Speaker 1: Pushkin. September sixteenth, two thousand and nine, the day my
Speaker 1: Teres drove to Malibu, her long time off and on
Speaker 1: girlfriend Desiree Black, decided to do something drastic.
Speaker 2: That was the day that I had, I mean finally
Speaker 2: worked up the courage to try and like break it off,
Speaker 2: call it quits, but definitely was not brave enough to
Speaker 2: do that in person.
Speaker 1: She wrote my Teresa text.
Speaker 2: It went something along the lines of I love you,
Speaker 2: I care about you, but I don't think I can
Speaker 2: do this anymore.
Speaker 1: My Teres had been seeing Tessa on and off during
Speaker 1: her relationship with Desiree, and now she was head over
Speaker 1: heels for this new woman, Hannah Parks. Desiree was over it.
Speaker 2: I think that it really weighed on me that I
Speaker 2: had to share. So I text that and her response
Speaker 2: was definitely unexpected. Her response was just like, I love you,
Speaker 2: I totally understand you're an amazing person, and like all
Speaker 2: of the things that you don't want to hear when
Speaker 2: you're trying to break it off with somebody, like those
Speaker 2: are all of the things that I was getting.
Speaker 1: After she sent the text, Desiree, who was still a
Speaker 1: student at cal State Fullerton, had to go to track practice,
Speaker 1: but she thought about my tries the whole time.
Speaker 2: I mean, like immediately I regretted sending that text. I
Speaker 2: just didn't know how much I was gonna regret it,
Speaker 2: because that day she didn't come home, and that was
Speaker 2: definitely out of the ordinary.
Speaker 1: My Tree still slept over at desires occasionally, and she
Speaker 1: was expecting her that night. At seven pm, when she
Speaker 1: got out of practice, she started texting my Trees.
Speaker 2: She wasn't responding, and I just assumed that that was
Speaker 2: my own fault because of the text message that I'd
Speaker 2: sent out before I went to practice, which was we're
Speaker 2: not doing this anymore. I didn't believe me. I don't
Speaker 2: think that she believed me either, But that's.
Speaker 3: What I said.
Speaker 1: Do you remember making dinner that night and waiting for it?
Speaker 2: To be honest, that whole chunk of time in my
Speaker 2: life is just a blur, Like it was not a
Speaker 2: good time for me, and so I did cook dinner,
Speaker 2: But I can't say for sure, like what else I
Speaker 2: was doing besides like just kind of wondering where she
Speaker 2: was at.
Speaker 1: At seven pm, my treece was nowhere near Desiree's place.
Speaker 1: She was pulling into Jeffreys, an upscale restaurant on Pacific
Speaker 1: Coast Highway. My Treece would later tell the cops she
Speaker 1: stopped at Jeoffrey's because she saw the white fairy lights
Speaker 1: dangling from the trees. She parked in the valet lot.
Speaker 1: Her car was a beater, a ten year old Honda
Speaker 1: Civic with a jerry rigged ignition. She told the valet
Speaker 1: she was there to meet up with Hannah, Hannah with
Speaker 1: the tattoos. She walked past the hostess station to a table,
Speaker 1: smiling at everyone. She ordered a steak and an ocean breeze.
Speaker 1: Within two hours, deputies from Lost Hill Station would be
Speaker 1: at the restaurant, trying to figure out what to do
Speaker 1: with this charming young woman who couldn't pay her eighty
Speaker 1: nine dollars and fifty one cent bill. Where did she
Speaker 1: come from? That was easy. She was from Mars, she said.
Speaker 1: And what was she doing there? Well, she said sweetly,
Speaker 1: she was there to avenge the death of Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: I'm Dana Goodyear and this is Lost Hills, Episode three,
Speaker 1: Call for Help. Hannah Parks says my Trees had been
Speaker 1: in a state of full blown psychosis for over a week.
Speaker 1: She'd lost her grasp on reality. For one thing, Hannah
Speaker 1: says she had no plans to meet My Trees at Jeffrey's.
Speaker 1: That was all in My Teresa's head. My Trees had
Speaker 1: been writing desperately in her journal about not sleeping, about
Speaker 1: being trapped in a never ending waking dream. When she
Speaker 1: got to Jeffrey's. She'd been awake for something like five days.
Speaker 1: Throughout the early morning hours and into the afternoon of
Speaker 1: September sixteenth, she'd churned out a steady stream of social
Speaker 1: media posts about her favorite subject, Michael Jackson. Her journals
Speaker 1: and messages in this episode are being read by an
Speaker 1: actor and have been lightly edited for clarity. One seventeen AM.
Speaker 4: Oh mg, Michael Jackson, I was your biggest fan in
Speaker 4: the world, but you already knew My Trees rich Ardson,
Speaker 4: It's all in the eyes of a believer slash child
Speaker 4: five thirteen AM mood Mike jack current mood crazy, I'm tired.
Speaker 4: I'm so tired. See me, somebody please, I'm here. Doesn't
Speaker 4: anyone hear me? Ghost?
Speaker 1: Eight forty seven AM.
Speaker 4: Princess Diana and Michael Jackson equal My Trees America's Princess.
Speaker 4: Long Live the King, she.
Speaker 1: Went to her job at the freight company owned by
Speaker 1: Tessa's family. She kept posting strange things all day long.
Speaker 4: With Michael's death, the legend is born that proof my
Speaker 4: playing tricks on me forgives that's father.
Speaker 1: The believers were there.
Speaker 4: Flash one thirty four PM two I equal six s's
Speaker 4: Michael Jackson's number one fan. I know it omd omz
Speaker 4: omz omd.
Speaker 1: According to law enforcement documents, while my Truce was watching
Speaker 1: a soap opera in the break room at the freight company,
Speaker 1: she thought that one of the actresses gave her quote
Speaker 1: a message from God telling her to go to Malibu.
Speaker 5: So she was acting strange at work. She wasn't, you know,
Speaker 5: getting her work done because my Truth was very efficient
Speaker 5: at her job.
Speaker 1: This is doctor Ronda Hampton. She's a psychologist my Trees
Speaker 1: interned for in college.
Speaker 5: It's almost like I saw her, what four days a week,
Speaker 5: and we would spend a lot of time together.
Speaker 1: She considered herself a mentor to my Trees.
Speaker 5: So, I mean a lot of our relationship was definitely
Speaker 5: about the work, but it was also about her future.
Speaker 1: Myce was doctor Hampton's intern in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, and during that time, doctor
Speaker 1: Hampton began to notice a change in my Trees.
Speaker 5: That her symptoms were really subtle. You know, it wasn't
Speaker 5: anything that was bizarre. A couple times she would come
Speaker 5: in very disheveled or very angry sometimes, and I started
Speaker 5: to notice like a cyclical pattern to that, and it
Speaker 5: was almost like clockwork. I can tell, like every six
Speaker 5: or seven weeks, something's going to happen. You're gonna look
Speaker 5: not right right.
Speaker 1: She urged by Trees to get a psychiatric evaluation. This
Speaker 1: would have been at least a year before Hannah was
Speaker 1: urging her to do the same thing.
Speaker 5: We talked about specifically about bipolar disorder and about the
Speaker 5: treatment for that. And I mean she was very open
Speaker 5: to hearing that. And I know that she got evaluated,
Speaker 5: and I know that she went to the school counseling
Speaker 5: center at least on two occasions.
Speaker 1: Over time, my Teresa's condition grew noticeably worse, but no
Speaker 1: one Hannah seemed to really comprehend just how bad things
Speaker 1: had gotten. My Teresa's mother, Lettis, was preoccupied with marital problems.
Speaker 1: Although they later got back together in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: she and her husband Larry, were in the midst of
Speaker 1: a painful divorce, and she had Mia, her young daughter
Speaker 1: with Larry, to worry about. On the day of her disappearance,
Speaker 1: my Trees sent her mother some really confusing texts, which
Speaker 1: Lettis included in her memoir twelve forty eight.
Speaker 4: AM, I told you I would take care of everything, Mommy,
Speaker 4: I love you.
Speaker 1: Three oh four am.
Speaker 4: Did you know my name means behind every man is
Speaker 4: a strong woman?
Speaker 1: What have you taken care of? Lettis replied when she
Speaker 1: woke up my Rice, I'm not understanding. After my Trees
Speaker 1: left work, she didn't go straight to Malibu. She headed
Speaker 1: to cal State Fullerton. She was looking for one of
Speaker 1: her old psychology professors, someone she may have recently confided
Speaker 1: in about her mental problems.
Speaker 5: That professor was not in the office at the time,
Speaker 5: like I think, she may have been teaching a class,
Speaker 5: and so when my Chreece went in there, they said
Speaker 5: she's not going to be here for a few hours.
Speaker 5: And apparently from what I hear is my treet sat
Speaker 5: there and waited for the professor to come so for
Speaker 5: whatever amount of time.
Speaker 1: When the professor returned to her office, she found my
Speaker 1: Trees in an elevated state, talking excitedly about publishing her
Speaker 1: journals as a book. Recognizing something was wrong, the professor
Speaker 1: tried to find someone to help my Trees.
Speaker 5: And so that professor actually walked my Trees to another
Speaker 5: professor who was a clinical psychologist, walked her to that
Speaker 5: psychologist's office. And my Terce was apparently not happy with that,
Speaker 5: and so my Treece at that point said, well, I
Speaker 5: got to go. I'm going to go hang out with
Speaker 5: my friends, and so she ran off left campus.
Speaker 1: She stopped by her aunt's house, where she left some
Speaker 1: flyers advertising her go go dancing. Then she set out
Speaker 1: for Malibu.
Speaker 5: She did say the beach was calling her, so that
Speaker 5: was one of the things that she had said earlier
Speaker 5: in that day. I could see her driving out to
Speaker 5: the beach. She was familiar with Pepperdine because she was
Speaker 5: considering going there for grad school. I can't say whether
Speaker 5: she had ever eaten that Joffrees of before, I don't know,
Speaker 5: but I do know that she was familiar enough with
Speaker 5: how to get to Malibu and the beach.
Speaker 1: In her journals, my Terries wrote about the ocean as
Speaker 1: a place of healing, a place of calm, she was
Speaker 1: in pain and she thought Malibu would help. Can you
Speaker 1: settle a long running question for us, Why is it
Speaker 1: called Jeffrey's not Jeffreys.
Speaker 3: You give me times people have had that argument. Settle
Speaker 3: a bet, and I'm like, Okay, I know exactly what
Speaker 3: you're talking about.
Speaker 1: This is jeff Peterson. He owns Jeoffrey's Malibu.
Speaker 3: Jeoffrey and Harvey Baskin started Jeffreys in nineteen eighty three. Yes,
Speaker 3: it should be pronounced Jeffreys, but his name was Jeoffrey.
Speaker 1: Jeff lives in a big McMansion in Malibu. When I
Speaker 1: went to see him, he was in the middle of
Speaker 1: a divorce. The place was half empty, and his two
Speaker 1: gigantic dogs were jumping all over the place. He told
Speaker 1: me he came to la in the late eighties to
Speaker 1: be an actor and started busing tables at Jeffreys. Eventually
Speaker 1: he bought the place.
Speaker 3: Lucky for me, I'm a terrible actor. Fail at one
Speaker 3: thing to do well at something else.
Speaker 1: Jeffreys is a Malibu institution. I think tourists, aging celebrities
Speaker 1: and a few Malibu regulars sipping cocktails and eating food
Speaker 1: that hasn't changed since the eighties.
Speaker 3: Well, it sits along like a cliff overlooking the ocean,
Speaker 3: and it's surrounded by gardens and water fountains and fire pits.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was talking to Chuck Woolery one time,
Speaker 3: the old dating game guy. I was Love Connection, one
Speaker 3: of those things, and he was at the restaurant filming something,
Speaker 3: and he said, you know what, this was the number
Speaker 3: one place that men would always say they take their
Speaker 3: dates because it's so romantic and relaxing. So there's a
Speaker 3: lot of anniversaries and dates and birthdays and special occasions.
Speaker 1: It's a celebrity clubhouse. The art on the walls is
Speaker 1: made by patrons like Clint Eastwood and John Travolta.
Speaker 3: Yes, we get our celebrities. I used to wait on
Speaker 3: Redford back in the day. Nicest man in the world.
Speaker 3: What a class act. So we get a combination of both,
Speaker 3: and we get presidents. So we get.
Speaker 1: Everybody in depositions they gave later. Just about everyone who
Speaker 1: interacted with my Treece at the restaurant said they noticed
Speaker 1: that something was wrong with her. The valet, for instance,
Speaker 1: he says he found my Treees sitting in his car
Speaker 1: rifling through his CDs when he asked her what she
Speaker 1: was doing. She replied, it's subliminal, and the hostess, she says,
Speaker 1: my Trees got up from the table where she'd been
Speaker 1: seated alone and joined a party of seven. Hi, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm late. Can I sit next to you? She asked
Speaker 1: one of the strangers. From what these witnesses said later,
Speaker 1: my Rice was pretty amusing, chatty, spirited, and zany, talking
Speaker 1: about her fascination with the number eight and her plans
Speaker 1: to move to Hawaii, and of course Michael Jackson. In
Speaker 1: her deposition, the hostess stated, quote, at this point, I
Speaker 1: did not make too much of the situation because during
Speaker 1: my time working in Malibu, I had encountered lots of
Speaker 1: people who were off in their behavior and personalities. Unquote.
Speaker 1: About an hour after my terse walked into Jeoffrey's, she
Speaker 1: walked out past the hostess stand to the valet. There
Speaker 1: was just one problem. She hadn't paid her bill. In
Speaker 1: his deposition, the manager says he confronted my Rise in
Speaker 1: the parking lot. When she said she couldn't pay, he
Speaker 1: took her back inside. He asked her to empty her pockets,
Speaker 1: thinking there might be a credit card or some cash
Speaker 1: in there. She pulled out a joint. Instead, the manager
Speaker 1: called Jeff, the owner.
Speaker 3: I can remember that night. I remember I was sitting
Speaker 3: on a couch, not this couch, but another couch right here.
Speaker 3: I was sucking a fair flew down. I had a
Speaker 3: cold for the best of my recollection. Calls me up.
Speaker 3: He tells me there's a lady there. They don't know
Speaker 3: if something's wrong with her, if she's mentally ill, if
Speaker 3: she's drunk, if she's high, she's only had one drink,
Speaker 3: and she's talking in gibberish, and he doesn't know what
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 1: According to law enforcement documents, when the manager confronted my
Speaker 1: Terse about paying her bill, she said quote that she
Speaker 1: was from Mars and that she was going to have
Speaker 1: sex with him unquote.
Speaker 3: So I think the managers, really they just wanted to
Speaker 3: help her, because the message I got from her was
Speaker 3: that she was a nice, sweet she wasn't threatening, she
Speaker 3: wasn't mean, but something was just very wrong. One of
Speaker 3: the concerns was that we couldn't let her go that
Speaker 3: night without calling for help, because if you let a
Speaker 3: person who's obviously something's wrong with them, and like I said,
Speaker 3: I didn't know if it was drugs or alcohol or
Speaker 3: mental illness. If you let a person go and give
Speaker 3: them their car keys and send them out under the
Speaker 3: road and they run over a child or hit a family,
Speaker 3: then people ask you the question and why do would
Speaker 3: you let this person go?
Speaker 1: At eight thirty pm, the manager told the bartender to
Speaker 1: call nine to one one.
Speaker 6: Loss Show Station deputy for Left I can help you.
Speaker 7: Hi, I'm calling from Jeffrey's Restaurant, Nalibu. We have a
Speaker 7: guest here who is refusing to pay her bill, and
Speaker 7: you think she may She sounds really crazy.
Speaker 8: She may be on.
Speaker 9: Drugs or something.
Speaker 7: We are wondering if something to come.
Speaker 6: By and pick her up in Is she a white, Black,
Speaker 6: Asian Hispanic?
Speaker 7: She's young black girls, probably in her twenties.
Speaker 10: Is she with anybody else, No, it's just her.
Speaker 1: Twenty minutes later, three Lost Hill's deputies arrived at Jeffrey's.
Speaker 1: Now the equation changed. The deputy searched my Teresa's car,
Speaker 1: supposedly looking for a form of payment, and found it
Speaker 1: was a mess full of CDs, clothes, and shoes. It
Speaker 1: was so bad they thought maybe she'd been living out
Speaker 1: of it, which was pretty accurate. In the trunk they
Speaker 1: found some handles, of vodka, a half drunk bottle of tequila,
Speaker 1: and half a case of beer, and between the two
Speaker 1: front seats they found a small bag of weed. The
Speaker 1: valet asked a deputy what was wrong with my Trees.
Speaker 1: He replied that she was quote a ding, which is
Speaker 1: cop speak for mentally ill. With the deputies, my Treuce
Speaker 1: was lovely. Later, according to investigation documents, they said that
Speaker 1: while she quote seemed slightly embarrassed, Miss Richardson was cooperative
Speaker 1: and polite unquote. The deputies gave her a field sobriety test,
Speaker 1: which she passed. My Trees was trained at keeping up appearances.
Speaker 1: She was afraid of what was happening to her mind,
Speaker 1: and she was in the midst of a crisis that
Speaker 1: was altering her sense of reality. When they asked her
Speaker 1: if she had a history of psychiatric problems, she said no. Still,
Speaker 1: she had to pay that bill. The hostess asked my
Speaker 1: Es if there was anyone she could call. My Rice
Speaker 1: gave her the number of her great grandmother, Mildred Harris.
Speaker 1: The hostess called her and asked her if she could
Speaker 1: come to the restaurant and take care of the bill.
Speaker 1: Jeoffrey's apparently had a policy, and they wouldn't take a
Speaker 1: credit card over the phone. I'm ninety one years old,
Speaker 1: Miss Harris said, I can't drive to Malibu. Then my
Speaker 1: Teres's mother, Latis, called the restaurant and spoke to a manager.
Speaker 1: Investigation documents state that Latisse told the manager her daughter
Speaker 1: had quote been spending time with persons of whom she
Speaker 1: did not approve end quote needed to learn a lesson
Speaker 1: and be taken to jail. My Teresa's offense, dine and
Speaker 1: dash or defrauding an innkeeper was misdemeanor petty theft. That's
Speaker 1: typically a citation, not a crime for which a person
Speaker 1: usually gets taken into custody. But the Jeoffrey's management didn't
Speaker 1: want my Trees leaving in her car. The cops told
Speaker 1: the manager that if he wanted them to take my
Speaker 1: Teres away, the manager would have to make a citizen's arrest.
Speaker 1: Here's how Jeff Peterson, the owner of Jeoffrey's, explains it.
Speaker 3: So what happened was and excuse my dogs there coming
Speaker 3: in the room now. The only way that we were
Speaker 3: able to get her help. The deputy told us, you
Speaker 3: have to charge. We have to be able to take
Speaker 3: her away on something because we didn't defrauding that came
Speaker 3: from them, So they told us, this is what you
Speaker 3: need to do for us to be able to get
Speaker 3: her help.
Speaker 1: There was another option, though, the deputies could have put
Speaker 1: my Rise on a seventy two hour psychiatric hold, also
Speaker 1: known as a fifty one fifty. Jeff says he had
Speaker 1: no idea.
Speaker 3: If I knew that there was other ways, like if
Speaker 3: she could be a charge on a fifty one to
Speaker 3: fifty and take infremntal evaluation and we didn't have to
Speaker 3: do that, then absolutely, why the heck would I want
Speaker 3: a charger because it has never been about eighty nine dollars.
Speaker 1: The Lost Tail's deputies executed a citizen's arrest on the
Speaker 1: dine and dash charge, and also charged my Trees with
Speaker 1: another misdemeanor for the pot in her car. Everyone, even
Speaker 1: her mother, seemed to agree she'd be better off in custody,
Speaker 1: so Anthony Lrero, the arresting officer, decided to hard book
Speaker 1: her at the Lost Tail Sheriff's station. The justification he
Speaker 1: gave his superiors is that he was worried about her,
Speaker 1: that she was quote a little ditzy, and he was
Speaker 1: uneasy about just letting her go. According to internal station
Speaker 1: correspondence written after my Trese was officially a missing person
Speaker 1: or MP quote, deputies uncomfortable with field release, no articulated reason,
Speaker 1: instinctive feeling concern for MP's welfare. Lrero put my Trease
Speaker 1: in the back of a squad car and they drove
Speaker 1: through Malibu Canyon to the station about thirteen miles away. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: her car was taken to a tow yard near Pacific
Speaker 1: Coast Highway, where it was impounded. While my Trace was
Speaker 1: in transit, deputies were preparing for her arrival. One of
Speaker 1: the deputies who had responded to the Jeoffrey's call typed
Speaker 1: a message to another deputy over the interdepartmental computer system
Speaker 1: at station in fifteen refem search. He wrote, what'd you get?
Speaker 1: His colleague typed back, defrauding an innkeeper?
Speaker 2: Lol?
Speaker 1: What did she leave without paying? Tried but failed, then
Speaker 1: had no means to pay? Citizens arrest? Why didn't you
Speaker 1: help assist her out? This exchange is callous and it
Speaker 1: has uncomfortable racial undertones. My Trace was a black female
Speaker 1: alone and in crisis in Malibu. For many, her race
Speaker 1: would be the defining factor in what happened to her,
Speaker 1: she should have been granted extra protection. But that's not
Speaker 1: what happened. What happened is that sometime on that long
Speaker 1: dark drive from the restaurant to the station, the concern
Speaker 1: for my Teres's well being that had justified her arrest
Speaker 1: in the first place seemed to vanish.
Speaker 9: I am calling. I'm a little fred that right now.
Speaker 9: Understand my daughter is being brought into the station. My
Speaker 9: Terce richard'son. Has they made it to the station yet?
Speaker 9: And she's been booked?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 11: Is do you know where she's coming from?
Speaker 9: It's some restaurant out in Malibu and I didn't even
Speaker 9: think to get the name the manager.
Speaker 11: The only place we have somebody that's in custody that
Speaker 11: they just announced on the radio that they're coming up
Speaker 11: as from Jeffrey's in Jotha Highway.
Speaker 6: It's the only female.
Speaker 11: That's bringing brought up to the station as we speak.
Speaker 11: They actually just put it on the radio right before
Speaker 11: you call them.
Speaker 1: This is a recording of a call Latise Sutton made
Speaker 1: to Lost Hill Station on the night of the arrest.
Speaker 1: It was published on the Internet shortly after my Trieste disappeared.
Speaker 9: Okay, okay, I'm her mother, and are you guys want
Speaker 9: to book her and then release her on her own
Speaker 9: RECOGNI tonight because it's just dark. She doesn't have a car,
Speaker 9: and I don't want her wandering out. I'm totally just
Speaker 9: taken aback because it is so out of character for her.
Speaker 9: And you'll see when she comes in she's well spoken.
Speaker 9: I think the only way I will come and get
Speaker 9: her tonight is if you guys are going to release
Speaker 9: her tonight.
Speaker 1: It was already late, almost ten pm. Latis lived at
Speaker 1: least an hour away from the station. She and Larry
Speaker 1: weren't living together at the time, and she couldn't leave
Speaker 1: their daughter home alone.
Speaker 9: It's going to be held in custody for some type
Speaker 9: of arraignment tomorrow. Then I will wait until tomorrow. You
Speaker 9: definitely have no place, you know. I mean, she's not
Speaker 9: from that area, and I would hate to wake up
Speaker 9: to a morning report so lost somewhere with her head
Speaker 9: chopped off. So I guess I would have to come
Speaker 9: and get her. Oh my god.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're in a gray hose.
Speaker 11: The only thing is at least in the station here
Speaker 11: she will be separated, so nobody's going to be with her. Certainly,
Speaker 11: that's you know the first thing, so you don't have
Speaker 11: to worry about her safety.
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, No, I feel safe with her being in industity.
Speaker 9: It's being released, but I'm worried about it. It's crazy out here.
Speaker 1: A short time later, the squad car carrying my Terse
Speaker 1: arrived at Lost Hill Station. She was taken to a
Speaker 1: booking cell, where she was searched and made to hand
Speaker 1: over her possessions. She was given a medical and mental
Speaker 1: health assessment and a live scan for fingerprints and other
Speaker 1: identifying details like her tattoos, to submit to law enforcement databases.
Speaker 1: Pres my Terce was always radiant, eyes lit up, dazzling smile.
Speaker 1: In the mugshot taken at Lost Hill Station that night,
Speaker 1: she looks like a different person. Her hair is messy,
Speaker 1: her skin looks waxy and tired, but really it's her eyes.
Speaker 1: The light has gone out. Lost Hills is what's known
Speaker 1: as a slow station. That night, there was just one
Speaker 1: other person in custody. My name is Charmaine Murray Henderson.
Speaker 1: I recently met Charmaine in the courtyard of a motel
Speaker 1: where she was staying.
Speaker 12: It was just me and Matries. I don't know how
Speaker 12: big the station was, but I know. It was like
Speaker 12: a little small station where they help people. They say,
Speaker 12: going for like duy. They go in until you get
Speaker 12: well enough to drive, you know, leave again like they
Speaker 12: have hold of self for that type.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 1: It was just a small it's a small station. That night,
Speaker 1: Charmaine said she'd been picked up in the valley for soliciting.
Speaker 1: Her memory's foggy, it's been a long time and over
Speaker 1: the years she's had multiple strokes, but she does remember
Speaker 1: that my Ruse was already in the cell when she arrived.
Speaker 1: I mean she was there before me.
Speaker 12: And I walked in cause she was standing like in
Speaker 12: a doorway, like I need to sit down. I'm very tired.
Speaker 12: I want to sit down. It was just me and
Speaker 12: her and the cell and she was just by the doorway,
Speaker 12: and I was like, excuse, what can I get anced
Speaker 12: I can sit down.
Speaker 1: Charmaine noticed right away that my Ruse was acting strange.
Speaker 12: From some of her like her actions and stuff. I
Speaker 12: could tell that she was not okay to be by herself.
Speaker 12: I don't a know what kind of mental state she
Speaker 12: was in, Like some people ain't okay to be by theirself.
Speaker 1: She seemed kind of vulnerable to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very vulnerable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I read somewhere that you requested to change cells.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that? Was she being.
Speaker 12: Annoying because she was like she when I understand her situation,
Speaker 12: like I'm trying to sleep if she gonna keep knocking
Speaker 12: at the door trying to like.
Speaker 1: You know, she wanted she wanted out.
Speaker 2: Come on, who arrest someone?
Speaker 12: Did you get a ticket for that? So you can
Speaker 12: go to jail for not betting to pay your meal?
Speaker 12: Who arrest someone for that? So it was like they
Speaker 12: went overboard with it, and I felt I failed her.
Speaker 12: So she was like she wanted she wanted out.
Speaker 1: She's like banging on the door, begging her.
Speaker 12: Door, like trying to get deputy, like cite me out
Speaker 12: or let me know my charges.
Speaker 1: Around eleven forty five PM, when it was determined that
Speaker 1: my Trees had no outstanding warrants, the jailer gave her
Speaker 1: the citation and told her she could go. She asked
Speaker 1: my Trees if someone was going to pick her up.
Speaker 1: My Trees said she hadn't been able to reach anyone.
Speaker 1: According to the Sheriff's Department, she had tried calling her
Speaker 1: great grandmother, Mildred Harris, with no luck. The jailer later
Speaker 1: said she offered to let my Tree stay the night
Speaker 1: in an unlocked cell or wait in the front lobby
Speaker 1: until she got a ride, but she declined, saying she
Speaker 1: had to go meet friends. Charmaine was in a different
Speaker 1: cell at this point, but she says she could hear
Speaker 1: what was going on.
Speaker 12: I guess they cited her out, But when you cite
Speaker 12: someone out, you still don't let them leave until they
Speaker 12: didn't have knowledge of a ride or they have a
Speaker 12: way to get somewhere. I mean, they can call a
Speaker 12: calf on their own something like that. You know, they
Speaker 12: wouldn't have released me in the middle of the night.
Speaker 12: I mean I would hope not, you know, because it's
Speaker 12: in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: It struck her as unusual and not okay.
Speaker 12: When I seen the news, there was like, damn, that's
Speaker 12: crazy because I was like in a cell with this
Speaker 12: woman and I was saying she's missing. I was thinking like, damn,
Speaker 12: if I would have got released like that could have
Speaker 12: been me.
Speaker 1: Over the following weeks, months, and years, the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Department would repeatedly seek to justify the release
Speaker 1: of my Terce Richardson saying that legally they did not
Speaker 1: have the right to detain her. She had no outstanding warrants,
Speaker 1: her infractions were misdemeanors, and she was not gravely disabled
Speaker 1: or in immediate danger to herself or others. That's the
Speaker 1: standard for a fifty one to fifty psychiatric hold.
Speaker 8: That's bullshit, is what that is. That's bullshit.
Speaker 1: Here's Hannah again.
Speaker 8: A young woman by herself, drives to Malibu to go
Speaker 8: to Joffrey's, an expensive restaurant in Malibu, by herself, claiming
Speaker 8: she's there to avenge Michael Jackson's death, sits with people
Speaker 8: she doesn't know, says weird things, gets arrested for her
Speaker 8: own safety, goes to the police station. All of a sudden,
Speaker 8: she's okay, that's bullshit. She wasn't okay.
Speaker 1: My Teresa's unstable mental condition was the reason deputies had
Speaker 1: taken her into custos in the first place. Remember, the
Speaker 1: arresting deputy thought she was quote a little ditzy, and
Speaker 1: he was uneasy about just letting her go. But once
Speaker 1: she got to the station, law enforcement says, my ruse
Speaker 1: was acting normal, so they had no reason to keep her.
Speaker 1: In fact, they said they were legally obligated to release her.
Speaker 1: Hannah says, that is just not possible. Anyone who interacted
Speaker 1: with my Trees would have recognized that she was in crisis.
Speaker 8: I understand that some people are thinking, oh, maybe she
Speaker 8: was on drugs, or maybe that's what it was. For
Speaker 8: me personally, it was a psychotic break that my Trace
Speaker 8: was experiencing. The drive to Malibu, the Jeoffreys, the saying
Speaker 8: she was meeting me, the talking about aliens and Michael
Speaker 8: Jackson and all that. And it is without question anybody
Speaker 8: that came into contact with my Trees, look at the mugshot.
Speaker 8: Anybody who came into any contact with her. I don't
Speaker 8: care who you are, family, neighbor, somebody who's walking past
Speaker 8: her on the street. There is a zero percent chance
Speaker 8: that they didn't know something was wrong with her mentally zero.
Speaker 1: At twelve twenty five am, my Trace left Lost Hill Station.
Speaker 1: She had no money, and her phone was in her car,
Speaker 1: which was in a towyard ten miles away on the
Speaker 1: other side of Malibu Canyon near Pacific Coast Highway.
Speaker 8: Make it make sense, It doesn't make sense. At bare minimum,
Speaker 8: they should have kept my Trees at the Sheriff's station
Speaker 8: until morning, until her mom came or somebody came to
Speaker 8: to come check on her and get her. She had nothing.
Speaker 8: They knew she was mentally unwell, which is why she
Speaker 8: was there in the first place. What they should have
Speaker 8: done is placed her on a hold and taken her
Speaker 8: to a psychiatric facility. But they can't do that because
Speaker 8: they're claiming she was fine. They're lying. It's bullshit, and
Speaker 8: if you care about my truths, you'll say what's true.
Speaker 8: That's true. They're just trying to cover their own as
Speaker 8: that's bullshit, and that really bothers me.
Speaker 1: Once she left the station, my Trees had no way
Speaker 1: to call anyone for help and no way for help
Speaker 1: to find her. All of this was news to her mother,
Speaker 1: who called the station around five twenty am on the
Speaker 1: morning of the seventeenth and was horrified to learn that
Speaker 1: her daughter was no longer there. She thought she had
Speaker 1: an agreement with the cops that they would keep my
Speaker 1: Trees overnight. Latisse was alarmed. My Trees had already been
Speaker 1: out of custody for five hours and no one in
Speaker 1: the family had heard from her. Fifteen minutes later, at
Speaker 1: five thirty five am, Latiz called Lost Hill station again
Speaker 1: to find out how to file a missing person's report.
Speaker 6: Last Hield Station bomb gardener.
Speaker 1: This recording of Latisa's call was released on the internet
Speaker 1: shortly after My Trees disappeared.
Speaker 9: Yes, Hi, my name is Latista and I called not
Speaker 9: too long ago regarding my daughter. My Trees wouldn been
Speaker 9: How long before a missing person's report can be filed
Speaker 9: at the twenty four or forty eight hours?
Speaker 6: Well, it depends on the circumstances. But I didn't take
Speaker 6: your call, so I'm not familiar with it. Did she
Speaker 6: just not return home after going out?
Speaker 1: She explains that my Trees had been in custody at
Speaker 1: Lost Hill Station and then released.
Speaker 9: She was arrested last night. This is the first time
Speaker 9: she's been arrested. She's in an unknown area she's never
Speaker 9: been in. She got out a vehicle. Nobody can find her.
Speaker 1: But the deputy doesn't seem overly concerned. He thinks Latist
Speaker 1: can hold off on the missing person's report.
Speaker 6: Yeah, normally we wouldn't. I wouldn't recommend doing one.
Speaker 9: That soon, right, What is the time frame?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 6: I guess probably twenty four hours would be reasonable. I mean,
Speaker 6: if there would be some some mitigating factors. You know,
Speaker 6: where you know, you would suspect maybe something.
Speaker 9: Well, yeah, right, she doesn't know the area. She's never
Speaker 9: been in your.
Speaker 6: Area where you where does she live?
Speaker 9: Is unfamiliar with that area?
Speaker 6: Do you think she possibly could have gotten a bus home?
Speaker 9: And listen, my child has never written a bus. No,
Speaker 9: she would not know how to ride a bus.
Speaker 6: I would probably wait till you know, early this morning,
Speaker 6: and if she doesn't turn up, you can certainly call.
Speaker 6: I don't suspect anything.
Speaker 1: Bad happen, but latist does suspect something bad has happened.
Speaker 1: So she decides to level with.
Speaker 9: Him something something is obviously going on with her. Have
Speaker 9: you tried to the jailer and yes, yes, yes, yes
Speaker 9: I have. He said he tried to get her distabled.
Speaker 9: Because she was an adult, they had to let her go.
Speaker 9: I believe that she is highly depressed, and she she's
Speaker 9: in a depressed state.
Speaker 6: You know, it could be possible that maybe she I mean,
Speaker 6: there's a lot of options and a lot of possibilities,
Speaker 6: and I don't think all of them would be you know,
Speaker 6: something dire. But I can certainly understand your fears, you know,
Speaker 6: being your daughter and all that.
Speaker 9: Well, I think she's suppressed. That's what happened.
Speaker 6: Is that that's worth more than just her Okay, that and.
Speaker 9: The fact that she's in an area where she doesn't
Speaker 9: know where she's at.
Speaker 6: It doesn't take medication at all.
Speaker 9: No, she I believe this is a state that she's in
Speaker 9: right now because of just the weird activities.
Speaker 6: What's your name is?
Speaker 9: Her name is my tree?
Speaker 6: I'll rid.
Speaker 1: In another hour around six thirty am. Bill and Karen Smith,
Speaker 1: the couple in Montanito who spotted my trees in their backyard,
Speaker 1: would call the cops office CAMPI. This is a recording
Speaker 1: of that call, which was published online.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I, hey, this is a Smith a cold Canyon.
Speaker 10: We had a prower walking around through the backyard here,
Speaker 10: but we don't know what the situation was. I don't
Speaker 10: know if you have a union in the area, might
Speaker 10: do a little drive by or something.
Speaker 1: Okay, where's this that the Smith lived at the Tennis
Speaker 1: Court House.
Speaker 10: This is Cold Canyon like ont Cold and Money and Needle.
Speaker 10: But it's in the back of the house, which is
Speaker 10: right where wood Bluff hits the Cold Canyon. And we
Speaker 10: just said, a strange woman walk up through the backyard here.
Speaker 10: It is fairly large property, and she was sitting on
Speaker 10: the steps right right on the back of the house.
Speaker 10: Here this is kind of a circular driveway and the
Speaker 10: big gates were closed, so we don't know where this
Speaker 10: woman came from.
Speaker 1: Their property, Smith said, connected to a network of trails
Speaker 1: used by everyone in the neighborhood.
Speaker 10: What she looked like white, black, and you know, a tall,
Speaker 10: slim black woman with afro hair. While she was sitting down,
Speaker 10: stretched out on the wooden steps in the back of
Speaker 10: the house. Hard to tell, but does She looked like
Speaker 10: she might have been medium to slightly tall, with a
Speaker 10: big afrol hair, very skinny, and I think she was
Speaker 10: wearing maybe jeans or tight pants with a T shirt.
Speaker 10: You've never seen her there before, No, never, Nobody never
Speaker 10: does that. I mean, the people hike on the trail
Speaker 10: all the time, you know, when the trail goes through
Speaker 10: our property, but we leave it open on purpose because
Speaker 10: it's kind of a nice thing for horses and people.
Speaker 6: And he said, she's laying across me. She wasn't laying
Speaker 6: across the steps.
Speaker 10: Or but she was sitting kind of sprawled out upon
Speaker 10: these wooden steps in the back of the house right
Speaker 10: against the back of the house. She since got up
Speaker 10: and left. She since gone. Yeah, she's been gone about
Speaker 10: five minutes now. But as we follow over, we thought
Speaker 10: maybe a little drive by wouldn't be a bad idea.
Speaker 6: And in what direction was she sheld have seen?
Speaker 3: Who?
Speaker 10: Never saw her? Once she left, she just disappeared. I
Speaker 10: moved from one window to another. I said to her,
Speaker 10: I hollered down. Are you all right? She said, I'm
Speaker 10: just resting, or something like that.
Speaker 1: According to her memoir, when Latis arrived at Lost Hill
Speaker 1: station to file a missing person's report, the deputy recognized
Speaker 1: the name my Teres Richardson. He told the tease someone
Speaker 1: who looked like her daughter had been seen in Montanito
Speaker 1: early that morning. My race, she said, might be quote
Speaker 1: with some friends in the neighborhood unquote friends in Montanito.
Speaker 1: My trees didn't have any friends in Montanito. Latis asked
Speaker 1: how to get there. The deputy told her just take
Speaker 1: Las Virgines, the road that turns into Malibu Canyon and
Speaker 1: you'll hit Cold Canyon Road. As Latis drove mile after
Speaker 1: mile of rural canyon road, no houses, no street lamps,
Speaker 1: no nothing, she thought, there's no way on earth, my
Speaker 1: daughter walked here, My trees was afraid of the dark.
Speaker 1: Next time on Lost Hills, did you have the feeling
Speaker 1: when you were dealing with people in Montanito like they
Speaker 1: wanted to tell you something but they couldn't tell you something.
Speaker 5: Yes, definitely, people just didn't want to talk. They're just
Speaker 5: afraid of law enforcement. This story by this time had
Speaker 5: broke on the news and law enforcement did not look good.
Speaker 5: They're not really in a position to talk because these
Speaker 5: are the people that they have to rely on to
Speaker 5: protect them because you know it's so secluded.
Speaker 1: That's next in episode four of Lost Hills Hopscotch. Lost
Speaker 1: Tills is written and hosted by Me Dana Goodyear. It
Speaker 1: 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
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