Serialously with Annie Elise - 216: Hannah Kobayashi Missing Maui Woman, 20 Human Skulls Found, NYC Stabbing Spree & Dog Solves Murder Case

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

 Today’s episode dives into everything happening this week in true crime. From new cases to updates on existing ones and more.    Uncommon Goods  To get 15% off your next gift, go to https://www.uncommongoods.com/podcast/ae  Hiya  Get 50% when you go to https://www.hiyahealth.com/ae  Shop the Merch:  www.annieelise.com Follow the podcast on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serialouslypodcast Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serialouslypod/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise All Social Media Links: https://www.flowcode.com/page/annieelise_ SERIALously FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/SERIALouslyAnnieElise/ About Me: https://annieelise.com/ For Business Inquiries: [e-mail]      Sources: Daily Mail  The Sun  ABC LA  NBC NY  NY Post  The Mirror  Fox 8  People.com  USA Today  Fox News  Audio Sources: KTLA 5  KCEN News  KWTX 

Hey true crime besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly with me, your host, Annie Elise. Today we are doing headline highlights, meaning we are going through, I mean, it's obviously pretty obvious, right? We are going through all the headline highlights this week. Everything that's going on in the true crime world. And there's one case that I really want to break down in more detail than usual for these episodes where it's the one you probably have seen it somewhere on your feed. If you haven't, don't worry. I'm going to break it all down for you, but it's the missing woman from Maui. It is a very, very interesting story. We have

a lot to talk about with it, so there are some other cases I want to just touch on first, and then we're going to like deep dive, or mini deep dive, I should say, into that case. But let's first talk about a very bizarre case where a microchipped dog ended up helping identify a woman's killer. Now this story is just all around crazy, if I'm going to be honest, and it certainly is a case where, thankfully, justice was served. But let me break it down for you. So a man named Derek Dagnall was just sentenced to life in prison on November 7th. This was for murdering his cousin, Mandy Reynolds, back in April of 2023. But you will never believe this, because one of the key players who actually

led to the arrest of Derek was none other than Mandy's pupster, her loyal little puppy dog. So let's dive back into 2023 and let me break down how this all went down. So an unidentified body was found burning in a storage container on April 5th. The storage container was just sitting there on a field in Texas. However, when the body was discovered, the remains were burnt beyond recognition, and nobody had any idea who it could possibly be. Also, what they found in that storage container was a shell casing. Now, first responders on the scene also saw a white dog that was apparently just like frantically barking and was also refusing to leave. The next day, after the

body had been removed, witnesses said that the dog stayed in that exact same spot and just would still not leave the scene. Like, I don't know. I know dogs are loyal guys, but like this is next level. So the officials realized, okay, something must be up here. Like what is going on with this dog? Why is this dog not leaving? So they took the dog into custody and it turned out that this little pupster, his name was Titan, was microchipped. The microchip also showed that Titan belonged to a woman named Mandy Reynolds. So they immediately, of course, went to go search her home, check her out, say like, hey, your dog's been sitting in this field, is everything okay? But when the police got to Mandy's home, they found that it was completely basically empty. Somebody had stolen all of her possessions.

Somebody had stolen her car, just taken it. And things looked super shady. Then two days later, somebody was spotted driving Mandy's car. But they weren't in Texas. They were in Kansas. And the person driving turned out to be her cousin Derek. So police tried to pull Derek over, but then he sped away trying to get like in this high-speed chase thinking he could get away and he crashed into another car.

So he got out, he ran into a grocery store, you know, trying to hide as though you can like hide behind the canned food aisle. I don't know, but you know, he was caught obviously and he was taken into custody by police. So when the police then went and searched her stolen car, they immediately found Mandy's cell phone along with a handgun. So the the police then went and searched her stolen car, they immediately found Mandy's cell phone along with a handgun. So the next step was for the crime lab to confirm that the gun was a match to that shell casing that had been found in that storage container with the remains. And when they matched it, they were also able to determine that it was used to kill Mandy with a single gunshot to the head. So then more security footage was found, and it was found of Derek leading up to Mandy's murder.

Surveillance video caught Derek at a Walmart on April 5th buying that storage container, the identical one to the one Mandy was burned in. He also bought a shovel, and he bought a gas can. And how people still do not understand that there is CCTV footage, camera footage footage all the things and you just like go to walmart or target or lowe's or wherever you're going and you have like this how to dispose of a body murder kit on your list you are a moron but like i say we love to see it we love to see

dummies we love to see their google history we love to see them and their receipts so thank you for being so stupid it makes law enforcement's job a lot easier but anyway so they see him on camera buying all this stuff and in addition to being seen on camera in the store as he was leaving the parking lot titan that little pupster that loyal dog of mandy's is seen sticking his furry little head out of the car window so he had taken this little dog with him for this like kill list, body disposal list of the dog's owner and not for nothing but Derek's cousin. Now Derek actually turned out to also have a pretty long criminal record and a pretty big history of violence if I'm going to

be honest. He had been convicted nine times in the past. He had been convicted of burglary, aggravated assault, possession of drugs, criminal discharge of a firearm. I mean, the list just goes on and on and on and on. There was also a warrant out for his arrest at the time of the murder for felony probation. Take a listen. He'd been to prison in Kansas before for violent offenses. They even learned he had shot another individual as a juvenile in Kansas. He was just extremely, and is an extremely violent individual, and he cannot be trusted with the safety of this or any other community. So life, we felt like, was the only just verdict.

So his cousin Mandy was apparently letting Derek stay with her for a month until he got back on his feet, just being truly like a nice, kind-hearted family member, right? So I mean, how this went from her literally letting him stay with her and putting a roof over his scummy head to him shooting her and then burning her body, it's just absurd to me. He was clearly a very violent person, but Mandy was just trying to help. She was trying to look out for someone in her family, her cousin, like trying to be a good person. She's always wanting to, eager I guess to say, to help others. Very outgoing. She didn't like staying in one place for very long. In the end, it took the jury only 40 minutes to decide that Derek was guilty, and they sentenced his sorry ass to life in prison on November 7th. However, he will be eligible for parole after

serving 30 years. Now, during the trial, it did get pretty heated, which I guess makes sense since the victim and the murderer are literally in the same family. I mean, there was definitely bound to be some level of divide, so family members started fighting each other after the verdict was announced. Some of them even had to be escorted out in handcuffs, which I have to say, that is, not only is it to be expected to some degree, because some family members will always be loyal to family members, regardless what they've done, what they've been charged with, convicted of, but it's like, now when you look at it and really break it down, not only did this sleazeball Derek kill his cousin who was trying

to help him for whatever reason, but now he has completely divided his entire family. He's not only ruined their lives by killing a family member of theirs, but ruined their lives by now they're turning against their own family members. It's horrible. In the trial too, Derek was just kind of like a piece of crap. He had been constantly interrupting the judge. He was interrupting family members as they were testifying on Mandy's behalf. I mean, just a true garbage human being through and through. All of these people on both sides are all members of the same family. So there's a lot of bitterness and anger and hurt between those people and so that erupted a little bit following the verdict. One of the attorneys on the case said that since Mandy didn't really have any ties to the area her dog Titan was one of the keys to solving her murder which you got to just

say we all love dogs right I'm a dog girl through and through they're loyal they're cute they're fluffy they're amazing but like talk about true love and loyalty because Titan literally refused to leave Mandy no matter what. So you can tell just how much love was between them, a dog and its owner, the bond, all of it. She spoiled that dog bad. Just talk about, you know, loved and spoiled puppy. He was definitely that. He knew his mama and he had nothing but love for her. And in a very heartwarming detail, just days after the murder, Mandy's best friend ended up adopting Titan. And she said that he is doing very well. He's acclimating to his new home and she took him in as her own,

which I think that is just so beyond sweet. Now, this next case has a couple of twists, but it's gonna start almost sounding identical to the last case that we discussed, but I promise you, your hearing is intact, you're hearing this right, but a man has been arrested and charged with murder after human remains were found on a property in Texas. Sounds familiar, right? What's going on in Texas? What's in the water? But what's even crazier is that these remains belonged to the missing mother of his eight-year-old child. So Mahogany Washington, along with her eight-year-old son, were back reported missing on June 19th, but their family

told the police that they actually hadn't seen or spoken to them since July of 2022, which that's a pretty long time ago, right? So I'm not really sure why it took so long for her and the child to be declared missing but that's how it went down. So the father of Mahogany's son was a man named Michael Dean Davis Jr. They weren't married but they did have a child together and Michael was supposedly living on a property in Buffalo, Texas and the investigation into Mahogany's disappearance led to him being a suspect in it. So on October 22nd, the Leon County Sheriff's Office searched Michael's home in Buffalo. Now Michael was nowhere to be seen, but what they did find was pretty horrifying because on the property they found human remains.

The Criminal Investigation Division confirmed that the remains belonged to Mahogany, Washington. However, through all of that, there was still no sign of Michael and still no sign of their eight-year-old son. Now, a little bit after finding the body, police were tipped off that Michael had actually moved, and he was now supposedly living with the missing son in Laredo, Texas, which is about 130 miles away from Buffalo. So authorities decided to then stalk out Michael's home. They knew that Michael was probably armed, and he was also apparently known to have pretty violent tendencies, so they had to come up with a plan to get Michael in custody without harming their child,

even though they still didn't even know if the child was actually living with him or was safe or alive. So on November 12th, they waited in front of his home, and it was when Michael walked out just to check his mail, a simple little walking out front errand, and police swarmed the property and arrested him. There's also a picture that was snapped of Michael being put in the back of the police car, and let me just say, this picture is pretty haunting, because Michael looks all disheveled, his shirt is unzipped. His hair is all messy. His eyes have this like wild empty look to them. It is so cringe, so crazy. So after they get him in the car and like away, they go inside to search his home. And when they did, that is

when they found his eight-year-old son, who luckily was unharmed through all of this. Inside the house, police also found multiple rifles, a gas mask, and an armored suit. The son was put into the care of CPS, and Michael is currently being held at Webb County Jail. His bond is set at three million dollars, and he's facing murder charges as well as additional charges of endangerment of a child. What the motive was here, what the motive was here, what the plan was here, who knows? Who knows if he was going to end up trying to kill his son, maybe kill himself? Who knows? To have like a gas mask and all these things is a little bit bizarre, but I'm just thankful that they found him, they caught him. His bond is incredibly high,

so hopefully he won't be getting out anytime soon and hopefully the son will go with relatives or at least a loving family. It still is an ongoing investigation with so many unanswered questions though because Mahogany's cause of death hasn't been confirmed. We still don't know why he killed her. We don't know if maybe they were in a custody battle so I'm going to keep tabs on this and I will definitely keep you updated. Now this next case isn't in Texas but it's Texas adjacent and it is very very disturbing and honestly I don't know what's in the air. It's not far from Texas as I said but it is kind of another similar story about human remains being found on a property. However not Texas this. This time it's New Mexico. And also a little bit of a difference

this time. Instead of actual like full bodies and human remains, what was found was fragments of up to 20 human skulls. Which, this is just so insane because it just shows how many freaks and creeps are truly out there. So this all started after a very disturbing chance encounter. In Jal, a city in New Mexico, a local resident was giving a man named Cecil Villanueva. I'm sorry, it is such a mouthful, guys. Villanueva. One more time. Villanueva.

People are going to come for me, but I'm trying as hard as I can, guys. It's a tongue twister. Cecil. Cec cecil so a resident was giving cecil a ride the man said that cecil had two suspicious bags with him though and was also making very quote alarming statements to this other man throughout the drive and if that wasn't already creepy enough cecil apparently then started throwing and scattering things out of the car and the things that he was like chucking out the window it wasn't like littering it wasn't a McDonald's cup not that that's okay I hate littering but it looked like they could be bones like pieces of bones just chucking them out the window which what meaning that Cecil literally hopped into this random

stranger's car with two strange bags and just started saying weird things and throwing what looked to be broken bones out of the car. I honestly have no idea what I would do if I was in this driver's position. It's honestly so creepy and so scary. So obviously, this driver reported what happened to the police, and then on November 5th, authorities decided to search the area. When they did, they found the bone fragments that Cecil had been throwing from the car and it was later confirmed that they were, in fact, human bones. Experts later said that the remains included parts of the human skull and parts of the human jawbone.

So then the authorities did a very extensive search of the property that Cecil was staying at, which was where even more bones were found, and they found a total of up to 20 human skulls. Two zero. I mean, it is just unheard of. It is, it was like his own personal freaking graveyard, just purely for human skulls, which my question is, where are the rest of the bodies, right? Also, the home that Cecil was staying at is, quote, associated with rumors of human remains, which I don't know what that exactly means, if that means that there are more human remains there or what the deal is, like a true house of horrors, but it's all just chilling, freaky, and like, honestly, a complete mystery at this point. Now, obviously, the community and just everybody is, you know, obviously unsettled, to say the least.

The bones are currently being examined and tested, but that could take up to a month for results to actually come in, for any answers to come through. So for now, everybody is just wondering, who did these bones belong to? How did they die? How did they get there? Were they all killed by the same person? Is this place literally just a dumping ground? So hopefully these questions all get answered by the investigation, but right now a lot of things are honestly just left in the dark. Investigators are also looking into how any of these remains could be tied to missing persons cases, and there is one particular that is catching everybody's attention. 43-year-old Angela McMains went missing in 2019 and she was living on the same exact street when she went missing

as where the bones were found. Authority said that these remains could be closely tied to her disappearance just because of how close she was to the property. However, they haven't released any other details. Angela's children, who were 18, 16, and 14 years old when she went missing, have all been desperately searching for their mother. When Angela disappeared, she left behind her wallet, her phone, and her diabetes medication. She was also known to be a super protective mom who would never just like up and leave her kids. Since she's gone missing, the case has grown cold. However, now as you can imagine,

her family is waiting to see if any of those remains come back as a match to their missing mother. And I mean, maybe if it is a match, maybe it can bring the family some sort of peace or closure. But regardless of that, it would still just be so heartbreaking to find a family member's remains. So my heart goes out to all of the families involved. Investigators are also seeing if maybe there's a possibility that any of these remains were being purchased or sold online. Because there is a market for that on the dark web, as disgusting as that is. But in the end, it all really depends on the test results to decide where to go next with this investigation. As for Cecil,

he's kind of an enigma to me. He was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor of criminal trespassing, and he's currently being held in jail. But there's not any information about him yet to any sort of connection to the remains. Also, no connection to if he owns the property that he was staying at, if he's a suspect. It's really just a true massive mystery. So I'm going to keep you updated. I'm going to follow this one closely. It is definitely a weird one. We're now going to take a quick, quick break. I'm going to just grab something to drink. We're going to hear from our sponsors. Then I want to talk to you about this stabbing spree that just went down in New York City, and then we are going to do the mini deep

dive into the missing woman from Maui. So we will be right back. So just this past Monday in New York City, a man went on some kind of like crazy stabbing spree, leaving three people dead. 51 year old Raymond Rivera allegedly walked up to three different people in three different locations in Manhattan and just completely unprovoked, he just attacked them. The first stabbing happened in the morning outside of a construction site in Chelsea, which is a really busy area around like 23rd Street. I don't know if you're familiar with New York, but it's a really busy area. A 36-year-old man was working, and Raymond allegedly just walked up to him and stabbed him in the stomach. The man was taken to the hospital, but unfortunately, he didn't make it. Now, not long after that,

Raymond then went to Kipps Bay, and he went up to a man who was fishing, and he stabbed him multiple times. The 68-year-old fisherman was transported to a hospital as well, but then passed away a day later. And that wasn't enough, because then Raymond attacked a third person. This time, he walked up to a 36-year-old woman in Midtown, and he stabbed her. And she also sadly passed away. So none of the victims made it. Now, all of these killings, get this, they happened within just two and a half hours of each other. I mean, it all happened so fast. Like, it truly was a killing spree, one after the other, and, like, traveling to all these different corners of New York. And it was also just, it's so insane when you think about how it was so out in the open.

And, you know, just populated areas just out in the open for anybody to see. So he clearly didn't care about being seen or being caught. And I saw this homeless guy walking with a purse. And then I saw this guy in the car telling him, stop, drop the bag, stop. I told him to stop. It's not worth it. There's going to be cops up ahead. And of course, he didn't listen. This is where I live. And for three people to get to be stabbed out of the blue, it's sad and shocking. Raymond does have a history of serious mental health issues,

and he had also been released from prison just a month before these attacks. And actually, Raymond had spent most of this past year behind bars. He was serving time for burglary, assault convictions, grand larceny, and the list goes on and on. But I mean, he had at least eight arrests in just New York City alone, and he also had so many more run-ins with the police because of his mental health issues. He also spent time in a psych facility this past May where he reportedly assaulted one of the officers there. He also has criminal records in other states. So just a very checkered, long, lengthy history. But my question is, how was this guy with such an intense history

of violence and so many arrests and so many run-ins with the law just out able to walk the streets? He also had a detailed history of mental health issues and and sadly him being allowed out and about resulted in three people losing their lives. There's some real questions that we need to look at on why he was on the street and he has some severe mental health issues that should have been examined and that's what we're looking at as part of the investigation. Raymond is currently being held in custody and is charged with three counts of first-degree murder. According to the police, he also actually confessed to the stabbings during the interrogation.

So we'll see if this was just, you know, a component of mental health, if there was something else at play, but it's definitely heartbreaking for all of the families. Now let's talk about this case that was going down from Maui to LAX in California, all of these things, because there were some really weird text messages sent before this woman disappeared. Let me rewind a bit. So on November 8th, Hannah Kobayashi was flying from her home in Maui, Hawaii to visit her family in New York City. However, Hannah never made it. She somehow just vanished into thin air. The 31-year-old woman was catching a connecting flight in Los Angeles. However, when she landed in LAX, she somehow missed her connecting flight to New York. So a lot of people think that, okay, well, because she missed the connecting flight, maybe she just decided to stay a couple of days in LA. She also had attended

an event in LA on November 10th at the Grove Shopping Center, which is about an hour away from the airport. It was a Nike event, and she even posted a photo of a LeBron James logo and a Nike logo on her Instagram page. She was also seen on video at this event. Now at this point, she was still in contact with her family, and she had told them about her new plans for getting to New York, that she was just taking, you know, a little pit stop in LA after all. She even had plans with her aunt to go see a show together when she got to New York. So the next day on November 11th, Hannah went back to the LAX airport, but for some reason, she never ended up boarding any other flight. Her phone was also completely turned off, and she stopped having any communication with her family and her friends.

All of her phone calls then started going straight to voicemail. None of the text messages were going through, and her family said that there was also no way of tracking her location. But then things got more worrisome when Hannah's family and friends revealed a series of very unusual text messages that were sent from Hannah the day before. She sent a text to her aunt saying, I'm charging my phone and heading back to the airport to get to NYC. I might need some help getting there. It's a long story. She also texted some friends of hers saying that she was headed back to the also texted some friends of hers saying that she was headed back to the airport to get to New York and that she had just finished a very intense spiritual awakening. Her mom also got text messages saying that she hadn't been able to get to New

York yet and that somebody had hacked her and had taken her identity so that she could not fly. She also said that she was scared that she couldn't go back home. Then one of her friends got a pretty insane text message. It said, quote, I got pretty much tricked into giving away all of my funds for somebody that I thought that I loved. In another text message, it said that she had been, quote, deep hacked. She said that somebody hacked her, completely wiped her identity, stole all of her money, and that she was just left wildly confused and lost. Now there's a lot of questions about this, right? Did she have some sort of secret relationship? Was this why she missed the connecting flight? Because she was meeting up with this secret lover in LA and spending a few days

with them? Who was this mystery person? What was this spiritual awakening that she had that was so intense? Were there drugs involved? Was she catfished? I mean, so many questions. But the thing about all of these text messages is that everyone in her family, her mom, her sister, her aunt, her friends, they all thought that these messages were weird. They thought that they just did not sound like Hannah. Now, at some point in the text messages, she also called family members of hers, babe, which she had never done before. That's like, imagine if you're texting your brother or your uncle right now, or somebody may be like, hey, babe, hey, this, like, it just feels out of the ordinary, right? Now, speaking of the spiritual awakening, Hannah was known to be a free spirit, but she definitely would never just disappear on

her family without a trace. So the whole situation is just so, so beyond out of character for Hannah, making everything all the more unsettling. We have like an unwritten rule that we always check in, that no matter if it's me, Sid, Hope, or Hannah, that we, it's like, like okay i'm here and i'm safe it's it's not a it's not a normal behavior of hers to just completely disappear or to to have something so planned out um because once she has her mindset on something as far as traveling and become hell or high water she's there we wouldn't be here her father wouldn't be here her aunt wouldn't be here her uncles wouldn't be here if we thought that this was normal behavior hannah doesn't know a Now, it also came out, in an interesting detail, that Hannah's ex-boyfriend was also on that flight with her from Maui to L.A.

They had booked this trip together before they broke up. However, they apparently didn't speak on the plane, and he ended up boarding that connecting flight to New York when Hannah stayed behind. So is there something suspicious there? I don't know. He ended up going all the way through to New York where she didn't. Hannah's father also has come out saying that the ex-boyfriend has been cooperating with the authorities and with her family. But it is strange, right? And I mean, the whole thing, it's also strange. Hannah missed the connecting flight and stayed an extra three days in LA. She apparently attended events. Those text messages she sent to her family about losing her money, her identity,

and not feeling safe, but then her family saying those text messages didn't sound like they were coming from Hannah. I mean, the whole thing kind of feels like a wild goose chase or something. Oddly, I don't even know the word. Just, I want to say fabricated, but maybe not. But like, could somebody have taken her phone, not only sent those messages, but posted some of the photos showing she was at this event? If it was just the logos? We've seen in a lot of recent cases, unfortunately, people continue to try to pretend they are assuming that person's identity or whatever, because they want people to think that they're still alive. Could she have said that somebody stole her identity,

but maybe that wasn't really her who was saying that, it was somebody else, so that there was some sort of cover-up if there were funds that were missing, to where they're like, oh yeah, her identity got stolen, that's why, but really it was this person? I don't know.

So what I mean by that, sorry, I know I'm talking in circles, is like, did she not say that her identity was stolen, but was it the person who stole her identity saying that as part of the cover-up? It's just so, so strange. So, all of this was happening in, you know, early to mid-month. But then, on November 17th, Hannah's family posted on Facebook saying that they saw security footage of Hannah spotted somewhere in downtown LA. She was in the Pico Metro Station area, and her family's post said that in the

footage, Hannah looked like she was in very bad condition. Also, that she was not alone. So I'm not sure if that means another person was literally seen physically with her, if maybe she looked like she was speaking to somebody, or if maybe this other person was somebody that the family recognized. That was the only detail that was released about the video, just that she was in bad condition and that she wasn't alone. Now, this investigation is obviously ongoing, so new details and new information about Hannah are coming out as time goes on, and Hannah's family is urging anyone, absolutely anyone with information to help find her.

It's also being said that there is a lot more information that's known, however, it's not being posted online because they don't want to jeopardize the investigation. So, and I completely understand that, especially if they don't want to tip somebody off, but I have been getting a lot of requests for this case. We will definitely keep our eyes on it. Hopefully, Hannah is found safe, sound, well, reunited with her family, but I'd imagine it's only a matter of time before the truth comes out. It always does, right? The whole mystery is just so crazy and so sad for everybody involved, so let me know what you think about this case. Spread this. Share the link to this episode so that hopefully more people are

aware of this case, and let's just hope that Hannah is found safe and sound thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode of headline highlights I will be back on the mic with you first thing Monday morning with an all-new deep dive of a case and as a reminder if you want access to over 70 bonus episodes that we put out every week they're exclusive to apple podcast or patreon and they're all ad free you can get access to that through the apple podcast app or over on patreon patreon.com slash annie elise we put out a bonus episode every single week we've been doing it for a while so right now you can unlock about 70 bonus episodes if you do that and you can check that out if you feel like you need more content to binge. All right, guys. Thank you so much. I will be back on the mic with you soon.

And until the next one, stay safe. Be nice. Don't kill people. Just get a divorce and just don't be a bad human. All right. Bye, guys. Thank you.