Latest / Hell and Gone: Murder Line / Buried Secrets

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Buried Secrets · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans, just waiting for Brandon, hoping he makes
0:16
Speaker 1: it back. We were on the horse trail. We followed
0:19
Speaker 1: that to the end and got to a pretty steep
0:21
Speaker 1: drop off. Oh yeah, here he comes. This is like
0:25
Speaker 1: the beginning of every horror movie where the people go
0:27
Speaker 1: into the woods, so I'm very aware of that even
0:30
Speaker 1: though we are being safe. We've been trying to get
0:35
Speaker 1: onto Malibu Canyon Ranch because over the years, a lot
0:38
Speaker 1: of people have said that there was direct access from
0:41
Speaker 1: the back of that property to Dark Canyon, where my
0:44
Speaker 1: TRACE's remains were found, so we're trying to figure out
0:48
Speaker 1: if that's true. The ranch is a thirty acre property
0:52
Speaker 1: with horses. They also do a lot of photo shoots
0:56
Speaker 1: and productions, and it's also private property. But I found
1:01
Speaker 1: a listing on Airbnb for the guest house. We booked
1:04
Speaker 1: it for two nights. My producer Brandon got there first.
1:09
Speaker 1: He met Sus Randall, the owner. She rode up to
1:12
Speaker 1: meet him on a horse. She also introduced us to
1:16
Speaker 1: her big black dog, Pickles. We both love dogs, so
1:20
Speaker 1: we ended up tagging along as we looked around the property.
1:23
Speaker 1: What did you tell me? What? Okay? So, Pickles the
1:25
Speaker 1: dog is very happy because he likes to play fetch
1:27
Speaker 1: and he just brought something back to me and I
1:30
Speaker 1: thought it was a stick, but upon closer inspection, it's
1:32
Speaker 1: a deerfoot. So we're finally here in the place that
1:38
Speaker 1: a lot of people have been trying to get access
1:40
Speaker 1: to since the night my terse went missing. We're hoping
1:45
Speaker 1: to find a way to Dark Creek. I'm Catherine Townsend.
1:48
Speaker 1: This is Helen Gone. So we're just as you can see,
2:24
Speaker 1: we're walking to the back of the property. Here. When
2:29
Speaker 1: you approach Malibu Canyon Ranch, you can see the Spanish
2:33
Speaker 1: style main house. You can see horses in a little paddock,
2:36
Speaker 1: and as you drive around you see a small guesthouse.
2:41
Speaker 1: This side is just basically a wall of dirt and rock.
2:46
Speaker 1: On the right to the left there of the properties.
2:49
Speaker 1: In the background the Santa Monica Mountains, which is where
2:53
Speaker 1: the Backbone Trail is. There's a saltwater pool and there
2:57
Speaker 1: are views in every direction of the canyon and the
2:59
Speaker 1: Santa Monica Mountains. We're going to continue down this road
3:04
Speaker 1: and when you walk out of the guest house you
3:06
Speaker 1: see a dirt road which they call the fire Road.
3:09
Speaker 1: It leads to an incredibly steep drop down to the canyon.
3:13
Speaker 1: That's down the canyon. That's the canyon. I'd say that's
3:18
Speaker 1: probably a one hundred foot drop. Seventy five foot drops. Yeah,
3:23
Speaker 1: see now and again, if you told me like the
3:26
Speaker 1: remains were here, I'd be like, Okay, you drop it
3:30
Speaker 1: off right that makes sense. Someone dropped it or she
3:33
Speaker 1: fell or whatever. Is this right here? Yeah, if you
3:36
Speaker 1: took one wrong step, especially if it was darker night,
3:40
Speaker 1: or if you're so tired. When you look at a map,
3:43
Speaker 1: the remains are point two miles from the fire road
3:47
Speaker 1: where we're standing. But what you don't see on those
3:50
Speaker 1: maps is this giant drop off. It's so steep they've
3:54
Speaker 1: put up barriers, so although the remains are close, there's
3:58
Speaker 1: no way to get there without hiking down and around
4:01
Speaker 1: this drop off. We did find this little sort of
4:08
Speaker 1: depression that seems to lead toward the canyon. We just
4:12
Speaker 1: back up a little. We both talked to Susan Randall,
4:15
Speaker 1: and she told us about the other trails at the
4:18
Speaker 1: back of the property. We're just trying to figure out
4:21
Speaker 1: where all of these trails lead. We started to hike.
4:26
Speaker 1: Pickles followed us around and let us down. Some horse trails. Well,
4:30
Speaker 1: he's walking down there. I was about pickles is cause
4:35
Speaker 1: you Okay, buddy, come on back through. So if you're
4:39
Speaker 1: a if you're a two foot black lamb, you can
4:45
Speaker 1: you can get through this brush. Well it looks like
4:48
Speaker 1: it drops right there. Though, see like I can't I
4:50
Speaker 1: can't tell how stupid it is. Well, it's I think
4:55
Speaker 1: down here there's another overking, so maybe we can get
4:57
Speaker 1: a sense of that. So we followed every single horse
5:02
Speaker 1: trail that led from the back of that property. We
5:05
Speaker 1: went down in some areas that weren't actual trails the
5:09
Speaker 1: other way. Let's go on here, look just to like
5:12
Speaker 1: be threough. I'm gonna check the map from here. Okay,
5:16
Speaker 1: I'm gonna walk down the bottom. Brandon and I split
5:19
Speaker 1: up to look around. Anything interesting. It's real, it's real steep,
5:24
Speaker 1: and it's again it's this loamy soil. Yeah. I think
5:28
Speaker 1: if you started down that path that we saw that
5:31
Speaker 1: my thought might be impossible. You'd started slipping and you'd
5:34
Speaker 1: fall the hole. Yeah, you'd fall just one wrong step
5:38
Speaker 1: up here, and let me look at this on the right. God,
5:42
Speaker 1: I tell you, like for someone who did not like
5:44
Speaker 1: the woods, a girl after my own heart. I can
5:46
Speaker 1: only imagine how scary this would be. And I was
5:49
Speaker 1: saying too when you were up there. I was like,
5:52
Speaker 1: you know, the other thing that's strange is it's extremely
5:55
Speaker 1: hard to figure out what time of day it is
5:56
Speaker 1: right now. There are so many the sun disappears behind
6:00
Speaker 1: the mountains, and I can't tell what time. I have
6:03
Speaker 1: no idea what time of day it is right now.
6:04
Speaker 1: It's partly class and it could be ten o'clock in
6:06
Speaker 1: the morning, could be seven o'clock at night. After following
6:11
Speaker 1: all these trails at the back of the property, it
6:13
Speaker 1: really seems that there's no way down. There is no
6:17
Speaker 1: shortcut between the back of that property and the area
6:20
Speaker 1: where my Trees's remains were found in Dark Canyon. After
6:24
Speaker 1: we exhausted all the possibilities that way, we then went
6:27
Speaker 1: back toward the Backbone trail, which took us right back
6:31
Speaker 1: to the same routes we had taken before. But I'm
6:35
Speaker 1: gone this way, yeah, I'm probably can regret this. We
6:40
Speaker 1: decided to hike back to the coordinates where my trees
6:43
Speaker 1: was found. Again. It was the hardest hike I've ever done.
6:48
Speaker 1: We say we went hiking, but it's not a hike.
6:50
Speaker 1: It's a climb. It's climbing sheer rock face and trying
6:55
Speaker 1: not to slip and fall down the sides of the canyon.
6:58
Speaker 1: The soil is very loose. It's almost like trying to
7:01
Speaker 1: climb a sand dune. It is easier that it's cooler.
7:04
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that it's much easier because it's cooler.
7:09
Speaker 1: That was what was kind of killing us. But I'm
7:13
Speaker 1: glad we did it twice when we hike this route.
7:16
Speaker 1: The first time it was around the same time of
7:20
Speaker 1: year when my trees went missing mid September. We were
7:23
Speaker 1: seeing dark canyon as she had been experiencing it. It
7:27
Speaker 1: was hot and dry, and there was a thick curtain
7:30
Speaker 1: of trees and it was almost impossible to get through
7:34
Speaker 1: because there were so many trees covering the rock face
7:37
Speaker 1: on both sides. It was really hard to tell how
7:40
Speaker 1: steep it was at any point. But this time, hiking
7:43
Speaker 1: in December, a lot of those leaves have dropped. It
7:47
Speaker 1: was cooler and easier to take a thorough look at
7:50
Speaker 1: the sides of the canyon. It's so much easier because
7:52
Speaker 1: all of these were in full bloom, like they were
7:55
Speaker 1: like cutting. This was all like impassable almost yeah, you
8:03
Speaker 1: can actually see what's going on. This time, we saw
8:08
Speaker 1: that there did seem to be a few spots that
8:10
Speaker 1: were less steep where you could climb up, but those
8:14
Speaker 1: points were still far from the remains. We also saw
8:19
Speaker 1: something else, a lot more trash, soda cans, deflated balloons, plastic,
8:25
Speaker 1: and other debris. We saw some areas where branches have
8:28
Speaker 1: been organized, and pseudo huts seemed to have been built.
8:32
Speaker 1: It was really creepy because we know that cartel people
8:35
Speaker 1: have used this area to grow cannabis, and the grow
8:39
Speaker 1: season is from April to November. It gives me chills
8:43
Speaker 1: to think that while we were hiking through there, people
8:46
Speaker 1: could have been hiding behind those leaves. We also found
8:49
Speaker 1: an oven. So we're now at the point let's see
8:54
Speaker 1: if I get this, this would be the equivalent point
8:57
Speaker 1: in the creek bed of when we walked to the
9:00
Speaker 1: end of the fire road, which is like the furthest tip,
9:03
Speaker 1: the point where we're saying, hey, we're point two miles
9:05
Speaker 1: from theirs, and from this point we've seen a lot
9:09
Speaker 1: of Basically, we saw something. We see some debris down here,
9:14
Speaker 1: and it looks like that might be an oven or
9:16
Speaker 1: mini fridge got some more pictures of that. But there's
9:19
Speaker 1: definitely signs that there have been people down here, and
9:21
Speaker 1: it looks like if before the fence was put up,
9:26
Speaker 1: It's very plausible that this could have been somewhere that
9:28
Speaker 1: someone could have pulled up and dumped something down. However,
9:31
Speaker 1: because we've still got a ways to go, that makes
9:34
Speaker 1: this less likely because the road doesn't continue that far.
9:37
Speaker 1: We also found more hoses. Remember my Treesa's body was
9:41
Speaker 1: found not during a police search, but because park rangers
9:45
Speaker 1: were looking for an illegal marijuana grow. They found irrigation hoses.
9:50
Speaker 1: When we did our first hike, we also saw hoses
9:54
Speaker 1: that looked old, but on this hike we found other hoses,
9:58
Speaker 1: different types of hoses that looked pretty new. There was
10:02
Speaker 1: also a thin layer of water flowing in the creek
10:05
Speaker 1: at this time, and that's where the hoses seemed to
10:08
Speaker 1: be connected. I'm starting to think that it's more likely
10:11
Speaker 1: than not that my Trees did walk up on the
10:14
Speaker 1: wrong people. There's a lot of evidence of people hiding
10:18
Speaker 1: in the woods and camping. This is not an area
10:21
Speaker 1: where you would hike to and set up camp unless
10:24
Speaker 1: you were trying to hide from someone. This is a
10:30
Speaker 1: tough case because there's so much that was either not
10:33
Speaker 1: done at the scene the first time or done incorrectly.
10:37
Speaker 1: It's hard to have definitive answers. So doing the height
10:42
Speaker 1: twice was extremely important because unless you go in there,
10:46
Speaker 1: it's hard to put yourself on my Teresa's shoes. For example,
10:51
Speaker 1: when we started our investigation, there were a lot of
10:53
Speaker 1: people talking about the fact that the area where the
10:56
Speaker 1: remains were found is close to the ranch property. It
11:00
Speaker 1: is close, but if you have to drop off a cliff,
11:03
Speaker 1: that distance is meaningless. The bottom line is, any way
11:08
Speaker 1: we tried to go, we still ended up having to
11:11
Speaker 1: go around and hike the long way, But we wouldn't
11:14
Speaker 1: know that if we hadn't gone out there. And once
11:17
Speaker 1: you get to Dark Creek, you get a sense of
11:19
Speaker 1: how treacherous it was, and we found so much with
11:23
Speaker 1: the new hoses an oven, it just seems clear to
11:26
Speaker 1: me that even though this area seems extremely remote and dangerous,
11:31
Speaker 1: there are people out there living in those woods, and
11:34
Speaker 1: if she encountered those people, it's likely that they would
11:38
Speaker 1: have done something bad to her. We had also heard
11:41
Speaker 1: a lot of theories about someone driving out there and
11:43
Speaker 1: dumping a body. Now, there have been cases in this
11:46
Speaker 1: area where that happened with gang members and serial killers,
11:50
Speaker 1: for example, But in all of those cases, the bodies
11:54
Speaker 1: were dumped in places where you can pull a car
11:56
Speaker 1: up near a road, for example, in my Teresa's case,
12:00
Speaker 1: that would be impossible. So from the road you see
12:04
Speaker 1: the no TRESSPA sign, you see the fire road. It's
12:07
Speaker 1: a dirt road, but a car could drive down that
12:09
Speaker 1: part of it. So there is this so I can
12:12
Speaker 1: understand why people might have asked the question. You know,
12:15
Speaker 1: could someone have driven some way, maybe with an ATV
12:18
Speaker 1: even or something, and gotten close to where the body
12:21
Speaker 1: was dumped and then dumped it there. But that's impossible.
12:24
Speaker 1: It's there's no road up here, there's no way unless
12:27
Speaker 1: the car could fly, there's no way to get to
12:29
Speaker 1: that spot. So either she walked back there herself or
12:33
Speaker 1: someone carried her there. Like everywhere else in the world,
12:52
Speaker 1: twenty twenty has been an apocalyptic year. In Los Angeles.
12:56
Speaker 1: There's been a global pandemic, massive protests, super spreader events,
13:02
Speaker 1: and a fire season that turned the La sky red
13:05
Speaker 1: days at a time. Then in September, a black man
13:10
Speaker 1: named Dejon Kizzy was riding his bicycle on the wrong
13:13
Speaker 1: side of the street in South la When police tried
13:18
Speaker 1: to stop Kizzy, he fled and when they caught up
13:21
Speaker 1: to him, there was a scuffle. Police say that Kizzy
13:24
Speaker 1: struck a deputy in the face and then dropped and
13:27
Speaker 1: picked up a handgun, which ended with police firing at
13:30
Speaker 1: him multiple times. After his death, protesters took to the streets,
13:37
Speaker 1: and a few days later, two young police deputies, one
13:40
Speaker 1: male and one female, were sitting in their squad car
13:44
Speaker 1: outside of Metro station in Compton when a single shooter
13:47
Speaker 1: walked right up to their car window and shot them
13:50
Speaker 1: both multiple times at point blank range. Both deputies survived
13:56
Speaker 1: the execution attempt, but the shooting and the protest that
14:00
Speaker 1: followed sent shock waves through a community where tension was
14:03
Speaker 1: already at breaking point. The deputies were taken to a
14:07
Speaker 1: local hospital and a small number of protesters were gathered outside.
14:12
Speaker 1: A few of them started to chant let them die.
14:15
Speaker 1: Then a KPCC reporter named Josie y Wog was covering
14:20
Speaker 1: the protest when she was thrown to the ground by deputies.
14:24
Speaker 1: Sheriff Alex Villanueva first said that Wang had interfered with
14:27
Speaker 1: the arrest and that she did not have press credentials,
14:32
Speaker 1: but video captured on cell phones showed that she was
14:35
Speaker 1: wearing a lanyard identifying herself as a member of the media.
14:39
Speaker 1: She said that she complied with the deputy's orders, but
14:42
Speaker 1: was arrested and detained for five hours for obstructing a
14:46
Speaker 1: peace officer. Sheriff Alex Villanueva was sworn in in December
14:58
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen on a promise to reform, rebuild, and restore
15:03
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and he has made
15:07
Speaker 1: some reforms, but he's also seen his share of controversy.
15:11
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, who
15:15
Speaker 1: had enthusiastically endorsed him, issued a statement criticizing Sheriff l
15:20
Speaker 1: Nueva for what it called numerous complaints of abuse of
15:24
Speaker 1: his office. It said that these alleged abuses had eroded
15:28
Speaker 1: the trust of the public. Among other things, they criticized
15:33
Speaker 1: his decision to reinstate deputies who had previously been fired
15:36
Speaker 1: for misconduct, including allegations of domestic violence, and some critics
15:42
Speaker 1: have also questioned the current administration's transparency. In October, a
15:46
Speaker 1: civil complaint was filed by deputies who claimed that they
15:49
Speaker 1: were assaulted at the East LA Station by a group
15:52
Speaker 1: of older officers who were allegedly members of a gang.
15:56
Speaker 1: They called themselves Bandidos and had tattoos of a skeleton,
15:59
Speaker 1: wearing a sombrero and carrying guns. The complaint alleges that
16:04
Speaker 1: the Bandidos controlled the East LA station like inmates running
16:08
Speaker 1: a prison yard. My Teresa's disappearance happened in two thousand
16:13
Speaker 1: and nine, years before the Black Lives Matter movement, but
16:16
Speaker 1: during the protests in La, her name was being added
16:20
Speaker 1: to hashtag Say her Name, along with Breonna Taylor, who
16:24
Speaker 1: was killed by police at her home during a raid.
16:27
Speaker 1: We had to scream and fight every inch of the
16:31
Speaker 1: way for like the resources from the Sheriff's department, for
16:38
Speaker 1: the local mainstream television drive by media to cover it.
16:42
Speaker 1: Like we had a fight for everything. This is Jasmine Caannic.
16:47
Speaker 1: She's a journalist who's been involved with my Teresa's case
16:50
Speaker 1: since the beginning. You know, nobody should be disappearing like that.
16:56
Speaker 1: No one should disappear like that, Like that was crazy
17:00
Speaker 1: and that could have been anyone, Yeah, right, that could
17:04
Speaker 1: have been And that was one of the things that
17:06
Speaker 1: resonated with me a lot. It was just like that
17:08
Speaker 1: could have been me, that could have been anyone. She
17:12
Speaker 1: says that some cases strike you hard, and she decided
17:16
Speaker 1: to get even more involved with the case after she
17:19
Speaker 1: met with my Teresa's dad, Michael, ten years ago. She's
17:23
Speaker 1: remained close to Michael ever since. We all met at
17:26
Speaker 1: Starbucks and had like a really long conversation. That's when
17:31
Speaker 1: I started writing about it. And as is the case
17:36
Speaker 1: with some of the stories that I choose to take on,
17:43
Speaker 1: I get a little more involved than I do in others,
17:47
Speaker 1: and the Matrise one was one of them because it
17:50
Speaker 1: was being ignored. This girl just, you know, disappeared, and
17:55
Speaker 1: it was not giving the attention that you know, a
17:58
Speaker 1: blonde hair, blue eyed girl who would go missing in
18:02
Speaker 1: Malibu would have gotten the trees, you know, did not
18:13
Speaker 1: get the benefit of Black Lives Matter. And it's unfortunate
18:18
Speaker 1: because I feel like her case should have been one
18:23
Speaker 1: of the proposter children for Black Lives Matter. I mean,
18:26
Speaker 1: if you have this, you know, young black woman who
18:30
Speaker 1: was clearly having mental health crisis. So it's tragic on
18:35
Speaker 1: all these different levels to me because had it just
18:39
Speaker 1: been a few years later, I think more people would
18:43
Speaker 1: have been screaming about it. I think had it been
18:47
Speaker 1: a few years later, maybe she wouldn't have been taken
18:50
Speaker 1: into custody in the first place, because the little anybody
18:54
Speaker 1: anse of weed is not anything that can be criminally charged.
19:10
Speaker 1: Some people believe that one or more of the officers
19:13
Speaker 1: on duty that night could have played a more direct
19:16
Speaker 1: role in my Teresa's death. The deputies who were identified
19:19
Speaker 1: by multiple sources as being the ones who appeared on
19:23
Speaker 1: video have never spoken out. But however you look at it,
19:27
Speaker 1: Jasmine says that the Lost Hill Sheriff's Department clearly failed
19:32
Speaker 1: in their duty of care to my trees on the
19:34
Speaker 1: night she went missing. Well, it's clear the sheriffs had
19:38
Speaker 1: something to do with her death, I mean, just for
19:41
Speaker 1: the simple fact that they released her, you know, after
19:44
Speaker 1: saying they wouldn't in the middle of the night without anything, right,
19:47
Speaker 1: So they had something to do with her death because
19:50
Speaker 1: after that, you know, as we all know now, she
19:53
Speaker 1: ended up dead. But many of us do believe that,
19:58
Speaker 1: you know, the Sheriff's had one or two of the
20:00
Speaker 1: deputies over there had more to do with it than
20:05
Speaker 1: you know, we've ever really been able to prove but
20:09
Speaker 1: for me, all fingers point back to the Sheriff's apartment
20:13
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, they told her mother,
20:17
Speaker 1: her grandmother, that they weren't going to release her, and
20:21
Speaker 1: then they did. And that's a common problem in La County,
20:29
Speaker 1: which is, you know, they like to let women go
20:31
Speaker 1: at these odd you know, hours of the night when
20:36
Speaker 1: it's dangerous. It's beyond me why they did that, like
20:42
Speaker 1: after they told her family, with Teresa's family, that they
20:45
Speaker 1: were not going to do that, and then they did it. Anyway,
20:50
Speaker 1: My Teresa's case was given to the Office of Independent Review,
20:54
Speaker 1: a civilian oversight group that was supposed to ensure that
20:57
Speaker 1: allegations of LASD officer misconduct were investigated fairly. The Office
21:03
Speaker 1: of Independent Review produced the report hundreds of pages with
21:08
Speaker 1: almost zero proper names. The Office of Independent Review was
21:12
Speaker 1: disbanded in twenty fourteen. Most police departments around the country
21:18
Speaker 1: have no type of civilian oversight. Jasmine says that my
21:23
Speaker 1: trease was the inspiration behind her work with the reform
21:27
Speaker 1: La Jail's ballot measure. The measure passed in March twenty twenty.
21:33
Speaker 1: Jasmine has been advocating for years for the creation of
21:36
Speaker 1: the La County Sheriff's Department Civilian Oversight Commission, She wants
21:41
Speaker 1: to make sure that it's a truly independent organization and
21:44
Speaker 1: that it has the tools necessary to do its job.
21:48
Speaker 1: The ballot measure gave the commission subpoena power to effectively
21:52
Speaker 1: and independently investigate misconduct, and it requires the attendance of
21:57
Speaker 1: witnesses and production of evidence connected to their investigations and oversight.
22:03
Speaker 1: When my trease disappeared in two thousand and nine, there
22:06
Speaker 1: was no Oversight Commission on that night. If people hear
22:10
Speaker 1: about this and they're outraged and they want to do something,
22:13
Speaker 1: because we always like to sort of have a call
22:14
Speaker 1: to action on what people can actually do, what's the
22:18
Speaker 1: best way to put your energy for it and try
22:20
Speaker 1: to help with us. I mean, at this point in time,
22:24
Speaker 1: you know, people need to pay attention to more than
22:30
Speaker 1: what's going on in Washington, d C. What happens in
22:34
Speaker 1: your backyard affects you way more than anything going on
22:38
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. But voters don't tend to pay
22:42
Speaker 1: attention to what's going on at city hall, what's going
22:45
Speaker 1: on with their county Board of supervisors. Most voters don't
22:47
Speaker 1: even know who represents them. At the local level. Everyone
22:51
Speaker 1: in this country, no matter where they are. They live
22:53
Speaker 1: in some county, they live in some city, they live
22:57
Speaker 1: in some state, and at each of those levels there
23:00
Speaker 1: is a body of government that governs them, and they
23:03
Speaker 1: should be engaged. Believe it or not, most law enforcement
23:08
Speaker 1: agencies do not have civilian oversight. There's a really big
23:12
Speaker 1: push now, especially in the wake of you know, Breonna
23:16
Speaker 1: Taylor and George Floyd and all of these other names.
23:20
Speaker 1: So I could go on and on and on, and
23:22
Speaker 1: I always call out Matries's name too. I never let
23:24
Speaker 1: people forget about Matris, you know, because now people are
23:29
Speaker 1: paying attention. And so that's what I tell people, like,
23:34
Speaker 1: they have to get engaged at the local level. They
23:37
Speaker 1: have to push for these changes. They have to unseat
23:40
Speaker 1: people who aren't willing to do the changes and put
23:43
Speaker 1: people in the office who are willing to make the changes.
23:46
Speaker 1: Because in this country, we only get changed real systemic change,
23:50
Speaker 1: real institutional change, two ways court rulings or legislation. It
23:56
Speaker 1: just is what it is. That's how we get changed.
23:58
Speaker 1: You can protest in the street all you want, but
24:00
Speaker 1: if the people who are in power aren't moved by
24:03
Speaker 1: your protests to change the law. You're just protesting in
24:07
Speaker 1: the street. Sheriff Lee Baca is currently in federal prison.
24:15
Speaker 1: He has reportedly been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Jasmine is convinced
24:20
Speaker 1: that Sheriff Bacca knows more about my Teres's case. I mean,
24:25
Speaker 1: he may end up dying with that secret unless one
24:29
Speaker 1: of the other deputies involved want to come forward. Ismail
24:35
Speaker 1: Rodriguez and Lazara Sanchez, the deputies who were identified as
24:39
Speaker 1: possibly being on camera walking out of the station shortly
24:42
Speaker 1: after my Trees, have both been transferred from Lost Hill station.
24:47
Speaker 1: Both still work for the LASD. Neither have ever spoken
24:51
Speaker 1: publicly about the night my Trees went missing. Officially, my
25:09
Speaker 1: Teres's case is still classified as an open investigation, but
25:13
Speaker 1: because her death has not officially been rolled a homicide,
25:17
Speaker 1: the case, like so many others in Los Angeles and
25:20
Speaker 1: around the country, seems to be in limbo. Police have
25:24
Speaker 1: described it as a clue driven investigation, which basically means
25:28
Speaker 1: if someone comes to them with a lead, they will
25:30
Speaker 1: investigate it, but they aren't out knocking on doors. I
25:35
Speaker 1: still believe that someone knows something and that there could
25:39
Speaker 1: be more clues. Still buried somewhere in dark Canyon. Again,
25:44
Speaker 1: part of being a thorough investigator is doing a Sherlock
25:48
Speaker 1: Home style process of investigation. Let's take a look at
25:51
Speaker 1: the main theories of what could have happened in My Trees. One,
25:57
Speaker 1: someone killed her, put her in their car, and dumped
26:00
Speaker 1: her body. Now this was a theory that depended on
26:04
Speaker 1: the fire road or some access road behind the Malibu
26:08
Speaker 1: Canyon ranch or in that general area leading down to
26:11
Speaker 1: a point where a body could have been dropped in
26:13
Speaker 1: the spot where her remains were found. But now we
26:16
Speaker 1: know that that road doesn't exist. The fire road just
26:21
Speaker 1: leads to some horse trails, all of them and at
26:24
Speaker 1: a very steep drop that puts you almost a mile
26:27
Speaker 1: from where the remains were found. And as part of
26:30
Speaker 1: checking out this theory, we've also looked at other past
26:33
Speaker 1: crimes that involve dumping a body in that area. Some
26:36
Speaker 1: were serial killers, others were gang members, but they all
26:40
Speaker 1: chose dump sites that were near a road or a turnoff.
26:44
Speaker 1: They had a way to drive there. This wasn't the
26:47
Speaker 1: case with My Trees. Another theory is that My Trees,
26:51
Speaker 1: suffering from some kind of mental breakdown, could have walked
26:55
Speaker 1: to the area herself, and then somehow succumbed to the elements.
26:59
Speaker 1: Now we can't roll this out completely because hypothermia does
27:03
Speaker 1: cause people to take their clothes off, but it's very
27:06
Speaker 1: unlikely this was Malibu in late summer. High as in
27:10
Speaker 1: the day hit the nineties and the nightly lows only
27:13
Speaker 1: went down to the sixties. If she was outside for
27:16
Speaker 1: more than a day, she would have been dehydrated and exhausted.
27:20
Speaker 1: But it's still very unlikely that this could have led
27:22
Speaker 1: to her death that quickly because of the fact that
27:26
Speaker 1: it would be difficult, if not impossible, to carry a
27:30
Speaker 1: body through Dark Creek the way that we hiked. Some
27:34
Speaker 1: people suggested that someone could have killed my trees and
27:38
Speaker 1: moved her body to Dark Creek later, but the forensics
27:41
Speaker 1: don't really support this. A lot of people mention mummification
27:46
Speaker 1: and the fact that the body wouldn't have only been
27:49
Speaker 1: partially mummified if it had been out there for a year,
27:51
Speaker 1: but forensic experts tell us that this is not the case.
27:55
Speaker 1: She wasn't out in the direct sunlight. She was in
27:57
Speaker 1: a canyon, and the part of the body where there
28:00
Speaker 1: was flesh visible had been buried in the soil. I
28:04
Speaker 1: agree with Sheriff fill in a way. I think that
28:06
Speaker 1: the evidence supports the theory that my Trees died shortly
28:10
Speaker 1: after she went missing, and that her body was not moved.
28:15
Speaker 1: Police suggested suicide in the beginning, I would say that's
28:19
Speaker 1: absolutely not a possibility in my mind. There's no real
28:23
Speaker 1: ledge where she could have leaped to her death and
28:25
Speaker 1: had her remains end up at that point. Also, there
28:28
Speaker 1: are no broken bones that would have suggested that kind
28:31
Speaker 1: of a fall. There's no way that she could have
28:33
Speaker 1: committed suicide out there. Another possibility my Trees dehydrated, confused
28:40
Speaker 1: and scared, started wandering around, cutting through backyards, and somehow
28:46
Speaker 1: ended up near that area, and then at that point
28:50
Speaker 1: saw something that she shouldn't have seen. This seems like
28:54
Speaker 1: a likelier possibility. We know that cartels were operating marijuana
28:58
Speaker 1: grows in this area, that's why the police were there
29:00
Speaker 1: in the first place, and we've found evidence on every
29:04
Speaker 1: one of our hikes that they still could be out there.
29:12
Speaker 1: So how do we move forward from here? We know
29:16
Speaker 1: from Rebecca's case and others that getting answers and justice
29:20
Speaker 1: can take a long time. The end of the podcast
29:23
Speaker 1: season does not mean the end of the investigation. Once again,
29:28
Speaker 1: it's a waiting game. A lot of us grew up
29:31
Speaker 1: watching shows like CSI. We were taught that the criminal
29:35
Speaker 1: justice system worked, that there's a three act structure. The
29:38
Speaker 1: case is presented, investigated, and in the end, for the
29:41
Speaker 1: most part, the bad guys get caught. In the final act,
29:45
Speaker 1: the bad guy goes to jail, and all the loose
29:48
Speaker 1: ends are neatly tied up. Now we know better. We
29:53
Speaker 1: know that making progress and cases can take years, and
29:56
Speaker 1: that there are often frustrating setbacks along the way, and
30:00
Speaker 1: sometimes it's not clear who the good guys and the
30:03
Speaker 1: bad guys are. As Jasmine pointed out ten years ago,
30:08
Speaker 1: the idea that police officers would have their actions dissected
30:11
Speaker 1: on the nightly news was unthinkable. Would my teres have
30:15
Speaker 1: gone missing in today's climate with the knowledge that we
30:17
Speaker 1: have now. Sadly we'll never know the answer to that,
30:22
Speaker 1: but we can help make it part of my Teresa's
30:25
Speaker 1: legacy to make sure that what happened to her never
30:28
Speaker 1: happens to anyone again. We know that law enforcement are
30:33
Speaker 1: watching us, and we have to make sure that we're
30:36
Speaker 1: watching them. It can take a long time for people
30:40
Speaker 1: to come forward and for new clues and new evidence
30:43
Speaker 1: to come to light. It's our role as podcasters to
30:47
Speaker 1: get my Teresa's story out there, to put pressure on
30:50
Speaker 1: law enforcement and people who have answers, and then wait,
30:55
Speaker 1: this may be the end of the podcast season, but
30:58
Speaker 1: it's not the end of the investigation. We're going to
31:01
Speaker 1: keep searching for answers, whether they come in the form
31:04
Speaker 1: of evidence, new people coming forward, or other secrets that
31:09
Speaker 1: may be still buried somewhere in dark Canyon. I'm Katherine
31:14
Speaker 1: Townsend and this is Helen Gone. Helen Gone is the
31:19
Speaker 1: production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It's written and
31:23
Speaker 1: narrated by me, Katherine Townsend. Our producers are Gabby Watts,
31:27
Speaker 1: Taylor Church, and James Morrison. Music is by Ben Sale.
31:31
Speaker 1: Mixed is by Tunewelders. Our executive producers are Brandon barr,
31:35
Speaker 1: Els Crowley and Brian Lavin. Special thanks to Chipcroft for
31:40
Speaker 1: use of footage from his documentary Boss Compassion, School of Humans.
32:06
Speaker 1: School of Humans