2. My Light

Pushkin. When my Terce Richardson disappeared in September two thousand and nine, investigators searched her car, the one that had been impounded by the Sheriff's Department after she couldn't pay her bill at Geoffrey's restaurant. They discovered several journals belonging to my Teres. They were full of information about my Teres's life, and they would ultimately shape the investigation into her death. My Teres's dad, Michael Richardson, shared four of

February twenty fifth, two thousand and nine. My very first journal, well not diary or composition book, but my own journal with the intent of reflection and bettering myself.

My Teresa's handwriting is neat and emphatic, full of omgs and smiley faces and exclamation points, which she punctuates with hearts.

First things first, I want to own my own home. I want to do this because it is an awesome investment and gives me something to do while I'm preparing to go back to school. Because, let's face it, I'm the type of girl who enjoys accomplishing everything I set out to do.

Her journal, she writes, is her best friend. She signs her entries my Teres Richardson.

I like talking, dancing, telling jokes, debating, eating, analyzing, sunshine, music, sports, cars, security. People don't like when people are wronged, discrimination, divas, racists, laziness, cramped space, being monitored, neediness, unmotivated people.

At twenty four, my Terse is brimming with excitement about the world and her place in it. She's a recent graduate of cal State Fullerton, where she majored in psychology and discovered an important part of her identity After going out with boys in high school. She came out as gay in college, dating two women, Desiree Black and Tessa Moon. Like a lot of people in their early twenties, she's still figuring things out, especially when it comes to her love life.

Between Desen Tessa. I get one perfect person. But I know this will never work, but right now it's too good to let go of.

She's an executive assistant at a freight company owned by Tessa's family, and she's also dabbling in other fields. She's trying to get into modeling and substitute teaching. She's taking motorcycle lessons and Go Go dancing at gay bars.

Man, have I been busy? Busy busy?

Okay, so first things first, I don't think I mentioned it, but I had an audition for a Go Go physician and yay, I got it. I even saw a few cutis which made me want to dance.

Woooo.

So I go back again tonight.

Okay, new topic.

I've been taking motorcycle classes. It's actually really hard lmao. Yeah, so I'm still pretty dangerous. Go Go wardrobe ideas small feathers, outline under boob wiring, use red strings for sides, many colors, tie rag around boom, furry red sock slash, strappy heels.

But she's getting ready to realize an ambitious dream.

Today, I'll just be reading and doing research I'm both finding a home, plan to start saving four and to start preparing for grad school.

She wants to be a therapist.

I want to be the gay and lesbian guru.

Two thousand and nine, she writes, is going to be a transformative year for her.

So here's to me and my progression forward. I refuse to let this year go to waste. And the new motto is O nine is mine.

She's shedding an old identity, one that served her for many years, the identity of the beautiful, perfectly composed, perfectly presentable young lady, the beauty pageant contestant, the pleaser that's falling away, and in its place, someone new is being born.

I think the Lord has blessed me with a good head on my shoulders and a love for friendly debates. I've always loved a challenge. Well, if I'm going to start my career as a great gay therapist, I better get used to people being disgusted by me. So watch out, people, I'm about to make a name for myself.

Let's go the real My trace is emerging. She's done being a beauty queen. She's ready to be a voice. I'm Dana Goodyear, and this is Lost Hells Episode two.

My light.

Picture my Teres. She's vivacious and charismatic with almond shaped eyes and a dazzling smile. A person you can't help, but notice she makes sure of it.

Well, she was a bit of a show off. It started early on, Like I remember she was in this private daycare when she was three, and you know, she just did her part, and my Trece just like this is me, This is I like, even at three years.

Old, this is my Teresa's dad.

My name is Michael L. Richardson. I'm the proud father of my race Richardson. One of my favorite pictures of her is a picture of her in her cheerleading uniform. Is called a Roman kit that she taught me, and it's when you're standing straight up like this and you just jump straight up and kick both legs out and your fingers touch your toes and you know, her mom caught that picture and it looked like her legs is just straight out like this, my favorite picture.

Michael is tall and heavy set, with sparkling eyes and a boisterous laugh. He works in private security and owns a pair of poodles named Delta and Bentley. On sunny days. He likes to drive around la in a sixty six Chevy.

It looks like what they referred to as a lowrider. It's pearl white. When the sun hits it, it sparkles. It has a mega sound system in it because.

On the trunk there's a portrait of my Trees in a white gown and Tiara with angel wings.

She was in a pageant once and she had this Tierra on and we took that and put it on a back a car, and above it it has the words still riding with my Daddy. It's pretty crazy because every time I drive it, you will look over at me and just see me with tears in my eyes, just balling, you know. But I'm just steady cruising, you know. So yeah, it's very sentimental to me.

Michael and my Teresa's mother, Latisse Sutton, were high school sweethearts.

We had my Teres very young. I think we were seventeen when her mother became pregnant and we finished high school. My Teres was born in our senior year and just always a good kid.

At the time. Latis lived with her grandmother, Mildred Harris, in Willowbrook, a neighborhood in South La.

Her mother, Latise was in debutante things and sophistication, and Miss Harris was just very regal, just very regal.

When my Terrees was about four years old, Michael went to prison for five years. He and Latis split up and she married a man named Larry Sutton.

My Teresa's stepfather. Larry came into the life and he was an executive for Southern California. Edison.

Latis and Larry moved my Teres out of the city to the more affluent community of West Covina.

And I remember when I came to visit him, I looked like, wow, man, talk about the real life Jefferson's here.

You know.

They moved on up.

And it was there in the comfortable suburbs that my Terce grew up.

I remember the very first day of school, there was this loud, beautiful black girl that was like, Hey, you're the new black girl in school. Let's be friends. And that was my Terrees.

This is Juell Moore. She was one of my Teresa's closest friends starting in the eighth grade.

And from that day forward we kind of bonded and clicked in maintained a friendship. She enjoyed dance. I enjoyed dance. That was a passion that we shared together. We auditioned to be cheerleaders in high school together and then even took dance classes together in college.

My RaSE was popular with good reason.

In junior, high school and high school. My Trees is a firecracker. She was always like very vivacious. When she walked into a room, she lit it up. I mean she would walk in and not knowing everybody and then leave knowing everybody.

But there were high expectations riding on her too.

Her mom was very very very very stickler about like education. Latis push like, if you're gonna do this, like you gotta be the best. So she always wanted to be the best in everything that she did. So even in the relationship with her mom, it's being the best child I can be with also being my race, which was you know, her own person.

Once in a while, My Trees would slip up and get in trouble.

So here's like a fun my Tree story. She would get in trouble and so her mom would make her wear a uniform to school, although our school wasn't uniform, so then she would be like the only girl at school in a uniform. I mean this is back in like the two thousands, like late nineties, where fashion was important.

Growing up, My Trees was sheltered.

She wasn't the street savvy kid. I mean she was afraid of the dark even as an adult. Latise was like, I drive you everywhere. I need to know where you go. They were very strict about where she drove when she got her license. Like my Trees did not take public transportation, wouldn't know how to if her life depended on it.

Michael was protective too, in his own way. At one of the many proms my Teres went to, he did something that became legendary among her friends.

My favorite prom story, which I tell Michael all the time, is Michael drove us to our prom and threatened our principle and told us, like none of us better come back pregnant, and our principal was terrified because if you've seen Michael, you do not want him coming to you threatening him about your daughters. So that's like my favorite prom story, Jules says.

From the time they were kids, my Teresa's favorite flower was the sunflower.

She just really loved them because they're just beautiful, and you know, like they're different from all the other flowers and where they grow and their representation of, you know, growing towards a light and how like tall they can grow, what they can grow into.

That was my Teres, beautiful, original and growing towards the light until suddenly she changed. On June twenty sixth, two thousand and nine, my Teres wrote a heartbroken journal entry about the death of Michael Jackson.

I'm writing today because yesterday a great man passed away, Michael Jackson. I wish it were a lie. Can't believe I'm crying. I loved him. I know I did. This pain I feel is real. I love you your fans. Slash inspired my Terce Richardson.

She was devastated.

She felt like she was one of the few people who truly understood him, and it sent her into a funk. She couldn't shake.

Okay, it's been a long time, I know, but it's because I've been feeling kind of worthless, you know how. I made all these plans to get a new job, and yadi YETI boo boo. I finally realized I barely do my jobs as it is now, and I love my jobs.

It was right around then, in July two thousand and nine, that she met and fell in love with a woman named Hannah Parks. My Trice was performing at Deborah's, a lady's night at a gay club in Long Beach. In walked Hannah, skinny blonde, covered in tattoos and wearing sunglasses.

Inside I found God and then I saw you. I saw you through the darkness of the club. You saw me through the shades of your glasses, and we never really saw one another's appearance until the light.

Hannah Parks is wary of attention. She was questioned by police about my Teresa's disappearance, and my Teresa's family was pretty hostile toward her. We could tell from the journals that she and my Teres were spending a lot of time together in the weeks before my Terse went missing, and we knew from law enforcement documents that my teres had told the valet at Jeoffrey's she was there to meet Hannah. Haley and I tried calling and emailing but

Hi, Sorry, sweet, No, You're fine.

How do you take shoes off?

Hannah was and is a serious Christian, but back in the summer of two thousand and nine, she was taking a little hiatus from piety.

So I at the time was going to a private Christian university, but it was during the summer, so I was kind of wilding out a little bit, and a couple friends and I went to a club in Long Beach called Deborahs, I believe, and that evening, my chrase was there like go go dancing, and I spotted her.

My trese was on stage dancing behind a partition will people threw money at her.

She wasn't wearing much. A lot of girls it would do like go go dancing, weren't that talented really? At dancing, but she was a really good dancer, and I don't know, she just had this energy about her that made me intrigued.

Part of what intrigued Hannah was that my Rise was staring straight at her while she danced. After the show, they started talking and then they started hanging out, and she had a nickname for you, which was PD or private Dancer.

Is that right, That's so funny. I forgot about that. Yeah, So my Trace would do like private dances for me and asked me to dance for her, and so that was something we did. I totally forgot about that.

They had a physical attraction, but there was more to.

It once we started talking. I think we just had a lot in common. She was very eager to grow like mentally, emotionally, spiritually. For sure, my.

Trace was filling up journal after journal and Hannah she was a writer too.

I was at that time I was really into writing poetry, spoken word, that sort of thing. So it was definitely we had a strong mental connection as well.

My Trees wanted to read every book. Hannah mentioned, listen to every band, dissect every song.

And so when I would share certain artists with her or we would literally listen to a song, or we would listen to a poetic artist or something like that, and we could sit and talk about it one song or one poem for over an hour and just really dive into it. And what do you think about this?

With Hannah, my Trees seemed to feel permission to stop performing, to stop being so perfect. She was tuning into a more soulful frequency. One of Hannah's tattoos read look Deeper. Terce loved that she wanted to do that.

I think what was happening is as she was sort of growing into herself because she was in her what mid twenties, I don't think that it was enough substantially for her to simply define herself as this beauty pageant this is what matters type of woman. And although she

Part of that was she wasn't going to stress so much over her appearance anymore.

I think my Trace wanted to see herself how my trace wanted to see herself, not how other people wanted to see her.

She started wearing her hair natural and using less makeup.

I think she was getting tired of kind of straightening and gelling, and I think she'd been doing that for so long, so I encouraged her. Whatever, however, you're comfortable, that's how you should wear your hair.

Hannah was going through her own identity stuff at the time, figuring out how to reconcile her faith with her sexuality.

I think, in this really cool way, we were both at a similar place, but in different ways.

From the beginning, though, there was an imbalance.

My Trece. I mean, she was intense right, my Trace felt intensely about me, and I felt intensely about her, but not in the same way.

My Teresa's feelings for Hannah went beyond a crush or even an infatuation.

I think that I just so happened to meet her at this time, pretty close prior to when there was this mental decline that started happening. And I think that because I was there, and because the feelings were already involved, I think that she clung to me and the relationship we had much more than maybe she would have otherwise.

In the summer of two thousand and nine, as my Terce was looking deeper, she was also undergoing changes she couldn't control, changes that didn't make her feel like a more authentic version of herself. But like a stranger reading the journals, it's obvious that my Terce was struggling. We thought at first that maybe she and Hannah were doing hard drugs together, and that's what explained the shift. Hannah says, that wasn't it at all. She didn't use drugs, and

There used to be this restaurant by the apartment I used to live in, and we went there for brunch and we would talk about the Bible a lot, and we would talk about my beliefs and she would share her beliefs, And there was this one particular conversation where she started saying very odd things about the Bible. They made no sense to me. I don't know that they made sense to her, but it seemed like they made

Something in my trees was changing. Hannah could see it, My Trees could see it, and both of them knew that my Trees needed help. My Trees had always been worried about her mental health. There was a history of mental illness on both sides of the family. In a self published memoir, her mother Latis writes about suffering from quote major depression, rapid cycling, bipolar PTS, and anxiety. Latisse

I would sell my right arm to know more about how and why the hell her mind flipped. Ever since I was little, my thoughts and lack of understanding about her has ran circles in my mind. I guess I'll never know. But I wonder if she knows that we all love her.

This family history. It's the reason my Teres wanted to go to grad school for clinical psychology, the reason she wanted to become a therapist. She wanted to understand mental illness, She wanted to help people manage it, and she wanted to spot it if it ever came for her. In the weeks before her disappearance, my Teresa's journals changed dramatically. She begins to write about losing her mind, finding her mind, hoping she gets her mind back. These entries are painful

I is a representative of me. That is important because if you look with two eyes, you will always see one eye standing alone, or shall I say one eye? But if your two eyes have been opened, you will see that one eye is still too myself plus I which eye is unknown until I know me.

Her handwriting also changes, no more exclamation points with hearts. Now she's digging her pen into the page, underlining, crossing out, revising, correcting, as if she's at war. With herself. You can still glimpse the ambitious young woman, but only in flashes. Everything else is our Kane references to the King of Pop in the midst of a kaleidoscopic blur.

Michael J helped me find me because although he never met my trees, I always knew him because before I.

Saw him, he touched my soul.

I am my trece L Richardson, and I am a big deal. I am my trece L Richardson, and I am a big deal.

P S.

I love were.

And me plus you are the world me. My voice is off in silence because oh, my Trees, you're so pretty. Yes, oh my trees, your.

Eyes, yes, I know, but.

Shut the fuck up and let me speak. But you're so pretty, you don't have anything important?

Is going to be the death of I isn't big when it's small like me.

That's why I never inspired to be Miss Fullerton. I inspired to be Miss America because I.

Knew me, but you couldn't. So together.

Mommy knew I could.

I love her happy faces.

They make her smile, so I'm afraid to say, oh, what is this entry about?

L O L.

I must have been high Mike me not my mouth is going to be mouth. That's going to be the depth of more like more like, like, I, what the fuck is going on? Where is my mind?

Me?

And I It's lost.

As soon as I found it, I disappeared just as fast. I feel like on the inside, I'm screaming and kicking trying to get out of these fucking restraints. I'm afraid to say.

Here's Hannah Parks again.

I think she was scared about what was going on with her, and I don't know that she knew what to do, and I think she was looking to me for some answer that I didn't have.

Her interactions with my trees were growing increasingly strange.

We went from having what I would call like this really intellectual stimulating conversation to kind of like, what the fuck are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about, and that's not normal for you, Like I'm not understanding. I was much more gentle because I knew that something was going on. Now I can say to you what the fuck was going on?

Whatever it was, Hannah felt unequipped to deal with it.

But we would sit and talk and I'd be like, dude, tell me, like like I would be crying because I could see it happening, Like, tell me what is going on? To get you help. I'm over here writing poetry and studying theology. I don't know how to help. So we would pray, we would talk. I encouraged her to go get help. She was skeptical of people judging her. She was skeptical of I think admitting I think she was scared to say. She was scared, and she was just struggling so bad internally.

According to Hannah, my Trice resisted the idea of going to a clinic, getting a diagnosis and going a medication. Instead, she started self medicating, smoking more and more pot.

My personal opinion, there's no factual evidence behind this, but my personal opinion is that she was trying to cope with what was going going on with her internally, and she didn't know how. And I think her opinion was, well, I feel better when I smoke weed, but she didn't. I think that's what she was hoping.

My Tree stopped sleeping and eating regularly. She was supposed to be living with her great grandmother, Mildred Harris in South LA, but she started staying in her car. She'd arrive at Hannah's place, unshowered and unkempt.

She'd come over another day and be like, Oh, I've been journaling in my car. But she would tell me like for days, and I'm like, my Trees, you need to sleep, Like have you eaten? No, she wasn't eating a lot. She definitely wasn't sleeping. And I would tell her like, dude, you cannot just sleep in your car. It's not safe. You're a single woman by yourself. You can't just sleep in your car. Come to my house if you're gonna if you don't want to go home,

You know where she would park?

I have no idea. I think sometimes she parked outside of my apartment, like on this in the street parking.

My trees had met Hannah sometime in July. Within weeks. It seemed to Hannah, my Trees was hanging on to her for dear life, and they were both drowning.

It's like she would say one thing and then oh, she actually no, then say something completely opposite, and then well doesn't that make sense? I'm like, what makes sense to you? I want to know what makes sense to you? Forget what makes sense to me, because at this point nothing is really making sense to me. I genuinely started

At the end of August, Hannah made plans to go to Las Vegas with some friends.

That was the last week in a summer and I know that because I was like, well, shit, I'm gonna go out with a bang because I'm not drinking when I go back to school. So me and three friends went to Vegas. It was like for a friend's birthday and also kind of like end of summer, let's go party in Vegas and then get back to reality. We went out there and my Race had asked me like, well, I told her I was going, and she was kind of like, oh, can I come, And for me, it

My Terse wasn't getting the message though. In her journal, she writes that she woke up certain that Hannah actually did want her to come.

So somewhere around seven or eight this morning, I decided I'm going to Vegas. I love her so much now I want to show her. So three am we're going to ease on down the road to a pody.

She was going to drive to Vegas after finishing her shift, go go dancing at Debra's.

God keep my mind, lol, I don't know what I'm gonna see down there, but can't wait.

Debra's tonight Vegas.

After here's Hannah.

And all of a sudden, I don't even know if it was day or night, because you know, when you're in a casino, it's like, I don't I don't know. But I was like sitting at a slot machine or something, and my Trees just like comes walking into the casino. You have to understand, I was freaked out because how can you find a singular person in Las Vegas in summertime? Like it's crowded, there's a ton of casinos, there's so many places we could be, and in walks my Trees.

Vegas, Hannah says, was a turning point.

She just didn't really ever go back to the normal my trees and I think for me it was really difficult because I didn't know her that long and so all I had to base it off of was these few months. But even to me, it was so obvious that something changed and something was going on that even she knew, Like even she knew that it was going on, and we would talk about it. I think until it like really didn't go back, we didn't even talk about it anymore. It's just like that was the new normal.

Hannah started to pull away, and it was.

Really really hard, because how can you be so worried? About a person and at the same time scared yourself to even be around them. I was in this place of truly not knowing what to do, and so not that it was the right decision, but I just started really distancing myself because I didn't know what to do.

On September twelfth, four days before she was arrested in Malibu, my Terse wrote in her journal.

Have you ever woke up in the morning and cried because you knew too much? Cried because everything finally came to light and now you see all the lost people in the dark. It hurts the true oxymoron of bitter sweet. And the suckiest part of all is being a normal twenty four year old who likes to go to bed and dream and is now always awake living visions that were once only in dreams.

This entry is one of the most crushing. My Teres had been a person with big dreams, Eames. Now she felt like she was trapped inside a living vision and all she wanted was to wake up. The day after writing it, she went to see Hannah one last time.

I was at my apartment and it was the middle of the day, and my Trese came over and she was like pounding on my door and she's like, Hannah, Hannah, open the door, Hannah. I need to talk to you, Hannah. Because of course she was texting and calling and I wasn't responding, and so she's knocking on my door and I didn't answer. I didn't answer. I don't know what

What did she look like?

Disheveled? It's almost like, see when you asked before about her, was her physical appearance deteriorating? And I mean, I guess during that time maybe a little bit, yeah, But for me, it was really after Vegas that it all kind of started going downhill.

Soon the question of my Teresa's mental health would be at the center of an investigation into her disappearance and death. It would be the variable that determined so much of what law enforcement did and what they failed to do. But to Hannah, there is no.

Question my trees changed in whole, like wholly changed, and there was never any question in my mind that it was something mentally going on. She was very aware that she was struggling with mental illness. I saw it. It was obvious. She just wasn't acting like her normal self. It changed, she changed, something changed, and it wasn't from drugs.

On September sixteenth, two thousand and nine, my Terse went to Malibu in the midst of a severe mental health crisis, and she never came back. Next time on Lost Hails, I.

Think the only way I will come and get her tonight is if you guys are going to release her tonight, you definitely have no place, you know.

I mean, she's not from that area, and I would pay to wake up to a morning report so low somewhere with her.

He had job dog.

I guess I would have to come and get her.

Oh my god, that's next in episode three, call for Help. Lost Tills is written and hosted by Me Dana Goodyear. It was reported by me and Hailey Fox, our senior producer. The show was created by me and Ben Adair. Lost Hills is a production of Western Sound and Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and You can binge the whole season right now ad free. Find Pushkin Plus on the Lost Tails show page in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, slash plus