CA CA - Mitrice Richardson, 24, Malibu, 17 Sep 2009

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One of my son's best friends works at Lost Hills Station. I have asked him about this case several times, and I have kind of a different slant on it because of what he has said.

In a nutshell, once they got Mitrice back to the station, and she calmed down, and the Restaurant Geoffrey's decided not to press any charges, the cops decided to simply give her an infraction ticket for the pot in her car. So she was no longer under arrest.

At this point she wanted to leave. The officer who was working with her one on one at this point is a black female officer who works that station. She tried very hard to keep Mitrice inside the building. She suggested several times that Mitrice wait in the lobby, which is quite comfortable and safe. This is a very small station, in a very quiet part of town. Even if she had sat on the front lawn she would have been very safe and secure until her mother arrived.
This officer asked her to wait for her mother to pick her up, but that was exactly what Mitrice did not want to happen. She wanted to avoid her parents, and she DEMANDED to be set free if she was not under arrest. Just because somebody has their car impounded, that does not make it legal for the police to keep a grown woman in custody. She had every right to leave the premises.
I have seen some posts here saying she was dumped out or thrown out--that is not how it was imo. She had every legal right to leave and she DEMANDED her civil and legal rights and she did NOT want to be around when her family arrived.

She , according to what our friend said, did not exhibit any mental health issues at the time she was being interviewed for release. The police felt that she was drunk and high earlier in the restaurant incident, but after the charges were dropped, and she rested in custody for a few hours, she was good to go. She was given the use of the phone and as far as they knew she had set up a ride for herself. That is what she told the officers before she left. They had no reason to doubt her. It is the way most released citizens do it--call a friend and get a ride home.
It is unfortunate that she was probably having a bi-polar high, and so she just took off on a rampage and ended up in the woods. It is quite possible she met up with some psyvchos in the woods, but I don't think we can blame LE for that. They gave her some solid options, and she refused. But she was a grown woman who was no longer under arrest. And she used all of her focus and strength to convince them that she was fine and that she had a ride and wanted to leave. I think it is wrong to blame them just because she didn't want to be there when her parents arrived.

I really do not think that any of the officers at Lost Hills Station harmed her. I just don't.
But I could be wrong.

Have we heard or read anywhere just who she called? Surely, they would have a record of that? I don't recall seeing who it was or if it was even verified? Odd.

While there is definitely something amiss with this story and it should be thoroughly investigated, I think Latrice should have driven to the station to get her daughter ASAP, imo. It's not like she was hundreds of miles away. There was talk of MR being bi-polar, AFAIR, she was never clinically diagnosed and MR was not on any type of medication for it.

She might have been picked up by someone traveling that road who lived in the area she was ultimately found, or an officer who was on their way to the detention center that is located on the main route near where she was found also. IIRC, wasn't there a report of an officer leaving the station shortly after MR was released?
 
You make an excellent point. I would love an explanation.

Yeah, the location doesn't make sense. Later pictures show that the area is a chaparral area, typical in Southern California forests. While access to the general area is easy, off of Piuma Rd., it is so windy and desolate that I wouldn't think she would walk there herself.
 
Have we heard or read anywhere just who she called? Surely, they would have a record of that? I don't recall seeing who it was or if it was even verified? Odd.

While there is definitely something amiss with this story and it should be thoroughly investigated, I think Latrice should have driven to the station to get her daughter ASAP, imo. It's not like she was hundreds of miles away. There was talk of MR being bi-polar, AFAIR, she was never clinically diagnosed and MR was not on any type of medication for it.

She might have been picked up by someone traveling that road who lived in the area she was ultimately found, or an officer who was on their way to the detention center that is located on the main route near where she was found also. IIRC, wasn't there a report of an officer leaving the station shortly after MR was released?


It was verified that she made some calls, but afterwards, during the investigation, it was found that she just left voice messages for her girlfriend.
She apparently assumed that her gf would get the message and come for her. The cops did not know that, they just saw her talking on the phone.

And, they had asked her to wait for her ride. Her mom was only an hour away at that time of night. Zero traffic, straight shot up the 101 fwy.

Mitrice had been estranged from her mother for a few months because she was making 'poor choices' according to the parents. She had been living out of her car after being kicked out of her apt by her gf. So the very last thing Mitrice wanted was to meet up with her mother that night at the jail. She was actually running from her mother. So it bothers me that Latrice has gone on a high profile MSM campaign in which she actually accuses them of a conspiracy and even of murder at some points earlier on. She has imp-lied, and even accused them of following her into the hills and raping and killing her daughter. That is way out of line imo.

The main reason Mitrice left that station in the middle of the night was because she did not want to deal with her MOM. Sorry, but they were having some family issues, and for her to turn it around and blame LE is wrong.
Her daughter was a grown woman who had pills and pot and liquor in her car, who went kind of crazy in a public restaurant, refused to pay for her meal, and then when the cops cut her a break, and let her off with just a ticket, she demanded to leave, AS PER HER LEGAL AND CIVIL RIGHTS.

as to the 'report' of the officer leaving the station right after Mitrice. That was an ugly rumor began by Mitrices family. In the video, when Mitrice leaves, an officer is seen walking out behind her. Her family showed that video at a couple of rallies, and insinuated , even accused, the officer of following her to rape and kill her. It would have been nice of they had checked his alibi. The evidence PROVES he went immediately to the hospital to check on a drunk driver who had been in a minor accident and was going to be arrested.

HIS FAMILY had to deal with those totally baseless claims. It was maddening for her family to do that imo. They made those accusations on KABC Talk Radio and they should have been sued imo.

As for the story not being fully told, you are correct. And imo it is Litrice who is not wanting the whole story told. There are reasons she and her daughter had a falling out. And for her to try and paint it all warm and fuzzy, and spin the tale the way she has is atrocious, IMO.

Did the cops do a good job with the remains. Certainly not. But that doesn't mean they killed that poor young woman. She was bi-polar, was not being treated and her family was pursuing a tough love approach. Sometimes that does not work out too well. She ran into some pot growers or low lifes in those Malibu Hills. Too bad she ran into them to try and find safety instead of waiting for her MOM.
 
I very much appreciate your insights and thank you for sharing this with us here. It certainly seems plausible and may very well have happened just this way.

With all due respect though, I wouldn't consider this account to be objective. The PD is obviously under fire for the way Mitrice the person and Mitrice the missing person were handled. This latest news about additional remains being found months later just breaks my heart. Not only the indignity of it, but also the fact that it seems so unlikely that Mitrice's fate will ever be determined. If she was killed at the hands of another, I fear they will never be caught and Mitrice and her family will never have justice.

It's just so sad and seems to get sadder as time goes on.

Actually, I might consider this young man's account as more objective than the mothers. She has been making very lurid and offbase accusations all along. She has NOT shared the whole story but has tried to paint the picture of a perfect, polite, innocent young college student who was abused and perhaps killed by a band of vicious racist cops. That is what she is selling to the people at her rallies.
I went to join the search in those hills earlier, and there were hundreds of volunteers, many of them off duty LE, looking for her. I think it was the largest search for a missing person in this county's history. Yet Mitrice's mom
keeps trying to spin this in a very ugly way.
THe Sheriff's Dept has NOT shared all of the information that would shed more light on it out of respect for the family. Litrice is doing the exact opposite.

Mitrice was treated very well. They DROPPED ALL CHARGES, including the pills and open bottle of liquor found in her car. All they gave her was a ticket for having pot in her car. Thus car was impounded. Once they decided NOT TO ARREST HER she was free to go. They had no legal right to force her to wait for her mother. She told them she had a ride. What else are they supposed to do?

Mitrice and her mother were not on speaking terms. Mitrice did not want to be there when MOM arrived. It is not up to the cops to keep a full grown adult in custody if they are not under arrest. Something tells me that if they had done that there would have been complaints about that too.
 
I am absolutely appalled at some of the misinformation regarding this issue. I cannot even begin to clear up the erroneous statements made throughout this thread. I will address some of the rumors that are spread throughout this thread but do not have the time to clear up all the misinformation.

1. Latice and Mitrice had a great relationship and were in regular contact. In fact the were planning to be at a college ball game on the night that she went missing.

2. Captain Tom Martin of the Lost Hills station denied that a video ever existed. After months of insisting that there was not a video, he finally admitted it in a meeting we had with Sheriff Baca - he had it in his desk for months all while denying it.

3. Although the deputies claim that she made phone calls to her great grandmother, her great grandmother denies ever receiving phone calls while Mitrice was at the station and the sheriff departments is still claiming that they are trying to isolate the phone records of Mitrice's phone calls after over a year and a half.

4. When Mitrice's naked body there was not forensic evidence collected from the crime scene due to the fact the detectives removed her body against the coroner's orders

5. The detectives did not see fit to send her clothing to the crime lab for analysis. Instead her clothing was released to the mortuary. But for the fact that an independent forensic evaluation was done on the day of her funeral, the family would not have known that the clothing that was found near her body was not analyzed and has yet to be analyzed.

6. There was no DNA analysis done on her body which would include pubic hair that was still attached to her mummified body.

7. I saw the video over a year ago and there was a deputy leaving after Mitrice was walked out. This after we were told that all deputies were on patrol and there were not deputies at the station when she left.

8. At the arrangement of Sheriff Lee Baca I, along with Latice, Mitrice's aunt and a forensic anthropologist were taken to the location where Mitrice's body was found. We were taken in by the search and rescue team and we had to speacial equipment in order to get to the site. We, along with the rescue team were harnessed and had to repel and scale the sides of massive bolders in order to get to the site - it would be impossible to get there alone at least in the way that we were taken. The only other way in is through a 21 acre *advertiser censored* ranch run by Suze Randall. Behind her property are two small trails that would make it much easier to get to where Mitrice's body was found.

9. Mitrice did not get kicked out of an apartment with her girlfriend. She lived with her great- grandmother.

10. She did rest in custody for a few hours to sober up - she was booked and released in about 1.5 hours.

11. The video that we saw last year was finally released to the attorneys; however (about a month and a half ago), low and behold the video is now to blurry to be viewed. No family member has every had access to that video. It was shown to us by the detective and to date has never been given to the family.

Too tired to go on. Dr. Ronda www.findmitrice.info
 
drronda, a big welcome to you! I am so sad to meet under these circumstances. Thank you for the link to Mitrice's sight. I had not seen the pics of where Matrice was found. It's good to have a visual on the difficult terrain. Her memorial is beautiful.

I hope you come back to post and clarify any misinformation you see. Thank you for joining us.
 
8. At the arrangement of Sheriff Lee Baca I, along with Latice, Mitrice's aunt and a forensic anthropologist were taken to the location where Mitrice's body was found. We were taken in by the search and rescue team and we had to speacial equipment in order to get to the site. We, along with the rescue team were harnessed and had to repel and scale the sides of massive bolders in order to get to the site - it would be impossible to get there alone at least in the way that we were taken. The only other way in is through a 21 acre *advertiser censored* ranch run by Suze Randall. Behind her property are two small trails that would make it much easier to get to where Mitrice's body was found.

There are a lot of mysteries surrounding this case, but I remain fixated on the mystery surrounding the location. Some articles make it sound like some people visited her memorial with easy access (sorry I can't cite right now), yet LE keeps needing special equipment to get into the area. Dr. Rhonda said there are two small trails leading to this general vicinity, and another poster more familiar with the area wrote that the Backbone Trail also apparently runs through this area. Perhaps I am beating a dead horse here...but why does LE keep insisting on taking the difficult way in to the location? That's what is confusing me at least.

Maybe I should ask: what makes the location difficult to access? Is it the shrubbery (what initial reports suggested, "dense foliage") or the rocks? The only pics I've seen don't seem to show dense foliage AFAIR.

A fall was ruled out (which would also rule out being dropped from the sky or cliff). I just don't get it. If it is the rocks, then there must be an easy access that LE does not know about...and that could lead to who did it.
 
Thanks for posting the link to the updated site. These are the most informative pics I've seen. Assuming the memorial rests where Mitrice was found, I find the incline/angle of the rocks to be interesting, as there doesn't seem to be a path nearby. What is directly above that area? Does the slope come from a mountain?
 
I'm assuming they cannot use the two trails because it is private property and the owner refused.
 
Lawsuits brought by the parents of a woman whose body was found nearly a year after her release from custody were pared Tuesday by a judge, but the central claims regarding whether sheriff’s deputies should have gotten her medical help beforehand remain part of both cases.
Michael Richardson and his ex-wife, Latice Sutton, last year filed separate lawsuits against the county concerning the death of their 24-year-old daughter. Both complaints were later consolidated.


http://www.wavenewspapers.com/news/local/west-edition/Judge-issues-122044019.html

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The mother of Mitrice Richardson has filed a second lawsuit against L.A. County.
Her mother, Latice Sutton, claims when deputies found the body, the coroner's office told them not to disturb the remains. Her lawsuit claims that deputies removed them anyway.
Sutton is seeking unspecified damages for alleged negligence and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.


http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=8151576
 
...since hearing the news of her exhumation, i spent the last few days (and nights) reviewing everything i could find on this case. although there are still more questions than answers i did see something in the little circumstantial evidence there is... i'm putting together my notes and will post later today for your opinions.
 
...still no word on the forensic exam on the additional bones or the clothing? was the neck bone recovered?
 
http://malibusurfsidenews.com/stories/201107/201107210005.html

The forensics expert indicated that the coroner's preliminary review did not change the determination that the cause of death is unknown, which he said is not surprising in light of the current information.

Dr. Howard Oliver indicated it might be several months before the extensive lab work is complete and there is any indication of whether causal reassessment is in order.

Oliver confirmed that still missing is Richardson's hyoid bone, which could indicate the possibility of choking as the cause of death. This is deemed important because residents in the area reported hearing screams that sounded as if they were then cut off. He indicated that given the presence of other bones around the throat, the absence of the hyoid raises numerous questions.
 
Family members and friends brought sunflowers, which were Mitrice Richardson's favorite flower, to the cemetery and placed them around the burial site before the crew prepared to put her casket in the vault and return it to the ground.

Richardson's college mentor, Ronda Hampton, said, "A story that you cannot see is the gentleness of the workers as they removed and returned Mitrice. They were so delicate, it was amazing.

At one point, they needed to remove a large sunflower that was already at her grave side and, if you will notice, there is one worker who kept the sunflower by his side and carried it with him while he was putting the dirt back over her."

Everyone who was there said all of the staff at Inglewood Cemetery Park were compassionate and sensitive. Hampton added, "I am in awe of the kindness of others."

http://malibusurfsidenews.com/stories/201107/201107210005.html

This doesn't surprise me at all... having dealt with Inglewood myself under horrible circumstances.

However... in such sharp contrast to the lack of compassion from the police...

Well that is just different. :(
 
The location is difficult to access as when we were taken to the location we were taken in by the local Search and Rescue Team. We were harnessed and had to wear protective gear as there was much poison oak in the area. We entered through a creek bed and eventually were met with large boulders which we had to be propelled over as well as had to scale the sides of a few boulders. The ravine was slippery, wet and very steep in several places. Although the location was about a mile off the main road, it took us more than an hour to get there. I do not believe that Mitrice entered through that ravine or if she did she got there a different way then we did. I believe that it is most likely that she entered through a trail which is at the back end of a *advertiser censored* ranch that is located just above the ravine. I know that when her body was found, law enforcement used the back end of the *advertiser censored* ranch as their base of command. Please visit www.findmitrice.info for photos.



There are a lot of mysteries surrounding this case, but I remain fixated on the mystery surrounding the location. Some articles make it sound like some people visited her memorial with easy access (sorry I can't cite right now), yet LE keeps needing special equipment to get into the area. Dr. Rhonda said there are two small trails leading to this general vicinity, and another poster more familiar with the area wrote that the Backbone Trail also apparently runs through this area. Perhaps I am beating a dead horse here...but why does LE keep insisting on taking the difficult way in to the location? That's what is confusing me at least.

Maybe I should ask: what makes the location difficult to access? Is it the shrubbery (what initial reports suggested, "dense foliage") or the rocks? The only pics I've seen don't seem to show dense foliage AFAIR.

A fall was ruled out (which would also rule out being dropped from the sky or cliff). I just don't get it. If it is the rocks, then there must be an easy access that LE does not know about...and that could lead to who did it.
 

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