Dateline Originals - Dateline: Missing in America - Ep. 13: Lydia "Dia" Abrams

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

On June 6, 2020, 65-year-old Lydia Abrams disappeared from her ranch near Idyllwild, California. Left behind were her phone, purse, keys, wallet and truck. Dateline’s Keith Morrison sits down with Dia’s son, Clinton Abrams, her friend Julie Stanford and Keith Harper, who describes himself as Dia’s fiancé. While those closest to her have different theories about what may have happened to Dia, one thing they all agree on is that she would never have left behind her animals, including her beloved dog, Ruby. Dia Abrams is 5’6” with blue eyes and blonde hair, and weighs 135 lbs. Anyone with information about her case, is asked to call the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office at 951-791-3400. Get more and see pictures of Dia Abrams here: https://www.nbcnews.com/datelinemissingThis episode was originally published on June 27, 2023. 

A few hours east of the storied beaches of Southern California, east along famous boulevards and endless crowded freeways, and out past the ranks of desert-hugging suburbs, is a winding road up and up into the San Jacinto Mountains to a town called Idlewild, a small, unhurried place, rustic by intent, planted among ancient rock formations and lofty pines. And just outside that little town, perched like a postcard among the trees, is Bonita

Vista Ranch, the home of 65-year-old Lydia Abrams, or Dia, as everyone called her. Bonita Vista was Dia's Eden. Within its 116 acres was everything she loved, nature, peace, and most of all, said her friend Julie Stanford, her animals. So, a number one little animal is Ruby. That's her baby, that cute little doggie. She had miniature donkeys. She had a miniature pony named Fonzie. And that's what she was out there doing every day was being with her animals, making sure they were okay.

Dia's son, Clinton Abrams, said there was absolutely nothing that could make her leave that ranch of hers, not even the threat of wildfires. My mother wouldn't leave the property when there was a large fire surrounding three sides of her land. She refused to leave? She refused to leave because she felt that if she left, the fire department would let the structures burn. And she wouldn't want that to happen?

She did not want that to happen. That's how much she loved the ranch and the animals. But something, or someone, did make Dia leave her ranch and her animals. It happened, whatever it was, on Saturday, June 6, 2020. All morning, Tia was home, in the ranch house, as usual. And by sundown on that warm summer evening, she was gone. Behind her, she left a trace of evidence in the form of a text message.

At least, according to the man who said he received it. Keith Harper, 74 years old, and the man who calls himself Dia's companion. She texts me at 4.20. Oh, she did? Okay. And she says to me, Harper, you cannot save me from all things. Even if you believe you can, you cannot. Dia was afraid, said Harper.

Desperately afraid. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Missing in America, a podcast from Dateline. The disappearance of Dia Abrams is a genuine puzzle. So listen carefully. Someone can provide the final piece of that puzzle. Maybe you. To help tell Dia's story, we'll speak to two men at the center of her life. Her son, Clinton Abrams, and the man she lived with, Keith Harper.

As you will hear, they do not like each other at all. The two of you are opposing sides in this thing. More ways than one. More ways than one. Two angry guys looking across a chasm. Well, there's some truth to that.

Keith Harper, who goes by Harper, told us this about what he said was the last time he spoke to Dia that day on the ranch that Saturday afternoon. She said, Harper, you got a minute? I have something I need to talk with you. And I said, Dia, I'm down mowing the meadow. It's going to take me till dark to get it done. I need to finish the meadow. Can we talk once I get done? Wait a minute.

She said you got a minute and you said you couldn't give her a minute? I look back on that and I'm deeply regretful about that. I'm not sure what her concern was, but I wish I had listened. And that last strange text message, you can't save me from all things? Although it was marked 4.20 p.m., said Harper, he didn't see it until he was headed back to the ranch house around 7. And when he walked inside, silence. I look around, I don't see her there, so I call her. When I call her,

that ring goes upstairs to the bedroom. So I think, hmm, she must be upstairs. So I go upstairs, her phone is plugged in, I cannot find her anywhere. I then go downstairs and I think, well, she's taking the truck. At that point, said Harper, he figured she must have gone to another building on the property called the Lower Horse Ranch. And if she was there, she wouldn't need her phone. She'd be coming right back. But then he went downstairs, he said, and there was her purse with her keys on the kitchen counter. I get a little more concerned when I see that. That's when I make the effort to do a search of the property.

I go out and check the truck, because that would be the element of her ability to leave the property. Her truck is parked where we had designated it. I then go and search the other properties. We have three residential properties at the ranch, and then we have two cabins. I looked for her till about 1230 at night. Despite the late hour, he said he called one of Dia's friends who would often pick her up from the Lower Horse Ranch, but no answer.

But she's the sort of person who would go somewhere overnight without telling you or without... Not likely, but she does have a place to stay down there if she chooses to do that. My concern was her truck was there, her purse was here, her phone was plugged in. Yeah. So I felt that she was somewhere on the ranch. The next morning, said Harper, he got up at the crack of dawn and headed back to the lower horse ranch

and still saw no sign of Dia, and the horses had not been fed. That is when he said he called the Riverside County Sheriff's Office to report her missing. Sunday, June 7th. Everything different after that day. to report her missing. Sunday, June 7th. Everything different after that day. But before? There was, depending on who you talked to, there was some kind of love story.

To hear Keith Harper tell it, he was the man in Dia's life. Harper's history began in Idaho, in a small, remote town bordering Nevada, where he grew up on a ranch. Eventually he left Idaho and started a recreational outfitting business in Colorado. We did Hummer tours, whitewater rafting, worked with zip lines, did sleigh rides, did ATV rentals, did razor rentals. His son took over that business, she said, after Harper connected with Dia,

which happened, he said, on a dating website called Farmers Only. She was very personable. One thing I came to realize about the woman, she was very educated, very competent, very capable. She was the kind of lady I was looking for. She was very strong. The more that I got to know Dia, you will find her to be one of the strongest women you'll ever come up against. So you enjoyed these conversations online with her?

Oh, without a question. I probably conversed with her for approximately six months before we actually decided to meet. He vividly remembers her fetching him at the airport in her pickup truck. And I looked at her for the first time and I said, God, you are a country girl. And she smiled back and said, why do you say that? And I said, you have hay in your hair. She said, I have what? I said, you have hay in your hair.

And she looked in the mirror and she goes, damn it all. I had to feed the horses before I come here. And I said, that's very convincing. We were together approximately four days, did hiking, took the horses out, rode the horses. A four-day date. Yeah. Then the next year, said Harper, Dia traveled to Colorado to visit him. And on that trip, he said they decided, together, that he would move to California and help on the ranch.

It was her ranch. Obviously, there was times I remember we fought, and I'm an alpha male, and like charge and control, that was the only woman I ever bowed to. Very confident. But now on that hot June Sunday, the confident woman was nowhere to be found. Dia's son, Clinton, told us it was not Harper, but a neighbor who got word to him that his mother was missing. A neighbor who said that something seemed very wrong up at Bonita Vista Ranch. So, Clinton gathered some friends and drove two hours from his home down in La Jolla, California, up to the ranch, where for the first time he met Keith Harper.

So what was his story about what happened, at least as far as he knew? He had a number of different theories. He thought maybe that she had gotten lost hiking, that she maybe had killed herself, and that's just not what my mother would do. That's not who she was. But you'd heard that your mother had been herself. And that's just not what my mother would do. That's not who she was. But you'd heard that your mother had been missing for a day. What was going on in your gut, in your heart, in your head?

I would say panic. Panic and devastation. Did you think she's dead? Or what? I thought that it was extremely likely that she met with foul play. I didn't know if she was actually deceased or not, but that something was awry, something was amiss. A group of Dia's friends and neighbors organized a search party that Sunday, and Julie was part of it. But she said she wasn't overly alarmed, not initially anyway.

She said she thought Dia might have just wanted to get away for a while. I thought she had just took off. It was June 6th, D-Day, you know, Dia Day. So I thought, well, maybe she did that on purpose. But if that was the case, within the next couple of months at least, she would let us know where she was and that she was okay. And there's been nothing like that, of course. It's been silence.

Silence from Dia. But not from those around her. They have plenty to say. At odds when it comes to most of their opinions of each other and what may have happened to Dia. There is one thing, though, that they agree on. She would never leave her animals, never leave her precious little dog, Ruby.

She would never do that. Anyway, that first Sunday, the searchers found nothing at all. No Dia, no sign of what may have happened to her. And then, the very next morning, as the sun rose over the Bonita Vista Ranch, Julie turned up to search some more, and she saw Harper on his way out. Out of the ranch, out of town, out of state.

And we're all like, eyes first day, to no avail. And then, once Dia had been missing 36 hours, deputies arrived at the ranch to conduct an official search. No small thing either. They would employ helicopters and divers and search and rescue teams, bloodhounds. But Keith Harper didn't stick around. Harper loaded up his little camper and said he was leaving, that he had a meeting that he couldn't miss, and I forgot if it was Arizona or New Mexico. Harper told Julie and the other searchers he had some business out of state to take care of. To them, that seemed very strange. You're leaving, Dia's missing under weird circumstances, and you're taking off.

And we were kind of, like like flabbergasted about that. And I remember him standing behind the camper, sobbing and saying, I'll never see her again. And I thought at the moment, why would you say that? Why would you say never? It was all especially puzzling, said Julie, considering recent developments in Harper's relationship with Dia, which we'll get to shortly. Both had been married before, but then Harper was divorced from his third wife.

Dia was a widow. She'd been married for 34 years to Clem Abrams, and together they had two children, Clinton and his sister, Chrysara. My father was a very gentle, intelligent, caring individual. That's Clinton. And my mother was perfect as a parent, as a little kid. She took me everywhere. We had so much fun together and just laughed and laughed,

and we were best friends. Did they have a good marriage? Yeah, they did. In the later years, they were separated. Okay. But there was always a love there. Dia's husband was a developer, very successful, very. When he and Dia separated, he stayed in the San Diego area where most of his business ventures were. While Dia lived at the ranch a couple of hours away. Is that a place that she had owned for a long time? She'd owned that probably about 15 years. I was with her when she purchased it. I went with her and my father as they were looking at various properties up there.

Let's buy a country property, that kind of thing? Yeah, the intention was to build a second home, build a ranch-type home. And they owned it jointly. The family, there's a certain amount of property and money involved in this family? I would say so, yeah. Substantial, sure. When Dia's husband died, she inherited the ranch. To Clinton's knowledge, his mom lived alone up there. He didn't find out otherwise until later.

My understanding of the events prior to her disappearance, me being told after the fact that Keith Harper was helping her with the property. Harper's a man of mystery, yet with a history. Dia's friend, Julie, met Harper at the ranch not long after he moved in there in 2016. That was four years before Dia disappeared. My first impression of him was that he didn't seem like her type normally. But he turned out to be a guy that did a lot of work around the ranch and helped a lot. Nothing formal about their relationship.

After all, though Dia was separated, her husband, who provided her main financial support, was still alive. Then in December 2018, the moment came. Dia's husband died, and Harper said he made a life-altering decision. I proposed to her, right behind us and up on the hill towards the east is a rock formation called the Butterfly. And I brought her up there, and I proposed to her. When I went to hand her the ring, she says, Harper, you don't need to give me a ring. And I said, that's the only way I know that you're

actually with me and a part of our lives if you accept the ring. So she accepts the ring. We were going to get married in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and we're going to do it somewhere around the 24th of July. What made Harper's story truly baffling is that no one else close to Dia seemed to know a thing about it. Julie said Dia never once divulged this happy story to her.

And anyway, it didn't sound like the Dia she knew. I don't think she would ever get married again at all. Just knowing everything she's went through being married before. But I do remember her saying something along those lines about never getting married again. Clinton didn't hear about any such thing either. Not a word. In fact, he said before his mother's disappearance, he never once heard her mention the name Harper. Never heard of him, not one time. So when he claimed that he had a relationship with your mother, what did you think?

I would think that she would never go out with somebody like that, frankly. And I think that he was misrepresenting the facts. He talks about how they were engaged, supposedly, but nobody ever saw my mother wear a ring. You don't know anybody who heard about an engagement? Definitely not, no. I would put it like this. My mother was an attractive lady with a bright personality

and a lot of stuff going for her. She just simply wouldn't date, and there's no kind of nice way of saying it, she wouldn't date a vagabond criminal guy. Criminal guy? So, of course, I asked Harper about that, and he admitted he does have a criminal record. Here's what he said about it.

There's only one charge that ever comes up that occurs in my final years as a recreational outfitter. And that was? Unlawful sexual contact. That charge was done out of Silverton, Colorado. I think the conviction was for groping two women on a snowmobile tour. Well, it's not groping. Is that correct?

It's illegal. Unlawful sexual contact. Unlawful touching. Okay. It's not groping. Let me explain, he said. He'd taken a group on a snowmobile tour, he said, and one of them, a woman, did something rash. I get on the back of her machine.

She floors it. I mean, Ashley goes full throttle on the machine. You have probably one-tenth of a second to make a decision what to do. You're in a wooded area. If that machine continues at that rate, there will be, without a question, an incident and an injury. So I come around her and actually hit the kill switch. You're talking about three to four seconds. So if that got a charge and subsequently a conviction of unlawful touching... We filed an appeal to that, and that went before the Supreme Court, which directed basically back to Silverton.

Nothing was ever done. So the conviction stood. For the record, Harper had been found guilty on two counts of unlawful sexual contact, a misdemeanor. With that, he served a year in jail and had to register as a sex offender. We also learned about another incident in Harper's past. In the year 2000, his second wife accused him of sexual assault in Colorado.

So we asked Harper about that, too. Those charges were dropped, and a lot of it had to do with no facts to the case. Okay. What do you mean, no facts to the case? She had no evidence of anything. Uh-huh. So. And yet it's there, and when we look it up, it's on the record, right? What do you mean no facts in the case? She had no evidence of anything. And yet it's there, when we look it up, it's in the record.

Well, then it should not be because it was expunged. And it should not even be a part of the record. In fact, according to court records, Harper did plead guilty to third-degree assault in that case and received probation. That was in 2002. Still, Dia didn't give Harper's past very much thought, said Julie. She believed his version of whatever had happened, and then she told me that. But according to Julie, something else was weighing heavily on Dia's mind when she vanished.

Money. Could greed have something to do with her disappearance? When we spoke with Clinton Abrams about the disappearance of his mother, he made it clear he had nothing to gain from his mother's demise. Is there anybody in the family who would benefit from your mother's death? In the family? No, I don't think so. It would be my sister and I that are the immediate family. And you're both involved in the family business, or at least, I mean, it's not like you're searching for money the family business or at least, I mean,

it's not like you're searching for money or anything like that. That's correct. Yeah. There's no giant bequest that would come to you if your mother died versus if she didn't. No. But he did not deny that his relationship with Dia was not exactly storybook perfect either. Would you say your relationship with your mother was steady or was it troubled in any way? I would say it was troubled. I don't think any more so than any other kind of mother-son dynamic of that sort. There's a lot of good points and some negative points, but in general, there's always a sincere reciprocity and reservoir of love between us. You loved each other, no question, but that probably it was a little bit, perhaps unusual. I would say it could be tempestuous.

What were the issues between them? Money, primarily, he said. It caused so much tension that he and she didn't communicate much after his father died. But when he heard about Keith Harper and that man's claim that he and Dia intended to get married, he, as they say, smelled a rat. Are you convinced she would have told you had she become engaged to someone? I don't think she would ever be engaged to anybody. She just simply wouldn't do that, especially not without extensive prenuptial agreements given everything that she had.

Had she become legitimately engaged to somebody with whom she'd made the proper arrangements, would you know about this? If it was somebody who was above board and was a good individual, upstanding individual, yes, she absolutely would have. But how can you be so sure that she would demand prenuptials, that she would be that, may I use the expression,

hard-assed about financial matters? Just knowing her for all of those years and how she was just with people, and especially people trying to get her stuff. She was not the type of person that would be careless in terms of trusting somebody with major finances. In other words, somebody like Harper. To which Harper responded...

There was a fear and concern that she had that her life was at risk and at danger. Why would she think that? Well, because there had been threats. From whom? From Clinton. Clinton threatening his own mother's life? It goes far beyond that.

Far enough, said Harper, to lead him to a bold accusation. I think there's enough evidence to suggest that Clinton was involved. So what was the trigger then to make her disappear? The trigger was that she had filed a trust suit against the family. Not only that, Clinton was fearful that he would lose control of the trust that he was given. The Abrams had a family trust, which Clinton and his sister assumed control of when their father died. And they were supposed to pay for Dia's expenses on the ranch out of the trust. But the kids weren't paying the bills, according to Harper and Julie.

So Dia decided to take the matter to court. Clinton denied the claims, saying the bills were fully paid. I just remember hearing her talk about the lawsuit. And she talked about the lawsuit so much because it was really obviously dragging her down. I think it was a misunderstanding on both the children's and her part that they didn't know what was going on with her financially. And then, just two weeks before she went missing, Dia apparently took a very big step.

She signed away all legal decision-making about her affairs to Keith Harper and a woman named Diana Fedder, who described herself as a friend of Dia's. Why would she sign her power of attorney over to you? Because she trusted me without a question. She no longer trusted her children and felt that a change was in place. Julie said she and Dia had talked about her making some financial and legal changes. We had talked, you know, and she said she was going to change her will. She said she was going to write the kids out of the will because of the way they were treating her. But handing control of her financial affairs over to Harper? That, said Julie, was a surprise. Two weeks before she disappeared, so a real coincidence there.

Clinton said he doesn't believe in coincidences. Trust, estate, power of attorney, just about everything you can sign that has significant legal effect. She changed two weeks before she went missing. So if anything happened to her, whatever was left wouldn't go to her family, it would go to them. That's correct. He finds it all very suspicious, along with Harper's engagement story and his odd behavior in the aftermath of Dia's disappearance. Clinton said he's talked to the police about all of it. I've spoken with them a number of times. I've sent them everything I have. I've sent them extensive notes. And the notion

that he would ever threaten Dia that he was somehow involved in his own mother's death? It's all ridiculous, said Clinton. In a recent statement to us, he wrote, Keith Harper's accusations are desperate attempts to throw mud at the wall in hopes that something will stick. In fact, Clinton said, if he was running the investigation, he'd be focused on one man and one only. It's so obvious that Keith Harper, with his criminal history, was the last person to see her alive, that he did something to her.

To me, that would be the most simple explanation. Of course, we wanted to know what the Riverside County Sheriff thought about all this. He declined to be interviewed, but released a statement to us saying, their homicide unit is pursuing all leads they can, but they cannot comment about evidence in the investigation. The sheriff also noted, they're fully aware of conflicting statements given by Mr. Harper, and he remains a person of interest. So, detectives are investigating this as a possible homicide. That much seems clear. But what evidence might they be looking at? Clinton told us that when he arrived at the ranch that Sunday,

the day after his mother disappeared, one of the doors to her bedroom looked like somebody had smashed it. I saw that personally, and as did the detectives, so did a number of other people. The trim was all cracked, and it was clearly kicked in from outside. And from police documents, we know a few other details. Investigators found two shell casings on the front porch and some drops of blood on the bed sheet. Harper said that's all explainable. I have a drug that I take that my skin is constantly thinned by that. I bleed all the time. Every week you can come and you'll find blood drops

on the sheet. So you think it's your blood? It's without a question. They've got the capabilities of testing that. If it had been her blood, do you think you would have not heard about that? Obviously it's my blood. They found two spent shell casings. Two 22 shell casings on the front porch. Every time that we have an incident with coyotes, we fire two shots into the air to drive the coyotes away.

If you're going to kill somebody, you ain't going to kill him with a.22. We also wondered what made him leave town that Monday morning just 36 hours after Dia disappeared. He didn't return to the ranch until seven days later. I mean, there's a search on for this woman you want to get married to. Yeah, but the sheriff's is coming. They're supposed to be there at 8.30.

I don't leave till 11.30. Supposedly you love this woman. You're heading out of town. Why did you leave to go off to, where'd you go? I had some tax issues that I had to take care of in Arizona. Why'd you have to go to Arizona to pay a tax debt? Because I own a ranch there as well. Yeah, okay, but can't you pay it from anywhere? No. First of all, it had to be cash or a cashier's check, and it had to be paid on a certain date,

or they would file liens against the property. By a certain date? Yes. I'm just saying that a normal... I mean, if I were... If my intended was missing, I would not leave until she was found, or we determine exactly what happened.

I would not go off to Arizona to pay a tax debt. I would just stay right rooted in that spot. And I would have had a lien filed against the property. Soon we arrived at the inevitable question. Did you kill Dia? Absolutely not. I love the woman. When you love somebody, you don't kill somebody you love. I was very committed to that woman. What did you think had happened to her then? I had no idea. I thought that maybe that she had left on her own accord for her own safety. She had talked about that, that she needed to get away from the ranch and not be present because she was under a threat of life.

In fact, Clinton said, Dia left behind some breadcrumbs in her own bedroom. He saw what appeared to be a handwritten note, suggesting she did fear for her life. But who was she afraid of? Her children? Harper? Or someone else?

For all these three years, Keith Harper has remained on the ranch as the issues surrounding Diaz's estate have worked their way through court. In March, the Abrams siblings and Harper reached a settlement allowing Harper to continue managing the ranch as a co-trustee until the ranch is sold. Will this ever be resolved? It will be resolved, in my opinion, in a very short order. So to all those people who think you're responsible, is there an answer you would

like to give them? I've already told you that you love somebody, you don't take their lives. I loved Dea Abrams. She was strong. She was capable. She was one woman that I trusted with every fiber of my body. Miss her every day? I miss her every day of my life. That will never get over. You don't think she's coming home? Not now.

I did for a long period of time. I always expected a phone call from her. I did not believe that it would go into months, weeks, and years. What would you say to her if she was here? To Dia, if she was here today? I would tell her that I've done everything in my capabilities to bring about the resolution of her case. And if she looks at the ranch, she will be well pleased with what she sees.

Clinton told us he hopes that the lead detective will finally crack this case and find his mother. I think I would really be rudderless and completely lost in this in terms of having any sense of hope if I didn't believe that he was such a good cop, good valiant person. What has this been like for you personally to go through? It's basically consumed my every waking thought every day, 24 hours a day, and all I've wanted is to get answers.

Point is she would not just up and go somewhere and leave her wallet, leave her phone, leave her car, leave her bank accounts untapped and unutilized. She didn't just go somewhere. We're extremely confident of that. I think I really know what happened, yeah. And I want justice. Dia's friend Julie held out hope for a long time,

hoped that Dia might have just gone away somewhere, but not anymore. I'm not going to give up on anything. I'm not going to let this go till this is solved, till she's at rest, till she's found and she's at rest. As of the release of this episode, no one has been arrested or charged in connection with Dia's disappearance,

which happened in June 2020. Dia Abrams is 5'6", with blue eyes and blonde hair and weighs 135 pounds. She will be 68 years old today. Clinton Abrams said a $300,000 reward will be offered for any information leading to the location of his mother, dead or alive. If you believe you can help, call the Riverside County Sheriff's Office at 951-791-3400. To learn more about other people we've covered in our Missing in America series and to view photos of Dia, go to datelinemissinginamerica.com.

There you'll be able to submit cases you think we should cover in the future. Thanks for listening. See you Fridays on Dateline and NBC News. Jessica Knoll is the producer of this episode. Greg Smith is the audio editor. Rebecca Glaser is the field producer. Keone Reed is associate producer. Bradley Davis is senior producer.

From NBC News Audio, Bryson Barnes is technical director. as associate producer, Bradley Davis as senior producer. From NBC News Audio, Bryson Barnes as technical director. Sound mixing by Bob Mallory.