Speaker 1: Pushkin this spring. As we were finishing the show, my
Speaker 1: birthday rolled around again. I always associate this time of
Speaker 1: year with my trase now because it's when I learned
Speaker 1: Rick Forsberg's name. Three days before my birthday, I got
Speaker 1: a package at home. My first thought was someone sent
Speaker 1: me a gift, but it wasn't a gift. The package,
Speaker 1: from an online bookseller in England contained two copies of
Speaker 1: a book called Careless Talk Costs Lives. The picture on
Speaker 1: the cover was a drawing of two women talking, not
Speaker 1: realizing that Hitler and Gurring are sitting behind them. There
Speaker 1: was no return address and no note. I flipped open
Speaker 1: the book. It was full of propaganda posters from World
Speaker 1: War II England. But that wasn't the point. The point
Speaker 1: was the words that jumped out at me as I
Speaker 1: paged through, warning and be on your guard. I called Hayley.
Speaker 1: There were two copies, There were two women on the cover.
Speaker 1: We were two women reporting this story. We both felt
Speaker 1: this was a threat. Someone out there didn't like the
Speaker 1: direction of the reporting. Someone wanted us to stop. Over
Speaker 1: the past five years, we'd talked to so many people
Speaker 1: with so many competing agendas, cops, criminals, childhood friends of Ricks.
Speaker 1: Whoever it was, sending the package to my house was
Speaker 1: a not so subtle reminder that they knew where to
Speaker 1: find me. I went to my local police station and
Speaker 1: told the LAPD detective I met with that I was
Speaker 1: in the midst of sensitive reporting on the Mytries Richardson case,
Speaker 1: which I reminded him started as an LAPD missing person's case.
Speaker 1: The detective perked up at that. He agreed the package
Speaker 1: was meaningful. He asked to keep one of the copies
Speaker 1: of the book and my business card, and he told
Speaker 1: me essentially to be on my guard. The whole episode
Speaker 1: made me feel like we were getting closer to the truth.
Speaker 1: I'm Dana Goodyear and this is Lost Hills, Episode twelve,
Speaker 1: Dig two Graves. About six months before she disappeared, My
Speaker 1: Trees developed a new interest right before my.
Speaker 2: Trees went missing. She wanted to buy a motorcycle.
Speaker 1: This is my Teres's dad, Michael again. He says, in
Speaker 1: July two thousand and nine, my Trees had a motorcycle
Speaker 1: driving test. He wanted to go with her, but he
Speaker 1: had just started a new.
Speaker 2: Job and now was something that I regret to this
Speaker 2: day because that would have been the last thing possibly
Speaker 2: that we've done together.
Speaker 1: Haley and I are visiting Michael at home in his
Speaker 1: garage where he has a kind of shrine set up
Speaker 1: to the memory of my Trees and what happened to her.
Speaker 1: There are collages of family photos and framed articles about
Speaker 1: her disappearance. The garage is where he keeps his white
Speaker 1: sixty six Chevy with the portrait of my Trese on
Speaker 1: the trunk, and where he also keeps the front piece
Speaker 1: of the orange and cream color to Harley Davidson he
Speaker 1: bought in her honor after she died. Just like the car,
Speaker 1: the Harley has a portrait of My Trees painted on it.
Speaker 2: My friends teased me because they was like this dude
Speaker 2: never rode them any bike, never had a scooter.
Speaker 3: And when he.
Speaker 2: Came, he came with a fifty thousand dollars motorcycle, custom built,
Speaker 2: ready to ride, and the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But we're not here to see the motorcycle or the car.
Speaker 1: We're here because Michael told us he has a bag
Speaker 1: full of My Trees's clothing. He found the clothing in
Speaker 1: her car. It was there when she disappeared. It's been
Speaker 1: packed away in the garage untouched for almost fifteen years.
Speaker 1: He's never opened it.
Speaker 2: It's in a ziplock bag, and some just told me,
Speaker 2: never get rid of and I couldn't do it if
Speaker 2: I wanted to, you know, So I just always felt
Speaker 2: like someday somehow were gonna need him, We're gonna need him,
Speaker 2: and so I kept him in a plastic ziplock bag.
Speaker 2: I know we'll see, yeah, So let me know when
Speaker 2: you're ready.
Speaker 1: Michael heads for the back corner of the garage where
Speaker 1: he has some metal shelves. He pulls down one of
Speaker 1: those clear plastic bags for storing pillows.
Speaker 3: Is you know we have this same that this girl
Speaker 3: wants the will to know who did this.
Speaker 1: When we see the clothing through the bag, something unexpected happens.
Speaker 4: Gosh, Michael, I am feeling emotional.
Speaker 5: Seeing the s into.
Speaker 1: There's just something about seeing this man hold his daughter's
Speaker 1: belongings in his arms. It's what's left of her from
Speaker 1: that night, what she had with her in her car
Speaker 1: when she is arrested. It's who she was until the
Speaker 1: moment her identity flattened out into victim. We're closer to
Speaker 1: my trees than we've ever been, as close as we'll
Speaker 1: ever get. We walk out to the driveway and Michael
Speaker 1: sits down in a folding chair. We put on our
Speaker 1: N ninety five's and gloves and get to work. I
Speaker 1: unzip the bag and start removing its contents. Some of
Speaker 1: the clothes and shoes were clearly part of my Trees's
Speaker 1: Go Go dancing wardrobe. A glove, a strip of purple
Speaker 1: sequined cloth, tall boots, strappy heels. So this is like
Speaker 1: a patent leather. Do you think she would wear this
Speaker 1: at Debra's?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: I line everything up on the pavement.
Speaker 4: One two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine pairs
Speaker 4: of shoes, which includes three pairs of boots, one of
Speaker 4: which are uggs, and then there are one of those
Speaker 4: is flip flaps.
Speaker 1: The rest are high heels. Deeper in the bag we
Speaker 1: find my Trece's makeup kit. Inside it's a tangle of
Speaker 1: chunky beads and brightly colored hoop earrings, and buried in
Speaker 1: there in a tangled knot, is the thing we've been
Speaker 1: looking for.
Speaker 6: That looks like it might be underwear or something that
Speaker 6: striped underneath?
Speaker 7: See that little right does striped?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yes, you're right, good, good that is underwear.
Speaker 1: Can I have a plastic bag? Its size, medium, purple
Speaker 1: and black stripes mesh very similar to some of the
Speaker 1: items we found inside the suitcase at Rick's Fort. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it seems a lot more likely that
Speaker 1: one of the pairs of Fort underwear could be my Treces.
Speaker 1: We bag up the thong along with a purple hair
Speaker 1: brush filled with my Teresa's hair. Michael says we can
Speaker 1: have them tested for DNA. He's willing to do anything
Speaker 1: at this point.
Speaker 2: I can't get a case close if I'm limited to
Speaker 2: what I give you, guys. I have to be open
Speaker 2: to like here, you're taking this serious, so I want
Speaker 2: you guys to have it.
Speaker 1: The handling of my Teresa's clothing from the remain site
Speaker 1: was completely botched. Nothing was even tested till after her
Speaker 1: body was exhumed, a year after the discovery. We don't
Speaker 1: know exactly what was done at that point, but nothing
Speaker 1: came of it. We're hoping that through forensic evidence, we
Speaker 1: can place my Teres at Rick's Fort. It's a long shot,
Speaker 1: but finding that stuff at the fort was so improbable
Speaker 1: we have to try. Angela Butler is a DNA analyst
Speaker 1: at a private forensics lab in the Bay Area.
Speaker 6: I typically take the most challenging cases lab. Right now,
Speaker 6: I'm doing a lot of cold cases.
Speaker 1: Her lab works with cops, prosecutors, and innocence projects, handling
Speaker 1: a lot of high profile cases, The Nightstalker, Richard Ramirez,
Speaker 1: Scott Peterson, Kristen Smart, and now my Terce Richardson. With
Speaker 1: Michael's permission, we sent my Teresa's hairbrush to Butler. We
Speaker 1: also sent the two size medium black thongs we found
Speaker 1: at Rick's fort. If she could get my Teresa's DNA
Speaker 1: from the hairbrush and DNA from the fort underwear, she'd
Speaker 1: be able to compare the profiles there could be a match.
Speaker 1: She started with the hairbrush.
Speaker 6: So I took a few swabs and I really got
Speaker 6: into the base of those bristles, and there was plenty
Speaker 6: of material that was visible on the swabs, and I thought, great,
Speaker 6: this will be enough to get me something.
Speaker 1: But when Butler analyzed it, the material was very degraded
Speaker 1: and there was almost no DNA.
Speaker 6: I would have wanted to see at least ten times
Speaker 6: as much DNA to get at least a partial profile,
Speaker 6: and the quality was very poor.
Speaker 1: That was disappointing. But we could potentially build out my
Speaker 1: Terrees's DNA profile a different way, particularly if her dad
Speaker 1: was willing to help. So Butler moved on to see what,
Speaker 1: if anything she could get from the fort underwear. We'd
Speaker 1: warned her it was muddy, moldy, and damp, and as
Speaker 1: far as we knew, had been outside for more than
Speaker 1: a decade. She started with the pair that was most
Speaker 1: similar to the pair that my Teres had in her car,
Speaker 1: the black thong size medium with the rampage label.
Speaker 6: Well, though when those came out of the bag, those
Speaker 6: were still wet. I know that bacterial degradation is probably
Speaker 6: actively happening, so right out of the gate, I thought,
Speaker 6: oh boy, this isn't good.
Speaker 1: She sampled the crotch area, extracted the DNA and found
Speaker 1: only a tiny amount.
Speaker 6: Such a trace amount, it was the equivalent of a sells.
Speaker 8: Worth of DNA.
Speaker 1: There was nowhere near enough DNA to identify an individual.
Speaker 1: We'd struck out. We didn't have the resources to test
Speaker 1: the rest of the Fort underwear, but Butler encouraged us
Speaker 1: not to throw away what we'd found, so I called
Speaker 1: the cold case desk at the Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau again.
Speaker 1: They could test it all if they wanted to. The
Speaker 1: last time, I spoke to Lieutenant Michael Modica, who's in
Speaker 1: charge of the cold case unit. He wasn't interested in
Speaker 1: hearing about any of our discovery, but he did say
Speaker 1: to get in touch if we had any luck with
Speaker 1: the forensics. I feel like I owe him an answer,
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping to convince him to take the stash
Speaker 1: of underwear from rix Ford and do something with it.
Speaker 8: Lieutenant Michael Modica.
Speaker 5: Is not available record your message at the tone. Hi,
Speaker 5: Lieutenant Modica, this is Dana Goodyear from the Lost House podcast.
Speaker 5: I left word for you on Monday regarding the Mitries
Speaker 5: Richardson case and some materials that I have mentioned to you.
Speaker 5: We've come to the end of the road with what
Speaker 5: we can do, and I'm just wondering if you might
Speaker 5: have any interests. I think that potentially law enforcement would
Speaker 5: be able to take this further than we could using
Speaker 5: a credit lab.
Speaker 1: I'm still waiting for him to call me back, but
Speaker 1: in the meantime we get a big surprise. Mark Wallace,
Speaker 1: Rix's firefighter friend calls me. Rick stayed at Mark's place
Speaker 1: on and off between two thousand and nine, when Rick
Speaker 1: got out of prison. In twenty twelve, when he was
Speaker 1: investigated again by the Sheriff's Department homicide detectives in the
Speaker 1: disappearance and death of my Teres Richardson. Mark's supposed to
Speaker 1: be the guy who knows what happened, and now Mark
Speaker 1: wants to talk. Mark Wallace dodged us for almost a year.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until we sent him a formal write of
Speaker 1: reply letter telling him what we were planning to report
Speaker 1: about Rick Forsberg and the goings on at the Wallypad
Speaker 1: that he relented and said we could come over, but
Speaker 1: we're just talking for now. He doesn't want us to
Speaker 1: record in case we might be caught. The first thing
Speaker 1: that happens when we get to the Walipad is Mark
Speaker 1: has us move our cars. We've parked them at an
Speaker 1: intersection near his house. That's the place he tells us
Speaker 1: that the cops set up surveillance cameras back when Rick
Speaker 1: was crashing in his basement. The homicide detectives had shown
Speaker 1: him a big portfolio of photos of Rick and some
Speaker 1: of their other derelict friends doing speedballs in their car.
Speaker 1: Right there, is it any wonder Mark's a little paranoid.
Speaker 1: Mar's in his sixties, boyish and wiry with a jumpy energy.
Speaker 1: He retired as a fire captain in January. His mother,
Speaker 1: who has dementia, lives next door. Lisa Goldman, Mark's wife,
Speaker 1: says she used to get the chills when Rick came around.
Speaker 1: Spooky is the word she uses. Psycho is what Mark says,
Speaker 1: afraid of no One drunk and high every single day
Speaker 1: of his life. They show us the little basement room
Speaker 1: where Rick would stay. Back then it had a dirt floor.
Speaker 1: Mark says that's where Raven made her video interview and
Speaker 1: where Rick choked Lisa Lapour and he says, almost broke
Speaker 1: her neck. Mark tells us the footprints found outside his
Speaker 1: house are a red herring. The first indication he had
Speaker 1: that Rick was connected to my Teresa's death was when
Speaker 1: her body was discovered in Dark Canyon. The rangers said
Speaker 1: they were checking on a previously disrupted marijuana operation, presumably
Speaker 1: something large scale, but Mark says when he saw the
Speaker 1: helicopter hovering over Dark Canyon, his first thought was, oh fuck,
Speaker 1: they're rating Rick's patch. Rick had been growing weed in
Speaker 1: Dark Canyon since they were boys. No One dared go
Speaker 1: in there. Rick had the place booby trapped, so when
Speaker 1: a woman's body turned up there, Mark immediately suspected. Mark
Speaker 1: says Rick was a total charmer, the guy who always
Speaker 1: had the prettiest girlfriend, and he says, could talk the
Speaker 1: pants off any chick. Hey, Darlin, that's what he'd say.
Speaker 1: But then he'd lose his temper over nothing and choke
Speaker 1: them out psycho. So Mark always had his suspicions. But
Speaker 1: he tells us it's not like he has some smoking gun,
Speaker 1: some big confession from Rick. Mark says, quote. The Mitrice
Speaker 1: Richardson case has everything except proof it's true. The case
Speaker 1: against Rick Forsberg is purely circumstantial at this point, but
Speaker 1: enough circumstantial evidence can close a case. So here is
Speaker 1: what we know and what we don't. We know Rick
Speaker 1: got out of prison in July two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: and returned to Montanito two months before My Trees turned
Speaker 1: up there. We don't know how my Trees got from
Speaker 1: Lost Hill Station to Montanito. The timing is such that
Speaker 1: she could have walked, though her mother thought that was unlikely.
Speaker 1: We know Rick had access to a motorcycle, and he
Speaker 1: said he picked my Trees up. We don't know where
Speaker 1: or when the motorcycle could help explain my Trees's disappearing
Speaker 1: scent and non continuous footprints. We know my Trees loitered
Speaker 1: outside Mark Wallace's house around the time of her disappearance.
Speaker 1: We don't know if Rick was at Marx at the time,
Speaker 1: and we have no evidence that my Trees went onto
Speaker 1: Mark's property. We know Rick knew how to get into
Speaker 1: Dark Canyon, where my Trece's remains were found. We know
Speaker 1: my Trees liked motorcycles and smoking pot, and that she
Speaker 1: was in an altered state where her normal decision making
Speaker 1: processes may have been suspended. Not to mention, she was
Speaker 1: probably growing desperate. She may have been hungry, thirsty, and
Speaker 1: looking for help. Hey, Darling, we don't know if my
Speaker 1: Teres went willingly into Dark Canyon. We don't know why
Speaker 1: her remains were partially mummified. Was that due to the
Speaker 1: fluctuating temperatures and soil conditions in Dark Canyon, or does
Speaker 1: it indicate her remains were kept somewhere else then moved.
Speaker 1: We know my Teres's death was suspicious. A young woman
Speaker 1: naked in a canyon, half her clothes missing, The rest
Speaker 1: of them scattered her belt out of her belt loops.
Speaker 1: We don't know how My Trees died. Her death could
Speaker 1: have been an accident. What if she was hanging out
Speaker 1: with Rick Forsberg and fell or overdosed. The autopsy, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: was inconclusive. There wasn't enough so off tissue left. We
Speaker 1: do know it's highly improbable that my Trees died from
Speaker 1: gunshot or knife wound or blunt force trauma. No indications
Speaker 1: of trauma were observed, and the comment Lisa Lapore repeated
Speaker 1: about Rick cutting her up. If such a remark was made,
Speaker 1: it was probably not literal. There was nothing on my
Speaker 1: Teres's bones to indicate dismemberment, though according to the forensic
Speaker 1: pathologist who conducted the autopsy, her throat could have been cut.
Speaker 1: Without soft tissue, there would be no way to know
Speaker 1: was my Trees strangled. If investigators had found her hyoid
Speaker 1: bone and it had been broken, that could have been definitive.
Speaker 1: But it was never found, so we don't know if
Speaker 1: my Truce was strangled. We do know Rick said he
Speaker 1: picked her up. We do know Rick had a history
Speaker 1: of violence against women. We do know he had a
Speaker 1: history of strangling women.
Speaker 9: We know when it comes to strangulation. Strangulation is a
Speaker 9: gender crime.
Speaker 1: Gail Strack is a former prosecutor and an expert on
Speaker 1: strangulation in cases of domestic violence. She says strangulation is
Speaker 1: typically a prelude to murder.
Speaker 9: If you look at the continual of violence, strangulation is
Speaker 9: at the end of just before a homicide.
Speaker 1: The act of strangling and the act of strangling to
Speaker 1: death are essentially the same.
Speaker 9: And when somebody is willing to put their hands around
Speaker 9: someone's neck and especially take them to the point where
Speaker 9: they pass out they think they're going to die, it
Speaker 9: is a calling card of a killer. It is a
Speaker 9: killer raising his hand and saying I am willing and
Speaker 9: capable of killing someone.
Speaker 1: Strangulation is one of the easiest forms of homicide to
Speaker 1: commit and to cover up.
Speaker 8: It only takes eleven pounds of pressure. Is really nothing.
Speaker 1: Doctor Bill Smock, a sworn police officer and an expert
Speaker 1: in forensic medicine, says strangulation can pose a challenge to
Speaker 1: law enforcement. It's a crime that can leave no marks,
Speaker 1: and it requires surprisingly little strength.
Speaker 8: If you think an adult male handshake generates one hundred
Speaker 8: pounds of pressure, one tenth of that. It's all that's
Speaker 8: required to include blood float to the brain via the
Speaker 8: carotid arteries.
Speaker 1: Doctor Smock was one of the key experts to testify
Speaker 1: in the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the police officer found
Speaker 1: guilty of killing George Floyd.
Speaker 8: If you apply a bicep and forearm to the human deck,
Speaker 8: you have a large surface area where that pressure is applied. Again,
Speaker 8: it can be applied in such a manner even with
Speaker 8: more than eleven pounds of pressure, and you will never
Speaker 8: leave a mark.
Speaker 1: We talk about the specifics of my Teresa's case and
Speaker 1: what seems to me the glaringly inadequate explanation law enforcement
Speaker 1: gave about her death. Their view that being mentally ill,
Speaker 1: she probably just chose to die.
Speaker 8: And that's totally bs. We call those a diagnosis of
Speaker 8: exclusion once she ruled out everything else. But clearly a
Speaker 8: woman who has found dead and naked is high on
Speaker 8: the suspicious list.
Speaker 1: The circumstances of my Teresa's death, doctor Smock says, suggest
Speaker 1: a homicide.
Speaker 8: You have to assume that it's a homicide till proven otherwise. Plus,
Speaker 8: you have her clothes are away from the body, the
Speaker 8: belt is out was the belt used as a weapon.
Speaker 8: Whose DNA is on that belt? Why is it out
Speaker 8: of the pants? Things that you have to explain. You
Speaker 8: can't say, Oh, she took her clothes off and went
Speaker 8: over there and laid down to die. No, twenty four
Speaker 8: year olds can't lie down and will yourself to die.
Speaker 3: And so it's just kind of weird for me to
Speaker 3: be saying it.
Speaker 1: But finally, Mark Wallace is ready for us to hit record.
Speaker 3: All right, well are you recording hours? And let me sure?
Speaker 1: Let's see for more than two hours, Haley and I
Speaker 1: have been sitting by his pool. It's a beautiful spot
Speaker 1: looking out over the Santa Monica Mountains and the backside
Speaker 1: of Dark Canyon. Mark thinks of his pool as a
Speaker 1: swimming hole and the big boulder, which Rick placed for him,
Speaker 1: as a diving rock, like the spots they found in
Speaker 1: the canyon creeks when they were boys. Mark's got deep
Speaker 1: loyalty to Rick and to the way they were raised
Speaker 1: in Montanito. He's not sure what he might be risking
Speaker 1: by talking to us.
Speaker 10: So the cops could listen to me decide they want
Speaker 10: to fuck with me, My friends could listen to me,
Speaker 10: and I think I'm a rat or a something else,
Speaker 10: you know.
Speaker 1: But he also has a little more information about Rick,
Speaker 1: and in spite of his reluctance, he's going to share.
Speaker 3: It, all right, So what do you want?
Speaker 1: I want to hear the story of what happened when
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's homicide detectives interviewed Mark about Rick back in
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, when Rick was crashing in his basement. They
Speaker 1: spoke to him for five hours in a conference room
Speaker 1: at his firehouse, and at the end they asked him
Speaker 1: for his help because they knew Rick was violent.
Speaker 10: They told me they wanted to take Rick in for questioning,
Speaker 10: and that last time he was taken in, he fought
Speaker 10: the cops and he broke one's arm or leg or
Speaker 10: something thing, and then he also biddle holding another one's
Speaker 10: chest fighting him and then so they didn't want to
Speaker 10: have that happen again, so they wanted me to smooth
Speaker 10: the way for Rick to be interviewed and to get
Speaker 10: a light detector test.
Speaker 1: Mark went home and told Rick that the homicide detectives
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to him about the disappearance and possible
Speaker 1: murder of my Teres Richardson. Mark says Rick gasped.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 10: He was like, oh my god, like the cops, what
Speaker 10: the cops are fucking got me down as the as
Speaker 10: a suspect.
Speaker 3: They want to talk to me about it, you know?
Speaker 3: And I mean he didn't. He just Rick has a
Speaker 3: way of like just kind of like.
Speaker 10: Looking through you and sometimes and he kind of like
Speaker 10: got the information from me, and then he was off
Speaker 10: in his own mind like trying to figure out what
Speaker 10: he's going to do about it.
Speaker 3: He freaked out.
Speaker 10: And started grabbing for his phone, like, I got to
Speaker 10: call Steve right now.
Speaker 1: Rick called Steve Gilbert, another Montanito boy who has since died,
Speaker 1: but he didn't reach him.
Speaker 10: He left Steve a message right in front of me
Speaker 10: and said, Steve, the cops think I murdered somebody. And
Speaker 10: then he said, I got stuff. I got to get
Speaker 10: out of the out of my place.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it was.
Speaker 1: Mark was disturbed by Rick's reaction and alarmed by his
Speaker 1: reference to removing apparently incriminating evidence from his fort.
Speaker 10: And he was freaked out, like and I said, wait,
Speaker 10: why you know what are you talking about? You got
Speaker 10: to get stuff? And then I said do you know
Speaker 10: something about this?
Speaker 1: Then Mark says Rick told him a story he'd never
Speaker 1: told him before, that he'd seen my Trace on the
Speaker 1: morning of her disappearance two and a half years earlier.
Speaker 10: And then he proceeded to tell me that he had
Speaker 10: been walking down the hill from his place up on
Speaker 10: Payuma and he heard an argument and he heard some
Speaker 10: female voice y'all, fuck y'all, and so he's like, well,
Speaker 10: there's black people in Montnito.
Speaker 1: Mark says. Rick told him my rise was arguing but
Speaker 1: the owner of the Tennis court House.
Speaker 10: And he was basically running her out of his property,
Speaker 10: telling her to get off my property, and she was
Speaker 10: pissed off or whatever and started walking up Pauma. I said, well,
Speaker 10: what did you do when she came walking up the road,
Speaker 10: and he said, oh, I just faded back into the bushes.
Speaker 10: So he basically, in that conversation there told me that
Speaker 10: he was the last person that saw my Trice Richard's alive,
Speaker 10: because I don't know of anybody else that saw her
Speaker 10: after she walked out of the Smith's property.
Speaker 1: Mark believes Rick's story in Criminals Him. Rick told Mark
Speaker 1: he watched my Terse leave the Tennis court House and
Speaker 1: walk up Payuma Road. Rick told Jill he picked my
Speaker 1: Trese up on his motorcycle. Rick's stories are inconsistent, but
Speaker 1: in both of them, Rick makes himself the last person
Speaker 1: to see my Terse alive. Mark says his suspicions of
Speaker 1: Rick are rooted in three facts. One, my Teresa's remains
Speaker 1: are found in dark Canyon, Rick's longtime grow spot. Two,
Speaker 1: Rix the last person to see her alive. And three,
Speaker 1: when Rick finds out that homicide detectives suspect him in
Speaker 1: my Teresa's disappearance and death, he urgently needs to remove
Speaker 1: something from his fort.
Speaker 10: Just the way that he took the information and started
Speaker 10: saying he had to get rid of something out of
Speaker 10: his camp freaked me out, like what like some bones
Speaker 10: or something, or some her underwear or something, I don't know.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 10: He was, you know, like I got to go clean
Speaker 10: up a bunch of stuff and get ready for tomorrow,
Speaker 10: and then he did.
Speaker 1: Mark says Rick dressed carefully for his polygraph. Rick cleaned
Speaker 1: up well, and he never lost his golden boy confidence.
Speaker 10: When he left to go to his interview, he was
Speaker 10: dressed in white shirt and fancy clothes and looked like
Speaker 10: he was going off to a party on a yacht
Speaker 10: or something, and I don't remember what happened when he
Speaker 10: came home. He just told me, yeah, I passed the
Speaker 10: light detecer test, and I don't know what else to say.
Speaker 1: Mark told us Rick had a lifelong strategy for getting
Speaker 1: out of trouble. One he taught all the Montinito boys.
Speaker 10: Told us like, you don't ever admit guilt, no matter
Speaker 10: what you do. Just stick to your story even if
Speaker 10: you're guilty, and there's always going to be one juror
Speaker 10: that'll believe you.
Speaker 3: He said, Just just never admit to anything. And I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 10: I guess it worked out for him because he didn't
Speaker 10: get prosecuted. They basically just let him go.
Speaker 1: But the people closest to my trace believe there's more
Speaker 1: than one form of justice. I'm glad that it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful day for my Terce's birthday. I'm a long way
Speaker 1: from Malibu. It's nine am, and the Flower District in
Speaker 1: downtown La is bustling. There are buckets of flowers and
Speaker 1: vendors on every street corner. Hayley and I are here
Speaker 1: to meet Jewel Moore, one of my Teresa's closest friends.
Speaker 11: That was like the weather's nice. It was raining all
Speaker 11: last week. It's supposed to be so hot this week,
Speaker 11: so I'm really excited.
Speaker 1: It's April thirtieth, my Teresa's birthday.
Speaker 11: She would have been thirty nine, which is so crazy
Speaker 11: going through the pictures. I did my annual Facebook Instagram
Speaker 11: posts and trying not to get chopped up, but just
Speaker 11: seeing us so young and happy at prom and homecoming,
Speaker 11: and you just think like we would have been celebrating
Speaker 11: this the last year, your thirties.
Speaker 1: Every year since my Teresa's disappearance, Jewel has celebrated her birthday.
Speaker 11: Which ones are the biggest? I like those ones?
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: She always starts with a big bouquet of sunflowers.
Speaker 11: Thank you, thank you, so pretty.
Speaker 1: Jule says she's reserved the afternoon for my teres. She
Speaker 1: might go to the beach or take a dance class.
Speaker 11: I just do whatever she does, like whatever she would do.
Speaker 11: I'm like, just follow my Teresa's essence. Just let me
Speaker 11: get through the work meetings and the day is yours girl.
Speaker 1: We decided to stop for a cup of coffee.
Speaker 9: Yes, I'm going to do watering coffee. That is perfect.
Speaker 1: Yes, movies, I asked Jule What does she think my
Speaker 1: teres would be doing at this point in her life.
Speaker 11: I think about that all the time. I'm like, would
Speaker 11: she be a teacher?
Speaker 7: Would she be married?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 11: What would be going on? Also?
Speaker 7: Like society has changed so.
Speaker 11: Much since then, So I'm like, you know, would she
Speaker 11: have embraced her sexuality? Like? What other things would she be?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: I have some jewels shows us the posts she made
Speaker 1: on Instagram today, A collage of photos of her and
Speaker 1: my trees.
Speaker 11: Today we celebrate you. Your light will forever shine bright
Speaker 11: and never be dimmed. No one will ever be able
Speaker 11: to take away the amazing daughter or sister, in person
Speaker 11: and friend that you are. I often think of all
Speaker 11: the last we shared, what amazing things you would be
Speaker 11: doing right now and how you would be positively changing
Speaker 11: this crazy world with your gifts and talents. Sunflowers, Reggaetone
Speaker 11: and Donnie Hathaway will fill the room, along with prayers
Speaker 11: that whoever cut your life short will get the justice.
Speaker 1: Baby Zert, what would justice for my terrace look like now?
Speaker 1: The Sheriff's department basically declared her case unsolvable as soon
Speaker 1: as her remains were found. I don't think the lost
Speaker 1: Hill's deputies or anyone from the Sheriff's department had any
Speaker 1: direct involvement with my Teres's death. But the rumors that
Speaker 1: have always lingered around their culpability are not entirely baseless,
Speaker 1: because even if they weren't responsible, they contributed to her
Speaker 1: disappearance and then they failed to solve her death. It's
Speaker 1: as if knowing that my race was in the midst
Speaker 1: of a mental health crisis, law enforcement allowed that to
Speaker 1: explain her death, instead of thinking her mental state made
Speaker 1: her more vulnerable to a predator. No matter how accomplished,
Speaker 1: how ambitious, how full of life my race was, she
Speaker 1: was only an outsider in Malibu. There are very few
Speaker 1: black people in Malibu, especially in Montanito, and I do
Speaker 1: think my Teresa's race is a core reason her case
Speaker 1: hasn't been solved. I've had current and former officers tell
Speaker 1: me privately that to summon law enforcement, the death of
Speaker 1: a mentally ill black woman needs no further explanation, almost
Speaker 1: like what did she expect would happen? Showing up that
Speaker 1: way in Malibu? And then you have Rick Forsberg, half
Speaker 1: California Golden Boy, half monster. As much as he hated
Speaker 1: and was hated by the cops in Malibu. As much
Speaker 1: pain as he inflicted, as much as he took from
Speaker 1: the beautiful place he grew up, he was still more
Speaker 1: protected than my Trice could ever be. So what would
Speaker 1: justice look like? Practically? To solve the case would require
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Modica from Homicide to assign a new investigator who
Speaker 1: would interview and reinterview everyone associated with it in an
Speaker 1: attempt to answer some of the questions that are still
Speaker 1: gaps for us. It would take thorough forensic processing of
Speaker 1: Rick's fort, including DNA testing of everything we collected. That
Speaker 1: former LAPD cold case detective I talked to, who basically
Speaker 1: said this was a lost cause, told me that to
Speaker 1: solve the case, I'd need to find a retired Sheriff's
Speaker 1: Department homicide detective who'd taken home the case file and
Speaker 1: hated the department enough to leak it to me. I disagree.
Speaker 1: I think it would just take one current homicide investigator
Speaker 1: who believes in what the Sheriff's Department is supposed to
Speaker 1: stand for. But the department has rebuffed every single overture
Speaker 1: we've made, from fact finding to fact checking to fact sharing.
Speaker 1: They have my number. If they want to call. We
Speaker 1: packed up my Teresa's hairbrush and a few other items
Speaker 1: of hers we'd borrowed from Michael and brought them back
Speaker 1: to him. It was hard telling him that we didn't
Speaker 1: get the answer we'd all wanted so badly. But Michael
Speaker 1: has a broader view of crime and punishment than he
Speaker 1: once did. He tells us he used to dream of
Speaker 1: facing off against my Teresa's killer in a courtroom, whoever
Speaker 1: he was, and attacking him with his bare hands.
Speaker 2: And for some reason, I said to myself, I can
Speaker 2: always hear my child saying to me that it's not
Speaker 2: even worth it.
Speaker 1: Michael no longer wants revenge.
Speaker 2: The universe will handle it because everyone who's done something
Speaker 2: bad to me, mistreated me, took advantage of me, and
Speaker 2: whatever I have been, I don't want to say blessed,
Speaker 2: but I have seen them in their demise. Karma doesn't
Speaker 2: work right away, or people will stop doing bad things.
Speaker 2: But if you have the patience to wait, if you're blessed,
Speaker 2: you will see it happen to him. You cannot put
Speaker 2: negative in this world and expect positive returns.
Speaker 1: He believes his daughter was the victim of a murderer
Speaker 1: who never paid for his heinous crime. But he says
Speaker 1: my trace wasn't the only victim.
Speaker 2: And an ancient proverb says, if you kill a person,
Speaker 2: dig two graves because you're next.
Speaker 1: A murderer destroys his own life too, and that may
Speaker 1: be the best justice. I'm Dana Goodyear. This has been
Speaker 1: Lost Hill's season four Dark Canyon. Way back in episode one,
Speaker 1: the forensic pathologist in my Teresa's case told us, despite everything,
Speaker 1: my Teresa's case is still solvable. It will just take
Speaker 1: the right information.
Speaker 7: If there was foul play involved, someone could confess. You
Speaker 7: never know, could be deathbed confession. Maybe they'll raid somewhere
Speaker 7: someplace and they'll find pictures of her. But anything is possible.
Speaker 7: Sometimes killers will save souvenirs that can be recognized as
Speaker 7: something from the person. Anything like that could happen.
Speaker 1: We've spoken with a lot of people about my Terse
Speaker 1: and about Rick Forsberg, and I know there are still
Speaker 1: more people with more information. This message is for them.
Speaker 1: We've set up a phone number you can call or text.
Speaker 1: It's two one, three three four six oh five OHO.
Speaker 1: There's also an email you can write too. Lost Hills
Speaker 1: at Western dashsound dot com Lost Hill's Dark Canyon is
Speaker 1: hosted and written by Me Dana Goodyear. The creators and
Speaker 1: executive producers of Lost Hills are Me and Ben Adair.
Speaker 1: The show was reported by Me and Hailey Fox. Hailey
Speaker 1: Fox is also the senior producer. Ben Adair and Colin
Speaker 1: McNulty edited the show. Stella Hartman is the associate producer.
Speaker 1: The production team also includes Sabrina Fang, Sarah Deeley, and
Speaker 1: Savannah Wright. Fact checking is by a len Werner. Original composition,
Speaker 1: sound design and mixing is by Alex McGinnis. The Lost
Speaker 1: Hills theme is by Dan Leone. Our cover art is
Speaker 1: by Francesca Gabiani. The voice of my Terse Richardson was
Speaker 1: read by Pepa Voss from Pushkin Industries. Additional story consulting
Speaker 1: is by Sophie Crane and Leela Day. The executive producer
Speaker 1: from Pushkin is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to the Pushkin
Speaker 1: team Eric Sandler, Kira Posey, Jordan McMillan, Sean Carney, Jake Flanagan,
Speaker 1: Christina Sullivan, Carrie Brody, Sarah Nix and Greta Cone. Lost
Speaker 1: Hills is a production of Western Sound and Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: You can sign up for Westernsounds Newsletter at Western Dashsound
Speaker 1: dot com. Pushkin's newsletter is at pushkin dot fm. Follow
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Speaker 1: to rate and review the show in your podcast app.
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