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Trees went missing, she did give several interviews. She told the Los Angeles Times that after my Trease was released, she was given a phone and made several calls. Cummings told the paper that she did not listen to My Teresa's conversations, but she said she did have discussions with her about topics including gospel music and karma. Steve Whitmore, the LASD Community Information Officer, talked about coming statement in

a press conference. Cummings said that she encouraged my Trees to stay the night and told her that she could have breakfast in the morning. Before leaving. She said that My Trees seemed to waver for a moment and said maybe I'll stay, But then My Trees told Cummings that she had changed her mind. She wanted to leave, Cummings told Eyewitness News in a two thousand and nine interview. When I found out she didn't have a ride, I asked her, why don't you stay? It's kind of dark

and a bit cool. You don't have a jacket. I knew she lived out in la and didn't know the area, but she said she didn't want to spend the night in jail, and she was hooking up with some friends. So my Treece walked out the side door of the police station. One of the main criticisms that has been leveled at the Lost Hill Sheriff's station is the fact that the officers should have recognized that my Treece was

in a fragile mental state. My Teres's family believed that all evidence points to the fact that she should have been taken to a hospital, not a jail cell, But in later depositions, the officers denied that my Terce was behaving strangely. They said that my trees passed a field sobriety test and that she seemed to be absolutely fine, so their decision to release her in the middle of the night was the right call. So is it possible that the officers did not realize that my Teres was

having some sort of mental breakdown. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is hell and gone. Almost everyone who encountered my Trees in the twenty four hour period before she disappeared agreed something was wrong with her. This included her mother, her aunt Ronda, her former professor, and her boss. It also included the Geoffrey staff and the diners at the restaurant who interacted with my Trees and then later gave their

statements to police. Police officers who were put in a position of determining someone's mental health and deciding whether to hold someone against their will without violating their civil rights or in a tough position, so we wanted to know what were the police officer's options at that point. In the state of California, arrested individuals who were considered to be a danger to themselves or others due to signs of mental illness can be subject to involuntary psychiatric evaluation

and commitment for up to seventy two hours. This is called a fifty one fifty hold, and my Teresa's family is adamant that a fifty one to fifty hold is exactly what should have happened prior to her arrest. My Trees did not have an official mental health diagnosis, but based on the way that she was acting, people close to her believed she was undiagnosed by polar and could be experiencing some type of manic episode. Now, making an

armchair diagnosis, especially in hindsight, can be dicey. We know that my Trees was exhibiting symptoms, including possible hallucinations because we know that she told one of the diners that a character on a soap opera had been talking to her. Also delusional thinking based on a lot of the comments that she made, and potentially hypersexuality when she offered to settle her bill for sex if she was experienced sing a bipolar episode. My Trese was in a very vulnerable position.

Early on, police speculated that my Tries could have died of suicide, particularly because she appeared to be suffering some type of mental distress, but they also said in their depositions that she did not exhibit behavior that they believe qualified her for a fifty to one to fifty hold. They insisted that having made that determination, they had no legal reason to hold her and were correct in their

decision to release her after midnight. So police have stated both that my Trees was in such mental distress that she could have run off a cliff and plunged to her death, and that she seemed to be absolutely fine. So which is it. To get answers, we have to dive into the hard evidence that we do have from the night that my Terse went missing, including the messages sent between the officers and their radio communication records. First,

there's the arresting officer, Armando Lurero. He said in a deposition that when he went to Joffrey's, he was responding to a possible three ninety, which is the code that would indicate a drunk person for a black female unable to pay her bill. But the defrauding and innkeeper charge and the small amount of pot that my Trees had on her were misdemeanor citations, and his fellow officer on the scene, Frank Brower, testified that my Trees passed a

field sobriety test. So if she wasn't under the influence and he believed that she was fine, why did Lurero make the decision to impound my Trees's car, hard book her, and take her into custody. After Lurero and his fellow officers were finished at Joffrey's, he transported my Trees to

the station in his cruiser. This was around eight forty five p m. In a later deposition, Lorero said that he believed that he arrived with my Trees at the station at around nine fifty p m. Once they arrived, Jaylor Charon Cummings fingerprinted my trees and took her photograph

to assist in the booking process. Lorero said he never discussed any concerns with my Teres's mental state, either to Charon or to his watch sergeant when he went in to discuss the probable cause statement, basically laying out the reasons for the arrest. He said in a deposition that he had observed my Trees for any potential signs of her needing to be detained for a fifty one to fifty mental health evaluation, and apparently he determined that this

was not necessary. But an email mentioned in that deposition could provide some clues to his motive. The email, which Mike Kessler quoted in his Los Angeles Magazine story, was from one of Lorero's Lost Hills colleagues. Lieutenant Scott two Kessler wrote, quote, deputies had considered letting Richardson go with a citation, but decided to arrest her in part because

witnesses had said she'd been acting strangely end quote. Chu said in the email that Lorero told him that he'd made the decision to hard book my trees at the station because she was acting in a bizarre manner, and he said that he wanted to quote make sure that she was all right end quote. Now this was in direct contradiction to Lorero's testimony, and many people also questioned

what was transmitted over the police messaging system. It later emerged that Lorero and John McKay were assigned to take the call, but Brower had assigned himself after seeing the details. Why did they need three officers to respond to a call of a young woman who couldn't pay a restaurant tab. John McKay, one of the officers on the scene, said that at ten thirteen pm, he sent a message to another officer that read citizens arrest. He got a message back that read why didn't you help a sister out?

So officially, the police's line was that they never believed that my terse was showing signs of mental instability. Remember Kenneth the valet. He was the first person who encountered my terse at Jeffrey's that night, and the first one to notice that she seemed to be acting off. He spoke to the deputies who came to Jeffrey's, and afterwards they provided him with a written statement summarizing what he said.

But when he took a closer look, he noticed that some of the descriptions in the statement didn't match what he said, so he corrected those statements, crossing some of it out and making additions in his own handwriting. The

details and the rewritten statement are jarring. For example, the typewritten statement reads, at no time on the night of September sixteenth, or during the early morning hours September seventeenth, two thousand and nine, did I ever speak to any of the LASD deputies that arrived or any other law enforcement personnel. But Kenneth crossed that part out. He wrote, I spoke to two of the LASD deputies who were on the scene. I asked what happened and or what's

wrong with her? One deputy replied, she's a ding. I told the other deputy that it seemed like she was off her medication or had too much medication. Doctor Ronda Hampton spent years reading and obsessing over every single minute detail of the communications among these officers. Many times she saw that the police made reference to my trese as a ding and that Kenneth the valet also said he'd

overheard the police officers calling her a ding. At first, she said, she didn't realize the significance of this information. I'll be she thought it was short for a dingbat, but she later learned that in law enforcement circles, it's shorthand for someone who probably needs a fifty one to fifty psychiatric evaluation. And she discovered that by happenstance, my

dumb ass didn't even know what a ding was. I just thought, oh, I mean a ding that well, I knew it meant somebody was dinghy right, Yeah, but I didn't realize it was like an official thing that they called people who had were fifty one to fifty from the shriff of herm right, So me and mind her.

I'm taking a crochet class at Michael's Right. The person who was giving the class was a sheriff, and I don't know she sent something about either giving Croeschek houses and it's somehow she used the word ding and while she was telling us about this crochet thing, and I was like Dan, I was like, why you said ding? And then she goes, oh, that's what we call people who need to be on a fifty one fifty. And then we have a Dan Ward that's in the jail. Wow. Yeah,

so that's how I found that out. Wow. I'm like, so when they said ding, they know damn well that that's an official Well, they're not supposed to say it, but you called some high a ding. Then you know they asked me to be a fifty one fifty. So who I mean, they get back to the station, they decide, for whatever reason not to not to fifty one fifty or her And why did they They ever tell you why they did that. Well, what they will tell you

is that she was acting perfectly normal. So you've got somebody at the scene who passes to feel sobriety test who talk about she's from Mars reading people's palms, crazy as fuck, and you call her a dank and then you send your email to your captain say she did see but she was perfectly fine. Make no damn sense. Once police found out that my Trees had no outstanding warrants, and crucially, having apparently made the determination that she was not a fifty one to fifty risk, my Trees was released.

Cummings said that jailers are trained to contact their watch sergeant or watch commander if the detainees show signs of mental instability, but she said that my Trice was calm, so this didn't happen. And one of the biggest challenges of diagnosing mental health issues is the fact that someone experiencing an episode can seem lucid one minute and unstable the next. And if the arresting officers did not tell Cummings about my Terce's bizarre behavior, she may not have

known that there could be potential mental health issues. Reading between the lines of the comments she's made in interviews, it does seem that Cummings was nervous about letting my Trees leave in the middle of the night, but she seemed to think that there was nothing more that she could do. Once again, it seems that at every turn, My Trees slipped through the cracks. So much joint down right now, okay, Weta Reservation put three for a thousand.

Ye all, we're back at Jeffrey's, the restaurant where My Trees's Night began on the night she disappeared, and this time were with reporter Cec Woods. I've got my mole, which I still don't even know who my mole is, but my mole, actually I don't. I have no idea, but I do have to tell you. So he's like, just show them that picture of you in the bikini on Instagram. That'll man, that'll work. In twenty fourteen, Cec started the local Malibu. She's currently editor in chief of

that publication. She also founded the magazine Malibu nine oh two sixty five. She describes herself as an activist and reporter. They treat me like I'm a nobody, and I really don't care. It's okay, because guess what, I have multiple projects going on that are all national, global, whatever you want them to be, and they're all involving you. And yet they think I'm just this little blondie for Malibu,

which is okay, go ahead, I'll give fuck. She's in your face and sometimes says outrageous things, but she is getting taken seriously and she's broken some huge stories. Yeah, I love being underestimated. I fucking love it. And that's what happened with the Malbury Creek State Park shootings. I was underestimated. I was this little blonde Malibu barbie to them, and blahbery blah blah blah whatever. I don't give fuck. Over the years, she has developed a tight knit working

relationship with the Lost Hills Sheriff's Department. She has a close relationship with a lot of the officers, but she's not afraid to hold them accountable, so much so that she says her reputation is on the line if they ever pull any bullshit. I'm like, my reputation is tied to you guys. Don't you ever motherfucking do this shit on my watch? Okay, whatever they did, and I mean that like I'm willing to lose my life over this shit.

Like my kids can take care of themselves, but you're not doing this on my watch in my community with me supporting you guys. Fuck that shit. I don't want this shit happening in my community. That's like number one. And knowing that there's a bunch of fucking rogue cops getting away with abuse of power at my local station like nothing makes me angrier. She's also on a first named basis with the Sheriff of Los Angeles County, Alex Villanueva.

He's the most powerful law enforcement official in the largest county in the country, but CEC's texts always get priority, despite an atmosphere that can make it challenging for law enforcement to have relationships with journalists. CEC has several sources inside the department. During our meeting, she gets a call

from one of them. It's true, I love you. I always say that in this job, a lot of the most productive information comes out at happy hour, and she clearly believes in the power of building relationships that is. Ceci's also seen the dark side of the Sheriff's station and exposed a lot of their dirty laundry, including in one of the biggest cases that she's worked on so far, the Malibu Creek State Park shootings. Cec said that crime was never her area of expertise until true crime came

to her neighborhood. She said she was terrified when her neighbors started talking about multiple shootings in Malibu and a possible serial killer on the loose, one that, she says the police were not warning the public about I exposed the Malibu Creek State Park shootings, and that was by accident. I was just in public safety reporting doing my thing, and then all of a sudden, this shooting happens, and I'm like, Wow, what the fuck? There's a murder happening.

And I don't even know how to deal with the murder because murder's not my wheelhouse. But I don't do that shit. It was just instinctual, like people just started emailing me and sending me information. I'm like, Okay, I guess I have to write about this. How am I going to write about this? I had to sit down and think about how I'm going to write about murder, and so I sat down and I kind of figured it out. And in the beginning I was a real smart ass, and I kind of want to go back

to being smart ass. I have to tell you, because you know what, I like smartass. Alex would say, tell Ussy to write an article. I need a laugh, okay, because I would just make fun of the homicide. I would make fun of everybody. When thirty two year old father of two Tristan Boudette was found shot to death in his tent on June twenty second, twenty eighteen, the case made international headlines. Then in October twenty eighteen, a drifter named Anthony Rauda was arrested for a parole violation.

According to the local Malibu he was arrested for possession of a weapon authority says can assistant with and or a matching the murder weapon that killed Tristan Bodett. But Ceci says she doesn't believe that Rauda is responsible for all of the shootings, and she says that there's been a law enforcement cover up dating back to twenty sixteen.

She reported in the paper that several shootings took place before a Bodett was shot, and that quote the shootings were purposely hidden from the public by state parks officials and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, under the direction of former Sheriff MacDonnell, who was complicit in the cover up end quote. Eventually, Rauda was charged with Bodet's murder and with ten other counts of attempted murder and five counts of burglary. But cec continues to question every piece of

information that's released by the Sheriff's department. She says that her sources tell her there's no ballistics match to the alleged murder weapon. She says that there continues to be unexplained gunfire in Malibu Creek State Park and that she believes a killer may still be out there. Cecy found out about my Teresa's case after one of her readers saw Ronda and Chip's documentary and forwarded it to Cec. Then she met Ronda, and working together, they started to

dig deeper into my Teresa's case. After all of the investigating that I've done and the hundreds of thousands of man hours that I've logged in with Ronda at four o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, five o'clock in the morning, like we get up and we call each other. It doesn't matter what time it is, Like that's the reality.

Her and I are like on the same speed. She is a cyberstalker in extraordinary and what she does is she just goes and digs shit and she sends it right to me, and I'm like, Okay, what do you want to do with it? Do we write about it? Do we sit on it? What do we do? And So what I believe happened was that as we sit at Draffrey's right now, and as I talk to the owner of Draffrees not too long ago, probably about a week ago, they felt that she was in the best

hands for public safety. When the cops came, they should have called the MET team, which is the mental evaluation team. They did not. The police have admitted that mistakes were made on the night that my Terse went missing, but through their investigation, CC and Ronda began to believe that something much more sinister than just a miscall and a mental health evaluation went on at the station. CC has written several expose as on alleged law enforcement cover ups.

Earlier this year, CC broke the story of a young woman who was sexually assaulted at a Malibu condominium in the early morning hours of February eighth. A transient walked in an unlocked door and allegedly fondled the victim, but when the incident was reported to police, officers reportedly took forty five minutes to arrive at the scene and basically concluded that the alleged victim may have had too much

to drink. CECI heard about the story, she helped the victim track down surveillance footage which clearly showed a man entering her home. A few days later, thirty four year old Matthew Fairchild was arrested and charged with intent to commit a sex crime. According to the Malibu Times quote, the matter was festering until a Malibu tabloid publisher, CEC Woods reportedly sent the photos and a complaint to Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who has been known to frequently consult with

Woods on Malibu issues end quote. After CEC's article came out, the Times received complaints from residents who were outraged that police did not immediately warn them of potential danger or try to track down the suspect, and then Lost Hills Captain Matthew Vanderhork was demoted and relieved a duty when this sexual predator happened. When I got the captain because he fucked up, I literally texted the captain and I said, I want to know who those motherfucking deputies are. I

want to come into your station. I want to look them in the motherfucking face, and I want to let them fucking know you will never do this in my community again. And I am not kidding. I was so angry. I was ready to take the bar alloh yank it and throw it against the wall when the community member came to me and told me what had happened. CEC has also written an expose about former Lost Hills Captain

Tom Martin. Martin was accused of sexual assault and the alleged victim says that the incident took place just months before my trees ended up at Lost Hill Station. In no way does CEC's experience prove that something more sinister happened to my trees at the Lost Hill Station, but it does paint a compelling picture of the Sheriff's department

at the time. Basically, CC labels the era at the Lost Hill Station before Sheriff Llanueva took office the wild West, and she describes the environment there zero oversight, populated with rogue cops. She talked about this when we talked on the phone with her a few weeks before in person meeting.

It's a station that has been known for a rogue pop behavior, and I am very happy to report that since we had a change in captain, which I was instrumental in exposing some of the things this captain was not taken care of, which allows these cops to get in that rogue cops way, and you know, if you don't have the right leadership, they're just gonna see what

they want. Now they know that they especially now after this whole George Floyd and the civil uprising, but even before this happened, being able to expose this behavior on social media and the relationships that I've been able to nurture with a sheriff's department and with the sheriff has really made a serious difference in our community and at

the station. Now, some of this may sound like a movie plot, but the LASD has been involved in scandals to make the movie LA Confidential look like a documentary. In twenty thirteen, following a massive investigation, federal officials and dieted eighteen current and former LASD deputies, lieutenants, and sergeants. The charges included corruption, obstruction of justice, and fabrication of

police reports. According to the se of Independent Review report, allegations against LASD officers included rape, kidnapping, and smuggling heroin into a jail cell. This rogue cop situation is what she thinks happened to my trees. I mean, obviously, people at the restaurant were telling them, you know, she's acting strange, and they knew that she might have mental health issues, but yet then later they said she didn't, which was it was very strange. Now that was I mean, for

lack of a better word, absolute nonsense. And well, here's the thing. The thing is is if you are not well versed in mental health issues, especially like bipolar or any of those issues, and if you don't really recognize it and you're not trained, then you know what, you might make those mistakes, which is another reason why you know, the shirt depart and has the mental health evaluation team. And so again I'm going to go back to the roade cop thing, and that was especially rampant at that time.

I mean, they just did whatever they wanted, and it was clear by the radio call and how they responded to it and talking about doing a FEN search over the radio. It's like, you know, what kind of behavior is that there was a female jailer already on duty at the station, so why would they need to refer to searching my trees? C C believed that these communications could have been some type of sinister shorthand they said that, hey, you know, time to do a FEN search. We should

do a FEN search. So they talked about doing a FEN search on my trees, and to me, that's just alerting the troops. Hey, we've got a really good looking woman coming and you know, might be time for a FEN search. And you know, I mean, who says that? Really? Who says that over the radio? Ceci isn't the only reporter who has made this observation about Lost Hills. Scott Johnson wrote about the Lost Hills station being under investigation

in a twenty sixteen article in The Hollywood Reporter. Johnson quoted a source who said that the station was dis like the departed. The story quotes a woman who claims that certain deputies would do favors for her and her ex husband, a former American gladiator star, but after a bitter split. She said that the deputies maintained improper personal relationships with her ex husband and that they refused to

look into charges of alleged child abuse and rape. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the La County Sheriff's departments internal affairs investigators were taking a serious look at the allegations, which was quote raising new questions about a police station that has been embroiled in controversy numerous times in recent years. End quote. One source told the Hollywood Reporter, you can't

throw a stone without hitting a rat. There there's rats on every side, criminals, cops, everyone, and they're all riting on each other. We've mentioned Mel Gibson, who was arrested in two thousand and six on drunk driving charges getting a ride back to his car, as an example of celebrity favoritism, but he's also evidence of something else, police cover up. Mel went on an anti Semitic rant against

the arresting officer, who was Jewish. Then LASD managers buried the deputy's report, which led to accusations that they were giving the actor preferential treatment. The report was leaked to TMZ and the deputy was fired. After his attorney claimed that the LASD fired him and retaliation for leaking the information, he was reinstated. We've tried calling the police department for comment.

They've denied our multiple requests. After they got to the station, my rise was put into a holding cell with a woman named Chermaine Henderson. Our producer Gabby was able to speak to her on the phone. What happened? I remember how I've ended up in jaimed, but I ended up in the red sit and going to jail, but they released me. Oh h second, and I remember walking and

I remember walking down that heal wow wow great. Chermaine had been deposed from my Teres's parents civil suit, and according to Chermaine's deposition, my Terse was talking to her and for the most part, she seemed to be in a good mood, chatting in a friendly and animated fashion, as she had with the diners at Jeoffrey's. According to the deposition, my Trees asked Ermaine if she wanted to get high, and at one point was so disruptive that

Chermaine asked to be moved to another cell. But when we spoke to Chermaine, what she told us contradicts her deposition. She also says that my Trees seemed to be behaving normally while they were in the cell together, and Chermaine denies the fact that she said she wanted to be moved to avoid my Trees. But I remember, I remember she. I remember she had that that good curly hair, I remember it, and she was so talkative. She was no slender girl, but I remember her like it was yesterday,

and she was perfectly normal. She was perfectly normal, sweetheart. And I did not actually get moved to another spell and nothing. Obviously, it's been ten years since this all happened, and witness memory is always something to be taken into account. But Chermaine is emphatic when she says that my Trees was behaving pretty normally. We had a good conversation and she didn't. I didn't get no bad or nothing, no, no, nothing, nothing like, nothing bad from her, nothing like. And she

was she was she was cool. And then it's like when I seen that shit on the news, it was like and then it was like I was trying to contact like but it was it was very hard to get in contact with people like that, say like I was there with her, like, you know, let them know that she was okay, like her last moments like like and she was in a self she was all right.

She said that she's been hoping to talk to more people about the investigation, so somebody following up with me, and I've been wanting I really wanted to speak for someone about that night because she was normal. It was nothing, she she was okay, she was okay. It was nothing wrong. Where we was going to fell together, and she was she was she was very like, she was very like like you know, like very polite, like you know, she was very talkative. She wasn't like isolating herself for nothing.

She was like, Okay, so are you saying that they also released you in the middle of the night. Yes, I got reased in the middle night too awesome. No, it's no one for you to get nowhere. And I had to I had to walk, I was, I was in my lap and it's like, it's like it was it was no way to get a no vicin on nothing. It was so it was so like like assholes, like and it's like as far as as being a woman, you know, like and they released us at that time

of night, It's like, you know, it wasn't okay. What would clarify a lot of the discussion over my Teresa's behavior is if there was evidence that we could look back on. And the thing is there is there's video of my terse in herself two hours on four different cameras eight hours total, that the LASD has refused to release for ten years, despite lawsuits and endless complaints by Ronda and my Teresa's family, And the question remains, why won't they release the tape next time on Helen Gone?

And then that's when they start out, well there's no video. It's like, really, that makes no sense. I was sitting right next to Captain Martin, Well, I'm sure if I'm going to ask him that question, you don't have any video of my treats in jail, and he turned be read, I mean really be read, and just said, well, I do have this tape in my desk. My community needs this. You need to set it right. Come out here, tell the people you are reopening the investigation. Do the right thing.

I'm Katherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone. Helen Gone is a production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It's written and narrated by me, Catherine Townsend. Our producers are Gabby Watts, Taylor Church and James Morrison. Music is by Ben Sale. Mix is by Tunewelders. Our executive users are Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley and Brian Lavin. Special thanks to Chip Craft for use of footage from his documentary Loss Compassion, School of Humans. School of Humans