Speaker 1: School of Humans, just waiting for Brandon, hoping he makes
Speaker 1: it back. We were on the horse trail. We followed
Speaker 1: that to the end and got to a pretty steep
Speaker 1: drop off. Oh yeah, here he comes. This is like
Speaker 1: the beginning of every horror movie where the people go
Speaker 1: into the woods, so I'm very aware of that even
Speaker 1: though we are being safe. We've been trying to get
Speaker 1: onto Malibu Canyon Ranch because over the years, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have said that there was direct access from
Speaker 1: the back of that property to Dark Canyon, where my
Speaker 1: TRACE's remains were found, so we're trying to figure out
Speaker 1: if that's true. The ranch is a thirty acre property
Speaker 1: with horses. They also do a lot of photo shoots
Speaker 1: and productions, and it's also private property. But I found
Speaker 1: a listing on Airbnb for the guest house. We booked
Speaker 1: it for two nights. My producer Brandon got there first.
Speaker 1: He met Sus Randall, the owner. She rode up to
Speaker 1: meet him on a horse. She also introduced us to
Speaker 1: her big black dog, Pickles. We both love dogs, so
Speaker 1: we ended up tagging along as we looked around the property.
Speaker 1: What did you tell me? What? Okay? So, Pickles the
Speaker 1: dog is very happy because he likes to play fetch
Speaker 1: and he just brought something back to me and I
Speaker 1: thought it was a stick, but upon closer inspection, it's
Speaker 1: a deerfoot. So we're finally here in the place that
Speaker 1: a lot of people have been trying to get access
Speaker 1: to since the night my terse went missing. We're hoping
Speaker 1: to find a way to Dark Creek. I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 1: This is Helen Gone. So we're just as you can see,
Speaker 1: we're walking to the back of the property. Here. When
Speaker 1: you approach Malibu Canyon Ranch, you can see the Spanish
Speaker 1: style main house. You can see horses in a little paddock,
Speaker 1: and as you drive around you see a small guesthouse.
Speaker 1: This side is just basically a wall of dirt and rock.
Speaker 1: On the right to the left there of the properties.
Speaker 1: In the background the Santa Monica Mountains, which is where
Speaker 1: the Backbone Trail is. There's a saltwater pool and there
Speaker 1: are views in every direction of the canyon and the
Speaker 1: Santa Monica Mountains. We're going to continue down this road
Speaker 1: and when you walk out of the guest house you
Speaker 1: see a dirt road which they call the fire Road.
Speaker 1: It leads to an incredibly steep drop down to the canyon.
Speaker 1: That's down the canyon. That's the canyon. I'd say that's
Speaker 1: probably a one hundred foot drop. Seventy five foot drops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: see now and again, if you told me like the
Speaker 1: remains were here, I'd be like, Okay, you drop it
Speaker 1: off right that makes sense. Someone dropped it or she
Speaker 1: fell or whatever. Is this right here? Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: took one wrong step, especially if it was darker night,
Speaker 1: or if you're so tired. When you look at a map,
Speaker 1: the remains are point two miles from the fire road
Speaker 1: where we're standing. But what you don't see on those
Speaker 1: maps is this giant drop off. It's so steep they've
Speaker 1: put up barriers, so although the remains are close, there's
Speaker 1: no way to get there without hiking down and around
Speaker 1: this drop off. We did find this little sort of
Speaker 1: depression that seems to lead toward the canyon. We just
Speaker 1: back up a little. We both talked to Susan Randall,
Speaker 1: and she told us about the other trails at the
Speaker 1: back of the property. We're just trying to figure out
Speaker 1: where all of these trails lead. We started to hike.
Speaker 1: Pickles followed us around and let us down. Some horse trails. Well,
Speaker 1: he's walking down there. I was about pickles is cause
Speaker 1: you Okay, buddy, come on back through. So if you're
Speaker 1: a if you're a two foot black lamb, you can
Speaker 1: you can get through this brush. Well it looks like
Speaker 1: it drops right there. Though, see like I can't I
Speaker 1: can't tell how stupid it is. Well, it's I think
Speaker 1: down here there's another overking, so maybe we can get
Speaker 1: a sense of that. So we followed every single horse
Speaker 1: trail that led from the back of that property. We
Speaker 1: went down in some areas that weren't actual trails the
Speaker 1: other way. Let's go on here, look just to like
Speaker 1: be threough. I'm gonna check the map from here. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna walk down the bottom. Brandon and I split
Speaker 1: up to look around. Anything interesting. It's real, it's real steep,
Speaker 1: and it's again it's this loamy soil. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: if you started down that path that we saw that
Speaker 1: my thought might be impossible. You'd started slipping and you'd
Speaker 1: fall the hole. Yeah, you'd fall just one wrong step
Speaker 1: up here, and let me look at this on the right. God,
Speaker 1: I tell you, like for someone who did not like
Speaker 1: the woods, a girl after my own heart. I can
Speaker 1: only imagine how scary this would be. And I was
Speaker 1: saying too when you were up there. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, the other thing that's strange is it's extremely
Speaker 1: hard to figure out what time of day it is
Speaker 1: right now. There are so many the sun disappears behind
Speaker 1: the mountains, and I can't tell what time. I have
Speaker 1: no idea what time of day it is right now.
Speaker 1: It's partly class and it could be ten o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning, could be seven o'clock at night. After following
Speaker 1: all these trails at the back of the property, it
Speaker 1: really seems that there's no way down. There is no
Speaker 1: shortcut between the back of that property and the area
Speaker 1: where my Trees's remains were found in Dark Canyon. After
Speaker 1: we exhausted all the possibilities that way, we then went
Speaker 1: back toward the Backbone trail, which took us right back
Speaker 1: to the same routes we had taken before. But I'm
Speaker 1: gone this way, yeah, I'm probably can regret this. We
Speaker 1: decided to hike back to the coordinates where my trees
Speaker 1: was found. Again. It was the hardest hike I've ever done.
Speaker 1: We say we went hiking, but it's not a hike.
Speaker 1: It's a climb. It's climbing sheer rock face and trying
Speaker 1: not to slip and fall down the sides of the canyon.
Speaker 1: The soil is very loose. It's almost like trying to
Speaker 1: climb a sand dune. It is easier that it's cooler.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that it's much easier because it's cooler.
Speaker 1: That was what was kind of killing us. But I'm
Speaker 1: glad we did it twice when we hike this route.
Speaker 1: The first time it was around the same time of
Speaker 1: year when my trees went missing mid September. We were
Speaker 1: seeing dark canyon as she had been experiencing it. It
Speaker 1: was hot and dry, and there was a thick curtain
Speaker 1: of trees and it was almost impossible to get through
Speaker 1: because there were so many trees covering the rock face
Speaker 1: on both sides. It was really hard to tell how
Speaker 1: steep it was at any point. But this time, hiking
Speaker 1: in December, a lot of those leaves have dropped. It
Speaker 1: was cooler and easier to take a thorough look at
Speaker 1: the sides of the canyon. It's so much easier because
Speaker 1: all of these were in full bloom, like they were
Speaker 1: like cutting. This was all like impassable almost yeah, you
Speaker 1: can actually see what's going on. This time, we saw
Speaker 1: that there did seem to be a few spots that
Speaker 1: were less steep where you could climb up, but those
Speaker 1: points were still far from the remains. We also saw
Speaker 1: something else, a lot more trash, soda cans, deflated balloons, plastic,
Speaker 1: and other debris. We saw some areas where branches have
Speaker 1: been organized, and pseudo huts seemed to have been built.
Speaker 1: It was really creepy because we know that cartel people
Speaker 1: have used this area to grow cannabis, and the grow
Speaker 1: season is from April to November. It gives me chills
Speaker 1: to think that while we were hiking through there, people
Speaker 1: could have been hiding behind those leaves. We also found
Speaker 1: an oven. So we're now at the point let's see
Speaker 1: if I get this, this would be the equivalent point
Speaker 1: in the creek bed of when we walked to the
Speaker 1: end of the fire road, which is like the furthest tip,
Speaker 1: the point where we're saying, hey, we're point two miles
Speaker 1: from theirs, and from this point we've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of Basically, we saw something. We see some debris down here,
Speaker 1: and it looks like that might be an oven or
Speaker 1: mini fridge got some more pictures of that. But there's
Speaker 1: definitely signs that there have been people down here, and
Speaker 1: it looks like if before the fence was put up,
Speaker 1: It's very plausible that this could have been somewhere that
Speaker 1: someone could have pulled up and dumped something down. However,
Speaker 1: because we've still got a ways to go, that makes
Speaker 1: this less likely because the road doesn't continue that far.
Speaker 1: We also found more hoses. Remember my Treesa's body was
Speaker 1: found not during a police search, but because park rangers
Speaker 1: were looking for an illegal marijuana grow. They found irrigation hoses.
Speaker 1: When we did our first hike, we also saw hoses
Speaker 1: that looked old, but on this hike we found other hoses,
Speaker 1: different types of hoses that looked pretty new. There was
Speaker 1: also a thin layer of water flowing in the creek
Speaker 1: at this time, and that's where the hoses seemed to
Speaker 1: be connected. I'm starting to think that it's more likely
Speaker 1: than not that my Trees did walk up on the
Speaker 1: wrong people. There's a lot of evidence of people hiding
Speaker 1: in the woods and camping. This is not an area
Speaker 1: where you would hike to and set up camp unless
Speaker 1: you were trying to hide from someone. This is a
Speaker 1: tough case because there's so much that was either not
Speaker 1: done at the scene the first time or done incorrectly.
Speaker 1: It's hard to have definitive answers. So doing the height
Speaker 1: twice was extremely important because unless you go in there,
Speaker 1: it's hard to put yourself on my Teresa's shoes. For example,
Speaker 1: when we started our investigation, there were a lot of
Speaker 1: people talking about the fact that the area where the
Speaker 1: remains were found is close to the ranch property. It
Speaker 1: is close, but if you have to drop off a cliff,
Speaker 1: that distance is meaningless. The bottom line is, any way
Speaker 1: we tried to go, we still ended up having to
Speaker 1: go around and hike the long way, But we wouldn't
Speaker 1: know that if we hadn't gone out there. And once
Speaker 1: you get to Dark Creek, you get a sense of
Speaker 1: how treacherous it was, and we found so much with
Speaker 1: the new hoses an oven, it just seems clear to
Speaker 1: me that even though this area seems extremely remote and dangerous,
Speaker 1: there are people out there living in those woods, and
Speaker 1: if she encountered those people, it's likely that they would
Speaker 1: have done something bad to her. We had also heard
Speaker 1: a lot of theories about someone driving out there and
Speaker 1: dumping a body. Now, there have been cases in this
Speaker 1: area where that happened with gang members and serial killers,
Speaker 1: for example, But in all of those cases, the bodies
Speaker 1: were dumped in places where you can pull a car
Speaker 1: up near a road, for example, in my Teresa's case,
Speaker 1: that would be impossible. So from the road you see
Speaker 1: the no TRESSPA sign, you see the fire road. It's
Speaker 1: a dirt road, but a car could drive down that
Speaker 1: part of it. So there is this so I can
Speaker 1: understand why people might have asked the question. You know,
Speaker 1: could someone have driven some way, maybe with an ATV
Speaker 1: even or something, and gotten close to where the body
Speaker 1: was dumped and then dumped it there. But that's impossible.
Speaker 1: It's there's no road up here, there's no way unless
Speaker 1: the car could fly, there's no way to get to
Speaker 1: that spot. So either she walked back there herself or
Speaker 1: someone carried her there. Like everywhere else in the world,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty has been an apocalyptic year. In Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: There's been a global pandemic, massive protests, super spreader events,
Speaker 1: and a fire season that turned the La sky red
Speaker 1: days at a time. Then in September, a black man
Speaker 1: named Dejon Kizzy was riding his bicycle on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of the street in South la When police tried
Speaker 1: to stop Kizzy, he fled and when they caught up
Speaker 1: to him, there was a scuffle. Police say that Kizzy
Speaker 1: struck a deputy in the face and then dropped and
Speaker 1: picked up a handgun, which ended with police firing at
Speaker 1: him multiple times. After his death, protesters took to the streets,
Speaker 1: and a few days later, two young police deputies, one
Speaker 1: male and one female, were sitting in their squad car
Speaker 1: outside of Metro station in Compton when a single shooter
Speaker 1: walked right up to their car window and shot them
Speaker 1: both multiple times at point blank range. Both deputies survived
Speaker 1: the execution attempt, but the shooting and the protest that
Speaker 1: followed sent shock waves through a community where tension was
Speaker 1: already at breaking point. The deputies were taken to a
Speaker 1: local hospital and a small number of protesters were gathered outside.
Speaker 1: A few of them started to chant let them die.
Speaker 1: Then a KPCC reporter named Josie y Wog was covering
Speaker 1: the protest when she was thrown to the ground by deputies.
Speaker 1: Sheriff Alex Villanueva first said that Wang had interfered with
Speaker 1: the arrest and that she did not have press credentials,
Speaker 1: but video captured on cell phones showed that she was
Speaker 1: wearing a lanyard identifying herself as a member of the media.
Speaker 1: She said that she complied with the deputy's orders, but
Speaker 1: was arrested and detained for five hours for obstructing a
Speaker 1: peace officer. Sheriff Alex Villanueva was sworn in in December
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen on a promise to reform, rebuild, and restore
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and he has made
Speaker 1: some reforms, but he's also seen his share of controversy.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, who
Speaker 1: had enthusiastically endorsed him, issued a statement criticizing Sheriff l
Speaker 1: Nueva for what it called numerous complaints of abuse of
Speaker 1: his office. It said that these alleged abuses had eroded
Speaker 1: the trust of the public. Among other things, they criticized
Speaker 1: his decision to reinstate deputies who had previously been fired
Speaker 1: for misconduct, including allegations of domestic violence, and some critics
Speaker 1: have also questioned the current administration's transparency. In October, a
Speaker 1: civil complaint was filed by deputies who claimed that they
Speaker 1: were assaulted at the East LA Station by a group
Speaker 1: of older officers who were allegedly members of a gang.
Speaker 1: They called themselves Bandidos and had tattoos of a skeleton,
Speaker 1: wearing a sombrero and carrying guns. The complaint alleges that
Speaker 1: the Bandidos controlled the East LA station like inmates running
Speaker 1: a prison yard. My Teresa's disappearance happened in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, years before the Black Lives Matter movement, but
Speaker 1: during the protests in La, her name was being added
Speaker 1: to hashtag Say her Name, along with Breonna Taylor, who
Speaker 1: was killed by police at her home during a raid.
Speaker 1: We had to scream and fight every inch of the
Speaker 1: way for like the resources from the Sheriff's department, for
Speaker 1: the local mainstream television drive by media to cover it.
Speaker 1: Like we had a fight for everything. This is Jasmine Caannic.
Speaker 1: She's a journalist who's been involved with my Teresa's case
Speaker 1: since the beginning. You know, nobody should be disappearing like that.
Speaker 1: No one should disappear like that, Like that was crazy
Speaker 1: and that could have been anyone, Yeah, right, that could
Speaker 1: have been And that was one of the things that
Speaker 1: resonated with me a lot. It was just like that
Speaker 1: could have been me, that could have been anyone. She
Speaker 1: says that some cases strike you hard, and she decided
Speaker 1: to get even more involved with the case after she
Speaker 1: met with my Teresa's dad, Michael, ten years ago. She's
Speaker 1: remained close to Michael ever since. We all met at
Speaker 1: Starbucks and had like a really long conversation. That's when
Speaker 1: I started writing about it. And as is the case
Speaker 1: with some of the stories that I choose to take on,
Speaker 1: I get a little more involved than I do in others,
Speaker 1: and the Matrise one was one of them because it
Speaker 1: was being ignored. This girl just, you know, disappeared, and
Speaker 1: it was not giving the attention that you know, a
Speaker 1: blonde hair, blue eyed girl who would go missing in
Speaker 1: Malibu would have gotten the trees, you know, did not
Speaker 1: get the benefit of Black Lives Matter. And it's unfortunate
Speaker 1: because I feel like her case should have been one
Speaker 1: of the proposter children for Black Lives Matter. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you have this, you know, young black woman who
Speaker 1: was clearly having mental health crisis. So it's tragic on
Speaker 1: all these different levels to me because had it just
Speaker 1: been a few years later, I think more people would
Speaker 1: have been screaming about it. I think had it been
Speaker 1: a few years later, maybe she wouldn't have been taken
Speaker 1: into custody in the first place, because the little anybody
Speaker 1: anse of weed is not anything that can be criminally charged.
Speaker 1: Some people believe that one or more of the officers
Speaker 1: on duty that night could have played a more direct
Speaker 1: role in my Teresa's death. The deputies who were identified
Speaker 1: by multiple sources as being the ones who appeared on
Speaker 1: video have never spoken out. But however you look at it,
Speaker 1: Jasmine says that the Lost Hill Sheriff's Department clearly failed
Speaker 1: in their duty of care to my trees on the
Speaker 1: night she went missing. Well, it's clear the sheriffs had
Speaker 1: something to do with her death, I mean, just for
Speaker 1: the simple fact that they released her, you know, after
Speaker 1: saying they wouldn't in the middle of the night without anything, right,
Speaker 1: So they had something to do with her death because
Speaker 1: after that, you know, as we all know now, she
Speaker 1: ended up dead. But many of us do believe that,
Speaker 1: you know, the Sheriff's had one or two of the
Speaker 1: deputies over there had more to do with it than
Speaker 1: you know, we've ever really been able to prove but
Speaker 1: for me, all fingers point back to the Sheriff's apartment
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, they told her mother,
Speaker 1: her grandmother, that they weren't going to release her, and
Speaker 1: then they did. And that's a common problem in La County,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, they like to let women go
Speaker 1: at these odd you know, hours of the night when
Speaker 1: it's dangerous. It's beyond me why they did that, like
Speaker 1: after they told her family, with Teresa's family, that they
Speaker 1: were not going to do that, and then they did it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: My Teresa's case was given to the Office of Independent Review,
Speaker 1: a civilian oversight group that was supposed to ensure that
Speaker 1: allegations of LASD officer misconduct were investigated fairly. The Office
Speaker 1: of Independent Review produced the report hundreds of pages with
Speaker 1: almost zero proper names. The Office of Independent Review was
Speaker 1: disbanded in twenty fourteen. Most police departments around the country
Speaker 1: have no type of civilian oversight. Jasmine says that my
Speaker 1: trease was the inspiration behind her work with the reform
Speaker 1: La Jail's ballot measure. The measure passed in March twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Jasmine has been advocating for years for the creation of
Speaker 1: the La County Sheriff's Department Civilian Oversight Commission, She wants
Speaker 1: to make sure that it's a truly independent organization and
Speaker 1: that it has the tools necessary to do its job.
Speaker 1: The ballot measure gave the commission subpoena power to effectively
Speaker 1: and independently investigate misconduct, and it requires the attendance of
Speaker 1: witnesses and production of evidence connected to their investigations and oversight.
Speaker 1: When my trease disappeared in two thousand and nine, there
Speaker 1: was no Oversight Commission on that night. If people hear
Speaker 1: about this and they're outraged and they want to do something,
Speaker 1: because we always like to sort of have a call
Speaker 1: to action on what people can actually do, what's the
Speaker 1: best way to put your energy for it and try
Speaker 1: to help with us. I mean, at this point in time,
Speaker 1: you know, people need to pay attention to more than
Speaker 1: what's going on in Washington, d C. What happens in
Speaker 1: your backyard affects you way more than anything going on
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. But voters don't tend to pay
Speaker 1: attention to what's going on at city hall, what's going
Speaker 1: on with their county Board of supervisors. Most voters don't
Speaker 1: even know who represents them. At the local level. Everyone
Speaker 1: in this country, no matter where they are. They live
Speaker 1: in some county, they live in some city, they live
Speaker 1: in some state, and at each of those levels there
Speaker 1: is a body of government that governs them, and they
Speaker 1: should be engaged. Believe it or not, most law enforcement
Speaker 1: agencies do not have civilian oversight. There's a really big
Speaker 1: push now, especially in the wake of you know, Breonna
Speaker 1: Taylor and George Floyd and all of these other names.
Speaker 1: So I could go on and on and on, and
Speaker 1: I always call out Matries's name too. I never let
Speaker 1: people forget about Matris, you know, because now people are
Speaker 1: paying attention. And so that's what I tell people, like,
Speaker 1: they have to get engaged at the local level. They
Speaker 1: have to push for these changes. They have to unseat
Speaker 1: people who aren't willing to do the changes and put
Speaker 1: people in the office who are willing to make the changes.
Speaker 1: Because in this country, we only get changed real systemic change,
Speaker 1: real institutional change, two ways court rulings or legislation. It
Speaker 1: just is what it is. That's how we get changed.
Speaker 1: You can protest in the street all you want, but
Speaker 1: if the people who are in power aren't moved by
Speaker 1: your protests to change the law. You're just protesting in
Speaker 1: the street. Sheriff Lee Baca is currently in federal prison.
Speaker 1: He has reportedly been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Jasmine is convinced
Speaker 1: that Sheriff Bacca knows more about my Teres's case. I mean,
Speaker 1: he may end up dying with that secret unless one
Speaker 1: of the other deputies involved want to come forward. Ismail
Speaker 1: Rodriguez and Lazara Sanchez, the deputies who were identified as
Speaker 1: possibly being on camera walking out of the station shortly
Speaker 1: after my Trees, have both been transferred from Lost Hill station.
Speaker 1: Both still work for the LASD. Neither have ever spoken
Speaker 1: publicly about the night my Trees went missing. Officially, my
Speaker 1: Teres's case is still classified as an open investigation, but
Speaker 1: because her death has not officially been rolled a homicide,
Speaker 1: the case, like so many others in Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: around the country, seems to be in limbo. Police have
Speaker 1: described it as a clue driven investigation, which basically means
Speaker 1: if someone comes to them with a lead, they will
Speaker 1: investigate it, but they aren't out knocking on doors. I
Speaker 1: still believe that someone knows something and that there could
Speaker 1: be more clues. Still buried somewhere in dark Canyon. Again,
Speaker 1: part of being a thorough investigator is doing a Sherlock
Speaker 1: Home style process of investigation. Let's take a look at
Speaker 1: the main theories of what could have happened in My Trees. One,
Speaker 1: someone killed her, put her in their car, and dumped
Speaker 1: her body. Now this was a theory that depended on
Speaker 1: the fire road or some access road behind the Malibu
Speaker 1: Canyon ranch or in that general area leading down to
Speaker 1: a point where a body could have been dropped in
Speaker 1: the spot where her remains were found. But now we
Speaker 1: know that that road doesn't exist. The fire road just
Speaker 1: leads to some horse trails, all of them and at
Speaker 1: a very steep drop that puts you almost a mile
Speaker 1: from where the remains were found. And as part of
Speaker 1: checking out this theory, we've also looked at other past
Speaker 1: crimes that involve dumping a body in that area. Some
Speaker 1: were serial killers, others were gang members, but they all
Speaker 1: chose dump sites that were near a road or a turnoff.
Speaker 1: They had a way to drive there. This wasn't the
Speaker 1: case with My Trees. Another theory is that My Trees,
Speaker 1: suffering from some kind of mental breakdown, could have walked
Speaker 1: to the area herself, and then somehow succumbed to the elements.
Speaker 1: Now we can't roll this out completely because hypothermia does
Speaker 1: cause people to take their clothes off, but it's very
Speaker 1: unlikely this was Malibu in late summer. High as in
Speaker 1: the day hit the nineties and the nightly lows only
Speaker 1: went down to the sixties. If she was outside for
Speaker 1: more than a day, she would have been dehydrated and exhausted.
Speaker 1: But it's still very unlikely that this could have led
Speaker 1: to her death that quickly because of the fact that
Speaker 1: it would be difficult, if not impossible, to carry a
Speaker 1: body through Dark Creek the way that we hiked. Some
Speaker 1: people suggested that someone could have killed my trees and
Speaker 1: moved her body to Dark Creek later, but the forensics
Speaker 1: don't really support this. A lot of people mention mummification
Speaker 1: and the fact that the body wouldn't have only been
Speaker 1: partially mummified if it had been out there for a year,
Speaker 1: but forensic experts tell us that this is not the case.
Speaker 1: She wasn't out in the direct sunlight. She was in
Speaker 1: a canyon, and the part of the body where there
Speaker 1: was flesh visible had been buried in the soil. I
Speaker 1: agree with Sheriff fill in a way. I think that
Speaker 1: the evidence supports the theory that my Trees died shortly
Speaker 1: after she went missing, and that her body was not moved.
Speaker 1: Police suggested suicide in the beginning, I would say that's
Speaker 1: absolutely not a possibility in my mind. There's no real
Speaker 1: ledge where she could have leaped to her death and
Speaker 1: had her remains end up at that point. Also, there
Speaker 1: are no broken bones that would have suggested that kind
Speaker 1: of a fall. There's no way that she could have
Speaker 1: committed suicide out there. Another possibility my Trees dehydrated, confused
Speaker 1: and scared, started wandering around, cutting through backyards, and somehow
Speaker 1: ended up near that area, and then at that point
Speaker 1: saw something that she shouldn't have seen. This seems like
Speaker 1: a likelier possibility. We know that cartels were operating marijuana
Speaker 1: grows in this area, that's why the police were there
Speaker 1: in the first place, and we've found evidence on every
Speaker 1: one of our hikes that they still could be out there.
Speaker 1: So how do we move forward from here? We know
Speaker 1: from Rebecca's case and others that getting answers and justice
Speaker 1: can take a long time. The end of the podcast
Speaker 1: season does not mean the end of the investigation. Once again,
Speaker 1: it's a waiting game. A lot of us grew up
Speaker 1: watching shows like CSI. We were taught that the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system worked, that there's a three act structure. The
Speaker 1: case is presented, investigated, and in the end, for the
Speaker 1: most part, the bad guys get caught. In the final act,
Speaker 1: the bad guy goes to jail, and all the loose
Speaker 1: ends are neatly tied up. Now we know better. We
Speaker 1: know that making progress and cases can take years, and
Speaker 1: that there are often frustrating setbacks along the way, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's not clear who the good guys and the
Speaker 1: bad guys are. As Jasmine pointed out ten years ago,
Speaker 1: the idea that police officers would have their actions dissected
Speaker 1: on the nightly news was unthinkable. Would my teres have
Speaker 1: gone missing in today's climate with the knowledge that we
Speaker 1: have now. Sadly we'll never know the answer to that,
Speaker 1: but we can help make it part of my Teresa's
Speaker 1: legacy to make sure that what happened to her never
Speaker 1: happens to anyone again. We know that law enforcement are
Speaker 1: watching us, and we have to make sure that we're
Speaker 1: watching them. It can take a long time for people
Speaker 1: to come forward and for new clues and new evidence
Speaker 1: to come to light. It's our role as podcasters to
Speaker 1: get my Teresa's story out there, to put pressure on
Speaker 1: law enforcement and people who have answers, and then wait,
Speaker 1: this may be the end of the podcast season, but
Speaker 1: it's not the end of the investigation. We're going to
Speaker 1: keep searching for answers, whether they come in the form
Speaker 1: of evidence, new people coming forward, or other secrets that
Speaker 1: may be still buried somewhere in dark Canyon. I'm Katherine
Speaker 1: Townsend and this is Helen Gone. Helen Gone is the
Speaker 1: production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It's written and
Speaker 1: narrated by me, Katherine Townsend. Our producers are Gabby Watts,
Speaker 1: Taylor Church, and James Morrison. Music is by Ben Sale.
Speaker 1: Mixed is by Tunewelders. Our executive producers are Brandon barr,
Speaker 1: Els Crowley and Brian Lavin. Special thanks to Chipcroft for
Speaker 1: use of footage from his documentary Boss Compassion, School of Humans.
Speaker 1: School of Humans