Pushkin. September sixteenth, two thousand and nine, the day my Teres drove to Malibu, her long time off and on girlfriend Desiree Black, decided to do something drastic.
That was the day that I had, I mean finally worked up the courage to try and like break it off, call it quits, but definitely was not brave enough to do that in person.
She wrote my Teresa text.
It went something along the lines of I love you, I care about you, but I don't think I can do this anymore.
My Teres had been seeing Tessa on and off during her relationship with Desiree, and now she was head over heels for this new woman, Hannah Parks. Desiree was over it.
I think that it really weighed on me that I had to share. So I text that and her response was definitely unexpected. Her response was just like, I love you, I totally understand you're an amazing person, and like all of the things that you don't want to hear when you're trying to break it off with somebody, like those are all of the things that I was getting.
After she sent the text, Desiree, who was still a student at cal State Fullerton, had to go to track practice, but she thought about my tries the whole time.
I mean, like immediately I regretted sending that text. I just didn't know how much I was gonna regret it, because that day she didn't come home, and that was definitely out of the ordinary.
My Tree still slept over at desires occasionally, and she was expecting her that night. At seven pm, when she got out of practice, she started texting my Trees.
She wasn't responding, and I just assumed that that was my own fault because of the text message that I'd sent out before I went to practice, which was we're not doing this anymore. I didn't believe me. I don't think that she believed me either, But that's.
What I said.
Do you remember making dinner that night and waiting for it?
To be honest, that whole chunk of time in my life is just a blur, Like it was not a good time for me, and so I did cook dinner, But I can't say for sure, like what else I was doing besides like just kind of wondering where she was at.
At seven pm, my treece was nowhere near Desiree's place. She was pulling into Jeffreys, an upscale restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway. My Treece would later tell the cops she stopped at Jeoffrey's because she saw the white fairy lights dangling from the trees. She parked in the valet lot. Her car was a beater, a ten year old Honda Civic with a jerry rigged ignition. She told the valet she was there to meet up with Hannah, Hannah with the tattoos. She walked past the hostess station to a table,
smiling at everyone. She ordered a steak and an ocean breeze. Within two hours, deputies from Lost Hill Station would be at the restaurant, trying to figure out what to do with this charming young woman who couldn't pay her eighty nine dollars and fifty one cent bill. Where did she come from? That was easy. She was from Mars, she said. And what was she doing there? Well, she said sweetly, she was there to avenge the death of Michael Jackson.
I'm Dana Goodyear and this is Lost Hills, Episode three, Call for Help. Hannah Parks says my Trees had been in a state of full blown psychosis for over a week. She'd lost her grasp on reality. For one thing, Hannah says she had no plans to meet My Trees at Jeffrey's. That was all in My Teresa's head. My Trees had been writing desperately in her journal about not sleeping, about being trapped in a never ending waking dream. When she got to Jeffrey's. She'd been awake for something like five days.
Throughout the early morning hours and into the afternoon of September sixteenth, she'd churned out a steady stream of social media posts about her favorite subject, Michael Jackson. Her journals and messages in this episode are being read by an actor and have been lightly edited for clarity. One seventeen AM.
Oh mg, Michael Jackson, I was your biggest fan in the world, but you already knew My Trees rich Ardson, It's all in the eyes of a believer slash child five thirteen AM mood Mike jack current mood crazy, I'm tired. I'm so tired. See me, somebody please, I'm here. Doesn't anyone hear me? Ghost?
Eight forty seven AM.
Princess Diana and Michael Jackson equal My Trees America's Princess. Long Live the King, she.
Went to her job at the freight company owned by Tessa's family. She kept posting strange things all day long.
With Michael's death, the legend is born that proof my playing tricks on me forgives that's father.
The believers were there.
Flash one thirty four PM two I equal six s's Michael Jackson's number one fan. I know it omd omz omz omd.
According to law enforcement documents, while my Truce was watching a soap opera in the break room at the freight company, she thought that one of the actresses gave her quote a message from God telling her to go to Malibu.
So she was acting strange at work. She wasn't, you know, getting her work done because my Truth was very efficient at her job.
This is doctor Ronda Hampton. She's a psychologist my Trees interned for in college.
It's almost like I saw her, what four days a week, and we would spend a lot of time together.
She considered herself a mentor to my Trees.
So, I mean a lot of our relationship was definitely about the work, but it was also about her future.
Myce was doctor Hampton's intern in two thousand and seven. In two thousand and eight, and during that time, doctor Hampton began to notice a change in my Trees.
That her symptoms were really subtle. You know, it wasn't anything that was bizarre. A couple times she would come in very disheveled or very angry sometimes, and I started to notice like a cyclical pattern to that, and it was almost like clockwork. I can tell, like every six or seven weeks, something's going to happen. You're gonna look not right right.
She urged by Trees to get a psychiatric evaluation. This would have been at least a year before Hannah was urging her to do the same thing.
We talked about specifically about bipolar disorder and about the treatment for that. And I mean she was very open to hearing that. And I know that she got evaluated, and I know that she went to the school counseling center at least on two occasions.
Over time, my Teresa's condition grew noticeably worse, but no one Hannah seemed to really comprehend just how bad things had gotten. My Teresa's mother, Lettis, was preoccupied with marital problems. Although they later got back together in two thousand and nine, she and her husband Larry, were in the midst of a painful divorce, and she had Mia, her young daughter
with Larry, to worry about. On the day of her disappearance, my Trees sent her mother some really confusing texts, which Lettis included in her memoir twelve forty eight.
AM, I told you I would take care of everything, Mommy, I love you.
Three oh four am.
Did you know my name means behind every man is a strong woman?
What have you taken care of? Lettis replied when she woke up my Rice, I'm not understanding. After my Trees left work, she didn't go straight to Malibu. She headed to cal State Fullerton. She was looking for one of her old psychology professors, someone she may have recently confided in about her mental problems.
That professor was not in the office at the time, like I think, she may have been teaching a class, and so when my Chreece went in there, they said she's not going to be here for a few hours. And apparently from what I hear is my treet sat there and waited for the professor to come so for whatever amount of time.
When the professor returned to her office, she found my Trees in an elevated state, talking excitedly about publishing her journals as a book. Recognizing something was wrong, the professor tried to find someone to help my Trees.
And so that professor actually walked my Trees to another professor who was a clinical psychologist, walked her to that psychologist's office. And my Terce was apparently not happy with that, and so my Treece at that point said, well, I got to go. I'm going to go hang out with my friends, and so she ran off left campus.
She stopped by her aunt's house, where she left some flyers advertising her go go dancing. Then she set out for Malibu.
She did say the beach was calling her, so that was one of the things that she had said earlier in that day. I could see her driving out to the beach. She was familiar with Pepperdine because she was considering going there for grad school. I can't say whether she had ever eaten that Joffrees of before, I don't know, but I do know that she was familiar enough with how to get to Malibu and the beach.
In her journals, my Terries wrote about the ocean as a place of healing, a place of calm, she was in pain and she thought Malibu would help. Can you settle a long running question for us, Why is it called Jeffrey's not Jeffreys.
You give me times people have had that argument. Settle a bet, and I'm like, Okay, I know exactly what you're talking about.
This is jeff Peterson. He owns Jeoffrey's Malibu.
Jeoffrey and Harvey Baskin started Jeffreys in nineteen eighty three. Yes, it should be pronounced Jeffreys, but his name was Jeoffrey.
Jeff lives in a big McMansion in Malibu. When I went to see him, he was in the middle of a divorce. The place was half empty, and his two gigantic dogs were jumping all over the place. He told me he came to la in the late eighties to be an actor and started busing tables at Jeffreys. Eventually he bought the place.
Lucky for me, I'm a terrible actor. Fail at one thing to do well at something else.
Jeffreys is a Malibu institution. I think tourists, aging celebrities and a few Malibu regulars sipping cocktails and eating food that hasn't changed since the eighties.
Well, it sits along like a cliff overlooking the ocean, and it's surrounded by gardens and water fountains and fire pits. I mean, I was talking to Chuck Woolery one time, the old dating game guy. I was Love Connection, one of those things, and he was at the restaurant filming something, and he said, you know what, this was the number one place that men would always say they take their
dates because it's so romantic and relaxing. So there's a lot of anniversaries and dates and birthdays and special occasions.
It's a celebrity clubhouse. The art on the walls is made by patrons like Clint Eastwood and John Travolta.
Yes, we get our celebrities. I used to wait on Redford back in the day. Nicest man in the world. What a class act. So we get a combination of both, and we get presidents. So we get.
Everybody in depositions they gave later. Just about everyone who interacted with my Treece at the restaurant said they noticed that something was wrong with her. The valet, for instance, he says he found my Treees sitting in his car rifling through his CDs when he asked her what she was doing. She replied, it's subliminal, and the hostess, she says, my Trees got up from the table where she'd been seated alone and joined a party of seven. Hi, sorry, I'm late. Can I sit next to you? She asked
one of the strangers. From what these witnesses said later, my Rice was pretty amusing, chatty, spirited, and zany, talking about her fascination with the number eight and her plans to move to Hawaii, and of course Michael Jackson. In her deposition, the hostess stated, quote, at this point, I did not make too much of the situation because during my time working in Malibu, I had encountered lots of people who were off in their behavior and personalities. Unquote.
About an hour after my terse walked into Jeoffrey's, she walked out past the hostess stand to the valet. There was just one problem. She hadn't paid her bill. In his deposition, the manager says he confronted my Rise in the parking lot. When she said she couldn't pay, he took her back inside. He asked her to empty her pockets, thinking there might be a credit card or some cash in there. She pulled out a joint. Instead, the manager called Jeff, the owner.
I can remember that night. I remember I was sitting on a couch, not this couch, but another couch right here. I was sucking a fair flew down. I had a cold for the best of my recollection. Calls me up. He tells me there's a lady there. They don't know if something's wrong with her, if she's mentally ill, if she's drunk, if she's high, she's only had one drink, and she's talking in gibberish, and he doesn't know what to do.
According to law enforcement documents, when the manager confronted my Terse about paying her bill, she said quote that she was from Mars and that she was going to have sex with him unquote.
So I think the managers, really they just wanted to help her, because the message I got from her was that she was a nice, sweet she wasn't threatening, she wasn't mean, but something was just very wrong. One of the concerns was that we couldn't let her go that night without calling for help, because if you let a person who's obviously something's wrong with them, and like I said, I didn't know if it was drugs or alcohol or
mental illness. If you let a person go and give them their car keys and send them out under the road and they run over a child or hit a family, then people ask you the question and why do would you let this person go?
At eight thirty pm, the manager told the bartender to call nine to one one.
Loss Show Station deputy for Left I can help you.
Hi, I'm calling from Jeffrey's Restaurant, Nalibu. We have a guest here who is refusing to pay her bill, and you think she may She sounds really crazy.
She may be on.
Drugs or something.
We are wondering if something to come.
By and pick her up in Is she a white, Black, Asian Hispanic?
She's young black girls, probably in her twenties.
Is she with anybody else, No, it's just her.
Twenty minutes later, three Lost Hill's deputies arrived at Jeffrey's. Now the equation changed. The deputy searched my Teresa's car, supposedly looking for a form of payment, and found it was a mess full of CDs, clothes, and shoes. It was so bad they thought maybe she'd been living out of it, which was pretty accurate. In the trunk they found some handles, of vodka, a half drunk bottle of tequila, and half a case of beer, and between the two
front seats they found a small bag of weed. The valet asked a deputy what was wrong with my Trees. He replied that she was quote a ding, which is cop speak for mentally ill. With the deputies, my Treuce was lovely. Later, according to investigation documents, they said that while she quote seemed slightly embarrassed, Miss Richardson was cooperative and polite unquote. The deputies gave her a field sobriety test, which she passed. My Trees was trained at keeping up appearances.
She was afraid of what was happening to her mind, and she was in the midst of a crisis that was altering her sense of reality. When they asked her if she had a history of psychiatric problems, she said no. Still, she had to pay that bill. The hostess asked my Es if there was anyone she could call. My Rice gave her the number of her great grandmother, Mildred Harris. The hostess called her and asked her if she could come to the restaurant and take care of the bill.
Jeoffrey's apparently had a policy, and they wouldn't take a credit card over the phone. I'm ninety one years old, Miss Harris said, I can't drive to Malibu. Then my Teres's mother, Latis, called the restaurant and spoke to a manager. Investigation documents state that Latisse told the manager her daughter had quote been spending time with persons of whom she did not approve end quote needed to learn a lesson and be taken to jail. My Teresa's offense, dine and
dash or defrauding an innkeeper was misdemeanor petty theft. That's typically a citation, not a crime for which a person usually gets taken into custody. But the Jeoffrey's management didn't want my Trees leaving in her car. The cops told the manager that if he wanted them to take my Teres away, the manager would have to make a citizen's arrest. Here's how Jeff Peterson, the owner of Jeoffrey's, explains it.
So what happened was and excuse my dogs there coming in the room now. The only way that we were able to get her help. The deputy told us, you have to charge. We have to be able to take her away on something because we didn't defrauding that came from them, So they told us, this is what you need to do for us to be able to get her help.
There was another option, though, the deputies could have put my Rise on a seventy two hour psychiatric hold, also known as a fifty one fifty. Jeff says he had no idea.
If I knew that there was other ways, like if she could be a charge on a fifty one to fifty and take infremntal evaluation and we didn't have to do that, then absolutely, why the heck would I want a charger because it has never been about eighty nine dollars.
The Lost Tail's deputies executed a citizen's arrest on the dine and dash charge, and also charged my Trees with another misdemeanor for the pot in her car. Everyone, even her mother, seemed to agree she'd be better off in custody, so Anthony Lrero, the arresting officer, decided to hard book her at the Lost Tail Sheriff's station. The justification he gave his superiors is that he was worried about her, that she was quote a little ditzy, and he was
uneasy about just letting her go. According to internal station correspondence written after my Trese was officially a missing person or MP quote, deputies uncomfortable with field release, no articulated reason, instinctive feeling concern for MP's welfare. Lrero put my Trease in the back of a squad car and they drove through Malibu Canyon to the station about thirteen miles away. Meanwhile, her car was taken to a tow yard near Pacific Coast Highway, where it was impounded. While my Trace was
in transit, deputies were preparing for her arrival. One of the deputies who had responded to the Jeoffrey's call typed a message to another deputy over the interdepartmental computer system at station in fifteen refem search. He wrote, what'd you get? His colleague typed back, defrauding an innkeeper?
Lol?
What did she leave without paying? Tried but failed, then had no means to pay? Citizens arrest? Why didn't you help assist her out? This exchange is callous and it has uncomfortable racial undertones. My Trace was a black female alone and in crisis in Malibu. For many, her race would be the defining factor in what happened to her, she should have been granted extra protection. But that's not
what happened. What happened is that sometime on that long dark drive from the restaurant to the station, the concern for my Teres's well being that had justified her arrest in the first place seemed to vanish.
I am calling. I'm a little fred that right now. Understand my daughter is being brought into the station. My Terce richard'son. Has they made it to the station yet? And she's been booked?
Okay?
Is do you know where she's coming from?
It's some restaurant out in Malibu and I didn't even think to get the name the manager.
The only place we have somebody that's in custody that they just announced on the radio that they're coming up as from Jeffrey's in Jotha Highway.
It's the only female.
That's bringing brought up to the station as we speak. They actually just put it on the radio right before you call them.
This is a recording of a call Latise Sutton made to Lost Hill Station on the night of the arrest. It was published on the Internet shortly after my Trieste disappeared.
Okay, okay, I'm her mother, and are you guys want to book her and then release her on her own RECOGNI tonight because it's just dark. She doesn't have a car, and I don't want her wandering out. I'm totally just taken aback because it is so out of character for her. And you'll see when she comes in she's well spoken. I think the only way I will come and get her tonight is if you guys are going to release her tonight.
It was already late, almost ten pm. Latis lived at least an hour away from the station. She and Larry weren't living together at the time, and she couldn't leave their daughter home alone.
It's going to be held in custody for some type of arraignment tomorrow. Then I will wait until tomorrow. You definitely have no place, you know. I mean, she's not from that area, and I would hate to wake up to a morning report so lost somewhere with her head chopped off. So I guess I would have to come and get her. Oh my god.
Yeah, we're in a gray hose.
The only thing is at least in the station here she will be separated, so nobody's going to be with her. Certainly, that's you know the first thing, so you don't have to worry about her safety.
Oh yeah, No, I feel safe with her being in industity. It's being released, but I'm worried about it. It's crazy out here.
A short time later, the squad car carrying my Terse arrived at Lost Hill Station. She was taken to a booking cell, where she was searched and made to hand over her possessions. She was given a medical and mental health assessment and a live scan for fingerprints and other identifying details like her tattoos, to submit to law enforcement databases. Pres my Terce was always radiant, eyes lit up, dazzling smile. In the mugshot taken at Lost Hill Station that night,
she looks like a different person. Her hair is messy, her skin looks waxy and tired, but really it's her eyes. The light has gone out. Lost Hills is what's known as a slow station. That night, there was just one other person in custody. My name is Charmaine Murray Henderson. I recently met Charmaine in the courtyard of a motel where she was staying.
It was just me and Matries. I don't know how big the station was, but I know. It was like a little small station where they help people. They say, going for like duy. They go in until you get well enough to drive, you know, leave again like they have hold of self for that type.
You know.
It was just a small it's a small station. That night, Charmaine said she'd been picked up in the valley for soliciting. Her memory's foggy, it's been a long time and over the years she's had multiple strokes, but she does remember that my Ruse was already in the cell when she arrived. I mean she was there before me.
And I walked in cause she was standing like in a doorway, like I need to sit down. I'm very tired. I want to sit down. It was just me and her and the cell and she was just by the doorway, and I was like, excuse, what can I get anced I can sit down.
Charmaine noticed right away that my Ruse was acting strange.
From some of her like her actions and stuff. I could tell that she was not okay to be by herself. I don't a know what kind of mental state she was in, Like some people ain't okay to be by theirself.
She seemed kind of vulnerable to you.
Yeah, very vulnerable.
Yeah, I read somewhere that you requested to change cells. Do you remember that? Was she being.
Annoying because she was like she when I understand her situation, like I'm trying to sleep if she gonna keep knocking at the door trying to like.
You know, she wanted she wanted out.
Come on, who arrest someone?
Did you get a ticket for that? So you can go to jail for not betting to pay your meal? Who arrest someone for that? So it was like they went overboard with it, and I felt I failed her. So she was like she wanted she wanted out.
She's like banging on the door, begging her.
Door, like trying to get deputy, like cite me out or let me know my charges.
Around eleven forty five PM, when it was determined that my Trees had no outstanding warrants, the jailer gave her the citation and told her she could go. She asked my Trees if someone was going to pick her up. My Trees said she hadn't been able to reach anyone. According to the Sheriff's Department, she had tried calling her
great grandmother, Mildred Harris, with no luck. The jailer later said she offered to let my Tree stay the night in an unlocked cell or wait in the front lobby until she got a ride, but she declined, saying she had to go meet friends. Charmaine was in a different cell at this point, but she says she could hear what was going on.
I guess they cited her out, But when you cite someone out, you still don't let them leave until they didn't have knowledge of a ride or they have a way to get somewhere. I mean, they can call a calf on their own something like that. You know, they wouldn't have released me in the middle of the night. I mean I would hope not, you know, because it's in the middle of nowhere.
It struck her as unusual and not okay.
When I seen the news, there was like, damn, that's crazy because I was like in a cell with this woman and I was saying she's missing. I was thinking like, damn, if I would have got released like that could have been me.
Over the following weeks, months, and years, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department would repeatedly seek to justify the release of my Terce Richardson saying that legally they did not have the right to detain her. She had no outstanding warrants, her infractions were misdemeanors, and she was not gravely disabled or in immediate danger to herself or others. That's the standard for a fifty one to fifty psychiatric hold.
That's bullshit, is what that is. That's bullshit.
Here's Hannah again.
A young woman by herself, drives to Malibu to go to Joffrey's, an expensive restaurant in Malibu, by herself, claiming she's there to avenge Michael Jackson's death, sits with people she doesn't know, says weird things, gets arrested for her own safety, goes to the police station. All of a sudden, she's okay, that's bullshit. She wasn't okay.
My Teresa's unstable mental condition was the reason deputies had taken her into custos in the first place. Remember, the arresting deputy thought she was quote a little ditzy, and he was uneasy about just letting her go. But once she got to the station, law enforcement says, my ruse was acting normal, so they had no reason to keep her. In fact, they said they were legally obligated to release her.
Hannah says, that is just not possible. Anyone who interacted with my Trees would have recognized that she was in crisis.
I understand that some people are thinking, oh, maybe she was on drugs, or maybe that's what it was. For me personally, it was a psychotic break that my Trace was experiencing. The drive to Malibu, the Jeoffreys, the saying she was meeting me, the talking about aliens and Michael Jackson and all that. And it is without question anybody that came into contact with my Trees, look at the mugshot.
Anybody who came into any contact with her. I don't care who you are, family, neighbor, somebody who's walking past her on the street. There is a zero percent chance that they didn't know something was wrong with her mentally zero.
At twelve twenty five am, my Trace left Lost Hill Station. She had no money, and her phone was in her car, which was in a towyard ten miles away on the other side of Malibu Canyon near Pacific Coast Highway.
Make it make sense, It doesn't make sense. At bare minimum, they should have kept my Trees at the Sheriff's station until morning, until her mom came or somebody came to to come check on her and get her. She had nothing. They knew she was mentally unwell, which is why she was there in the first place. What they should have done is placed her on a hold and taken her to a psychiatric facility. But they can't do that because
they're claiming she was fine. They're lying. It's bullshit, and if you care about my truths, you'll say what's true. That's true. They're just trying to cover their own as that's bullshit, and that really bothers me.
Once she left the station, my Trees had no way to call anyone for help and no way for help to find her. All of this was news to her mother, who called the station around five twenty am on the morning of the seventeenth and was horrified to learn that her daughter was no longer there. She thought she had an agreement with the cops that they would keep my Trees overnight. Latisse was alarmed. My Trees had already been out of custody for five hours and no one in
the family had heard from her. Fifteen minutes later, at five thirty five am, Latiz called Lost Hill station again to find out how to file a missing person's report.
Last Hield Station bomb gardener.
This recording of Latisa's call was released on the internet shortly after My Trees disappeared.
Yes, Hi, my name is Latista and I called not too long ago regarding my daughter. My Trees wouldn been How long before a missing person's report can be filed at the twenty four or forty eight hours?
Well, it depends on the circumstances. But I didn't take your call, so I'm not familiar with it. Did she just not return home after going out?
She explains that my Trees had been in custody at Lost Hill Station and then released.
She was arrested last night. This is the first time she's been arrested. She's in an unknown area she's never been in. She got out a vehicle. Nobody can find her.
But the deputy doesn't seem overly concerned. He thinks Latist can hold off on the missing person's report.
Yeah, normally we wouldn't. I wouldn't recommend doing one.
That soon, right, What is the time frame?
You know?
I guess probably twenty four hours would be reasonable. I mean, if there would be some some mitigating factors. You know, where you know, you would suspect maybe something.
Well, yeah, right, she doesn't know the area. She's never been in your.
Area where you where does she live?
Is unfamiliar with that area?
Do you think she possibly could have gotten a bus home?
And listen, my child has never written a bus. No, she would not know how to ride a bus.
I would probably wait till you know, early this morning, and if she doesn't turn up, you can certainly call. I don't suspect anything.
Bad happen, but latist does suspect something bad has happened. So she decides to level with.
Him something something is obviously going on with her. Have you tried to the jailer and yes, yes, yes, yes I have. He said he tried to get her distabled. Because she was an adult, they had to let her go. I believe that she is highly depressed, and she she's in a depressed state.
You know, it could be possible that maybe she I mean, there's a lot of options and a lot of possibilities, and I don't think all of them would be you know, something dire. But I can certainly understand your fears, you know, being your daughter and all that.
Well, I think she's suppressed. That's what happened.
Is that that's worth more than just her Okay, that and.
The fact that she's in an area where she doesn't know where she's at.
It doesn't take medication at all.
No, she I believe this is a state that she's in right now because of just the weird activities.
What's your name is?
Her name is my tree?
I'll rid.
In another hour around six thirty am. Bill and Karen Smith, the couple in Montanito who spotted my trees in their backyard, would call the cops office CAMPI. This is a recording of that call, which was published online.
Yeah, I, hey, this is a Smith a cold Canyon. We had a prower walking around through the backyard here, but we don't know what the situation was. I don't know if you have a union in the area, might do a little drive by or something.
Okay, where's this that the Smith lived at the Tennis Court House.
This is Cold Canyon like ont Cold and Money and Needle. But it's in the back of the house, which is right where wood Bluff hits the Cold Canyon. And we just said, a strange woman walk up through the backyard here. It is fairly large property, and she was sitting on the steps right right on the back of the house. Here this is kind of a circular driveway and the big gates were closed, so we don't know where this woman came from.
Their property, Smith said, connected to a network of trails used by everyone in the neighborhood.
What she looked like white, black, and you know, a tall, slim black woman with afro hair. While she was sitting down, stretched out on the wooden steps in the back of the house. Hard to tell, but does She looked like she might have been medium to slightly tall, with a big afrol hair, very skinny, and I think she was wearing maybe jeans or tight pants with a T shirt. You've never seen her there before, No, never, Nobody never
does that. I mean, the people hike on the trail all the time, you know, when the trail goes through our property, but we leave it open on purpose because it's kind of a nice thing for horses and people.
And he said, she's laying across me. She wasn't laying across the steps.
Or but she was sitting kind of sprawled out upon these wooden steps in the back of the house right against the back of the house. She since got up and left. She since gone. Yeah, she's been gone about five minutes now. But as we follow over, we thought maybe a little drive by wouldn't be a bad idea.
And in what direction was she sheld have seen?
Who?
Never saw her? Once she left, she just disappeared. I moved from one window to another. I said to her, I hollered down. Are you all right? She said, I'm just resting, or something like that.
According to her memoir, when Latis arrived at Lost Hill station to file a missing person's report, the deputy recognized the name my Teres Richardson. He told the tease someone who looked like her daughter had been seen in Montanito early that morning. My race, she said, might be quote with some friends in the neighborhood unquote friends in Montanito. My trees didn't have any friends in Montanito. Latis asked
how to get there. The deputy told her just take Las Virgines, the road that turns into Malibu Canyon and you'll hit Cold Canyon Road. As Latis drove mile after mile of rural canyon road, no houses, no street lamps, no nothing, she thought, there's no way on earth, my daughter walked here, My trees was afraid of the dark. Next time on Lost Hills, did you have the feeling when you were dealing with people in Montanito like they wanted to tell you something but they couldn't tell you something.
Yes, definitely, people just didn't want to talk. They're just afraid of law enforcement. This story by this time had broke on the news and law enforcement did not look good. They're not really in a position to talk because these are the people that they have to rely on to protect them because you know it's so secluded.
That's next in episode four of Lost Hills Hopscotch. 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