Speaker 1: School of Humans. Hi, I'm trying to reach Charon Cummings.
Speaker 1: Let's call it. My name is Catherine Townsend, and I'm
Speaker 1: actually working on a podcast for iHeartMedia and we're covering Well,
Speaker 1: there you have it. Okay, we called Charon Cummings. She
Speaker 1: was the jailer who was working the night that My
Speaker 1: Trese went missing. Obviously, she doesn't want to talk about
Speaker 1: My Trees these days, but at the time when My
Speaker 1: Trees went missing, she did give several interviews. She told
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Times that after my Trease was released,
Speaker 1: she was given a phone and made several calls. Cummings
Speaker 1: told the paper that she did not listen to My
Speaker 1: Teresa's conversations, but she said she did have discussions with
Speaker 1: her about topics including gospel music and karma. Steve Whitmore,
Speaker 1: the LASD Community Information Officer, talked about coming statement in
Speaker 1: a press conference. Cummings said that she encouraged my Trees
Speaker 1: to stay the night and told her that she could
Speaker 1: have breakfast in the morning. Before leaving. She said that
Speaker 1: My Trees seemed to waver for a moment and said
Speaker 1: maybe I'll stay, But then My Trees told Cummings that
Speaker 1: she had changed her mind. She wanted to leave, Cummings
Speaker 1: told Eyewitness News in a two thousand and nine interview.
Speaker 1: When I found out she didn't have a ride, I
Speaker 1: asked her, why don't you stay? It's kind of dark
Speaker 1: and a bit cool. You don't have a jacket. I
Speaker 1: knew she lived out in la and didn't know the area,
Speaker 1: but she said she didn't want to spend the night
Speaker 1: in jail, and she was hooking up with some friends.
Speaker 1: So my Treece walked out the side door of the
Speaker 1: police station. One of the main criticisms that has been
Speaker 1: leveled at the Lost Hill Sheriff's station is the fact
Speaker 1: that the officers should have recognized that my Treece was
Speaker 1: in a fragile mental state. My Teres's family believed that
Speaker 1: all evidence points to the fact that she should have
Speaker 1: been taken to a hospital, not a jail cell, But
Speaker 1: in later depositions, the officers denied that my Terce was
Speaker 1: behaving strangely. They said that my trees passed a field
Speaker 1: sobriety test and that she seemed to be absolutely fine,
Speaker 1: so their decision to release her in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night was the right call. So is it possible
Speaker 1: that the officers did not realize that my Teres was
Speaker 1: having some sort of mental breakdown. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
Speaker 1: is hell and gone. Almost everyone who encountered my Trees
Speaker 1: in the twenty four hour period before she disappeared agreed
Speaker 1: something was wrong with her. This included her mother, her
Speaker 1: aunt Ronda, her former professor, and her boss. It also
Speaker 1: included the Geoffrey staff and the diners at the restaurant
Speaker 1: who interacted with my Trees and then later gave their
Speaker 1: statements to police. Police officers who were put in a
Speaker 1: position of determining someone's mental health and deciding whether to
Speaker 1: hold someone against their will without violating their civil rights
Speaker 1: or in a tough position, so we wanted to know
Speaker 1: what were the police officer's options at that point. In
Speaker 1: the state of California, arrested individuals who were considered to
Speaker 1: be a danger to themselves or others due to signs
Speaker 1: of mental illness can be subject to involuntary psychiatric evaluation
Speaker 1: and commitment for up to seventy two hours. This is
Speaker 1: called a fifty one fifty hold, and my Teresa's family
Speaker 1: is adamant that a fifty one to fifty hold is
Speaker 1: exactly what should have happened prior to her arrest. My
Speaker 1: Trees did not have an official mental health diagnosis, but
Speaker 1: based on the way that she was acting, people close
Speaker 1: to her believed she was undiagnosed by polar and could
Speaker 1: be experiencing some type of manic episode. Now, making an
Speaker 1: armchair diagnosis, especially in hindsight, can be dicey. We know
Speaker 1: that my Trees was exhibiting symptoms, including possible hallucinations because
Speaker 1: we know that she told one of the diners that
Speaker 1: a character on a soap opera had been talking to her.
Speaker 1: Also delusional thinking based on a lot of the comments
Speaker 1: that she made, and potentially hypersexuality when she offered to
Speaker 1: settle her bill for sex if she was experienced sing
Speaker 1: a bipolar episode. My Trese was in a very vulnerable position.
Speaker 1: Early on, police speculated that my Tries could have died
Speaker 1: of suicide, particularly because she appeared to be suffering some
Speaker 1: type of mental distress, but they also said in their
Speaker 1: depositions that she did not exhibit behavior that they believe
Speaker 1: qualified her for a fifty to one to fifty hold.
Speaker 1: They insisted that having made that determination, they had no
Speaker 1: legal reason to hold her and were correct in their
Speaker 1: decision to release her after midnight. So police have stated
Speaker 1: both that my Trees was in such mental distress that
Speaker 1: she could have run off a cliff and plunged to
Speaker 1: her death, and that she seemed to be absolutely fine.
Speaker 1: So which is it. To get answers, we have to
Speaker 1: dive into the hard evidence that we do have from
Speaker 1: the night that my Terse went missing, including the messages
Speaker 1: sent between the officers and their radio communication records. First,
Speaker 1: there's the arresting officer, Armando Lurero. He said in a
Speaker 1: deposition that when he went to Joffrey's, he was responding
Speaker 1: to a possible three ninety, which is the code that
Speaker 1: would indicate a drunk person for a black female unable
Speaker 1: to pay her bill. But the defrauding and innkeeper charge
Speaker 1: and the small amount of pot that my Trees had
Speaker 1: on her were misdemeanor citations, and his fellow officer on
Speaker 1: the scene, Frank Brower, testified that my Trees passed a
Speaker 1: field sobriety test. So if she wasn't under the influence
Speaker 1: and he believed that she was fine, why did Lurero
Speaker 1: make the decision to impound my Trees's car, hard book her,
Speaker 1: and take her into custody. After Lurero and his fellow
Speaker 1: officers were finished at Joffrey's, he transported my Trees to
Speaker 1: the station in his cruiser. This was around eight forty
Speaker 1: five p m. In a later deposition, Lorero said that
Speaker 1: he believed that he arrived with my Trees at the
Speaker 1: station at around nine fifty p m. Once they arrived,
Speaker 1: Jaylor Charon Cummings fingerprinted my trees and took her photograph
Speaker 1: to assist in the booking process. Lorero said he never
Speaker 1: discussed any concerns with my Teres's mental state, either to
Speaker 1: Charon or to his watch sergeant when he went in
Speaker 1: to discuss the probable cause statement, basically laying out the
Speaker 1: reasons for the arrest. He said in a deposition that
Speaker 1: he had observed my Trees for any potential signs of
Speaker 1: her needing to be detained for a fifty one to
Speaker 1: fifty mental health evaluation, and apparently he determined that this
Speaker 1: was not necessary. But an email mentioned in that deposition
Speaker 1: could provide some clues to his motive. The email, which
Speaker 1: Mike Kessler quoted in his Los Angeles Magazine story, was
Speaker 1: from one of Lorero's Lost Hills colleagues. Lieutenant Scott two
Speaker 1: Kessler wrote, quote, deputies had considered letting Richardson go with
Speaker 1: a citation, but decided to arrest her in part because
Speaker 1: witnesses had said she'd been acting strangely end quote. Chu
Speaker 1: said in the email that Lorero told him that he'd
Speaker 1: made the decision to hard book my trees at the
Speaker 1: station because she was acting in a bizarre manner, and
Speaker 1: he said that he wanted to quote make sure that
Speaker 1: she was all right end quote. Now this was in
Speaker 1: direct contradiction to Lorero's testimony, and many people also questioned
Speaker 1: what was transmitted over the police messaging system. It later
Speaker 1: emerged that Lorero and John McKay were assigned to take
Speaker 1: the call, but Brower had assigned himself after seeing the details.
Speaker 1: Why did they need three officers to respond to a
Speaker 1: call of a young woman who couldn't pay a restaurant tab.
Speaker 1: John McKay, one of the officers on the scene, said
Speaker 1: that at ten thirteen pm, he sent a message to
Speaker 1: another officer that read citizens arrest. He got a message
Speaker 1: back that read why didn't you help a sister out?
Speaker 1: So officially, the police's line was that they never believed
Speaker 1: that my terse was showing signs of mental instability. Remember
Speaker 1: Kenneth the valet. He was the first person who encountered
Speaker 1: my terse at Jeffrey's that night, and the first one
Speaker 1: to notice that she seemed to be acting off. He
Speaker 1: spoke to the deputies who came to Jeffrey's, and afterwards
Speaker 1: they provided him with a written statement summarizing what he said.
Speaker 1: But when he took a closer look, he noticed that
Speaker 1: some of the descriptions in the statement didn't match what
Speaker 1: he said, so he corrected those statements, crossing some of
Speaker 1: it out and making additions in his own handwriting. The
Speaker 1: details and the rewritten statement are jarring. For example, the
Speaker 1: typewritten statement reads, at no time on the night of
Speaker 1: September sixteenth, or during the early morning hours September seventeenth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, did I ever speak to any
Speaker 1: of the LASD deputies that arrived or any other law
Speaker 1: enforcement personnel. But Kenneth crossed that part out. He wrote,
Speaker 1: I spoke to two of the LASD deputies who were
Speaker 1: on the scene. I asked what happened and or what's
Speaker 1: wrong with her? One deputy replied, she's a ding. I
Speaker 1: told the other deputy that it seemed like she was
Speaker 1: off her medication or had too much medication. Doctor Ronda
Speaker 1: Hampton spent years reading and obsessing over every single minute
Speaker 1: detail of the communications among these officers. Many times she
Speaker 1: saw that the police made reference to my trese as
Speaker 1: a ding and that Kenneth the valet also said he'd
Speaker 1: overheard the police officers calling her a ding. At first,
Speaker 1: she said, she didn't realize the significance of this information.
Speaker 1: I'll be she thought it was short for a dingbat,
Speaker 1: but she later learned that in law enforcement circles, it's
Speaker 1: shorthand for someone who probably needs a fifty one to
Speaker 1: fifty psychiatric evaluation. And she discovered that by happenstance, my
Speaker 1: dumb ass didn't even know what a ding was. I
Speaker 1: just thought, oh, I mean a ding that well, I
Speaker 1: knew it meant somebody was dinghy right, Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: didn't realize it was like an official thing that they
Speaker 1: called people who had were fifty one to fifty from
Speaker 1: the shriff of herm right, So me and mind her.
Speaker 1: I'm taking a crochet class at Michael's Right. The person
Speaker 1: who was giving the class was a sheriff, and I
Speaker 1: don't know she sent something about either giving Croeschek houses
Speaker 1: and it's somehow she used the word ding and while
Speaker 1: she was telling us about this crochet thing, and I
Speaker 1: was like Dan, I was like, why you said ding?
Speaker 1: And then she goes, oh, that's what we call people
Speaker 1: who need to be on a fifty one fifty. And
Speaker 1: then we have a Dan Ward that's in the jail. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's how I found that out. Wow. I'm like,
Speaker 1: so when they said ding, they know damn well that
Speaker 1: that's an official Well, they're not supposed to say it,
Speaker 1: but you called some high a ding. Then you know
Speaker 1: they asked me to be a fifty one fifty. So
Speaker 1: who I mean, they get back to the station, they decide,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason not to not to fifty one fifty
Speaker 1: or her And why did they They ever tell you
Speaker 1: why they did that. Well, what they will tell you
Speaker 1: is that she was acting perfectly normal. So you've got
Speaker 1: somebody at the scene who passes to feel sobriety test
Speaker 1: who talk about she's from Mars reading people's palms, crazy
Speaker 1: as fuck, and you call her a dank and then
Speaker 1: you send your email to your captain say she did
Speaker 1: see but she was perfectly fine. Make no damn sense.
Speaker 1: Once police found out that my Trees had no outstanding warrants,
Speaker 1: and crucially, having apparently made the determination that she was
Speaker 1: not a fifty one to fifty risk, my Trees was released.
Speaker 1: Cummings said that jailers are trained to contact their watch
Speaker 1: sergeant or watch commander if the detainees show signs of
Speaker 1: mental instability, but she said that my Trice was calm,
Speaker 1: so this didn't happen. And one of the biggest challenges
Speaker 1: of diagnosing mental health issues is the fact that someone
Speaker 1: experiencing an episode can seem lucid one minute and unstable
Speaker 1: the next. And if the arresting officers did not tell
Speaker 1: Cummings about my Terce's bizarre behavior, she may not have
Speaker 1: known that there could be potential mental health issues. Reading
Speaker 1: between the lines of the comments she's made in interviews,
Speaker 1: it does seem that Cummings was nervous about letting my
Speaker 1: Trees leave in the middle of the night, but she
Speaker 1: seemed to think that there was nothing more that she
Speaker 1: could do. Once again, it seems that at every turn,
Speaker 1: My Trees slipped through the cracks. So much joint down
Speaker 1: right now, okay, Weta Reservation put three for a thousand.
Speaker 1: Ye all, we're back at Jeffrey's, the restaurant where My
Speaker 1: Trees's Night began on the night she disappeared, and this
Speaker 1: time were with reporter Cec Woods. I've got my mole,
Speaker 1: which I still don't even know who my mole is,
Speaker 1: but my mole, actually I don't. I have no idea,
Speaker 1: but I do have to tell you. So he's like,
Speaker 1: just show them that picture of you in the bikini
Speaker 1: on Instagram. That'll man, that'll work. In twenty fourteen, Cec
Speaker 1: started the local Malibu. She's currently editor in chief of
Speaker 1: that publication. She also founded the magazine Malibu nine oh
Speaker 1: two sixty five. She describes herself as an activist and reporter.
Speaker 1: They treat me like I'm a nobody, and I really
Speaker 1: don't care. It's okay, because guess what, I have multiple
Speaker 1: projects going on that are all national, global, whatever you
Speaker 1: want them to be, and they're all involving you. And
Speaker 1: yet they think I'm just this little blondie for Malibu,
Speaker 1: which is okay, go ahead, I'll give fuck. She's in
Speaker 1: your face and sometimes says outrageous things, but she is
Speaker 1: getting taken seriously and she's broken some huge stories. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love being underestimated. I fucking love it. And that's
Speaker 1: what happened with the Malbury Creek State Park shootings. I
Speaker 1: was underestimated. I was this little blonde Malibu barbie to them,
Speaker 1: and blahbery blah blah blah whatever. I don't give fuck.
Speaker 1: Over the years, she has developed a tight knit working
Speaker 1: relationship with the Lost Hills Sheriff's Department. She has a
Speaker 1: close relationship with a lot of the officers, but she's
Speaker 1: not afraid to hold them accountable, so much so that
Speaker 1: she says her reputation is on the line if they
Speaker 1: ever pull any bullshit. I'm like, my reputation is tied
Speaker 1: to you guys. Don't you ever motherfucking do this shit
Speaker 1: on my watch? Okay, whatever they did, and I mean
Speaker 1: that like I'm willing to lose my life over this shit.
Speaker 1: Like my kids can take care of themselves, but you're
Speaker 1: not doing this on my watch in my community with
Speaker 1: me supporting you guys. Fuck that shit. I don't want
Speaker 1: this shit happening in my community. That's like number one.
Speaker 1: And knowing that there's a bunch of fucking rogue cops
Speaker 1: getting away with abuse of power at my local station
Speaker 1: like nothing makes me angrier. She's also on a first
Speaker 1: named basis with the Sheriff of Los Angeles County, Alex Villanueva.
Speaker 1: He's the most powerful law enforcement official in the largest
Speaker 1: county in the country, but CEC's texts always get priority,
Speaker 1: despite an atmosphere that can make it challenging for law
Speaker 1: enforcement to have relationships with journalists. CEC has several sources
Speaker 1: inside the department. During our meeting, she gets a call
Speaker 1: from one of them. It's true, I love you. I
Speaker 1: always say that in this job, a lot of the
Speaker 1: most productive information comes out at happy hour, and she
Speaker 1: clearly believes in the power of building relationships that is.
Speaker 1: Ceci's also seen the dark side of the Sheriff's station
Speaker 1: and exposed a lot of their dirty laundry, including in
Speaker 1: one of the biggest cases that she's worked on so far,
Speaker 1: the Malibu Creek State Park shootings. Cec said that crime
Speaker 1: was never her area of expertise until true crime came
Speaker 1: to her neighborhood. She said she was terrified when her
Speaker 1: neighbors started talking about multiple shootings in Malibu and a
Speaker 1: possible serial killer on the loose, one that, she says
Speaker 1: the police were not warning the public about I exposed
Speaker 1: the Malibu Creek State Park shootings, and that was by accident.
Speaker 1: I was just in public safety reporting doing my thing,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, this shooting happens, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, Wow, what the fuck? There's a murder happening.
Speaker 1: And I don't even know how to deal with the
Speaker 1: murder because murder's not my wheelhouse. But I don't do
Speaker 1: that shit. It was just instinctual, like people just started
Speaker 1: emailing me and sending me information. I'm like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: guess I have to write about this. How am I
Speaker 1: going to write about this? I had to sit down
Speaker 1: and think about how I'm going to write about murder,
Speaker 1: and so I sat down and I kind of figured
Speaker 1: it out. And in the beginning I was a real
Speaker 1: smart ass, and I kind of want to go back
Speaker 1: to being smart ass. I have to tell you, because
Speaker 1: you know what, I like smartass. Alex would say, tell
Speaker 1: Ussy to write an article. I need a laugh, okay,
Speaker 1: because I would just make fun of the homicide. I
Speaker 1: would make fun of everybody. When thirty two year old
Speaker 1: father of two Tristan Boudette was found shot to death
Speaker 1: in his tent on June twenty second, twenty eighteen, the
Speaker 1: case made international headlines. Then in October twenty eighteen, a
Speaker 1: drifter named Anthony Rauda was arrested for a parole violation.
Speaker 1: According to the local Malibu he was arrested for possession
Speaker 1: of a weapon authority says can assistant with and or
Speaker 1: a matching the murder weapon that killed Tristan Bodett. But
Speaker 1: Ceci says she doesn't believe that Rauda is responsible for
Speaker 1: all of the shootings, and she says that there's been
Speaker 1: a law enforcement cover up dating back to twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: She reported in the paper that several shootings took place
Speaker 1: before a Bodett was shot, and that quote the shootings
Speaker 1: were purposely hidden from the public by state parks officials
Speaker 1: and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, under the direction of
Speaker 1: former Sheriff MacDonnell, who was complicit in the cover up
Speaker 1: end quote. Eventually, Rauda was charged with Bodet's murder and
Speaker 1: with ten other counts of attempted murder and five counts
Speaker 1: of burglary. But cec continues to question every piece of
Speaker 1: information that's released by the Sheriff's department. She says that
Speaker 1: her sources tell her there's no ballistics match to the
Speaker 1: alleged murder weapon. She says that there continues to be
Speaker 1: unexplained gunfire in Malibu Creek State Park and that she
Speaker 1: believes a killer may still be out there. Cecy found
Speaker 1: out about my Teresa's case after one of her readers
Speaker 1: saw Ronda and Chip's documentary and forwarded it to Cec.
Speaker 1: Then she met Ronda, and working together, they started to
Speaker 1: dig deeper into my Teresa's case. After all of the
Speaker 1: investigating that I've done and the hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: man hours that I've logged in with Ronda at four o'clock,
Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning, five o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: like we get up and we call each other. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what time it is, Like that's the reality.
Speaker 1: Her and I are like on the same speed. She
Speaker 1: is a cyberstalker in extraordinary and what she does is
Speaker 1: she just goes and digs shit and she sends it
Speaker 1: right to me, and I'm like, Okay, what do you
Speaker 1: want to do with it? Do we write about it?
Speaker 1: Do we sit on it? What do we do? And
Speaker 1: So what I believe happened was that as we sit
Speaker 1: at Draffrey's right now, and as I talk to the
Speaker 1: owner of Draffrees not too long ago, probably about a
Speaker 1: week ago, they felt that she was in the best
Speaker 1: hands for public safety. When the cops came, they should
Speaker 1: have called the MET team, which is the mental evaluation team.
Speaker 1: They did not. The police have admitted that mistakes were
Speaker 1: made on the night that my Terse went missing, but
Speaker 1: through their investigation, CC and Ronda began to believe that
Speaker 1: something much more sinister than just a miscall and a
Speaker 1: mental health evaluation went on at the station. CC has
Speaker 1: written several expose as on alleged law enforcement cover ups.
Speaker 1: Earlier this year, CC broke the story of a young
Speaker 1: woman who was sexually assaulted at a Malibu condominium in
Speaker 1: the early morning hours of February eighth. A transient walked
Speaker 1: in an unlocked door and allegedly fondled the victim, but
Speaker 1: when the incident was reported to police, officers reportedly took
Speaker 1: forty five minutes to arrive at the scene and basically
Speaker 1: concluded that the alleged victim may have had too much
Speaker 1: to drink. CECI heard about the story, she helped the
Speaker 1: victim track down surveillance footage which clearly showed a man
Speaker 1: entering her home. A few days later, thirty four year
Speaker 1: old Matthew Fairchild was arrested and charged with intent to
Speaker 1: commit a sex crime. According to the Malibu Times quote,
Speaker 1: the matter was festering until a Malibu tabloid publisher, CEC
Speaker 1: Woods reportedly sent the photos and a complaint to Sheriff
Speaker 1: Alex Villanueva, who has been known to frequently consult with
Speaker 1: Woods on Malibu issues end quote. After CEC's article came out,
Speaker 1: the Times received complaints from residents who were outraged that
Speaker 1: police did not immediately warn them of potential danger or
Speaker 1: try to track down the suspect, and then Lost Hills
Speaker 1: Captain Matthew Vanderhork was demoted and relieved a duty when
Speaker 1: this sexual predator happened. When I got the captain because
Speaker 1: he fucked up, I literally texted the captain and I said,
Speaker 1: I want to know who those motherfucking deputies are. I
Speaker 1: want to come into your station. I want to look
Speaker 1: them in the motherfucking face, and I want to let
Speaker 1: them fucking know you will never do this in my
Speaker 1: community again. And I am not kidding. I was so angry.
Speaker 1: I was ready to take the bar alloh yank it
Speaker 1: and throw it against the wall when the community member
Speaker 1: came to me and told me what had happened. CEC
Speaker 1: has also written an expose about former Lost Hills Captain
Speaker 1: Tom Martin. Martin was accused of sexual assault and the
Speaker 1: alleged victim says that the incident took place just months
Speaker 1: before my trees ended up at Lost Hill Station. In
Speaker 1: no way does CEC's experience prove that something more sinister
Speaker 1: happened to my trees at the Lost Hill Station, but
Speaker 1: it does paint a compelling picture of the Sheriff's department
Speaker 1: at the time. Basically, CC labels the era at the
Speaker 1: Lost Hill Station before Sheriff Llanueva took office the wild West,
Speaker 1: and she describes the environment there zero oversight, populated with
Speaker 1: rogue cops. She talked about this when we talked on
Speaker 1: the phone with her a few weeks before in person meeting.
Speaker 1: It's a station that has been known for a rogue
Speaker 1: pop behavior, and I am very happy to report that
Speaker 1: since we had a change in captain, which I was
Speaker 1: instrumental in exposing some of the things this captain was
Speaker 1: not taken care of, which allows these cops to get
Speaker 1: in that rogue cops way, and you know, if you
Speaker 1: don't have the right leadership, they're just gonna see what
Speaker 1: they want. Now they know that they especially now after
Speaker 1: this whole George Floyd and the civil uprising, but even
Speaker 1: before this happened, being able to expose this behavior on
Speaker 1: social media and the relationships that I've been able to
Speaker 1: nurture with a sheriff's department and with the sheriff has
Speaker 1: really made a serious difference in our community and at
Speaker 1: the station. Now, some of this may sound like a
Speaker 1: movie plot, but the LASD has been involved in scandals
Speaker 1: to make the movie LA Confidential look like a documentary.
Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, following a massive investigation, federal officials and
Speaker 1: dieted eighteen current and former LASD deputies, lieutenants, and sergeants.
Speaker 1: The charges included corruption, obstruction of justice, and fabrication of
Speaker 1: police reports. According to the se of Independent Review report,
Speaker 1: allegations against LASD officers included rape, kidnapping, and smuggling heroin
Speaker 1: into a jail cell. This rogue cop situation is what
Speaker 1: she thinks happened to my trees. I mean, obviously, people
Speaker 1: at the restaurant were telling them, you know, she's acting strange,
Speaker 1: and they knew that she might have mental health issues,
Speaker 1: but yet then later they said she didn't, which was
Speaker 1: it was very strange. Now that was I mean, for
Speaker 1: lack of a better word, absolute nonsense. And well, here's
Speaker 1: the thing. The thing is is if you are not
Speaker 1: well versed in mental health issues, especially like bipolar or
Speaker 1: any of those issues, and if you don't really recognize
Speaker 1: it and you're not trained, then you know what, you
Speaker 1: might make those mistakes, which is another reason why you know,
Speaker 1: the shirt depart and has the mental health evaluation team.
Speaker 1: And so again I'm going to go back to the
Speaker 1: roade cop thing, and that was especially rampant at that time.
Speaker 1: I mean, they just did whatever they wanted, and it
Speaker 1: was clear by the radio call and how they responded
Speaker 1: to it and talking about doing a FEN search over
Speaker 1: the radio. It's like, you know, what kind of behavior
Speaker 1: is that there was a female jailer already on duty
Speaker 1: at the station, so why would they need to refer
Speaker 1: to searching my trees? C C believed that these communications
Speaker 1: could have been some type of sinister shorthand they said that, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, time to do a FEN search. We should
Speaker 1: do a FEN search. So they talked about doing a
Speaker 1: FEN search on my trees, and to me, that's just
Speaker 1: alerting the troops. Hey, we've got a really good looking
Speaker 1: woman coming and you know, might be time for a
Speaker 1: FEN search. And you know, I mean, who says that? Really?
Speaker 1: Who says that over the radio? Ceci isn't the only
Speaker 1: reporter who has made this observation about Lost Hills. Scott
Speaker 1: Johnson wrote about the Lost Hills station being under investigation
Speaker 1: in a twenty sixteen article in The Hollywood Reporter. Johnson
Speaker 1: quoted a source who said that the station was dis
Speaker 1: like the departed. The story quotes a woman who claims
Speaker 1: that certain deputies would do favors for her and her
Speaker 1: ex husband, a former American gladiator star, but after a
Speaker 1: bitter split. She said that the deputies maintained improper personal
Speaker 1: relationships with her ex husband and that they refused to
Speaker 1: look into charges of alleged child abuse and rape. According
Speaker 1: to The Hollywood Reporter, the La County Sheriff's departments internal
Speaker 1: affairs investigators were taking a serious look at the allegations,
Speaker 1: which was quote raising new questions about a police station
Speaker 1: that has been embroiled in controversy numerous times in recent years.
Speaker 1: End quote. One source told the Hollywood Reporter, you can't
Speaker 1: throw a stone without hitting a rat. There there's rats
Speaker 1: on every side, criminals, cops, everyone, and they're all riting
Speaker 1: on each other. We've mentioned Mel Gibson, who was arrested
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six on drunk driving charges getting
Speaker 1: a ride back to his car, as an example of
Speaker 1: celebrity favoritism, but he's also evidence of something else, police
Speaker 1: cover up. Mel went on an anti Semitic rant against
Speaker 1: the arresting officer, who was Jewish. Then LASD managers buried
Speaker 1: the deputy's report, which led to accusations that they were
Speaker 1: giving the actor preferential treatment. The report was leaked to
Speaker 1: TMZ and the deputy was fired. After his attorney claimed
Speaker 1: that the LASD fired him and retaliation for leaking the information,
Speaker 1: he was reinstated. We've tried calling the police department for comment.
Speaker 1: They've denied our multiple requests. After they got to the station,
Speaker 1: my rise was put into a holding cell with a
Speaker 1: woman named Chermaine Henderson. Our producer Gabby was able to
Speaker 1: speak to her on the phone. What happened? I remember
Speaker 1: how I've ended up in jaimed, but I ended up
Speaker 1: in the red sit and going to jail, but they
Speaker 1: released me. Oh h second, and I remember walking and
Speaker 1: I remember walking down that heal wow wow great. Chermaine
Speaker 1: had been deposed from my Teres's parents civil suit, and
Speaker 1: according to Chermaine's deposition, my Terse was talking to her
Speaker 1: and for the most part, she seemed to be in
Speaker 1: a good mood, chatting in a friendly and animated fashion,
Speaker 1: as she had with the diners at Jeoffrey's. According to
Speaker 1: the deposition, my Trees asked Ermaine if she wanted to
Speaker 1: get high, and at one point was so disruptive that
Speaker 1: Chermaine asked to be moved to another cell. But when
Speaker 1: we spoke to Chermaine, what she told us contradicts her deposition.
Speaker 1: She also says that my Trees seemed to be behaving
Speaker 1: normally while they were in the cell together, and Chermaine
Speaker 1: denies the fact that she said she wanted to be
Speaker 1: moved to avoid my Trees. But I remember, I remember she.
Speaker 1: I remember she had that that good curly hair, I
Speaker 1: remember it, and she was so talkative. She was no
Speaker 1: slender girl, but I remember her like it was yesterday,
Speaker 1: and she was perfectly normal. She was perfectly normal, sweetheart.
Speaker 1: And I did not actually get moved to another spell
Speaker 1: and nothing. Obviously, it's been ten years since this all happened,
Speaker 1: and witness memory is always something to be taken into account.
Speaker 1: But Chermaine is emphatic when she says that my Trees
Speaker 1: was behaving pretty normally. We had a good conversation and
Speaker 1: she didn't. I didn't get no bad or nothing, no, no, nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing like, nothing bad from her, nothing like. And she
Speaker 1: was she was she was cool. And then it's like
Speaker 1: when I seen that shit on the news, it was
Speaker 1: like and then it was like I was trying to
Speaker 1: contact like but it was it was very hard to
Speaker 1: get in contact with people like that, say like I
Speaker 1: was there with her, like, you know, let them know
Speaker 1: that she was okay, like her last moments like like
Speaker 1: and she was in a self she was all right.
Speaker 1: She said that she's been hoping to talk to more
Speaker 1: people about the investigation, so somebody following up with me,
Speaker 1: and I've been wanting I really wanted to speak for
Speaker 1: someone about that night because she was normal. It was nothing,
Speaker 1: she she was okay, she was okay. It was nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: Where we was going to fell together, and she was
Speaker 1: she was she was very like, she was very like
Speaker 1: like you know, like very polite, like you know, she
Speaker 1: was very talkative. She wasn't like isolating herself for nothing.
Speaker 1: She was like, Okay, so are you saying that they
Speaker 1: also released you in the middle of the night. Yes,
Speaker 1: I got reased in the middle night too awesome. No,
Speaker 1: it's no one for you to get nowhere. And I
Speaker 1: had to I had to walk, I was, I was
Speaker 1: in my lap and it's like, it's like it was
Speaker 1: it was no way to get a no vicin on nothing.
Speaker 1: It was so it was so like like assholes, like
Speaker 1: and it's like as far as as being a woman,
Speaker 1: you know, like and they released us at that time
Speaker 1: of night, It's like, you know, it wasn't okay. What
Speaker 1: would clarify a lot of the discussion over my Teresa's
Speaker 1: behavior is if there was evidence that we could look
Speaker 1: back on. And the thing is there is there's video
Speaker 1: of my terse in herself two hours on four different
Speaker 1: cameras eight hours total, that the LASD has refused to
Speaker 1: release for ten years, despite lawsuits and endless complaints by
Speaker 1: Ronda and my Teresa's family, And the question remains, why
Speaker 1: won't they release the tape next time on Helen Gone?
Speaker 1: And then that's when they start out, well there's no video.
Speaker 1: It's like, really, that makes no sense. I was sitting
Speaker 1: right next to Captain Martin, Well, I'm sure if I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask him that question, you don't have any
Speaker 1: video of my treats in jail, and he turned be read,
Speaker 1: I mean really be read, and just said, well, I
Speaker 1: do have this tape in my desk. My community needs this.
Speaker 1: You need to set it right. Come out here, tell
Speaker 1: the people you are reopening the investigation. Do the right thing.
Speaker 1: I'm Katherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone. Helen Gone
Speaker 1: is a production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It's
Speaker 1: written and narrated by me, Catherine Townsend. Our producers are
Speaker 1: Gabby Watts, Taylor Church and James Morrison. Music is by
Speaker 1: Ben Sale. Mix is by Tunewelders. Our executive users are
Speaker 1: Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley and Brian Lavin. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Chip Craft for use of footage from his documentary Loss Compassion,
Speaker 1: School of Humans. School of Humans