Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Lost & Found: Maricela Garcia & Laura Stacy Missing Person Cases

Episode Date: January 26, 2017

This is a follow up to the "Vanished in the Valley" episode with a surprising new development in the disappearance of Laura Lynne Stacy. Nancy Grace and Alan Duke also take a closer look at what is known about Maricela Garcia, the Los Angeles woman who disappeared while shopping for a costume at a Goodwill store. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Stacey's parents flew from Denver to L.A. to search for her after a roommate reported her missing Sunday. I just feel like it's been a nightmare and I just want to be woken up from a bad dream. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Her cell phone was found about 25 miles from her home at Golden Valley Park in Santa Clarita in a puddle of water. That car is sitting on Avenue E. I said it's a black Acura with Colorado plates. Multiple agencies searched for the missing woman using volunteers, off-road vehicles, a helicopter, and canine teams. It was detectives who ended up spotting her on the 14

freeway Wednesday morning. Authorities said she was disoriented and confused. At this point, I have no idea what happened over the last couple of days. That'll take, we'll interview her and see if she'll give us information to make some determinations. She goes missing about a block away from the famed Forest Lawn Hollywood Cemetery to the Stars with tourist vans and buses going by about every five minutes, speaking through a loudspeaker. How did a gorgeous 28-year-old girl just vanished into thin air. Then her vehicle is located miles and miles away, 30 miles north. Her phone is found in a puddle in a park 30 miles north. What happened? Laura Lynn Stacy, just 28 years old, goes missing. And in the last hours after we brought this to light yesterday, Laura has been found,

quote, confused and wandering along a highway 60 miles from her home. Her car and phone abandoned. She has been missing for three days. Her vehicle found, as I was saying, in Lancaster, California. What happened? How, if at all, does Laurel and Stacey's disappearance and miracle discovery relate to the disappearance of another woman that seems to be getting very different treatment in her search. This missing young girl, Marciella, that we told you about, still missing as her family is going door to door to try to find pertinent video surveillance.

Why aren't the cops doing that? And now they're even having to raise money on a GoFundMe site to try and hire a private investigator. And to me, the disappearance of Marciella is so obviously a kidnapping. Her favorite choker that she wore at all times was found snatched from her neck and broken beside a dumpster. The family brought in canines and they followed her scent to the dumpster off in the corner of the parking lot at a goodwill where she was shopping with her sister. She goes outside for a smoke and she's never seen again. Now, why is that not getting the same treatment as Laura Lynn? Now, don't get me wrong. I'm happy for any resources finding missing people, but I'm disturbed if I think there is

unequal treatment between people. Joining me right now is investigative reporter Alan Duke. You are listening to Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and we are on to Missing Marciella, and I want answers. Alan, first of all, let's start with the miracle discovery of Laura Lynn Stacey. What happened? She was walking in essentially the desert north about 60 miles from where she was last seen in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. She was disoriented. She was found by an LAPD detective who was driving in the area, taking part in the search. Let me describe this area.

This is Lancaster. You've heard of Edwards Air Force Base. This is where they land the space shuttle. They used to when they couldn't in Florida because they've got this long, flat, desert bed they could do it in. That's how desolate it is. And she was just wondering, disoriented, three days after she was missing. They're not telling us much about what happened to her. In fact, the family is asking for privacy. The sheriff's department up there is not saying much. The LAPD is being quiet. They're just telling us they took her to a hospital to be checked out. And we don't know really what her ordeal was other than it appears that she had been in her car for a while.

She suffered from exposure to the cold, dehydration. The area was hit by a storm over the weekend. Temperatures dropped into the 20s overnight. And she had just moved to Hollywood trying to seek fame. What can you tell me about the apartment complex where she was living? She was living in, or she is living in this apartment complex that I've been through to several times covering stories. It is where a lot of the down and out stars seem to go when they need a place to live. For example, it's where Rick James died, the 80s musician. It is where Corey Haim died. You remember that? We covered that extensively together. This was the same apartment complex. It is also one you've seen on television, on reality shows, where these moms come in the springtime to bring their little

girls or boys to audition, and they're staying for a month or two months, and they don't have much money, and so they are on a budget, and they all congregate there for the pilot season auditions where they hope their little kid will become a big star. That is the apartment complex. So notorious, they recently changed the name to try to throw people off. That's where it is. It's right near Warner Brothers Studio. It's right near Universal Studios. You know what that reminds me of?

It reminds me of where, when I went out for Dancing with the Stars to L.A., everybody stayed in, oh gosh, what was the name of that? What was the name of that apartment complex where I stayed with the children? Palazzo! That's it. It was very awkward because I would be coming out with the twins and I would run into like the judges. Oh, who was the judge that I loved so much? He was so flamboyant. Bruno was there. That's where I befriended Carson Kressley, who was also in my season. All the contestants were staying there. It was just, you know, anyway, it's like the hub of Dancing with the Stars. So you're telling me where this woman lived, Laura Lynn Stacey, was where everybody comes to seek their fame,

and they can't really afford a great apartment, so they stay there. Got it. Now, let's get back to what you told me. You said that, I mean, I'm looking at this photo of her being carried off in a stretcher and she looks horrible. So what can, and she's a gorgeous young girl. What can you tell me about the condition in which she was found? Well, she was wandering disoriented on this road near the freeway. Now, where we heard that before? Papini. Yes, exactly. But she was not bound. All indications are now that there is no search for a kidnapper. I think that is actually good news. You know what though? I don't have any confidence in that and I'll tell you why. Because of this string of missing women that the police keep saying are voluntarily missing.

How can that be voluntarily missing? I want to go now to Maricela Garcia. We know a lot now that we didn't know before. Let's talk about what you learned from the family. What I learned last night, I went to the crime scene where she was last seen, and I walked the area talking to the homeless people around there and the store clerks and managers. And I went into the church where she supposedly walked into. I went into the church where she supposedly walked into. I went at the exact same time that she would have been there, went into the Goodwill store and I walked out. And what I noticed when you walk out to where she would have gone to have her cigarette break, it is very dark. While the front part of the parking lot has plenty of

lighting. If you go to the side, there are light poles, but the lights are off. And you walk over toward the dumpster where they found her choker ripped off of her neck, apparently. It is dark there. If you're going to be grabbed by somebody, I don't know how you would see it. If somebody else would see it there. I also walked over to where the church is, which is about 300 yards from the Goodwill store and where her sister talked to some ladies who said, yes, we saw her when she described her. At 7.15 or thereabouts when she would have been in there, it would have been when confessional was started. That doesn't make sense. I'm sorry.

Sorry, Alan. Doesn't make sense because the sister is still shopping in Goodwill. She walks out for a cigarette. It's very difficult for me to believe. She just left and walked the length of three football fields into a confession while her sister's still shopping, waiting for her to come back. Leaves her BMW parked and locked in the parking lot with her pocketbook in it. That doesn't make sense to me. I don't think that was her in the parking lot with her pocketbook in it. That doesn't make sense to me.

I don't think that was her in the church. I kind of tend to agree with that. I talked to people in the church. None of them were there that night, apparently. That was exactly two weeks ago tonight. It doesn't make a lot of sense. But we've got these tracking dogs who followed the track over there. Well, I'm not saying that she wasn't

transported there in a vehicle. I mean, if you'll remember, Lacey Peterson was put in a vehicle, her body put in a vehicle, and tracker dogs followed the trail of that vehicle all the way to San Francisco Bay, where Scott Peterson dumped her, or w waited down by cement blocks into the water out on a fishing boat. So she could easily have gone that way in a vehicle. But there's no way at night that this girl leaves her sister shopping and walks three football fields, you did say 300 yards, to a church and goes in to confess. No, that did not happen.

Okay, so just stop talking about that all right now a car may have gone that way with her in it they may i'm sure they saw somebody coming in but it is not this girl okay somebody else and that is throwing me off her real trail because that doesn't make sense and when it doesn't make sense it's probably not true right so what happened to her let's go back to the parking lot. What did you see? The main thing, the impression I got was that it was very dark outside over where she would have been, where her car was parked

and also where her choker was found. You know, you think about it. It was the place she shouldn't have gone. And that's apparently where she went. Oh, so it's her fault because she goes outside. I'm saying it's dark. It's dark. Don't start with me, Alan.

She should have gone outside for a cigarette break because it's dark. She shouldn't have gone jogging. It's her fault. She was wearing a midriff shirt. Where's her skirt? Too short. Blah, blah, blah. I've heard for 20 years.

It's her fault because blah, blah, blah. This is not her fault. That's not me saying. I hope that's not where you're headed. No, that is not where I'm headed. It sounded like it was. I talk with people in the area and business managers and that sort of thing. Change topics. Divert, divert.

I remember, Alan. Go ahead. I'm going to pivot. Pivot. Okay, pivot. Hey, can you answer this, Mr. Pivot? How come police took searchers off Maricela's case to send guys 90 miles away to find Laurel and Stacey? And thank God that they did find her. Of course, she was out walking along the street.

But what's happening with Maricela? Yeah, this is this is it. And this is my frustration. I hope it's not because one is the pretty blonde white girl and one is Latina. Is that, you know, I just, just putting it out there. That is a factual situation in that Maricela Garcia is Hispanic and Laura Lynn Stacy of Denver, Colorado is not. I'm not passing judgment on the LAPD, but you can simply look that the LAPD is not going around collecting the surveillance video. I found a lot of security cameras around.

Let's give them the benefit for the doubt after I just threw that accusation out there. Do they know something about Maricela's disappearance that I don't know? I mean, her car was left in the parking lot at Goodwill. For those of you that aren't familiar with her story, she and her sister went to a Goodwill store where a lot of people go shopping because she had, as they call it, a decades party. That means she was going to dress up, I believe, like an 80s outfit. Well, she is a young girl that probably has no recollection whatsoever of the 80s, so she goes to Goodwill to try to find old clothes for her costume.

In the middle of shopping with her younger sister, she says, I'm going to have a cigarette. I'll be right back. Goes outside for a smoke, never seen again. In her, I believe it was a BMW, she leaves her locked BMW in the Goodwill parking lot with her purse. So there is no way that this girl just up and left her sister in the middle of a shopping spree. No, that's what happened. Now, what do police know that we don't know? Well, they're not telling us. They just recently transferred it over from the local police precinct to missing persons.

It is a missing persons case, but last we heard it was voluntary missing. The family still says that they're not getting the police enthusiasm for this case, if you will. So the dad has spent the last several days doing what I did yesterday last night, walking the neighborhood. He's looking at who's got security cameras and he's getting their security video.

But you know, you've been involved in investigations with security camera video. It takes people, experts, to review that video. A family can't just look at it and interpret it. I've tried this as a reporter. It's not easy. So you do have to have some expertise. So they're trying to hire private investigators right now to fill in for where the police are not taking part. Now, you do know that she actually told her sister, Sarah, she's going out for a cigarette and would be right back. She said that. Now, she left the store at exactly 7.22 p.m. California time.

At this time of the year, is it dark there at 7.22? Yes. That's what I went to experience. It is dark and there are no lights where she apparently was having her cigarette. Now, you know her vehicle, it's a tan BMW, was found at the 99 cent store next door with her pocketbook inside. I'm curious, is that where she parked the car with the sister, Sarah? Yeah, the car was still where they had left it parked. Are you sure? Yes.

Yes, I'm sure. She didn't move the car. Because the car was parked at a 99-cent store, not Goodwill. Which is right next door to the Goodwill. They're adjacent to each other. And that part is lighted. But this is the problem. When you go out for a cigarette, you can't do a cigarette in California where people are around.

You can't smoke your cigarette out on the lighted sidewalk area. Apparently, based on where her choker was found, she just walked over to the right, just to the west of the Goodwill store. That's where the dumpster is. That's where the choker was found another bad coincidence is that while that while they were shopping at goodwill the sister sarah says that marcella turned off her cell phone because she couldn't get the music that was playing on the cell phone to stop so she turned it off which means it's not going to ping we can't get a ping off of a cell phone that's turned off. Now, who would leave without credit cards, their purse, their car? Who would leave with all that behind?

And in an area that they've never been in before. They hadn't shopped at the store. They hadn't been to that shopping center before. This was about five to six miles from where they lived, but it was not a usual place. And they only found the place on Google Maps because they were looking for a Goodwill store. Now, what about this? Around 825, Sarah, the sister, says two men that she describes as being, quote, sketchy, were outside the Goodwill store and the other stores. And one asked her what time it is, which is an age-old trick to get somebody to stop and look down at their phone, and then you grab them or their purse. She said she didn't know, and he asked her, was her phone dead?

That's weird. That is weird. That's what this story says. It is an area where you would see, quote-unquote, sketchy people, if you want to call the homeless people, et cetera, sketchy. They're around there. Is it a high crime area? I asked the people who are there every day.

For example, the people at the taco truck that's parked there every day, every night. And they said no. They said they feel safe there, that it's not high crime. There was no security guard on duty at the time of the incident. Actually, I found a security guard. Good. I found a security guard. Maybe that's a new addition. Maybe they just added the security guard since this happened. After this, because according to reports, there was no security guard on duty at the store at the time she went missing. Not at the Goodwill store, but right next door at the 99 cent store, standing in the door is a uniformed security guard.

Again, maybe that was a new addition. Now, I know that Maricela had a job. She worked for an on-demand delivery service called Postmates. And I wonder, did she make a delivery to somebody that followed her? I'm looking at all the possibilities. Do I think that's what happened not necessarily i think this was more a crime of convenience if it is a crime but i'm trying to churn through the facts that i know now the sister who is edgar garcia says it's highly unlikely his sister would do anything risky that's just not her mo she's not like that she She also told her brother, Edgar, that she thought she was being followed. Oh. Yeah. Edgar Garcia is 30 years old of Westlake Village said for her to just leave is unlike her. She never does anything risky. And in September, she told her brother she thought she was being followed. And he told her in September to avoid going to any area alone.

He thinks her disappearance was organized, that this was not just a crime of opportunity. That's what the brother, Edgar Garcia, says. Yeah, being followed in September. This is January, but. Hey, a stalker is a stalker. Hello? True. Stalkers follow you forever. They never let go. They completely ignore temporary restraining orders, orders of protection. That's why they're called stalkers. You can't get rid of them. So are the police insisting this is a voluntary disappearance? Yes, especially based on the investigative resources. Nothing, when I talked with the family spokeswoman last night, nothing has changed. Well,

they're loggerheads. The family and the police don't see eye to eye on this. Not at all. This incredible open letter to the LAPD that the mom posted on Facebook that we linked to yesterday. Yeah. It's just a very sad plea for help from the LAPD. Well, you know what? Let's help. Here's the tip line as we know it now. 213-996-1800. 213-996-18100. A spate of women missing. And it's come to light since the Sherry Papini disappearance. You know, speaking of women going missing, there is this crazy story out of the Carolinas, I believe, regarding a fake child, a dummy placed in the middle of the road. What do you know about that, Alan?

Yes, this happened in eastern North Carolina, where a woman, near Moorhead City in that county, a woman was at 1.30 a.m. Sunday, that Sunday morning, she was driving down this country road, and she saw what she thought was a child sitting in the middle of the road what would you do nancy if you were driving on a country road and you saw a child sitting in the middle of the road would you just keep going or you would veer out of the way or are you kidding 9-1-1 practically knows my they know my name because every time i see anything i call 9-1-1 of course i do so you would call nine your first reaction would be would you you would you pull over of course I would I would try to get the child out of the road a North Carolina woman nearly carjacked after stopping

for what she thought was a child in the road and it's dressed in like a red jersey and shoe and pants and it's sitting up in the middle of the road for Pete's sake. So she stopped and what happened? These two men wearing hoodies grabbed the handles of her door. Fortunately, her doors were locked and she was able to get away. So when she stops to try to save the child, go ahead. Yeah, they tried to carjack her. And it turned out it was a dummy. So then she called 911 and they came out and found the dummy. It was wearing a red shirt. The sheriff's deputies took it.

Dressed in children's clothing. Yes. And she slowed her car. Two men wearing dark hoodies race up and try to open her door. Ah! Well, the good news is the dummy was apprehended. Wait, am I supposed to laugh at that? The dummy's apprehended? No.

How many women do you think this has worked on? Excuse me. On how many women do you think this has worked? Let me get that straight. Thank you, English teacher. And another thing, did you tell me earlier that they destroyed the dummy? Yeah, yeah. So back to Maricela.

Today we are talking about a 26-year-old Tarzana woman, Maricela Garcia. Please, if you know anything about her disappearance, her mom is asking for your help. 213-996-1800. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.