Crime Junkie - MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Mitrice Richardson

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

Mitrice Richardson disappeared after being released from an LA County Sheriff's station, leaving behind questions about mental health, police bias, and much more.For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/mysterious-death-mitrice-richardson/ 

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brett. And since May is Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to tell you a story about a young woman who's deteriorating mental health played a tragic role in her untimely death. This is the story of my Trees Richardson. MUSIC

For as long as her family could remember, 24-year-old MyTrees Richardson had been absolutely fascinated by the human mind. She's really smart, really kind, and super curious to learn everything there is to know about what makes people tick. And so no one in her family is surprised when she decides to get her undergrad degree in child psychology. They're also incredibly proud because MyTrees is the first person in her family to go to college. School, work, family, and a steady relationship with her long-term girlfriend Tessa keep MyTrees pretty busy in Los Angeles, which is the same city that she grew up in. During her undergrad, MyTrees is living with her great-grandma Mildred in a part of Los Angeles called Watts while she goes to school.

Now, to make some extra money during this time, MyTrees also works part-time as a go-go dancer at an LGBTQ bar in Long Beach. She continues this even after undergrad. She's pretty sure that she wants to go to grad school. So while she looks at programs, she keeps dancing and also starts doing some part-time administrative assistant work. So from her background, it's pretty easy to tell that she's a hard worker and her family doesn't know her as someone to get in trouble. So on the night of September 16th, 2009, when Mildred gets a call from an expensive restaurant down in Malibu saying that MyTrees can't pay her $89 bill, she's just totally stunned. Mildred tries to pay the bill over the phone with her credit card, hoping that she can basically just clear this up and MyTrees

can get home and she can figure out what's going on. But according to the disappeared episode about this case called Lost in the Dark, the owner at the restaurant won't accept Mildred's card because she's not there in person to sign the receipt. At a loss for what to do, Mildred calls MyTrees' mom Latisse. Latisse knows that MyTrees has just, she's been a little bit off lately. I mean, she's been kind of down, kind of depressed. And Latisse and Tessa, MyTrees' girlfriend, and even some other people have kind of been noticing that she's just been off. I mean, you can see it even in her text messages. They've been getting stranger and stranger lately. And Latisse has been worried about her daughter's mental state, but she doesn't have a reason yet to think that it could be any

real danger. And she's never done anything like this before, just leaving a restaurant without paying. This is all new. So as soon as she gets off the phone with Mildred, Latisse calls the restaurant to try and figure out what the heck happened. Except it's too late, because the owner tells Latisse that he already called 911 to let the authorities handle the situation. He tells her the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department just took MyTrees away in custody for not paying her bill. He says they should be in route right now to their small lost hill station out in Malibu Canyon. And they told him that they would be taking her car as well to an impound lot nearby the restaurant. Her stomach is rolling with anxiety, and Latisse calls the

lost hill station next. And she's able to breathe a sigh of relief when they tell her, yes, MyTrees is on her way with officers who arrested her. She's safe. Everything's fine. Though Latisse learns that MyTrees let police search her car, and when they did, they found a little bit of marijuana, I mean, like less than an ounce. Although she's understandably shaken up by all of this, Latisse weighs her options carefully. She's got a young daughter with her at home, and the Sheriff's station out in Malibu is over an hour away from where she lives in East LA. Going there tonight would be extremely difficult. So ultimately, Latisse decides that MyTrees will be safe at the lost hill station until the next morning when she can drive over there to pick

her up and sort this whole mess out. But early the next morning, when Latisse calls the Sheriff's Department to check on her oldest daughter and to let them know that she's on her way, she gets some terrifying news. MyTrees isn't at the lost hill station. Wait, then where is she? That's exactly what Latisse is demanding to know. She's super distraught because the Sheriff's said MyTrees would be safe and looked after during the night. But instead of keeping her, Alexander Nazarian reported for Newsweek that the Sheriff tells Latisse that MyTrees was released from custody at 12.38 a.m. The Sheriff's didn't keep her at the station like they said they would. Instead, they let her literally walk out of the station on foot into the dark and no

one has seen or heard from her since. Did they at least give her her car so she's not completely on foot? Nope. And it's not just that. MyTrees walked out of the station without her wallet, without her cell phone, and over 10 miles away from her Honda Civic. And on top of that, not only did they not have her car there waiting for her, none of the officers at the station even offered her a ride back to the impound lot to pick it up. Now, the jailer at the Lost Hill Station tells a horrified Latisse that, well, you know, we offered to let MyTrees stay until morning, but she declined to wait in a cell and didn't want to wait in the lobby either. And Latisse is just totally appalled that her daughter was allowed to walk away like that. But more than that, she's terrified and she

knows deep in her gut that they need to find her daughter as soon as possible. All the public transportation in the area was shut down for the night when she was released. And this was back in the days before Uber and Lyft, again, plus she didn't even have her cell phone to call a cab if she wanted to. And if she could have gotten a cab, she didn't even have her money. That's how this whole mess started. So really, she could be anywhere along this long stretch of rocky Southern California highway. Trying to put aside her rising panic, Latisse asked about filing a missing persons report. This whole situation just feels so wrong because while she knows MyTrees has been going through a bit of a rough patch, it seemed like the normal stress of graduating from college and trying to

like play on the next phase of your life. Yeah, I mean, no one's 20s, especially early 20s are easy. But you mentioned that she had been slightly depressed before this. Does she have any sort of like history of mental illness or something that could explain such a strong change in her behavior? Well, not according to her girlfriend, Tessa, she talked to the advocate magazine back in 2009. And she said that MyTrees didn't have any kind of diagnosis and she hasn't been prescribed any kind of medications. And Tessa's statement echoes what the LA County Sheriff's Department tells Latisse when she tries to file a missing persons report that first morning. They say, listen, we didn't have any cause to hold her until the morning because she had no criminal record. She passed her field

sobriety test and she wasn't exhibiting any kind of weird behaviors that made them think that she could be a danger to herself or to someone else. And they said, you know, even the marijuana in her car wasn't enough for them to hold her because it was such a small amount. Basically, all she got was a citation for a court appearance before being sent on her way. So overcome with worry, Latisse tries to reason with the LA County Sheriff's to get a missing persons report filed right away. But they don't think that it's been long enough to justify filing a report and they send Latisse away devastated. Now, call it a mother's instinct, call it whatever you want, but she knows, diagnosed with a mental illness or not,

MyTrees's behavior isn't right. That's not her baby and she has to find her right away. After a panic day of waiting, hoping and praying, Latisse gets some shocking news from the Sheriff's Department. Around six o'clock that night, law enforcement officials tell Latisse that they think in the very early morning hours, that same day, just after Latisse was trying to file that missing persons report and was told no, that MyTrees might have been cited or at least someone who matched her description was cited. And this really blows my mind because, yeah, law enforcement tells Latisse, Hey, we think we may have a sighting of your missing daughter, but that sighting happened like 12 hours before, super early in the morning. And we just now think that you should know about

it. So they waited that long to tell this panicked mother that like, Hey, we might have seen your kid earlier. Yeah. So here's what happened. According to Mike Kessler's article in Los Angeles magazine, the LA County Department tells Latisse, Hey, we got this call early in the morning of September 17th, a few hours after we let MyTrees go about a prowler that was in Montenito, about six miles away from here. The caller says that there was an African American woman who fit MyTrees' description hanging out in his backyard. Now the caller told the dispatcher that she didn't seem dangerous or anything, and that when he opened a window to ask her if she was okay, she said that she was fine, just resting. When he went to get a better view of her from a different window,

she was just gone. So a police cruiser swung by the neighborhood for a glance, but they didn't find this woman either. So there was no way to confirm her identity on the spot. All of this makes Latisse's heart drop. The landscape out in Montenito is really rough and mountainous. And if that really was her daughter, then MyTrees is out there by herself where anything could happen to her. She could have fallen down in a canyon. She could have been abducted in her vulnerable state. Basically, pick a worst case scenario here, and it could have happened. They just don't know anything at all. Now, keep in mind, this call came into the station hours before. The sheriff thought it might be a good idea to let Latisse know about it. And even worse, they

didn't even issue any kind of be on the lookout bulletin for six hours, not until past noon. That's six hours of wasted search time. Latisse, her ex Michael, and the family are livid that the LA County Sheriff's Department doesn't seem to have any real sense of urgency about finding their loved one. Like, why aren't they taking this more seriously, especially with MyTrees acting so out of character? There's no way it should have taken them so long to tell her family what was happening and to give them an update. But unfortunately, that's just kind of how it goes for the first couple of days. Finally, two days later, the Los Angeles Police Department takes over from the county sheriffs and they head out to Montenito to do a search. Why does the LAPD

suddenly take over the case? So, since MyTrees is a resident of the city of Los Angeles, it seems that the sheriff's department kind of hands over the case to the city. And, you know, I'm not sure what the rules are between city and county jurisdiction, but that's just what I read that they did. Anyway, so the LAPD get out there with search dogs who confirm what Latisse already knew in her heart. That strange woman cited in Montenito in the backyard from someone's home was MyTrees Richardson. The search dogs pick up her scent exactly where the 911 caller indicated. But here's the weird thing. According to LA Magazine, instead of starting at the Lost Hills station and trying to follow MyTrees' scent to see if it takes them the full six mile distance between the station

and the backyard of this guy's house, who called the police, they just kind of start the search in the backyard and don't track her full movement, even though the police say that she left on foot. So, there's no telling how she even got there. And once the scent goes cold, it's just gone. Now, in addition to MyTrees' scent, the canine searchers and their handlers also find a set of footprints. The prints start off at like a normal walking pace, but then they change into a run as if she got spooked by something. When the searchers are out in Montenito, Latisse keeps the pressure on the LA County Sheriff's Department. She wants to know every single detail about the Night MyTrees disappeared, starting all the way back at the restaurant. While there's no telling

what exactly drew MyTrees to this particular place, it's an upscale restaurant called Joffreys, Latisse learns that her daughter's behavior was off from the minute that she handed her car over to the valet. Autostraddle's website reported in 2010 that MyTrees told the valet that she'd come there to avenge Michael Jackson's death. And then once she got inside to actually sit down and order her meal, she basically joined up with this group of strangers at a nearby table and, you know, they were nice, they let her sit with them. But her train of thought just kind of stayed super disjointed. And she kept talking about nonsensical things like her being from Mars. By the time she tried to leave without paying her bill, even the waitstaff had noticed MyTrees didn't seem to

be of any kind of sound mind. And here, I'm going to play you the 911 call from Joffreys. And I want you to tell me what you think. Law social station deputy, she left. I can help you. Hi, I'm calling from Joffreys restaurant Malibu. We have a guest here who is refusing to pay her bill. And we think she may, she sounds really crazy. She may be on drugs or something. We are wondering if someone can come by and pick her up. Okay. Well, what's the address there? It's 27400 Pacific Coast Highway. And is she a white, black, Asian, Hispanic? She's a young black girl. She's probably in her 20s. Okay. What's she wearing? She's wearing a black t-shirt and I think blue jeans. Is she with anybody else?

No, it's just her. Yeah, it's pretty clear that the waitstaff is noticing erratic behavior. It's kind of odd that the police officers who showed up didn't, right? Yeah. I mean, to me, it's, it's super obvious that something was wrong that night. I mean, the staff see it, the people at the restaurant see it. And yet the sheriff's department keeps telling Latisse, listen, we had no reason whatsoever to keep her until the next morning or think we needed to do any kind of psychiatric hold. But Latisse doesn't buy any of that for a second. So she requests everything that she can get her hands on, like the incident report, the call logs from the Lost Hills station. And she makes sure to ask for any video footage

that the station might have of my trees in custody. There's just one issue. Law enforcement officials don't want to hand over any of the information Latisse is asking for. And they're pretty cagey about exactly what information they even have to begin with. And obviously, Latisse is beyond frustrated by this. She's feeling stonewalled, like police aren't taking her daughter's case seriously enough. And like maybe they haven't even taken it seriously from the very beginning. Keep in mind Malibu is a very rich, very white, and very celebrity heavy part of California. And my trees isn't any of those things. She is a young working class black woman from a rough part of LA. And you know, that Lost Hills Sheriff's station, that's actually where

Mel Gibson was taken back in like 2006 after he got arrested for a DUI and went on his like super anti-Semitic rant. And yet what I find super interesting is the sheriffs after that took him back to his car when he was released. And so the family wants to know, why didn't you at least offer the same courtesy to my trees? You sent her away on foot. You could have at least driven her to her car, made sure that she was safe. Was her mom able to get her hands on the tapes that she had asked for? Like to me, that would clear everything up. So that's the other thing. The LA County Sheriff says, we don't have any tapes. Excuse me? I know. My Teresa's family is as stunned as we are. Like because, I mean, hello, this is law enforcement. Like if any place

has surveillance, it's got to be them. So while they don't really buy this explanation, I mean, what else can you do? They don't have any kind of power over them. Now, right about this time, while Latisse gets even more desperate to see the footage and learn the truth about her daughter's condition, she gets information about what the LAPD pulled out of her daughter's car at the impound lot all the way over by Joffrey's restaurant. Carla Hall wrote in LA Times back in 2010, that police find my Teresa's Honda Civic is jammed full of clothes and makeup. I mean, almost like she was living out of her car. Plus, get this, my Teresa's cell phone and wallet were in her car this entire time with her debit card. And she had enough money in her account to

cover the restaurant bill easily. Somehow the Sheriff's Department must have just like missed these vital items or didn't look for them the night that she was arrested. And another thing that they find that is super important, at least to me, are her journals. Now, some of them are nice bound books. Others are these like spiral notebooks. And these more than anything that they found so far really start to illustrate to Latisse and the rest of the family that my Teresa was in serious crisis. Because as soon as they crack open the pages, they get a glimpse into an inner world that they didn't even know existed. While the exact contents of my Teresa's journals haven't been released publicly, her dad, Michael, described them to the OC Register as just kind of anxious

and disjointed writing. She was questioning her sexuality as a lesbian, fixating on a woman who wasn't her long term girlfriend, rambling about her career prospects and her family, basically a lot of like stream of consciousness type stuff at all hours of the day and night. And interestingly, he said that her handwriting alternated between like very neat and thoughtful and then just like awful scribbles. And sometimes the style would change like right in the middle of a sentence. Even though Latisse is shaken up by my Teresa's journals, she continues searching unwilling and unable to give up. The time keeps passing. And by New Year's of 2010, almost four months later, there's still been no sign of my trees or what might have happened to her.

The LA County Sheriff's Office conducts a huge search and rescue operation on January 9th, with hundreds of volunteers all over Malibu Canyon, but it doesn't turn up any sign of my trees. Latisse is devastated, but still tries not to fall into total despair. And she keeps pushing the Sheriff's Department for that footage. Show me my baby, show me my daughter. Finally, law enforcement agrees to show them the tapes. Now all of a sudden, magically there are tapes. But before they actually show them the footage, something strange happens that rocks the entire investigation. In February 2010, about three weeks after the big search in Los Angeles County, my Teresa's dad, Michael swears that he saw his daughter in Las Vegas. Wait, what? Yeah, he says

he's 150% sure that it was her. He's convinced he saw her in downtown Las Vegas, walking the streets away from the strip in an area known for sex work. And well, obviously this isn't where you want to see your daughter. It kindles Michael's hope that even if my trees somehow became a human trafficking victim or fell into this life in whatever way, it at least means that she's alive and there's a chance that they'll finally be able to bring her home. But Latisse doesn't believe it. I mean, she is sure in her gut that my trees is still somewhere in the Malibu Canyon area. And police don't really even take Michael's sighting seriously either. But he doesn't care. And he actually ends up staying in Las Vegas to search on his own, determined to find his daughter.

Now, there's a lot going on at once in this investigation. So while Michael is searching in Las Vegas, the LAPD is still sorting through all of my Teresa's communications right before she went missing. They already have the journals that they found in her car, but they expand outwards in their search. And they actually are looking at her texts and her social media posts. Like, I mean, we all know social media isn't real life. But I think when you interact with someone on a day to day basis and you see how they are on Facebook or MySpace or whatever, you do get a sense of what's normal for them to post, how it's normal for them to talk. Yeah, totally. Like, especially if it's someone you're close to, you can kind of get a feeling

of how they're doing based on their status updates or maybe lack of status updates and stuff. And you can see if someone's feeling or being a little bit off. Exactly. And that is what her most recent social media posts all kind of show. They get more and more rambly and incoherent. I mean, they're time stamped at all hours of the day and night. Newsweek reported that her last Facebook post mentioned, quote, signs everywhere. And in another one, it sounds like she wasn't even really sleeping. Like here, but I'm gonna have you read it. Okay, so this post says, I just want to sleep, LOL. But you know me and my crazy ideas. Let's see where they take me.

So it sounds like she's just letting her mind go, you know? Yeah. And I mean, obviously we can't do any like armchair diagnosing. Again, she was never officially diagnosed with anything. But between this, the claims from Joffrey about avenging Michael Jackson and being from Mars and the pages and pages of rambling journals, my trees doesn't sound okay to me. And the LAPD are finally starting to see the same thing. They think my trees may have been having some kind of manic episode in an onset of bipolar disorder. Now this is not super comforting for my tree's family though, because they think law enforcement should have seen that from the very beginning. Like it's

great that you're on board now, but where were you? I mean, the day she showed up at your station and it makes them even more determined to get a clear picture of just how my trees was behaving in the sheriff's custody. They are relentless. And finally, after months of begging, arguing, pressuring, and demanding, my tree's family and some trusted friends are finally allowed to see the security tapes from the Lost Hills Sheriff's Station. Again, this is months after they said, yeah, you can, it still took a ton of pressuring to actually get them. What they see on those tapes shocks and appalls them. According to Latisse on that disappeared episode, this is what they see. There on the grainy footage is my tree's pushing and pulling on the bars in the holding cage,

like she's trying to force them open, clearly upset about her circumstances. It's hard for her family to keep watching, but for my tree's sake, they keep going. And there, just as my tree's being released, another door opens and a deputy goes out. All her family can see that this deputy is male, but they can't see where he's going or if he ever spoke to my trees, even though they're going in the same direction. As best I could find, this footage hasn't ever been released to the public. So it's not something that Fred, I can show you or we could put on our blog post for our listeners. So do they ever find out who this deputy is? Does anybody know? And why the delay in releasing this footage doesn't seem like there's much even on there. I mean, that's exactly

what I want to know too, because according to that disappeared episode, the officers at the Lost Hill Station try some really shady explanations to her family about why they didn't hand them over. I mean, they start saying, oh, well, you didn't ask for the tape showing what happened inside the station. We thought you wanted the stuff that happened outside after my tree's was released. So that's why we didn't give them to you. Okay. Yeah. If that's what they asked, you wouldn't be like, hey, we don't have anything outside, but by the way, let's show you what's in here. It doesn't pass the sniff test for me. Now, the family is even more upset by the fact the Sheriff's Department refuses to identify the deputy on the video. And it's at that point that

whatever little bit of goodwill remained between my tree's loved ones and law enforcement totally disintegrates. Instead of working together, the two sides stand as enemies. And even as time goes on, and my tree's case grinds to a halt, that relationship stays just as tense. Letiz remains tormented by questions while the LA Sheriff's and their spokespeople are adamant that they did everything by the book and had no cause to hold her for mental evaluation. And they say they were right to let my trees go free. But here's something super interesting that I found. Remember that 911 call from Joffrey's where the hostess is nervous about how my trees is acting? Yeah. Well, she's not the only one. Mike Kessler reported for LA Magazine back in 2011

that the deputy who arrested my trees was actually concerned about her behavior too. And that's part of why he took her into custody, to make sure that she stayed safe. He even put all of it in an email that Mike got a hold of. I can't have you read the whole thing, Britt, because even the way back machine's link to the email is dead. But snippets were released in the article. And I mean, honestly, they're pretty damning. The deputy says that he felt my trees was acting unusual. And he was super uneasy about letting her go. Which, listen, I don't know about you, Britt, but to me, that seems like a big jump from the department saying, hey, we were totally confident she was fine. And now this arresting officer saying like,

no, she's clearly not fine. I'm taking her into custody so she stays safe. Yeah. So between this revelation, the video footage, the cold investigation, and still no answers about what happened to her daughter, Latisse has hit her limit. And in June of 2010, she actually sues Los Angeles County and the sheriff's department for six separate claims, including negligence and wrongful death. And as expected, the department categorically denies each claim. While the case waits to go to trial, something totally unexpected happens out in Las Vegas. My chase is cited again, this time by a former high school classmate who claims that he saw her in the casino of the Rio Hotel while he was gambling early one morning. He says that she

looked nervous and kind of ran off when he called her name. Now, unlike her father, Michael, supposed citing, this one is taken seriously by the LAPD. And they descend on Las Vegas in late July to work with the Las Vegas police in a joint search for my trees. Now, this might sound like good news, but for Latisse, though, none of this is comforting. She isn't any more convinced that my trees ever made it out of Malibu Canyon. And with so many hard to search areas in that difficult terrain, she truly believes that by searching in Las Vegas, investigators are moving further and further away from the truth. And she's about to find out just how right that belief is. On August 9, 2010, a group of park rangers investigating the site of an old marijuana

growing operation in Dark Canyon, find a human skull and a woman's partly mummified naked body. Some clothes are found about 600 feet away. And the right leg is a couple of yards uphill from the body with the femur removed. It takes four days, but eventually, Latisse gets confirmation of what she's known all along. The body belongs to her daughter, my trees. The discovery rips open every single argument my trees has loved ones ever had with the Los Angeles law enforcement. Dark Canyon is a super remote area about eight miles from the Lost Hills Sheriff Station and less than two miles away from where my trees was last seen in Montenito. And for almost a year, Latisse has been absolutely adamant that my trees had never left the area. And here,

at last, is undeniable proof that she was right. I mean, obviously, I'm sure that there was always a glimmer of hope in her mom's heart that she was still alive, but this got to be just so heartbreaking to know not only is she gone, but you were right about where she was. Yeah, and they just weren't listening to you. That's got to be so frustrating. Definitely. Did finding her give any more answers as to how she died? Well, here's where things get even weirder. We've seen in this whole story a kind of running theme that the Sheriff's Department didn't handle my trees and her circumstances as well as they should have. I mean, I think we can all agree about that. Well, that doesn't stop now, even after her body's found. And here's one of the reasons I say that. We know my trees' body was

found by Park Rangers first. According to an article from Julie Bennett in LAist, the Rangers called the sheriffs who come right down. Now, there's penal codes that say the sheriffs are supposed to call the coroner right away to tell them, hey, we have human remains. That isn't just procedure, it's an actual law. You don't wait, you call. But it seems they waited for almost 90 minutes. And then to make it even shadier, the LA County Sheriff's Department went ahead and airlifted the body out of Dark Canyon without permission from the coroner. They disturbed their own crime scene, and you bet that that's another code violation. When Latisse learns this, I mean, she's absolutely sick to her stomach. I mean, she's beyond livid when she learns how my trees' body was handled.

Any closure she gets from finally knowing, like, yes, my trees is gone, we know where she is, is immediately canceled out by rage about how her remains were treated, and by how quickly law enforcement declares her death to be, quote, undetermined. Really, they don't even consider the possibility that my trees was murdered and her body was hidden in Dark Canyon. And I totally get where she's coming from. Like, I'm a mom, I would be incredibly outraged at how the police handled this. But to play the devil's advocate a bit, we know that my trees was in a mental health crisis. And she's in this super remote area that's hard to hike to even if you enjoy hiking and are good at it, unlike me. Couldn't she have just succumbed the elements and wild animals could have disturbed

the scene? I guess I'd just see how that would complicate things. No, I mean, totally. Like, again, you can put all of, like, the shady stuff that was done by the Sheriff's Department aside, and that's still an option. But the thing about that is, animal behavior in relation to dead bodies has been pretty extensively studied. So officers would know what to look for to be able to definitively say, like, okay, yes, like coyote or whatever type of scavenger like ripped her bra off and disturbed the body. But the thing is about how she was found is my trees, her clothes were neatly taken off in ways that animals couldn't do. Like a scavenger animal can't unhook a bra and unbuckle a belt, right? Like, it couldn't have unzipped my trees' jeans, right? And they don't

have opposable thumbs to be able to do those things. But that is how my trees' clothes were found. Plus, what I also found that I thought was fascinating from LA Magazine is that animals who snatch body parts tend to take them downhill. But if you remember, the one piece of my trees' body that was found away from her was her leg, and her leg was found uphill. And it didn't have any kind of tooth marks or anything to suggest that an animal took it there. So how does a leg of hers get to another place above her, which is opposite from animal activity, and there's no sign of animal activity on those bones? And that leads to a bigger question. If an animal didn't take the leg uphill, there's another much more sinister possibility that someone, a human, took it there

and left it there. Yet, the LA County Sheriff says no. No crime, just a tragic death. They then put forward a theory that my trees had some kind of allergic reaction to poison oak so severe that it caused anaphylactic shock leading to her death. How could you even begin to tell that from her remains? I don't know. You know, it said that she was mummified or partly mummified. I don't know if they found something specific that led them to that theory, but everything I read just said it was the theory that they've been putting forward. But even this theory doesn't explain why she was naked. It also doesn't explain why my trees' clothes were never sent to the crime lab for testing or why the leaves and dirt at the scene weren't tested for blood or why her remains weren't even

examined for evidence of trauma or sexual assault. I mean, it's honestly like I get if you have the theory and I get if the evidence backs it up, but you have to close the other doors. You have to at least try. I don't know how anyone can comfortably say my trees wasn't murdered when there was so little done by law enforcement to rule that out as a possibility. If that wasn't it, I get it, but we have to rule it out. Yeah, I have no idea why you wouldn't. Like, none of the reasons I can come up with make any sense. I agree. And I mean, so does my trees' family. They are convinced that the LA County sheriffs are hiding something and they continue their fight for answers for years. In 2011, Letiz calls an independent forensic expert who agrees

with her assessment that the sheriffs made some really big mistakes on how they handled my trees' remains. That same year, 2011, Letiz and Michael get a settlement in their wrongful death suit for about $900,000, which is split between them. Now, in 2016, the California Attorney General's office actually conducts a criminal investigation into how my trees' case was handled, but ultimately, they declined to press any charges, even though, again, there were some very clear laws broken, even how her remains were handled. Officially, my trees' Richardson's cause of death is still listed as undetermined and the case is still open. Whatever happened to my trees that night, it's very clear to all who knew her that some form of mental illness was at play.

It might not have been what caused her death, but it is what led her to that restaurant on that night in September 2009. And you know, it's often around my trees' age when signs of mental illness start to manifest. And sometimes it's hard to recognize what's happening in someone that you love, but it's important to know the signs between expected and unexpected behaviors. And it's important to remember that one in five U.S. adults experience mental health issues each year. It's so much more common than you think, and unfortunately, for those in marginalized communities like my trees, who was both a black woman and a lesbian, it can be even harder to get the right help. The National Alliance on Mental Illness is working to end the stigma for

marginalized communities, and they're providing a number of resources to all people dealing with mental illness. If you want to learn more about breaking the stigma around mental illness and to find out what you can do to help, please visit www.NAMI.org. Again, if you want more information, you can visit them www.NAMI.org. We will also link to that on our website, along with pictures from the case and all of our source material. You can find that at CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at CrimeJunkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. CrimeJunkie is an audio check production, so what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?