The Night She Was Let Go: The Disappearance of Mitrice Richardson

Hi, CrimeHouse community. It's Kaylyn from Clues, and I've got some really exciting news for you all. Clues has been nominated for a Webby Award for Best Crime and Justice podcast episode. Now, we really, really need your help to bring home the People's Voice Award. Head to vote.webyewwards.com and cast your vote for Clues. Voting is open now through April 16th. That's vote.webyewwards.com. Thanks, everyone. This is CrimeHouse. One night in 2009, a mother gets a call. Her 24-year-old daughter has been arrested. But what started as an arrest soon turned into one of the strangest missing persons cases I've ever read about. My Trees Richardson was released from police custody just before 1 a.m. No wallet, no phone, no ride. And after that, no one ever heard from my Trees again. Hi guys, welcome back to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases. I'm Kaylyn Moore, and I'm going to be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories, and the court files released on these cases. And I'm your internet detective Morgan Absher. I'm the one who's diving into anything I can find online and looking at those lesser known details and trying to figure out what is or isn't adding up. And don't forget to share your thoughts on social, want ad-free listening and early access, subscribe to CrimeHouse Plus on Apple Podcasts, and make sure to go back and listen to our previous episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Now let's get into my Trees Richardson's case and the clues that defined it. Meet the new Hocus Speed Goat 7. Proven grip, comfort, and control. For runners who meet the wild head on. From steep climbs to slick descents and loose rock. Speed Goat 7. Run wilder. Explore more on hoker.com. This one is going to be a doozy of a case today. It's a big one. It is a big one. And I'm doing the research and you hear everything back and it is, it's mind boggling how such incompetence could even occur. You know, this is kind of a recent one. It's still 2009. I know you say it's mind boggling that such incompetence can occur, but I do feel as though that is a thread. I mean, we cover it every week. Recent cases we've covered, unfortunately. We got the botched board for a reason. Yeah, we, we start, we're starting with a clean slate. We'll see how many botches we get on this one. And as always, I'm very curious what you guys get for botches. Definitely keep Tally along with us. I know we need to start comparing at the end and like really calling to it. But I think we're going to talk about botched board and some other cases that we don't actually like cover on the show, but maybe want to highlight over on our new Clues podcast sub Reddit. Yes. So we will be sure to put the link in the description for you guys to go over to Reddit and check out the Clues podcast sub. We want to like let that be a place where you guys can highlight cases local to your area and, you know, maybe highlight other missing people because the power of Reddit, like if, if any of those posts went viral, I mean, there's just so much power and community behind Reddit. So we wanted to offer another place for everyone to share, share stories and share cases. Definitely. And that's our slash Clues podcast. Check it out. We'll also have the link in our description. But without further ado, let's get into this case because there's a lot to unpack. Yes. And if you're watching on YouTube, you're going to see some pictures, images, videos that will help you visualize the case. And if you're listening, you can see those same pictures, videos on our Instagram. That's at Clues podcast. And again, you should just follow us over there anyways, because we post a lot of extra stuff about the episodes on there. And just a warning before we begin, this episode does include discussions of suicide and mental health struggles. So please listen with care. I'm going to start this case on September 16th, 2009. That day, a bartender at a restaurant called Joffreys in Malibu, California calls 911 because someone is inside of the restaurant behaving very strangely. We're going to play a little bit of that 911 call here for you guys. Law social station, Dr. Echelette, I can help you. Hi, I'm calling from Joffreys restaurant in Malibu. We have a guest here who is refusing to pay her bill. And we think she may, she sounds really crazy. She may be on drugs or something. We are wondering if someone can come by and pick her up. That bartender describes someone who's potentially having some sort of episode inside of the restaurant and they want the police to come over and check it out. So when the bartender makes this call, she really believes that she's doing something to help this patron, MyTriese Richardson. But what she doesn't realize is this actually starts a chain of events that ends in the disappearance of that exact woman, MyTriese Richardson. So let's take it all the way back and talk a little bit about who MyTriese was. So MyTriese was born in South LA on April 30th, 1985 to Letie Sutton and Michael Richardson. Letie's herself had a pretty rough upbringing. So Letie's mother suffered from alcohol addiction and her father was pretty absent. When Letie's was just 12 years old, she watched her grandfather shoot her grandmother, Mildred, three times. And afterwards he turned the gun on himself and he died by suicide. Miraculously though, even after being shot three times, Mildred did survive the whole event. But that did go on to shape Letie's life and the years that followed. During her senior year of high school, Letie's got pregnant and gave birth to MyTriese just five months before she turned 18 years old. And once MyTriese came along, Letie's knew she had to break her family's cycle of violence and addiction for her daughter's sake. When Michael MyTriese's father took a wrong turn in life and ended up serving time in prison, Letie's did not wait for him. She decided she was going to move on with her life and she married her next boyfriend. And after that, they left South LA for a safer neighborhood of San Gabriel Valley, which is just outside of Los Angeles. Young MyTriese thrived there from elementary school throughout high school. She was kind of a natural born entertainer. She did everything from cheerleading to dancing. She even did beauty pageants. And Letie's really encouraged all of these interests that her daughter had. And she told her, you can be anything you want to be, even Miss America, you just have to work hard enough. What MyTriese really wanted though, was to be the first person in her family to go to college. And not only did she get into Cal State Fullerton, she had a 4.0 GPA. She definitely took her mother's advice, which was very good advice. But when she was in college, this also marked a really big change in her personal life. And this is the time where she came out as gay. MyTriese's parents accepted her. They embraced her identity, including her biological father, who was out of prison at that point. And in 2007, 22 year old MyTriese, who was still studying at Cal State Fullerton, fell in love with a 23 year old woman named Tessa Moon. She was an aspiring boxer. And Tessa helped MyTriese get a job as an assistant at a shipping company, which Tessa's father owned. But six months into this relationship, Tessa moved to the Bay Area for work. The two spent the next year and a half doing long distance. Some reports did say that they broke up sometime in 2009, but Tessa did say that they were still together and they were making plans for the future when MyTriese disappeared. With her girlfriend now a six hour drive away, MyTriese searched for other ways to stay connected to the LGBTQ community. She marched in Pride parades. She took a part time job as a go-go dancer at a lesbian bar in Long Beach under the name Hazel. Eventually, MyTriese decided that she was going to go to grad school after she got her bachelor's degree. She had always thought about being a child psychologist. She liked the idea of helping kids in foster care. Yeah, she really wanted to make a difference. Yes, yes. And that really tracks because Lettuce had seven siblings and most of them grew up in the foster care system. Plus, MyTriese had been working during her senior year as an intern for a clinical psychologist named Dr. Rhonda Hampton. But a year after graduating with her bachelor's degree in psychology in May of 2008, MyTriese appeared to be really struggling emotionally. And Dr. Hampton, her mentor, noticed that there was some concerning but pretty subtle behavior coming from MyTriese. Though she didn't say exactly what that behavior was and it doesn't seem like she really intervened in this. However, by the fall of 2009, people close to MyTriese realized that something was seriously wrong with her. She started posting really cryptic messages to MySpace, often in the middle of the night. One of them read, quote, Have you ever woke up at 7am crying on a Saturday? Because now that you see the light, you see all the people lost in the dark. Welcome to my reality. That September, MyTriese started sending erratic text messages to her mother as well. One of them said that she planned to, quote, find my way to Michelle Obama to see if she will talk to Mr. Obama about creating my position within the White House. But when Letise confronted her daughter about these texts, because she was very confused as to what her daughter was talking about, MyTriese explained them in a way that actually convinced her mom that everything was okay, that she was all right. MyTriese was the type of person that really always marched to the beat of her own drum. She was a creative person. I think her mom was just hoping that this was another form of creative self-expression. Yeah. I mean, some of the MySpace posts that I saw, I could chalk up as oh, that's just normal for the time. I remember being on Facebook and posting, Morgan is sad. Of course. Yeah. Some of them are like, oh, it's just a sign of the times. It's normal. Yeah. But then you get some of them and you're like, oh, no, clearly something's kind of up here. But some of them started seeming a little bizarre, but of course, her mom just thought the world of her and so was assuming the best intentions with all of these messages. But what she didn't realize is that the truth of what was happening was a lot more concerning. And that brings us back to September 16th, 2009. So that afternoon, 24-year-old MyTriese leaves her job at the shipping company that she worked at. She's taking her lunch break. But after this lunch break, she decides that she's not going to go back to the office. Instead, she drives to her aunt Lauren's house in Inglewood. But when she gets there, she realizes that Lauren's not home. And in response, MyTriese scatters a bunch of business cards, which are advertising her dancing name Hazel on the porch. And then she leaves a note on her uncle's van. And this is just more cryptic messaging coming from her. Some of these notes say things like, quote, who is queen now, Mississippi? And quote, black women scorned. Then MyTriese heads north on the Pacific Coast Highway in her white Honda Civic. And then later that evening, she spots a cliffside restaurant overlooking the ocean called Joffreys in Malibu. Really, really, really nice, lovely restaurant. Around 6.30pm, she pulls up to the valet stand and she steps out of her Honda. But instead of waiting for the valet to return from parking another car, MyTriese actually gets into the valet's personal vehicle. It's parked on the side nearby with the door open. And when he gets back, he sees that MyTriese is inside looking through his CD collection. And so he actually just asks if she's okay. And MyTriese replies, quote, it's subliminal. Then she says that she's there to avenge the death of Michael Jackson. And she asks if Vanessa is inside. And she describes her as being a girl with tattooed arms. Vanessa was actually the name of a regular at the club where MyTriese dance. MyTriese had apparently fallen pretty hard for her and only wanted her more when she learned that she had a girlfriend. But her behavior was described as being obsessive by some. She even drove all the way out to Las Vegas by herself once to celebrate her birthday. But eventually, Vanessa had to tell her to back off because the behavior did start to scare her. And it's not clear if Vanessa actually worked at that restaurant or was there that night or really what was going on and why MyTriese was asking for her there. When the valet gets into MyTriese's Honda, he notices that it's pretty messy inside. He describes there being stuff everywhere. It almost looked like someone had broken into her car and scattered everything all about. So the valet actually goes and gives the hostess a heads up that MyTriese is acting a little bit off. But she still gets a table at the restaurant nonetheless. And at 7.40pm, she orders a steak and a cocktail. Meanwhile, there's a table of seven people nearby, co-workers at a local mortgage company, and they're all just having a conversation with each other. And MyTriese brings her drink over. She's not really invited, but still sits down with the group anyways. And she starts talking to them about astrology, and then she gets into cracking codes. And then she also mentions to them things about hearing voices. So clearly she's coming off as going through something not in the right headspace. She's unwell. Everyone that she talks to that night kind of flags her behavior and the stuff that she's talking about. Because it just seems a little bit divorced from the reality everyone else is living in. Very disconnected. Yeah. When her steak finally arrives, she returns to her own table, but not before telling them that she'll contact them all when she gets to Hawaii. They're not really sure what that means, but that's what she says before she goes back to her table. At 8.21pm, the waiter prints MyTriese's check. It's about 90 bucks that she owes for the whole dinner. And she starts walking away without paying. So the manager intercepts her and MyTriese tells them that the other table was actually going to cover her bill. And then the manager replies that they're not going to cover that bill. MyTriese says, quote, I am busted. What are we going to do? They end up suggesting that MyTriese call someone and maybe ask for help paying for the meal. And they end up calling her 91-year-old great-grandmother Mildred, the same one we talked about earlier, because MyTriese is currently living with her. And Mildred offers to give her own credit card number over the phone, but they say that she is going to have to come in and sign for the charge. They actually, in one source I saw, they were like, we can't accept your credit card over the phone actually for fraud prevention, but you can fax us the numbers. 91-year-old great-grandma trying to just save the day, get her granddaughter out of this predicament. Let me pay the bill. Let me pay. Here's my credit card numbers. No, ma'am, you must fax. You must fax it. I know. I do love Joffrey, so I'm hesitant to say that they didn't do the right thing in this situation, but it's tricky. And I do think overall they were trying to help her, because even for having such odd behavior, they still gave her a table. But it is frustrating that they wouldn't just let her pay over the phone so that everyone could be square in this whole situation and just be done. Let's just get it settled. And obviously, Mildred can't do that. She also just can't drive into the restaurant. She's just too old to drive that far. It's also probably at this point maybe an hour drive from where she lives. It's not close. This is LA we're talking about. LA is extremely spread out. Everything is so far from each other. Getting up the Pacific Coast Highway if there's any traffic. You don't know how long it's going to be. And Mildred doesn't know this at the time, but things at the restaurant are starting to get worse for my trace. This is when Morgan, she starts telling the manager now that she's from Mars. And at one point someone described her as speaking in complete gibberish. Shortly after 8.30 p.m. on September 16, 2009, three deputies with the LA County Sheriff's Department arrive at Joffrey's Malibu. They performed a field sobriety test on my trace, which she does end up passing. And at the same time, my trace's mother, Letice, calls the restaurant, presumably after hearing about the situation from Mildred, we can assume. Letice spoke with the manager and, you know, I will say here that the most information we have about this whole altercation that happened at Joffrey's comes from this report by the Los Angeles County Office of Independent Review. And what they write in the report is very different from how the family describes what happened at the restaurant. So in this report, I mean, they say that my trace's mom suggests that she spent a night in jail because that could teach her a lesson. But I mean, in some of the reading that you did, Morgan, that's not really how it went down. No. So it's, I mean, one of those cases too, where you just have to take it with a grain of salt based on like what you're reading, on whose side that you're seeing this whole event through. They say that they got permission from Letice to take her to jail. They also got my trace's permission to search her car for her wallet. They didn't find one inside, but they did find some other stuff. They found alcohol containers, empty prescription bottles, and a small amount of marijuana. However, when the valet asked one of the deputies what was wrong with my trace, they supposedly replied by saying quote, she's a ding. And that's something law enforcement says when they're referring to someone with mental illness. She's a ding. She's a ding. Yeah, that's going on the botched board. Let's treat people with respect. It's yeah, like basic, basic civility, not derogatory terms. Even if someone has mental illness, like, come on, we need to be, there's services for that. Oh, it's going to get worse from here, friends. This is just like the tip of the iceberg. Buckle up. So according to the restaurant owner, deputies said the only way to get my trace some help was for the employees there to make a private person's arrest, aka a citizen's arrest, which brings us to our first clue. The two different stories about my trace's arrest, one from the staff at Joffrey's and one from the LASD's paperwork. As you mentioned, we've got a lot of sides to this story. Totally different stories based on whose side you're reading. Now, everyone agrees on one major thing. The restaurant manager did make a private person's arrest of my trace and they charged her with defrauding an innkeeper. Now, I look this up. This is not a term I had come across. It's essentially failure to pay a bill for hotel or like motel services, restaurant, things like that. It's kind of an old-timey term, but dine and dash essentially falls under this. And there's two different classes for it, actually. So if it's under $950, it's a misdemeanor, but can still result in up to six months in jail. If it's over 950, then it goes to a different level and it's crazy. But this was only, it was like an $89 bill. And you can get six months in jail for that? Yes. Wild. Yes. And the issue of a private person's arrest versus law enforcement arrest can be confusing. So I wanted to take a second to kind of get into the weeds on that. So under California law, a private person can arrest another person for any crime committed in their presence. Which is so wild to me. I'm just speechless, truly. I'm glad that more people don't know you can do that because I do fear that there would be citizens' arrests all over the place. The amount of people I actually want to arrest for running stop signs in my neighborhood now. You should just jump out of your car and scream, citizens' arrest. I'm going to walk around and get them. Walk around with a camera and send pictures of their license plate. There is a kind of a reason that this doesn't happen very often. Like if you improperly arrest someone, you could face charges yourself for false imprisonment and assault as well as a civil lawsuit. This is just crazy though. Can you imagine like physically arresting someone on your own? I can't. But I have heard of times where someone will break into a house and the homeowner, like do you remember there was a guy that trapped the burglar under a chair and like citizens arrested him until the police got there? Wow. Yeah. You can, I guess like hold people. The more you know guys. The more you know. The more you know. When a law enforcement officer responds to a private person's valid arrest, so if you citizens arrest someone in a valid way, they legally must take that suspect into custody quote, without delay, without questions. This also means that law enforcement cannot be held liable for the arrest in most cases though. So it does get really hairy real fast. So basically by asking the restaurant to make a private person's arrest, the police were granted protection and they were given a legal reason to take Maitris into custody swiftly and at least for a short amount of time. So after the restaurant manager did this private person's arrest on Maitris, the deputies added a charge for the marijuana possession based on the small amount found in her car. California is legal now, but again, this was 2009 recreational use. I don't think became legal in this state until 2016, somewhere in there. So it was like just super. They're gonna nab her on anything they can and they did get permission to search her car. So they took advantage of that. And now these charges typically wouldn't be enough to land someone in jail. Our best guess as to why they continued with this private person's arrest is the following. Police in California typically cite and release people for most nonviolent misdemeanors like petty theft or minor drug charges instead of actually arresting and booking them. Again, a lot more paperwork that they want to avoid. And since Maitris had no criminal record, they probably didn't feel like they could arrest and detain her for such a minor offense. But this is again, where the stories really start to differ. According to LASD's version of events, the restaurant manager quote, demanded that the deputies take Miss Richardson into custody. LASD also said that letting Maitris leave on her own wasn't an option. She hadn't paid the valet fee. So the restaurant wasn't going to release her car. Without her vehicle, she had no other form of transportation. How's she going to leave Jaffrees and get out of here? And I will say on her restaurant bill, you do see a valet charge on there, $5. Could have been solved by accepting grandma's credit card information over the phone. Yeah. But okay, here we are. Again, the restaurant employees claimed the payment wasn't the issue. They were claiming they were just worried about Maitris's safety. And I mean, the cops did say that the only way that she could get services, like not be arrested, but actually get services, was if they performed a citizen's arrest. So I do fear they were backed into a corner on this one. So according to the staff, they told LASD personnel that they believed Maitris was mentally ill and couldn't drive. And they even said that the deputies observed her symptoms firsthand. Hence the dang comment from before. Yeah. If that's true, the deputies had the grounds to detain Maitris themselves. If a person's mental illness makes them, quote, a danger to others, or to themselves, or gravely disabled, law enforcement can have them evaluated by a mental health professional. Or for an involuntary 72-hour hold, it's sometimes referred to a 5150. I saw this constantly when I was working in mental health facilities. People often brought in by officers placed in a locked psychiatric unit for their safety. Very common thing here in LA. And where Joffreys is located, there are multiple hospitals and facilities easily accessible that they could have brought Maitris to at this point in time. But Maitris' arrest paperwork does not make any mention of mental illness, erratic behavior, or intoxication. So it's another one for us. Yeah. Like very clearly, you have the staff of the restaurant concerned saying, hey, we have someone who might be under the influence or is unwell, and you're going to pretend like you're not observing that. You're not going to document it. You don't want to do a little more paperwork or complicate your evening. Come on. Yeah. I mean, all of this was so preventable the entire time. The report does talk about Maitris joining this other table of people, but it leaves out any mention of the voices in her head saying she's from Mars to the manager. There's no mention of any of this or any other potential symptoms that she was exhibiting. So whichever version of the story is true, we do know what happened next. Maitris was taken to the Malibu Lost Hills LASD station. It's about 20 miles from Joffreys. Her car was taken to the Malibu Toe Company, which is 11 miles from the station. So at 9.50 PM on September 16, 2009, that same night, 24-year-old Maitris Richardson found herself in the back of a squad car. She was now heading to jail. During that time, that's when her mom called the station to find out if Maitris would be released that night. And essentially, Latisse didn't know she should wake up her 10-year-old daughter to drive across town in the middle of the night, and she didn't want to drive 50 miles with her just to sit in the station of a lobby all night waiting for a morning release. 50-mile drive. Again, this is Malibu is very outside of LA. Yeah, it's a far, far drive. So Latisse made it clear that she would come get Maitris if she was going to be released before morning. But that didn't sound like the case. She never got a psych evaluation. She was never offered any mental health services. And deputies were reassuring her family members that Maitris was going to be safe with them. But in reality, this is not the case. Today's episode is brought to you by ALMA. It can be challenging to find the right therapist, someone that gets you, teaches you strategies that are actually going to work for you and your needs, and it can sometimes be costly. Well, ALMA is on a mission to change all that. They want to simplify access to high quality, affordable mental health care, and they have over 20,000 therapists and an easy to use platform. One thing I love about ALMA is that you can do consultations with a therapist. It's almost like an interview and you can make sure you guys match each other's vibes before you really jump in and get started. Their directory helps you find a therapist that takes your insurance and meets your specific needs with filters like gender, race, therapeutic approach, and more. And you're going to know exactly how much you're paying upfront with their free insurance cost estimator calculator. We're entering a new year, so now is the perfect time to start addressing things you might want to work on. A year from today isn't that far away. Get started now at helloalma.com slash clues. That's hello, a l m a dot com slash clues. Super easy to use. Just shop as normal and stack cash back on top of sales and savings. Join for free at rackerton dot co dot uk or get the rackerton app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. So one of the deputies told her, quote, the only thing is at least in this station here, she will be separated so nobody's going to be with her. You know, so at least that's the plus thing. You don't have to worry about her safety. And let he's clarified saying, quote, oh yeah, no, I feel safe with her being in custody. It's being released that I'm worried about. It's crazy out here, end quote. So Letice is obviously saying, I'm not worried about her being in the jail with you guys, even though I think a lot of people would be worried about that still. But the thing she was mostly worried about was her daughter exiting that building and being just left on her own after she was clearly having like a big mental health event. Absolutely. We're going to play a clip here for you guys just to kind of show you how calm her mother is, how worried she is though, and just very clearly communicating to this officer, this employee on the phone. Hey, let me know. I will come get her. That is not a question. That is not a problem. Let me know when she'll be released. I'm worried. And there's a bone chilling statement you guys are going to hear, but she essentially says, I don't want her out there wandering. She has nothing I don't want her to get her head chopped off. Okay, okay. I'm her mother. And are you guys want to book her and then release her on her own recognize tonight because it's dark. She doesn't have a car and I don't want her wandering out. I'm totally just taking a back because it's so out of character for her. And you'll see when she comes in, she's well spoken. I think the only way I will come and get her tonight is if you guys are going to release her tonight. If you're going to be held in custody for some type of arraignment tomorrow, then I will wait until tomorrow. She definitely has no place. You know, I mean, she's not from that area and I would hate to wake up to a morning report. I will lost somewhere with her head chopped off. I guess I would have to come and get her. Oh my God. Yeah, we're in a guru hose. The only thing is at least in the station here, she will be separated for nobody's going to be with her. So at least that's, you know, the plus thing. So you don't have to worry about her safety. Oh yeah. No, I feel safe with her being in custody. It's being released, but I'm worried about it. It's crazy out here. All right. Well, then I will more than likely call and touch your basis with you guys a little bit later. So at the end of that conversation, Letiz at least feels like her daughter's going to be safe enough overnight. So she sets her alarm for the next morning planning to wake up before sunrise to go get her daughter. Meanwhile, my trees was booked at 10, 20 PM and placed in this holding cell. But that deputy Letiz spoke to, he was leaving for the night. He wasn't going to be there overnight. He left the station without telling his watch commander about the conversation that he had with Letiz, specifically a mother basically pleading that her daughter not just be released out into the world. And also that she was going to come get my trees early if she was released that night. So they could just call her like if they did have to release her, they could call her, she'd come get, but he did not relay that conversation at all. Talk to her mom. Here's a phone number. Call her. Botched. He just went home. Botched. It's number three for us right now. While my trees was there overnight, she used the station phone four times, but it wasn't able to record phone calls. So we don't know if she got through to anyone or if she left any messages. What we do know though is that the only number my trees claimed to remember was her great grandmothers. But Mildred insisted that her phone did not ring that night. Yeah. And also this is another bit of a botched for us here actually. So there was a pay phone that did record conversations in this facility. However, it was broken. So the phone that they were allowing my trees to call from was just one of their normal desk phones that didn't record. Yes. Yes. Huge oversight that night. Then around 11 45 that night, the jailer got word that my trees had cleared the wants and warrants checked. That's a computer I searched that makes sure someone doesn't have any outstanding warrants before you release them. And because she cleared that she was free to leave. She could stay voluntarily in a private cell overnight if she had nowhere to go. And the jailer warned her that it was pretty cold and dark that night and her car was 11 miles away at the Malibu tow company. And still my trees didn't want to stay. She said that she didn't want to stay in a holding cell privately overnight at the jail. Yeah. I know. It's really interesting the way that I've heard this described to where it's like, well, you're released after we took you from all of your belongings in your car. And you can sleep on this nice jail bunk if you want. Yeah. You can stay here with all the lights on and if you want noises happening. So she says, no, I would like to get my car and go home. And at 12 15 a.m. on September 17th, 2009, she was released. She had nothing on her but the clothes on her back and her driver's license, which also is a t-shirt. It gets cold that night. This time of year, no cell phone, no wallet, no money, nothing, nothing. And you guys, 2009, Uber did not even start until the following year. You, at this point in time, to get anywhere had to phone a taxi and preplan it. And again, by this point, it's midnight, almost 1 a.m. by the time she's fully processed and leaving. What did they expect her to do? You guys, this part actually made our blood boil when we read this next part. I mean, how many botches do you're gonna have? You're gonna break the botch board in half when I tell you this. So my Trees was not offered any help to get back to her car. Again, it's 11 miles away. She's gonna walk there on foot. I don't think so, but they don't offer to help drive her there. Does she have a map quest on her persons? How does she even know where to go? This is the exact place where Mel Gibson was arrested in 2006 for a DUI. I'm pretty sure it was the one where he goes on that really anti-semitic tirade. He spent some time in a booking cell at the same sheriff's station. After he was released for his DUI, he received a private ride to his car by an officer. It's laughable. It's laughable. And she couldn't even if she wanted to walk to her car, she couldn't because it's all Malibu Canyon. It's just impossible to walk there at all. It's remote. I mean, I can't describe that enough. If you're watching, we will put some aerial shots of just the location and you can see a zoomed out map of what this looks like. There's not much there. And this is a young 24-year-old woman who's having a mental health crisis. And three years ago, you drove Mel Gibson to his car. How many did we get for Mel Gibson ride home, but not Maitris? It's horrible. It's so sad. Not a ride anywhere. Not a ride anywhere. And not even a call to her mom who would have came and got her. I know. Maitris was left to find her own way. The jailer told Maitris that she could spend the night in the station lobby where she could use a pay phone to make collect calls. But again, she's in the middle of this big mental health crisis. Her decisions are not necessarily rational. And so she decides that she doesn't want to do that either. So instead, she walks out the rear station door and she vanishes. Around 5.30 in the morning, Letiz called the station expecting to hear that Maitris was ready to be picked up. She was going to drive 50 miles to go get her daughter to make sure she was safe. And she was horrified to learn that her daughter had been released, but it was five hours earlier and the deputies had no idea where she went and no way to figure it out. Like Letiz immediately knew that something was wrong after she hears this. She said that she was going to drive the 50 miles to go file a missing persons report. And guess what's not included in the Los Angeles County Office of Independent Review that we read is how they told her not to. They told her that she would turn up. She'll turn up. Don't make the 50 mile drive to come check on your daughter. Don't file this missing persons report. She'll turn up. Botched. We are now up to seven. And if you're at home and you're adding extra for Mel Gibson, please let me know how many you did. But yeah, we're at seven at this point in time. Now we do have a potential sighting of Maitris after her release. Six hours after, at around 6.30 a.m. on September 17th, the Malibu Lost Hills Sheriff Station got a call from someone named Bill Smith. Bill Smith is a retired reporter and he lives in a remote neighborhood called Montenito and that's about six miles away from the station. Bill basically describes this person as a prowler. He is very confused how this person could have gotten past his roundabout driveway gate on his large expansive property. And he's just concerned. He is just kind of like confused by the situation and he does note that there's horse trails and hiking trails that go through his property. But it's odd that a woman would be on his property sitting on his steps at 6.30 in the morning. And now Bill does, as we hear, ask if she needed help. The woman replied that she was just resting. But the person he describes does sound a lot like it could have been Maitris. And we had a note here too that this area was in Malibu Canyon so it's not unrealistic to think that she was walking back to her car. This was kind of on the path back. So it makes sense that it would have been her. Yeah, very easily. But according to Bill's wife Karen, deputies didn't arrive after this phone call for another one to two hours. However, LASD records say that they showed up after just 20 minutes from receiving that call. Botched. Botched. Feels like a little bit of a discrepancy there. I do feel like we have to include probably 3,600 botches, one for each sentence that's written in this report because nothing matches what the family says. Nothing matches what any of the witnesses say. Anyone at the restaurant. No. And the Smiths at this point, they're watching this deputy now come and take a look around to try to find this woman matching Bill's description. And the Smiths say that they didn't really see them looking very hard. They just stood in their driveway for a quick chat. And the Smiths, not involved in this case really at all, don't know anyone involved. They have no reason to lie about any of this. They're not incentivized at all. No. And so they said they stood in the driveway, quick chat, and then left, missing a huge opportunity to find my trees. At the time of Bill's call, deputies hadn't received a Bolo or a Beyond the Lookout order for my trees just yet. Probably because they told the mom not to report her as missing. Do you want to write another botch board? We're just going to cover this whole botch board. There's going to be too many to count. According to LASD, the first Bolo went out at 1pm that day along with photos of my trees. Letiz arrived at the Malibu lost hill station at 6.15pm that night to file her missing persons report. And based on interviews she gave, it seemed like she believed that deputies would start searching for my trees right after her initial phone call instead of waiting for an official report because, again, they told her to not come looking for her. But even after Letiz filed, deputies did not go out searching for my trees right away. There was no official search the following day either. Give a botch for every single hour that they don't go looking for this woman. It took until September 19th, which was two days after my trees' disappearance for LASD to act. Two days after the phone call from Bill Smith potentially seeing her sitting on his porch steps. Come on, you have literally a last known location potentially. Two days. Two days. Two whole days. The first search on September 19th was pretty substantial. It lasted eight hours, again, according to LASD, and it evolved about 20 LASD personnel and LAPD missing persons unit detectives. Plus, there were cadaver dogs, there were scent tracking dogs, helicopters, a team from Malibu Search and Rescue, an all volunteer organization with specialized training, and they focused mostly on the Montenito area where my trees was last seen. Deputies knocked on doors to see if anyone else noticed a woman matching my trees' description. Meanwhile, another group called taxi companies to see if anyone had driven my trees from the Lost Hills area to Montenito. But the local cab companies denied seeing her as did any other neighbor in the area. Finally, the search team showed Bill Smith a photo of my trees and he did confirm that she was the woman in his yard. Two days later. Is that another one? That feels like you could have gotten a photo of her that morning when you went out to respond to his call. How did it take two days to get this guy to corroborate that that was her? And it was basically confirmed right afterwards by dogs because they picked up my trees' scent at Bill's house, but then they lost it about a quarter mile away. Botched, botched, botched, botched. Yeah, really, really upsetting. But they didn't feel that the day was a total loss because a volunteer with Malibu Search and Rescue spotted our third clue. They ended up finding footprints in Bill's backyard and they matched the tread on the van's sneakers that my trees was wearing. Based on the pattern, it showed that my trees was running, not walking, when she left those footprints. And investigators note that this is kind of interesting that she appeared to be running instead of walking because she had already walked six miles in the dark to get there. We don't know, but she likely didn't get any sleep or food that night. Also, something to note here, according to her family, my trees was terrified of the dark, terrified of the dark. They find it interesting that she would still have the energy and the stamina to run and do this. Yeah. Volunteers did do their best to follow my trees' tracks, but as soon as they got past Bill's house and onto the shared paths, those horse and hiking trails, there were way too many other footprints. And they couldn't determine if my trees' footprints led somewhere else on the morning that Bill called. And at this point, any evidence that they might have had is gone. Now, because my trees was living with her great grandmother and LA City Limits, the ongoing investigation had to be led by the Los Angeles Police Department, although the Sheriff's Department would remain involved. Meaning that LASD could participate in searches, but LAPD would call all the shots. Keep that in mind. It's going to be very important for later. Jurisdiction is really important in this one. It also meant that the LAPD now had jurisdiction over key evidence, like my trees' towed car, which they decided to search again, leading us to our fourth clue, the contents of her Honda. And they found multiple things that the LASD overlooked when they had arrested her. They spotted my trees' journals, her ATM card, her checkbook. She had over $2,000 in her bank account that was actually linked to that debit card and checkbook. She could have paid her bill at Joffrey's right then and there. They could have just gotten her to settle it. They did not have to take her to jail. And it would seem that, obviously, my trees wasn't thinking clearly enough to react and participate in this situation and say, oh, my wallet, my checkbook, it's in my car. And they knew she was acting erratically. Again, you guys, it's just so upsetting. And she passed that field sobriety test, indicating she probably would have been fine to drive. It's insane to me. When an LAPD psychologist analyzed her journals, investigators learned why my trees might have been disoriented. According to the LAPD analysis, my trees' journals contained writings consistent with a manic episode, potentially due to bipolar disorder. The psychologist also believed my trees was sleep deprived and might have been mostly awake for up to five days leading up to the incident at Joffrey's. Assuming she didn't sleep in the six hours between her release from the station and her appearance in Bill's backyard, my trees could have been on her sixth sleepless night by the time she left those footprints. Now, sleeplessness can be a symptom of bipolar disorder. It can also cause a lot of other complications, sometimes psychosis, hallucinations, things like that. And people with bipolar disorder and sleeplessness may become more impulsive and experience grandiose thinking, but sleep deprivation has effects on physical health too. It can cause cardiovascular stress. It can cause an increased risk of death. And according to training materials for therapists, a patient that has bipolar disorder who exhibits signs of psychosis like hallucinations, paranoia, and disorganized thinking should be hospitalized until they are stable enough to be treated outside of a hospital. A jail cell isn't necessarily the most conducive place to someone experiencing these symptoms. The restaurant staff did say that they saw my trees display similar behaviors the night of her rest, but not everyone agreed with that. There's an LASD deputy named Armando Lourero who filed the initial arrest report. And he consistently maintains that he never saw signs of mental illness at the time. In fact, the LASD claimed no one in the whole department observed symptoms that would meet the legal criteria to hold my trees for mental health evaluation. Again, we have that she's a ding comment. So it's on the botch board already. Okay. They've verbally acknowledged that she's having some sort of mental health issue. And then the report says actually no, there was no signs. Who could have known? No, but our fifth clue comes from an email and it calls this whole narrative into question on September 20th, 2009, three days after my trees disappeared, Lieutenant Scott Chu with the LASD sent an email to the Malibu Lost Hills station captain recapping a conversation with deputy Lourero. According to Lieutenant Chu's email, deputy Lourero said he took my trees to jail that night because she was quote, acting a little ditzy. The email goes on to say that Lourero felt quote, uneasy about just letting her go. Lieutenant Chu later said that he didn't remember sending this email or talking to deputy Lourero about why he took my trees to jail. No recollection. Oh, I don't remember sending that email. I do not recall, but we have the email. That's what I don't get. But it was sent from you at this time. It doesn't matter if you don't remember. Obviously, this email makes it sound like some of these deputies, especially deputy Lourero, had real concerns about my trees' mental health, and yet he chose to leave those concerns out of his incident report. If he had documented those concerns, he likely would have been obligated to take my trees to a hospital for a mental health evaluation. But that wasn't the case. And instead, by the end of September 2009, my trees was a missing person. So a second search happens on September 26th with more personnel and they cover a larger radius. It turned up no new leads. On January 9th, 2010, months later, an even bigger search kicked off. Teams came in from all over California. There were scuba divers now, more helicopters, dogs, horses, even ATVs, bicyclists, you name it. Lots of resources were now being put into this case. Nearly 400 people participated along with about 80 horses. And this time, they focused on places like drainage pools and areas beneath points where someone could have jumped or maybe fallen from. The search was one of the biggest in the area's history. And yet it led nowhere, not to a new piece of evidence. If you're so, like these are our tax dollars. Like this is, we are paying for this Morgan. There's literally, like it could have been 20 minutes of you talking to Bill and looking around and finding her. And instead, it's like hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars that are now being put into helicopters and cadaver horses. Like, oh my God, it makes me so mad. I appreciate that they're doing this now. However, why couldn't you have brought two ponies out on this initial search a couple days after you know that Bill Smith had horse trails in his backyard? Ride the trails. Even that, if you just told the officer, don't let her go until her mom gets here, none of this would have happened. And even with all of this, with all these resources being thrown at it, there's not a single piece of evidence that's being released. Like nothing is being found. And so the family really begins to feel like the best evidence that's going to be found in this case was actually hidden inside of the Sheriff's station. One of this week's partners is Shopify. It can be so challenging running a business. You have to wear so many hats, many of which you were never trained on. That is where Shopify comes in. If it wasn't for Shopify, I would not be able to have a merch website. It makes having merch and getting it to you guys so simple and easy. And Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US. From household names like Aloe Yoga, Gymshark, Allbirds, Chubbies, Mattel, the list goes on. Shopify has so many tools that make building your platform easy. They even have hundreds of ready to use templates that help you build your online store. And what if you get stuck while Shopify is always around to share advice with their award-winning 24 seven customer support. So you're always supported. It doesn't matter what stage of your business you're in, whether it's just trying to get online or starting a storefront, Shopify can help you with everything. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash clues. Go to Shopify.com slash clues. That's Shopify.com slash clues. It's hard to concentrate when you're worried about your health. It can feel like there's a wall between you and the rest of the world. Like you can't be fully present. Hello, AXA Health. How can I help? At AXA Health Insurance, we build our teams with people who care. So when you need us, we're here to support you. For cover that cares, search AXA Health Insurance. Pre-existing conditions are not covered. Think about some of the cases that defined true crime in America. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, the Karen Retrial. Some crime cases are so shocking. They don't just make headlines, they forever change a country. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Infamous Crimes. Each week, I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases, whether it's unfolding now or etched into American history, revealing not just what happened, but how it forever changed our society. Serial killers who terrorized cities, unsolved mysteries that kept detectives up at night, and investigations that changed the way we think about justice. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes, released every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. These are the stories behind the headlines. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcast. So back in 2009, before this massive search, my Teresa's family had actually asked the LASD if they could see the video footage from the jail that night she disappeared. At the time, they were told that the Sheriff's Station did not have video surveillance. Did not have it. No cameras in there. At a Sheriff's Station. At a Sheriff's Station. Interesting. At a Sheriff's Station. They found this extremely hard to believe, and it turns out, rightfully so, their instincts were correct because a tape from that station is actually clue number six for us. It had been sitting in a desk drawer ever since my Teresa disappeared. Thomas Martin was the captain of the Malibu Lost Hills Department when my Teresa was in police custody. And finally, in January 2010, he admits to my Teresa's family that there was a video, but they couldn't see it. Botched. Botched. That was due, allegedly, to a technical difficulty and the privacy rights of other people in the footage. Captain Martin says that he never intended to lie about the video, and he claims that the family had specifically asked for a video of my Teresa leaving the station, not video of her in the jail cell. Well, you didn't specify, like, that's ridiculous. No, they just didn't want to show it. You didn't want to show it. Also, what happened to blurring people's faces? Yeah, privacy concerns. This is an active... Put a black square. ...investigation. Over the other person. A lot of privacy concerns right now. No. And so when Captain Martin watched a brief portion of the video that was in his desk drawer, he only saw footage of my Teresa being booked. My Teresa's family is like, this is absolute nonsense. They say LASD repeatedly told them that there was no video evidence of my Teresa at all from the whole night of her disappearance. So obviously now, like, they're super anxious to see what is on this tape. What are you trying to hide? So at this point, my Teresa's family hires a civil rights lawyer. They're not messing around anymore. And it takes months, but in April 2010, seven months after my Teresa disappeared, they finally hand this tape over. Now, I will say there's been a lot of things called into question about this tape, various sources, question whether it was doctored or not. But this is what they see. There is one part of the tape where my Teresa grabbed onto the mesh screen in her cell and started shaking it like she was trying to break out. According to Letice, her mother, all of the characteristics that she's exhibiting in this tape is so totally out of character for her. She is very clearly able to tell that she appears unwell. And she thought this was a clear sign of a mental health episode, one that should have required an evaluation. But again, a lot of people call into question whether this tape was doctored. And Letice does think so. There's a part on this tape that appears to have been edited. And it's a part where in one frame, my Teresa is holding a piece of paper. And in the next frame, that paper is just on the ground. And that's not even what the family is finding to be the most troubling part of this video. During one screening, my Teresa's cousin kept watching after my Teresa walked out of the Sheriff's station's rear door. And that's when he saw a deputy leave through another rear door just two minutes after my Teresa departed. And now at first, the family's hopeful. They're like, maybe someone saw her, maybe maybe she actually did get a ride. Maybe we have some answers. But the LASD refused to release that deputy's name. Which again, the family is like, what are you hiding? It could be someone we could talk to, maybe they saw her. According to them, LASD did speak to the mystery deputy internally, and eventually cleared him of any wrongdoing. Heavy according to them. According to their records, he was with his partner most of the night. They even spent the evening dealing with a DUI suspect after my Teresa vanished. To this day, LASD has never released the deputy's name or what his partner said about the night. Because you have another person. Did they interview that other person? Like, is this alibi corroborated? How verified is the story? And based on all of their internal reports and what they're putting in their documentation, can they even be trusted? Well, what we did learn. However, ABC's eyewitness news tracked down the deputy who said, no one ever asked him about my Teresa. I made that on the botch extra long. So which is it? You interviewed this deputy, you cleared him of any wrongdoing, or the deputy was never asked about my Teresa. He was never asked the fact that even he came out and said that he was never asked. He wasn't even part of the conspiracy. They like left him out of telling him exactly what the conspiracy was going to be. So he just let ABC know that he wasn't talked to. And so this is coming from an ABC eyewitness news 12 years later. At this point, he doesn't even remember what happened that night. He wasn't even sure if he worked that night at this point in time. But apparently, he never saw her if he did. So between concealing the tape and refusing to identify the mystery deputy, LSD had lost all trust with my Teresa's family. Meanwhile, the search for my Teresa does continue, but it just keeps hitting wall after wall after wall. Investigators from the LAPD and LSD checked on reported sightings after sightings of Matrice as far as Las Vegas. One of those reports did come from her father who said he saw her, yelled her name, and she ran. There was another report seeing her in Vegas from a friend says they saw her, yelled her name, she ran. They went to Vegas. No signs of my Teresa. They actually couldn't confirm anything later than Bill Smith's encounter with my Teresa. The morning she was released. That is until June 2010, nine months into the investigation when another lead turns up. Our seventh clue. There's a new graffiti mural on a concrete retaining wall in Malibu Canyon, not far from where my Teresa was last seen. This graffiti depicts the images of nude bodies of black women with natural hairstyles. The mural was done in crude, cartoonish style. The figures were exaggerated and unrealistic. There was also a face painted on the mural with big eyes. Upon seeing this, Latisse, my Teresa's mother, is convinced that this mural has something to do with her daughter, something in it that she sees, resonates with her. Yeah, she feels like it looks a little bit like her daughter. But investigators disagreed. They found the artist allegedly and determined that he had often painted similar figures. From their perspective, it was just his style, a coincidence. So the next month, July 2010, the LASD Office of Independent Review published a 58 page report, and that's what we've been referencing. They had been investigating the deputy's action in my Teresa's case, and they ultimately concluded that LASD did nothing wrong, zero things wrong, and how they handled this case, which obviously came as a huge disappointment for her family. I mean, it, we have like market is botch, but like everything that we have botch, that's why I'm like, I'm like zero. Here's, here's the evidence that we're, we're not at zero. There's at least, what's this, 14 things that they did wrong? Yeah, this one's extra long though. So I don't know how many you want to count. That one counts as three. So yeah, a lot of things that they did wrong, but no, this report came forward and said, no, zero, zero things wrong. And honestly, maybe the OIR should have waited a little bit longer to publish that report because the biggest news in the case was right around the corner. Around 1pm on August 9th, 2010, a little less than 11 months after my Teresa disappeared, park rangers trudged into a remote area near Montenito called Dark Canyon. They had nothing to do with my Teresa's case. Instead, they were working to stop the growth of illegal cannabis in the Santa Monica mountains. But as they hiked towards a former grow site, they found our eighth clue, a red leather strap, and then a black bra and a blue pair of jeans. They then found a human skull, a pelvic bone, and a leg bone. According to my Teresa's father, Michael, the site was just half a mile outside of the radius of that 400 person search in January. Problem was that it was super hard to get there. I mean, it was steep. This was an overgrown canyon, a lot of vegetation. No one thought to check it. And really, there was no simple explanation for how my Teresa ended up there either. The hike was so difficult that LASD sent detectives in by helicopter. And this is where, again, things get a little wonky. So, according to department policy, skeletal remains can't be moved without the coroner's approval. So they planned to send the helicopter to pick up the coroner's team. But due to a series of mishaps, they were unable to make it out there that day, which is then why one of the detectives at the site decided to take the bones with him and leave by helicopter. So not allowed. Not allowed. And not only did they do that, they did not photograph the scene as they should have. So when a coroner's team comes in, they photograph the scene as it is found. They do extensive searches of the scene, try to evaluate, are there any other bones? Are there any other pieces of evidence? Like, this was not done. They couldn't get the coroner's team in there to even take pictures. They started taking pictures on a phone. And this is 2009. 2009. Or 2010 at this point. But not the same quality of phone that we have today for phone cameras. No. Based on the detective's report, the coroner was supposedly okay with that initially, since they had only found three bones at the site, the skull, leg bone and pelvic bone. But when the search and rescue team removed them, they got another unexpected surprise, which was the rest of Mitris' skeleton. It had been hiding underneath a pile of leaves. And so without contacting the coroner again, it'd be like, Hey, actually, we found a lot more than just three bones. The detective decided to remove all the bones they found. All. Again, disturbing the scene, not documenting how it was found. And because of that, neither a forensics team nor the coroner's team could investigate the site around it undisturbed. No soil samples were taken. There's nothing to test for trace DNA now. Various items of trash discarded nearby were never collected for testing either. The detectives actually missed additional bones nearby. It was such a botched operation. And didn't go the way anyone planned. In some reports, I've seen the assistant coroner at the time was like, I would have told them no, no one asked me. So again, we're getting such conflicting reports from LASD. Oh, we got permission versus like the actual office of the coroner saying, no, a common theme in this whole investigation. And the detectives, you know, everyone that was there points to, God, we're so worried about these, you know, these remains, we don't want animals to disturb them. It's been almost a year. If things we're going to get disturbed, don't you think also, I don't know, camp out, have someone hike in with a tent, drop a tent down from a little helicopter. Yeah, camp out, stake off the site, yeah, coordinate off, do your diligence like, okay, there's a million other ways to have handled it. Yeah, DNA did later confirm that these remains did in fact belong to my Trees Richardson. So months after her remains were found, the coroner ruled my Trees' cause of death as undetermined. Her family, however, believed that she did die by homicide. Moving my Trees' bones prematurely definitely complicated matters. The coroner's team did try to visit the site the next day, but they left their GPS on the helicopter so they weren't able to find the correct location. Oh, can't even go back. Can't even go back. They then tried again two weeks after that on August 25th, 2010, and they collected nine more of my Trees' bones that detectives had missed at the site. Another bone was found in November of 2010 by a forensic anthropologist who was working with my Trees' family, and the coroner's team found even more of my Trees' remains in February, 2011, almost a year later, on a return visit to the site. I'm just adding three for all of this, GPS, missing pieces of evidence. The family's forensic anthropologist discovered that my Trees' clothing was never sent to the crime lab for testing as well. I'm like, you're not going to have, don't put the box board down for the rest of the episode. It just gets so much worse. So basically, it means that if this was a murder, the forensic evidence had been tampered with and mishandled so much that the case would likely never be prosecuted. I know. And something a lot of people bring up in this case at this point too, is the fact that my Trees' body did not appear to have been touched by animals. This is Malibu Canyon. There's cougars, coyotes, abundance of animals that are scavengers and would have scavenged. But they do note that, oh, her clothes must have been taken off by animals somehow. And that's why everything was so strewn about. And to not test any of it, to just like, oh, well, let's find out. Is there coyote DNA on this shirt? You can test for hairs of animals to get a better idea. No testing? Come on. Well, when asked, law enforcement seemed to think that murder was not on the table, that it wasn't a possibility that she was murdered. And instead, they actually wondered if my Trees died of a fatal allergic reaction to poison oak, which is common in the area. But it's almost unheard of as a cause of death. And they just immediately go to that explanation. Plus, there's nothing in my Trees' medical history that suggests she had an allergy to oak. LASD also suggested that a rattlesnake might have killed my Trees. Southern Pacific rattlesnakes are common in some areas throughout Los Angeles County. However, there are only about five deaths from venomous snake bites per year in the entire United States, compared to the almost 17,000 homicides in 2009, the year that my Trees vanished. And again, there was no forensic evidence of either a snake bite or an allergic reaction, but there also wasn't clear evidence of a murder either. I don't know that there's much evidence of anything. At least now, the family could lay my Trees to rest. There was a little bit of closure, at least, that the family could get. In 2010, she was buried in the Inglewood Park Cemetery. And in 2011, more bones were added to her exhumed coffin. And that seems to be where the investigation stopped. Police did not share any new leads publicly after that. Now, my Trees' parents both settled lawsuits that they had with the LASD in 2011 for a total of $900,000 that was divided equally between them. But still, LASD did not admit to any wrongdoing. They said that they ran a near-perfect investigation into this. No wrongdoing. Sadly, on September 12, 2025, that was just last year, Lattice Sutton died just shy of her 58th birthday. It was four days before the 16th anniversary of my Trees' disappearance. She, unfortunately, did not get to see her daughter's case solved. Michael, Lattice's father, is still to this day searching for answers. He continues to believe that LASD covered up key facts related to this case. And a journalist named Jasmine Kanek, who supported my Trees' parents throughout the investigation, does also believe that there was a cover-up. She thinks that one person who knew the truth is the Los Angeles Sheriff at the time, Lee Bakka. Former Sheriff Bakka, who will turn 84 in 2026, went to prison in 2020. Why? Because he obstructed a federal investigation of inmate abuse within the Los Angeles Men's Central Jail. Let that sink in for just a moment. He was released in January of 2022 after serving most of his three-year sentence. But if he knows anything about my Trees, he might not be able to share it now because he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2014. And on July 14, 2024, he wandered away from home long enough to be reported as missing himself. The former sheriff, who was 82 at the time, was found sitting in a restaurant later that day, and he was returned to his family. Because, get this, they searched for him immediately. And over the years, too, there's been other theories as to what happened. It seems like to this day, LASD largely believes that my Trees died either accidentally or by suicide, but they have not officially closed their case yet. There's still an active $20,000 reward. And if you know anything that could help close this case once and for all, you can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS, which is also 1-800-222-8477, or you can visit lacrimesoppers.org. Now, we do have a few loose ends and theories in this case. There's obviously no firm answers, but these are three main theories about what people think happened to my Trees. First theory, no foul play. My Trees died during a mental health crisis either accidentally or by suicide after wandering into dark canyon on her own, and she herself took off her clothes. People argue that this is the most likely given the behaviors she exhibited, and it was pretty apparent that she was indeed in a mental health crisis. But we covered a case on this show, as Meryl de Gonzalez, who was also in the middle of a very active mental health crisis and was taken advantage of by her neighbor, killed, and then left in the desert. It does happen, even though I know a lot of people assumed that she wandered off and died accidentally. It's still easy to take advantage of a person like that. It is. I mean, we clearly saw it in that case, and the fact that that case was even solved when looking at the evidence and the clues, it's a miracle. It is a miracle, and something very easily could have happened like that to my Trees. And let's get into the second theory then. It's the unsolved crime of it all. An unknown person either killed my Trees or coerced her into a dangerous area of the park where she then died accidentally. Yeah, because this area of the park too, I mean, even in this, we talk about how hard it was for the investigators to get there, it would have been difficult for her to have wandered into that area on her own. Yeah. It's really interesting, especially given she was so afraid of the dark, and like when the Smith saw her, she was in a backyard. So like, it's, you know, at least in the backyard of a house, it's plausible and walkable to get to, and there's hiking trails and horse trails. So it's interesting that she was then found so deep within a canyon. Yeah. And so a lot of people point to someone being involved. The Lost Hills podcast mentioned someone named Rick Forsberg as a person of interest. Rick Forsberg was a Montenito resident with a history of substance use disorders and a criminal record. He was known to police and interviewed about the case prior to his death in 2019. He did allegedly pass two polygraph tests regarding my Trees' case. In a video taken by a friend named Raven prior to Rick's death, he actually claims he saw my Trees the same day Bill Smith did, September 17th, but he saw her afterwards, which if true, would make him the last person to have seen my Trees alive. In 2024, journalist Dana Goodyear found a stash of women's underwear at a location Rick was known to use as a hideout. Let that sink in. Yeah. This is just coming 2024. Yeah. What? That he had a stash. And remember, my Trees' underwear were not found with her remains. But other items of clothing were. How they didn't think that was suspect at all just blows my mind. Dana offered the items to law enforcement for DNA testing. They did decline. I'm slow blinking. It just hurts to hear. Just it just hurts. I mean at this, but how hard is it? How hard is it? How hard is it? Why? Where's my marker? It's just X black it out. It's fine. Just black it out. Like how hard? And their excuse was that they already knew about the underwear stash, and so they didn't think it was related or they just didn't think that it was nefarious. If you knew about it, why isn't it in your arsenal of evidence? Like, hey, we know that this person has a history. Maybe there's other unsolved cases, even regarding things like SA in relation to this person where there might be DNA evidence, but we're not going to catalog it. And there were also other weird things happening at the time, just even if it wasn't this guy with the underwear stash, like where my Trees was found also, I mean, they were looking into marijuana. Yeah, illegal marijuana, which tends to be part of big criminal networks. People who are already comfortable with breaking the law. They didn't really look into that angle at all because, you know, maybe she saw something she wasn't supposed to. That has happened in California before with like illegal marijuana farms before it was legalized. And also there's the fact that her skull and her spinal cord were detached from the rest of her skeleton. Now, this could have been due to animal activity, but there weren't any animal fibers or clear tooth marks that were found on her remains, at least that we know of. No, no. And a lot of sources, they say there were no signs of animal activity. Now, there's arguments against this as well. That like no clear forensic evidence that another person was at the scene. There's not a lot of clear forensic evidence of anything though, because we know how mishandled the scene was. They didn't collect trash nearby. What if someone discarded their beef jerky wrapper? Yeah, exactly. Like you didn't, how do you know? What if there was a knife? At like, they just never looked into the trash. Yeah, exactly. So again, not a lot of evidence that it was another person, but just not a lot of evidence period. Yeah. And then the third theory is really what the friends and the family and also what activists believe. And that is murder with a police coverup. I mean, we could just recount the entire case for you in this moment, but all of that kind of leads to evidence that there was some sort of police coverup for whatever reason. Especially the coroner's office, they have heavily criticized LASD for moving the remains, saying it was without the coroner's permission. Again, like he got asked and he's like, I never said that. Right. Who me? You didn't talk to me. Something that a lot of sources point out to is again, the way in which her body was found, head detached, but the missing bones, notably the missing hyoid bone, that bone can often prove strangulation in an autopsy. So the fact that that bone and additional neck bones were missing, maybe not, maybe just not found. We don't know. Yeah, but could have evidence that something bad happened. A lot of sources point to that being like the telltale sign, like, no, this is a coverup. And who would know to take those bones? Someone trying to cover something up. Exactly. Exactly. So there's a lot, a lot of theories. I will say there's a lot of rumors out there as well when you're going through research and even news articles of some sources hearing screaming in the woods. I was never able to corroborate that. If you come across a source that's credible, please drop it in the comments. But, you know, kind of similar to the Idaho murders, like the family said, like, there's so much misinformation out there that we want to correct. And that's kind of the case here. But given how botched it is, it's so difficult to decipher what's accurate or not. My trees might be alive today and practicing clinical psychology if she had gotten treatment that night or had just gone home with her mother. That's why the organization that we wanted to highlight is psychosisreach.org. Reach stands for recovery by enabling adult carers at home. Psychosis Reach is a project of the University of Washington supporting families that have a member who is experiencing or who experiences psychosis. They offer Zoom-based training on how to care for loved ones with psychosis. There's also a resource library with information on how to identify signs of psychosis and how to conduct a family intervention. Psychosis can be really scary both for the person experiencing it and for those who love them. But early intervention is key to prevent further harm. So please take time to learn the signs of psychosis. And if you or a loved one ever experiences these symptoms, get help right away. I know, like, I'm postpartum right now. I'm still in that window where really scary mental health stuff can start popping up. So, like, I've asked my loved ones just to keep an eye on me. I think it's really important to just always be checking in and to know the signs and symptoms because it can sometimes feel like a pot of water boiling and you're a frog in it where you just don't notice it till it's too late. I know. I've read a lot of firsthand accounts from people in the comments of Mitrice's case and they themselves have different disorders and they describe what an episode of psychosis feels like. It is very scary and they, you know, describe it as like being pulled under water and it's just like, I don't even know I'm in it. Like the frog in the pot analysis is a good one. So this is an eye on your loved ones having that sense of community, the village, like bring back the village. Yeah, I saw one comment that actually someone wrote this one really stuck with me. I've experienced psychosis full blown hallucinating from a bad reaction to medication. So again, something you wouldn't expect. It's absolutely terrifying and you have no idea till it happens to you. I was out of my mind. I remember a lot of it, but most of it I was completely blacked out. There were some moments of lucidity where I'd be like, wait, what the hell am I doing? And then I would get sucked back in. It feels like you're possessed in your own body. Yeah. Really, really scary stuff. Really. I mean, UTIs and seniors can cause psychosis like delirium. It's just like, it takes all of us and it takes our agencies also responding accordingly when people do come across their paths. So yeah. And yeah, it's just, it's so sad having this type of mental health issue too. It's not a death sentence in this country. Ultimately, she lost her life. She was sent to jail. She like the whole case was mishandled and that in no way needs to be what happens to people experiencing this. So it's just so sad. In some departments across the United States at least, there are mental health professionals joining officers on responding to calls like this. And I would love to see that become a standard, a gold standard of their practice. I mean, these officers are not trained to handle mental health crises. No, no, they're not psychologists. So every officer responding to calls where someone's acting erratically should have a mental health professional or someone trained in addressing these situations with them. So hopefully we can see that continue to expand. Absolutely. On that note, let's highlight our missing person of the week. Today we wanted to highlight the case of Breanna Maitland. This was submitted by Winnie, you guys on Spotify. Breanna was born on October 8th, 1986. She was age 17 when she disappeared. On March 19th, 2004. She is described as having brown hair, hazel eyes. She's five foot four and was 105 pounds at the time of disappearance. She also has a scar on her forehead near her left eyebrow. The left nostril of her nose is pierced and at the time of her disappearance, she usually wore a nose stud in it. Breanna was last seen completing her shift at a restaurant in Montgomery, Vermont, a small town near the Canadian border. She left the restaurant in a green 1985 Oldsmobile 88, which was later located back into the side of an abandoned barn about a mile away from the restaurant. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $40,000 for information leading to the recovery of Breanna. If you have any information concerning this case, please contact the FBI's toll free tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI or the Vermont State Police Tip Line at 1-844-84-VTIPS. And that is all we have for this week's episode. Now we turn it over to you guys. Your thoughts, your theories, your frustrations, your anger, your resentments, your botch board counts. We want to hear all of it. It's stuff like that that makes this community so special. Yeah, we're kind of at like 20 slash. It's just scribbled out because I got so mad. I know this is on par with the Robert picked in one, I think that we did just with cow botched. I'm sorry for being so heated and angsty throughout this episode. I don't know, this one just really the injustice of it all and just the unavoidability. It really stuck with me. So let me know how you feel in the comments at Crime House. We really value your support. So again, share those thoughts on social and remember to rate, review and follow and subscribe and subscribe to Clues to help others discover our show. Thanks guys. Bye. Some crimes are so shocking. They don't just make headlines. They forever change your society. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Infamous Crimes. Each week, I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases, whether it's unfolding now or etched into American history. Serial killers who terrorize cities, unsolved mysteries that kept detectives up at night, and investigations that change the way we think about justice. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes, released every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first time that something was wrong, to the moment the truth came out or didn't. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.