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LA Confidential · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Hello. It's been well documented that the
0:20
Speaker 1: police made many mistakes on the night my Terese disappeared
0:24
Speaker 1: and at her crime scene, mistakes that tragically could have
0:29
Speaker 1: led to her death and also could have damaged evidence
0:32
Speaker 1: in a way that makes it much more difficult or
0:35
Speaker 1: even potentially impossible, to find and prosecute her killer. But
0:40
Speaker 1: over the years, some people have suggested that certain members
0:44
Speaker 1: of law enforcement could have actually been involved in My
0:47
Speaker 1: Teresa's death and in a cover up of her killing.
0:52
Speaker 1: So to investigate this theory, we have to go back
0:55
Speaker 1: to the timeline. In a potential homicide investigation, it standard
1:00
Speaker 1: procedure to start with the last people who were known
1:03
Speaker 1: to have seen the victim alive, but this logic did
1:07
Speaker 1: not seem to apply in My Teresa's case because some
1:10
Speaker 1: of the last people who saw her alive were the police.
1:14
Speaker 1: It's also good practice in either a homicide investigation or
1:17
Speaker 1: a missing person's investigation to track down suraillance footage, and
1:22
Speaker 1: we found out that there is suraillance footage that shows
1:26
Speaker 1: my Trees in the Lost Hills Sheriff's station on the
1:29
Speaker 1: night she disappeared, at least eight hours in all, on
1:33
Speaker 1: four different cameras. It's been eleven years since Ronda started
1:38
Speaker 1: investigating my Teresa's death, and she is still fighting to
1:42
Speaker 1: get access to that tape, right, And are they saying
1:45
Speaker 1: so they're saying to you, basically without saying that, they're
1:47
Speaker 1: saying no, we're not going to release it, whereas before
1:50
Speaker 1: they were saying we don't have the right equipment. So
1:52
Speaker 1: it's like, which is it. This call I had with
1:55
Speaker 1: Ronda was on September fifteenth, twenty twenty. She was explaining
2:00
Speaker 1: to me that finally the LASD had agreed to release
2:04
Speaker 1: the video footage of my tree from the night of
2:06
Speaker 1: September sixteenth, two thousand and nine, and the detective who
2:10
Speaker 1: she was talking to said that they were going to
2:13
Speaker 1: upload the footage onto the LSD website for all the
2:16
Speaker 1: world to see, and we'll see Thursday and let me
2:19
Speaker 1: know what happens, right, thanks, bye? Uh okay. So apparently
2:27
Speaker 1: they're going to give her. She thinks they're going to
2:28
Speaker 1: give her the actual VHS tape, which would be great
2:31
Speaker 1: because then we can figure out a way to play it.
2:33
Speaker 1: She says, she'll let us have it, but I'm like,
2:35
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, great, let's all play it. Figure out
2:37
Speaker 1: a way to view the footage, make a copy like
2:41
Speaker 1: it seems so crazy, and they still weren't going to
2:43
Speaker 1: do it. I started looking into my Teresa's case about
2:47
Speaker 1: a year ago. In any case, but especially one with
2:51
Speaker 1: so many theories out there about what could have happened.
2:55
Speaker 1: I try to investigate sherlock holmstyle. I follow the process
2:59
Speaker 1: of elimination, but we can't eliminate a possible theory if
3:04
Speaker 1: we can't even get base questions answered, which has been
3:07
Speaker 1: one of the most frustrating parts of this case. This
3:11
Speaker 1: surveillance video is key. It's one of the only pieces
3:16
Speaker 1: of physical evidence out there that could potentially provide clues
3:20
Speaker 1: to my Teresa's state of mind, her behavior, and possibly
3:25
Speaker 1: what happened to her on the night she disappeared. Two
3:30
Speaker 1: days after my call with Ronda, we met with her
3:33
Speaker 1: and Ceci at my Teresa's gravesite at Inglewood Cemetery. Remember,
3:39
Speaker 1: the detective told Ronda that they would finally release the video,
3:43
Speaker 1: which shocked her because she spent years fighting to get
3:47
Speaker 1: access to that video and now the LASD was just
3:50
Speaker 1: going to put it on their website. That's when she
3:53
Speaker 1: told me they were going to put it on the
3:55
Speaker 1: actual actual website of the sheriff's apartment, which whatever so
4:02
Speaker 1: did not sound Yeah. So, so I don't know when that.
4:06
Speaker 1: She didn't tell me when that was going to happen, because,
4:08
Speaker 1: like I think, the video had to be sent down
4:10
Speaker 1: to their tech people to get uploaded and all that stuff.
4:12
Speaker 1: I mean, she was really clear about what was going
4:14
Speaker 1: to happen. So I started thinking about it a little
4:19
Speaker 1: bit because, you know, so much of what we learned
4:22
Speaker 1: about my trees we learned in the news. So I thought,
4:24
Speaker 1: you know what I'm going to have to I'm going
4:26
Speaker 1: to ask Alex if he would please show some compassion
4:31
Speaker 1: and notify the family, you know, her parents before they
4:34
Speaker 1: just uploaded this, you know, on the site for the
4:38
Speaker 1: world to see. But at the cemetery, she told us
4:42
Speaker 1: that once again, the police had changed their minds. She
4:47
Speaker 1: talked to the sheriff, Alex Phillanueva, and he said the
4:51
Speaker 1: police weren't going to make the video public. I'm not
4:54
Speaker 1: really sure because then he got back to me and
4:56
Speaker 1: said that that they were not going to put it
5:00
Speaker 1: on the website. That's not what he wants if he
5:01
Speaker 1: doesn't want it on the website, And then he was
5:03
Speaker 1: clear that the only reason why he was released he
5:05
Speaker 1: was releasing it to me per my request, and that
5:12
Speaker 1: her this video does not fall within the policy of transparency.
5:19
Speaker 1: When Sheriff Philanueva was elected in twenty eighteen, he made
5:24
Speaker 1: a transparency promise. This was crucial for the community following
5:28
Speaker 1: the secrecy and corruption of the sheriff Lee Baca and
5:31
Speaker 1: Paul tanaka Era. Ronda says that Sheriff Phillanueva told her
5:38
Speaker 1: that the transparency promise doesn't apply to my Teresa's case
5:42
Speaker 1: because he made the promise after she disappeared. More like
5:46
Speaker 1: he's letting me know he's doing me a favor. That's
5:49
Speaker 1: kind of how it fell. So I so fine, whatever,
5:54
Speaker 1: So I don't know if that means. So I don't
5:57
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen now because I know what
5:59
Speaker 1: the detective told me, and so this morning he just
6:02
Speaker 1: told me something different. When I'm what I did ask
6:05
Speaker 1: for is I asked for the raw footage, So I
6:08
Speaker 1: want the complete digitized version and if that's what I
6:11
Speaker 1: If that's what I don't get, I'm going to continue
6:13
Speaker 1: to raise hell and there's no other option, so release it.
6:19
Speaker 1: I've seen police hold back information before and sometimes they
6:23
Speaker 1: have good reasons. They may want to avoid false confessions
6:27
Speaker 1: by restricting access to facts that only the killer would know,
6:31
Speaker 1: for example, But in a missing person's case, it is
6:35
Speaker 1: standard practice to release footage of where the person was
6:38
Speaker 1: seen last. It's been two months since they said that
6:43
Speaker 1: they would make the video public and we're still waiting.
6:48
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone. The saga
7:32
Speaker 1: over the release of a simple videotape goes to the
7:35
Speaker 1: heart of this case because it's symptomatic of the battle
7:39
Speaker 1: that the family has been fighting with law enforcement for transparency.
7:45
Speaker 1: Tom Martin was captain of Lost Hill Station at the time,
7:49
Speaker 1: and for months after my Chase went missing, he told
7:52
Speaker 1: her family point blank that there was no video from
7:55
Speaker 1: the night that she disappeared. So the way the search
7:59
Speaker 1: did not happen was it didn't make any sense to us,
8:01
Speaker 1: like why you wouldn't start from the station. So at
8:04
Speaker 1: some point and they called the search off, we were like, okay,
8:08
Speaker 1: we don't know where the hell even which direction did
8:11
Speaker 1: she go left or right or whatever? When we asked
8:14
Speaker 1: for well, let us just see the video so we
8:16
Speaker 1: can determine which way to start. Our search, and then
8:18
Speaker 1: that's when they started out, well there's no video. It's like, really,
8:22
Speaker 1: there's no video, Like that makes no sense. Then in
8:26
Speaker 1: January twenty ten, Ronda, my Teresa's mother, Latisse, and documentary
8:32
Speaker 1: filmmaker Chip Croft were all at the Lost Hills Sheriff
8:36
Speaker 1: station in a meeting with Captain Tom Martin and Lee Baca,
8:40
Speaker 1: who was Sheriff of Los Angeles County at the time.
8:43
Speaker 1: In that meeting, Sheriff Boka asked Captain Martin point blank,
8:48
Speaker 1: is their video footage? And Martin said yes, the footage
8:54
Speaker 1: was in his desk just feet away from where they
8:56
Speaker 1: were sitting. It had been sitting in his desk drawer
9:00
Speaker 1: for months now. Ship and Ronda were shocked. A. Chip
9:06
Speaker 1: has also made multiple requests to get the video released.
9:11
Speaker 1: He remembers Sheriff Boka asking Captain Martin about the video.
9:15
Speaker 1: I was sitting right next to Captain Martin when Sheriff
9:18
Speaker 1: Balka asked him that question. You don't have any video
9:21
Speaker 1: with my terse in jail, and he turned be read,
9:24
Speaker 1: I mean really be read and just see why I
9:26
Speaker 1: do have this tape in my desk. And it turns
9:29
Speaker 1: out there was the four tracks of rail to take
9:31
Speaker 1: feeding from. Four cameras at the Sheriff's department and three
9:35
Speaker 1: rooting side, and one was outside on the side of
9:38
Speaker 1: the building. And there are two cameras on the front
9:41
Speaker 1: of the building which would have explained shown how my
9:45
Speaker 1: Teres left the sheriff station. And I still today suspect
9:51
Speaker 1: that those two cameras were operating. And what was he
10:03
Speaker 1: just said. He accidentally stuck it there, he said. So
10:06
Speaker 1: there's been various reasons. One of them was in that moment.
10:10
Speaker 1: He didn't tell us why. Yeah, So the next day
10:13
Speaker 1: I got a call from his chief, Neil Tyler, who
10:17
Speaker 1: told me that he had it in his desk because
10:22
Speaker 1: he was trying to protect the individual that was also
10:25
Speaker 1: on film. Okay, okay, because you could have just that's no,
10:30
Speaker 1: that would be a reason not to show it to us.
10:32
Speaker 1: That's not a reason about the live out its existence.
10:34
Speaker 1: So there's that, And that was what they said, And
10:39
Speaker 1: they had other limsy excuses about why he he had it.
10:43
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know, but you know, eventually
10:45
Speaker 1: he gets promoted. So for my Teresa's family, this marked
10:51
Speaker 1: a major turning point in the investigation. I believe that
10:55
Speaker 1: that's when their relationship with the police started to turn adversarial,
11:00
Speaker 1: and when certain members of My Teresa's family began to
11:04
Speaker 1: go from frustrated to furious. They never gave us the video. Oh,
11:07
Speaker 1: they let you watch the video, so we had to
11:09
Speaker 1: fight for that. So when they admit that they had
11:13
Speaker 1: the video, then we got to keep pressing. It took
11:15
Speaker 1: another couple of months for them to get us to
11:19
Speaker 1: show the video. In March twenty ten, Latis, Ronda, and
11:25
Speaker 1: others finally saw the video. Ronda was expecting several hours
11:30
Speaker 1: of footage, but she says that she was shown a
11:33
Speaker 1: much shorter, heavily edited version that was made up of
11:37
Speaker 1: footage compiled from several different cameras. Latissa said multiple times
11:43
Speaker 1: that on the footage that she saw, my Trees appeared
11:46
Speaker 1: to be behaving in a manner that she called infantile
11:50
Speaker 1: and childlike. She said that she could see her daughter
11:54
Speaker 1: lying in the fetal position in her cell. In a
11:57
Speaker 1: later deposition, she described my Trees as distressed and said
12:02
Speaker 1: that My Trees had been pulling at her hair and
12:06
Speaker 1: pulling at the mesh wiring that lined the holding cell area.
12:11
Speaker 1: At one point, she said my Trees picked up the
12:14
Speaker 1: phone and put it down. She looked, Latis said, as
12:18
Speaker 1: if she was trying to use the phone but couldn't
12:21
Speaker 1: get it to work. Latist said that his shadow was
12:24
Speaker 1: visible as if someone was passing by the door, and
12:28
Speaker 1: it seemed like My Trees was trying to get the
12:30
Speaker 1: person's attention, possibly to get assistance, but that there appeared
12:35
Speaker 1: to be no response. Both Ronda and Latise have spoken
12:39
Speaker 1: out in the past about the edits in the video.
12:42
Speaker 1: For example, Latis talked about seeing a piece of paper
12:46
Speaker 1: crumpled on the floor and wondering how it got there.
12:51
Speaker 1: And there's something else. At the end of the video,
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Speaker 1: they saw My Trees walking out of the station into
12:58
Speaker 1: the darkness, and then right before they pressed stop, someone
13:03
Speaker 1: walked out behind her. They were shocked because initially, they say,
13:09
Speaker 1: they were told that there were no deputies in the
13:11
Speaker 1: station at the time. When my chase was released. The
13:15
Speaker 1: end of the video, the screen goes entirely black, and
13:19
Speaker 1: you think it's the end of the video. So we
13:21
Speaker 1: all turn and we're arguing at the detectives because we're kissed, right,
13:24
Speaker 1: and so then the guy, the the person who the
13:28
Speaker 1: tech now the tech guy he like, he goes like
13:31
Speaker 1: that to me. So the tech guy's in this middle
13:33
Speaker 1: and we're all around him, and then the screen is
13:36
Speaker 1: right there, so he's so everybody's arguing. So I'm like
13:39
Speaker 1: here like directly basing him. So then at some point
13:42
Speaker 1: he turns to me and he goes like that, like
13:44
Speaker 1: to make alert me to look up. So I believe
13:46
Speaker 1: that tech guy knew that that video was not over,
13:48
Speaker 1: but the detectives didn't. You could tell they were shocked.
13:51
Speaker 1: So I look up and then you see that you
13:55
Speaker 1: see a deputy coming out of the door, and that's
13:57
Speaker 1: significant because we were told that there was nobody at
13:59
Speaker 1: that station. Now, my Teresa's family and friends wanted to
14:10
Speaker 1: know the name of the deputy who was seen on
14:12
Speaker 1: the tape. They wanted to talk to him, not necessarily
14:16
Speaker 1: to accuse him of any wrongdoing, but because he may
14:20
Speaker 1: have been one of the last people to see my
14:22
Speaker 1: Teres alive. Journalist Mike Kessler attempted to track the deputy
14:26
Speaker 1: down for his Los Angeles Magazine article back in twenty eleven.
14:31
Speaker 1: At that time, he said that the department refused to
14:34
Speaker 1: give the family the deputy's name. Mike said that he
14:38
Speaker 1: was able to get the name of the deputy through
14:41
Speaker 1: a confidential source. He called him, and he wrote about
14:45
Speaker 1: that call in his article. He wrote, quote, he told me,
14:49
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for you, dude, I wasn't there and hung up.
14:53
Speaker 1: On our next call, he insisted that he couldn't remember
14:56
Speaker 1: if he'd been at the station the night my Terrese
14:58
Speaker 1: was arrested, and then went on to imply that he
15:02
Speaker 1: had been on site the night. This nonsense. What's happened?
15:06
Speaker 1: He said, I was one of the guys that kept
15:08
Speaker 1: away from this, minding my own business. End quote. Now
15:14
Speaker 1: this seems to be a bizarre statement. We tried to
15:17
Speaker 1: reach that deputy, but several of our calls went unreturned.
15:22
Speaker 1: But then Rhonda told us and another source confirmed that
15:26
Speaker 1: the deputy in the video was actually someone else, someone
15:30
Speaker 1: whose name had never been mentioned before. We're still working
15:34
Speaker 1: to figure out who the deputy was who exited the
15:37
Speaker 1: building right after my Trese. That's why we need that tape.
15:43
Speaker 1: Knowing what is on the unedited version of that tape
15:47
Speaker 1: is crucial to this case. Even before Black Lives Matter,
15:53
Speaker 1: a maud arbery and Breonna Taylor made national headlines, a
15:58
Speaker 1: journalist named Alexander Narzaian wrote in Newsweek, quote, my Terce
16:03
Speaker 1: Richardson was a young woman who became a case but
16:06
Speaker 1: also a cause to many in Los Angeles. She's a
16:10
Speaker 1: symbol too, as potent as Michael Brown and Ferguson Missouri,
16:15
Speaker 1: or Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, of a
16:18
Speaker 1: law enforcement culture that has grown contemptuous of both laws
16:22
Speaker 1: and men. End quote. He also quotes La based journalist
16:27
Speaker 1: jas Mechanic as saying that she considers my Terse to
16:31
Speaker 1: be a victim of police brutality. Here's the thing. Even
16:42
Speaker 1: if the tape doesn't provide helpful leads, releasing it could
16:46
Speaker 1: help answer some very basic questions for my Teresa's family.
16:51
Speaker 1: Police have given several reasons for why they say the
16:54
Speaker 1: tape can't be released. First, they said that it didn't exist.
16:59
Speaker 1: The Malibu Serve Side News quoted Captain Tom Martin as
17:03
Speaker 1: stating in November two thousand and nine that there was
17:06
Speaker 1: no video or tape of any kind of my Trees
17:09
Speaker 1: at the Lost Hill station on the night she was arrested.
17:12
Speaker 1: When Captain Martin revealed that he had the tape, he
17:15
Speaker 1: said that he hadn't told the family about it before
17:18
Speaker 1: because he thought that when they asked for footage, they
17:21
Speaker 1: were referring to footage from outside the building, not inside. Now,
17:25
Speaker 1: this infuriated my Teresa's family members because they believe that
17:29
Speaker 1: once again the police were not being forthcoming. Then they said,
17:35
Speaker 1: according to Ronda, that they would not publicly release it
17:39
Speaker 1: due to confidentiality issues. But we've talked to Schermaine Henderson,
17:44
Speaker 1: who was in the cell with my Trees, and she
17:46
Speaker 1: says she's on board to help in any way that
17:49
Speaker 1: she can. Ronda says she's also spoken to Chermaine several
17:53
Speaker 1: times over the years. She says that was always the case.
17:57
Speaker 1: Chermaine was never concerned about confidentiality. Finally, police said that
18:03
Speaker 1: they do not have the correct equipment to play the
18:05
Speaker 1: tape on. Now, it does seem absurd that police say
18:10
Speaker 1: that they don't have the technology to play the video,
18:13
Speaker 1: yet they were somehow able to edit it and cut
18:16
Speaker 1: it together. Supposedly, the reason why they're not going to
18:18
Speaker 1: release the video is because Alex told me that the
18:22
Speaker 1: sheriff told me that he said that the captain. I
18:28
Speaker 1: guess some homicide doesn't want to set a president president
18:33
Speaker 1: of what released on a ten year whole video is
18:35
Speaker 1: an open investigation. Okay, well that's the case, then no
18:38
Speaker 1: video should ever be released. That's right, until exposed. I've
18:41
Speaker 1: seen too many videos when something's going on in the middle.
18:43
Speaker 1: You know, it's like Ali sheet my fan, but I'm
18:45
Speaker 1: gonna bring your ass down. CC made a good point
18:48
Speaker 1: at the cemetery. This is Hollywood. There is no way
18:53
Speaker 1: in hell that they do not have a machine to
18:57
Speaker 1: play a VHS when you can buy original Nintendos from
19:03
Speaker 1: Love before my trace was even barn Okay, and that's bullshit.
19:09
Speaker 1: There are people who collect vhs, There are people who
19:12
Speaker 1: collect cassette, there are people who collect all different forms
19:17
Speaker 1: of media. So that's bullshit. Yes, hello, how much shit
19:23
Speaker 1: is on freaking video just at these studios. See, here's
19:25
Speaker 1: the thing is they get to they get to they
19:29
Speaker 1: get to play these little games, and then when you're
19:31
Speaker 1: a private citizen, you're not in any position to do
19:34
Speaker 1: anything about it, like other than continuing to complain. You know,
19:38
Speaker 1: it's and I'll continue to file every complaint that I
19:41
Speaker 1: possibly can. Maybe they are releasing the original footage because
19:44
Speaker 1: when I asked for in my pri our request, it
19:48
Speaker 1: was for the ration the unedited version so it was
19:51
Speaker 1: very clear. Now whether that's what they're going to release
19:53
Speaker 1: or not, we'll see Captain Martin not subjected to any
20:07
Speaker 1: type of disciplinary action for allegedly suppressing evidence. Instead, he
20:12
Speaker 1: was promoted, transferred to another department, and given a raise.
20:37
Speaker 1: I know that a lot of people will think that
20:39
Speaker 1: multiple cops being involved in large scale conspiracies and secret
20:43
Speaker 1: societies sounds like something out of the detective noir novel,
20:49
Speaker 1: But it's important to understand the backdrop that my Teresa's
20:52
Speaker 1: case played out against. Consider this. Lee Baca, who was
20:57
Speaker 1: sheriff of Los Angeles County when my Terse went missing,
21:01
Speaker 1: is now a federal prisoner. He's incarcerated at the Federal
21:06
Speaker 1: Correctional Institution Latuna, just north of El Paso, Texas. Baca
21:12
Speaker 1: was convicted of charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction
21:16
Speaker 1: of justice, and making false statements. Prosecutors accused Baca of
21:22
Speaker 1: being at the head of a massive conspiracy, which also
21:26
Speaker 1: involved his under sheriff, Paul Tanaka, and eight other deputies.
21:31
Speaker 1: This all started after the FBI began looking into allegations
21:35
Speaker 1: of police brutality against inmates at La County jails. The
21:40
Speaker 1: FBI had an informant inside one of those jails, but
21:44
Speaker 1: when jail staff figured out what was going on, Baca
21:47
Speaker 1: and his deputies hid the informant from the federal prosecutors,
21:51
Speaker 1: who had issued a summons for a grand jury appearance.
21:55
Speaker 1: Bacca's trial became a media circus, and it also brought
21:59
Speaker 1: out allegations of white supremacist gangs, which some in law
22:03
Speaker 1: enforcement insisted were merely social clubs hidden in plain sight,
22:08
Speaker 1: operating inside the LASD. This included the infamous Lynnwood Vikings,
22:15
Speaker 1: who were based in the now defunct Lynwood Station. Its
22:18
Speaker 1: members were LASD deputy sheriffs and included Baka and Tanaka.
22:25
Speaker 1: They were described by a judge as a neo Nazi,
22:28
Speaker 1: white supremacist gang who engaged in racially motivated hostility. The
22:34
Speaker 1: ACLU compiled a report it read, in part, the long
22:39
Speaker 1: standing and pervasive culture of deputy hyper violence in Los
22:43
Speaker 1: Angeles County jails, a culture apparently condoned at the highest levels.
22:49
Speaker 1: Cries out for swift and thorough investigation and intervention by
22:54
Speaker 1: the federal government end this abuse allegedly included rape of
22:59
Speaker 1: inmates by deputy sheriffs. In May twenty seventeen, Baca was
23:04
Speaker 1: sentenced to three years in federal prison for his role
23:08
Speaker 1: in the scheme to obstruct the FBI investigation. Now not
23:13
Speaker 1: suggesting that former Sheriff Baca had anything to do with
23:16
Speaker 1: abuses in my Teresa's case, but I am saying that
23:20
Speaker 1: when the police aren't releasing video footage of what went
23:23
Speaker 1: down at the station that night, I can certainly understand
23:27
Speaker 1: why the family would have questions. And it was shortly
23:32
Speaker 1: after Baca pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice that the
23:36
Speaker 1: Attorney General agreed to reopen the investigation into my Teresa's case.
23:43
Speaker 1: In late twenty fifteen, Ronda submitted a complaint containing over
23:48
Speaker 1: five hundred pages of exhibits to the Office of the
23:51
Speaker 1: Attorney General. They sent a response a few weeks later
23:55
Speaker 1: saying that they had reviewed the evidence and made the
23:58
Speaker 1: determination that the lasd deputies had not broken any laws.
24:11
Speaker 1: My Teresa's father, Michael Richardson, asked the California Attorney General's Office,
24:16
Speaker 1: led by Kamala Harris at the time, to review my
24:20
Speaker 1: Teresa's case, and in twenty sixteen they agreed. But the
24:25
Speaker 1: next year, the family received more heartbreaking news. The Attorney
24:31
Speaker 1: General's office wrote in a letter to Michael that they
24:33
Speaker 1: had found insufficient evidence to support criminal prosecution against sheriff's
24:39
Speaker 1: deputies who were with my Trees on the night she disappeared.
24:43
Speaker 1: The LASD was cleared of any wrongdoing, So once again
24:49
Speaker 1: my Teresa's loved ones had gotten their hopes up, and
24:52
Speaker 1: once again the case was closed. After receiving the letter,
24:57
Speaker 1: Michael told newsstation Box eleven that he believed Harris had
25:02
Speaker 1: used my terse as a political pawn. Kamala Harris used
25:07
Speaker 1: my daughter's case as a platform to not only seek
25:10
Speaker 1: the support of the people in her district, but use
25:13
Speaker 1: them to elevate her career to senator, he said. Ronda
25:21
Speaker 1: was allowed to see the video a few more times.
25:25
Speaker 1: She said that she keeps seeing different versions. Okay, so
25:29
Speaker 1: we never saw the original. We only ever saw what
25:31
Speaker 1: they comply, right. I saw the first CD, which by
25:33
Speaker 1: the way, was different than what I saw recently. So
25:37
Speaker 1: on the first CD it was a little clear as
25:41
Speaker 1: brainy because it's old anyways, but it's a little bit
25:43
Speaker 1: clearer than the first one that we saw. And in
25:46
Speaker 1: the first video that we saw, like we didn't see Chermaine.
25:49
Speaker 1: We saw her leaving, like really quickly, so they like
25:52
Speaker 1: cut that out so you couldn't and by the way,
25:55
Speaker 1: you can't see her anyway, like we wouldn't know. I
25:57
Speaker 1: couldn't pick her out of it. Yeah, so that's how
26:00
Speaker 1: brainy was, and so so we didn't see her. We
26:04
Speaker 1: saw in a shell selper like that Theresa, I mean,
26:06
Speaker 1: like so short. But in the video that I saw,
26:09
Speaker 1: you know recently, I saw her the entire time. So
26:12
Speaker 1: I from the time that Latiss walked in, my tree's
26:15
Speaker 1: walked in there, so you can have they had a
26:17
Speaker 1: little bit of interaction and but you could see them,
26:19
Speaker 1: you know, kind of talking to each other or sometimes
26:22
Speaker 1: not talking to each other. And then eventually she did leave.
26:26
Speaker 1: But the Attorney General's office said that they had viewed
26:29
Speaker 1: the video. Ronda has a lot of questions about this,
26:34
Speaker 1: she said. She specifically asked if the Attorney General's office
26:37
Speaker 1: had viewed the unedited video. If they had, she's wondering
26:43
Speaker 1: why the Sheriff's office said that they can't make that
26:46
Speaker 1: video available to her and the public. For Ronda and Ceci,
27:02
Speaker 1: there has been a beacon of hope and they're in bedstigation.
27:06
Speaker 1: In recent years, Sheriff Alex Villanueva. They both campaigned on
27:12
Speaker 1: his behalf, and CEC says Ronda is partially responsible for
27:16
Speaker 1: his election. They say that under Villanueva's administration, they believe
27:22
Speaker 1: that the Sheriff's Department has instituted reforms and moved toward transparency,
27:27
Speaker 1: but they still believe that he has a long way
27:30
Speaker 1: to go. This was obvious in twenty nineteen on the
27:34
Speaker 1: tenth anniversary of my Teres's disappearance, when Ronda and Ceci
27:38
Speaker 1: were at a press conference with Alex when he spoke
27:40
Speaker 1: about policy changes that he said were a direct result
27:44
Speaker 1: of holes in policies that were in place at the
27:47
Speaker 1: time my Terce was released. CEC talked about this press
27:51
Speaker 1: conference when we met with her at Jeoffrey's. You know,
27:54
Speaker 1: he was supposed to come to this press conference, and
27:58
Speaker 1: I'm I'm the one who begged him to do. At
28:00
Speaker 1: the press conference, I'm like, my community needs this. You
28:03
Speaker 1: need to set it right out here, get this shit done.
28:08
Speaker 1: Tell the people you are reopening the investigation. Do the
28:12
Speaker 1: right thing. So Alex comes to the press conference, We're
28:17
Speaker 1: all standing there in the line and blah blah blah,
28:20
Speaker 1: and everything's like pharmal Pharmal. All of a sudden, he's
28:22
Speaker 1: like way off script and he's like pretending like he's
28:26
Speaker 1: not going to do anything. Ceci and Rondo were hoping
28:30
Speaker 1: that Sheriff Villanuevo would reopen the investigation and dive deep
28:34
Speaker 1: into the case again, but then he did not make
28:39
Speaker 1: that the central part of the press conference. Sheriff Villanueva
28:43
Speaker 1: said mistakes were made, but this did not point to
28:47
Speaker 1: evidence of malicious intent. He said, quote, there's a difference
28:52
Speaker 1: between wrongdoing and holes and policies. There's always going to
28:56
Speaker 1: be something that falls through the cracks. In this case,
28:59
Speaker 1: it wound up being my terce Richardson, and that's something
29:03
Speaker 1: we're going to have to live with forever. Quote. Ronda
29:08
Speaker 1: was devastated. Sheriff Philanueva had talked about getting fresh eyes
29:13
Speaker 1: on the case. Now he seemed to have moved on
29:16
Speaker 1: to policy changes. Ronda, who is like the head of
29:21
Speaker 1: this investigation, like on a personal level for the last
29:25
Speaker 1: ten years, she's the one who got him elected. She's
29:28
Speaker 1: looking at him like what the fuck, Like you're like
29:32
Speaker 1: she lost her shit. So after he fucked up at
29:36
Speaker 1: the press conference with all the newspeople looking at us,
29:39
Speaker 1: We're standing there and I'm just looking at her. I'm
29:41
Speaker 1: dumbfounder I don't know what to do. She's like everybody's looking.
29:45
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, one of his like
29:46
Speaker 1: security guards peaks his head out at lost sale station
29:50
Speaker 1: and looks at me. He's like Ceci. I'm like, yeah,
29:53
Speaker 1: he goes the sheriff wants to see you. I'm like okay,
29:56
Speaker 1: So he goes you and Ronda. I'm like okay. So
30:00
Speaker 1: I'm like, Ronda, Alex wants to see us, so I
30:03
Speaker 1: grab her. We go back. She loses her shit on Alex,
30:11
Speaker 1: losing her shit, losing god damn you, Like, I mean,
30:16
Speaker 1: I can't even tell you this shit she was. I
30:17
Speaker 1: don't even remember. And so I'm like trying to calm
30:19
Speaker 1: her down, and Ron is like boom, like an elbow check,
30:24
Speaker 1: and she's like, get out of my way. I'm like, shit,
30:28
Speaker 1: throw me against the wall. I'm like, okay, I got this.
30:30
Speaker 1: I got this. So finally she storms out of the
30:33
Speaker 1: room and and Alex just looks at me and he's like,
30:37
Speaker 1: oh my god, Cec, thank you so much. And he's
30:39
Speaker 1: got these big eyes, like these doe eyes, like a deer.
30:42
Speaker 1: I'm like am I looking at my sheriff for Vliet like,
30:47
Speaker 1: I mean, he's looking at me scared, like he was
30:50
Speaker 1: scared around and I'm like really. We asked several times
30:56
Speaker 1: to talk to some of the officers involved. The police
30:59
Speaker 1: department formally denied our request, but Ceci was able to
31:04
Speaker 1: get me a brief interview with sheriffvill and Nueva. We
31:08
Speaker 1: talked about reform, but mostly I wanted to hear about
31:11
Speaker 1: the video in my Teresa's case. Rohnda, Latisse and Chip
31:16
Speaker 1: have been allowed to view a heavily edited video a
31:19
Speaker 1: couple of times over the years, but they haven't ever
31:22
Speaker 1: been given access to the unedited video. So finally we
31:27
Speaker 1: wanted to ask the question why not. Anyway, I know
31:31
Speaker 1: you're super busy, so I really really appreciate it, and yeah,
31:36
Speaker 1: thank you. Since we are doing the podcast this season
31:40
Speaker 1: about the My Trees Richardson case, in terms of just
31:43
Speaker 1: I know that some policies have changed since this happened,
31:47
Speaker 1: Can you just talk a little bit about that. Well,
31:50
Speaker 1: we have a policy where it's voluntary and in making.
31:54
Speaker 1: Can you eat volunteer to stay inside our jail facility overnight?
31:59
Speaker 1: So then I released in the week hours in the morning,
32:02
Speaker 1: and it supplies to the entire jail, but it's particularly
32:05
Speaker 1: based on our female population at CRDF and also all
32:10
Speaker 1: the stations, the patrol stations, so we can't legally hold
32:14
Speaker 1: someone back once their time is up to be released publicly. However,
32:18
Speaker 1: there is obviously a potential harm to release something, for example,
32:22
Speaker 1: to in the morning, and so they can sign a
32:26
Speaker 1: waiver where they could they request to be held for
32:30
Speaker 1: a maximum sixteen hours until the next business day during
32:33
Speaker 1: normal business hours where they can be released and of
32:36
Speaker 1: course arrange for the transportation right and that was a
32:40
Speaker 1: big change for the past. Then we got to my
32:43
Speaker 1: Terrace's case. Well, I'd made a promise that I would
32:46
Speaker 1: have a we would have reexamined the entire case from
32:50
Speaker 1: start to finish, and we also looked at it and
32:53
Speaker 1: I have possible any wrongdoings from within the department. So
32:57
Speaker 1: we had a new team of homicide investigators and internal
33:03
Speaker 1: affairs investigators look at the whole thing from start to finish,
33:07
Speaker 1: and they went through all the interviews, they went through
33:09
Speaker 1: all the physical evidence, they walked to the scene themselves,
33:13
Speaker 1: they retraced everything, they looked at all the video evidence.
33:16
Speaker 1: So they covered everything very very very detailed, and they
33:20
Speaker 1: arrived at the same conclusion, and unfortunately the matter still
33:24
Speaker 1: remains unresolved to this day and that we still need answers.
33:29
Speaker 1: One mystery, he says, is where did my tries go
33:33
Speaker 1: between the police station and where she was found. Was
33:37
Speaker 1: she driven there by someone or did she walk there?
33:41
Speaker 1: There's basically no definitive evidence either way. What we need
33:45
Speaker 1: is we need some between the time that she left
33:49
Speaker 1: on her own from the Lost Hill station to the
33:53
Speaker 1: point where her remains were recovered. That period of time
33:56
Speaker 1: is still I think there's some video surveillance of her
34:00
Speaker 1: getting water from the garden hose at a certain residence,
34:04
Speaker 1: but we're missing a lot of information of what happened
34:06
Speaker 1: and were there any contact with other people, something that
34:10
Speaker 1: would point us in the right direction. Because the coroner
34:13
Speaker 1: couldn't determine the exact cause of because of the nature
34:17
Speaker 1: of the remains, there was nothing left to determine, right
34:20
Speaker 1: you know, exactly how she died, so that still remains
34:23
Speaker 1: the unresolved issue. When you say video footage, do you
34:27
Speaker 1: think that she was most likely killed in the early
34:31
Speaker 1: morning hours after she disappeared, or do you think she
34:34
Speaker 1: might have been out there for a couple of days.
34:37
Speaker 1: I'm inclined to think that it happened pretty much contiguous,
34:41
Speaker 1: since since she left the station area, I don't think
34:44
Speaker 1: she was out there for days, because she would have
34:46
Speaker 1: popped up again on another call for service pretty easy,
34:50
Speaker 1: because if she wasn't from the neighborhood and people were
34:53
Speaker 1: concerned about her safety, they would have called it in.
34:56
Speaker 1: And the fact that we didn't get that call in
34:59
Speaker 1: that illustrates it was pretty continuous chain of events until
35:03
Speaker 1: she ended upcoming so after so pretty shortly. Then after
35:08
Speaker 1: she left Bill Smith's residence. Yeah, if you follow the
35:12
Speaker 1: chain of events and when she was last seeing alive
35:15
Speaker 1: with that one residence, and then from there, I don't
35:18
Speaker 1: think there weren't days that went by. I think it
35:20
Speaker 1: was a short span of time. I think one of
35:23
Speaker 1: the things that's so confusing for me about this is
35:25
Speaker 1: if she did. I mean, do you have any theories
35:28
Speaker 1: about how she got out there to Dark Canyon? Because
35:31
Speaker 1: I hiked it with my producer and I was when
35:33
Speaker 1: we got to it. It was one of the hardest
35:35
Speaker 1: things I've ever done, and I sort of said, I
35:36
Speaker 1: don't know how in the world she could have gotten
35:39
Speaker 1: out here. That's again, that's that's one of those mysteries
35:43
Speaker 1: that we need to resolve. And if she died by
35:46
Speaker 1: unlawful means and it was a criminal homicide, well that
35:50
Speaker 1: means that there's a suspect that's still outstanding. Or is
35:53
Speaker 1: she on her own because he's young, somewhat athletic, and
35:57
Speaker 1: her own mental state of mind drove her to brave
36:01
Speaker 1: all those to get to that point and she succumbed
36:03
Speaker 1: naturally to the elements another possibility, and now you can
36:08
Speaker 1: see why we're well, which one is it? We don't
36:10
Speaker 1: have enough information to put us down either path. So yeah,
36:14
Speaker 1: so that was my next question about I mean, you
36:16
Speaker 1: don't have any theories, you're just you're saying you don't
36:19
Speaker 1: have enough information basically, right, we're missing some key elements
36:24
Speaker 1: to give us an indication. Which route It ended up being,
36:28
Speaker 1: what do you think about the theory that some people
36:32
Speaker 1: have you know, mentioned that there could have been law
36:33
Speaker 1: enforcement involved, that that theory has been turned out there,
36:37
Speaker 1: But since we had all those big new evidence of
36:40
Speaker 1: within the station and everyone's been interviewed, there's there's nothing
36:44
Speaker 1: that supports that. Finally we got to the video. Well,
36:49
Speaker 1: in regarding the video, I mean, do you think that'll
36:52
Speaker 1: ever be publicly released? The judge of put a put
36:59
Speaker 1: an order on it so it couldn't be released. We're
37:02
Speaker 1: going to release it in a response to a pry.
37:05
Speaker 1: And however, I think the families of Mantris Richardson intervened
37:10
Speaker 1: with court and they sought an order to keep it
37:14
Speaker 1: from being disclosed publicly. So that's where it's at right now.
37:16
Speaker 1: I mean, if the judge will returns that order or
37:19
Speaker 1: removes it, well, then they will be released poetly. Okay.
37:24
Speaker 1: And do you and when you say a video, do
37:27
Speaker 1: you mean the edited video or is there still is
37:30
Speaker 1: there still an unedited video? Does that exist anymore? No?
37:35
Speaker 1: The edited video that is out there is a compilation
37:38
Speaker 1: of all the pieces of video that had something on it.
37:41
Speaker 1: What they did is they removed all the dead spots
37:44
Speaker 1: where there's nothing happening at all. Okay, gotcha. So what
37:48
Speaker 1: they did is they put it all together to put
37:50
Speaker 1: it in context of the actual activities and emotions on
37:53
Speaker 1: the camera, and they got rid of all the time
37:56
Speaker 1: that there was nothing happening. Yeah, they compressed it for
38:00
Speaker 1: clarity purpose. So it was everything with heron and you
38:03
Speaker 1: didn't see anything that would be on the video, No,
38:08
Speaker 1: nothing at all. It looked like normal traffic inside the
38:11
Speaker 1: station and the exterior station. I mean, if you had
38:15
Speaker 1: to guess, you don't think it's going to be released
38:16
Speaker 1: anytime soon. That's that's at the discretion of the court.
38:23
Speaker 1: So we may never get the unedited tapes from that night,
38:27
Speaker 1: but we do know that my Chrise was alive and
38:29
Speaker 1: well when she left the station that night, shortly after midnight.
38:34
Speaker 1: And I'm encouraged by the fact that Sheriff vill Nueva,
38:37
Speaker 1: unlike so many other law enforcement officers from the past,
38:41
Speaker 1: isn't saying that there's no sign of foul play. He
38:44
Speaker 1: admits that there are missing pieces, and he says he
38:48
Speaker 1: thinks that someone, maybe someone way up in the Santa
38:51
Speaker 1: Monica Mountains knows something. Yeah, we do get a lot
38:55
Speaker 1: of the love transience, people that wandered different areas throughout
38:59
Speaker 1: that whole corridor there, but you know, absence somebody coming
39:04
Speaker 1: forward and saying this is what happened, and how we're
39:07
Speaker 1: still going to be left with this unresolved, you know. Depth,
39:12
Speaker 1: So we have to put aside Los Angeles law enforcement
39:15
Speaker 1: politics and all the other chaos. We need to do
39:18
Speaker 1: what we do best. We need to go back to Montegnito,
39:22
Speaker 1: back to the woods and start tracking people down, starting
39:27
Speaker 1: with a deputy who walked out of the Lost Hill
39:29
Speaker 1: station minutes after my trease. I'm Katherine Townsend and this
39:35
Speaker 1: is Helen Gone. Helen Gone is a production of School
39:39
Speaker 1: of Humans and iHeartRadio. It's written and narrated by me,
39:42
Speaker 1: Catherine Townsend. Our producers are Gabby Watts, Taylor Church and
39:46
Speaker 1: James Morrison. Music is by Ben Sale. Mix is by Tuonewelders.
39:52
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Brandon barr Els Crowley and Brian Lavin.
39:57
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Chipcroft for use of footage from his
40:00
Speaker 1: documentary Loss Compassion, School of Humans. School of Humans