Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore - MISSING: Adea Shabani

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Adea Shabani moved to L.A. to become a star—but instead, she disappeared into thin air. In this episode, Morgan and Kaelyn investigate the unsettling evidence: surveillance cameras capturing Adea's final moments, conflicting alibis, and GPS data placing a suspect at a remote crime scene. Could the very person she trusted most be the one hiding the darkest secrets? This episode includes mentions of domestic violence, suicide, and suicidal ideation, so please listen with care. Show Notes:Chris Spotz' acting reel Episode Sponsor:Function is offering 160+ Lab Tests for $365 to anyone who signs up between July 7th and July 11th. To learn more and get started, visit https://www.functionhealth.com/CLUES. Clues is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t Miss out on all things Clues! YouTube: @CluesPod | @crimehousestudios Instagram: @cluespodcast | @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia Clues is hosted by Morgan Absher & Kaelyn Moore  Instagram: @morgsyabsher | @itskaelynmoore TikTok: @twohottakes | @heartstartspounding To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Dr. Hrini-Bot, host of Hidden History. Every Monday, I go where history gets uncomfortable, banished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, and events that science still can't fully explain. Listen to and follow Hidden History, available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is Crime House. There was love bombing, there's gas lighting,

there's a lot going on here, you guys. So when they arrive, they immediately see that her front door is unlocked. A somewhat convenient story, because the other person who could shed light on it isn't around anymore. And this is like where things start getting even stranger than they have already been this entire time. Hi, welcome to Clues. I'm your host, Kayla Moore. And I'm your other host, Morgan Abshur. Today we're going to dive into a real-life Hollywood nightmare,

the chilling murder of aspiring actress Adaya Shabani. Adaya had moved to the United States from Macedonia with dreams of becoming, in her words, a different type of star. One moment Adda was chasing the spotlight. The next, she was gone without a trace. What followed was a twisted mystery, one that could have been a Hollywood script, filled with suspicious characters, a wild high-speed car chase, and an ending that no one saw coming. More on this case and the clues that defined it after this quick break.

This episode is brought to you by Quince. So lately, I feel like I've wanted to be more intentional about the stuff that I've been wearing every day. I want to lean into pieces that feel effortless and comfortable, but still look. put together. That's the key. It just makes getting dressed simpler. And Quince is a go-to for all of those things. The fabrics feel elevated. The fits are very flattering. And everything really works without having to overthink it. Yeah, these are pieces you're going to have in your closet for years to come. They stand the test of time. And I needed a closet refresh. So I've got my Quince body suit on, some of the softest, most flattering body suits. I know. I was just rubbing your arm. And I felt how soft it was. I also love my

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Hello, welcome back Cluminati. Clum-M-N-A-N-T-E. It is official. I think we've decided. I think so. The people have spoken. I really like it. Cluminati were here. I saw your feelings about the botched board and I was really, I was really glad because I was worried I like didn't do it for a couple episodes after I tried it. And I'm like,

oh my God, like what if the people hate it? And most of the comments I've seen so far have been like, no, I like it. It's kind of like keeping track. It's holding, you know, these investigations accountable and just bringing light to, you know, issues and investigative work that maybe could be a little better sometimes. Yeah. So. according to the majority, they like the botched board. And Morgan went ahead and made us a new decked out one so that everyone can read it if you're watching. Yeah, you guys, props to all the cricket girlies out there. Cricket is hard, you guys.

Cricket is a beast. I appreciate all you people out there making like engraved stuff on cricket and like... Wait, what is cricket? Oh, yeah, I don't know about this. It's this little craft tool. It like you can laser cut vinyl. it can engrave stuff. You can have a pen attachment,

but you have to use a computer and it's this whole thing. So I whipped out the cricket. We used them to do our wedding invitations, actually. Oh, oh. And it's just been a whole learning experience. So I whip that out.

We have a new botched board. So I think you guys will be able to see it. And it might not apply in every case, which I do like. I think it's, again, just a good reminder of like, then how it's done. Yeah, we just have it in case.

Exactly. And there are going to be a lot of cases where we don't need it. Yeah. Today might be one of those. cases today might be one of them. I'm also just reaching out for some help for people that have been bit by spiders. I'm not sure what kind of spider it was because I wasn't able to identify it, but I have been bit by a spider, potentially a brown recluse. I'm a little nervous. I had a panic

attack last night that I might have to have my finger amputated. But you didn't see the spider that bit you. You just felt it right on it immediately. I was like grabbing hay for the horses and immediately like felt something and it was like this searing. shooting pain like I couldn't bend my finger my vein I could see the vein in my finger which like you can't normally it was like bulging so my first thought I was like do I have a blood clot in my finger and then it was just like to the touch just like you would touch it searing pain yeah it's been the craziest experience do and we have brown recluses in california we do okay it just like bruised and like it's like a red rash and like if you compare my finger to brown

recluse bites it looks really similar so I'm like oh okay it's just one of the things you could wait and see if like all the skin starts dying around yeah yep yep uh-huh yep I'm not everyone just say a prayer Morgan doesn't lose her finger I don't want to lose my finger that's really scary that or honestly when you said blood clot too because those are like that's one of my biggest fears a DVT really freaks me out yeah just like getting one on a flight or something and then it shoots up to your brain yeah I mean I have health anxiety as is a heart of a hypochondriac. And I think about that stuff all the time.

I do too. Okay, without further ado enough about my cricket experience and my spider bite. Yeah, we have a big one that we're going to dive into today. Let's get into this. We heard you guys that you wanted lesser known cases. We feel this is one of them. Before we get into a Dea's case, I just want to remind everyone to stay until the very end of this episode. We have a new segment that we really want to talk about with you guys.

And I think it's going to be really special and start making a big difference out there. So stay until the end. Even if there's chit-chat, we're not done until we're done. Yes. And also, for anyone who's watching this on YouTube, you're going to see some photos that'll help paint the picture of this case. And if you're listening, you can find those same photos on our Instagram. That's at Clues podcast on Insta. And so before we dive in, we're going to say that today's case does include mentions of domestic violence, suicide, and suicidal ideation.

So please listen with care. Okay. So a lot of what is out there about this case, a lot of what we listened to and consumed about this case does come from the investigative work of another true crime podcast called to live and die in L.A., which just a side note, that podcast was made by Neil Strauss, who I always forget he was like a reporter for a long time, but he wrote the game. Yeah, I'm unfamiliar with the game. The game is for those who don't know, like that it's like a pickup artist book. It's a book about how to pick up. women like very toxic early 2000s how to pick up women advice but the podcast was ultimately made by him and a private investigator who teamed up together and did honestly some pretty impressive detective work chasing down leads talking to the family and they really built this picture of

adea who's the young woman at the center of this case so let's talk a little bit about who she was exactly so adia was born on march 16th 1992 although her parents were albanian she grew up in the neighboring country of North Macedonia, which is just north of Greece. She was described as being this natural performer. Even in her earliest diary entries, she would talk about her dreams of becoming a famous actress, which is really cute. Everyone who knew her said she was very warm and outgoing. She had this zest for life. And people kind of knew right away that she was going places. She also had very high goals for herself. She attended the American University of Paris. And after she graduated, she moved to Dubai. This she saw as like a stepping stone for

herself to save a little bit of money before she could head to the one place where she really wanted to go to follow her dreams right where we are today, Los Angeles, California. And Adaya arrived in L.A. in 2016 when she was just 24 years old, which I came here in 2015. Same. There's so many parts of her story that just really like hit home for me. But I was also early 20s trying to do like the Hollywood thing, came out to L.A. She got an apartment right on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is funny because people don't normally live there, but like when you're coming to L.A. and you're like, where do I want to live? Hollywood. Like, that's where you pick. She started taking classes at the Stella Adler Academy of Acting and Theater, which is a really

prestigious acting school that we have here in L.A. And thanks to her magnetic personality, Adaya had no trouble making new friends and connections. And one of those people who she got really close to early on in being in L.A. is this other aspiring actor in his early 30s, a guy named named Chris Spots. The two hit it off really quickly. Soon they became scene partners. And Adaya started telling her friends about Chris, how knowledgeable and the ambitious he was, how he was a great actor and she really believed in him. And it wasn't long before their relationship went from scene partners to something a little bit more. But to me, it seemed like Adaya was like really manifesting everything in her life. Like she wanted her name on a star on the sidewalk. And like her

room was covered with with movie posters of Leonardo DiCaprio. She had these quotes all over her apartment. Like she was really a girl that was manifesting and she was going to be a star. Yeah, she was building her dream life. So who was Christopher Spots? Chris actually wasn't from L.A. either. He actually grew up in Colorado. His dad wasn't really in the picture when he was a kid. And so he and his mom kind of moved around a lot during his childhood. But when he got older, Chris decided to go to college and he ended up at the university. of Northern Colorado, it's here that he actually got a degree in psychology. And while he graduated in 2009, you would think, okay, psychology, undergrad, maybe he'll pursue a career in mental health.

But no, Chris turned his degree and his focus to something else, to theater. Kind of makes sense, right? Like, he learned how people work, what makes them tick. So maybe he could then use that knowledge in acting to mold into these other people. So he took himself out to L.A. In the years after he arrived in Hollywood, he starred in several low budget and short films. You watched some of his reels, didn't you? Yeah, I did see his acting reel. I'll bring that up multiple times throughout this, don't worry. Yeah, maybe we'll link it so you guys can form your own opinions on it, too.

A lot of these films were directed by friends that he'd made at the Stella Adler Academy of Acting and Theater, where he was also taking classes, which is how he met Addaa back in 2017. And so throughout the fall of that year, 33-year-old Chris and 25-year-old Addaia seemed to be falling in love. Although they kept their relationship kind of on the DL on social media, Adaya did gush to her friends about how perfect she thought they were for each other. In fact, they seemed to be moving pretty fast, actually so fast that after just four months of dating in January of 2018, Chris reportedly proposed to Adda. And she said, yes. I don't know if you've ever known anyone that's gotten engaged that fast from just starting to date. Not personally. I do.

It really doesn't ever go well in my personal experience. A bit of a red flag for me. Yeah. It's very, very fast. And immediately the couple starts looking for an apartment. They even filled out a lease application for this two-bedroom place that they were going to move into in March of 2018. That was the plan. And it seems like everything was still going very well heading into Valentine's Day.

of 2018 because that evening, Chris took Adaya to this romantic dinner at a trendy restaurant in West Hollywood. But about a week after that dinner, on the morning of Friday, February 23rd, Chris and Adaya got into a pretty big argument. At least that's what Chris ended up telling his friends. Chris said that Addaa was so upset with him that she actually broke up with him that day. And according to Chris, she said that she never wanted to see him again. So it was a pretty big fight. That morning, Chris left Adaya's apartment, and a few hours later, after 12.50 p.m. that day, she stopped responding to any text messages. Now, Adaya was kind of known to be this prolific texter. She was always in constant contact with her friends and her family back in Macedonia.

She texted a lot. So when she stops responding to texts on the afternoon of February 23rd, her friends and family immediately become pretty concerned. But it wasn't until, Adea missed her next acting class three days later on Monday, February 26, that people in LA started getting really worried. And that's because Adaya was this really committed student. We talked about her building her dream life. She's like very dedicated to this dream. She never missed her acting classes. And that's why that afternoon, some of her acting school friends called the police to perform a welfare check on her apartment on Hollywood Boulevard. And here's where things get a little iffy.

So when they arrive, they immediately see that her front door is unlocked, which is very strange. I mean, we live in Los Angeles. It's L.A. You do not leave your door unlocked here, especially in the heart of Hollywood. It's just really not a good idea. I mean, we were talking about that guy in Valley Village that was on camera trying the doors, just trying door handles until he got into one and murdered someone. Like, it's very, it's a huge red flag if you go to someone's apartment and, like, the door is unlocked. Yeah, and it was not usual for her to leave her door unlocked. Yeah. So they were

already kind of like, what's going on here? But then they get inside the apartment and everything looks fine. There's no signs of a struggle. It doesn't look like anything was stolen. It doesn't look like anyone got into the apartment and rummaged around everything. Her phone and her purse weren't in the apartment, though. It seems like she left and probably took those things with her, which honestly could be a good or bad sign at this point in the investigation. But when the Pops see that. They decide it's really not enough to be able to file a missing person's report. Because they get to this apartment and they're like, okay, she's an adult woman. She took her purse and her keys. She left. Like, what do you mean that she's a missing person? She probably just left for the weekend.

Now, over the course of the last few days, Adia's friends had also been trying to track down Chris to see if he had any answers as to what was happening with her. and it was surprisingly hard to get a hold of him during this time. He took a while to respond. And he is also someone who is known for being pretty much in constant contact with people. So when he finally does respond to everyone, he says that he and Adaya actually broke up on Friday morning the 23rd and he hadn't heard from her or seen her since. And all of his friends say that at this time he didn't really seem all that alarmed that Adaya was missing, presumably because he had been a little bit distracted over the last few days,

trying to patch things up with his other fiancé. Yeah, you guys heard that right, other fiancé. See, the whole time Chris was dating Adda, he was actually engaged to another woman, a nurse named Mary El Malick. Chris and Mary had been together for four years. They actually live together. They have two dogs together.

Like, Chris had this whole other life. A whole life. So while Mary was at work, Chris was off with Adaya. And so on Valentine's Day, when Chris took a day out to that fancy dinner in West Hollywood, it was at 10 p.m. It was so late because Chris had done a romantic dinner with Mary earlier in the evening. Unfortunately, I feel like L.A. is a place where you can get away with this because he's an actor. He worked like his schedules all over the place. She's at work all day.

Like he's kind of able to do both things. And then also you're like, well, it's a really popular restaurant. I couldn't get a reservation until 10 p.m. I'm like, that's not unheard of on Valentine's Day. So, like, yeah, he was just able to do that. Now, it's pretty clear Chris was really trying to keep these two women separated. And so when Chris started dating Addaia, he kept Mary a secret from her as well. But that didn't last very long.

Just a few weeks into their relationship, Adaya figured out Chris was engaged. And she was furious with him for lying about it. But Chris managed to win her over. He told Addaa that he was actually planning. on leaving Mary soon, and Adaya believed him. You know, she's in love. She wants to make this work with him. Apparently, she even texted one of her friends, quote,

When the fiancé is not in the picture, we are all lov-y-dovey. So she goes along with it. Helps him keep this secret. You know, for her, there's an end in sight, and she's going to be with him fully, openly soon. But in the meantime, she keeps the relationship off social media, which would probably be seemingly really hard for Adaya. like she loved social media.

Like we said, she was always in contact with her family and friends. And like this was a big part of her life. Yeah, also being an actress in LA, like social media is part of the job. You have to market yourself. Yeah. And so over the next few months, keeping this secret, being the other woman, air quotes, right? It takes a toll on Adaya. She hates having to sneak around.

You know, it's hard knowing that Chris is at home with Mary when he isn't with her. And she really begins to suspect that he actually isn't going to leave Mary. ever. You know, he's saying I'm going to break up with her, but you can only say something for so long, and then your actions speak louder than the words. Of course, yeah. And as things go on, things get more and more heated between Adaya and Chris. They start having these huge explosive fights. Chris actually stole Adaya's iPhone twice because she was threatening to get in touch with Mary and tell her the truth. Apparently, these fights escalated into some pretty horrific moments too. Allegedly in response to stealing her phone, Chris said Addaa threatened him with a

kitchen knife. Then there was a time when Chris made an audio recording as he stormed out of an argument and got into his truck to leave. And that's when Adaya leapt into the bed of the truck to try and stop him from driving away. I've listened to the audio. We're going to play a clip for you guys here. I'll let you make your own thoughts on it. You know, let me know what you think of the recording, but it's a really hard thing to listen to. I'm recording anymore. You have beat me up. You have beat me up.

You have beat me up. You took in my Rolex. You took my Rolex. You took my Rolex. You took my Rolex. You took my Rolex. You beat me up. Everything hurt.

Just get out of my truck. I'm not getting out until I get my Rolex. Please get out of my truck. You have my Rolex and my keys and my iPhone. No. My second iPhone. Yes, you have it. I don't.

Yes. Even my, find my iPhone shows me the address of your place. Do you think I have it in my house? Show me it. Show me. Open up your iPhone. So after this, Chris ends up driving off down the street. He leaves. And things just got more unpredictable and messy between the two of them. They did stay together, mainly because of how manipulative Chris seemed to be. Because as soon as he felt Adaya slipping away, he would do something wild to try to

keep them together. You know, there was love bombing. There's gas lighting. There's a lot going on here, you guys. Which may be why he ended up proposing to Adia in January. and then talked about moving in together. Filled out that rental application together. Yeah, because he's like, oh, you want to see how serious I am. I'm willing to marry you and sign a lease together. And that quiets that argument for the time being. Absolutely.

He was pulling out all the stops. But it still didn't really seem like he had any real plans to break it off with Mary. One of this week's partners is Peloton. There's a specific kind of joy and freedom that comes from a truly great workout. That feeling where everything just clicks. Peloton is helping you unlock that feeling with the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. It's cross-training reimagined. Peloton IQ actually personalizes your journey by planning your workouts, tracking your progress,

and even correcting your form in real time to help you unlock new versions of yourself. So let yourself run, lift, fail, try, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus at OnePeloton.com. Hey, before we jump back into the show, let's take a quick break. But not just any break, this is a refreshing break with Snapple. We all know about Snapple's iconic, real facts, so let's take a minute to go over some of my favorites. Snapple Real Fact, 964, it is illegal in the United Kingdom to handle salmon in suspicious circumstances. Snapple Real Fact 1013, it is illegal to sing off-key in North Carolina.

Snapple Real Fact 2033, Americans consume 150 million hot dogs on July 4th. Snapple Real Fact 705. Every ton of recycled paper saves about 17 trees. So grab a snapple, take a second, and enjoy the moment. Because let's be honest, this might be the most refreshing part of your day. Snapple. Make your break more interesting. All right, now let's get back to Clues.

On the night of February 19th, 2018, four days before Adaya disappeared, he and Adaya got into apparently what was their biggest fight yet. Chris had been dragging his feet on signing the lease on their new apartment together, which Adaya took as a sign that he wasn't really serious about their relationship. I mean, rightly so. After going back and forth for hours, Chris stormed out of Adia's apartment and drove back to his and Mary's place. And in response, Adaya decided to take things into her own hand. She actually sent Mary a message on Instagram. And it read, quote, Hi, Mary, I would like to talk to you urgently. It's about Chris. Please give me a call if you can. which in the grand scheme of things is a very measured way to send that message, I would add. So and then after that, she drove to Chris and Mary's apartment and parked on the street outside and she stayed there the entire night.

And according to phone records, she called Chris 22 times that night, but he never answered. That's because he was inside the apartment having to confess to Mary that he had been having an affair. And it was not going very well, as you can imagine. According to Mary, Chris told her that he'd had a fling with Adaya, not that he was about to sign a lease with this woman, but he had been trying to break it off for months and Adaya wouldn't let him. Always an excuse. And he told her that Adaya had actually threatened to take her life if he left. So he really framed it to be like, I'm put in this position where I can't leave this woman that I was having a fling with. And according to Mary, he also told her that.

Adaya's family had ties to the Albanian mafia, which is why he was afraid to upset her too much. Though, I mean, we've looked into this case. There's like no real evidence that that's true at all. Regardless of the excuses, Mary was so pissed that on that night, she actually kicked Chris out of bed and made him sleep literally on a dog bed in the living room. And in the morning, Chris promised Mary that it was over between him and Adaya. But as we know, it definitely was not over. No. A few days later on February 22nd, she caught him texting with Adaya again.

And in response, Chris literally bent his phone until the screen shattered, just so Mary wasn't able to read his messages. And that's when she fully kicked him out of the apartment. So instead, with nowhere else to go, Chris managed to convince Adaya to let him stay at her place. Though it seems like Chris may have also tried to play the sympathy card with her a little bit. It seems like he told Adia that his. uncle in Sacramento had just died of a heart attack. And so on the night of February 22nd, the night before Adaya disappeared, she let Chris spend the night at her place. Obviously, up until this point, Chris had been doing a ton of lying. But so far, his movements still line up with

the story that he eventually told Adia's friends when they reached out to him, which is that they broke up on Friday morning the 23rd, and she told him she never wanted to see him again. But a few days after Addaa went missing, the LAPD learned something that really called Chris's story into question. Investigators spoke to another one of Adia's friends who showed them texts from Addaia before she disappeared that morning. Texts that seemed to indicate they absolutely did not break up. Because in those messages, Adaya mentions that she's going to Sacramento with Chris for his uncle's funeral. And this is our first break in this case. Because when police end up looking at the security footage from the parking garage and the elevator of Adaya's apartment complex, they find that Chris's story is not adding up.

The camera captures footage of them in the elevator. They are seemingly happy. They're wearing matching baseball hats. It goes and follows them into the parking garage where Adaya has a neck pillow and two suitcases. Seeming like they're going away for a weekend trip. Yeah. No trouble in paradise. Clearly not breaking up.

Not this huge breakup that he said happened. The video then shows them getting into a car together and driving away. No sign of forcing into the car. They're just seemingly fine. And if you're watching on YouTube, you will see a picture of them in the elevator. It definitely doesn't look to me like they've just had a fight. It looks like they're going on a trip together. Like they're spending a weekend.

Yeah. Especially not a fight where Adaya says, I never want to see you again. Yeah. They're kind of looking at Chris now. Like, dude, your story is not adding up at all. all. And it gets even weirder when they make contact with Chris's family and they find out his uncle didn't die. After finding this surveillance footage of Adaya leaving with Chris on February 23rd, 2018, the police call Chris in for questioning. And while he told Adaya's friends that the two

of them broke up, he hasn't seen her since, this whole story that he's been sticking to, he tells LAPD a completely different story. Through a statement. that was issued by his lawyer actually. So in this statement, Chris says that he decided to take Adaya on a little trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain. It's this theme park that's right up the road. It's like 45 minutes north of us in L.A. But this statement doesn't mention the trip continuing on to this funeral for his supposedly dead uncle. He does say, however, that on the way to the park, he and Adaya got into a fight.

and he claims that she started slapping him and punching him while he was driving. So according to him, he pulled over on the side of the freeway in the North L.A. suburb of Santa Clarita, and he led her out of the car. And according to his statement to police, that was the last time that he really saw her was when he let her out of the car after this fight. But that's not the only thing he says. He also tells them that after he dropped a day off in Santa Clarita on February 23rd, he actually kept driving north to visit his father who lives on a horse farm in a rural area outside of Sacramento, which that's what, like a five-hour drive?

It's a decent drive. It's not a quick drive. It's a hike up there. And he figured that this visit might be therapeutic for him and maybe it would help him like better understand some of the mistakes that he was making in his life. Okay. So clearly this whole thing is strange, right? Why two suitcases and a neck pillow just to go to six flags? Why would you leave your girlfriend, ex-girlfriend on the side of the road? Like you guys, there's a massive highway to get up there. Like it's not like it. Why would you leave her? It's also 45 minutes away. It's far from L.A.

It's far to leave someone to get home on their own accord. It's weird. So it's all sounding really strange, right? So before I jump into this next part, I just want to preface this, that Chris's dad is also named Chris. But his last name is Merez. So from here on out, we're going to refer to Chris's dad as Merez. So here's the thing. Chris and his dad Marez have had a pretty rough relationship. You know, as I mentioned, his dad wasn't really in his life when Chris was growing up.

In fact, he was never married to Chris's mom, Jade. He got Jade pregnant when they were in high school, and the way Jade describes it, this was allegedly a sexual assault. So understandably, she wanted to raise her son without any influence from this guy, which is why Chris almost never saw his father. But according to Chris's mom, this made Marez really angry. According to Jade, for years, Merez was harassing her, stalking her, trying to get her back into his life.

supposedly he broke into her house one time while she was gone and left a giant kitchen knife in her bed as like seemingly a threat. Yeah, it's like the godfather. Oh, God, that's, yeah. She filed police reports about this, but authorities never charged Merez with a crime. Though it was because of all of this that Chris and Merez were never really close. Like a very strained relationship from everything I've heard and read and just a lot of resentment by the sounds of it on Chris's part.

Mary, who Chris was with for four years, had never even met Merez, actually. So it's strange that on February 23rd, the day Adégo is missing, Chris decides to pay a visit to his estranged father outside of Sacramento after supposedly kicking his girlfriend out of the car. Yeah, and once the police hear that Chris went to go visit Marez, they decide to pay Marez a little visit.

And he basically confirms right away, yes, my son did drive up to visit me on the night of the 23rd, and he was alone. But he says that Chris and him got into a fight almost immediately. According to Marez, Chris left his house after just 15 minutes and went to stay the night at a hotel in Sacramento. And then he drove back to L.A. the next day, which is February 24th, and returned to his and Mary's apartment. So Chris's official story, because we just talked about how far it is, like his official story is that he made basically a 12-hour round trip to Sacramento, all so that he could see his dad for 15 minutes the entire time of which they fought. Not really out and up for me. It's very, very strange. So it doesn't seem like

the police really get much out of Chris or his dad, either time that they're like talking to them. So while they continue their investigation, Adaya's friends and family are really trying to keep up the search for her. Like there just needs to be something to keep the momentum going. So in the weeks after she disappears, they decide to talk to the media. Adaya's mother actually flies to L.A. from Macedonia to try and find her, which is just like the most heartbreaking thing I can imagine. But there's one thing that everyone pretty much unanimously agrees on. It's that Chris, with his conflicting versions of events, is starting to seem very suspicious. The problem is there's no physical evidence to indicate that anything bad has happened to Adaya yet.

or that Chris was responsible. Like, the police still in their minds are thinking maybe she just ran away. It's like definitely looking weird, but that's on the table still. It's one of those like no body, no crime situations, which always get a little sticky. And so everyone keeps searching for Adaya. Chris starts getting more and more nervous. He insists to marry that they need to leave their apartment and start staying in hotels. He says that they can't stay in the apartment anymore.

Chris tells her it's because he's worried about Adia's family and their supposed ties to the Albanian mafia, which we've discussed is probably not accurate at all. Yeah. And in early March of 2018, he ends up leaving L.A. and essentially goes into hiding. Though it seems like Mary's had enough at that point and she decides to not go with him. The LAPD continue their investigation all the same. They're not aware at that point, though, that Chris has left town. Like, they're still investigating and he kind of is able to slip out without them noticing. And that's going to be a real challenge because they're about to make a pretty big breakthrough in the investigation. Investigators actually end up getting access to Chris's cell phone records. And this is our second

clue in this one, because Chris's data tells a very interesting story. Story that's a little different than the one he's been telling so far. The data doesn't lie. So on February 23rd, his phone has him leaving L.A. and driving north, just like he said. But he doesn't stop in Santa Clarita at all, like he had previously told police. Which means he never let a day out of the car there. Yeah. Instead, he kept driving north without stopping until he reached a remote wilderness area

in the mountains north of L.A. called Lake of the Woods. According to his cell phone data, Chris was stopped there for 40 minutes on February 23rd. And investigators think that this is more than enough time to kill someone and then bury a body.

Yeah, and it seems like because of that, Chris is finally named as a person of interest in Adaya's case by the police. And so on March 10th, After uncovering Chris's cell tower data, police begin searching the Lake of the Woods area. And while they're there, they actually don't find any evidence that Adea was there or that there was like any dirt that had been turned up any shallow graves or anything. Meanwhile, police are now trying to track Chris down again for more questioning because they have lost track of him. He was able to escape.

And eventually they learned that he's staying with his family back in Colorado. Detectives decided to go make that trip. But at some point, Chris probably gets tipped off because when they get there to his family home, they realize that like Chris has left again. And that means Chris is officially on the lamb. The LAPD flags his license plate number. So if any traffic cameras anywhere in the U.S. scan his plates, it's actually going to report his location. So in theory, they should be able to find him really quickly. And on March 22nd, 2018, almost a month after Adaya's disappearance, a red light camera does spot Chris's pickup truck near San Bernard

Dino, California. That's about 60 miles east of L.A. An alert goes out to the local police. And within a matter of minutes, sheriff's deputies pull Chris over as he's pulling out of a gas station. They get him so fast. The deputies approach the truck. They have their weapons drawn. But moments later, the truck starts up again and he speeds off down the road. The police end up chasing Chris for another minute or two before he pulls over again. And then they see another man jump out of the passenger side door and onto the side of the road. Then Chris hits the gas, gets onto the freeway, and he leads the police into a high-speed chase. They end up having to lay those spike strips across the highway to stop him. Like it gets, it goes on for so long that they have to like physically stop

the car. And that works. It shreds his tires. But Chris is really persistent. He tries to drive on just his rims for a while. And eventually that's not working. So he has to pull over to the side of the highway. You can't get very far on just your rims. Once again, police surround the truck. They have their guns drawn. They order him to get out. But instead, Chris does stay inside of the truck and he shoots himself. He dies instantly on the scene.

And when police search the truck afterwards, they find a whole slew of things in the car. All of them are very strange. There's like vodka, whiskey, THC gummies, testosterone pills, nutritional supplements for weightlifting, about a dozen self-help books. there's two guns, a tape recorder, over 100 rounds of ammunition, and also script pages for one of Chris's upcoming auditions. Which also, if you have over 100 rounds of ammunition, I'm thinking you're considering doing something a little bit more drastic than just taking your own life. That's a lot of ammo. It's a lot of ammo to have.

So shortly after this chase, an investigator interviews the man who jumped out of Chris's truck. And his name was Chance. And he was one of Chris's childhood friends. from when he was growing up in Colorado. Chance has like a whole story, too. When the police start talking to him, he like starts giving them all this information. And he says that when Chris returned to Colorado in March of 2018,

he was in a very, very, very bad place mentally. I mean, as we have seen. He was so stressed out from this police investigation that he was planning to get a hotel room in Colorado. And he had told Chance that it was definitely a possibility that he was going to die by suicide inside of the hotel room. But Chance said that at the time, time he had actually convinced Chris to not go through with it. But that's when Chris asked

chance to join him on a mission, one that he said would prove that it wasn't him who killed Adaya. The plan was they were going to make this road trip to Sacramento to visit his father Mores. And apparently Chris had confessed to chance why they needed to confront his father. They said that after Chris supposedly dropped Adaya off in Santa Clarita, he called Moray. to vent about her. He said all these things about Adaya. He mentioned how she threatened to ruin his life. He said, that's when Marez told him to not worry. Apparently, this is all according to Chant. So like, I mean, take everything with a grain of salt because, like, Chris is no longer around. But Chant said that Chris told him that Merez had said on the phone, quote, girls go missing from L.A. every single f***ing day.

And according to Chris, Mores said that he would take care of it. And then he hung up the phone. And Chris ended up telling Chance that after this call, he believes his dad drove to Santa Clarita, picked a day up from the side of the highway, apparently, where he had dropped her off and either kidnapped her or killed her in order to protect him. So Chris wanted Chance to come with him to Merez's house near Sacramento so that they could, I guess, like, retaliate was the plan. And he told Chance, quote, listen, dude, if that point, body is anywhere, my dad is going to know where it's going to be. It seems like Chris, like maybe his plan was to get back at Merez for what he did. Like, even though he didn't really exactly know what he had done to Adaya, he wanted to tie him up and beat him until he told them exactly what had happened to her. According to Chance, that's where they were headed when the

police stopped them outside of San Bernardino. And that kind of explains why they had all those guns and a tape recorder in the car. Now obviously a lot of this story doesn't really align with what we've heard. No, I mean, off the bat, we know that they weren't in Santa Clarita. So it just like already is wrong. Yeah. But it appears to police that like Chance is telling the truth, at least as far as Chance knows it. Yeah, like this is just what Chance was told and he has no reason to lie, maybe.

Yeah, exactly. But Chance like also didn't really seem to believe Chris's story about his dad either. Chance said he was just trying to help and be a loyal friend, you know, help his buddy out in a time of need. I mean, it was very apparent that Chris was clearly struggling. Despite maybe not believing it wholeheartedly, he still shared all of these details with police. And after this, they uncover our third clue. You see, there were a lot of people wondering if maybe this story had some truth to it. On March 26, 2018, four days after Chris died by suicide, a search team discovered a shallow grave that held the remains of Adaya. But it wasn't at Lake of the

woods where police had initially been searching. You know, this, the place that Chris was at for 40 minutes on his long drive up. Instead, they found her body over 430 miles north of L.A., near a creek bed in the Spenceville Wildlife Area, just outside of Sacramento. She was wrapped in a tarp that was secured with twine, a clear sign to police that they were dealing with a homicide, something that was later confirmed by the autopsy, which determined that Adaya had died of blunt force trauma to her head. In their initial report, the LAPD didn't conclusively identify. her killer. But they did speculate that Chris most likely had something to do with it, especially

since Addaia was last seen getting into his truck and he was driving through the Sacramento area on the day that she disappeared. Right. So we're kind of at this point where police think they know what happened. They're not sure entirely. But this is where the investigation basically ends. Their one prime suspect that they had, Chris, is dead. So they kind of just decide that there's nothing else that can be done. The case is closed. The person who did it is dead. There's nothing they can do. And then they just kind of wrap up the investigation. But Adaya's family is like very not satisfied with this conclusion. They felt like there was still a lot of loose ends. They ended up at this point paying a private investigator to continue the investigation after the police moved on. And he kept

uncovering details that raised kind of a lot of new questions about what happened. on the day Adaya died. For example, Adaya's body was discovered at the far end of a dirt road that begins just 200 yards away from Marez's house. And as this private investigator talked to more members of Chris's family, he discovered something else about Marez's potential involvement. This episode is brought to you by Instacart. I have a four-month-old at home, which means I don't leave the house unless I absolutely have

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Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. that perfect hang on the patio sundress, those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture

when you tear open that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Which brings us to clue number four, the phone call. On February 24th, one day after a day I went missing, Merez ended up calling Chris's mother, Jade. And this was really strange, right?

Like we've talked about their previous relationship and interactions. They're like beyond estranged. Beyond a strange. It was clear that Marez was like harassing, stalking, threatening Jade. Like these two weren't good. So to get a call out of the blue when they haven't spoken in years, really out of the ordinary. So out of the ordinary that Jade actually took notes about this phone call, which she then later gave to this private investigation. I mean, good for her for having the wherewithal to be like, I need to write some of this down because this is so weird.

So smart. So based on this phone call, it seemed like Merez really wanted to talk about Chris's visit the day before. Merez repeatedly told Jade that Chris only stayed for 15 minutes, then left after they got into a fight, which is the same story that he told police. He also talked about Chris's affair and relationship troubles, which Jade also knew about. but here's where things get even weirder. According to Jade, Mores kept repeating the line, people go missing from L.A. all the time. Same line that Chance had said. So it is adding up in some ways, yeah.

And when she asked if he was referring to Chris, he said, no, no, the girl. Jade then replied, quote, oh my God, Mary? What's going to happen to Mary? And that's when Marez says, quote, no, the little one, the other girl. She's missing.

presumably referring to Adaya. Now this freaks jade out because no one knows Adaya is missing yet. It's not on the news. It's only been a day after she was last heard from. Even her friends haven't reported her missing yet. Yeah, there's no missing person's report at this point. No one's missing. So the only way Merez knows this information is if he got it from Chris,

if Chris told him about it or if maybe he was involved somehow. Yeah. And this is like where things are getting even stranger than they have already been this entire time. So the only reason that police were even looking for Adaya's body in the Spenceville wildlife area was because Mores was the one that tipped them off. A few days after Chris died by suicide, Mores actually called the investigators with a new detail about his son's 15 minute visit on the night of February 23rd. He said that when Chris arrived, he actually confessed to him that he had killed Adaya and, and buried her body by a creek in the Spenceville wildlife area. And Marez says that at first he didn't believe his son.

He thought that maybe Chris was just so stressed out he was imagining things. But apparently when he told Chris that he got so angry that the visit ended in a huge fight. And that's what caused Chris to leave a few minutes later. So that's what they were fighting about for those 15 minutes. According to Marez, he was just a total bystander in this whole process. He had nothing to do with anything. He just listened to his son when he showed up, and then his son got mad and left. The obvious question here, though, is if Chris told Merez he killed Adaya on February 23rd,

then why didn't Merez call the police when Adaya's disappearance made the news a few days later? Or why did you not call the police immediately? If someone shows up to your door and says that they killed someone, like that is the time to get. the investigation started. Merez actually had talked to journalists. He had talked to investigators. He had even, and this part always breaks my heart so much, but he had even talked to members of Adaya's family during the month-long search for her body. And he never once said anything about it. So I don't want to hear that you were just an observer of this whole situation, like absolute garbage. Honestly, that's sick. Talking to her friends and family.

pretending to know nothing. And not saying anything. Like, oh, wow, I wonder what happened. That's absolutely sick. It's disgusting. And so this caused a lot of people to wonder, was he just trying to protect his son or was he also trying to protect himself? Because it's starting to look a lot like the latter. Yeah. And it's a somewhat convenient story because the other person who could shed light on it isn't around anymore. And so everything Merez is saying, there's no physical proof that he was involved in Adaya's murder. Still, the private investigator hired by Addaia's family keeps on digging and he gets some crucial help from Chris's ex-fiance Mary. Even as she was mourning her longtime partner, she wanted Adia's family to be able to have as

much closure as possible. So she gave the private investigator access to Chris's Google data, which is our next clue. We talked earlier about the cell tower data, which police used to track Chris's approximate location on the day that Adaya disappeared. But your phone also tracks much more precise data about where you are through your location services that are just like embedded. Oh, it's terrifying how accurate your phone can like track your location or how apps. Like we were just talking about this. Like if you have gambling apps on your phone, they know the room of your house that you're in. Yeah. So unless you've told it not to, your phone is recording your exact location down to the very foot, you guys. And it does this.

Like even if you're on airplane mode apparently. It's just constantly tracking. insane and then all this information is actually stored by Google don't you love that don't you love that there's a big tech company that knows where we are at all moments down to the foot I've actually started like as you go to Google stuff it'll prompt you like share your location to help better results don't do it guys no don't do it's not worth it but luckily we have this info because it gives investigators a more accurate picture of Chris's movements on February 23rd no absolutely this is like the one in a billion time where it's like very useful yeah So it turns out that morning, Chris went to a hardware store in North Hollywood.

And when investigators checked the store records, they found that Chris had purchased a pair of gloves, a flashlight, a large towel, and a shovel. Then he went to a day's apartment and picked her up. They drove straight up the I-5 without stopping in Santa Clarita. But the investigators learned from this data that Chris didn't stop at Lake of the Woods like police had originally thought. Yeah, which is weird because that's what his phone had said. That's what it was looking like for 40 minutes. It's like an interesting like inaccuracy. It's a long, long window of time.

Police thought he actually stayed there for 40 minutes because his phone lost reception in that area. So it kept pinging a tower near Lake of the Woods until it found reception again. Okay, got it. Yeah. So based on all of his Google data, he and Andeia only made two brief stops for gas on the drive up to Sacramento. meaning it's almost certain that Adaya was still alive and in the car with him at 7.53 p.m. When they neared the rural area where Merez lived. It also shows Chris didn't drive directly onto his dad's property when he got there.

Instead, he turned on to a narrow gravel lane about a mile away. He followed it to a spot that was hidden from the main road by low hill, and he stayed there in the middle of an empty field at night for about 21 minutes. According to the private investigator, this 21-minute stretch was likely when Chris murdered Adaya. He then called Marez. And then his Google data stopped for a bit. Likely because he turned off his phone. Interesting time to turn off the phone after you've committed the crime.

Doesn't feel like he thought it through at all? No. I mean, no, you would think someone would turn off their phone the whole day. But then you see like Brian Coburger or two, like driving around in the area with his cell phone on. It's just like people don't think about it. No. And we're going to get to that one. Oh, yeah. So here's where things get even shadier, like as if that's possible. The cell phone wasn't off all night.

Chris would like turn it back on to make a few calls or texts and then he would shut it off again. And even though Marez kept telling everyone that Chris had only been at his house for 15 minutes that night, based on the Google data, Chris was actually on and around his father's property for five hours. So it's unclear if Merez knew his son was on the property the entire time, or did Chris pretend to leave and then just kept lurking? Marez specifically told investigators that Chris never left his sight during his alleged 15-minute visit. It's also worth noting that when police investigated Merez's farm, they found a shallow, body-sized empty hole that had been dug on another location on the property. Investigators said, though, that it looked like someone had started digging this hole,

hit a layer of like rock or bedrock so they couldn't dig any further and so they gave up and abandoned it. But when asked by police like, Maraz, like, do you know anything about this? He said that the hole had been dug by his dogs, but then later changed his story to the hole had been dug by a coyote. In another interview, he suggested squirrels dug the hole. A like four foot by six foot hole in the ground. Ground squirrels was not dug by ground squirrels. I'm sorry. You guys, I have ground squirrels all over my neighborhood.

Their hole is the size of a large softball. And they're just digging graves all over your neighborhood? No. Come on. Who's going to buy that? What dog digs a human grave size hole? Like, no. He was the one that told investigators where to search.

Yeah. He clearly knew something. Come on. So you have to wonder, like, what part of all of this is he lying about? Even after a day's body was found and he admitted that Chris had confessed to killing her. Like, why does he continue to? to cover and cover so stupidly squirrels you guys squirrels i know yeah for a son that he was estranged from and yeah it's very odd yeah there also was a crime scene investigator that anonymously told the

podcast to live and die in l.A that they believed the twine and tarp that was found wrapped around adea had come from marez's farm i mean that would make sense because he didn't buy that at the store he just bought like the flashlight and the shovel Yeah, and maybe Chris knew where to go on his dad's property, but like, again, these two were very estranged. Yeah, but how would he have known? It didn't seem like he visited the property that often. No. I don't buy it. And then there's a little bit more to his Google data. So just after 4 a.m., Chris finally checked into a hotel in Sacramento.

And later that day, he did drive back to L.A. But his data shows that he stopped in multiple small towns along the way, going to random locations, like a strip mall, a car wash. gas stations. And at one stop, the data showed that he went around back to the dumpsters. Again, to the foot, you guys. Scary. And so private investigators believe that Chris was actually disposing of Adia's belongings, you know, getting rid of stuff, those two suitcases, all of this. But by the time investigators learned about all of this, those dumpsters had long been emptied. Have you ever, like, read about how hard it is to recover things from a dump? Like, even if they were dumped

like the day before. So I do personally know because I've tried to do it. Oh, did you like throw something away that was important? Um, my contractor threw away the door to our house and it was like a really historical door. And so I tried to go find it and get it and it was no shot in hell. Oh my gosh. So yeah, it's it it's you think needle in a haystack? No, this is like a needle in the United States. I remember reading about a case where there were the bodies of sex workers showing up in a dump in Orange County and they were saying like it was something like every day an entire football field worth of trash was being thrown in this dump just on top of each other constantly and so like once something's in the dump it's like it's so gone you'll never find it no it's it's impossible yeah

so over the next several months the private investigator and adeus family share all the info they've collected with this true crime podcast to live and die in L.A. And roughly a year after Adia's murder, a listener reaches out. They want to put the creators in touch with someone who has another clue about what happened that night. That someone was Merez's ex-wife, Kim Merez. According to Kim, sometime after Adia's body was found, Merez came to her acting pretty upset. He told her that on the night of February 23rd, Chris showed up at the house and told him exactly how he had killed Adaya. Chris said that he had pulled over during the drive up and suggested that he and Addaia sit

in the bed of his truck and look out at stars. He then hit her in the head with the shovel while she was distracted. Chris even told Marez that her body was still in the truck. And then Kim claims, Chris asked Marez to help him bury the body. That makes the most sense to me, like honestly. Yeah. According to Kim, Marez said he was reluctant. but that Chris played the guilt card saying that Mores owed him this because he was never there for him when he was a kid.

So Merez told Kim that he led Chris into the Spenceville Wildlife Area and held the flashlight while Chris dug Adaya's grave. Kim knew Merez well enough to know when he was lying, or so she thinks, and she believed that during this confession to her, he was telling her the truth. She didn't think he had anything to do with the murder, but she felt very certain that he did. did help Chris cover it up. And obviously, like, we will never know what was going through Chris's head. We'll never know truly without a doubt what happened. And even if he was alive, like, could you believe any story you get from him? There's a lot of speculation on this case about how involved Marez is, was.

And there's one last clue we're going to get into that's going to have us maybe speculating even more. So there was a ridiculous amount of phone calls between. between Chris and Merez in the days before Adaya's disappearance. As we've discussed, Marez not a major presence in Chris's life. And so looking at Chris's phone bill in the lead-up to Adia's murder, you can see that they had pretty limited contact. If we look to November of 2017, Chris had four phone calls with Marez. In December, they talked on the phone three times.

But in February of 2018, in the 20 days before Adia went missing, Chris and Marez talked on the phone four. 21 times. That's twice a day. Yeah. Wow. Three times in a month, 2.41 times in a month. That's a big jump. And in just the three days before Adaya's disappearance on February 23rd, they talked on the phone 14 times. In fact, they had a nine minute conversation that ended right before Chris picked up Adda at her apartment. It sounds like plotting. It's a lot of time to come up with a plan. It's giving plot, especially when you have multiple different witnesses saying that Mores had made comments about women, people disappear in L.A. all the time. Yeah, girls go missing in L.A. all the time. So this could be suspicious. It could not be.

You know, maybe Chris was looking for someone who could talk him down from this plan. Maybe he was reaching out during a mental health episode. We're never really going to know. And I will say there is no evidence to suggest that Mores knew what his son was about to do. that we have. Yeah, none that we know of. So far. Yes.

So far. Exactly. There's a lot of loose ends and theories like clearly, I mean, I look to these phone calls and I have a hard time imagining his father was not, at least in the no somewhat. The comments alone kind of make me really question the involvement. And everybody on Reddit that's learned about this case pretty much is asking one big question. should Merez have been charged with a crime? He has admitted that he held a flashlight. This was on his property.

I mean, there's some people that think he should be charged at least with like accessory to murder. Oh, absolutely. So there's a lot of feelings out there on that. Others are saying the evidence on him is not going to hold up. It's so thin. As for Chris and Adaya, though, there's one detail I found that might have kind of been like the breaking point for all of this. Like a really big catalyst. A friend of Addaa,

Asa named Angel said that there was a chance Adaya might have been pregnant with Chris's baby. Apparently, she told another friend around February 12th that they weren't using protection and she was happy over the thought of carrying his child, though I never heard of there being any evidence of this pregnancy found in the autopsy. I feel like you'd be able to know that in the autopsy. I think so. Yeah. You know, they found her relatively quickly.

Like, it doesn't seem like, you know, the evidence would have decomposed. like some of the other cases we talk about, but nothing has ever officially been mentioned. And there's another loose thread in this one that I've seen talked about quite a bit. Now, we do know Adaya's door was left unlocked. But there's evidence to suggest that sometime that night, the day she disappeared,

that there's use of her computer. Yeah, you were talking about this. This isn't something I'd really come across that much, but what was the stuff with the computer? It's big on the subreddit. There's never been any official mention of it. I will say, like, it seems like police really did their due diligence with this one. There's not a mark on the botched board.

You know, they were really, they were traveling to Sacramento to interview Mores. They went to Colorado to try to find Chris. They had this high-speed chase trying to apprehend him. Like, there was no stopping what Chris was going to do. Like, they did a seemingly good job and really thoroughly investigated this. But, yeah, like, I would assume they. checked her computer, they obviously, it slipped out that there was use of it. Yeah. But no mention of if files were deleted or what they really found during that part of their investigation. Yeah,

it's interesting. I guess if it was used that night, it wouldn't have been Chris because they were gone. And so that's kind of the loose thread in this one. Yeah, that is a really loose thread. Was there someone else that Chris called to like, hey, can you go delete this? Unclear. Yeah. Unclear. Yeah, right. And then maybe that's why the apartment was left unlocked. It was because that person came in and out. Yeah.

And didn't lock it. Unclear. One thing, too, that I remember Neil Strauss saying when he was talking, when they were, like, doing the press tour for this case, was he brought up, because I agree with you, Morgan. Like, ultimately, the police did find her body, and they did investigate this case. And they were, I mean, there was, like, times where Chris was able to, like, slip away without them noticing. And that's like a huge, that was ultimately probably the reason he was able to like take his own life. He wasn't being surveilled.

But like Neil Strauss was talking about how in L.A. I mean, we live in L.A. Have you ever tried to call 911 here? Yes. But I'm more so Burbank. Oh, yeah. You kind of have your own. But like, you know, when I lived in like Hollywood, like L.A. proper.

Yeah. Our home would get broken into multiple times like getting police to come out. Yes. It's a joke. That's what he talked about. Just in LA, it is very difficult to get the police to respond to things. It's really challenging. Through like just because of a variety of different reasons.

But if you call like the non-emergency line, it can be an hour and a half before you talk to an officer. Yeah. And so he was saying that when it comes to missing persons reports, they are very quick to say this is an adult that left. They will probably come back. If they don't come back, then you should contact us and we will file a missing person's report. And Neil Strauss was, this is what Neil says. He was told by the LAPD that even if the police do get involved with a missing persons report, they recommend you also hire a private investigator alongside. Which that to me is insane because private investigators are not cheap, you guys.

Like this is someone with extreme expertise. You have to be able to afford the person. The private investigator in this case was a previous detective. Yeah. They're not cheap. No. So to have those resources to hire someone additionally to help you find your missing loved one or friend or whoever. For that to be the expectation that if someone goes missing, you have to have the funds to be able to hire this person.

That's pretty bad. It's not great. No. And so ultimately, like, Adia's family was able to hire this private investigator. But it still was like the police that, I guess, found her. But then the investigation was so inconclusive that the private investigator had to kind of finish the investigation and figure out exactly what happened. Yeah. So it's just, yeah, it's just a really sad case. No, and you were pulling up even the LA missing person website. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. We were, so we were looking at the LA, the on the LAPD online website, there's a section for missing people. And it's so out of date. It's not good, you guys. The one person I looked up isn't missing anymore. It was a child that they found actually and he's safe. But they didn't like correct that on the website. A lot of the dates are wrong.

The descriptions of people are wrong. The ages of nearly everyone were wrong. A lot of conflicting information. A lot of conflicting information. It's like, how do you help out if you have all the wrong information on a person? Absolutely. So I was like, I was really surprised to see that. So that's what we have today on the case of Adaya Shabani.

We could spend years really, like, debating the intricacies of this case. But none of that will undo the tragedy of this murder. And unfortunately, Adaya and Chris's relationship did. follow a cycle of abuse. Chris was manipulative and emotionally abusive to Adaya. There's maybe some evidence he was also physically abusive towards her. And this pattern of behavior eventually escalated into murder. So if you or someone you know is in a relationship where you feel unsafe, there are resources that can help. You can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-9-7-233. They'll help you find a shelter, find financial aid. There's also emotional support available.

for people, but just know that you're not alone and there are resources out there. Not alone. And you deserve better if you are in a position similar to this, you guys. So, and with that, we close our case file and not necessarily with a sense of resolution. I mean, Adaya's story is known, but there's no real justice for her really. No. And it could leave a lot of us feeling quite unsettled. But what this case does really have is Adaya Shabani, a vibrant young, woman who was willing to do whatever it took to chase her dreams. She may not have gotten the chance to be the star. She deserved to be. But to the people who loved her, Adaya will always shine bright. And for that, she will never be forgotten. And before we end this episode, we are going to be

introducing a new segment. So when Kaelin and I started this podcast, we really asked ourselves what we wanted to do different. You know, there's obviously a lot of true crime out there. You guys, we hear other shows you listen to and things like that. So we wanted to be able to take this show and make a difference from the start. And so we are now going to be highlighting a missing person of the week and just trying to broadcast some other cases out there, really see if we can make a difference and spark some change. Totally. And this is something where we'll highlight someone every week. Morgan and I are going to be keeping track of these names too. But we would honestly love community involvement on this if other people want to help keep track of names.

like we're going to be searching through to see if there's updates on anyone, but would love that. You can also feel free to send us recommendations of people to highlight each week. This week we're going to highlight David Round. So police and Gresham, Oregon are asking for the public's help locating a missing man. Caretakers reported that 67-year-old David Round was missing from the 1,000 block of southeast to 13th Avenue the morning of Wednesday, April 23rd of this year. round has a cognitive disability and is missing required daily medication according to the police we don't have much more information on the situation other than this but round is described as being black five feet ten inches tall about a hundred and ninety pounds bald with brown eyes and it's believed he was last seen wearing dark clothing anyone with information on round's whereabouts or has seen him should call nine one one or you can call the non-emergency line at five o three eight two three 3333.

And that's all we have for this episode of clues. We hope that you guys found this case impactful. It's one with a lot of twists and turns and some loose ends that we are still very much hoping get resolved. I feel very unresolved right now. Absolutely. I feel a little bit unsettled with this one. Also, we want to hear from you guys.

Your thoughts, like your theories, feedback, other like just thoughts on this case. All of that just makes this community so special. Absolutely. And at Crimehouse, we really value your support. So again, share your thoughts on social media. And remember to rate review and follow clues to help others discover our show. And if you're hungry for more content, we've got you covered. For more exclusive content, monthly bonus episodes, early access, and ad-free listening,

join our Crimehouse Plus community on Apple Podcasts. Okay, we will be back next week with another case to unravel. Until then, keep searching, and we will see you next time on Clues. Bye, guys. Bye. Capture your favorite summer feeling with Pandora Jewelry. Discover a collection inspired by the same. sunshine, freedom, and moments that make the season unforgettable.

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