weird. She was seventeen, he was
Speaker 4: like twenty one or something, and that doesn't seem strange.
Speaker 4: He said, hey, let's go see the ocean.
Speaker 3: Shit.
Speaker 4: She had never been. She's in a tire old town
Speaker 4: here in Montana. Jumps in with her boyfriend. You know,
Speaker 4: they get part way there and lo and behold they
Speaker 4: have no money. Well, if you want to keep going.
Speaker 4: Just do this for me, babe. You know, it's okay,
Speaker 4: it's this is not a bad thing. And so they
Speaker 4: end up getting pulled over like three states away as
Speaker 4: he's traffing her across several states, and when it gets pulled.
Speaker 4: When they get pulled over, she's telling the officers, this
Speaker 4: is my boyfriend.
Speaker 3: She's saying, I have no idea who that is.
Speaker 4: I just picked her up in the last town she
Speaker 4: was to give her a ride, right, And so then
Speaker 4: there's the and so she's struggling with the fact that
Speaker 4: I thought I was he was my boyfriend, you know, So.
Speaker 6: He like manipulated her into like working for him pretty much.
Speaker 11: Absolutely yes, And I imagine that happens with like people
Speaker 11: that have some sort of trauma or they're vulnerable, they
Speaker 11: just not love right, Like absolutely yeah.
Speaker 4: And you don't imagine that somebody that Clint Fessus, you know,
Speaker 4: with your best interest, to do that to you. I
Speaker 4: can tell you story after story. They're master manipulators. They're
Speaker 4: just people in the world that are really out for
Speaker 4: themselves and they just they have some charisma and they
Speaker 4: just have a real way of like manipulating and being
Speaker 4: able to pick out vulnerabilities, right, and our young people
Speaker 4: are all over social media. You tell everything like my
Speaker 4: hate my mom, right, my mom so mean and she
Speaker 4: and she Now I'm grounded for three weeks. Oh, if
Speaker 4: you come with me, I wouldn't do that, you know.
Speaker 4: And so they pray on those things that and you're
Speaker 4: so beautiful that that these young people want to hear.
Speaker 7: We've been looking at, you know, talking to several different
Speaker 7: people and looking at different cases. We were presented with
Speaker 7: a case from a girl from Billings, Montana who went
Speaker 7: missing and she's still missing too. Who is that, Shakaia
Speaker 7: Blue Herding.
Speaker 3: I know Shakaya. Yeah, we've been worked with our family
Speaker 3: and stuff was movie for a while. I actually have
Speaker 3: every day.
Speaker 4: It reminds me why I come to work here. I
Speaker 4: have a letter in my drawer that I open every
Speaker 4: day to get the key to my foul cabinet out.
Speaker 4: And it's a piece of mail that's Shakaya Harding's now.
Speaker 3: Oh you're kidding.
Speaker 4: I'll never forget. The day that I last saw her,
Speaker 4: I was practicing my presentation. I was getting ready to
Speaker 4: go out and do awareness training, and I was in
Speaker 4: there dropping Center Resource Center, and I was practicing it.
Speaker 4: And she was plopped on the couch and she had
Speaker 4: just washed her hair and it smelled so good of
Speaker 4: like smelly shampoo, and she had fuzzy socks on these sweatpants.
Speaker 3: And she was sat down there and she was eating her.
Speaker 4: Lunch and just looked like she typical teenager or young
Speaker 4: adult posied up on a couch watching a movie. And
Speaker 4: she was very interested in my presentation. And as I
Speaker 4: began to kind of speak with her a little bit,
Speaker 4: she she kind of shut down, but she was listening.
Speaker 4: And then she left that day and I said, see
Speaker 4: you later, Hikaya Bhi.
Speaker 3: I can still.
Speaker 4: Smell that, and then she had this prettiest tear Yah
Speaker 4: ever did see.
Speaker 3: The story we.
Speaker 7: Were told is that back in twenty eighteen, Chakaia had
Speaker 7: had some trauma in her life. Unfortunately, she was self
Speaker 7: medicating with drugs. Absolutely, there were some issues between her
Speaker 7: and her family. They became kind of distant. Shakaya was
Speaker 7: apparently living on the street. She was using Tumbleweed services. Yeah,
Speaker 7: she made a post about how great tumbleweed was. It
Speaker 7: was the best place, and it sounds like she got
Speaker 7: a lot of benefit out of it. She wasn't in
Speaker 7: contact with her family as much. At one point in time,
Speaker 7: the family members start going, hey, has anybody seen Chikaia
Speaker 7: and they realize they haven't seen her. This is now
Speaker 7: August twenty eighteen. Then they start looking for and realizing
Speaker 7: one of the last places she was at was at
Speaker 7: Tumbleweed and she had been on July twenty fourth. She
Speaker 7: was very active on Facebook, making several posts, and all
Speaker 7: of a sudden it just stops. And so July twenty
Speaker 7: fourth on Facebook there was another person staying at Tumblee
Speaker 7: that time. I guess a guy named Aaron who had
Speaker 7: befriended Shakaia and he refers to her as her sister.
Speaker 7: She is going to go see this person. I'm just
Speaker 7: going to say his name. His name is Rico. Aaron
Speaker 7: tries to, hey, let me go with you. I don't
Speaker 7: think it's safe for you. Let me go with you,
Speaker 7: and she goes, no, no, no, I'm going to go
Speaker 7: by myself. I'm going to take care of it. I'm
Speaker 7: going to talk to him. I'm going to sort this
Speaker 7: all out. I don't, and so she goes goes to
Speaker 7: talk to Rico. Supposedly, either the twenty third or she
Speaker 7: posts a picture on her snapchat with her and Rico,
Speaker 7: and then is never seen again. So it appears that
Speaker 7: this Rico person has something to do with it. Law
Speaker 7: enforcement says they've talked to him, he admits he has
Speaker 7: nothing to do with it. But the going theory is
Speaker 7: this guy Rico had something to do with her disappearance.
Speaker 4: He said, I have heard and or given to those
Speaker 4: spaces that should have it.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Good, well, yeah, we're kind of just kind of keeching
Speaker 6: us all together, you know, like it's just a sad
Speaker 6: story and the family is so desperate for information. Let's
Speaker 6: stop here for another quick break. So while we wait
Speaker 6: to hear back from Mike, our Pi and Montana, can
Speaker 6: we talk about Jared real quick in Florida Totally. We
Speaker 6: both thought at the beginning this was a carjacking gone bad,
Speaker 6: But the more we dig into the carjacking, it doesn't
Speaker 6: look like that, right, do you agree?
Speaker 7: Yeah, especially with all the other stuff going around involving
Speaker 7: Jared's first marriage and his ex wife, it really feels
Speaker 7: like a targeted hit. It also feels like whoever killed
Speaker 7: Jared wasn't acting alone.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's just too complicated to be a carjacking, right, Yeah,
Speaker 6: So I was thinking, while we wait for our Florida
Speaker 6: PI Chris Algato to do a little digging, I thought
Speaker 6: we should talk to friends specialist Joseph Morgan. He works
Speaker 6: with Katie Studios a lot, and he might be able
Speaker 6: to help us gain a new insight into Jared's murder
Speaker 6: or maybe talk us through the crime seat a little.
Speaker 7: That would be really helpful to have his eyes on
Speaker 7: this as if it was a target to hit like
Speaker 7: we think now and not a carjacking gone bad.
Speaker 6: Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2: This case really got to me because I was in
Speaker 2: this man's position in sense that you know, we're blended family,
Speaker 2: and it was contentious, and of course it never rose
Speaker 2: to this level. And this poor woman now is you know,
Speaker 2: has got these precious babies that she's gonna have to
Speaker 2: raise on her own, and Lord only knows what's going
Speaker 2: to happen to those twins, And so I want to
Speaker 2: do anything I can do to help her. I've got
Speaker 2: real heart for this case. Simply from that perspective. There's
Speaker 2: a couple of areas that are going to be very significant. Obviously,
Speaker 2: you know you'd mentioned the casing that will be in particular,
Speaker 2: I'd like to know more about specifics out the weapon,
Speaker 2: and I'm assuming that there were stent cases that were
Speaker 2: collected at the scene. Also, I think that that perpetrator,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, at least had had a hide set up.
Speaker 2: I think that probably is pretty obvious. Yes, so for me,
Speaker 2: and if I remember, you know, down it's Florida like that,
Speaker 2: you're going to get rained, you know, I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe three four days. It doesn't really go into a
Speaker 2: drought condition down there, and the soil will remain pretty
Speaker 2: consistently damp. I'm very curious to see if they were
Speaker 2: able to identify footprints or tak impressions out of the
Speaker 2: soil where this person would have been stomping around.
Speaker 6: They did search that wooded area the right there, right right,
Speaker 6: and they did have dogs too. I've kind of collected
Speaker 6: just some like facts about stuff. So they did have dogs,
Speaker 6: they did search that area, but they're not letting anybody
Speaker 6: know what they found. There's no information and even Kirsten
Speaker 6: doesn't know. So yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Can certainly address that from a connectivity standpoint and why
Speaker 2: that would be important absolutely because this individual would have
Speaker 2: been dismounted at that point.
Speaker 3: Time.
Speaker 2: And also something else that's kind of very interesting. Is
Speaker 2: this tire slash rim thing that they found out at
Speaker 2: the road, that's going to have a very specific nomenclature
Speaker 2: on it, an identifier and the point of origin of that. Now,
Speaker 2: if a person had been wise that had set this up,
Speaker 2: they would have just gone to some random location and
Speaker 2: picked this thing up. But if it's something that had
Speaker 2: been that has connectivity to the perktrator's life, and there's
Speaker 2: all kinds of identifiers that we can get off there.
Speaker 2: First off, just the making model of the tire cell
Speaker 2: or what type of tire that rim would have held
Speaker 2: serial numbers on that rim, which that was my understanding
Speaker 2: I had taken that away at some point time that
Speaker 2: it was not. At first it came out that it
Speaker 2: was a tire and then I heard rim and I
Speaker 2: heard a tire. Both it is both and so those
Speaker 2: are going to be very specific. And also the acquisition
Speaker 2: of that item. I'd like to know if they had
Speaker 2: any kind of wear patterns on the tire, like was
Speaker 2: it an old tire, was it a tire that had
Speaker 2: been kept back for some time? Did the tire because
Speaker 2: rubber could show evidence of aging and weathering, even if
Speaker 2: it's not being used. When did they create that series
Speaker 2: of tires? Who the manufacturer was. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: tie backs of that, and I think for me, there's
Speaker 2: no general way to put it, but an assessment of
Speaker 2: Jared's injuries is going to be very vital because I'm
Speaker 2: particularly keen on range of fire.
Speaker 6: So they say it was three to four feet away
Speaker 6: from him.
Speaker 2: They did release that, So we're going to be if
Speaker 2: that is the case, and there were multiple gunshots simple
Speaker 2: fire because the baby. I remember person saying at that
Speaker 2: time the baby had said boom boom boom, Daddy falls
Speaker 2: down or something like that.
Speaker 6: Yes, boom boom boom, Daddy on the ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, daddy on the ground.
Speaker 6: And we also have we also have video footage where
Speaker 6: you from a doorbell and you can hear there's there's
Speaker 6: three shots. We even found the so the tire has
Speaker 6: been traced to a Ford F one fifty and the
Speaker 6: police have released surveillance footage of a Ford F one
Speaker 6: fifty with a spare tire on it. And but they
Speaker 6: don't say where they got the surveillance footage. But we
Speaker 6: John Green and I found where they got the surveillance
Speaker 6: footage and it goes right back to the xif's house.
Speaker 6: It's less than a block from her house. So it's
Speaker 6: very interesting.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting as a death Investigator's very telling to
Speaker 2: me the level of callous mus that's involved in this,
Speaker 2: right when you'll execute a man with his baby in
Speaker 2: a car seat in the vehicle, and there had to
Speaker 2: be an awareness of that this was not robbed. It was,
Speaker 2: to the best of my knowledge at least, no he
Speaker 2: was taken other than his life, you know, So that
Speaker 2: you know, that puts a real it puts a it's
Speaker 2: a different lens to look at this through and say,
Speaker 2: you know, some other kind of randomized event that might
Speaker 2: have occurred out of just an impassionate event that's a
Speaker 2: one off, or certainly anything that's connected to to another crime,
Speaker 2: you know, robbery or something like that. So I think
Speaker 2: there's a lot that we could probably dig into. And
Speaker 2: I'll beach'all's disposal.
Speaker 6: I'm going to send you an email with our document
Speaker 6: and you can look at it whenever you want, yeah, sure,
Speaker 6: And it has linked it has links to all the
Speaker 6: pictures and everything like that. And then I'll remind you
Speaker 6: about Sunday too.
Speaker 2: Okay, and I'll try it between now and then. I'll
Speaker 2: look at this and I'll try to come up with
Speaker 2: a bulleted list of points.
Speaker 6: Sounds good.
Speaker 5: Again, I have Mike on.
Speaker 6: Okay, Hi, Mike go.
Speaker 8: The last time we spoke.
Speaker 9: With Mike the p I, we discussed not have him
Speaker 9: reaching out to Yellowstone County Sheriff's Department and ask if
Speaker 9: they would share some an update on anything that wishikaia
Speaker 9: as a professional courtesy from one law enforcement to another.
Speaker 9: And you said you reached out to them and you
Speaker 9: had some good, good.
Speaker 7: Stuff, is what you said.
Speaker 5: I reached out to the detective Fritz Riostone County. He's
Speaker 5: a detective assigned to her case. I said, we're working
Speaker 5: on this podcast. We're working on this case, and we
Speaker 5: don't I go. I want to get this out of
Speaker 5: the way. We're not here to bombard you with false
Speaker 5: leads or you know, are what we are theories.
Speaker 2: We're going to tell you what we know.
Speaker 5: If we find something good, we'll let you know, and
Speaker 5: we're going to verify it before we tell you and
Speaker 5: all that. But we are looking at this and we
Speaker 5: also don't want to be looking at stuff that we
Speaker 5: don't that is a waste of time. So I said great,
Speaker 5: So I go do you know Rico?
Speaker 2: And he goes, oh, yeah, we know Rico.
Speaker 5: And I said, did you guys interview him about her?
Speaker 5: And he goes, yes, we did. I said, did you
Speaker 5: clear him? And he goes, no, we did not clear him.
Speaker 6: No shit.
Speaker 2: He goes, what does that mean?
Speaker 5: He goes, well, by time we got the case, as
Speaker 5: you know, it's been a while, so evidence is cold.
Speaker 5: So all we could do is just sit down and
Speaker 5: talk to him. And he pretty much just kept saying,
Speaker 5: don't know what you're talking about. Nope, don't know what
Speaker 5: you're talking about. Nope, didn't happen, nope, you know, And
Speaker 5: he goes, he just basically, you know, he's a career criminal.
Speaker 5: He was not going to give up any info because
Speaker 5: he knew we were buying the eight ball anyways, right,
Speaker 5: so he goes, right, so he's not going to say anything,
Speaker 5: and he didn't.
Speaker 2: He goes, but he is not.
Speaker 5: Clear because he agrees with us if it is true
Speaker 5: that she went to see him the last time she
Speaker 5: has ever seen and then the snapchat picture of her
Speaker 5: in bed with him was the last picture that she
Speaker 5: put out on social media. Of herself. Then yeah, clearly
Speaker 5: he's a person of interest. And he goes, well, I
Speaker 5: think he's in prison. And I go, I go, I
Speaker 5: think he's in Yellowstone County jail.
Speaker 6: Correct.
Speaker 5: And he goes really And I go, yeah, I go
Speaker 5: check your roster. Yeah, he goes, last time.
Speaker 2: Heard he was in prison.
Speaker 5: I go, well, I think he's been moving yells from
Speaker 5: kind of jail. He might have a court for seeding
Speaker 5: coming up. And he goes, well, that's interesting thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll look at that.
Speaker 5: And I said good. So then I said, well, do
Speaker 5: you have her DNA? Because I know as law enforcement,
Speaker 5: let's say her body's found in Arizona, okay, but she
Speaker 5: has no idea on her, so they have no idea
Speaker 5: who this person is. They will submit her DNA into
Speaker 5: a database to see if it gets a hit on
Speaker 5: as as somebody put her DNA in there as she's
Speaker 5: a missing person. And he goes, no, we didn't do
Speaker 5: that because the mother couldn't produce anything to us that
Speaker 5: would have her daughter's DNA on it. But I said, yeah,
Speaker 5: but she could do the mother and the father And
Speaker 5: he goes yes and no, And I go, do tell
Speaker 5: And he said Montana doesn't allow that, does it? Our
Speaker 5: crime lab can't do that, but the FBI can. And
Speaker 5: he goes, I have the mom's DNA and the dad's DNA.
Speaker 5: They signed Elstone County's consent form for us to submit
Speaker 5: the DNA, but the FBI told us, no, you need
Speaker 5: to have them sign our consent for him. He goes,
Speaker 5: So I sent the consent, our new FBI consent form
Speaker 5: to mom, and I sent one to dad. I've got
Speaker 5: moms back, I have never received dads. So basically we're stuck.
Speaker 5: But I said, well, if we can get the dad
Speaker 5: to sign the form with that help, he goes, I
Speaker 5: will take all the help I can get from you, guys.
Speaker 5: He goes. If you can get him to sign that,
Speaker 5: and you can get that form to me, we will
Speaker 5: send it the next day to the FBI. She'll be
Speaker 5: in the database.
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll get a hit.
Speaker 5: The question for you guys to ask the sister is
Speaker 5: does she have contact with dad? And if she does,
Speaker 5: can she get him to sign the form when we.
Speaker 2: Get the form and get.
Speaker 4: It back to us.
Speaker 5: So that's the big question there. That's what you guys
Speaker 5: got to take care because.
Speaker 6: You know her, right, Yeah, so I'll certainly do that.
Speaker 2: So that's what I know.
Speaker 6: That's incredible, That is such good news. More on that
Speaker 6: next time.
Speaker 7: True Crimes is executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Gianna Thompson,
Speaker 7: Courtney Armstrong, Jeff Shane, Andrew Arnout, and me John Green.
Speaker 7: Additional producing by Connor Powell and Gabe Castile, Editing by
Speaker 7: Jeff Ti Music by Vanicor Music.
Speaker 6: True Crimes is a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios.
Speaker 6: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
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