Speaker 1: We're on what March April me June, so we're going
Speaker 1: on the fourth month of quarantine of the pandemic. I'm
Speaker 1: an audio journalist and a few years ago I decided
Speaker 1: to do this assignment with some friends. It was a
Speaker 1: kind of assignment where we had to turn around a
Speaker 1: story in twenty four hours. We were talking on the phone,
Speaker 1: just spit bawling ideas and just overall talking about how
Speaker 1: we were feeling in twenty twenty. I was only recording
Speaker 1: my side of the conversation, so all you hear on
Speaker 1: the tape is me. And there's one thing I haven't
Speaker 1: done in so long that I completely miss and that's dancing.
Speaker 1: Like I have moved in this like grinding dancing way,
Speaker 1: which sounds really we were to say out loud, and
Speaker 1: then one of the people I'm talking to brought something
Speaker 1: up I had mentioned in passing about my time and
Speaker 1: a party crew. I haven't really talked a lot about it.
Speaker 1: When I do talk about it, it's usually like a
Speaker 1: ha ha, I was part of a part of this
Speaker 1: party crew, haha, Like you know, we had little signs
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, But it doesn't really ever get
Speaker 1: deep where I'm talking about how dangerous it was. When
Speaker 1: I was a teen in the mid two thousands, I
Speaker 1: was part of a party scene. A bunch of my
Speaker 1: girlfriends and I we formed a group and we called
Speaker 1: ourselves a party crew. The party crew scene was all
Speaker 1: underground parties. We were party in backyards and warehouses, setting
Speaker 1: up a dance floor wherever we could. And what made
Speaker 1: it unique is that it wasn't just me and my
Speaker 1: friends who were into this. There were hundreds, maybe thousands
Speaker 1: of mostly Latin X teens all across LA in the scene,
Speaker 1: in places like La South Central and the Sangiarbo Valley
Speaker 1: where I grew up. My parents are both from Peru.
Speaker 1: They came to the US in the mid eighties, and
Speaker 1: growing up we had some rules. As a student, my
Speaker 1: parents had high expectations of me, no bad grades, nothing
Speaker 1: below a bee. And when I started high school, I
Speaker 1: had a curfew. I had to be home by nine.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, those are typical rules for a
Speaker 1: lot of kids, especially for kids of immigrants, but when
Speaker 1: you're the oldest and the first in your family born
Speaker 1: in this country, the stakes automatically feel higher. And in
Speaker 1: my house it felt like there was this other extra layer.
Speaker 1: My mom is religious. She grew up evangelical as a
Speaker 1: teen in Peru, so when it was time to raise me,
Speaker 1: she raised me the only way she knew. Church every
Speaker 1: Sunday was a given, But there was also stuff like
Speaker 1: no dancing, no dating, no trigger treating on Halloween. It
Speaker 1: was a whole thing. But I knew that as long
Speaker 1: as I stayed out of trouble and followed the rules,
Speaker 1: I could fly by as your typical, good church, glowing
Speaker 1: daughter of immigrants. But when I found the party crew scene,
Speaker 1: I felt like I was able to become a new
Speaker 1: version of myself. It was the one place where I
Speaker 1: felt comfortable enough to move my body, let lose and
Speaker 1: be wild, free from my parents' rules and expectations. A
Speaker 1: safe space that was twenty years ago. And when I
Speaker 1: was talking to my friend about this time, I realized
Speaker 1: it was the first time in a long time that
Speaker 1: I talked about the party crew scene to someone who
Speaker 1: wasn't a part of it. Listening back to myself, I
Speaker 1: can hear a kind of hesitation in my voice, I guess,
Speaker 1: and I you know I was going through all that
Speaker 1: without telling my parents, like I wasn't telling them I
Speaker 1: was going to go see my friend who got shot.
Speaker 1: I wasn't telling them that I was doing all these things.
Speaker 1: It felt like I was sharing a hazy dream, these
Speaker 1: fragments of my past. It's not really a time in
Speaker 1: my life that I talk a lot about, because as
Speaker 1: fun as it was, there was also a dark side
Speaker 1: to the scene. It's a Saturday night house party and
Speaker 1: hont hedon park, strobe lights, color and evening of dancing,
Speaker 1: drinking and joke smoking. The intense, I say, is to
Speaker 1: have a good time, but the price for that good
Speaker 1: time can often be violent or even death. In an instance,
Speaker 1: a party scene can turn into a war zone. These
Speaker 1: were the parties that made headlines when something bad happened
Speaker 1: and it made us teens who were part of the
Speaker 1: party crews seem out of control. The people who throw
Speaker 1: these kind of parties are called party crews, but police
Speaker 1: say they're very similar to gangs. I ended up watching
Speaker 1: a bunch of old news coverage at the scene, and
Speaker 1: it was starting to relive those memories. It was a
Speaker 1: time and place I recognized, but it felt like it
Speaker 1: only caught one side of the story. An outsider's perspective.
Speaker 1: On January twenty fifth, two thousand and six, Emory Munious's
Speaker 1: lifeless body was found nearby this warehouse on Marosou and
Speaker 1: Olympic and Boyle Heights, a popular area for underground parties.
Speaker 1: And that's when I came across a story about a
Speaker 1: teen girl. Her name was Emory Munios. She was killed
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six and her case was never solved.
Speaker 1: Investigator say an I legal rave party was going on
Speaker 1: at the warehouse on Marosols for the night she was killed.
Speaker 1: The teenager was killed after tending one of those parties.
Speaker 1: She wasn't an all girl party crew like I was
Speaker 1: around the same time that I was going out. Her killing,
Speaker 1: they think she was strangled. Now tied to the world
Speaker 1: of illegal underground parties, learning about Emery immediately, it felt
Speaker 1: so personal to me. It was hard to hear about
Speaker 1: a teen girl who didn't make it out of the scene.
Speaker 1: She was only a few years younger than me, growing
Speaker 1: up a few cities away from me. I wondered, could
Speaker 1: I have bumped into her at a party. I kept
Speaker 1: thinking about her case. I couldn't get it out of
Speaker 1: my head, the idea that maybe it was pure luck
Speaker 1: that something didn't happen to me back then, and the
Speaker 1: fact that nearly two decades later, still nobody knew what
Speaker 1: really happened to her. I needed to find out more.
Speaker 1: So I started to dig into her story, and doing
Speaker 1: that would start me on a journey to unpack that
Speaker 1: time in my life. I joined a party crew of
Speaker 1: fifteen and now as an adult, I see it in
Speaker 1: a different light, and I want to know what does
Speaker 1: it mean when you're safe space isn't actually safe from
Speaker 1: ihearts Michael Slura, Podcast Network, Vice and Elia Studios. This
Speaker 1: is Party Crews, the Untold Story, a look back at
Speaker 1: the scene that I came of agent and an unsolved
Speaker 1: murder that is forever tied to it. I'm Jensemoka. I
Speaker 1: knew I needed to start somewhere to look into Emery's case,
Speaker 1: so I started looking for the names I found in
Speaker 1: the coverage around her murder. So I think we have
Speaker 1: found Jemios who is Emory's father? Um so let me
Speaker 1: give him a call. All uh Mari Muno, No no no, no, no? Okay, alkay,
Speaker 1: So I'm calling who I think could be Cherry, one
Speaker 1: of the heads of Vicious Ladies at that time. Okay,
Speaker 1: wish me luck. Sorry, And there is not enough to
Speaker 1: has been restricted or he is unavailable work. Let's try
Speaker 1: the last number that I have on this list. He
Speaker 1: thank yourself if you're missing. Hi, Becky, this is Janice Um.
Speaker 1: I'm a reporter producer with Fast News. I actually got
Speaker 1: your contact your number from Crystal. Still get nervous every
Speaker 1: time I really have a voicemail. For some reason, I
Speaker 1: look forward to speaking with you. Oh there's It took
Speaker 1: me months, but I found Emory's aunt, Becky Harrow and
Speaker 1: her sister Crystal Okay. After a few long conversations on
Speaker 1: the phone, they agree to meet me at a halfway point.
Speaker 1: We met inside a hotel in Pomona in a small
Speaker 1: conference room. I came with free water bottles and a
Speaker 1: jar of peppermints, a plus hospitality. Becky and Crystal were
Speaker 1: both warm and friendly. They're both batite with big brown eyes,
Speaker 1: just like Emory in the pictures I've seen of her.
Speaker 1: The three of us sat at the end of a
Speaker 1: long table and talked for hours, and I not only
Speaker 1: had it for a brief moment of time, but in
Speaker 1: those six years she'd taught me basically everything you would
Speaker 1: expect from a big sister. That's Crystal she was six
Speaker 1: when her sister went missing. I learned that Emery was
Speaker 1: the oldest of three siblings, one brother and one little sister, Crystal.
Speaker 1: I had my bodyguard it. What weighs did she protect? You? Gone?
Speaker 1: Every way imaginable. Um. One thing I really remember is
Speaker 1: my mom would always yell at me because I was
Speaker 1: a little brown and knows a little and my sister
Speaker 1: she would just jump in ya, my sister, do ya?
Speaker 1: My sister or my brother would try to plunk on me.
Speaker 1: She would end up like punking on him. Every way,
Speaker 1: anything that I wanted she got for meum, toys, candies,
Speaker 1: whatever it was she would get from me. Our mom
Speaker 1: was always, you know, mentally there. She was physically there,
Speaker 1: she wasn't always mentally there. So my sister took on
Speaker 1: a very big role and she was always making sure
Speaker 1: I was fed, bathed, clothed, everything. She took care of me.
Speaker 1: I'm the eldest kid in my family too, so I
Speaker 1: know it comes with a lot of responsibility. Emory's mom's
Speaker 1: family is Mexican American. They're an immigrant households like mine.
Speaker 1: As a teen, sometimes you take for granted how much
Speaker 1: influence you have of your siblings how a small gesture
Speaker 1: can create a lasting impact. They used to go take
Speaker 1: like those two thousand pictures, the star shots. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: actually I found one on my phone mother day. I
Speaker 1: me an Emory one. I think I was like four.
Speaker 1: She had to be like twelve THIRTYO star shots, or
Speaker 1: like these wallet sized pictures you would take with your
Speaker 1: best friend, your boyfriend, or your little sister. You would
Speaker 1: show up with your freshly plucked brows and best glossy
Speaker 1: lip to a small photo studio inside the mall, posed
Speaker 1: in front of an airbrushed backdrop and wait for like
Speaker 1: an hour to get your pictures printed. Very nineties, very
Speaker 1: two thousands. One of Crystal's few mementos of her sister
Speaker 1: Emory is a star shot they took together. That's the
Speaker 1: background of the one that you are. It's like blue
Speaker 1: with stars and stairs. I love it. They're gonna show you.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, let's describe it. Describe it for me.
Speaker 1: So there's a there's a blue background, there's stairs, and
Speaker 1: we're supposed to be sitting on the stairs. My sister,
Speaker 1: I think, was going through an eyebrow crisis at this
Speaker 1: time and got a little too card away with the Tweezers,
Speaker 1: and she had on a white shirt um kind of
Speaker 1: like the three fourth quarters um sleeve in the picture
Speaker 1: Emory House. Her long brown hair pulled back, half up,
Speaker 1: half down, and her mouth is closed with a soft smile.
Speaker 1: It's like her signature smile. I've seen it in a
Speaker 1: lot of pictures of her as a teen. She's holding me,
Speaker 1: she's hugging me. I was I think four right here.
Speaker 1: I have on a blue little sweater that has fluff
Speaker 1: around the neck. Because two thousands baby in the prime.
Speaker 1: Back then, star shots brought friendships and relationships to a
Speaker 1: new level. I met, you were close, and the world
Speaker 1: was going to see it. That was our very first picture.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that day, but I feel super connected
Speaker 1: to the day. Crystal was in her early twenties, and
Speaker 1: every story she shared her her sister peeled back a
Speaker 1: layer of emory that I couldn't find in the news coverage.
Speaker 1: She was always dancing, no matter what the song was,
Speaker 1: she was always dancing, and I remember she would try
Speaker 1: to teach me and I was just right there like
Speaker 1: a little four year old, didn't know what the heck
Speaker 1: I was doing. Crystal shared one of her earliest memories
Speaker 1: of Emory growing up in their home on one of
Speaker 1: the highest hills in city terror Us. I think we
Speaker 1: lived at the top of the highest hill because we
Speaker 1: lived on three and so we lived right on the top.
Speaker 1: But I remembers dancing like outside. We had like the
Speaker 1: biggest like garden ever, a bunch of grass, a bunch
Speaker 1: of flowers. We could just be dancing, and she loved dancing.
Speaker 1: That's Becky Harrow, Emrie's aunt and godmother, her Nina. That summer,
Speaker 1: I wrote a letter to the family, including Emory's mother Maria,
Speaker 1: but she didn't respond to us at first. However, her
Speaker 1: sister Becky, who over the years has been sort of
Speaker 1: a spokesperson for the family regarding Emory's case, she did
Speaker 1: get back to us. She let her sister know that
Speaker 1: she was talking to us. Used to tell me I
Speaker 1: was like her second mom. Becky tells me Emory was
Speaker 1: her informal dance coach. She actually told me to lift feet.
Speaker 1: I remember her say, well, you're gonna do dance like
Speaker 1: the sister Tecas that one make it look sexy because
Speaker 1: you had to spread them a little bit and move
Speaker 1: your hips side to side, and she will go behind me.
Speaker 1: I will be cooking or doing something, and then she said, aw,
Speaker 1: you're practicing your hips. And I just look at her
Speaker 1: and laugh. And then she will go behind me and
Speaker 1: then she will move my hips. She will start cracking up.
Speaker 1: She said that I was like a stick it because
Speaker 1: you need to like relax, you go relax both those hips.
Speaker 1: Emory with her family was playful. She felt comfortable enough
Speaker 1: to let loose and be silly. The last time I
Speaker 1: saw her was Christmas Day and I just remember her
Speaker 1: going by, Nina, see you later, and I said, by sweetie,
Speaker 1: and she flew a kiss, a kiss, and that's my
Speaker 1: last memory. And I can still see it here. It's
Speaker 1: a matter of fact. She'd want me a little note
Speaker 1: that day before I went home. This this is a
Speaker 1: piece of favor for anybody, but it's tressure for me.
Speaker 1: Becky pulls out a little blue post it note that
Speaker 1: she's been carrying with her for over a decade. Am
Speaker 1: I reading it to me to Minina in Uncle Ron,
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas. I love you guys with all my heart, Emory.
Speaker 1: That was the last time Becky saw her. To learn
Speaker 1: more about Emory's last days, I talked to the friends
Speaker 1: she was with before she went missing. That's after the break. Hello.
Speaker 1: Hi Alejandra. This is Alejandra. She was one of Emory's
Speaker 1: friends in high school. Hi is this Janice. We have
Speaker 1: some time to talk right now? Yeah? I do. I
Speaker 1: just if I talk a bit as though. It's just
Speaker 1: because I got my wisdom taken out this morning. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Yeah, but I'm okay to talk. Thank you
Speaker 1: for talking to me. Well, well, you're a little swollen.
Speaker 1: I had mine taken out like years ago, and I
Speaker 1: was like chipmunk cheeks forever. Yeah. Oh, I am right now,
Speaker 1: but this will distract me. After our initial phone call,
Speaker 1: I met up with Alejandra and her family home in
Speaker 1: Bell Gardens, a few miles from where she grew up.
Speaker 1: I grew up in East Lake, so that's how I
Speaker 1: met Emory. I was there up until I was fifteen,
Speaker 1: and one of the reasons why we moved is because
Speaker 1: of what happened with Emory. It took a minute for
Speaker 1: Emory and Alejandra to get close. He said he didn't
Speaker 1: get along at the beginning. Well she didn't like me,
Speaker 1: she yeah, she didn't mike me. She was so she
Speaker 1: was safe. In the fall of two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: She and Emory were the new kids together freshman at
Speaker 1: Francisco Bravo High School. I don't know why she didn't
Speaker 1: like me, but we had a pe class and home
Speaker 1: room together, and she had a group of friends and
Speaker 1: I had my group of friends. And you know, I
Speaker 1: would hear things like, oh, she's talking shit about you,
Speaker 1: or she said this, she said that. So one day
Speaker 1: after school, she was standing outside outside the school and
Speaker 1: I came up to her and I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, why are you talking shit? And then she's like,
Speaker 1: do you want to walk home while we talk about it?
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, sure. Emory was on her
Speaker 1: way to a football game at Wilson High School, a
Speaker 1: rival high school in East LA, so she invited me.
Speaker 1: It just happened so fast, and that was it. They
Speaker 1: became friends. That followed to the five It was a
Speaker 1: Lejandra and Emory together all the time, every day after school.
Speaker 1: I don't know why that memory always comes to my mind,
Speaker 1: but I remember, like, um, the smell of Halloween during
Speaker 1: like during those years. I don't know why. I can't
Speaker 1: describe it, but every time I go outside, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it smells like you still or smells
Speaker 1: like Halloween. I personally loved Easta like you know. My
Speaker 1: parents didn't, um. They thought it was pretty dangerous. But
Speaker 1: we had all our friends living in the area, so
Speaker 1: we could walk to each other's house. Emory lived pretty
Speaker 1: far from me, but we would still do the walk
Speaker 1: like we would. Um. I don't know if we knew
Speaker 1: where she lived, but I lived cy Terrorists, that city terrists,
Speaker 1: and I lived like in Boyle Heights. So but we
Speaker 1: would walk over to each other's house. Yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: we would. I would run because my parents didn't know
Speaker 1: where I was at, so I would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with my friend down the street, but
Speaker 1: really I would walk all the way over there. How
Speaker 1: would you describe her personality? Just very happy, very bubbly,
Speaker 1: and she was so silly, like she would always try
Speaker 1: to make jokes. She loved singing and dancing. She loved
Speaker 1: Mariah Carey, so I remember her always singing and writing
Speaker 1: the lyrics down. And one of the things I remember
Speaker 1: the most is her laugh like it was just so conpegious.
Speaker 1: She would crack up every single time. Alejandra and Emrie
Speaker 1: wrote letters to each other and left them in each
Speaker 1: other's lockers. They wrote about boys, their day, anything and everything,
Speaker 1: and when they hung out, they danced around their rooms
Speaker 1: and listened to Mariah Carey's entire catalog. I can only
Speaker 1: imagine them harmonizing too. We belong together. There was a
Speaker 1: few people that, like I said, she would be silly with.
Speaker 1: She would around with, but if you don't really know her,
Speaker 1: she wouldn't make the effort to really talk to you.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why a lot of girls used
Speaker 1: to think she was conceited or you know, try to
Speaker 1: fight her, because they didn't really know her. She was
Speaker 1: in her own little world, like she was serious, she
Speaker 1: didn't care what other people thought. You know, she wasn't
Speaker 1: trying to be everyone's friend. There's just times where girls
Speaker 1: would talk shit and she would get crazy. You know.
Speaker 1: One time we were at a fair and she had
Speaker 1: this boyfriend and I guess he was with another girl
Speaker 1: at the fair or something like that. So we actually
Speaker 1: left the fair and then she was like, oh, let's
Speaker 1: pass by, you know, let's pass by his house. And
Speaker 1: at the same time we saw them going in, the
Speaker 1: girl and him and she got out of the car
Speaker 1: and she was just trying to fight her and just
Speaker 1: get crazy. I think we're just like figure bring it
Speaker 1: out kids in ours, like your whole world revolved around Yeah,
Speaker 1: that guy. Sometimes I was so in love with him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she loved him, But were you like, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't really know him. I've seen him a few times,
Speaker 1: but he just wasn't someone I wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: or you know, be cool with. And and she had
Speaker 1: her own group of friends. Did you ever tell any
Speaker 1: the parties with Emory? No. My mom would have never
Speaker 1: let me go. So that's why I'm telling you. Like
Speaker 1: she would tell me like, oh, I'm gonna go to party.
Speaker 1: Do you want to go? But she always knew that
Speaker 1: I was I wasn't gonna go. Um, so yeah, I
Speaker 1: would just see the pictures. Does she like invite you
Speaker 1: before she goes. Yeah. Yeah, she would let me know
Speaker 1: or she would be like she would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: come on, we'll tell your mom this or that, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, that's not gonna that's not gonna work.
Speaker 1: I was so scared. Our parents thought we were going
Speaker 1: to because we would album. This is Regina Barenian. She
Speaker 1: knew Emery from the party crew scene, but they also
Speaker 1: went way back. Was a childhood friends of mind, growing
Speaker 1: up since kindergarten, Like some of the first thing I've
Speaker 1: ever experienced were with her, you know, when we went
Speaker 1: on our first field trip in school, when we had
Speaker 1: our first crushes, our school gaps and stuff. She was smart,
Speaker 1: she didn't kick any ship. She super SAFTI, she land
Speaker 1: and everybody liked her. Our mothers were friends when they
Speaker 1: were kids. I've known her a very long time. We've
Speaker 1: been bonded through our lineage. She lived down the street
Speaker 1: from Emory in City Terrorists. Their mothers were friends when
Speaker 1: they were growing up. We started to go to slow
Speaker 1: together and then we became really close friends. There was
Speaker 1: five of us Me, Emery, Diane, Cynthia and Ashley, so
Speaker 1: we were able to have a certain kind of freedom
Speaker 1: that other kids didn't have. I mean mom and my
Speaker 1: mom lived the same life. Sound Me and Amory became
Speaker 1: friends because we're able to bond over the same disconnecting
Speaker 1: that we've had with our mothers. Regina is in her
Speaker 1: thirties now and she no longer lives in City Terrace.
Speaker 1: She was very straight up with me about that time.
Speaker 1: Now when I looked back, like I have an eleven
Speaker 1: year old daughter right now. And when I was her age,
Speaker 1: I had already smoked weed for the first time. I
Speaker 1: was walking home from school already, like I would never
Speaker 1: let her do any of that. Along with a bunch
Speaker 1: of neighborhood girls, Regina was in a party crew called
Speaker 1: Tempted to Touch. It was fun because I felt like
Speaker 1: at that time we were experimenting and nobody was violating
Speaker 1: one another. We all made sure we got home one time,
Speaker 1: all looked up for one another. This was the community
Speaker 1: thing within the inner city communities that we different because
Speaker 1: a lot of people it was part of the culture.
Speaker 1: Regina explained to me how she understands the context of
Speaker 1: the party crew scene. And you know, it evolved from
Speaker 1: the nineties to two top by having back their bookies,
Speaker 1: and then we were the new generation, most of these
Speaker 1: kids that are partying and two thousand and one to
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, we're the fucking tiers of these
Speaker 1: teen moms from the nineties, like you know, So I
Speaker 1: think that should be highlighted because people have a lot understanding.
Speaker 1: A few months before Emory died, Regina and Emory had
Speaker 1: a falling out. Emory had been hanging out with new friends,
Speaker 1: the Girls and the Vicious Ladies Crew, and there was
Speaker 1: some teaen drama, but their family connection ultimately kept their bond.
Speaker 1: My mom made me say sorry to her after she
Speaker 1: found out what had happened, because you know, she's like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck. I've been knowing her mom before you
Speaker 1: guys are even born. You know, like, I don't care
Speaker 1: about your little girl cat drama. So yeah, I had
Speaker 1: apologized to her. We were like settled with our little scuffle,
Speaker 1: and then she went missing. We were all fourteen year old,
Speaker 1: the girls walking down city terrorist. I could have been
Speaker 1: any one of us, you know. You know, what do
Speaker 1: you remember about the week that Emory went missing? I
Speaker 1: remember that day she came to school really pissed off
Speaker 1: because of her mom. This is Alejandra, her high school friend. Again.
Speaker 1: She remembers that the last day she saw Emory, Emory
Speaker 1: was mad at her mom, and I remember she was
Speaker 1: just talking shit like her mom had got in mad
Speaker 1: at her. Because I don't I don't really know what happened,
Speaker 1: but I know she was mad at her over like
Speaker 1: getting ready or something like that, and so she was
Speaker 1: really upset. That morning, Alejandra and Emory had plans to go,
Speaker 1: so they planned to go shopping to pick out outfits
Speaker 1: after school. But that same day, my mom called me
Speaker 1: and told me that I couldn't stay because I had
Speaker 1: to go to the dentist. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll call you later. So the next day,
Speaker 1: on Saturday, I called her and her mom was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know where she's at. According to Emory's mom,
Speaker 1: Emory had left the house that Friday afternoon to go
Speaker 1: to a friend's house. Emory's mom called Emory that night,
Speaker 1: but she didn't pick up. At that point, I was
Speaker 1: just like, dam she went somewhere and then tell me
Speaker 1: like that's messed up. Remember, Emory would normally tell a
Speaker 1: hand about the parties even if she couldn't go, just
Speaker 1: to keep her in the loop, so it seemed weird
Speaker 1: to her. The next day, Saturday, Emery's mom and aunt Becky,
Speaker 1: went to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department station in
Speaker 1: East LA to file a missing person's report. And they
Speaker 1: said how long how she's been missing? And they said,
Speaker 1: you know, I hadn't been twenty four hours. And then
Speaker 1: I said, I'm the first forty eight hours. Some most
Speaker 1: critical ones and right away. They said that if she
Speaker 1: was twelve, then they will look for her, but once
Speaker 1: you're a teenager, they don't. You have to wait for
Speaker 1: forty eight hours. We reached out to the Sheriff's department
Speaker 1: about this, but they declined to comment. They did confirm
Speaker 1: that by law, the Sheriff's department is supposed to take
Speaker 1: missing person's reports right away. There is no waiting period.
Speaker 1: So I made a fuss over it, so they did
Speaker 1: take a report from us. Days passed and still no
Speaker 1: one had heard from Emory. Her friends and family put
Speaker 1: up missing person flyers all over, using her school portrait
Speaker 1: as a photo. I stayed after school and I remember
Speaker 1: putting up the last poster and I got like this
Speaker 1: really horrible feeling. It was a Wednesday, January twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: six days since Emory went missing, and I left. It
Speaker 1: was after school, was like around five. I left, and
Speaker 1: when I got home, my friend called me and she
Speaker 1: was like, I just saw the cops like at the school,
Speaker 1: and I heard what happened. So I ran back and
Speaker 1: that's when they told me that they had found her.
Speaker 1: Emory's sister, Crystal, also remembers that day. It was just
Speaker 1: it was it's a very vivid timeline that seems that
Speaker 1: it went on forever end ever, but like there's so
Speaker 1: little memories actually like pulled out of it. It just
Speaker 1: feels like it was ever lasting. Like nothing felt, nothing
Speaker 1: felt right. Like I said, everything felt super gloomy. Everything
Speaker 1: was like when I picture all this, I picture just
Speaker 1: gray clouds in the sky. It was probably like the
Speaker 1: sunniest day in January, but I picture clouds. It was.
Speaker 1: It was a hard I mean till this day, it's hard,
Speaker 1: but that that time was it was so off, so dark.
Speaker 1: Emory's body was found at a warehouse and boiled Heights,
Speaker 1: a few miles away from her home. LPD described the
Speaker 1: warehouse as a place where teens would gather to throw parties. Immediately,
Speaker 1: it was assumed that she must have been at a
Speaker 1: party that night she went missing, or that someone from
Speaker 1: the party crew scene knew something. When we found out
Speaker 1: that they found her in a warehouse, supposedly that's where
Speaker 1: parties have been helped. But that doesn't connect Emory to
Speaker 1: a certain party that night or fire party, or the
Speaker 1: reason why she got killed. They're trying to connect two
Speaker 1: things that don't go together. This is Regina Emory's childhood
Speaker 1: friend again. I'll tell you right now, Emory is no
Speaker 1: fucking word that she would leave to the house going
Speaker 1: to go to a fire party with no bag, no backpack.
Speaker 1: She's not going in a kinker about the letter with
Speaker 1: tennis shoes. That was not how we went. I feel
Speaker 1: like when I see her story, it's I feel like
Speaker 1: it's misdirected for sure, Like, yes, Emory was a teenager
Speaker 1: going to a fire party, but how do you not
Speaker 1: know some serial killer freaking picked her up and just
Speaker 1: dumped her body there out of coincidence. I just don't
Speaker 1: like how her just put out there, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's beautiful fourteen year old girl missing and going for
Speaker 1: a fire party and she never came come. So like
Speaker 1: it's a good storyline, but it doesn't get closure to
Speaker 1: her family, Like Regina says, it's a good storyline, but
Speaker 1: how much of it is true? So that's what I
Speaker 1: want to find out. And I'm going to be real
Speaker 1: with you. I know that when you hear Unsolved Murder,
Speaker 1: you immediately think, okay, true crime podcast, that this is
Speaker 1: going to all be about finding the person who did
Speaker 1: this to her. And yes, we will get into her case,
Speaker 1: from the investigation into her death and the mysteries that
Speaker 1: remained around it. When I got to the scene that
Speaker 1: I knew that I knew she had been dead for
Speaker 1: a while, and it appeared to me that she didn't
Speaker 1: die there. To the way in which your case co
Speaker 1: opted by a local politician. But we have to put
Speaker 1: everyone at notice that these parties may it can't be
Speaker 1: dangerous and the city should be doing more to stop
Speaker 1: these To how we were targeted by police who believe
Speaker 1: the party crew scene was a threat and mostly gang members.
Speaker 1: You started off as the normal raiding the party with
Speaker 1: one cop car or sometimes ten or fifteen cop cars
Speaker 1: blocking off the street, helicopter showing up and flashing everybody.
Speaker 1: It is a La City gang that started off as
Speaker 1: a tag banging gang. They are morphing into a traditional
Speaker 1: Hispanic turf gang. But in Emory's case, I also see
Speaker 1: another question that is important to explore. Why did party
Speaker 1: crews get blamed for her death? And what does that
Speaker 1: say about us? It's easy to forget that Emery and
Speaker 1: I were just kids navigating through a world that wasn't
Speaker 1: made for us. We built a being shiny and fun,
Speaker 1: a world of our own In the next episode, I
Speaker 1: look back at my own teenage yeers to understand the
Speaker 1: thrill of the party crew scene. I had friends catching
Speaker 1: me through my window to sneak out, and when ten thirties,
Speaker 1: when the party starts, I don't believe I drove my
Speaker 1: mom was like cleaning astro van and drove with girls
Speaker 1: through parties. That's next time. This episode was written, reported,
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Janemocha. Our show is produced and
Speaker 1: reported by Sofia Polissa car Victoria Lejandro, and Kyle Chang,
Speaker 1: and edited by Antonio Shio. Additional editing by any Avidis.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Media about the staffs, Sound design and
Speaker 1: original music composition by Kyle Murdoch. Our supervising producer is
Speaker 1: Janet Lee, art by Julie Ruiz and Victuakoyon. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer from Vice Audio is Kate Osborne. Our executive producers
Speaker 1: from Elia's Studios are Antonia Seti Hibo and leog Our
Speaker 1: Vice president of Podcasts from Elias Studios is Shane and
Speaker 1: Naomi Krocmam. Special thanks to the UCLA Department of Communication
Speaker 1: Archive for access to their news collection. Party Crews. The
Speaker 1: Untold Story is a production of Elias Studios in Vice
Speaker 1: Audio in partnership with Ihearts Michael Dura podcast Network. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. And Hey, were
Speaker 1: you and a party crew? Send us your party flyers
Speaker 1: or photos. I'd love to see them, even a voice
Speaker 1: message about your memories. Anything. You can send us a
Speaker 1: message or a picture at Party crews at Elliot studios
Speaker 1: dot com. Support for this podcast is made possible by
Speaker 1: Gordon and Donna Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes
Speaker 1: Los Angeles a better place to live. This program is
Speaker 1: made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
Speaker 1: a private corporation funded by the American people.