Reply All - #108 The Skip Tracer, Part II

Episode Date: October 19, 2017

Continued: Sruthi Pinnamaneni follows the world's best bounty hunter on a peculiar case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Gimlet, this is Rapaiol, I'm PJ Vote. If for some reason you're just listening to this randomly, this is part two of a two-part story. Make sure you go back and listen to part one, or nothing you hear will make sense. Okay, here's Ruthie. So, Michelle and I arrive in this town in North Carolina. It's the middle of June, a Monday, very hot and stiffy. How you did? Good.

How was your flight? Good. And just a quick reminder. The reason we've come to this particular town, I'm not going to tell you which one it is, it's because Michelle is after a man named Louise Rodriguez. And after a whole lot of searching, she believes that a woman named Blanca, who lives here, is Louise's shelter. Right. So Michelle's thinking either Louise is this address that she has for Blanca, like he's living with Blanca and her family.

Because you said people stay close to their shelter. Right. Or if he's not there, she's sure that Blanca knows where he is. So her plan is to confront Blanca, scare her, and get her to give up Louise's location. So that's her plan. Michelle tells me she's already checked in with her client, Maria Espinoza, and we are off. We meet up with this former bounty hunter. His name is Dallas McLean. Okay. Okay. All right. He's this big dude in his 60s, has a goatee. It tells me that he's a voiceover actor on the side.

Do I get a picture with a famous Michelle? Oh. So Dallas is going to be Michelle's wingman for this whole trip. And he's just doing it as a favor, like letting her use his office as a home base. And he tells her, like, listen, I'm going to drive you anywhere you need to be. So we go to his car. Wow. You have, you really do live out of your car.

I get in the front seat. It's this, like, giant black SUV with, of course, tinted windows. And there's all sorts of bounty hunter stuff in it. A water gun. Oh, no, that's not a water gun. That's a taser. It's a taser. Michelle hops in the back, and we head off.

The trailer park's about 20 minutes outside of town. And at this point, Michelle is just planning to do a drive-by, like scope out the place and come up with a game plan. She's done all this extra research on Blanca since last time I saw her. Like at this point, she knows exactly where Blanca works. She has this extended family tree for Blanca, has her daughter's name. Is there any part of you that feels a little kind of bad for her or anything? No, no, no, no.

It's cold. A heart turns cold. Because she's Aidenabiding, a fugitive who killed somebody. and she knows it when she could have already, what, four or five years have gone by, she could easily make an anonymous call and say, hey, I'm so-and-so, I know about this case, I need for you to come get him or he works here, something that's right to do, the principal thing. And that's it. We pull into this trailer park.

It's like a loop so we can come out down there. We are slowly driving down this dirt road until we hit this one trailer where, by the number on the door, they know it's Blancas. And they start to figure out, like, what are the possible escape routes? Dallas keeps driving. Michelle has her camera out and is taking photos through the window. We see that there's this front porch coming out of the trailer, and there's a little girl there eating ice cream.

We loop around and drive by again, and now there's another girl. who's come out, an older girl laid teens, and she's also standing on the porch. That's her. Did you get it? Yep. That's the daughter, Blanca's daughter.

There's the dog. He's no problem. And there's just woods behind, like thick woods. This is perfect for them. What does that mean? He's been drawn the run. He's going to be in jail. The idea is to stay out as long as.

Are we done here? Mm-hmm. We leave the house, and Michelle now wants to go to the restaurant where Blanca works. She says it's a weekday, and I think she might be there. So we stop by. It's in a mall food court, and the girl behind the counter tells us Blanca just left. Dallas says, you know what, let's get some food. I know this great Italian restaurant.

And then for the next two hours, he and Michelle just tell war stories. And finally, at 9.30, Michelle says to him, hey, I want to go back to the trailer. I want to see it at night and see who's living there besides Blanca's family. First, they get their gear together. Dallas opens the trunk of the car. I left my binoculars. I have binoculars.

I got some light. Yeah, I got night vision, too. And water resistant. Let me see. We had back to the trailer park. Again, I'm up front. Michelle sitting in the back, and she puts on a badge. It's a Texas investigator badge,

but it looks a lot like a police badge. We're almost there. What are you going to do, Mitchell? No, I'm just, I don't, I don't never, like, I noticed that you always like, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? I'm calm. I'm very calm, you know.

You're going to pull in the driveway or stay on the street? What you can do in the driveway? Let them know that we're not afraid of them. We just sit there in the car in front of the house, just watching. It's pitch black. And then Michelle just opens the door, jumps out, and starts marching towards the front door. She's got her cell phone in her hand, and she's using it like a flashlight.

The whole trailer's dark, except for this one light that's on in the back, and in front of us is this giant beware of dog sign. It's 10 of 6. It's late. Do you think they might be sleeping? Yeah. There, it's okay. We'll get in tomorrow morning. She seems pretty satisfied, and we walk back to the car. And just when we were about to get inside,

Oh, somebody, somebody. The front door opens, but we can't see who it is. No, no, good boy. Good boy. Go, no, no, no, no. Go Mimi. It's this older girl we'd seen earlier. She's here with this dog looking extremely concerned. confused and disheveled, like as if she'd just been woken up out of bed. And then Michelle shows her the photograph of Luis.

And the girl says, no, I've never heard of this person. And at that point, this middle-aged lady in a nightgown comes out looking completely scared. Michelle Gomez, how is that? Pardon? You're Blanca? Yes. Okay, I'm Michelle Gomez. I'm a detective of Texas.

Michelle has her badge out, and they get into this hole back and forth. No. No, my dad? No. Okay. Blanca's saying she does not recognize this photo of Louise either, and she clearly has no idea what Michelle is asking about. She's like, I'm not from Honduras. And I'm legal. And she tells Michelle, come into my house and I'll show you my papers.

And we sit down in their dining room. Her husband's out. The whole family's out. There's like six different people there. And they're all taking out all their paperwork. Like there's drivers, licenses, work permits. Just like all proof that they're allowed to be here. Exactly. And Michelle is. like taking photos of all their documents, and then through the front door walks in this young-looking guy. Hello. That's Tomas. Turns out the guy we thought was Blanca's husband is actually her son.

Sorry about Michelle. Okay, perfect. Okay, perfect. Michelle starts asking him all these questions and finds out, like this person has the same first and last name as Tomas, that guy that she's been thus far theorizing as the partner in crime of Louise. But this guy is not Honduran. He's from El Salvador.

He's like 20 years younger than we expected. Definitely the wrong guy. I look over at Michelle. I mean, she has just barged into an innocent family's house in the middle of the night with a badge. I am mortified and confused. But Michelle seems almost excited. Like she pivots immediately to this new theory.

The original Tomas, who she was looking at, for the friend of Louises, he must have stolen this kid's identity. And you're the victim here for identity fraud. And Michelle starts giving this kid security advice. She was like, okay, so here's what you need to do. You need to write a letter to all these credit bureaus and tell them, like your social security number is compromised. I mean, at one point, he's giving her his contact info so she can get back to him about things.

And now you don't use Yahoo. It's no good. You get hacked so many times. Really? Yeah, you need to change. Go to Hushmel. Or do it. You go to TOR.

Are you good computer savvy? The whole family is just wrapped. Like, they seem really grateful for all this advice. And they just keep saying, thank you so much. I go, you bank, your legalist's paying for the way. You, I owe him. We're there for two hours. Wow.

By the end of it, they all, lined up around her. Everybody say cheese. And took photos. Great. You're okay, I got it. Here. Are you going to show your photo?

Yeah. Here. Oh, wow. It looks like a family photo. It is a family photo. It's like absolutely looks like someone was like, all right, let's go to Sears and get our photo taken. We leave the house.

It's midnight by that point. is in a great mood. To me, the whole thing still felt like a mistake. The next morning, it's back to the drawing board. We station ourselves in the kitchen of Dallas's office, and Michelle, she's working on a laptop, and this time she says she's going a different route. She's found a new lead, a guy named Tony.

He's an actual friend of actual Louise, an old friend, but he's willing to help track him down. Welcome back to the show. So where we left off, Michelle and I were sitting in Dallas's office. And she was about to call this guy named Tony. And here's who that is. Remember how the court lowered Louise's bail? Tony, who was his friend and co-worker, he actually appeared in court early on to testify on Louise's behalf.

Hello? Hi, sir. My name is Michelle Gomez. I need to speak with you. regarding the situation with Mr. Rodriguez? Yes. Can you help, for favor? Sure. Okay.

You know Luis really good, right? Rodriguez. Yeah. You testified on his behalf as a credible person. Right. Why did you do that? What happened there? Okay.

How did you feel when he was gone? He says the last time he saw Louise was the night just before he took off. I seen him about 1.30 that morning. The next day he found. found out that Louise, his wife, his two kids, had just got in a van and, like, left. So it was planned. Okay.

Anything else that might help me to find him as far as what he would do? Marina's in Tennessee. He says if you can find the wife, Louise would be close by because they have a little daughter. If you could get a whole of his wife, you might get lucky, you know. Okay. Yeah. Was he afraid of being deported?

Oh, my God. Tony said he didn't know all the details, but it was something related to these drug gangs, like maybe MS-13, and that they'd killed Louise's mother in front of him. That is so sad. No, he could plead, yeah? The United States will protect him.

Yeah? Oh, my God. What a story. Yeah. Yeah, well, they can't deport him because me, Michelle's saying, because he reclamo, if he reclaimed that to have a fear in his

country, no they're going to go to go back. Michelle saying, because Luis is afraid of the violence in his country in Honduras, that there's no way the U.S. is just going to dump him over there. If he calls you

by some chance, by some light of day, you have my number, okay? There's some kind of hope, but yet he has to do some time. He has to be punished. I will. Thank you. I appreciate you. All right. Okay. Bye-bye. We got off the phone, and I was really confused that Michelle was so sympathetic towards Louise.

Yeah. I feel like it could be like a tactic? Like she's trying to convince Tony she's on Louise's side. Yeah, but I couldn't tell because she was actually tearing up. But after that call, she says, you know, Tony's given us this big clue. And from now on, I'm going to focus on finding Louise's wife. and daughter. She spends the next like five hours on this laptop. By 6 p.m., she confirms that, yes, they are in Tennessee,

but she still doesn't know what town. We head back to the hotel, and Michelle keeps working, like keeps hammering away at this question. She's barely talking to me. And then at 1 a.m. She gets this phone call from her. Yes. She gets this phone call from her.

daughter, which starts off normal, but very quickly, it turns super emotional. Her daughter is crying, says that she's decided to move to this other city. Finally, Michelle turns to me and says, listen, I need to stop. I need to go home to Texas. And as soon as I get home and say goodbye to my daughter, I'm going to make arrangements to take off to Tennessee. Do you feel like you, do you feel like anything happened today that makes you feel differently about him or about your search for him. He's had a rough life. He has had, you know, he's, he's, he's witnessed the death of his mother right in front of him. I don't know what age that happened, but, um, it was emotional to know that.

I'm emotional because he's had a rough life, you know, and shit happens to everybody. But, um, he, he needs to, he needs to pay for his crime, for the accident, for the closure of this door, you know, the family. He needs to face, you know, the justice system in terms and grow from that, you know. He's been running all his life. There's always a day where you can start over and repair it. And the day I confront him is the day he's going to start because I'm going to sit with him as a friend. He's going to be able to, he's probably going to rest because usually they usually tell me, I'm glad you found me now I can rest. Yeah, you're going to be sleeping in jail. you know, and that's the good part.

And I'm probably going to make another friend. I really am. I really do believe it. I probably have a photo album with him. You're a confusing lady. Oh, Michelle. Yeah, I, yeah, let's see. Let's see what happens. I mean, I'm not the police, you know.

I'm not a mean person. My life is about doing what I do best, and that's finding the person. The next morning, I fly back to New York. Michelle goes back to Texas. and she says, I'm going to plan for this Tennessee trip. I was very curious how the Remembrance Project would feel about Michelle's new empathy towards Luis. But by that point, Maria Espinoza stopped taking my calls. This was in June right about the time she found herself in this controversy.

A bunch of her families had turned on her. Like there's this political article where they say they felt like Maria was. harboring political ambitions and that she was using them to get close to Trump. Maria told me, I don't want to talk to you until I hear your final story. Michelle and I, however, we kept checking in regularly. I have a lot of deadlines and I have a lot of cases and these clients, they all need me. You know, they're like, this is your my last hope. When I called her in early July, Michelle was completely overworked.

She said she was having migraines. but she said she's still finding time to search for Louise. And she told me, I looked into it. He's definitely not in Tennessee. I'm going to be brief with you because I'm waiting for a call. In September, she told me, I found his sons on Facebook. I'm watching them. I think Luis has fled the U.S.

Now I'm 90% sure he's in Spain. Uh-huh. Okay. I'm 90% sure he's in Spain. It's because the way the family is responding. Mm-hmm. So, oh, wait, wait, have you been texting with a son? Or what communication are you having with a son?

Little catfish lines here and there. I'm going to say it like that. You know what that means? No. When you catfish somebody and you bring information out. You mean you're... Without alarming them. Do you mean you're pretending to be somebody else?

No, I'm catfishing him in a place where he didn't know who I am. He didn't even ask me who I am. At one point, she told me, I'm so close to figure. figuring out his address. And I have this, like, local investigator there on the ground, and he's helping me. He's going to have to take pictures. And if he confirms Louise, oh, my God, I'm going to, I don't know. I'm going to scream.

I got to report this to Ms. Maria. Yeah. And let her know. We'd also talk about the things that she said that night in North Carolina about how the U.S. would protect Louise, let him stay. I was wondering if you still feel that way. If he claims asylum fear of life for his life, you know, to go back, they're going to protect him, no doubt.

I explained to Michelle, I've been talking to a bunch of lawyers, and they all tell me it's almost certain that Luis will not get asylum. And I said, does that worry you? And she said, yes. How would we worry for him? because I would be part of that, I would be part of putting that cubs back into the lion's den, you know? I would worry for his life.

Because he was human beings, Ruthie, you know, we all make mistakes. You can't bring Joe's story back. What you can do is have closure for the story family and say, you know what? There is remorse in Mr. Rodriguez's heart. Does it make your job a little harder, Michelle, because, like, there is this risk that you know that he that he will be sent back to the Lions Dunn? It's a responsibility.

I know that I can find him and it's emotional for me sometimes because I can say, you know, tomorrow's going to be the day you go to child. This guy, Louise, he's going to be locked up abroad first and staying and then extradited over here and be deported.

Who knows? I may be the one who ends his life by sending him back. And if they kill him, I'm going to be part of that responsibility. I'll never know that. And I don't want to know that. When I would hear Michelle talk about Louise like this, I would think, wow, you have more sympathy for him than I do. You know, a drunk driver, allegedly, who killed someone, ran.

How is it that you work for, of all people, Maria Espinoza? You know, Michelle seemed to feel like America had some kind of duty to protect Louise. But Maria and the Remembrance Project, their whole thing is why? You know, Louise, we owe him nothing. We need to protect American families. That guy, he's not supposed to be here. And these two ideas seemed really contradictory. Like, this country fights over them constantly.

But I realize that for Michelle, they're not contradictory. Like, they exist equally in her mind. So to her, it makes perfect sense that she's worrying about Louise, but also hunting him down for Maria. I want to be part of this agenda because you cannot come to the United States and break the law. You will be, you will be punished. And we're going to make Louise, a brother. Roberto Rodriguez an example of what's going to happen to you if your case comes in my hand. I want to be part of something good that says, you know what, Mr. Trump is trying to do something.

I still don't know all of his agenda because it changes all the time and he's careless with his statement. But there's something that we have to fight for. And that's justice for Mr. Joe's story. He didn't deserve to die that day. So Michelle feels this absolute clarity. This is what she needs to do. She is going to get Louise's address somehow. She's going to fly to Spain and capture him. The thing is, it's been nine months of hearing Michelle say that she's sure she can get him. I am not 100% sure it does seem like a very complicated task, especially because he's now out of the country. And on top of that, the remember, the remember. The conference project seems to have lost some of that steam that it had in the, you know, early days of the Trump victory. So it's almost like there was this giant target kind of laser focused on Louise. And now it's just lost its focus.

But that's not the end of the story. Can I tell you this crazy thing that just happened? Okay. So I was just doing routine fact-checking stuff, like just trying to confirm the most. basic fact about Louise Rodriguez, just that he's undocumented. Everybody had told me this. It was in the court records. But I just couldn't figure out where this piece of information had come from. I had met with people from ICE. And so I asked them for info on Louise's status. And they said, sure, you'll look into it. And through the weeks, they were clearly working on it,

like trying to run down this info. And then just two days ago, they wrote to me saying, hey listen, our hands are tied. Due to privacy restrictions, we're unable to comment. I called Chris Dory. How had she first heard that Louise was undocumented? She couldn't remember, but she did remember this thing that at first she thought was bullshit. A cop had told her that the reason they couldn't report Louise to ICE

is that he had some kind of special something. like special papers. Special papers. Yeah. That cop, he was a captain, retired years ago, but I found his 80-year-old mom. She found him, and he told me it was a protected status. Louise had a protected status. Yeah, I didn't know what that meant, but I found a law enforcement source who was able to confirm what he had. All right. Luis Rodriguez had a temporary protected status. It's not asylum. It's a little different. It's a temporary thing that the U.S. offers to citizens of certain countries that have experienced disaster. Like an earthquake in Haiti, Civil War in El Salvador, Hurricane Mitch in Honduras. Like, it doesn't matter how you entered the U.S. legally or illegally. Once you're here, you can apply for this temporary protected status and you'd be allowed to live and work here. And Louise had this. Yes.

So. So? The central fact of this entire story was wrong. He was not undocumented. Wow. Maria Espinoza's poster child is now not really a poster child at all. No. So everything was supposed to be simple.

Turns out it wasn't. But Chris Story is sure of one thing. Six years ago, a guy killed her brother and walked away. Her friends told her that she needed to move on and the DA stopped returning her calls. It seemed like she was the only person who cared about this. Until one day, this woman showed up who was so eager to listen, and she told her this story is worth something.

She wanted the whole country to hear it. I spoke to Chris last night. I told her about Louise's status. I'd no idea how she would respond, but she said, you know, it really does not matter. This guy killed my brother and did not even stick around to apologize. That is the point of this story.

What else do you need to know? Michelle says her plan is the same. If she does end up finding Louise, we'll let you know. We're all associated by me, PJ Vote, and Alex Goldman. We were produced this week by Shruti Pinnam-Nanee, Fia Bennon, Damiano Marquetti, and Austin Mitchell. Production help from John Hanrahan.

Our editor is Tim Howard. Our intern is Anna Foley. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. And the show is mixed by Kate Balinski. We are currently looking to hire a new producer to join our team. If you're interested, we'll have a job listing up on the website by the end of the week. We're definitely looking for somebody who already has experience-making radio. Special thanks this week to Hans Lenarts, Russ Lay,

Vedia Gulipali, Dominic Powell, Gene Johnson, Barbara Gonzalez, Nick Coolish, and Emily Kennedy. Matt Lieber is a dog who sleeps on your keyboard. Our theme song is by the mysterious breakmaster cylinder, and our ad music is by Build Buildings. You can find more episodes of the show wherever you found this episode of the show. Thank you for listening. We'll see you in two weeks. Good, we're back here.

Look out. I think someone's covering us from that hill. Oh, look out. We're going to hide in that cave. Ready, three to one. I think they shot up our piano. Let's hide out here. I can't think of anything else to do.

Yes, I do want to make rock music with you. I don't hear anything. Do you think they're gone? Who the hell was it?