Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just to warn you before we start. This episode
Speaker 1: contains descriptions of sexual assault and violence. Last time on
Speaker 1: Where's Dia?
Speaker 2: We were pushing ardently to have or removed as trustee
Speaker 2: because to me and to my sister, we felt that
Speaker 2: it was quite obvious that he had some involvement in
Speaker 2: DIA's disappearance.
Speaker 3: He had every reason to harm her, but so did
Speaker 3: Chrissara and Clinton just because so much money is involved.
Speaker 2: They please, they.
Speaker 4: They believed she was hurt.
Speaker 1: In the fall of twenty twenty one, a woman named
Speaker 1: Jody Newkirk was working on the Benita Vista ranch. This
Speaker 1: was over a year after Deer was last seen. It
Speaker 1: seems like Jody was a kind of jack of all trades.
Speaker 1: She handled the horses, cleaned and did general handy woman
Speaker 1: stuff for Keith Harper.
Speaker 5: Or you think by taking this and I could really
Speaker 5: a concept where nothing dead young.
Speaker 6: A right, Yeah, this is super cud.
Speaker 1: This is a video from a local photographer who Jody
Speaker 1: took on a tour of the ranch. As far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, the photographer is shown in adylic setting
Speaker 1: with no hint of what's happened here before or what
Speaker 1: is soon to come. In the video, Jody is wearing
Speaker 1: a strapless red, white and blue striped tank top, baggy jeans,
Speaker 1: and chunky work boots, and her skin has a nice
Speaker 1: natural tan. Jody and the photographer walk up a gravel drive.
Speaker 1: There's a white Rvy parked underneath a pine tree, a
Speaker 1: large metal butterfly seat, and an outdoor gym. They go
Speaker 1: up to an old log cabin. The entrance is flanked
Speaker 1: by wooden horseheads. Inside the cabin is dark and crowded,
Speaker 1: teeming with trinkets.
Speaker 6: So yeah, it's got a barbecue, ANIFI outdoor fireplace.
Speaker 4: It's got a great view.
Speaker 1: God, I love it here, Jody says. She offers to
Speaker 1: cut the photographer a deal on rent in exchange for
Speaker 1: new photos to advertise the ranch for events. There was
Speaker 1: a lot going on up there, renovations, a new bridge
Speaker 1: being built, and Harper was even hosting wedding ceremonies.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's always good to have kind of like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: You know style.
Speaker 7: Yes.
Speaker 1: Around three months after this video was taken, Jody was
Speaker 1: found dead on the ranch. Before I get too deep
Speaker 1: into who Jody was and how she ended up dead
Speaker 1: on Benita Vista Ranch, I want to explain why I'm
Speaker 1: telling you about her. It's not just because this is
Speaker 1: another tragic, unexplained event that deserves some airtime, or because
Speaker 1: it provides another shocking twist in this strange story. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you about her because it's a chance to peer
Speaker 1: inside Harper's relationship with another woman. In fact, that's really
Speaker 1: what this whole episode is about. Harper's relationships with other women.
Speaker 1: Their stories made me question whether Harper and DEA's relationship
Speaker 1: was really as picture perfect as he said it was.
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to speak with Dea. She can't
Speaker 1: tell me what Harper is like as a lover or
Speaker 1: a partner or even a friend. But these other women
Speaker 1: they can. I'm Lucy Sheriff, and this is where's Dea?
Speaker 1: Episode four, Don't Go there Alone. Kelly Berkowitz Trotter is
Speaker 1: Jody Newkirk's sister.
Speaker 6: Oh hi, sweetheart, and I'm talking to my friend Lucy.
Speaker 6: We're talking about Auntie Jody.
Speaker 1: Kelly explained to me that Jody hadn't always been the
Speaker 1: happy and confident woman I'd watched in the photographer's video.
Speaker 1: For years, Jody had struggled with drug addiction, in particular,
Speaker 1: meth and she'd done some things that strained her relationship
Speaker 1: with Kelly.
Speaker 6: My sister stole my identity many years ago, and she
Speaker 6: actually was arrested for it, and not by my doing
Speaker 6: at all, but she was caught and she was going
Speaker 6: to have to serve like jail diamond stuff.
Speaker 1: But Kelly says that Jody was working on trying to
Speaker 1: get clean and it's crazy.
Speaker 6: I digress a little bit here, but on the twenty
Speaker 6: third of December twenty twenty, she and I had a
Speaker 6: very loving, healing conversation about all of that, where she
Speaker 6: apologized to me.
Speaker 1: Harper told me he'd hired Jody to work on the
Speaker 1: ranch because she was renting out one of DEA's properties
Speaker 1: and she was behind on payments. Jody could do some
Speaker 1: work to make up the missing rent. But Kelly told
Speaker 1: me that Jody and Harper met through a dating site,
Speaker 1: which I found interesting because that's how Harper said he
Speaker 1: met Dea. Regardless, by the time Jody was working at
Speaker 1: the ranch, it seemed like she was on track.
Speaker 6: You were on such good terms and so much closer,
Speaker 6: and there was like a Jody was a hardcore drag addict,
Speaker 6: so as close as one can be with someone who
Speaker 6: is who is in that kind of state of mind.
Speaker 6: And she was trying a lot, you know, of different
Speaker 6: things to get herself clean, as she always had ben
Speaker 6: since she was fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: The day Jody died, Kelly was on holiday in a
Speaker 1: remote cabin in the woods, and so it took her
Speaker 1: a while to get cell service.
Speaker 6: It was driving rain that day, just such a terrible storm,
Speaker 6: and I saw that I had a bunch of missed
Speaker 6: calls from my brother in law, Lindsay.
Speaker 1: Lindsay is Jody's ex partner, and Kelly told me that
Speaker 1: he and Jody were best friends, ride or die friends.
Speaker 6: So when I saw that, I immediately knew something was wrong.
Speaker 6: And I was able to call him from my daughter's phone,
Speaker 6: and basically I just remember standing there in this cabin
Speaker 6: with my daughter and one of my closest friends.
Speaker 4: Sorry, okay at your time.
Speaker 6: Oh and yeah. Lindsay said that Jody had been in
Speaker 6: an accident. She rolled over in an ATV. And I
Speaker 6: was like, oh, my god, is she okay? And he said, no,
Speaker 6: she's not.
Speaker 1: Lindsay had heard the news about Jody from Harper.
Speaker 6: We didn't know anything about Dea. We didn't know anything
Speaker 6: about Harper. We were kind of on this crazy spin
Speaker 6: we are spinning.
Speaker 1: Kelly would soon come to learn a lot about Keith, Harper,
Speaker 1: and Dia Abrams, in part because Jody kept a detailed
Speaker 1: journal during those short few months she was living at
Speaker 1: the ranch. After JODI's death, Kelly sent me pictures of
Speaker 1: the journals she'd found in Jody's belongings. Jody's journal entries
Speaker 1: are written like letters. A lot of them are addressed
Speaker 1: to Harper. The first entry that Kelly sent me is
Speaker 1: strangely written to Harper and Dea. I asked my producer
Speaker 1: Daphne to read some extracts.
Speaker 7: Dear Dea and Harper. So, even though we never met,
Speaker 7: I really feel a bond with you. I hope, from
Speaker 7: the bottom and all of my heart that you realize
Speaker 7: that I truly have you and yours, all of your animals,
Speaker 7: friends and home possessions, and even Harper's best interests at heart.
Speaker 7: I do honestly think you will be coming home. I
Speaker 7: hope you like me.
Speaker 1: Jody's handwriting is erratic. It's big, looping, and in the
Speaker 1: same journal entry she'll use two or three different pens,
Speaker 1: red bull point and then a thick black sharpie. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of capital letters and exclamation points. The
Speaker 1: rest of her letters are all addressed to Harper, and
Speaker 1: from Jody's writing, it sounds like her relationship with Harper
Speaker 1: was more than professional.
Speaker 7: I need event I'm losing my mind. I realize that
Speaker 7: you sure can act like you like me a whole
Speaker 7: lot when you want me, But I really don't matter
Speaker 7: that much to you. I feel like you're a dog,
Speaker 7: a high class jiggalow. Anyhow, you really do sleep with
Speaker 7: as many females as you can, and you tell all
Speaker 7: girls what they want to hear, and you tell them
Speaker 7: all basically the same thing. I really am feeling very
Speaker 7: strange about the always going to miss me comment in
Speaker 7: the text a few days ago. I don't like the
Speaker 7: way that sounds, not a bit.
Speaker 5: It's weird.
Speaker 7: Fuck you, Harper. What we had wasn't really all that
Speaker 7: to you. I know, Anna or Patricia, but you know what,
Speaker 7: I would have killed, died given my right arm for you,
Speaker 7: even if you don't deserve it. I know who you are.
Speaker 7: I loved love you anyway. You will see when I'm gone,
Speaker 7: and I'm already gone, goodbye.
Speaker 1: I don't know how Much of what Jodie writes is
Speaker 1: objectively true, but Harpistol things differently.
Speaker 3: She came and rented a place on Toolbox, and I'd
Speaker 3: met her, and she was having trouble pain for her rent,
Speaker 3: and she asked if she could come and more to
Speaker 3: help cover it from the expenses of her.
Speaker 8: And then, what was your relationship like with Jody? And
Speaker 8: I asked, course, because obviously she had the journal entry
Speaker 8: which suggested that you may have been in a romantic
Speaker 8: relationship with her.
Speaker 5: No, not even God and Robert, if we're close to that.
Speaker 4: But what what was your relationship like with her? It
Speaker 4: was a working relationship, that's what it was.
Speaker 1: The journal entries aren't dated, so I don't know exactly
Speaker 1: when Jody was writing those entries. It seems clear to me, though,
Speaker 1: that things weren't great up at the ranch, at least
Speaker 1: from Jody's perspective, and on the twenty third of December,
Speaker 1: they got much much worse. Sometime around five pm, half
Speaker 1: called nine to one one. I have the coroner's report
Speaker 1: that explains what happened. Next. An officer with the California
Speaker 1: Highway Patrol arrives at the ranch. He finds Harper giving
Speaker 1: CPR to Jody. She's lying on the ground, pinned down
Speaker 1: by an ATV. The paramedics arrive, but it's already too late.
Speaker 1: They declare Jody dead at the scene. The highway patrol
Speaker 1: officer noted that there didn't seem to be any trauma
Speaker 1: or injuries consistent with a rollover traffic collision. He found
Speaker 1: Harper's account of what had happened to Jody suspicious. Harper's
Speaker 1: version goes like this, On that day, December twenty third,
Speaker 1: Jody decided to go out on an ATV to cut
Speaker 1: down a Christmas tree. It was raining really hard that evening,
Speaker 1: but according to Harper, Jody went out anyway, and we.
Speaker 4: Had had eleven inches of rain that day. I said,
Speaker 4: that's a his poor idea.
Speaker 3: I said, the trails are extremely muddy, slick, but she
Speaker 3: was very persistent.
Speaker 4: She wanted it. So she goes up, she comes back, there's.
Speaker 3: An actual circle you can see the machine makes and
Speaker 3: then it tips.
Speaker 1: Over and then Harper says he found Jody lying in
Speaker 1: the mud, pinned down by the off road vehicle.
Speaker 4: We do CEPR.
Speaker 3: I do CEPR in her for about twenty minutes until
Speaker 3: they actually show up with the paramedics.
Speaker 1: Kelly, Jody's sister, told me that at some point Harper
Speaker 1: managed to reach Lindsey, Jody's ex. Lindsay then relayed the
Speaker 1: tragic news to Kelly. Kelly called around hospitals, trying to
Speaker 1: find out where Jody's body was and what exactly had happened.
Speaker 1: She reached the coroner, who told her that Jody was
Speaker 1: still on the dirt track lying next to the ATV.
Speaker 1: In fact, the responders left Jody's body outside covered by
Speaker 1: a top paul in for hours.
Speaker 6: They told me that they were still up there because
Speaker 6: of the sleep and the hail. It was so bad
Speaker 6: up there that they couldn't move her body, and I
Speaker 6: was freaking out.
Speaker 1: Kelly was desperate for more information. Finally she tracked down
Speaker 1: someone at the Riverside Sheriff's office.
Speaker 6: And I'll never forget that. She just immediately went on
Speaker 6: the defensive about how it's an open investigation, they don't
Speaker 6: know anything yet and it could jeopardize things to tell
Speaker 6: me anything.
Speaker 1: The details were still so murky. Eventually she heard from Lindsay,
Speaker 1: Jody's ex partner, that there might be more to the story,
Speaker 1: and so they began their own investigation.
Speaker 6: Lindsay had said that he went on the internet and
Speaker 6: he found a thing about the ranch that Jody worked on,
Speaker 6: and he told me the story of Dia, and I
Speaker 6: was like, what the actual fuck.
Speaker 1: Kelly got Harper on the phone. She wanted answers, and
Speaker 1: Harper gave her a disturbing account.
Speaker 6: So he was like in the conversation telling me exactly
Speaker 6: what she sounded like as he was trying to like
Speaker 6: it was fucked up.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I didn't realize that she was still alive
Speaker 1: when Harper got there.
Speaker 6: I don't know if she was or not, but he
Speaker 6: said that she made like a gurgling sound when he
Speaker 6: was giving her soupr But you can't trust anything the
Speaker 6: man says at all, Like you can pretty much just
Speaker 6: you know, just take out a sharpiet and just cross
Speaker 6: out every damn thing he says, like literally, he just
Speaker 6: he's allergic to the truth anyway. Not I don't want
Speaker 6: to get into into the weeds on the conversation with him,
Speaker 6: but I got off the phone going, Okay, this guy
Speaker 6: killed my sister.
Speaker 1: To be quite clear, there is no evidence proving this,
Speaker 1: and Harper has denied having anything to do with Jodie's death.
Speaker 1: But it was this feeling that Kelly had about Harper
Speaker 1: that made her determined to get hold of the autopsy report,
Speaker 1: which the cops didn't want to release, but she continued
Speaker 1: pressuring them. It took nearly a year, but the cops
Speaker 1: finally unsealed it. We'll be right back. In the fall
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, the Riverside Sheriff's Department finally unsealed
Speaker 1: Jody Newkirk's autopsy report. You might remember Harper had said
Speaker 1: that Jody was crushed by an ATV, a story that
Speaker 1: seemed suspicious at the time to the highway patrol officer
Speaker 1: who attended the scene. When Jody's sister, Kelly finally got
Speaker 1: ahold of the report, she learned what the coroner had
Speaker 1: found to be the cause of Jody's death, acute methamphetamine toxicity,
Speaker 1: in other words, an overdose of myth. The coroner found
Speaker 1: a glass pipe in Jody's pocket, but for the manner
Speaker 1: of death, the coroner wrote undetermined because there was quote
Speaker 1: no evidence to deter herman if Newkirk administered the drugs
Speaker 1: to herself or if someone else administered it to her.
Speaker 1: So we know what killed her, but we don't know
Speaker 1: how the meth got into her system. I did find
Speaker 1: one other interesting thing in the report. Alberto Lrero, the
Speaker 1: lead investigator on DEA's case, makes an appearance. He tells
Speaker 1: the coroner that he couldn't rule out foul play either.
Speaker 1: The cops questioned Harper, but he was never arrested, and
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, there was no further
Speaker 1: action over Jody's death. Jody's sister, Kelly, joined the growing
Speaker 1: list of people frustrated with Riverside Sheriff's lack of action.
Speaker 6: Oh, they didn't care. They didn't even want her cell phones.
Speaker 6: What Nope, they didn't even do a search for it.
Speaker 1: Kelly did find out the police had interviewed Jody a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks before she died. Kelly said Jody had
Speaker 1: filed a police report claiming her horse had been stolen.
Speaker 1: It's a weird, complicated story, surprise, surprise, But Kelly said,
Speaker 1: investigator Alberto Lorero later told her what had happened.
Speaker 6: And the police told me that she came down there
Speaker 6: and they took her into an interview room with a
Speaker 6: camera and they filmed the whole thing, and that's when
Speaker 6: they were telling her about Dia and Harper and telling
Speaker 6: her to leave, and Lorero said she was told. I
Speaker 6: don't know if he's told me that he had told
Speaker 6: her directly, but he told me. I don't understand why
Speaker 6: she wouldn't listen. Why didn't she leave? I don't understand
Speaker 6: she was told.
Speaker 1: I asked Lorero if this interview with Jody had ever
Speaker 1: taken place. He told me he didn't remember. Eventually, Kelly
Speaker 1: held a memorial service for her sister. She hasn't gotten
Speaker 1: the answers she was looking for, and it's something she
Speaker 1: still struggles with today. During our last phone call, right
Speaker 1: before we hung up, Kelly gave me a piece of advice.
Speaker 1: I had told her. I'd been considering going up to
Speaker 1: the ranch before Jodi had died. He's invited there, and
Speaker 1: I almost went.
Speaker 6: Or don't go alone. If you go, bring men with you.
Speaker 1: I had been so curious to see the ranch, to
Speaker 1: get a feel of where Deer lived and who she was,
Speaker 1: and now I felt like I'd be taking this risk
Speaker 1: going up there alone. I felt like I couldn't shrug
Speaker 1: off my reservations anymore, so I decided not to go.
Speaker 1: A couple of months after Jody's memorial service. In May
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, Harper appeared in court in Colorado.
Speaker 1: It had nothing to do with Jody or Deer. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was over an incident that had taken place about
Speaker 1: ten years prior, and Harper was appearing in court because
Speaker 1: he wanted to be removed from the sex offender registry.
Speaker 1: In twenty eleven, Harper was convicted of groping two women
Speaker 1: on a snowmobile tour he used to run an outdoor
Speaker 1: adventure business in Colorado. Harper pled not guilty to the charges.
Speaker 1: He spent a year in a county jail, had to
Speaker 1: complete a sex offender treatment program, and register as a
Speaker 1: sex offender until twenty twenty five. Harper went to the
Speaker 1: Colorado court in twenty twenty two to see if he
Speaker 1: could be removed from the registry a few years early.
Speaker 1: He maintained his innocence and said he grabbed the women
Speaker 1: because they were about to fall off from the snowmobile,
Speaker 1: but his court petition went nowhere. I wonder what else
Speaker 1: was in Harper's past. So I dug around, and it
Speaker 1: turns out there is more, a lot more. That's after
Speaker 1: the break. I'm going to tell you about two other
Speaker 1: women who Harper had relationships with. The first woman is
Speaker 1: someone will called Sarah to protect her privacy. In two thousand,
Speaker 1: an investigator with a local dat's office in Colorado filed
Speaker 1: an affidavit to obtain an arrest warrant for Keith L. Harper.
Speaker 1: The investigator said he had probable cause to believe Harper
Speaker 1: had committed four felonies, including first degree sexual assault and
Speaker 1: second degree kidnapping. In his report, the investigator wrote up
Speaker 1: a detailed description of Sarah's allegations. I got a copy
Speaker 1: of it through a public records request. Sarah accused Harper
Speaker 1: of physically and sexually assaulting her One time, during an argument,
Speaker 1: Harper allegedly grabbed her by the throat and threw her
Speaker 1: to the ground. Sarah described another disturbing incident that culminated
Speaker 1: in rape. There's one other part of the report I'm
Speaker 1: going to read where the investigator summarizes a third incident
Speaker 1: Sarah told him about the report, says quote, she stopped
Speaker 1: resisting because she knew if she continued, Harper would kill her.
Speaker 1: She told me that she could not breathe and that
Speaker 1: Harper was so angry she believed that he would kill
Speaker 1: her and then tried to cover the whole thing up somehow.
Speaker 1: Harper then began pushing her down the hall, still holding
Speaker 1: his hand over her mouth and nose. When they arrived
Speaker 1: near the bedroom, she told me she stopped struggling completely
Speaker 1: because she thought to herself, I'd better stop fighting or
Speaker 1: I'm going to die. According to court records, she got
Speaker 1: a restraining order against Harper. There were multiple hearings before
Speaker 1: the trial. From what I can gather reading through the
Speaker 1: court documents, Sarah, the main witness, tried to withdraw the charges,
Speaker 1: but by that point it was in the DA's hands.
Speaker 1: They were the ones filing the charges against Harper. Sarah
Speaker 1: stopped cooperating. The DA's prosecutors tried to subpoena her to
Speaker 1: appear in court. Eventually, the judge decided Sarah shouldn't testify
Speaker 1: the doing so would cause her quote permanent impairment. I
Speaker 1: reached out to Sarah to see if I could speak
Speaker 1: with her, but didn't hear back. The prosecution's case fell apart. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Harper was only charged with third degree assault. He pled
Speaker 1: guilty and was convicted on that charge. He was put
Speaker 1: on probation for a year and had to enroll in
Speaker 1: domestic violence classes. I asked Harper about all of this.
Speaker 3: It was dropped, and the court finally relief the fact
Speaker 3: if I would agree to just take a class at
Speaker 3: the end, that those charges would be dismissed.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, So are you saying that you got to
Speaker 4: realize that what's that?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: Carry on, I'm going to say, you got to realize
Speaker 3: that there was I had a business involved that she
Speaker 3: was going after.
Speaker 8: You're thinking she would stabricating what happened because.
Speaker 5: She wanted to get oh wellout a question.
Speaker 3: That's how she would have gotten a access to the business.
Speaker 1: I felt uneasy after talking with him. He always sounded
Speaker 1: so sure, so convinced of his narrative, Like when you
Speaker 1: explain what happened to Jody, it was like there was
Speaker 1: no room for any other perspectives or possibilities. It was
Speaker 1: his truth or nothing. And then I found another woman,
Speaker 1: someone who was in a serious relationship with her for
Speaker 1: many years. She told me she wanted to share her experience,
Speaker 1: but to protect her identity, we're not disclosing her name,
Speaker 1: and we've distorted her voice. When they first met, Harper
Speaker 1: was charming, flirtatious, cheeky. She told me he had a
Speaker 1: charisma which was almost impossible not to fall for. I
Speaker 1: wondered if this had been DEA's experience. Too long story, sure,
Speaker 1: he warned me, how does it feel talking to me
Speaker 1: about him?
Speaker 4: Do you talk about him much? What you went through?
Speaker 4: And I get them and a lot. I'm shaking all over.
Speaker 1: She told me in deep detail about her relationship with Harper,
Speaker 1: how they met, how he courted her, and then how
Speaker 1: the relationship soured. There was one particular fight she told
Speaker 1: me about.
Speaker 4: He chased me through the house. He got up and
Speaker 4: would run some more, and he backed me against the
Speaker 4: wall with his forearm in my throat. Well, and that
Speaker 4: he was very angry, And that's the closest was too close,
Speaker 4: you know?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's so much bigger than I am.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: He is not a man that takes no. Mmm, he
Speaker 4: does not accept a no.
Speaker 8: Does he tell the truth?
Speaker 4: Is he?
Speaker 1: Is?
Speaker 4: He a trustworthy person? He and I had that conversation
Speaker 4: a lot about telling the truth. I have to say no, no.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's Marcius, but for the longest
Speaker 4: time he told me he was a Dea agent. He
Speaker 4: told me that too. Actually, when I first started speaking
Speaker 4: to him, he wished therefore ding.
Speaker 1: I couldn't help going over those words. He is not
Speaker 1: a man that takes no. He does not accept a no.
Speaker 1: It reminded me of how much Harper had pested me
Speaker 1: and Kelly Snyder to take on DEA's case.
Speaker 8: I have spoken with former partners of yours who have
Speaker 8: described instances of you allegedly being violent. And then you
Speaker 8: put that together with whatever happened on the snowmobile, plus
Speaker 8: the fact that Dea is missing, plus the fact that
Speaker 8: Jodi Nwkirk died on the ranch, and I'm sure you
Speaker 8: can understand that there is a pattern.
Speaker 5: Of events, and you have you have proofs that those
Speaker 5: of pants, even though they are spoken of, they're true.
Speaker 8: I was not there, so I cannot say.
Speaker 5: No no, if there's violence, what what proof did you
Speaker 5: have that violence occured? There's actually please reports? You have
Speaker 5: those in your hands?
Speaker 8: Yes, I have a police report in my hands.
Speaker 5: And what does it say? Specifically?
Speaker 8: It said that you were sexually violent. It said that
Speaker 8: you grasped somebody around their neck.
Speaker 5: Okay, and that went to court and what happened with it.
Speaker 1: We spend some time going back and forth on this
Speaker 1: He continues to deny that there's any truth to the
Speaker 1: allegations of violence, that the court didn't hold him accountable
Speaker 1: for all the charges and therefore they're not true.
Speaker 5: I mean, well, then stick with the facts and don't
Speaker 5: stick with accusations.
Speaker 1: I was intrigued whether Deer knew about all of this.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's no way to really tell, but I
Speaker 1: did ask Harper, so.
Speaker 8: Was your relationship that you had with the different from
Speaker 8: the previous relationships you've had.
Speaker 4: I don't understand that question.
Speaker 5: What would be different in the relationship.
Speaker 4: We had an excellent relationship. That's all I can tell you.
Speaker 8: Okay, okay, And is there anybody else?
Speaker 5: What the no?
Speaker 9: No, no, carry on.
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 4: I said, Dea was well aware of my past.
Speaker 5: We discussed that in full detail not long before we
Speaker 5: started dating.
Speaker 1: To be clear, even with all this information about Harper's past,
Speaker 1: there's nothing that holds him responsible for anything that may
Speaker 1: have happened to Dea. And while I was busy digging
Speaker 1: around in Harper's past, events in the present day were
Speaker 1: still unfolding. You might remember from the last episode that
Speaker 1: Abram's kids sued Harper to get him removed from Deer's
Speaker 1: trust well. In December of twenty twenty two, a judge
Speaker 1: appoints a guardian, an independent, objective legal guardian, to represent
Speaker 1: DEA's interests in court. Although Harper still remains a trustee
Speaker 1: of her estate, and the judge also passes a settlement
Speaker 1: agreement between and the two kids. It feels like an
Speaker 1: uneasy sort of truce. It's all based on the fact
Speaker 1: that in California, if someone is missing for five years,
Speaker 1: they can be declared legally dead. And so on sixth
Speaker 1: of June twenty twenty five, five years to the day
Speaker 1: that Deer was last seen, the state of California will
Speaker 1: presume her dead, and when that happens, all of her assets,
Speaker 1: the Benita Vista Ranch, her antiques, her jewelry will be
Speaker 1: divided into three parts. Twenty five percent will go to Clinton,
Speaker 1: twenty five percent to Chrissara, and fifty percent to Harper. Yes,
Speaker 1: Harper would get double what each of Deer's kids receive.
Speaker 1: There's just one.
Speaker 9: Caveat one of the parties, damn or me, the kids
Speaker 9: or me would found guilty of her disappearance or had
Speaker 9: anything to do, whether disappearance or dead, we would get nothing.
Speaker 1: If the kids are found to be involved in DEA's disappearance,
Speaker 1: they get nothing, and if Harper is found to be involved,
Speaker 1: he gets nothing. This language in the court settlement, which
Speaker 1: was drawn up and agreed to by all three of them,
Speaker 1: almost seems to incentivize Harper, Chrissara, and Clinton to pin
Speaker 1: DEA's disappearance on each other their narratives. Their version of
Speaker 1: events becomes worth something because there's a reward for having
Speaker 1: one version of this story being held up as the truth,
Speaker 1: a multi million dollar award, because if one of them
Speaker 1: is found responsible for DEA's disappearance, the others walk away
Speaker 1: with everything.
Speaker 5: You know, when the outcome gets known, it has the
Speaker 5: making of them.
Speaker 1: Next time on WES DIA.
Speaker 2: I don't give too much credit to Keith Harper. I
Speaker 2: don't think he's a criminal mastermind.
Speaker 6: The consensus was among my staff it was like, look,
Speaker 6: I think we just got called over to put all
Speaker 6: kinds of footprints everywhere, to just damage the crime scene.
Speaker 1: Basically, WES is written and hosted by me Lucy Sheriff.
Speaker 1: Our producer is Daphne Chen, editing by Karen Shakerji, production
Speaker 1: assistance from Joey Fish, ground fact checking by Lauren Vespoli.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Original score, sound design
Speaker 1: and mastering by Echo Shaw's Where's Deer is a co
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. Where's Deer was originally
Speaker 1: developed with Truly*Adventurous