Going West: True Crime - Kiely Rodni (Happening Now) // 227

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

On August 5, 2022, a 16-year-old girl went to a campground party near her home and never returned. When records showed her phone last pinged at the campground before turning off minutes after she supposedly left, her family feared for the worst. Both she and her car are both still missing, with few clues as to what could have happened to her. This is the ongoing story of Kiely Rodni. KIELY GOFUNDME https://www.gofundme.com/f/bringkielyhome BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to Prime fans, I'm your host Teeve. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Thank you so much everybody for tuning in to today's episode. We have been following this case since the day the news broke last weekend. And since then we have gotten so many requests to cover Kylie's story because this story is happening now. So please don't forget to share and thank you so much to everybody who has messaged just about this case. And by the way, also, since we don't know currently if Kylie is alive or deceased,

and we're hoping she's alive, we're going to refer to her today in the present tense. This is one of those cases where time is really of the essence. So again, like Daphne said, please share this case. Make sure that you get it out there as much as you can. So today, we're gonna give you guys all the up-to-date information, and we're recording this as late as we can

so that everything is up-to-date. So again, thank you for tuning in, and let's talk about the details. All right, guys, this is episode 227 of Going West, so let's get into it. 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc

1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc On August 5, 2022, a 16-year-old girl went to a campground party near her California home and didn't return.

When record showed her phone last pang to at the campground before going dead minutes after she supposedly left, her family feared for the worst. Both she and her car are still missing, with few clues as to what could have happened to her. This is the story of Kylie Rodney. Kylie Rodney was born on September 1, 2005 to parents Lindsay and Daniel Rodney in California, and she was raised in Truckee alongside her younger brother, Shepp, who is half her age. Truckee is a rural town located in the mountains of Northern California, and it's known for logging and ice harvesting. It's just 30 minutes north of beautiful Lake Tahoe, meaning it's also that same distance from the Nevada State border, and Truckee hosts about 16,000 people presently. Kylie has always been a huge music lover, and she has played instruments since she was very young,

including the guitar, and something she loves doing is playing guitar alongside her grandpa David while he plays the cello. And her love of music didn't go away as she grew up, but only grew with time, which is why she worked so hard to graduate high school early, so she could study music at Sierra College, this coming fall of 2022. So even though she's only 16 years old right now and turning 17 in a couple

weeks on September 1st, since we're recording this on August 15th, she graduated from Forest Charter School Early, which is a public school in Truckee, just this past June of 2022 with an honors diploma. And she had been torn between studying medicine and music, but ultimately decided on music and was super excited to begin see her college, which is just outside of Sacramento, so an hour and twenty minutes or so from her home in Truckee. Now ten days before we're recording this episode, Kylie was newly graduated again in June and enjoying her summer break in Truckee with college starting in September. There was a huge party being held on

Friday, August 5, 2022 at the Prasser Family Campground at an area that's referred to as the SYNC Shoei. Where over 100 people, both minors and young adults and reportedly up to 300 people, gathered as a somewhat delayed end of school party. But we also read some sources refer to it as the end of summer party. So either way, there was gonna be this big get together. Now, Prostor Family Campground is located 10 miles north of Trucky,

and it's part of the Tahoe National Forest, boasting 29 campsites next to the Prasser Creek Reservoir, which is a popular spot for kayaking, swimming, fishing, and canoeing. Though it doesn't appear that any campsites are actually on the water, just a short distance from it in the mostly forested areas. So Kylie was planning on attending this campground party with friends, though she originally planned to go to a vintage car show that night, but changed her mind.

But before heading there, she stopped at a local business. That from photos appears to potentially be like a gas station convenience store, or something of that type, something in that realm. But all that's actually been released is that it was a trucky business. There's surveillance footage of her inside this business captured at 6.08 pm, where she can be seen wearing a black spaghetti strap bodysuit, green dicky's pants, and black vans. And in the photo, she appears to be smiling.

And this business is located 10 minutes south of the Prostor family campground. So it appears that she was very close to the campground at that point. Yeah, and also, you know, this is hours before the party. So her going to this probable convenience store might not be relevant, but it's just like the last actual footage of her other than just various videos

and photos of her at the party. So when police found it, it's kind of like, okay, we're piecing together the timeline. She stopped here, maybe it's not relevant, but she looked like she was in a good mood, she was smiling, everything seemed fine. Since she was still just 16 on this day, her mom had a curfew of 11.30 p.m. set for her and knew that she was attending the party. So Kylie originally planned to be back by 11.30 p.m. set for her and knew that she was attending the party, so Kylie originally planned to be back by 11.30 p.m.

Like Heath mentioned, this party was big with 300 young people or so reportedly in attendance, including high schoolers and college students, but also somewhat older adults like late 20s or older that many of the teenagers didn't reportedly know. And this was actually only supposed to be a party for a few dozen high schoolers, but many more people showed up. So it seems that the word really spread about this party. And as I'll explain later,

there were like flyers posted in other cities, so I don't know if the person throwing the party did that or somebody else did it trying to make this like a huge banger, I don't know. But drugs, i.e. cocaine, shrooms, weed and alcohol were also in attendance that evening as it goes, you know, meaning lots of underage drinking and drug doing and Kylie was partaking in at least drinking that evening. She arrived at about 9.45 pm around the time the party started, and according to witnesses at the party, she was having a great time, laughing a lot, and going around to different groups talking to a bunch of people.

No one noticed anyone acting weird or suspicious around her at all, and many reported that for the most part, it was a pretty chill party. And we'll talk about this later as well, apparently some fights broke out, but it wasn't reportedly anything serious. Yeah, it was just mostly, it was just a bunch of people drinking and hanging out together. It wasn't anything too, too wild allegedly. Now, multiple people, sorry, keep saying, I'm going to keep saying allegedly, reportedly, just because this is such a new story, so there's still so much information coming out. So forewarning, multiple people who know Kylie noticed that she was quite drunk at the

party and was stumbling around a bit, which was definitely an issue since she had driven her silver 2013 Honda CRV there that night. And it didn't appear that she could drive home safely at all. Like those who saw her said she's too drunk to drive. Yeah, not in the not in the best condition to drive. Right. At 11 p.m. So a little over an hour after she arrived, Kylie and her friend Sammy charged their phones

in Kylie's car. And then, at about this point, her friend Sammy had decided against getting a ride home from Kylie since Kylie was intoxicated, so she planned to get a ride from someone else. Like we mentioned, Kylie's curfew was, you know, generally 11.30 pm. And that's when her parents expected her home from this party. But at 11.30, she texted her mom and asked her if she could extend her curfew to 12.30 a.m. so an hour later. And here is where her mom stated to the media later.

Quote, I extended her curfew. I had done it before and felt safe. She texted me at 11.30 pm to say she would be leaving at 12.15am to come home. I told her to be safe and that I loved her, and she said, okay mom, I love you too. That was the last I heard from her. 30 minutes after Lindsay, who again is Kylie's mom, exchanged texts with Kylie, Kylie was seen still at the party at about midnight, likely getting ready to head home.

But she was allegedly still at the party at 12.25 am when she and Sammy said goodbye to each other and both left separately. But it seems like Sammy has gotten a couple details mixed up so this could be a product of that. And it seems a lot of people are curious about Kylie and Sammy's relationship, with some even saying that they weren't friends and don't follow each other on Instagram,

which they don't because I checked, but I just wanna kinda talk about this for a second because a lot of the people who emailed us about this case were like, Kylie's friends are really sketchy, so I wanna let go into that for a second. So Kylie seemingly has two Instagram pages. us about this case, we're like, Kylie's friends are really sketchy, so I want to like go into that for a second. So Kylie seemingly has two Instagram pages. One of them only has seven posts.

She has 224 followers and she's following 131 people. And the other has zero posts, 291 followers, so a little bit more, and she's following 729 people, so a lot more than her other account. But both accounts are private. One has a bunch of emojis in the bio, like a furtry, music notes, the sun, mountains, the moon, a dolphin. And it says 2023 with a graduation cap next to it. But as we know, she graduated in 2022. So this account probably is not used at all. Again, she has like seven posts on that. Yeah. And a lot of times people will, you know, kind of want to fresh start with their

Instagram. And they'll kind of basically just leave the old one and let that go and take all their posts down. So that's kind of what I'm assuming is going on here. Yeah. And maybe she, because the other one only has seven posts, it doesn't seem like she really used that one either. So maybe she just wasn't like a big Instagram gal, totally fair. But the other one, the bio of the Instagram with the seven posts, it's a sublime lyric and it says, a cigarette press between her lips,

but I'm staring at her tits, it's the wrong way. But anyway, I just wanted to mention this because, like I said, a lot of listeners who wrote in or talking about her friends. And you know, I can't confirm, like it seems like her friends are trying to help, but I don't know, because a lot of people have also pointed out that if Sammy wanted to get a ride from someone else because Kylie was drunk, but didn't offer Kylie a ride home too. That's very dangerous and it kind of makes her complicit in her friend potentially driving home drunk, right?

Sure. And then Sammy has also said this to the media, quote, there was a lot of guys that did approach us. Definitely I was getting a gut feeling that during the party, that something, something just didn't feel right with the number of people that were there and how old some of these people were. From the number of people who did show up, it was scary. It was really scary.

So that's angering people as well that she also had a bad feeling about the party but left drunk Kylie alone to drive herself home. But yeah, all this does matter because if someone is lying or they don't have their story straight, this muddies the investigation, but pretty much everyone in question was getting wasted that night. So it does make sense if your story is not 100% clear. However, if people in Kylie's life know what happened in art telling police, that's a big deal and many people are speculating that that is the case. Yeah, and it definitely could be the case, but also I think as far as going back to the whole situation of Sammy not offering Kylie a ride as well, like you said, they're young,

they are drinking. Sammy might not be in the right state of mind to be thinking, oh, I need to, you know, I need to get my friend to write as well. She's probably looking out for herself at that point and saying, I need to get myself home safely. Well, right. And I do see maybe where she would be coming from

if Kylie had her car, but it's also like, if this is your good friend and you care about her, you might wanna make sure she gets home safe. Like, many of us would do for our friends. So I think many people are looking at it from that angle. Like is Sammy telling the truth? Can we trust her? Is she even a good friend?

Because it doesn't seem like it. But I don't know her. So I'm just telling you what I'm reading. The hardest part is to speculate on a situation in which you weren't there, you know? Like it's a very hard thing to do because we don't know the dynamic between Sammy and Kylie.

Exactly. Like you said, we don't even know if they're great friends or what the circumstances are or were that night. So it's just very hard to tell. Yeah, just want to touch on it. We will bring it up again, but a lot of people are mentioning this. So, so it's important.

So let's get back to the timeline here. So Kylie was reportedly last seen at 12.30am leaving this campground. But when her mom woke up the next morning, which was Saturday, August 6, 2022, at about 8am, she realized Kylie was not home. So she grabbed her phone and checked for Kylie's location, and it said her last known location was near the Prasser campground, but the last time her phone was on was at 12.33 a.m., three minutes after she was supposed to arrive at her family home in Truckee, just 15 or so minutes from this campground. So what happened in the three minutes

between when she left the party and when her phone turned off? And as we will talk about this throughout the episode, that just seems so fast for something to happen, especially because we know somebody saw her less than 10 minutes before her phone would have gone off. And I watched a ton of press conferences about this case and just kind of heard police talking about how her phone

pinged near the water, near the reservoir. But as we know with cell phone pings, they're not exact. So usually it's just in this big circular area more so it's pinging somewhere within that. But on fine, my friends, you're on fine, my friends. So if, usually if I'm not at home and I check your location for whatever reason, it'll show at our house, right?

So sometimes it is exact. But with this in particular, they said that it panged near the water, but that didn't necessarily mean she was in the water or near the water, it could have been the whole area. It's just like really hard to say. But that is what police said. It wasn't pinpointed.

Right. But the other thing that's really interesting to me is that, you know, going back, Sammy and Kylie were charging their phones in Kylie's car. So we know that there was a charger in Kylie's car, which is interesting that if she left in her car, she probably would have plugged her phone in, I'm assuming. Right.

And maybe we could assume that if she went to go charge it at 11 p.m., it probably didn't have a lot of battery. But if she'd left it to charge for a while with Sammy, which they both did, then I don't really see it dying at 11 or sorry at 12.33 a.m. Yeah, definitely. So at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Kylie was planning to meet her friends to go on a camping trip for the weekend.

But by then, she still wasn't even home. And by the way, you know, this is an hour after her mom woke up and realized that Kylie was not there. It didn't make any sense as to why she wasn't since she had talked to her mom about being home at 12.30 a.m. and even said that she was heading straight home and also had this camping trip with her friends planned. Exactly.

And just to be clear everyone as far as police have released, it doesn't seem like anyone specifically at this point has come forward and said that they saw her drive off site in her car. So it seems like she was seen maybe heading out possibly, but not actually driving away. And also a friend of Kylie's claims that Kylie had planned on spending the night at the camp ground, but considering she told her mom otherwise, so soon before she was supposed to leave, and didn't appear to have slept at the campground We are just gonna assume that she planned to leave that night after all But that is something that is so frustrating about this case is that nobody actually saw her leave

Soft she was alone Soft she went into somebody else's car soft she went into her own car Things like that and we can also assume there's still a ton of people at this party since it only started Roughly two and a half hours before she would have left. So we can imagine that people would be partying into the wee hours of the morning. Oh sure, I don't think that the party was just going to end at 1230 when Kylie's leaving you. Yeah, exactly. So how many people were there at that time? We don't know. So after Lindsay Kylie's mom realized that her daughter hadn't come home the night before and even more alarming her last ping was at

the campground she was supposed to have left nearly eight hours earlier. Lindsay set off for the local Starbucks to meet Kylie's friends and see if Kylie would show up for the camping trip since they had planned to all meet at Starbucks at 9 a.m. 9 a.m. and then head out from there. So Lindsay waited alongside Kylie's friends, but when she didn't show, Lindsay really felt like something was wrong. So she began reaching out to other friends and family just trying to figure out if anyone

had seen her. And when that didn't bring answers, she reported 16-year-old Kylie Rodney missing. Considering Kylie was a minor, police jumped on her case right away and began searching the campground for clues and trying to question anyone they could that went to the party, which proved to be very difficult. According to a friend of Kylie's again, Sammy, there was some fighting at this party and lots of drinking and weed smoking, and this is what she said, quote,

I think a lot of them were scared to talk. They were engaging in illegal activity in the woods. It's like this Lord of the Fly space where they can just be. She then added quote, we've said over and over again, we're not investigating any of you, we're partnering with you in an investigation for a missing person.

This isn't about things you shouldn't have done. But it's also hard because there are so many teenagers, what are their relationships like with their parents? That can define a lot of what they're going to say. Are they used to hiding everything? They're afraid of the consequences and how they're going to be viewed, how their they're going to say. Are they used to hiding everything? They're afraid of the consequences and how they're going to be viewed, how their parents are going to react.

But at this point, it's like, who cares? We need to find her. So obviously, she's speaking from this investigative point of view because she's helping the family and she's out there searching for Kylie as well. So she's making a good point. Like, if you were a 16 year old drinking alcohol or smoking weed, who gives a shit,

like the police aren't gonna get you in trouble. Yeah, we need to get past that point. There's something much more important here, and that's finding Kylie. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you were doing drugs or whatever it was. Right, because police don't care about busting these kids for doing drugs and drinking alcohol, they're more so trying to

bust somebody for potentially having something to do with Kylie's disappearance. Yeah. So regarding the thought that Kylie had run away on her own, her mom Lindsay stated, quote, my daughter is not the runaway type. Not to stigmatize kids who are, but my daughter is not. As we discussed, Kylie's phone last pined at 12.33am near the campground, and then it reportedly was turned off or broken. And again, we know that it more than likely wouldn't have died because she charged it in her car at 11pm. But her friend, Sammy Smith claims that at 12.36 a.m.

so three minutes after Kylie's phone last pinged, Kylie called her. Here's what Sammy told the independent. Quote, at 12.36 a.m. she called me and this is the last call anybody had with her. We said, love you, good night, get home safe and that's the last call anybody had with her. We said, love you, good night, get home safe, and that's the last thing we heard from her. Kylie was apparently confirming that Sammy did get another ride,

but other sources say that this phone call occurred at 12.25 am, so 11 minutes earlier, and it really does matter in regards to what happened because it seems like something happened just after 12.30am. But we are waiting for police to release the information on her phone data. Which will really help. Yeah, of course.

It will help a lot. So Sammy also claimed that she could hear party music in the background indicating that Kylie was at the party and heading out while the call was made. But is this true? I mean, we don't know. Well, the call happening at 12.25 AM wouldn't make sense because that's when, according to Sammy, she and Kylie said, by to each other in person. So I did see various reports say that this call

happened at 12.25. Others saying it happened at 12.36. But like you said from that independent article, Sammy specifically says at 12.36, but like you said from that independent article, Sammy specifically says at 12.36am. That is the time she is stating. But as we know, like I just said, 11 minutes earlier, they had allegedly departed in person. So it doesn't really make sense that Kylie would be calling her 11 minutes later saying, hey, do you need a ride if they just had that conversation?

That's why this part is so confusing. I mean, unless, I guess unless she just wanted to double check and say, hey, are you sure like you're good, kind of thing, but, you know, I don't know. Yeah, and I mean, some people are saying maybe she was so intoxicated or possibly she was drugged and it was affecting her short-term memory. Like you can speculate till the cows come home, you know. Yes, you really can. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the reservoir

that's next to the campground. So this reservoir is man-made and it spans 760 acres across, but it does flow into a couple different rivers as well. Now considering this was so close to where Kylie was last seen, divers and swimmers were deployed for multiple days into the lake. But this was a difficult job. So at its deepest, the reservoir is 57 feet deep, but the issue is how muddy the ground is.

So visibility just gets terrible as you go down and divers were essentially searching with their hands down there, but nothing was found. And even upon searching the campground and the areas surrounding it, no links to Kylie were made at all. Within just a couple days of Kylie being missing, police were considering that she was abducted. Kylie's friend Anna stated, quote, she wasn't in a state where she could have driven very

far. She was inebriated. We did a thorough search of the woods where the party was, and now we're going to smaller towns. We believe she was taken. Nobody we know left with her. Nobody else is missing from the party. We don't know if it was someone who was attending the party or a predator.

We also don't know if there's someone she planned to go and meet who we don't know about yet. It's a nightmare. And I do also want to mention that she did tell her mom she was going straight home, and she had this camping trip just hours later in the early morning. So I would imagine she'd want to get a nice good sleep after drinking and you know go hang out with her friends. Yeah, that's one detail we can't forget about in this case. Totally.

So on Sunday, August 7, 2022, so less than two days after Kylie went missing, the Placer County Sheriff's Office established a tip line for information leading to our whereabouts in a massive search began. A girl named Magdalena, who was apparently a very close friend of Kylie's, was also at the party that night, but she barely stayed at all. Here's what she had to say. Quote. Within the only 10 minutes that I was there, I literally had a group of 5 guys try to come get me to take as many Bongrips as I could, forcefully, without my boyfriend present.

Now regarding if Kylie had a boyfriend or was seeing anyone, she didn't and apparently wasn't. But there was someone, but according to most reports about him, he's considered to be an ex since he moved out of the area, but the two were still in contact. Right, so we can't confirm if they're actively boyfriend girlfriend. I know they were dating at least before August of 2021, so they were together for probably a decent amount of time,

but we don't know if they're still dating or if this is her technical ex boyfriend. Right. And his name is Jagger Westfall and reportedly lives in the Napa Valley area. So nearly three hours from trucky and on the night that Kylie went missing, they were texting briefly. That evening, Jagger texted Kylie that he had a bad day and explained why, and here's what Jagger said he received in a response. Quote, at 10.30pm, she responded to what I said. She said, oh, I'm sorry you're going through that, and that's the last I heard from her. Jagger also explained that he and Kylie's dad had taught her previously how to get out

of, quote, sticky situations, and Jagger doesn't see Kylie doing anything that would put her life at risk, though as we know, things can happen anyway, at no fault of the victim. That night, Jagger texted Kylie to be safe and to not do anything. Hours before the party, everything had been normal. Kylie and her friend Kate made Crember lay together, and Kate has since stated, quote, I don't think she ran away or anything. I would have noticed if something was slightly off. And as we mentioned, police don't believe this either, which is why they have put so much time and energy into finding her. Over the past 10 days since she went missing, over 100 volunteers have stepped in daily to help in the search. As shared on the Placer Sheriff's Office Twitter account,

the day before we're recording this, nearly 13,000 cumulative hours have been put into the case by law enforcement officers, as well as two dive teams have searched the nearby waters, and three air searches have been done. When Kylie was last seen, she had long blonde hair that was styled down. Hazel eyes, she stood at 5'7", weighed 118 pounds, had a nose piercing, a belly button

piercing and ear piercings. She had a tattoo of the number 17 on her ribs, and was again seen wearing a black spaghetti strap bodysuit, green dick's pants, and black vans. We posted photos of the surveillance photograph, just photos of her in general, etc. If you guys want to go look at those on our socials, our Instagram is at going West podcast, Twitter at going West pod, and we're also on Facebook. And also make sure that you share those photos and get those photos out there.

Yeah, and especially share her missing poster, which we're also gonna put on our pages for you to repost or post on your own, because that has all the information about her like in one post. So on the evening of Friday, August 5th, 2022, during the time that Kylie was at the party, Trucke was between about like 63 degrees Fahrenheit

and 57 degrees Fahrenheit and dropping as the night continued or 17 degrees Celsius and 14 degrees Celsius. So it wasn't freezing by any means, but a fairly brisk night, you know, under 60 degrees, especially since Kylie was wearing that spaghetti strap bodysuit. So I could definitely see her getting a little chilly. So due to this, she borrowed someone's dark gray Lana Del Rey hooded sweatshirts and the

lyrics on the sweatshirt said, you don't want to be forgotten, you just want to disappear, which is honestly kind of eerie. Very eerie, yeah. Obviously, that's just a lyric from one of her songs, but she was reportedly wearing this at some point in the evening. But as of the evening before we're recording this, the Placer County Sheriff's Office released that she also could have been wearing

a different borrowed hoodie, which was an odd future hooded sweatshirt that was white and said odd future all over it and pink bubbly letters. So the police received a video where she was seen at the party wearing it, but it's unclear if she kept it on the whole night and was actively wearing it when she went missing. And again we'll give you the details of her car. It's a silver 2013 Honda CRV with license plates eight y you are one two seven so eight your one two seven and she had like a ram head sticker on

the back window of the car as well. So that would kind of help you pin point it if you are in the area or if you live in California at all and can just keep an eye out. Yeah, absolutely. So from the beginning, her parents were really pushing for an amber alert to be put out on Kylie to help spread the word locally and beyond, since to this day both she and her car have not been found. But there are certain rules for amber alerts to be published. And first of all, for those of you who don't know, an Amber Alert is an emergency child abduction alert, and they're put out in everyone within a certain geographical area will get a loud alert on their phone with basic details of the child abduction. But for Kylie's case, please still haven't been able to officially rule her case in abduction since there just

is not enough evidence. So although they have said multiple times that they are treating her case like an abduction and unfortunately think that that's what likely happened, they can't send out an amber alert until they have more evidence to prove that this is definitely what's going on. And that is a requirement for an amber alert to be issued for law enforcement to confirm that it's actually an abduction. Just over a week after 16-year-old Kylie Rodney went missing, a tip came in about a possible burial site

and police rushed to check it out. So, of course, they're hoping it wasn't her as they've been pushing to find her alive, but considering the location, they wondered if it could be her after all. So this potential burial site was located near the campground and a search and rescue ground team were the ones to find it on Saturday, August 13th, 2022. The FBI secured the scene alongside the placer and Nevada County Sheriff's offices, but after a thorough investigation, FBI agents uncovered that it was a burial site, but what was buried there wasn't Kylie or even a human. It was the remains of a dog.

That same day, Kylie's loved ones organized a concert in her honor as a way to just spread awareness, receive donations, and thank the community and volunteers for their help in the search. And this event took place from 1pm to 4pm on Saturday, and they called it country for Kylie. So this is really all the information that's been released to the public at this point, making now a good time to dive a little deeper into what could have happened to Kylie. Considering that this case is so new and there's virtually no evidence of anything, it's very hard to speculate.

But let's think about what we know happened and talk about what's going around people's heads here. So I think the abduction theory makes a lot of sense, unfortunately, of course. And I definitely understand why this is where police is heads are at. And the issue with this case is there were so many freaking people at that party and many people that were unknown to a lot of the party goers. Because according to attendees, there were people from all over Northern California, like even from the Bay area, so about three hours away, people from the Bay area were coming

in for this, you know, not that taking a weekend road trip isn't unheard of, but that's pretty far to just attend this like random party. And as I briefly mentioned earlier, flyers for this party were even posted in Reno, Nevada, which is only 30 minutes away, but still, it's across state lines. So if someone had their eye on Kylie that night, it seems it would have been easy for an abduction to occur without anyone paying attention, or even knowing who is behind it since there were so many random ass people here. Yeah, the hardest thing about this, or I guess the scariest part is that like you said, there were people who were older and their late 20s who were attending this high school party. Yeah, it's creepy.

Which is very creepy and I don't know, you know, like you said, how many people actually knew the older people that were at that party? Right. And what I would love to know, I haven't been able to find a photo of the flyer, but I'd love to know if it was advertised as a high school party or if it was advertised as an end of school party or an end of summer party or like what it was called because I don't know.

I think it's weird anytime if uh... older like late twenties or beyond or partying with freaking high schoolers like yeah i mean so weird yeah just imagine if the flyer literally said like end of end of school high school party like yeah it's like oh i'm twenty nine i'm gonna hit that yeah okay you fucking creep yeah that's pretty fucking creepy. But we don't know, maybe it was just advertised as a campground party and BYOB, whatever the hell, and the bunch of people just came.

But there was a lot of older people, and there's a ton of people in different forums saying that parties in this area can often attract just a lot of creeps because of its more ruralness that it feels like maybe the kind of place where you could think you could get away with something. Yeah, yeah. And the strangest thing is that like,

that a simple high school party somehow gained that much attention. Yeah. As far as San Francisco and Nevada. Yeah, I mean, it's insane. So that's why I'm like, how many flyers were put out? How did word spread so fast? Like what was being advertised?

You know? So also considering again, how many strangers were at this party, it's not out of line to ponder if someone had their eye on her. However, a lot of locals are questioning Kylie's friends, particularly Sammy, like I mentioned, and not necessarily saying she was behind it, but that she's not being completely honest. And I can't speak to that. I'm just again, telling you what I'm hearing. I'm telling you what I'm reading.

Going back to that one friend who said that she was only there for about 10 minutes and about five guys were forcing Bongrips down her throat. That gives me a really bad feeling in itself. Yeah. So I just keep thinking about that scenario. Oh, yeah, I totally hear you. It's and that's why police are really trying to get any photo or video they can from this night, which we can imagine a ton of videos in photos were taking considering there's hundreds of youths.

Yeah, we live in the age of social media. Yeah, this was last week. So obviously everybody's probably posted in their stuff, but police are having a hard time getting these videos. And that's why they want to see these. They want to see what the hell was actually going on at this party. And who was actually at this party? Exactly.

So as we know, Kylie was last scene at about 12.30 a.m. and her phone was turned off at 12.33 a.m. Considering it's still unknown if the cultist Sammy actually occurred at 12.36 a.m. we're just going to assume that what police say about her phone going off at 12.33 a.m. is true. With this information, we just have to wonder what happened within those minutes that Kylie was last seen and her phone went dead. Was she offered a ride by someone, was someone in her car, was she ambushed? So the first thing that I thought of with this case, with this detail, is the killer in the backseat urban legend. We know she had been in and out of her car that evening, charging her phone with Sammy.

So I just wonder if someone had ill intentions. They'd been watching her. They snuck into her car and then ambushed her when she got inside. Because this could explain something potentially happening to her so quickly, but this could also be a bit of a stretch. What do you think? I mean, it seems like that would maybe be more of a stretch, but I mean, who knows? And I don't mean like that she's a part of an urban legend.

I just, I know that urban legend, so it just came to my mind of, of, was somebody in her car that wanted to do something bad to her. And then you know also what comes to mind for me is the Naomi Irian case. Yep. Where someone just got into her car and drove off with her in it. Yeah and so yep exactly see anything like that can happen so just like that like you're saying what if somebody followed her to her car forced her in her own passenger seat or something and then drove her away from the area Yeah, and she's intoxicated. She's young and who knows who this person could have been if this happened

So but I I don't think that's too Too unlikely no, I don't think that that scenario is too far-fetched um I think what's likely going to happen is the more that these videos are found from the party and the more uh... details we have that come out in the following days and weeks the more we're going to be able to put you know these these pieces of this puzzle together but it's so hard because it's so early right now i know and that's why's why it's tough. So we almost covered this last week, and I'm like, I want, we want to come out with the episode to help spread the word, but it's also like,

we want to be able to give proper information. And you want to give the most up-to-date information. Yeah, right. So of course, we will be doing an update episode shortly pretty soon, as more comes out. But like we said right now, update episode shortly pretty soon as more comes out. But like we said right now, this is the most up to date. But let's talk more about the whole like getting a ride from someone aspect or being forced into her own car. So the idea that she was offered a ride by someone would make sense, but we know that her car left the campground.

So did someone else offer to drive her car possibly? Or like you mentioned, was she forced into the passenger seat, somebody forced her to be a passenger in her own car, like that kind of thing. Like it would have been pretty easy last minute for someone to kind of swoop in and say, hey Kylie, want me to drive you home, especially because we know that she was intoxicated and she was visibly intoxicated, like she was stumbling around. But they probably would have had to have taken her car unless they returned for it later.

So something that would help to know would be if anyone saw her car leaving at all or if anyone remembers it being there later than like 1am. But what would also be good to know is where her car was. Was it pulled right up to the campground? Was it parked a little ways away in a dark area where someone could be lurking since naturally a bunch of people would be parked there

for this party? Yeah, that's definitely something that's in my mind. I think no matter what, the most important thing obviously is finding Kylie, but definitely finding her car. Because that's the biggest thing is not only do we have a missing person, we have her car is missing as well. I feel like if you find her car, you can potentially find fingerprints or evidence. We can determine so much.

It's going to help us put these pieces together and also i know a bunch of you are probably wondering a little bit more about the scene of the party and the lighting since it was dark so you know california has a lot of fire bands like here in l.a. we can't have a fire in our backyard even right now too so there's a lot of fire bands and restrictions here in California. And so does this area of Tahoe and Truckee naturally because it's so rural especially that's fire fire fire is can start. This very lush.

Yeah. So having a bond fire would have been a no go and there's almost no light pollution either. So it would have been very dark in this area in the first place though uh... we did read that there were like string lights in the trees that lit up this area and that maybe people use their car headlights to light of the area to but there were string lights in the trees so there's a light here i mean that's how we used to do it and and like the rule backwoods parties we would just turn on our headlights. Right. Yeah. But this one in particular, they did have the string lights.

But I'm a me and you and everybody else, I think, is just wondering where were the cars? Where was her car parked? Yeah, because I think that makes a big difference here, considering, like you said, if the car is 100 yards away, opposed to 100 feet away. Yeah, did she have to take a long walk by herself to her car

where somebody could have done something? Yeah. It matters. And obviously, since she had been drinking one might ponder if she was involved in a car accident and someone possibly covered something up, her getting into an accident doesn't make sense because there would have been evidence of one in that area,

even a small piece of her car still in the road or broken glass or just something. Oh, absolutely. There, I mean, when you get in a car accident, there's so many little tiny pieces of a bunch of stuff. So it would have been evidence for sure, yeah. Yeah, but with this thought comes the theory that she was involved in a car accident,

but it was fatal and her car car hasn't been found yet. Someone in a reddit thread on this case mentioned a different case, the disappearance of Zachary Wilkes. Now he was a 27 year old man who went missing in Lompot, California, which is located on the central California coast. And this happened while he was driving to Las Vegas to visit friends and family. After a year and a half of wondering what could have possibly happened to him, in October of 2019, a wreckage was found along Highway 166 and Dense Brush, just 100 or so feet off

of this road. So what happened was he was involved in a major collision on his way to Las Vegas, but his car wasn't immediately found because it was camouflaged in this dense brush. Once in autopsie was conducted, the remains were confirmed to be his, but a cause of death could not be determined. Now the reason I bring this up is because this definitely could have happened with Kylie. But at the same time, a massive search has been going on every day since she went missing

and likely a larger search than what was done for Zachary. So we'll just have to see how the search continues to go before we can rule anything out. Yeah, I think that's a good case to bring up just as an example to show people this can happen. And I think it definitely could have happened to her, especially knowing how intoxicated and she was and maybe her phone got damaged in this accident, but you're right. There has been a really big search of this area.

So where would this have happened? Yeah. And also one thing to consider is that there's been a lot of cases where someone accidentally drives off the road into a pond, a river, a lake, and such, and their car is not found for decades. Yes. And we've seen this recently happen. There's actually an organization in Oregon who goes out and they find these wrecks that

are in these waters after like 30 years. Yeah, there was one recently, I don't know if it was an organ, but we got... I think it was an Idaho actually. Oh, I see, I can't remember the details of the case. I just remember you're tagged so much in it, but there wasn't, we didn't cover it or look into it deeper because there was no foul place. I suspected it was just, you know,

they likely had just gotten into an accident and unfortunately went to the bottom of this body of water. And like you said, weren't found for a very long time. But at that time, when that person went missing, they probably weren't assuming, oh, they just got into an accident, they're thinking, anything could have happened because they're gone, like them in their car are gone.

So I don't want, I hope this is not the scenario in the case, but we do have to think about it in terms of, it could be a possibility. Well, right. And that's what they thought about Zachary as well. Actually, notice the vanished podcast did an episode about him in 2019, months before his remains were found, thinking he could have been met with foul play. And this does happen in disappearance cases where we're all speculating that it was foul play and it was simply just a very tragic accident. Yes.

So this could have happened with Kylie, but right now the police are fully believing that she was unfortunately likely abducted and we're just hoping that they can find her alive. So at this point today, over 1200,200 tips have come into police. And the Rodney family has raised the $50,000 reward to $75,000. And it may even rise from that. And this is a reward.

If anybody comes forward with any key information that actually brings them to Kylie or helps them find Kylie, you know, they will get that reward. And between this and the massive effort that Kylie's family is making to find her, just goes to show you how much they want her back, safe and sound in their arms. Police are currently trying to get their hands on every photo and video taken the night of the party in hopes of piecing together clues regarding Kylie's disappearance.

And they even created a place where people can anonymously upload photos or videos from that night or of Kylie or anything helpful to the investigation. And that's Linktree, Linktree slash Placer Sheriff with 1F. But the actual spelled out version of that is L-I-N-K-T-R-D-E-S-L-A-C-E-R-S-H-E-R-I-F. If you go to that link, you can find a bunch of other links that can help you anonymously give a tip. And if you have one, please do that. It could really, really help. And there is certainly information that police have not released as they're still receiving hundreds of tips every day and are actively questioning people and searching on the ground

and in the air for Kylie Rodney. If you have any information about Kylie's disappearance, again, you can remain anonymous. Police just need all the help they can get. So please visit the link I just said or call the Placer County Sheriff's Office Tip Line at 530-581-6230 or email the tip to Sheriff underscore Tahoe Invest Tips at placer.ca.gov. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Friday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. Please send in tips if you have them.

They're actually receiving tips from all over the country which in and other countries which maybe is mudding the investigation if she didn't go that far, but tips matter. So please do that. And also, I forgot to mention in the end of the episode, there is a Go Fund Me, which we will link in the description of this episode

if you guys want to help. And please just spread the word, spread the episode, spread her missing poster, and help find Kylie Rodney. And all my Californians and beyond, please remember that Kylie's car was a silver 2013 Honda CRV with license plates 8YUR127. It's very important keep an eye out and please, please share this story. Yes, and remember, her car did have a ram head sticker

on the back window. We're going to be posting photos by the time you're hearing this. We have already posted photos on our Instagrams of her Instagram and social media's of her car. So please have a look, also if you'll have an organ or Nevada anywhere really, especially in the West, please go take a look and keep an eye out on the road because finding her car is super vital to finding Kylie.

Alright guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

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