Speaker 1: Pushkin. When my Terce Richardson disappeared in September two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, investigators searched her car, the one that had
Speaker 1: been impounded by the Sheriff's Department after she couldn't pay
Speaker 1: her bill at Geoffrey's restaurant. They discovered several journals belonging
Speaker 1: to my Teres. They were full of information about my
Speaker 1: Teres's life, and they would ultimately shape the investigation into
Speaker 1: her death. My Teres's dad, Michael Richardson, shared four of
Speaker 1: the journals with us. He encouraged us to use them
Speaker 1: so his daughter's voice could be heard. My producer, Hailey Fox,
Speaker 1: and I are reporting this season of Lost Hills together.
Speaker 1: We laid the journals out on a table in the
Speaker 1: office and started to scour them for clues about who
Speaker 1: my Race was and what became of her, this bright
Speaker 1: young woman full of promise whose life went wildly off course.
Speaker 1: The entries have been lightly edited for clarity, and they're
Speaker 1: being read by an actor.
Speaker 2: February twenty fifth, two thousand and nine. My very first journal,
Speaker 2: well not diary or composition book, but my own journal
Speaker 2: with the intent of reflection and bettering myself.
Speaker 1: My Teresa's handwriting is neat and emphatic, full of omgs
Speaker 1: and smiley faces and exclamation points, which she punctuates with hearts.
Speaker 2: First things first, I want to own my own home.
Speaker 2: I want to do this because it is an awesome
Speaker 2: investment and gives me something to do while I'm preparing
Speaker 2: to go back to school. Because, let's face it, I'm
Speaker 2: the type of girl who enjoys accomplishing everything I set
Speaker 2: out to do.
Speaker 1: Her journal, she writes, is her best friend. She signs
Speaker 1: her entries my Teres Richardson.
Speaker 2: I like talking, dancing, telling jokes, debating, eating, analyzing, sunshine, music, sports, cars, security.
Speaker 2: People don't like when people are wronged, discrimination, divas, racists, laziness,
Speaker 2: cramped space, being monitored, neediness, unmotivated people.
Speaker 1: At twenty four, my Terse is brimming with excitement about
Speaker 1: the world and her place in it. She's a recent
Speaker 1: graduate of cal State Fullerton, where she majored in psychology
Speaker 1: and discovered an important part of her identity After going
Speaker 1: out with boys in high school. She came out as
Speaker 1: gay in college, dating two women, Desiree Black and Tessa Moon.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of people in their early twenties, she's
Speaker 1: still figuring things out, especially when it comes to her
Speaker 1: love life.
Speaker 2: Between Desen Tessa. I get one perfect person. But I
Speaker 2: know this will never work, but right now it's too
Speaker 2: good to let go of.
Speaker 1: She's an executive assistant at a freight company owned by
Speaker 1: Tessa's family, and she's also dabbling in other fields. She's
Speaker 1: trying to get into modeling and substitute teaching. She's taking
Speaker 1: motorcycle lessons and Go Go dancing at gay bars.
Speaker 3: Man, have I been busy? Busy busy?
Speaker 2: Okay, so first things first, I don't think I mentioned it,
Speaker 2: but I had an audition for a Go Go physician
Speaker 2: and yay, I got it. I even saw a few
Speaker 2: cutis which made me want to dance.
Speaker 4: Woooo.
Speaker 2: So I go back again tonight.
Speaker 3: Okay, new topic.
Speaker 2: I've been taking motorcycle classes. It's actually really hard lmao. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I'm still pretty dangerous. Go Go wardrobe ideas small feathers,
Speaker 2: outline under boob wiring, use red strings for sides, many colors,
Speaker 2: tie rag around boom, furry red sock slash, strappy heels.
Speaker 1: But she's getting ready to realize an ambitious dream.
Speaker 2: Today, I'll just be reading and doing research I'm both
Speaker 2: finding a home, plan to start saving four and to
Speaker 2: start preparing for grad school.
Speaker 1: She wants to be a therapist.
Speaker 2: I want to be the gay and lesbian guru.
Speaker 1: Two thousand and nine, she writes, is going to be
Speaker 1: a transformative year for her.
Speaker 2: So here's to me and my progression forward. I refuse
Speaker 2: to let this year go to waste. And the new
Speaker 2: motto is O nine is mine.
Speaker 1: She's shedding an old identity, one that served her for
Speaker 1: many years, the identity of the beautiful, perfectly composed, perfectly
Speaker 1: presentable young lady, the beauty pageant contestant, the pleaser that's
Speaker 1: falling away, and in its place, someone new is being born.
Speaker 2: I think the Lord has blessed me with a good
Speaker 2: head on my shoulders and a love for friendly debates.
Speaker 2: I've always loved a challenge. Well, if I'm going to
Speaker 2: start my career as a great gay therapist, I better
Speaker 2: get used to people being disgusted by me. So watch out, people,
Speaker 2: I'm about to make a name for myself.
Speaker 1: Let's go the real My trace is emerging. She's done
Speaker 1: being a beauty queen. She's ready to be a voice.
Speaker 1: I'm Dana Goodyear, and this is Lost Hells Episode two.
Speaker 3: My light.
Speaker 1: Picture my Teres. She's vivacious and charismatic with almond shaped
Speaker 1: eyes and a dazzling smile. A person you can't help,
Speaker 1: but notice she makes sure of it.
Speaker 5: Well, she was a bit of a show off. It
Speaker 5: started early on, Like I remember she was in this
Speaker 5: private daycare when she was three, and you know, she
Speaker 5: just did her part, and my Trece just like this
Speaker 5: is me, This is I like, even at three years.
Speaker 1: Old, this is my Teresa's dad.
Speaker 5: My name is Michael L. Richardson. I'm the proud father
Speaker 5: of my race Richardson. One of my favorite pictures of
Speaker 5: her is a picture of her in her cheerleading uniform.
Speaker 5: Is called a Roman kit that she taught me, and
Speaker 5: it's when you're standing straight up like this and you
Speaker 5: just jump straight up and kick both legs out and
Speaker 5: your fingers touch your toes and you know, her mom
Speaker 5: caught that picture and it looked like her legs is
Speaker 5: just straight out like this, my favorite picture.
Speaker 1: Michael is tall and heavy set, with sparkling eyes and
Speaker 1: a boisterous laugh. He works in private security and owns
Speaker 1: a pair of poodles named Delta and Bentley. On sunny days.
Speaker 1: He likes to drive around la in a sixty six Chevy.
Speaker 5: It looks like what they referred to as a lowrider.
Speaker 5: It's pearl white. When the sun hits it, it sparkles.
Speaker 5: It has a mega sound system in it because.
Speaker 1: On the trunk there's a portrait of my Trees in
Speaker 1: a white gown and Tiara with angel wings.
Speaker 5: She was in a pageant once and she had this
Speaker 5: Tierra on and we took that and put it on
Speaker 5: a back a car, and above it it has the
Speaker 5: words still riding with my Daddy. It's pretty crazy because
Speaker 5: every time I drive it, you will look over at
Speaker 5: me and just see me with tears in my eyes,
Speaker 5: just balling, you know. But I'm just steady cruising, you know.
Speaker 5: So yeah, it's very sentimental to me.
Speaker 1: Michael and my Teresa's mother, Latisse Sutton, were high school sweethearts.
Speaker 5: We had my Teres very young. I think we were
Speaker 5: seventeen when her mother became pregnant and we finished high school.
Speaker 5: My Teres was born in our senior year and just
Speaker 5: always a good kid.
Speaker 1: At the time. Latis lived with her grandmother, Mildred Harris,
Speaker 1: in Willowbrook, a neighborhood in South La.
Speaker 5: Her mother, Latise was in debutante things and sophistication, and
Speaker 5: Miss Harris was just very regal, just very regal.
Speaker 1: When my Terrees was about four years old, Michael went
Speaker 1: to prison for five years. He and Latis split up
Speaker 1: and she married a man named Larry Sutton.
Speaker 5: My Teresa's stepfather. Larry came into the life and he
Speaker 5: was an executive for Southern California. Edison.
Speaker 1: Latis and Larry moved my Teres out of the city
Speaker 1: to the more affluent community of West Covina.
Speaker 5: And I remember when I came to visit him, I
Speaker 5: looked like, wow, man, talk about the real life Jefferson's here.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: They moved on up.
Speaker 1: And it was there in the comfortable suburbs that my
Speaker 1: Terce grew up.
Speaker 6: I remember the very first day of school, there was
Speaker 6: this loud, beautiful black girl that was like, Hey, you're
Speaker 6: the new black girl in school. Let's be friends. And
Speaker 6: that was my Terrees.
Speaker 1: This is Juell Moore. She was one of my Teresa's
Speaker 1: closest friends starting in the eighth grade.
Speaker 6: And from that day forward we kind of bonded and
Speaker 6: clicked in maintained a friendship. She enjoyed dance. I enjoyed dance.
Speaker 6: That was a passion that we shared together. We auditioned
Speaker 6: to be cheerleaders in high school together and then even
Speaker 6: took dance classes together in college.
Speaker 1: My RaSE was popular with good reason.
Speaker 6: In junior, high school and high school. My Trees is
Speaker 6: a firecracker. She was always like very vivacious. When she
Speaker 6: walked into a room, she lit it up. I mean
Speaker 6: she would walk in and not knowing everybody and then
Speaker 6: leave knowing everybody.
Speaker 1: But there were high expectations riding on her too.
Speaker 6: Her mom was very very very very stickler about like education.
Speaker 6: Latis push like, if you're gonna do this, like you
Speaker 6: gotta be the best. So she always wanted to be
Speaker 6: the best in everything that she did. So even in
Speaker 6: the relationship with her mom, it's being the best child
Speaker 6: I can be with also being my race, which was
Speaker 6: you know, her own person.
Speaker 1: Once in a while, My Trees would slip up and
Speaker 1: get in trouble.
Speaker 6: So here's like a fun my Tree story. She would
Speaker 6: get in trouble and so her mom would make her
Speaker 6: wear a uniform to school, although our school wasn't uniform,
Speaker 6: so then she would be like the only girl at
Speaker 6: school in a uniform. I mean this is back in
Speaker 6: like the two thousands, like late nineties, where fashion was important.
Speaker 6: So she's wearing these long plaid skirts with like high
Speaker 6: socks and ugly sweatshirts and like collared shirts and a
Speaker 6: school where you know, everybody is trying to figure out
Speaker 6: the next like what track suit or you know, like
Speaker 6: so that was her. She did what she wanted to
Speaker 6: do and suffer the consequences.
Speaker 1: Growing up, My Trees was sheltered.
Speaker 6: She wasn't the street savvy kid. I mean she was
Speaker 6: afraid of the dark even as an adult. Latise was like,
Speaker 6: I drive you everywhere. I need to know where you go.
Speaker 6: They were very strict about where she drove when she
Speaker 6: got her license. Like my Trees did not take public transportation,
Speaker 6: wouldn't know how to if her life depended on it.
Speaker 1: Michael was protective too, in his own way. At one
Speaker 1: of the many proms my Teres went to, he did
Speaker 1: something that became legendary among her friends.
Speaker 6: My favorite prom story, which I tell Michael all the time,
Speaker 6: is Michael drove us to our prom and threatened our
Speaker 6: principle and told us, like none of us better come
Speaker 6: back pregnant, and our principal was terrified because if you've
Speaker 6: seen Michael, you do not want him coming to you
Speaker 6: threatening him about your daughters. So that's like my favorite
Speaker 6: prom story, Jules says.
Speaker 1: From the time they were kids, my Teresa's favorite flower
Speaker 1: was the sunflower.
Speaker 6: She just really loved them because they're just beautiful, and
Speaker 6: you know, like they're different from all the other flowers
Speaker 6: and where they grow and their representation of, you know,
Speaker 6: growing towards a light and how like tall they can grow,
Speaker 6: what they can grow into.
Speaker 1: That was my Teres, beautiful, original and growing towards the
Speaker 1: light until suddenly she changed. On June twenty sixth, two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, my Teres wrote a heartbroken journal entry
Speaker 1: about the death of Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2: I'm writing today because yesterday a great man passed away,
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson. I wish it were a lie. Can't believe
Speaker 2: I'm crying. I loved him. I know I did. This
Speaker 2: pain I feel is real. I love you your fans.
Speaker 2: Slash inspired my Terce Richardson.
Speaker 3: She was devastated.
Speaker 1: She felt like she was one of the few people
Speaker 1: who truly understood him, and it sent her into a funk.
Speaker 1: She couldn't shake.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's been a long time, I know, but it's
Speaker 2: because I've been feeling kind of worthless, you know how.
Speaker 2: I made all these plans to get a new job,
Speaker 2: and yadi YETI boo boo. I finally realized I barely
Speaker 2: do my jobs as it is now, and I love
Speaker 2: my jobs.
Speaker 1: It was right around then, in July two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: that she met and fell in love with a woman
Speaker 1: named Hannah Parks. My Trice was performing at Deborah's, a
Speaker 1: lady's night at a gay club in Long Beach. In
Speaker 1: walked Hannah, skinny blonde, covered in tattoos and wearing sunglasses.
Speaker 2: Inside I found God and then I saw you. I
Speaker 2: saw you through the darkness of the club. You saw
Speaker 2: me through the shades of your glasses, and we never
Speaker 2: really saw one another's appearance until the light.
Speaker 1: Hannah Parks is wary of attention. She was questioned by
Speaker 1: police about my Teresa's disappearance, and my Teresa's family was
Speaker 1: pretty hostile toward her. We could tell from the journals
Speaker 1: that she and my Teres were spending a lot of
Speaker 1: time together in the weeks before my Terse went missing,
Speaker 1: and we knew from law enforcement documents that my teres
Speaker 1: had told the valet at Jeoffrey's she was there to
Speaker 1: meet Hannah. Haley and I tried calling and emailing but
Speaker 1: didn't get anywhere. We ended up driving down to Orange
Speaker 1: County to an address where we thought she lived and
Speaker 1: leaving a note on a car we thought belonged to her.
Speaker 1: A few days later, she invited us over. Her wife,
Speaker 1: Kelsey answered the door.
Speaker 6: Hi, Sorry, sweet, No, You're fine.
Speaker 3: How do you take shoes off?
Speaker 1: Hannah was and is a serious Christian, but back in
Speaker 1: the summer of two thousand and nine, she was taking
Speaker 1: a little hiatus from piety.
Speaker 4: So I at the time was going to a private
Speaker 4: Christian university, but it was during the summer, so I
Speaker 4: was kind of wilding out a little bit, and a
Speaker 4: couple friends and I went to a club in Long
Speaker 4: Beach called Deborahs, I believe, and that evening, my chrase
Speaker 4: was there like go go dancing, and I spotted her.
Speaker 1: My trese was on stage dancing behind a partition will
Speaker 1: people threw money at her.
Speaker 4: She wasn't wearing much. A lot of girls it would
Speaker 4: do like go go dancing, weren't that talented really? At dancing,
Speaker 4: but she was a really good dancer, and I don't know,
Speaker 4: she just had this energy about her that made me intrigued.
Speaker 1: Part of what intrigued Hannah was that my Rise was
Speaker 1: staring straight at her while she danced. After the show,
Speaker 1: they started talking and then they started hanging out, and
Speaker 1: she had a nickname for you, which was PD or
Speaker 1: private Dancer.
Speaker 4: Is that right, That's so funny. I forgot about that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So my Trace would do like private dances for me
Speaker 4: and asked me to dance for her, and so that
Speaker 4: was something we did. I totally forgot about that.
Speaker 1: They had a physical attraction, but there was more to.
Speaker 4: It once we started talking. I think we just had
Speaker 4: a lot in common. She was very eager to grow
Speaker 4: like mentally, emotionally, spiritually. For sure, my.
Speaker 1: Trace was filling up journal after journal and Hannah she
Speaker 1: was a writer too.
Speaker 4: I was at that time I was really into writing poetry,
Speaker 4: spoken word, that sort of thing. So it was definitely
Speaker 4: we had a strong mental connection as well.
Speaker 1: My Trees wanted to read every book. Hannah mentioned, listen
Speaker 1: to every band, dissect every song.
Speaker 4: And so when I would share certain artists with her
Speaker 4: or we would literally listen to a song, or we
Speaker 4: would listen to a poetic artist or something like that,
Speaker 4: and we could sit and talk about it one song
Speaker 4: or one poem for over an hour and just really
Speaker 4: dive into it. And what do you think about this?
Speaker 1: With Hannah, my Trees seemed to feel permission to stop performing,
Speaker 1: to stop being so perfect. She was tuning into a
Speaker 1: more soulful frequency. One of Hannah's tattoos read look Deeper.
Speaker 1: Terce loved that she wanted to do that.
Speaker 4: I think what was happening is as she was sort
Speaker 4: of growing into herself because she was in her what
Speaker 4: mid twenties, I don't think that it was enough substantially
Speaker 4: for her to simply define herself as this beauty pageant
Speaker 4: this is what matters type of woman. And although she
Speaker 4: was very beautiful, she was beautiful without the pageants. She
Speaker 4: was beautiful without all the makeup, and she was beautiful
Speaker 4: beyond physical and so I think for her, she was
Speaker 4: sort of looking for something she could connect with herself
Speaker 4: and with others beyond that physical.
Speaker 1: Part of that was she wasn't going to stress so
Speaker 1: much over her appearance anymore.
Speaker 4: I think my Trace wanted to see herself how my
Speaker 4: trace wanted to see herself, not how other people wanted
Speaker 4: to see her.
Speaker 1: She started wearing her hair natural and using less makeup.
Speaker 4: I think she was getting tired of kind of straightening
Speaker 4: and gelling, and I think she'd been doing that for
Speaker 4: so long, so I encouraged her. Whatever, however, you're comfortable,
Speaker 4: that's how you should wear your hair.
Speaker 1: Hannah was going through her own identity stuff at the time,
Speaker 1: figuring out how to reconcile her faith with her sexuality.
Speaker 4: I think, in this really cool way, we were both
Speaker 4: at a similar place, but in different ways.
Speaker 1: From the beginning, though, there was an imbalance.
Speaker 4: My Trece. I mean, she was intense right, my Trace
Speaker 4: felt intensely about me, and I felt intensely about her,
Speaker 4: but not in the same way.
Speaker 1: My Teresa's feelings for Hannah went beyond a crush or
Speaker 1: even an infatuation.
Speaker 4: I think that I just so happened to meet her
Speaker 4: at this time, pretty close prior to when there was
Speaker 4: this mental decline that started happening. And I think that
Speaker 4: because I was there, and because the feelings were already involved,
Speaker 4: I think that she clung to me and the relationship
Speaker 4: we had much more than maybe she would have otherwise.
Speaker 1: In the summer of two thousand and nine, as my
Speaker 1: Terce was looking deeper, she was also undergoing changes she
Speaker 1: couldn't control, changes that didn't make her feel like a
Speaker 1: more authentic version of herself. But like a stranger reading
Speaker 1: the journals, it's obvious that my Terce was struggling. We
Speaker 1: thought at first that maybe she and Hannah were doing
Speaker 1: hard drugs together, and that's what explained the shift. Hannah says,
Speaker 1: that wasn't it at all. She didn't use drugs, and
Speaker 1: my Trees, to her knowledge, only smoked pot. My Teres's behavior,
Speaker 1: she said, changed inexplicably, and she remembers the day it happened.
Speaker 4: There used to be this restaurant by the apartment I
Speaker 4: used to live in, and we went there for brunch
Speaker 4: and we would talk about the Bible a lot, and
Speaker 4: we would talk about my beliefs and she would share
Speaker 4: her beliefs, And there was this one particular conversation where
Speaker 4: she started saying very odd things about the Bible. They
Speaker 4: made no sense to me. I don't know that they
Speaker 4: made sense to her, but it seemed like they made
Speaker 4: sense to her, which is what scared me. And I
Speaker 4: don't remember the specifics, but she would say something like
Speaker 4: if you replace the word God with I or me
Speaker 4: or something to that effect. I was genuinely trying to
Speaker 4: understand where she was coming from and could not, and
Speaker 4: she would not let it go. And that was the
Speaker 4: first time I remember sitting in that restaurant looking at her, like,
Speaker 4: oh shit, something's going on.
Speaker 1: Something in my trees was changing. Hannah could see it,
Speaker 1: My Trees could see it, and both of them knew
Speaker 1: that my Trees needed help. My Trees had always been
Speaker 1: worried about her mental health. There was a history of
Speaker 1: mental illness on both sides of the family. In a
Speaker 1: self published memoir, her mother Latis writes about suffering from
Speaker 1: quote major depression, rapid cycling, bipolar PTS, and anxiety. Latisse
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk to me. Her husband, Larry said
Speaker 1: it is too traumatic for her to talk about my Teres.
Speaker 1: In her journals, my Terse writes a lot about being
Speaker 1: concerned for Latise.
Speaker 2: I would sell my right arm to know more about
Speaker 2: how and why the hell her mind flipped. Ever since
Speaker 2: I was little, my thoughts and lack of understanding about
Speaker 2: her has ran circles in my mind. I guess I'll
Speaker 2: never know. But I wonder if she knows that we
Speaker 2: all love her.
Speaker 1: This family history. It's the reason my Teres wanted to
Speaker 1: go to grad school for clinical psychology, the reason she
Speaker 1: wanted to become a therapist. She wanted to understand mental illness,
Speaker 1: She wanted to help people manage it, and she wanted
Speaker 1: to spot it if it ever came for her. In
Speaker 1: the weeks before her disappearance, my Teresa's journals changed dramatically.
Speaker 1: She begins to write about losing her mind, finding her mind,
Speaker 1: hoping she gets her mind back. These entries are painful
Speaker 1: to read. She sounds desperate for someone to understand her,
Speaker 1: desperate for reassurance that she's making sense, but she knows
Speaker 1: she isn't.
Speaker 2: I is a representative of me. That is important because
Speaker 2: if you look with two eyes, you will always see
Speaker 2: one eye standing alone, or shall I say one eye?
Speaker 2: But if your two eyes have been opened, you will
Speaker 2: see that one eye is still too myself plus I
Speaker 2: which eye is unknown until I know me.
Speaker 1: Her handwriting also changes, no more exclamation points with hearts.
Speaker 1: Now she's digging her pen into the page, underlining, crossing out, revising, correcting,
Speaker 1: as if she's at war. With herself. You can still
Speaker 1: glimpse the ambitious young woman, but only in flashes. Everything
Speaker 1: else is our Kane references to the King of Pop
Speaker 1: in the midst of a kaleidoscopic blur.
Speaker 2: Michael J helped me find me because although he never
Speaker 2: met my trees, I always knew him because before I.
Speaker 3: Saw him, he touched my soul.
Speaker 2: I am my trece L Richardson, and I am a
Speaker 2: big deal. I am my trece L Richardson, and I
Speaker 2: am a big deal.
Speaker 5: P S.
Speaker 3: I love were.
Speaker 2: And me plus you are the world me. My voice
Speaker 2: is off in silence because oh, my Trees, you're so pretty. Yes,
Speaker 2: oh my trees, your.
Speaker 3: Eyes, yes, I know, but.
Speaker 2: Shut the fuck up and let me speak. But you're
Speaker 2: so pretty, you don't have anything important?
Speaker 3: Is going to be the death of I isn't big
Speaker 3: when it's small like me.
Speaker 2: That's why I never inspired to be Miss Fullerton. I
Speaker 2: inspired to be Miss America because I.
Speaker 3: Knew me, but you couldn't. So together.
Speaker 2: Mommy knew I could.
Speaker 3: I love her happy faces.
Speaker 2: They make her smile, so I'm afraid to say, oh,
Speaker 2: what is this entry about?
Speaker 6: L O L.
Speaker 2: I must have been high Mike me not my mouth
Speaker 2: is going to be mouth. That's going to be the
Speaker 2: depth of more like more like, like, I, what the
Speaker 2: fuck is going on? Where is my mind?
Speaker 1: Me?
Speaker 3: And I It's lost.
Speaker 2: As soon as I found it, I disappeared just as fast.
Speaker 2: I feel like on the inside, I'm screaming and kicking
Speaker 2: trying to get out of these fucking restraints. I'm afraid
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 1: Here's Hannah Parks again.
Speaker 4: I think she was scared about what was going on
Speaker 4: with her, and I don't know that she knew what
Speaker 4: to do, and I think she was looking to me
Speaker 4: for some answer that I didn't have.
Speaker 1: Her interactions with my trees were growing increasingly strange.
Speaker 4: We went from having what I would call like this
Speaker 4: really intellectual stimulating conversation to kind of like, what the
Speaker 4: fuck are you talking about? I don't know what you're
Speaker 4: talking about, and that's not normal for you, Like I'm
Speaker 4: not understanding. I was much more gentle because I knew
Speaker 4: that something was going on. Now I can say to
Speaker 4: you what the fuck was going on?
Speaker 1: Whatever it was, Hannah felt unequipped to deal with it.
Speaker 4: But we would sit and talk and I'd be like, dude,
Speaker 4: tell me, like like I would be crying because I
Speaker 4: could see it happening, Like, tell me what is going on?
Speaker 4: To get you help. I'm over here writing poetry and
Speaker 4: studying theology. I don't know how to help. So we
Speaker 4: would pray, we would talk. I encouraged her to go
Speaker 4: get help. She was skeptical of people judging her. She
Speaker 4: was skeptical of I think admitting I think she was
Speaker 4: scared to say. She was scared, and she was just
Speaker 4: struggling so bad internally.
Speaker 1: According to Hannah, my Trice resisted the idea of going
Speaker 1: to a clinic, getting a diagnosis and going a medication. Instead,
Speaker 1: she started self medicating, smoking more and more pot.
Speaker 4: My personal opinion, there's no factual evidence behind this, but
Speaker 4: my personal opinion is that she was trying to cope
Speaker 4: with what was going going on with her internally, and
Speaker 4: she didn't know how. And I think her opinion was, well,
Speaker 4: I feel better when I smoke weed, but she didn't.
Speaker 4: I think that's what she was hoping.
Speaker 1: My Tree stopped sleeping and eating regularly. She was supposed
Speaker 1: to be living with her great grandmother, Mildred Harris in
Speaker 1: South LA, but she started staying in her car. She'd
Speaker 1: arrive at Hannah's place, unshowered and unkempt.
Speaker 4: She'd come over another day and be like, Oh, I've
Speaker 4: been journaling in my car. But she would tell me
Speaker 4: like for days, and I'm like, my Trees, you need
Speaker 4: to sleep, Like have you eaten? No, she wasn't eating
Speaker 4: a lot. She definitely wasn't sleeping. And I would tell
Speaker 4: her like, dude, you cannot just sleep in your car.
Speaker 4: It's not safe. You're a single woman by yourself. You
Speaker 4: can't just sleep in your car. Come to my house
Speaker 4: if you're gonna if you don't want to go home,
Speaker 4: come to my house. Stop sleeping in your car. But
Speaker 4: she kept doing it.
Speaker 3: You know where she would park?
Speaker 4: I have no idea. I think sometimes she parked outside
Speaker 4: of my apartment, like on this in the street parking.
Speaker 1: My trees had met Hannah sometime in July. Within weeks.
Speaker 1: It seemed to Hannah, my Trees was hanging on to
Speaker 1: her for dear life, and they were both drowning.
Speaker 4: It's like she would say one thing and then oh,
Speaker 4: she actually no, then say something completely opposite, and then
Speaker 4: well doesn't that make sense? I'm like, what makes sense
Speaker 4: to you? I want to know what makes sense to you?
Speaker 4: Forget what makes sense to me, because at this point
Speaker 4: nothing is really making sense to me. I genuinely started
Speaker 4: getting scared. The fear for me was like she Oh,
Speaker 4: it's so weird to even say this right now, but
Speaker 4: like that she would like disappear, that she would just
Speaker 4: like disappear and get lost, which is so crazy.
Speaker 1: At the end of August, Hannah made plans to go
Speaker 1: to Las Vegas with some friends.
Speaker 4: That was the last week in a summer and I
Speaker 4: know that because I was like, well, shit, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: go out with a bang because I'm not drinking when
Speaker 4: I go back to school. So me and three friends
Speaker 4: went to Vegas. It was like for a friend's birthday
Speaker 4: and also kind of like end of summer, let's go
Speaker 4: party in Vegas and then get back to reality. We
Speaker 4: went out there and my Race had asked me like, well,
Speaker 4: I told her I was going, and she was kind
Speaker 4: of like, oh, can I come, And for me, it
Speaker 4: was one of those like like drama free weekends. I'm
Speaker 4: just gonna hang out with my friends, and my Rise
Speaker 4: at that point was already kind of like not kind
Speaker 4: of I mean, that's when she was like scaring me,
Speaker 4: like she was in and out of this mental state,
Speaker 4: and to be honest, I didn't want to be around it.
Speaker 4: I was like, I just want to go have fun
Speaker 4: and hang out with my friends. So we drove out
Speaker 4: to Vegas and she was texting me and like where
Speaker 4: are you staying? Stuff like that, and I didn't tell
Speaker 4: her and I was just like, I don't know, I'm
Speaker 4: just hanging out.
Speaker 1: My Terse wasn't getting the message though. In her journal,
Speaker 1: she writes that she woke up certain that Hannah actually
Speaker 1: did want her to come.
Speaker 2: So somewhere around seven or eight this morning, I decided
Speaker 2: I'm going to Vegas. I love her so much now
Speaker 2: I want to show her. So three am we're going
Speaker 2: to ease on down the road to a pody.
Speaker 1: She was going to drive to Vegas after finishing her shift,
Speaker 1: go go dancing at Debra's.
Speaker 2: God keep my mind, lol, I don't know what I'm
Speaker 2: gonna see down there, but can't wait.
Speaker 3: Debra's tonight Vegas.
Speaker 1: After here's Hannah.
Speaker 4: And all of a sudden, I don't even know if
Speaker 4: it was day or night, because you know, when you're
Speaker 4: in a casino, it's like, I don't I don't know.
Speaker 4: But I was like sitting at a slot machine or something,
Speaker 4: and my Trees just like comes walking into the casino.
Speaker 4: You have to understand, I was freaked out because how
Speaker 4: can you find a singular person in Las Vegas in summertime?
Speaker 4: Like it's crowded, there's a ton of casinos, there's so
Speaker 4: many places we could be, and in walks my Trees.
Speaker 4: To this day, I have no idea how she found me.
Speaker 4: So she walks in and I'm like whoa, Like what
Speaker 4: the hell are you doing here? Like what is going on?
Speaker 4: And She's like I wanted to come hang out with you,
Speaker 4: and I got all this alcohol and I'm like, unneede alcohol,
Speaker 4: like we have we're in Vegas. Like, So I walked
Speaker 4: with her outside and my friends were looking at me
Speaker 4: like dude, what. So I walk out with my Trees
Speaker 4: and she opens her trunk and it was like so
Speaker 4: much vodka, bottles and bottles and bottles of vodka. Nobody
Speaker 4: in their right mind could drink that much, like ever
Speaker 4: in a lifetime. It was so much. And I was like, dude,
Speaker 4: what are you doing driving with all that? That's crazy?
Speaker 4: And she's like, well, I know you like vodka, and
Speaker 4: I'm like yeah, but that's a lot. So I didn't
Speaker 4: hang out with her. I was like, I gotta go, like,
Speaker 4: I don't know why you came here, And there was
Speaker 4: a part of me that felt bad, but there was
Speaker 4: another part of me that was like that was scared.
Speaker 4: I was scared. I don't know how she found me.
Speaker 4: I don't know why she's here. And I already told
Speaker 4: her I was going to go with my friends, and
Speaker 4: then she brought all this vodka and the whole time
Speaker 4: acting like everything she was doing was completely normal.
Speaker 1: Vegas, Hannah says, was a turning point.
Speaker 4: She just didn't really ever go back to the normal
Speaker 4: my trees and I think for me it was really
Speaker 4: difficult because I didn't know her that long and so
Speaker 4: all I had to base it off of was these
Speaker 4: few months. But even to me, it was so obvious
Speaker 4: that something changed and something was going on that even
Speaker 4: she knew, Like even she knew that it was going on,
Speaker 4: and we would talk about it. I think until it
Speaker 4: like really didn't go back, we didn't even talk about
Speaker 4: it anymore. It's just like that was the new normal.
Speaker 1: Hannah started to pull away, and it was.
Speaker 4: Really really hard, because how can you be so worried?
Speaker 4: About a person and at the same time scared yourself
Speaker 4: to even be around them. I was in this place
Speaker 4: of truly not knowing what to do, and so not
Speaker 4: that it was the right decision, but I just started
Speaker 4: really distancing myself because I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: On September twelfth, four days before she was arrested in Malibu,
Speaker 1: my Terse wrote in her journal.
Speaker 2: Have you ever woke up in the morning and cried
Speaker 2: because you knew too much? Cried because everything finally came
Speaker 2: to light and now you see all the lost people
Speaker 2: in the dark. It hurts the true oxymoron of bitter sweet.
Speaker 2: And the suckiest part of all is being a normal
Speaker 2: twenty four year old who likes to go to bed
Speaker 2: and dream and is now always awake living visions that
Speaker 2: were once only in dreams.
Speaker 1: This entry is one of the most crushing. My Teres
Speaker 1: had been a person with big dreams, Eames. Now she
Speaker 1: felt like she was trapped inside a living vision and
Speaker 1: all she wanted was to wake up. The day after
Speaker 1: writing it, she went to see Hannah one last time.
Speaker 4: I was at my apartment and it was the middle
Speaker 4: of the day, and my Trese came over and she
Speaker 4: was like pounding on my door and she's like, Hannah, Hannah,
Speaker 4: open the door, Hannah. I need to talk to you, Hannah.
Speaker 4: Because of course she was texting and calling and I
Speaker 4: wasn't responding, and so she's knocking on my door and
Speaker 4: I didn't answer. I didn't answer. I don't know what
Speaker 4: she wanted. I don't know what was going on. I
Speaker 4: know that she really probably needed me in that moment,
Speaker 4: and it breaks my heart that I didn't answer the door.
Speaker 4: But I didn't. And that was the last time I
Speaker 4: saw her. I saw her through the blinds. She didn't
Speaker 4: see me, but I saw her.
Speaker 2: What did she look like?
Speaker 4: Disheveled? It's almost like, see when you asked before about her,
Speaker 4: was her physical appearance deteriorating? And I mean, I guess
Speaker 4: during that time maybe a little bit, yeah, But for me,
Speaker 4: it was really after Vegas that it all kind of
Speaker 4: started going downhill.
Speaker 1: Soon the question of my Teresa's mental health would be
Speaker 1: at the center of an investigation into her disappearance and death.
Speaker 1: It would be the variable that determined so much of
Speaker 1: what law enforcement did and what they failed to do.
Speaker 1: But to Hannah, there is no.
Speaker 4: Question my trees changed in whole, like wholly changed, and
Speaker 4: there was never any question in my mind that it
Speaker 4: was something mentally going on. She was very aware that
Speaker 4: she was struggling with mental illness. I saw it. It
Speaker 4: was obvious. She just wasn't acting like her normal self.
Speaker 4: It changed, she changed, something changed, and it wasn't from drugs.
Speaker 1: On September sixteenth, two thousand and nine, my Terse went
Speaker 1: to Malibu in the midst of a severe mental health crisis,
Speaker 1: and she never came back. Next time on Lost Hails, I.
Speaker 5: Think the only way I will come and get her
Speaker 5: tonight is if you guys are going to release her tonight,
Speaker 5: you definitely have no place, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's not from that area, and I would
Speaker 1: pay to wake up to a morning report so low
Speaker 1: somewhere with her.
Speaker 4: He had job dog.
Speaker 6: I guess I would have to come and get her.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's next in episode three, call for Help.
Speaker 1: Lost Tills is written and hosted by Me Dana Goodyear.
Speaker 1: It was reported by me and Hailey Fox, our senior producer.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me and Ben Adair. Lost
Speaker 1: Hills is a production of Western Sound and Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and You can binge the whole
Speaker 1: season right now ad free. Find Pushkin Plus on the
Speaker 1: Lost Tails show page in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin
Speaker 1: dot fm, slash plus