12. Dig Two Graves | Lost Hills

0:15Speaker 1:Pushkin.

0:23Speaker 2:This spring, as we were finishing the show, my birthday rolled around again. I always associate this time of year with my trees now because it's when I learned Rick Forsberg's name. Three days before my birthday, I got a package at home. My first thought was, someone sent me a gift. But it wasn't a gift. The package from an online bookseller in England contained two copies of a book called Careless Talk Costs Lives. The picture on the cover was a drawing of two women talking, not realizing that Hitler and Goering are sitting behind them. There was no return address and no note. I flipped open the book.

1:06Speaker 2:It was full of propaganda posters from World War II England. But that wasn't the point. The point was the words that jumped out at me as I paged through. Warning and be on your guard. I called Haley. There were two copies. There were two women on the cover. We were two women reporting this story. We both felt this was a threat. Someone out there didn't like the direction of the reporting. Someone wanted us to stop. Over the past five years, we'd talked to so many people with so many competing agendas. Cops, criminals, childhood friends of Rick's.

1:51Speaker 2:Whoever it was, sending the package to my house was a not-so-subtle reminder that they knew where to find me. I went to my local police station and told the LAPD detective I met with that I was in the midst of sensitive reporting on the Mitrice-Richardson case, which, I reminded him, had started as an LAPD missing persons case. The detective perked up at that. He agreed the package was meaningful. He asked to keep one of the copies of the book and my business card. And he told me, essentially, to be on my guard. The whole episode made me feel like we were getting closer to the truth. And this is Lost Hills.

2:41Speaker 3:Episode 12.

3:08Speaker 2:Dig two graves. About six months before she disappeared, Mitrice developed a new interest.

3:20Speaker 4:Right before Mitrice went missing, she wanted to buy a motorcycle.

3:26Speaker 2:This is Mitrice's dad, Michael, again. He says in July 2009, Mitrice had a motorcycle driving test. He wanted to go with her, but he had just started a new job.

3:38Speaker 4:And that was something that I regret to this day because that would have been the last thing possibly that we'd done together.

3:46Speaker 2:Haley and I are visiting Michael at home in his garage, where he has a kind of shrine set up to the memory of Mitrice and what happened to her. There are collages of family photos and framed articles about her disappearance. The garage is where he keeps his white 66 Chevy with the portrait of Mitrice on the trunk. and where he also keeps the front piece of the orange and cream-colored Harley Davidson he bought in her honor after she died. Just like the car, the Harley has a portrait of Mitrice painted on it.

4:18Speaker 4:My friends teased me because they was like, this dude never rode a minibike, never had a scooter, and when he came, he came with a $ 50, 000 motorcycle, custom-built, ready to ride and the whole thing.

4:31Speaker 2:But we're not here to see the motorcycle or the car. We're here because Michael told us he has a bag full of Mitrice's clothing. He found the clothing in her car. It was there when she disappeared. It's been packed away in the garage, untouched, for almost 15 years. He's never opened it.

4:50Speaker 4:It's in a Ziploc bag, and something just told me never get rid of it, and I couldn't do it if I wanted to. I just always felt like someday, somehow, we're going to need them. We're going to need them. And so I kept them in a plastic Ziploc bag, and we'll see. Yeah, so let me know when you're ready.

5:15Speaker 2:Michael heads for the back corner of the garage, where he has some metal shelves. He pulls down one of those clear plastic bags for storing pillows.

5:28Speaker 4:This, you know, we have this saying that, uh, This girl wants the world to know who did this.

5:39Speaker 2:When we see the clothing through the bag, something unexpected happens.

5:52Speaker 5:Gosh, Michael, I am feeling emotional seeing this stuff.

5:56Speaker 6:I am too.

5:57Speaker 7:That's how you're.

5:57Speaker 8:Feeling right now.

5:59Speaker 2:There's just something about seeing this man hold his daughter's belongings in his arms. It's what's left of her from that night. What she had with her in her car when she was arrested. It's who she was until the moment her identity flattened out into victim. We're closer to Mitrice than we've ever been. As close as we'll ever get. We walk out to the driveway and Michael sits down in a folding chair. We put on our N95s and gloves and get to work. I unzip the bag and start removing its contents. Some of the clothes and shoes were clearly part of my Teresa's go-go dancing wardrobe. A glove, a strip of purple sequined cloth, tall boots, strappy heels.

6:45Speaker 2:So this is like a patent leather. Do you think she would wear this at Deborah's?

6:51Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, definitely.

6:53Speaker 2:I line everything up on the pavement.

6:56Speaker 5:One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine pairs of shoes, which includes three pairs of boots, one of which are Uggs.

7:09Speaker 2:And then there are, one of those is flip-flops, the rest are high heels.

7:14Speaker 1:Nine pairs of pants.

7:17Speaker 4:That's that!

7:21Speaker 2:Deeper in the bag, we find Mitrice's makeup kit. Inside, it's a tangle of chunky beads and brightly colored hoop earrings. And buried in there in a tangled knot is the thing we've been looking for.

7:32Speaker 8:That looks like it might be underwear or something that's striped underneath.

7:39Speaker 9:See that little, right, right, the striped.

7:44Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, yes, you're right.

7:46Speaker 2:Good, that is underwear. Can I have a plastic bag? It's size medium, purple and black stripes, mesh. very similar to some of the items we found inside the suitcase at Rick's fort. All of a sudden, it seems a lot more likely that one of the pairs of fort underwear could be Mitrice's. We bag up the thong along with a purple hairbrush filled with Mitrice's hair. Michael says we can have them tested for DNA. He's willing to do anything at this point.

8:19Speaker 4:I can't get a case closed if I'm limited to what I give you guys. I have to be open to, like, Here, you're taking this serious, so I want you guys to have it.

8:29Speaker 2:The handling of Mitrice's clothing from the remains site was completely botched. Nothing was even tested till after her body was exhumed a year after the discovery. We don't know exactly what was done at that point, but nothing came of it. We're hoping that through forensic evidence, we can place Mitrice at Rick's fort. It's a long shot, but finding that stuff at the fort was so improbable We have to try. Angela Butler is a DNA analyst at a private forensics lab in the Bay Area.

9:06Speaker 8:I typically take the most challenging cases in the lab. Right now I'm doing a lot of cold cases.

9:14Speaker 2:Her lab works with cops, prosecutors, and innocence projects, handling a lot of high-profile cases. The Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez, Scott Peterson, Kristen Smart. And now, Mitrice Richardson. With Michael's permission, we sent Mitrice's hairbrush to Butler. We also sent the two size medium black thongs we found at Rick's fort. If she could get Mitrice's DNA from the hairbrush and DNA from the fort underwear, she'd be able to compare the profiles. There could be a match. She started with the hairbrush.

9:51Speaker 8:So I took a few swabs. And I really got into the base of those bristles and there was plenty of material that was visible on the swabs. And I thought, great, this will be enough to get me something.

10:10Speaker 2:But when Butler analyzed it, the material was very degraded, and there was almost no DNA.

10:17Speaker 8:I would have wanted to see at least 10 times as much DNA to get at least a partial profile. And the quality was very poor.

10:35Speaker 2:That was disappointing. But we could potentially build out Mitrice's DNA profile a different way, particularly if her dad was willing to help. So Butler moved on to see what, if anything, she could get from the Fort underwear. We'd warned her it was muddy, moldy, and damp, and as far as we knew, had been outside for more than a decade. She started with the pair that was most similar to the pair that Mitrice had in her car, the black thong, size medium, with the Rampage label.

11:07Speaker 8:Well, those, when those came out of the bag, those were still wet. I know that bacterial degradation is probably actively happening. So right out of the gate, I thought, oh boy, this isn't good.

11:26Speaker 2:She sampled the crotch area, extracted the DNA, and found only a tiny amount.

11:31Speaker 8:Such a trace amount, it was the equivalent of a cell's worth of DNA.

11:38Speaker 2:There was nowhere near enough DNA to identify an individual. We'd struck out. We didn't have the resources to test the rest of the fort underwear, but Butler encouraged us not to throw away what we'd found. so I called the cold case desk at the Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau again. They could test it all, if they wanted to. The last time I spoke to Lieutenant Michael Modica, who's in charge of the cold case unit, he wasn't interested in hearing about any of our discoveries. But he did say to get in touch if we had any luck with the forensics. I feel like I owe him an answer, and I'm hoping to convince him to take the stash of underwear from Rick's fort and do something with it.

12:23Speaker 8:Lieutenant Michael Modica.

12:26Speaker 10:Is not available.

12:27Speaker 2:Record your message at the tone.

12:29Speaker 6:Hi, Lieutenant Modica. This is Dana Goodyear from the Lost Health Podcast. I left word for you on Monday regarding the Matrice Richardson case and some materials that I had mentioned to you. We've come to the end of the road with what we can do, and I'm just wondering if you might have any interest. I think that... Potentially, law enforcement would be able to take this further than we could using.

12:54Speaker 2:A private lab. I'm still waiting for him to call me back. But in the meantime, we get a big surprise. Mark Wallace, Rick's firefighter friend, calls me. Rick stayed at Mark's place on and off between 2009, when Rick got out of prison, and 2012, when he was investigated again by the Sheriff's Department homicide detectives in the disappearance and death of Mitrice Richardson. Mark's supposed to be the guy who knows what happened. And now, Mark wants to talk.

13:48Speaker 2:Mark Wallace dodged us for almost a year. It wasn't until we sent him a formal right-of-reply letter telling him what we were planning to report about Rick Forsberg and the goings-on at the Wallypad that he relented and said we could come over. But we're just talking for now. He doesn't want us to record, in case we might be cops. The first thing that happens when we get to the Wallypad is Mark has us move our cars. We've parked them at an intersection near his house. That's the place, he tells us, that the cops set up surveillance cameras back when Rick was crashing in his basement.

14:26Speaker 2:The homicide detectives had shown him a big portfolio of photos of Rick and some of their other derelict friends doing speedballs in their car right there. Is it any wonder Mark's a little paranoid? Mark's in his 60s, boyish and wiry with a jumpy energy. He retired as a fire captain in January. His mother, who has dementia, lives next door. Lisa Goldman, Mark's wife, says she used to get the chills when Rick came around. Spooky is the word she uses. Psycho is what Mark says. Afraid of no one. Drunk and high every single day of his life.

15:10Speaker 2:They show us the little basement room where Rick would stay. Back then, it had a dirt floor. Mark says that's where Raven made her video interview and where Rick choked Lisa Lepore and, he says, almost broke her neck. Mark tells us the footprints found outside his house are a red herring. The first indication he had that Rick was connected to Mitrice's death was when her body was discovered in Dark Canyon. The rangers said they were checking on a previously disrupted marijuana operation, presumably something large-scale. But Mark says when he saw the helicopter hovering over Dark Canyon, his first thought was, oh fuck, they're raiding Rick's patch.

15:56Speaker 2:Rick had been growing weed in Dark Canyon since they were boys. No one dared go in there. Rick had the place booby-trapped. So when a woman's body turned up there, Mark immediately suspected Rick. Mark says Rick was a total charmer. the guy who always had the prettiest girlfriend, and, he says, could talk the pants off any chick. Hey, darling. That's what he'd say. But then he'd lose his temper over nothing and choke them out. Psycho. So Mark always had his suspicions. But, he tells us, it's not like he has some smoking gun. Some big confession from Rick. Mark says, quote, The Mitrice-Richardson case has everything, except proof. It's true. The case against Rick Forsberg is purely circumstantial at this point.

16:57Speaker 2:But enough circumstantial evidence can close a case. So here is what we know and what we don't. We know Rick got out of prison in July 2009 and returned to Montanito, two months before Mitrice turned up there. We don't know how Mitrice got from Lost Hill Station to Montanito. The timing is such that she could have walked, though her mother thought that was unlikely. We know Rick had access to a motorcycle, and he said he picked Mitrice up. We don't know where or when. The motorcycle could help explain Mitrice's disappearing scent and non-continuous footprints. We know Mitrice loitered outside Mark Wallace's house around the time of her disappearance.

17:45Speaker 2:We don't know if Rick was at Mark's at the time, and we have no evidence that Mitrice went onto Mark's property. We know Rick knew how to get into Dark Canyon, where Mitrice's remains were found. We know Mitrice liked motorcycles and smoking pot, and that she was in an altered state where her normal decision-making processes may have been suspended. Not to mention, she was probably growing desperate. She may have been hungry, thirsty, and looking for help. Hey, darling.

18:18Speaker 2:We don't know if Mitrice went willingly into Dark Canyon. We don't know why her remains were partially mummified. Was that due to the fluctuating temperatures and soil conditions in Dark Canyon? Or does it indicate her remains were kept somewhere else, then moved? We know Mitrice's death was suspicious. A young woman, naked, in a canyon, half her clothes missing, the rest of them scattered, her belt out of her belt loops. We don't know how Mitrice died. Her death could have been an accident. What if she was hanging out with Rick Forsberg and fell or overdosed? The autopsy, unfortunately, was inconclusive. There wasn't enough soft tissue left. We do know it's highly improbable that Mitrice died from gunshot or knife wound or blunt force trauma. No indications of trauma were observed. And the comment Lisa Lepore repeated about Rick cutting her up, if such a remark was made, it was probably not literal. There was nothing on Mitrice's bones to indicate dismemberment. though according to the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy, her throat could have been cut. Without soft tissue, there would be no way to know. Was

19:43Speaker 2:Mitrice strangled? If investigators had found her hyoid bone and it had been broken, that could have been definitive, but it was never found. So we don't know if Matrice was strangled. We do know Rick said he picked her up. We do know Rick had a history of violence against women. We do know he had a history of strangling women.

20:11Speaker 7:We know when it comes to strangulation, strangulation is a gender crime.

20:16Speaker 2:Gail Strack is a former prosecutor and an expert on strangulation in cases of domestic violence. She says strangulation is typically a prelude to murder.

20:27Speaker 7:If you look at the continuum of violence, strangulation is at the end of just before a homicide.

20:35Speaker 2:The act of strangling and the act of strangling to death are essentially the same.

20:40Speaker 7:And when somebody is willing to put their hands around someone's neck, and especially take them to the point where they pass out, they think they're going to die. It is a calling card of a killer. It is a killer raising his hand and saying, I am willing and capable of killing someone.

21:00Speaker 2:Strangulation is one of the easiest forms of homicide to commit and to cover up.

21:05Speaker 10:It only takes 11 pounds of pressure, and that is really nothing.

21:11Speaker 6:Dr.

21:11Speaker 2:Bill Smock. a sworn police officer and an expert in forensic medicine, says strangulation can pose a challenge to law enforcement. It's a crime that can leave no marks, and it requires surprisingly little strength.

21:26Speaker 10:If you think an adult male handshake generates 100 pounds of pressure, one-tenth of that is all that's required to occlude blood flow to the brain via the carotid arteries.

21:37Speaker 6:Dr.

21:38Speaker 2:Smock was one of the key experts to testify in the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the police officer found guilty of killing George Floyd.

21:47Speaker 10:If you apply a bicep and forearm to the human neck, you have a large surface area where that pressure is applied. Again, it can be applied in such a manner, even with more than 11 pounds of pressure, and you will never leave a mark.

22:03Speaker 2:We talk about the specifics of Mitrice's case. and what seems to me the glaringly inadequate explanation law enforcement gave about her death. Their view that, being mentally ill, she probably just chose to die.

22:16Speaker 10:And that's totally BS. We call those a diagnosis of exclusion. Once you've ruled out everything else, but clearly a woman who is found dead and naked is high on the suspicious list.

22:33Speaker 2:The circumstances of Mitrice's death, Dr. Smock says, suggest a homicide.

22:39Speaker 10:You have to assume that it's a homicide until proven otherwise. Plus, you have her clothes are away from the body. The belt is out. Was the belt used as a weapon? Whose DNA is on that belt? Why is it out of the pants? Things that you have to explain. You can't just say, oh, she died. took her clothes off, and went over there and laid down to die. No, 24-year-olds can't lie down and will yourself to die.

23:15Speaker 1:And so it's just kind of weird for me to be saying.

23:22Speaker 3:It, but.

23:24Speaker 2:Finally, Mark Wallace is ready for us to hit record.

23:28Speaker 1:All right, well, are you recording now or something?

23:30Speaker 4:Yes, you are.

23:31Speaker 1:I see.

23:32Speaker 2:For more than two hours, Haley and I have been sitting by his pool. It's a beautiful spot, looking out over the Santa Monica Mountains and the backside of Dark Canyon. Mark thinks of his pool as a swimming hole and the big boulder, which Rick placed for him, as a diving rock, like the spots they found in the canyon creeks when they were boys. Mark's got deep loyalty to Rick. and to the way they were raised in Montanito. He's not sure what he might be risking by talking to us.

24:05Speaker 1:So the cops could listen to me and decide they want to fuck with me. My friends could listen to me and think I'm a rat or something else, you know.

24:24Speaker 2:But he also has a little more information about Rick And in spite of his reluctance, he's going to share it.

24:32Speaker 3:All right.

24:33Speaker 1:So what do you want?

24:36Speaker 2:I want to hear the story of what happened when the sheriff's homicide detectives interviewed Mark about Rick back in 2012 when Rick was crashing in his basement. They spoke to him for five hours in a conference room at his firehouse. And at the end, they asked him for his help because they knew Rick was violent.

24:58Speaker 1:They told me they wanted to take Rick in for questioning and that last time he was taken in, he fought the cops and he broke one's arm or leg or something and then he also bit a hole in another one's chest, fighting him. And then, so they didn't want to have that happen again. So they wanted me to smooth the way for Rick to be interviewed and to get a lie detector test.

25:26Speaker 2:Mark went home and told Rick that the homicide detectives wanted to talk to him about the disappearance and possible murder of Mitrice Richardson. Mark says Rick gasped.

25:37Speaker 1:Yeah, he was like, oh my God, like the cops, what? The cops are fucking got me down as the, as a suspect. They want to talk to me about it, you know, and I mean, he didn't, it just, he just, Rick has a way of like, just kind of like looking through you and sometimes, and He kind of, like, got the information from me, and then he was off in his own mind, like, trying to figure out what he's going to do about it. He freaked out and started grabbing for his phone, like, I got to call Steve right now.

26:12Speaker 2:Rick called Steve Gilbert, another Montanito boy who has since died, but he didn't reach him.

26:19Speaker 1:He left Steve a message right in front of me and said, Steve, the cops think I murdered somebody. And then he said, I got stuff I got to get out of my place. I don't know what it was.

26:36Speaker 2:Mark was disturbed by Rick's reaction and alarmed by his reference to removing apparently incriminating evidence from his fort.

26:44Speaker 1:And he was freaked out. And I said, wait, what are you talking about? You got to get stuff. And then I said, do you know something about this?

26:57Speaker 2:Then, Mark says, Rick told him a story he'd never told him before, that he'd seen my trees on the morning of her disappearance, two and a half years earlier.

27:08Speaker 1:And then he proceeded to tell me that he had been walking down the hill from his place up on Paiuma, and he heard an argument, and he heard some female voice yell, fuck y'all. And so he's like, well, there's black people in Montanito.

27:28Speaker 2:Mark says Rick told him Mitrice was arguing with the owner of the tennis courthouse.

27:34Speaker 1:And he was basically running her out of his property, telling her, get off my property. And she was pissed off or whatever and started walking up Paiuma. I said, well, what did you do when she came walking up the road? And he said, oh, I just faded back into the bushes. So he basically, in that conversation there, told me that he was the last person that saw Mitrice Richards alive. Because I don't know of anybody else that saw her after she walked out of the Smiths' property.

28:06Speaker 2:Mark believes Rick's story incriminates him. Rick told Mark he watched Mitrice leave the tennis courthouse and walk up Paiuma Road. Rick told Jill he picked Mitrice up on his motorcycle. Rick's stories are inconsistent. but in both of them, Rick makes himself the last person to see Mitrice alive. Mark says his suspicions of Rick are rooted in three facts. One, Mitrice's remains are found in Dark Canyon, Rick's longtime grow spot. Two, Rick's the last person to see her alive. And three, When Rick finds out that homicide detectives suspect him in Mitrice's disappearance and death, he urgently needs to remove something from his fort.

29:00Speaker 1:Just the way that he took the information and started, you know, saying he had to get rid of something out of his camp freaked me out. Like what? Like some bones or something or some, her underwear or something? I don't know. And then, uh, He was, you know, like, I got to go clean up a bunch of stuff and get ready for tomorrow. And then he did.

29:26Speaker 2:Mark says Rick dressed carefully for his polygraph. Rick cleaned up well, and he never lost his golden boy confidence.

29:35Speaker 1:When he left to go to his interview, he was dressed in a white shirt and fancy clothes and looked like he was going off to a party on a yacht or something. And, um, I don't remember what happened when he came home. He just told me, yeah, I passed the lie detector test. And I don't know what else to say.

30:01Speaker 2:Mark told us Rick had a lifelong strategy for getting out of trouble. One he taught all the Montanito boys.

30:08Speaker 1:He just told us, like, you don't ever admit guilt. No matter what you do, just stick to your story, even if you're guilty. And there's always going to be one juror that'll believe you. He said, just never admit to anything. And I don't know. I guess it worked out for him. because he didn't get prosecuted. They basically just let him go.

30:47Speaker 2:But the people closest to Mitrice believe there's more than one form of justice. I'm glad that it's a beautiful day for my Teresa's birthday. I'm a long way from Malibu. It's 9 a.m. and the flower district in downtown L.A. is bustling. There are buckets of flowers and vendors on every street corner. Haley and I are here to meet Jewel Moore, one of my Teresa's closest friends.

31:31Speaker 3:I was like, the weather is nice. It was raining all last week. It's supposed to be so hot this week, so I'm really excited.

31:37Speaker 2:It's April 30th. Mitrice's birthday.

31:42Speaker 3:She would have been 39, which is so crazy. Going through the pictures, I did my annual Facebook, Instagram post and trying not to get choked up, but just seeing us so young and happy at prom and homecoming. And you just think like we would have been celebrating this is the last year of your 30s.

32:01Speaker 2:Every year since Mitrice's disappearance, Jewel has celebrated her birthday.

32:06Speaker 3:Which ones are the biggest? I like those ones.

32:10Speaker 4:Hi.

32:12Speaker 2:She always starts with a big bouquet of sunflowers.

32:15Speaker 9:Thank you.

32:19Speaker 6:So pretty.

32:22Speaker 2:Jewel says she's reserved the afternoon for my trees. She might go to the beach or take a dance class.

32:28Speaker 3:I just do whatever she does. Like, whatever she would do, I'm like, just follow Mitrice's essence. Just let me get through the work meetings and the day is yours, girl.

32:39Speaker 2:We decide to stop for a cup of coffee. Yes, I'm going to do water and coffee.

32:43Speaker 5:Done.

32:45Speaker 4:Check.

32:46Speaker 7:Perfect.

32:47Speaker 9:Yes, please.

32:49Speaker 2:I asked Jewel, what does she think Mitrice would be doing at this point in her life?

32:54Speaker 7:I think about that all the time.

32:56Speaker 3:I'm like, would she be a teacher?

32:58Speaker 2:Would she be married?

33:00Speaker 3:Like, what would be going on? Also, like, society has changed so much since then. So I'm like, you know, would she have embraced her sexuality? Like, what other things would she be?

33:11Speaker 2:Jewel shows us the post she made on Instagram today. A collage of photos of her and Mitrice.

33:18Speaker 3:Today we celebrate you. Your light will forever shine bright and never be dimmed. No one will ever be able to take away the amazing daughter or sister and person and friend that you are. I often think of all the laughs we shared, what amazing things you would be doing right now, and how you would be positively changing this crazy world with your gifts and talents. Sunflowers, reggaeton, and Donny Hathaway will fill the room along with prayers that whoever cut your life short will get the justice they deserve.

33:45Speaker 2:What would justice for my trees look like now? The Sheriff's Department basically declared her case unsolvable as soon as her remains were found. I don't think the Lost Hills deputies or anyone from the Sheriff's Department had any direct involvement with Mitrice's death. But the rumors that have always lingered around their culpability are not entirely baseless. Because even if they weren't responsible, they contributed to her disappearance. And then they failed to solve her death.

34:17Speaker 6:It's as if.

34:18Speaker 2:Knowing that Mitrice was in the midst of a mental health crisis, law enforcement allowed that to explain her death. Instead of thinking, her mental state made her more vulnerable to a predator. No matter how accomplished, how ambitious, how full of life Mitrice was, she was only an outsider in Malibu. There are very few black people in Malibu, especially in Montanito. And I do think Mitrice's race is a core reason her case hasn't been solved. I've had current and former officers tell me privately that, to summon law enforcement, the death of a mentally ill black woman needs no further explanation. Almost like, what did she expect would happen, showing up that way in Malibu? And then you have Rick Forsberg. Half-California golden boy, half-monster. As much as he hated and was hated by the cops in Malibu, as much pain as he inflicted, as much as he took from the beautiful place he grew up, he was still more protected than Mitrice could ever be. So what would justice look like? Practically, to solve the case would require Lieutenant Modica from Homicide to assign a new investigator, who would interview and re-interview everyone associated with it, in

35:46Speaker 2:an attempt to answer some of the questions that are still gaps for us. It would take thorough forensic processing of Rick's fort, including DNA testing of everything we collected. That former LAPD cold case detective I talked to, who basically said this was a lost cause, told me that to solve the case, I'd need to find a retired Sheriff's Department homicide detective who'd taken home the case file and hated the department enough to leak it to me.

36:18Speaker 2:I disagree. I think it would just take one current homicide investigator who believes in what the sheriff's department is supposed to stand for. But the department has rebuffed every single overture we've made, from fact-finding to fact-checking to fact-sharing. They have my number if they want to call. We packed up Mitrice's hairbrush and a few other items of hers we'd borrowed from Michael and brought them back to him. It was hard telling him that we didn't get the answer we'd all wanted so badly. But Michael has a broader view of crime and punishment than he once did.

37:03Speaker 2:He tells us he used to dream of facing off against Mitrice's killer in a courtroom, whoever he was, and attacking him with his bare hands.

37:14Speaker 4:And for some reason, I said to myself, I can always hear my child saying to me that it's not even worth it.

37:24Speaker 2:Michael no longer wants revenge.

37:27Speaker 4:The universe will handle it. Because everyone who's done something bad to me, mistreated me, took advantage of me or whatever, I have been, I don't want to say blessed, but I have seen them in their demise. Karma doesn't work right away or people will stop doing bad things. But if you have the patience to wait, if you're blessed, you will see it happen to them. You cannot put negative in this world and expect positive returns.

38:01Speaker 2:He believes his daughter was the victim of a murderer who never paid for his heinous crime. But, he says, Mitrice wasn't the only victim.

38:13Speaker 4:And the ancient proverb says, if you kill a person, dig two graves, because you're next.

38:24Speaker 2:A murderer destroys his own life, too. And that may be the best justice. I'm Dana Goodyear. This has been Lost Hills Season 4, Dark Canyon. Way back in Episode 1, the forensic pathologist in Mitrice's case told us, despite everything, Mitrice's case is still solvable. It will just take the right information.

39:27Speaker 9:If there was foul play involved, someone could confess.

39:33Speaker 2:You never know.

39:34Speaker 9:Could be deathbed confession. Maybe they'll raid somewhere, someplace, and they'll find pictures of her. But anything is possible. Sometimes killers will save souvenirs that can be recognized as something from the person. Anything like that could happen.

39:53Speaker 2:We've spoken with a lot of people about Mitrice and about Rick Forsberg. and I know there are still more people with more information. This message is for them. We've set up a phone number you can call or text.

40:07Speaker 6:It's 213-349-6050.

40:07Speaker 2:There's also an email you can write to, losthills at western-sound.com. Lost Hills Dark Canyon is hosted and written by me, Dana Goodyear. The creators and executive producers of Lost Hills are me and Ben Adair. The show was reported by me and Haley Fox. Haley Fox is also the senior producer. Ben Adair and Colin McNulty edited the show. Stella Hartman is the associate producer. The production team also includes Sabrina Fang, Sarah Dealy, and Savannah Wright. Fact-checking is by Elen Werner.

40:58Speaker 2:Original composition, sound design, and mixing is by Alex McGinnis. The Lost Hills theme is by Dan Leone. Our cover art is by Francesca Gabbiani. The voice of Mitrice Richardson was read by Pippa Voss. From Pushkin Industries, additional story consulting is by Sophie Crane and Leela Day. The executive producer from Pushkin is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to the Pushkin team. Lost Hills is a production of Western Sound and Pushkin Industries. You can sign up for Western Sound's newsletter at western-sound.com. Pushkin's newsletter is at pushkin.fm. Follow at Lost Hills Pod on social media. And please remember to rate and review the show in your podcast app. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you can binge entire seasons of other podcasts right now ad-free. Find Pushkin Plus on the Lost Hills show page in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm slash plus. To find more Pushkin Podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.