Anatomy of Murder - Desi's Army

Episode Date: May 5, 2021

A mom’s search for her daughter leads her to water, cement barrels, trap houses and more...For episode information and photos, please visit https://anatomyofmurder.com/. Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

Until I have her home, one way or another, whether she walks through the door on her own two feet or I'm carrying her, I can't believe anything that these people are saying, because if I believe it, then it's me giving up, and I'll be damned if I'm going Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murder. You know that we often talk about what each case stands for to us. And this one really comes down to the pain a parent goes through when their child disappears. I interviewed Desiree Ferris' mom, Patty Tam, for this podcast. And, you know, obviously I talked to a lot of family members over the years and in a lot of ways it comes second nature to me, but all of

these cases still affect us. You know, we're not immune. I'm not immune from them. And this was one of those ones that when I got off that interview call, I just sat down in quiet. I didn't want to talk to anyone and I just needed to kind of absorb what I heard. And it really was one of the tougher ones that I remember doing in a while. And I'll kind of round back to the why at the end. Let's talk about now Desiree, people across the street gave her the nickname of Sunshine because every time she would go over there, she just said it was like a ray of sunshine. She could make anybody smile or laugh at just being goofy herself. 18-year-old Desiree Ferris lives in her home with her family, a modest home in Liberty, Missouri. It's a quiet community about 20 miles north of Kansas City.

Her parents divorced when she was small. She was the youngest of four kids, two older sisters and one brother. She developed a heart of gold and would do anything to help anybody. She'd protect another kid that was being bullied on or something like that. I mean, she always watched out for a lot of other people.

The other thing she really loved was her cat. That's her baby. She had that cat so spoiled, she carried around like a baby. Anything Desiree wouldn't, that cat wouldn't, whether it was almonds or cashews, spaghetti, the inside of the Oreos. There was a lot more to Desiree than one might think. While at an early age, she told her family she really wanted to be a teacher, when she got into her teens, her eyes pointed towards modeling. She wanted to, and I just couldn't.

I mean, just hearing all the horror stories about these young girls that get sucked in, and it's not what they think it is. I just didn't think she was ready for the next. Let's go to April 30th, 2017, and preparations were underway for her mom Patty's birthday, which was the next day. Outside of that, it was a pretty ordinary day. One of my other daughters had went and got some like just some little tiny birthday things and was going to make a cake and spend the day with me. And at one point she did ask if I could stay home that day from work. I should have stayed home. But as it turns out,

it would be the last time Patty saw her daughter Desiree. It was that night when I went to bed. Desiree and her older sister, who wishes not to be identified, were living at the house at the time. The TV was on. They were gone. And there was a birthday card on the pillow for me. She had left texting with both of them all day. And they both had said they were with a girlfriend of theirs. And while Desiree's older sister came home, Desiree did not.

I was like, where's she at? And my daughter says, well, she said she was going to just go to a friend's house and hang out with her for a couple hours and then she'd be home. I kept trying to call her. I kept messaging her. I kept texting, kept calling, leaving messages on Facebook from her. Even though Desi was 18, her mom knew this was not normal for her to miss her birthday, not calling. And while the next move was to report her daughter missing, she knew something was wrong. Sure, you know, kids get caught up with their friends. They sometimes lose track of time or they're having too much fun and they make bad decisions, including sometimes not coming home.

But many parents clearly also really have a good sense of their kids. And she knew that for her daughter, not responding, not being home, and not having reached out at all, that something about that just wasn't right. I couldn't get a hold of her. My other daughter couldn't get a hold of her. We both tried calling, texting, sending messages on Facebook, everything.

Messages on Facebook were never even getting read. So I'm like, what the hell? You know, as part of any normal criminal investigation, you go back and look at the normal phone records or social media to see what kind of activity was prior to a disappearance and when does it stop. So I was at work and talking to a friend of mine and I'm like, I'm just going to log into my Verizon

and I'm going to check it. And that's when I knew something was wrong because there was no phone activities, no calls, no nothing since the early morning of May 2nd. And that's when I went into panic mode. It wouldn't be typical for most of us to just stop using our phone. But when I think about teenagers, I look at that, you know, times a thousand. You know, that is the way they connect to each other. It is extremely uncommon for someone who uses the phone as much as Desiree did between text messaging

and phone calls and social media posts for her just to stop. And then at some point she had said she was on her way home and that she'd seen her in a little bit, love ya, but she never came home.

And that was the last time anybody had any contact with her. Just when you think about this 18-year-old not coming home, what do you view as the various possibilities about the why? I think there's only two theories in play here.

One, for some reason, she's decided to stay out of the house because as a teenager, she needed some time alone, which is normal. It happens. But the other is that she's in trouble. She'd always let me know. She'd text me in when she was on her way home. She always said she was on her way home. She always said she was on her way or something. But the one thing that Patty did know was that the last person that

she knew to be with her daughter Desiree was her other older daughter. Desiree and her sister had plans, as she mentioned, to hang with another friend who was pregnant. And when the sister returned home, she first told her mother that they saw the friend just as they planned. And so when she pressed her daughter, Desiree's sister, about their night and who they'd been hanging out with, the story began to change, and not for the better. She ended up telling us who they were with, and that's how we got all the names and everything of these individuals. Mark Arzola is one of them, and that's how we got all the names and everything of these individuals. Mark Arzola is one of them, and he goes by the nickname of Monkey.

And Robert Teagan, and he goes by Jason. I heard of Jason, and I had asked how old he was, and he was like in his mid-30s. She is 18, and we're talking about one of these guys in his mid-30s. To me, this is the talking about one of these guys in his mid-30s. To me, this is the first real sign of potential danger. You know, Desiree, 18, hanging out with two men, twice her age. That, to me, while it doesn't matter so much when we are grown adults, there is a major difference with someone in their 30s and an 18-year-old,

and even just hearing it, I'm starting to turn my head. I said, Desiree, he has no business to starting point for the investigation as far as I see it. And it's the way that police saw it, too. They showed up here, and they asked who she was with. When I looked on my Verizon account, and I seen all these numbers, I printed everything up, brought them home, and we started searching. We typed in the phone numbers on Facebook, pulled up a couple that way, did people search, just did did whatever just to get as much information to give to the cops. When they got here, I handed them my phone records and everything. And I guess because of the names that we gave them, she went from not just a missing persons case and what we call an EMP.

You're likely familiar with the Amber Alert system, I'm sure. Emergency messages are issued when law enforcement agency determines that when a child has been abducted or is in imminent danger. Now, the teen or adult version is the endangered missing person, someone who may be in danger and unlikely to return without assistance from law enforcement. And that is how quick this investigation changed. And again, with an endangered missing, it can be someone who's in danger from anything from their age to their health or to any circumstances surrounding the disappearance. But clearly to Patty, and also now to law enforcement, things here with Desiree are not looking good. That's when I started finding out more about these individuals and what they were capable of. So according to published reports, 37-year-old

Mark Arzola had a criminal history, mostly methamphetamine. Robert Jason Keegan also had a criminal record, but his were for guns and drugs. And both men had been released from jail just weeks before Desiree's older sister speaks to the police, she tells them more about what happened that night. And Jason Keegan guy wanted her to shoot him up with heroin. She was like, um, okay. She had even told the cops when they came here, when I filed the missing persons report, that this is who they were with. This is where they were at. Here's the first glimpse into why Desiree's sister may not have been up front with her mom on May 1st. You know,

drug addiction is a difficult battle, especially to someone in their 20s who cleaned up and then relapsed. Two men with criminal pasts involving drugs and weapons would give any parent a real concern or even a panic, even though Patty and Desiree, to her knowledge, wasn't involved in any serious drug use. She hadn't been with them for several weeks because my other daughter was home and trying to stay clean and trying to get her life together. She relapsed and that's the only reason why they were with these people that day. You know, we all know from reporting these stories, telling these stories on TV or even to a jury, you hear drug use. And sometimes it taints the image

of that story, that investigation, or of course that person. And so they leave it out and dance around it. But we have to be honest and tell it like it is. And if you're an investigator or a prosecutor that ignored those facts in a case, that wouldn't be doing justice of the investigation. So we should talk about these issues in a respectful way and with a purpose, not for entertainment purposes, but to help this family get justice. And just using the word relapse, you know, relapse is a tough subject. And I think it's worth talking about for a moment because a lot of people shy away from it. Relapse is the worsening of a medical condition that has previously improved. And relapse is actually the hallmark of addiction. I can tell you in my experience over the years,

it is common, even expected on our part, that the people that are trying to overcome that addiction are going to go through one, several, or even multiple relapses before they are hopefully successful at some point. So just think about that. Someone that is trying to get over their drug use to now know that they have at least temporarily stumbled back in. To me, if anything, we have to look at it with a bit of an accepting eye that it is part of hopefully a good thing of getting past what the drugs have been doing. So as far as this investigation is concerned, after uniformed officers briefed detectives back at Liberty PD, they began to develop a timeline, conducting multiple interviews.

And while at the time they were keeping most of that information they had learned close to the vest, local news reporters began to report on Desiree's disappearance. And this is a critical part of the story. There was police reports, the Missouri Highway Patrol at like 3.15 in the afternoon on all the local news stations. And then it just went from there. The details we're about to give you do not come directly from prosecutors or members of law enforcement, but from reporters working their sources on the street. And those details are backed up by affidavits, which have been filed by police but not released to the public. We've spoken directly with reporters to bring you these details.

Here's what they've publicly disclosed and then relayed to us. The two sisters were out with these two guys, Arzola and Keegan, and that they were then dropped off at a local McDonald's, and that it was Mark Arzola who now picked them back up, and Desiree's sister soon went home. My other daughter wanted to come home and kept saying she wanted to go home, so they left where they were at. They didn't want to get dropped off here because I would have been home and seen who they were with. And so they dropped her off at the McDonald's up the road from us. And she tried getting Desiree to stay with her. She tried. Kept telling her, Des, just come on, stay with me, stay with me. And she's like, well, I'm going to go to a friend. Arzola told investigators he then took Desiree to a house in South Kansas City,

set to be a trap house or a drug den. Investigators say Arzola then told them Desiree left the house around 1.30 a.m. on May 2nd. Let's just move for a moment into this term you just heard, trap houses. They are basically set up for drug use and other illegal activity. And when I talk about there is nothing pretty going on inside and it's not a place you want to be, I am downplaying it to the nth degree. I think you described it well, Anasiga. I mean, I know them as crack houses, usually homes that have been abandoned or condemned by the city or the county. People would go in there and set up and either prostitute out of there or

kill their drug from out of there and just kind of like, almost like squatters, but 10 times worse. I'll tell you one quick side story. I remember being on the street for just about a week and my training officer walked me through one of those houses in my district. And you could smell the burning meth or crack cocaine as you walk into the home. It has a real distinctive odor. I'll never forget it. As we were walking through the home, we noticed a woman in the corner with her four-month-old baby crawling all over garbage that was on the floor. As she was lighting a pipe, there we were face-to-face, us in uniform, and her attempting to get that pipe lit.

She didn't blink an eye. I mean, these drugs are highly addictive, and they really do take their toll. The last number that attacked either from or to was, I think it's Mark Arzola's number. And then the last number that was received a call from was Mark Arzola's number at 206. And there was no nothing. He says she got into a white truck, and investigators believe that was Keegan who picked her up there. And here's why investigators believe that.

They checked cell phone records and say Keegan exchanged 23 messages with Desiree's phone between 10.20 and 10.59 p.m. that night on May 1st. She was texting saying, I want to go home. I'm tired. I want to go home. And he told her that, okay, well, I'll come get you and I'll take you home. Then the messages went to Facebook Messenger and back and forth. And the detective wrote in those court records that after 10.58 p. Because so often in this day and age, we're talking about the forensic, the surveillance, fingerprints, DNA, that type of evidence is or is not leading a certain way. But this is a case that so commonly we are actually

handling in real life, which is based at least initially a lot on various witnesses and witnesses and people that are saying very different things. And just look at it here. You have what Desiree's sister is saying. Someone that investigators knew in the beginning was not completely forthcoming. You have these two guys that they are told were with her. They are saying different things. And investigators have to try to make sense, you know, where the truth lies, at least as far as where this investigation can lead. Because remember, the ultimate endgame right here, right now, is to find Desiree.

When investigators look at these statements, they basically look at it on a list. You have X, Y, and Z being told to you. And if X and Y line up independently, then that sounds like a really truthful statement. But if you have two witnesses saying two different things, you have to try to cooperate that statement and see which one is leading you in a direction that you believe is the investigator is probably the right direction. And, you know, people use different things for their own personal litmus test, if you will, about who to believe and what they're going to put into that. And when I just look at here, you know, we're talking about three people basically that are giving information about what they say happened that night when it comes to Desiree. And for me, it was always one, does it make sense to me, right? There's that gut effect, your instinct, where it points. And then when I look at the people who I'm speaking to, do they have any motivation to

fabricate or make up what they're saying? So when I look right here, first we have Desiree's sister. Well, the reason she wasn't as forthcoming right away to me, you know, unfortunately makes perfect sense. She didn't want to let her mom know or let others know that she was having trouble once again with the drug use. You know, she had taken a backward step. But she certainly has no motivation that they can see certainly on its face at this point

to mislead the police once she does give them more. But now we're talking about these two other guys that we know have these criminal records all involving drug use. And that certainly doesn't mean that they had done anything to Desiree or anything like that in and of itself. But they are giving conflicting accounts. And those are the two people that were last with her by everything that people are saying and that cell phone records are corroborating. And that to me makes me turn my head and be suspicious about what they're telling police. You know, without any solid evidence coming from either of those two men,

or really anything else, as we've seen in these cases, the investigation stalls. And for the family, you know, they want answers. They want to know something every single day. You know, when is that opportunity for that phone to ring, for Desiree just to come home, or any break in the case. You get ready to leave, and a March cop crew shows up. And at that point, my heart just sinks. Because I'm thinking, oh, my God, they found me. There's two detectives.

I answer the door just, I mean, I'm freaking out. And they're like, no, no, no, just calm down. And they just asked if we had heard anything from her, if there was anything new. And I said no. There was no new update from the police, and the lack of answers didn't sit well for Patty. Often families start doing investigations on their own. They may hire a private investigator or they may actually hit the streets themselves. So to cover all the ground they can in this

investigation, Desiree's mom and her family put together an army. But it's not the army you may be thinking of. So Patty Tam, you know, is doing anything she can to find her daughter, but she really is teaming up also with Desiree's stepmom, Jennifer. She's been my backbone through all of this. If she had to find the needle in the haystack, she could find it. You know, they decide to do some of the traditional things, putting up billboards, showing Desiree's picture,

trying to get leads. They went back to the area within Kansas City that Desiree was last seen. They knew, based on those cell phone pings, the basic area that she was in. They went house to house, putting these flyers out, putting themselves in a situation. They were knocking on doors. That's where we went. It wasn't the best neighborhood, but like I said, I'd do whatever I needed to do.

Some of the areas in Kansas City, specifically South Kansas City, that is not the best of neighborhoods. They are literally going in the areas that Desiree was last seen and that various pieces of evidence are pointing them towards. This family is really going completely all out. In March of 2018, there are literally 12 digital billboards that go up looking for Desiree. They were scattered between here and Kansas. There was quite a few of them. And that group of people that is helping, so many of them start to amass that it becomes known as Desi's Army.

A majority of them, they were strangers, have never met Desiree, didn't know Desiree, didn't know us, didn't know stepmom, nothing. But they just stepped forward. Through this whole horrible nightmare, we have met some, these people go out of their way to help. This case became breaking news. It wasn't just breaking news that one night. This is a case that has been in all sorts of media forum, social media, we're talking about on television. Desiree's been in People Magazine. She got on the MSN News. We did Crime Watch Daily, a couple of different other podcasts,

did The Maury Show. We will reach out and do whatever we need to. What keeps this story alive, really, is not so much the content of what the story is, it's also the access the family gives to reporters and members of the media. And they were extremely proactive with a group of reporters in the local area, getting them to come by the house, getting them to understand that the search continues for Desiree. Everyone else has moved on to other things in the community, but Desiree is

still missing. And the family were willing to talk to the media anytime they wanted to talk about Desiree. One of our local channels, one of their reporters has been there with us from the get-go. She has went on searches. She has been with us without the camera when she was off on her weekends or something, and some media is involved in kind of getting her on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Anybody we could, I mean, just to keep her name out there. Patty and friends and family, they are literally searching in the water. Patty talked about searching in concrete barrels.

We've looked in plastic blue barrels, concrete. I mean, we've dug holes. We're thought that her cell phone had pinged nearby. I mean, just hearing that, it is, it's obviously heartbreaking, but it also goes to the great lengths this family was going to search for Desiree. We have an individual up in Canada that does a lot of the drone stuff. We have a drone, it's called Desi's drone. And he taught somebody how to fly it and how to do all the stuff.

So every time it's used in all the pictures, they automatically download to his system in Canada. And there's a group of people in that group that he sends these pictures to to look through and to do all that. I mean, so it's just, we've had a lot of people step up to help us. You know, this search party, they were as effective as could be. They are really spanning

the entire area in every different medium they can think of to try to find Desiree. But now let's look at it for a moment from law enforcement's perspective. number one, if anyone gives information or finds Desiree, well, of course, that is the end goal here. But if there's going to be an investigation that turns into an ultimate prosecution at some point, well, now things can get a bit sticky here because now it is potentially civilians getting information rather than law enforcement.

So there really is this delicate balance playing out that gets really at times a bit tense. You know, I don't think there's a member of law enforcement who wouldn't understand the family doing everything they can to get answers. You know, we've talked to so many of these types of families. The story is normally the same. You know, they're just desperate for answers. One of the things that happened during the search was that they set up a tip line, and it didn't take long for the tips to start rolling in. You know, tips are a crucial part of any investigation.

Sometimes the lead takes you to an important interview or an important piece of evidence, or something takes you down a road that you know is the wrong road but you still have to check it out we've heard so many horrible horrible stories on what somebody did to her story that no parent wants to hear about their child one story was that the individual showed up at this house with her and some other guy. And this person checked her, seemed to have written the truck and checked her. Checked to see if she had a pulse and said she couldn't find a pulse. And the individual said that he was going to take her to the hospital. And he was going to call her mom and take her to the hospital. And that was physically the last time anybody's seen her.

And that's the double-edged sword when it comes to reaching out to the public you're desperate for answers. You get answers that you might not want to hear. And you don't also know what's true.

So initially, you have to assume that everything is possible until it can be investigated. It went from, oh, this individual owed money to the cartel and she just happened to be with them.

And then we've been told that she was beaten to death because she's seen something or knew something she wasn't supposed to know. She was put in a barrel of concrete and thrown in the Missouri River. These were the tips that were coming in. And, you know, one of the real unfortunate parts of the media exposure of a story like this is people tend to take advantage. But then there's been people that have preyed on us, just either get information or just somebody started scamming us out of money a couple of times. You know, for Patty, listening to your interview with her, I really got the sense that she was completely determined to find Desiree. And that determination never left

her body. I mean, just think about, Scott, the emotional fortitude that you have to have as a parent, as a loved one, to just to not give up hope in light of these horrible stories. Because while horrible, one of them just might be the truth. You know, we often talk about how cell phone technology is a game changer in criminal investigations. Digital forensics will reveal more important details of Desiree's movement on May 1st. In the early morning hours of May 2nd, her records confirmed what witnesses and Mark Erzola told police, that she was in southeast Kansas City, and it confirms it in the area of several of these abandoned houses in the Marble Heights section. And the pings end there, but for investigators, the biggest revelation came from when they

got a warrant for Keegan's cell phone. And again, we haven't seen these records ourselves, but speaking with Patty and records they've been given and looking through published report based on affidavits in this case, basically what you have is that when police get their hands on Keegan's cell phone records, that some of the major things that they see is that his pings line up with Desiree's, which means they are either very close or actually together when those calls are made. Up until a certain point, both of their phones ping at the same places. And then all of a sudden, they stop. And they line up until 4 a.m. that morning, and that after that, Desiree's phone

never pings again. A couple hours later, he turns his phone back on and makes like 15 one-minute calls trying to get hold of a couple of different people. Keegan began to make several short one-minute phone calls, an erratic type of pattern of calls that would lead police to believe something serious happened. Based on my experience that I've seen, and again, this is hypothetical, but I can tell you that in so many cases when I have seen these short, multiple, quick calls, one after the other, after the other, after in those cases where we know there had been a homicide and ultimately these are people that are involved, that so often that is the aftermath unfolding. It is the cleanup. It is

the how. It's setting up where I was or help me get rid of elements of this crime. And again, we don't know yet what happened here based on this call. But when I hear that based on what I've seen, that's already starting to make me think this is something not good at all. It is clear that police don't have all of the details of what occurred at that very moment. But if you just look at those digital footprints, and you look at Desiree's phone, and you look at Keegan's phone, they're in the same place. Her phone goes dark. He starts making all of these erratic phone calls.

You have to also build into that the timeline of where he went afterwards and what potentially happened if Desiree is no longer alive, what he could have done from there. I have to think about what this looks like to investigators, because maybe someone out there is saying, well, wait a second, you know, they're together, and then he's making all these calls, and she's nowhere to be found. Like, charge him. Charge him with something. But, you know, we talk about no body cases, right? Because if something bad happened,

unfortunately it means that at that point that they know she's probably, most likely dead. Well, in a no body case, you have to be really absolutely sure. And you look at so many surrounding circumstances. Not only did they just turn off their phone, not using social media, have they tried to take any money out of a bank? Have they stopped showing up from work? Have they stopped contacting with family members, friends over a more prolonged period of time?

You know, as frustrating as it is to say this, the investigation really had a lot of theories, but it really didn't have any real serious circumstantial evidence, Anasiga. I mean, you know, coming to you, knocking on your door in your office, trying to make this case. What's your first impression of what they had at that very moment? I think what they had at the moment is unfortunately what,

newsflash to all of you out there, they still have now. An unsolved case. I need her home. I mean, just an anonymous phone call. It just doesn't take much. Stick a letter in the mail, win on clubs, get a burner phone. Just, you know, anything, no matter big or small. You know, I have to go back to the cement in a barrel thing for a moment because that,

when I talked about why this case, I just had to sit for a while after speaking to Patty. I had this mental image when she said that, you know, we know that she was searching in barrels in part because of this tip. And just think about that from a moment. Any loved one you might have, they're gone. You don't want to think the worst, but that's where your head's going. And I just picture Patty searching in these barrels and even just thinking about it, the incredible, uncomfortable pain that must be going through her body every time she lifts that lid and what this means. It's one of the things that just really made that interview just so very tough because it's just a reminder how very real all of this is. Until she's home, one way or another. I can't believe anything these people are saying.

Because we haven't found nothing of hers. We haven't found her phone. We haven't found her purse. We haven't found clothes. Nothing of hers at all. I can't believe them. All of us sitting here are shaking our heads because it doesn't look good, but there still is no answers. There's nothing to charge based on any probable cause for all the surrounding circumstances.

So let's now that you know that much, talk about where things stand today. Desiree Ferris is still missing. The family still does not have any answers. The two subjects that we've talked to you about, Keegan and Arzola, are not cooperating with police. And it's their right not to talk. But at this point, without any solid information from either of them, police cannot move this forward. As it turns out, shortly after Desiree disappeared, Keegan was stopped by law enforcement and was arrested and found in possession of multi kilos of methamphetamine and a gun.

And he was sentenced to 18 years in prison. And that's where he is today, in federal prison. And when investigators went to talk to him, desperate to get answers about Desiree, he chose not to say anything. And again, you know, we have to be the first to say innocent until proving guilty. There is still so much here that just remains a big question mark. But you know, something interesting that Patty said to me was she said that

Arzola and Keegan, who we both know had criminal records before Desiree went missing, that they had both just recently been released before she disappeared. And both of them were released from overcrowding in the jails. And I'm just going to leave you with that because something made me just shake my head when I heard that. But now moving back to Patty. Her bedroom is still the same as it was when she left that morning. Her laugh is just contagious. It's just, I give anything to hear her laugh or smile or come through the front door yelling and slamming the door mom i'm home there's something that patty said that really struck me about every day that goes on that she's waiting to bring her daughter home she is counting the days keep thinking if we wake up

and it's just been a bad dream and she's going to be downstairs in her room and life will go on. But it's been the same thing for the past 1,254 days. You know, Patty, you could hear it yourself. You know, she struggles so much to cope with the reality of the situation that she still doesn't have answers when it comes to her daughter. But she still finds ways to connect with Desiree. Desiree's favorite color is pink. Her birthstone is purple. And I was like, oh my God,

I got to get me a pink light. So we got the pink porch light. And then I had a part of my front yard that I started tearing that up, put like a little metal fence that's only like a foot tall, and planted pink and purple flowers. And then around that fence are pink and purple lights. And it will stay lit until she's home.

Desiree Ferris, as you know, was last seen in Liberty, Missouri. She was wearing white. She had on a cream-colored top, fuzzy pink jacket, and sweatpants. She is 5'1". She weighs 95 pounds. She has brown eyes and brown hair. Anyone with information on this case, especially firsthand information, should call the Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers Tips Hotline at 816-474-8477.

That's 816-474-8477. And at anatomyofmurder.com, we will have Desiree Ferris' missing poster with all the information that you need to know about it. If you have any information, even as small as you think it may play into this investigation, check it out and see if you can help Patty and her family bring Desiree home. And you know, when I talked about why that interview really affected me in the way that it did, that I'm not just talking to a mom whose daughter is forever gone, the victim of a homicide, and she's just trying to find some closure. This is a mom that just doesn't know her daughter is forever gone, the victim of a homicide, and she's just trying to find some closure.

This is a mom that just doesn't know. Her daughter is still missing. Desi's army is still out there working, looking for Desiree Ferris. Her mom and her stepmom and friends and family, they are not giving up hope. But if there's one wish that I have for the outcome of featuring her story on this podcast, is that it somehow leads to bringing

Desiree Ferris home. Tune in next Wednesday when we'll dissect another new case on Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original, a Weinberger Media and Forseti Media production. Sumit David is the executive producer.