Dark Canyon

before they found a human skeleton. The rangers were way off the hiking trails that are open to the public. They had accessed the canyon through a private residence located on Payuma Road. Where Dark Creek begins, there's a hiking trail nearby, the Backbone trail, and it's possible to climb down from that trail into the creek bed if you know exactly where to look. So they started down into the creek, which is more of a climb than a hike.

They scaled giant boulders, navigated through steep and jagged terrain, and hacked through thick foliage, sharp thorns, vines, and poison oak. They found several items of clothing, a pink belt, a black braw a pair of blue jeans. This was the same clothing that my Teres Richardson had been wearing when she was released from the Lost Hills Sheriff Station almost a year earlier and started wandering through the dark alone. The team marked the clothing's location and then continued their hike.

They started down the south side of the creek bed, and that's when, at around one PM, the supervising ranger saw a human skull and a legbone. He also saw tufts of hair, which the ranger believed to be African American. The ranger's cell phone wasn't working, so he radioed into the dispatcher and used his handheld GPS device to give them the exact coordinates of the team's location. This was only the first and a long line of miscalls that day.

Miscommunication was a theme that would continue as the afternoon turned into evening and my Teresa's family waited at the scene desperate for answers. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is hell and Gone. In our last episode, we talked about the day the remains were found. From the perspective of my Teresa's family, doctor Ronda and Tshaka, whose organization REACT had been helping them with the search for months. But now we want to take a look at that day from

the perspective of the police in the coroner. A lot of what happened that night is contradicted and disputed, so much so that the Los Angeles County Office of Independent Review did a full fledged report in twenty twelve. They produced a fifty five page report. Much of the dispute revolves around who made the call to move My Teresa's remains, because moving the remains before the Coroner's office could investigate the scene destroyed the crime scene and ruined perhaps the

only chance of uncovering what happened to my trees. It's not something and that was in a matter where you have passed practices to allow you to do things together.

This is Lee Baca, Sheriff of Los Angeles County at the time, at a press conference, talking about some of the report's conclusions, because that persistence always leads to a better solutions to stop this press conference audio isn't the best, so we're going to walk you through some of the conclusions that were made by the Office of Independent Review. After the remains were found, it was immediately clear that law enforcement personnel knew that this could be my Terce Richardson.

This was potentially a high profile incident. The search and rescue team from Lost Hills drove to the Payuma Road address where the team had started their hike. They set up an incident command post there. Meanwhile, the Lost Hills station notified the two detectives with the La County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau who had been put in charge of my Teresa's case, Dan Mickelderry and Kevin as Sabado, that

the remains had been found. Chuck Knowles and Steve Agucci were the LAPD detectives who had been investigating my Teresa's case. Their contact numbers were on the bottom of the missing posters, and they were the detectives who had interviewed my Teresa's family, but they were not the ones at her crime scene. There are no proper names in the Office of Independent Review report, by the way, so just trying to figure out who was actually responsible for what takes quite a

bit of detective work. At two forty five pm, so around an hour and forty five minutes after the initial call, detectives Mickelderry and Acebado drove to Lost Hill Station. They arrived at Lost Hills at around three thirty five PM, and they and the Malibu Search and Rescue Team headed out to the Payuma Road command post. At the same time, the Coroner's Special Operations and Response Team aka SORT was

also en route to the Payuma Road Post. By around four to forty pm, the SORT team made arrange to assemble back at Lost Hill Station. They were standing by to be taken to the site where the remains were found. A helicopter airlifted Michael Dairy and Acebato from the Lost Hill station. They were at the crime scene by five

twenty pm. I'm calling it a crime scene because as a licensed private investigator and journalist who has covered true crime for years, I know that all suspicious deaths should be treated as homicides until proven otherwise, and securing that crime scene until the coroner arrived should have been everyone's absolute priority. Coroner's personnel were told that they would be airlifted to the body shortly, so they waited at the site.

Detectives made their way to the remains. Michael Dairy and Acebado saw a skull, a skeletal leg, and a pelvic bone lying about forty feet to the south of the drainage, partially obscured by twigs and lee yes. One of the detectives took photos of the remains with his cell phone. They then searched the area for any additional evidence and walked to the GPS coordinates where the items of clothing

had been found. Later, my Teresa's mother, Latisse, would question the accuracy of those GPS coordinates that were given to them by the detectives. Some of my Teresa's family members pointed out that although the terrain was rough, the GPS coordinates were physically not far from nearby homes. The clothes were found about one thousand feet from the house where detectives began their hike. The belt was found about five

hundred feet from the house. These coordinates would become crucial later when other investigators and family members tried to retrace the detective steps. After dropping off the detectives, the helicopter was supposed to pick up the coroner's office personnel, but the pilot got a distress call. Teen hikers were struck halfway up a cliff in a canyon at five point forty three PM. The helicopter flew there, then picked up

the stranded hikers and returned them to the trailhead. The helicopter was then due to fly back to Lost Hills to pick up the Coroner's office personnel, but when they were just a few minutes out, they got another call. This time a female hiker had fallen off a cliff in another canyon, so they re routed, dropped a paramedic down to treat the team for suspected fractures, and then flew her to a hospital in Pasadena. After dropping the injured hiker off at seven o three, the pilot flew

back to the Lost Hill station. But by now the pilot, who had thirty years of experience by the way, knew that they were running out of daylight and out of fuel. The pilot later said that he did not have enough fuel to fly to the Lost Hill station, pick up the coroner's team, drop them off to view the remains, and then get everyone safely back out. Exactly what happened next is in dispute, and a lot of it sums up what was going on with the investigation in general.

Perhaps The most important was the series of cell phone calls that took place between the homicide detectives who were in Dark Canyon, their lieutenant, and the Coroner's office personnel back at the command post. Then, as it is now, it was hard to get reception, so police said that a lot of the calls were dropped. While this was going on, the marijuana reconnaissance team made the call they were getting out, so they hiked out at around six pm.

This left the search and rescue personnel and the homicide detectives. At around eight pm, the LAPD homicide detectives made a critical decision that would change the direction of the case forever, because that's when detectives Macklderry and Acebado decided they were taking the remains out. Law enforcement teams have been known

to stay overnight with remains, why not this time. According to the report, the homicide detective said he thought about leaving the remains overnight, but said that quote he did not know whether someone had noticed the activity and could possibly come into the canyon overnight and disturb the scene. The detective was also aware that there were teeth in the upper jaw of the skull, making identification possible, and

was concerned about losing critical evidence end quote. He later said that he believed that people being in the area could attract wildlife overnight, which could damage the crime scene. The homicide detective said he believed he had permission to move the remains, but the coroner's office disagreed. According to the Office of Independent Review report, the coroner captain said that the detective told him that it was getting dark

end quote. He wanted permission to move the bones or remove them without us actually going in and being able to help them with it or conduct any kind of scene investigation. End quote. The captain also said that the detective had told him quote he told me that he

saw only a skull and pelvit bone and legbone. He believed that the rest of the remains had been washed down into that location and the animals had scattered the rest of the remains, and that we would probably not be successful in any subsequent search of the area to find anything additional end quote. This is an extremely bizarre

statement for a homicide detective to make. He has just arrived on the scene, and before any forensic testing has been done, he decides that they won't find anything else. But when they lifted the pelvit bone out of the debris, they saw something else, a large portion of the skeleton still intact that had not been previously visible. So at that point the homicide detectives knew, despite what they had just told the coroner's team, that they had much more

than just three bones at that site. Still, the homicide detectives doubled down on their decision to move the remains. A Malibu Search and Rescue team member picked up the skull and placed it on a plastic sheet, which was laid out in a body bag. The recovery personnel gathered all the small bones they could see and placed them with the rest of the remains before they left the scene.

The team at the remain site laid out a silver rescue blanket and taped off the area with orange tape to mark the location so that when they returned, investigators could find the site. The remains were then loaded into a body bag and airlifted out by the helicopter. Finally, the next morning, the coroner's team was taken to the site where the remains had been found, but they received conflicting GPS coordinates and were unable to reach the location.

It would be another two full weeks before the coroner's team was able to find the remains. When the team was finally able to hike into the area on August twenty fifth, they found a lot more bones, and they and the public began to wonder what else had the homicide detectives missed. Anne Sobil wrote an article about what went down that day for the Malibu Surf Side News. She spoke to ed Winter, he was the assistant coroner

at the time. She wrote that he told her quote, since coroner's personnel did not witness this procedure, they cannot attest to the care with which the remains were handled. End quote. Winter told Soble that the Coroner's office has a skeletal recovery team with specialized skills for handling this exact situation. If the Coroner's office representatives were not able to get to the scene, documenting the crime scene becomes critical.

Remember those photos that were taken by detectives. At some point, ed Winter said that if he couldn't get to the site, he would need to see those photographs to determine if the remains could be moved. But the photographs apparently never

made it across his desk. The Office of Independent Review report states that at least one detective took photos of the body on a cell phone but was not able to email those photos, and that some of the rangers hiked out of the cannon with a flash drive containing some photos, but the images that were on the flash drive apparently could not be downloaded back at the secondary command post at Lost Hill Station. The photos that were taken of the crime scene are reportedly not of usable quality.

According to Mike Kessler's article in Los Angeles Magazine, of the the pictures that were taken by the rangers were given to the coroner. He writes, quote, those images have not been disclosed or publicly discussed, but a well placed source says that like so many facets of my Teresa's case, her remains have generated more questions than they've answered. Her right leg, caked in soil and sprouting weeds, sat about two yards upslote from the body a top amount of

dry mines. The femur of the leg had been removed from the soft tissue, as if it had been pulled from the top of the thigh. There was nothing but a narrow duct where the bone should have been end quote to the chagrin of not only the Ela County Sheriff's Department, but to all those that know my trees, particularly your mother and father, that this became an extraordinarily emotional and charged investigation. On August twelfth, at nine thirty am,

the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department held a press conference. Immediately, we went into that area, retrieved those remains with the Corner's office, turn the remains over to the corner's office. The Corner's office has done an extensive amount of forensic in the last several days, and it's to my sadness and disappointment that I'm reporting to you that it is the confirmed remains of my Terrace Richardson. They confirmed that the remains were my traces. Sheriff Lee Baca called the

discovery tragic. Life is fragile. Let's let the family have their time of greeting, Let's let this lady be buried in dignity, and then let's go forward with the investigation of the office innefen review. We have nothing to hide in this case. The point is there's a lot of factors beyond just the Sheriff's Department that need to be explained. At the end of Bacca's statement, journalists started yelling out

about Michael Richardson. Michael is Mates's father, and he had told journalists that he hadn't been informed that the remains were my terces until minutes before the press conference. Baka responded that the coroner had given him a call, but when they brought it up again, things got cheated. Am I missing a point here with you? Yeah? I just get informed a half an hour ago. You expect me to tell the father? Imia, we just did. We just did at a news conference. Is a property to notify someone?

I just funked him. He was contacted by me right now. Now. If you object to that, that's you're just asking you? Is that proper? What do you think it might be different? Is this circumstance? Maybe call him first, notify him first. If you don't know until ten minutes ago, who are you going to call? If he's here? I was told you was here when I arrived. I paid my respects to him and will continue to do so. I don't stand the purpose of your question. Usually they notify family

members before they were new. Ed Winter of the Los Angeles County Corners Office estimated that my Trees's remains had been at that site for six months two years. We conducted the pathological exam preliminary also with an anthropologist yesterday and the odentologist yesterday evening. The cause of death is deferred at this time. It is an ongoing investigation and is soon. If we can get causes with mode manner cause of death, we will do. I like Liza, you'll

be able to put one cause of death. Don't know at this time. That is in the hands of the pathologist and the anthropologist. We did not find anything obvious at this time, but it's a long process. Was other residents founded the scene, which was Steve Whitmore, the Community Information officer for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Took a few questions near the end of the press conference. That's not an area you can walk to, is it?

I'm sorry? Where? What area? The area where the remains were from? No, no, we even walk to it. They'll tell you the way you can get to it or helicopter in. But I mean, can you get there on foot? Is what I'm saying. Yes you can, but there's no as far as I know, there's no identifiable trails you have to hack your way through, so it's unlikely she got there on her own. Once again, we don't want to speculate on that, but I will tell you this

homicide is going to continue. The investigation. They're going to try to figure out if they can, which we probably it's likely can never do. But they're going to try to figure out how she in fact got there. So that is something. This is not closed. This is still open, and that's what they're going to do. Right. We do not know. It's likely that we can never find out exactly how she got there, but they're going to do

their very best to figure that out. So that is still under investigation and it's still going to be looked at. Thank you. Sheriff's officials were quick to say that they saw no signs of foul play, but according to the La Times, they also said that they did not believe that my Trees fell to her death. This doesn't make sense in these strange set of circumstances, how could they immediately conclude that there was no sign of foul play.

After many grueling months of searching and wondering, my Teres's family and friends finally got an answer. However, it was not the sigh of relief they were all hoping for. Ronda says that they had to demand that police take them to the site where my trees was found. They eventually agreed, so they went down to the site with Malibu's Search and Rescue and sergeant to We write, so when we go down to the creetebeth, Oh, to the left, there's this little mound that her thighbone actually was found

on that little mound. So there's a little mound there and taped off with a yellow tape. Right, No, it was the orange tape. Sorry, and so but then on to the left there's this little gully right and so, well, all the other feature and rescue people went to what the orange tape was. Tooey went to the gully. But I'll follow him because I don't try to do that. So I follow him, so he said. Me and him standing around, I said, Towey, how from we're we're we're

right here and everybody else is over there. And he goes, I don't know, and I was like, well, what's going on? He goes, well, this is where her body was found. And I was like, well, why are they over there? And he said, I don't know again, and then I said, well, well, why are you here, and he goes, well, this is where she was. And I said how do you know, and he said, because I found her body. And I was like two, I thought the I thought the rangers

found her body. And then he just gave me this look and then we kind of had this moment of staring and then he called everybody, Okay, guys, come over here, this is where her body went. Extracting my Terrece's remains was a coordinated effort among LAPD coroners, medical examiners, and police with the LASD and LAPD, and depending on jurisdictions, there are different processes for extraction. The LAPD Coroner's office is the biggest coroner's office in the country. Until recently,

it even had a gift shop. So a lot of reporters shared my surprise that the coordinated extraction of my Terce's remains ended up this disorganized. My name is Sally Aikin, doctor Sally Aichen, and I am a medical examiner and forensic pathologist. We talked with Sally Aichen, the president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, about process and procedure for extraction. When you're distratched to the scene and there remains there huge decides when there remains to be moved.

So it depends on the jurisdiction. So every every death investigation system in the United States has laws that they're subject to, so it really depends on how that law those laws impact the office. But in my state, the body more or less belongs to the medical examiner or corner so we that's considered our jurisdiction. So some of the things around the body at the scene, like things in the hall or things out doors, are part of

the death scene investigation performed ordinarily by law enforcement. But the body is is ore is under our jurisdiction. So in my office we determine when all bodies moved and arranged for it to be moved and passed it appropriately. And is that something you would tell the police. So if we're talking about a homicide, the police would inform us that they have a potential homicide victim at a location and they may process parts of the scene around

the body that they leave the body to us. So we get contacted, come to the scene, we package the body and label it appropriately and have a transport team that moves the body to our facility. So in the case of the homicide, I'm there labeling the body, making sure we've collected trace evidence appropriately at the scene, which might be things like touch DNA that you might do at the scene instead of during the autopsy, and then

package the body in our transport moves it. It's packaged in a body pouch with an evidence take and that comes to our facility which is secure obviously, and then the evidence tag is not broken till autopsy. So there's a really specific protocol for how it needs. Everything needs to be moved and tagged. Yes, yes, just to make oh, that it's done appropriately so that we can durify that's

done correctly. The day after my Teresa's remains were found on August eleventh, twenty ten, a forensic pathologist from the Coroner's office conducted an autopsy. Here's what they found. In the autopsy report, the pathologists noted the remains were a nearly complete human skeletal remains with no evidence of anti mortem trauma, so there were no broken bones that would

have suggested trauma before my Teres's death. A fall, for example, that could have potentially contributed to a cause of death and no trauma to the fingers or toes, except for a small amount of post mortem activity that investigators suspected had been caused by animals. The pathologists consulted with a forensic anthropologist from the coroner's office, and they determined that

a small number of bones were still missing. These included the hyoid bone and other neck bones, the cossacks, and several vertebra, five bones on the right hand, and multiple bones from her right and left feet. An examination of dental records and DNA testing showed that the remains were by Teres Richardson. The cause of death was listed as undetermined. Investigators later interviewed the forensic pathologists from the coroner's office. They asked if the very crude recovery method could have

damaged the bones. The pathologists said that they found no evidence of artificial trauma, which would be cause, for example, if someone had dropped a bone on a rock causing an obvious fracture. On August time, twenty fifth, twenty ten, sixteen days after the discovery of the remains, the coroner's team, a coroner canine unit, Malibu Search and Rescue, and the homicide detectives hiked again into Dark Canyon to conduct another

search for remains. This time they located the site. They found five additional vertebra, one carpal bone, and three falangeal bones. My Teresa's family was growing increasingly frustrated at what they viewed as the sheriff's apartment's stonewalling. They asked for help from Cleia cough. Clea is a forensic anthropologist who has extensive experience investigating forensic evidence of war crimes and genocide.

She agreed to help my Teresa's family. On Saturday, August twenty first, twenty ten, my Teres was buried in Inglewood Cemetery. This is the day that we heard about at the cemetery from doctor Ronda. Before my Terse was laid to rest, Clia observed what she believed to be some irregularities. She was shocked to discover that my Terse's clothes were inside the body bag and none of them appeared to have

been tested. Here's Ronda again explaining what it was like, right when the service was going to start, Right when then that's when I get the phone call. Right, her body had not been analyzed, Her clothing were in the body bag, clothing in the body bag. Her body had not been analyzed, and apologist is like, we got to figure out what to do, and then we knew she was going to be buried. So we're already knowing this is what Anthon prologist. Wouldn't we bury her, We're going

to have to fight for exhumation. But what she did was she took because she had worked forensically, she knew how to secure the clothing, so she secured them, you know, per chain of custody issues, so she was able to do that. So her body was not buried with the clothing. The clothing was kept here. So then we didn't tell them about the clothing until we met with the corners and we start going through the reasons why they needed to be an exclamation because our body wasn't evaluated because

she was not there was just no evaluation. Ronda drafted a five page document that she sent to the LAPD with a long list of questions for the corner and medical examiner. She and my Teresa's family were not convinced that the police had found everything. Two months after the service, on November sixth, twenty ten, my Teresa's mom Latis, her aunt Lauren. Ronda, and Cliakoff returned to the site with

the sheriff and other department members. After a hard hike, they managed to get to the site where my Teresa's remains were found. They put up a memorial to my trees, laid flowers down, and started sifting through leaves with equipment provided by Cleoca. What happened is I was with that for ends of anthropologist. Her name was Cleo Coop, and I told her, listen, you know what, I don't care about a freaking memorial. I want to go up there

and I want all of her bones out there. When we hike up to that site, y'all can put up a memorial all you want to, but you need to show me how to search for bones, because I want her to hell out of here. So we hiked up there and so then the friendsic anthropologies. She said, okay, this is how you do it. Ronda took matters into her own hands. That's when she brushed some leaves aside and saw something small and solid. To their horror, the

group realized that they had found a human fingerbone. So she was showing me how they do it, and as soon as we did that, a finger bone popped up and then she was like, shit, we got to get out of here. So then we had to call the switcher rescue. He's on the bone, and that's when the airlifted out of their They immediately turned the bone over to the Sheriff's Department personnel, who delivered it to the corner. Later testing would confirm that the bone was a match

to my trees. And then they came back and they retreat bone, and I think they had to come another time. I think they were out there three times the first time and two other times that it took them through retreat all of them. So actually, if you guys hadn't done that, who knows if they would have found the other bones at all. And no, they wouldn't have went up there again. I mean, that's unbelievable in itself. They would have just said that the animals got her or

something like that. On February thirteenth, twenty eleven, a team from the Corner and personnel from the LASD returned to the site and conducted another extensive search. Eight additional bone fragments were found and recovered. Latis filed a request to have her daughter's remains exhumed and it was granted. In July twenty eleven, my Trees's remains were exhumed by the

Los Angeles County Corner's Office. They exhumed my Trees, Clia observed what she believed to be a few irregularities, including my Teresa's arm position and the fact that her teeth were pink. Clia indicated in her report that the pink teeth could be a sign of exphyxiation. Some forensic dentists have done tests and concluded that pink teeth are caused by exphyxiation or violent deaths, including strangulation, exphyxiation of some kind, or drowning. That's a theory. Kleiakov also brought up my

Teresa's clothing. She said clearly that there were no signs of decomposition fluids on the clothes, which she said indicated that my Teresa's clothing was removed before her body started decomposing. So either my Teres took her clothes off herself or someone took them off her before she died. Then my Teres was buried a second time for some reason on that day. Was it better on the day that her body was a glum a little better because I don't know why, but the workers they like were so nice

about it. And then they there was a point when they were gonna because what happens is they exumee your body. It has to be back on the ground within twenty four hours. So they take her body, it goes to the crimeline, they do everything, and then she comes back. I don't know how many hours later, but we had to wait. So when they were putting her back, the workers like they like gathered around with just themselves and they like said a little bremer. It was so sweet.

And then all the detectives with their raggedy asses were here, but I was able to ignore that on that day. Sure Undetermined is possibly the only thing more painful for family members who suspect that their loved one could have died under violent circumstances to hear than homicide, because with undetermined,

they're in limbo. So how did my trees die? Possibilities suggested by the police include anaphylactic shock brought on by poison ivy exposure, which is extremely rare, or a rattle snake bite, which one or two people per year die of in California. There were no broken bones or signs of any kind of animal attack. And if my Trees did have some sort of allergic reaction or snake bite, why would she take her clothes off? Why were her

shoes and underwear missing? Many people close to the case found the fact that the body was only partially mummified after eleven months of exposure strange as well. Could My Trees's body have been kept somewhere else, maybe inside, and then moved to the location where it was found at a later date. My Teresa's family also finds it odd that her hyoid bone and other bones in the neck that could have shown signs of strangulation were among those

that were not found. My name is Katherine Maloney and I am the deputy Chief Medical Examiner in Buffalo, New York. We called doctor Catherine Maloney to get an outsider's perspective on my Trees's autopsy report. In looking at the autopsy, was there anything that stood out to you well in terms of the initial autopsy report itself. I mean, it

looked like it was a very thorough report. Obviously, it was a difficult report to do because it seems like her body was quite decomposed where they didn't have it seemed like any of the internal organs. It was almost mostly just a little bit of skin and bones and some sort of non specific soft tissue. And also it looks like, you know, a fair number of the bones were missing as well, which makes you know, determination of the cause of death difficult, right, and it had been

eleven months. Well, I know that there have been speculation about the mummification of the body, and the fact that a lot of people seem to be saying it was only partially mummified, so that means, you know, she wasn't there the whole time. She had to have be moved. And I wondered if you could just tell us a little bit about how bodies mummify. So mummification is a process where a body kind of dries out. So mummification happens when you have a warm or hot, dry environment.

So if there's moisture around or a lot of moisture, a body will not mummify. And I know she was in a canyon where I think they sometimes get spring water, probably from I don't know if it's from melting snow or something like that, so that may have interfered with

a mummification process. And it also depends what type of exposure there is, you know, to animals, and if there's any type of you know, moisture, it depends how much it might have rained, or if there were trees or leaves covering her that would have kept her body damp. You know, that can kind of delay mummification as well. Let's say like a leg or an arm or something was under a pile of leaves or if it was buried, could that have caused it not to mummify that part

of the body. Yes, So if there were portions of her body that were under you know, kind of damp leaves or other debris, that would have prevented that part of the body from mummifying, because really for mummification you need to have warm, dry environment. So in response to the mummification theories, doctor Maloney said that it would have been possible for my trees to have remained in the

elements for that long and only been partially mummified. We also asked doctor Maloney about some of the other working theories of the case, including exphyxiation, and I mean, I know that we've had some of the other working theories about the case have been things like asphyxiation, and you know, did she We know she had asthma, so could she have had some sort of a fatal asthma attack, possibly also strangulation, And I just wondered, is there anything in

the evidence that indicated any of those things? Well, I mean in terms of asthma and an asthma attack. You know, her internal organs are gone, which means her lungs are gone. So it basically would be impossible to prove if that happened or did not happen. In terms of a strangulation. It would probably also be very difficult because most of the bones of the neck are missing. They describe in

the autopsy report. They have a few of the vertebra, so those are the spinal column that they identify in the neck, But otherwise it sounds like the neck structures themselves are gone. You know, so people talk about like the hyoid bone potentially being broken in a strangulation, or the other neck structures that are soft tissue, so muscles that would have hemorrhages and things like that that are obviously gone as well. So a strangulation in this case

would be very difficult to identify. And very difficult to prove is the hyoid bone still around? I mean, could it still be out there somewhere buried. It's definitely possible the hyoid bone is still out there, and so this

becomes part of the issue. When you have skeletonized or partially skeletonized remains, it's really critical to have an experienced anthropologist or a team of anthropologists go to the scene to basically excavate the body because it's very easy for people who aren't trained and identifying bones and identifying the areas where bones are found. It's very easy for those

people to miss bones or potential pieces of evidence. So, for example, when we've had cases with skeletonized remains or partially skeletonized remains, we have had a team of anthropologists go and they basically chart out the area. So they'll put down, you know, strings and sticks, and they'll make a grid and they'll go through each area of the grid and sift through the dirt like literally get like a giant sift and sift through the dirt to make

sure they're not missing anything. And then the identify where the bones are and then nail diagram exactly where each bone was found. So you can get a sense of how the person's body was lying, you know, in the ground, you know, was it was it partially buried, was it head down, was it seat down, was it face down? Was it on its back? So information like that can be critical to a forensic pathologist, and that's why it's really the most information that could be obtained in a

case like this. Unfortunately, where the remains are are really skeletonized, are you know, the scene itself and how the body's kind of laid out, and then getting all those bones

so you can you know, examine every single one of them. Unfortunately, this did not happen in my Teresa's case, and I mean obviously in this case it was There's another issue because the well, there was an argument between the sheriff's department and the corner that they the sheriff's department made the decision kind of against the corner's you know, advice or knowledge to just pick everything up and put it in a helicopter and move it, which I guess I mean,

after that it becomes probably really hard to figure out what happened. Yeah, this situation is really unfortunate and would have made it very difficult for the forensic pathologists involved and the medical examiner or corner involved to determine the

cause of death. And I mean it's nothing. It happens in our jurisdiction too, you know, the you know, the police are trying to help or they think, yeah, I'll just scoop the stuff up and transport it and then you guys don't have to come, or you can't come, you know, in an area where it's difficult to go. And you know a lot of times too, it'll happen like it'll be starting to get dark and the police will say like, oh, well we can't you know, it's

getting dark. We have to move these remains. We can't leave them overnight in the dark. And what our anthropologist always says, especially with skeletonized remains, you know, it's like these are skeletonized remains. That means they've been here for you know, weeks, if not months, maybe years. They can wait one more night, you know, in terms of them just lying there, and we can do this in the morning when we have daylight, you know, when everyone's rested

and everybody's fresh. We've done that more on more than one occasion where he basically said, you know, like put up a tent, put up some tarps, you know, make sure that the you know, the road to this area is guarded, or if you can, you know, have someone wait to guard the remains so nothing happens to them. And then first thing in the morning, we'll have our team come. We'll have daylight, we'll be able to see what's going on, and then everyone can sort of do

their job. She also said that clear costs suspicions about the curled up arm are inconclusive, but it's hard to say because we don't know the original position the body was found in. And in terms of DNA evidence on hair, doctor Maloney said that most of that would have most likely been to droid. With the sun and the heat and time, DNA would almost certainly not survive, and testing DNA on clothing is particularly difficult. Labs only accept small fibers.

A whole shirt, for example, can't be tested. Yeah. No, I mean I think that the lows that night were in the sixties, so it wasn't particularly I mean, it's California, September. It does get a little chilli at night up there, but not I don't know if it's possible to die of I don't know if it's possible to dive exposure at you know, temperatures in the fifties, maybe if you

got wet. So I feel like if your clothing was wet and you didn't take off your wet clothes, I think it's possible maybe in the fifties because the being wet would kind of leach more of the heat out of your body. But I think if your body's dry, depending on what you're wearing in the fifties, I say, it's a lot less likely to die of You're a lot less lucky to die of hypothermia than if you know it's in the twenties or the teens or something

like that. Finally, doctor Maloney, if anything else could be done, well at this point, it's going to be difficult, that's for sure. I mean, I suppose that attempt could be made with the clothing. I mean, if you could get someone who you know, was some type of expert in looking at, you know, clothing of assault victims and identifying stains or what might be a relevant stain or you know, a potentially informative stain who could look at the clothes.

You know, maybe they could give some information. I mean maybe revisiting the scene, although I'm sure it's I think it's it sounded like it's been done multiple times, But trying to find those extra pieces of bone might be almost impossible. But I mean, if if you could find, you know, the hyoid bone or the next structures and see if they have any types of injuries. But really, I mean, the hyoid bone is maybe an inch long.

So if if the bones are or the you know, where she was found, every if anything was spread out at all, you know, it might be difficult to find, especially if there was some type of animal scavenging. You know, an animal might have just kind of run off with it. We also followed up with a friend as a botanist an entomologist, and both of them said, forensically, nothing more can be done at this point. And in regards to the pink teeth theory, we reached out to three forensic

identologists to see if that could definitively prove anything. One reached back out to us and he made it clear that he thinks the pink teeth theory is absurd. Quote, the pink teeth are a red pink herring. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that pink teeth are related to his phixial deaths, just one of those anecdotes that

gained too much credence over discussion in bars. The idea that you could force blood into teeth in this way or prevent it escaping is biologically implausible and no one would give it much thought today. End quote. So he says that the pink teeth are not conclusive proof of strangulation, But there's another piece of the puzzle that's still missing. Teresa's hyoid bone is still out there, and it's the one piece of evidence that could provide answers about whether

or not my Terse was strangled. Next time on Helen Gone, and it's like as far 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. They were fucking the wild West back then. The risk of suicide is significantly elevated in people experiencing bipolar disorder. Look, I totally understand how you were just the jailer that night and you did your job and then you're like everyone's coming

down hard on you. I get that that would suck, But again, like there's the compassion I'm Catherine 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. Mixed is by Tunewelders. Our executive producers are Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley

and Brian Lavin. Special thanks to Chip Croft for use of footage from his documentary Lost Compassion, School of Humans. School of Humans