Unsolved Murders — Blog — Talk Murder With Me

Listen to my podcast episode on this case:

For privacy information about data collected from using this player, click here.

Mitrice Richardson was born April 30, 1985 to Latice Sutton and Michael Richardson in Covina, California. Michael and Latice divorced when Mitrice was very young, and Latice married Mitrice’s stepfather, Larry Sutton. Michael spent time in prison when Mitrice was a child (it is unclear what for), but on his release, he turned his life around, immersing himself in his career in the healthcare industry. While Michael did not play much of a role in raising his daughter, he and Mitrice became closer as she got older.

Mitrice and her father Michael (found here)

Smart, pretty, thoughtful and kind, Mitrice was the type of person everybody wanted to be friends with. In 2008, she graduated from California State University at Fullerton with a BA in Psychology. An honors student who consistently achieved a 4.0 GPA, Mitrice was keen to go to graduate school. She began interning at the office of Ronda Hampton, a clinical psychologist and close family friend. At this point, she was living in South L.A. with her great-grandmother, Mildred Hughes, saving money working as a Go-Go dancer at a local nightclub. She also competed in beauty pageants and did some modeling.

Mitrice’s Life Takes a Turn

In the fall of 2009, Mitrice began showing signs that something was not right. She had recently broken up with her girlfriend of two years, Tessa Moon, but it was not just the sadness caused by the break-up that caused Mitrice’s changed behavior.

Mitrice suffered from bipolar disorder; it is not clear when she was diagnosed, but up until that point, she appeared to have it under control. Latice began receiving strange texts from her daughter, and she began posting unusual things to her social media profiles. In one of her final Facebook posts, she wrote: “I just wanna sleep lol, but u know me and my crazy ideas...lets see where they take me.”

Becoming concerned, Latice tried to reach out to Mitrice on multiple occasions, but she would not answer her phone.

Mitrice’s Last Meal

On Wednesday, Sept. 16 2009, Mitrice spontaneously drove from her great-grandmother’s home in South L.A. to Malibu, arriving around dinnertime. The drive is about 40 miles along a series of twisting cliffside roads. She pulled into Geoffrey’s, one of Malibu’s many high end restaurants, got out of her car, and approached the valet. The valet immediately got the impression that something was up; Mitrice was acting manic and talking about “avenging the death of Michael Jackson”. Thinking she might just be eccentric, the valet got into her car and parked it. On his return, he found Mitrice in his car (which he had left open) rifling through his glove box. He asked her if she was okay, and to please get out of his car. She complied, and walked into the restaurant.

Geoffrey’s Restaurant (source: infatuation.com)

Mitrice walked up to a table of other restaurant patrons and invited herself to sit down with them. She made some bizarre statements, for example, that she was from Mars. The others at the table played along, as she was not threatening and they weren’t too worried about having their dinner disrupted. Mitrice ordered a Kobe steak and an Ocean Breeze cocktail. Her bill came to $89, but she was unable to pay. This is a little fuzzy - it is not clear whether she refused to pay, or could not pay because she did not have her purse which was in her car (but if she had left it, it is unclear why she could not just have gone out to her car to retrieve it).

The restaurant, being as accommodating as they could, asked if there was anyone they could call who could pay for her meal. Mitrice could only remember Mildred’s (her great-grandmother) number. Mildred offered to pay over the phone, but the restaurant required a faxed signature; Mildred did not have a fax machine.

The Police Are Called

At a loss, the manager of Geoffrey’s called the police. According to the L.A. Times, he did so because “he was worried about her welfare; he reasoned she would be safer in custody than out on her own.” He hoped that they would get in touch with her family and help her get home safely.

(This would have been a model situation for calling a mental health professional, if such service were available, instead of the police. Unfortunately, such options were not available to the restaurant manager, and still don’t exist to this day.)

This is where things get messy; the following events demonstrate how badly the sheriff’s department handled everything. At around 9pm, three deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) were dispatched to Geoffrey’s. They were under the impression that Mitrice was drunk or on drugs - the restaurant manager told the dispatcher that she was acting a “little euphoric -- a little odd”. On their arrival, they breathalyzed her, and she passed the sobriety test. They ended up arresting Mitrice on charges of “defrauding an innkeeper” and possession of marijuana (they found less than an ounce in her car). While they could have taken her in for a psychiatric evaluation, it appears that she was arrested because it was the “easier option”. The restaurant did not end up pressing charges against Mitrice for not paying her bill.

Mitrice’s car was impounded with all her personal belongings inside, including her phone, purse and ATM cards. The deputies drove her to the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, about a 20 minute drive north of Malibu, where she was booked at 11pm. According to the station log book, Mitrice made 4 phone calls while in custody. She told the deputies they were to her great-grandmother, but the calls were not recorded due to faulty recording equipment. What is strange is that her great-grandmother insisted she never received any calls from Mitrice that night, and the phone company showed no record of the calls.

Lost Hills Sheriff Station (source here)

Latice, Mitrice’s mother, found out about what had happened and called the station, asking whether they planned to keep Mitrice in custody for the night or release her. If they planned to release her, Latice said, she would come pick her up, as Mitrice was not familiar and she did not want her wandering off into the night. If they did not plan to release her, she would come and get her in the morning. It was the middle of the night and the drive from Covina to Lost Hills Station is about 50 minutes. She also had her younger daughter at home. Latice warningly joked with the deputy on the phone: “I would hate to wake up to a morning report: ‘Girl lost somewhere and her head chopped off.’”

The deputy assured Latice, multiple times, that they would keep her daughter in custody and release her in the morning. Latice was satisfied that Mitrice was safe, thanked the deputy, and hung up around 12:30am.

Mitrice Is Released

Contrary to what the deputy told Latice on the phone, about 5 minutes after the call ended, Mitrice was released from custody. She was told that she could sleep in the lobby and wait for her mother to pick her up in the morning. But bear in mind, Mitrice was not of sound mind at that point, regardless of what officers might say. She was free to leave, and that’s exactly what she did - security footage shows her being discharged and leaving the station. This footage, however, would go “missing” for months, eventually being found in the desk drawer of the Sheriff's Dept. Captain Thomas Martin.

It’s the middle of the night and the Lost Hills Station is in the middle of nowhere. Mitrice, without a purse, phone or even a jacket, began to walk back the way they originally drove to the station, towards the Santa Monica Mountains. It’s treacherous and near impossible to navigate in the dark. According to Google maps, it would take 6 hours to walk the 16 miles through the mountains back to Malibu (assuming it was light out, you had the right equipment and knew where you were going). Nobody knew where Mitrice planned to go when she disappeared into the night, but she never reached her destination.

At 5:30am the next day, Latice called the station to inquire about picking up Mitrice, but was informed that she had been released and left. Latice was understandably upset that she had been lied to. Collecting herself, she asked the deputy on the phone how she could file a missing person’s report. Her concern, however, was met with indifference, and she was told it had not been long enough to file (she was told to wait 24 hours).

Some promising information did come in from a man named Bill Smith, a former reporter for KTLA News, who called the police to report a woman wandering around his backyard early that morning (likely around 6:30am, about 6 hours after Mitrice’s release). Smith’s residence, about 6 miles west of the Lost Hills Station, was located at the bottom of Dark Canyon in a gated community. Smith described her as a “slim black woman with afro hair”. Smith reported that he called out of his window to ask if she was okay, to which she responded she was “just resting”. By the time Smith had put something on so he could go out and investigate, she was gone, having disappeared back into the mountains beyond his home.

A Botched Investigation

From the beginning, the sheriff’s department completely mismanaged the investigation into Matrice Richardson’s disappearance. It became clear very quickly that they just didn’t care. They waited two days before they went to Bill Smith’s house, where they found tracks in the yard from sneakers that were not familiar to Smith, but they did not examine them further.

They did search Mitrice’s car which had been impounded, finding personal items such as her diary. On reading her last entries, they found out that she likely had not slept for five nights, which definitely would have contributed to her manic behavior, possibly even delirium.

Meanwhile, Latice was frantically calling the Sheriff’s Dept., trying to file a missing person’s report. Mitrice’s missing persons case was transferred to the Los Angeles Police Department because they had better resources for searches, etc., but the LAPD was located an hour away from the Malibu/Lost Hills Station where she actually disappeared.

(I’m not sure how much responsibilities were divided between the LAPD and the LASD. The sheriff’s department continued to be involved despite the transfer, and as we’ll find out, were extremely irresponsible throughout the investigation.)

The family were promised a massive two day search would begin on Saturday Sept. 19th, three days after Mitrice disappeared. They were going to pull out all the stops, using helicopters, search dogs, every resource available to them.

When the day arrived, however, there were four deputies canvassing some of the neighborhoods in the area. Mitrice had been missing for three days at this point and the police had virtually no information; not that they were seriously looking for any. The search on the 19th ended before it even got dark. It was meant to begin again on the 20th, but it never did. It was, by all accounts, a total joke and a slap in the face to Mitrice’s family, who were becoming increasingly convinced that the police were just not interested in finding her.

Unable to rely on the authorities, the family took matters into their own hands. They made flyers, spending days passing them out and carrying out their own searches.

The Sheriff’s Dept. Go On the Defence

Meanwhile, after realizing how bad Mitrice’s disappearance could look for them, the Sheriff’s Dept. began fiercely defending their conduct on the night of her disappearance. They made statements aiming to justify her arrest at the restaurant, but insisted that when they released her, she seemed perfectly fine:

“She was lucid, she didn’t exhibit any mental problems,” said Steve Whitmore, an L.A. County Sheriff’s Department spokesman. He then referred to the sobriety test she had taken at the restaurant.

Latice, however, did not believe a word of it. The reason the police had been called in the first place was because the restaurant manager believed something was wrong with Mitrice; multiple people would back this up. Latice later said: “If the officer saw her behavior and decided to administer a field sobriety test, he must have realized something was wrong.”

The excuses the sheriff’s department came up with for letting Mitrice go evolved over time. They first claimed the jail was too full (this was later proven to be untrue). They then said that they had no reason to keep her there (even though they had told Latice they would not release her until morning). Finally, a jailer used the excuse that they “are not a babysitting service”.

Sheriff Lee Baca

A bit of an aside - Sheriff Baca was the L.A. County Sheriff from 1998 - 2014. A quick Google search on his name shows that he is, by all accounts, the very definition of a “bad cop”. He was involved in multiple scandals during his time as sheriff, including lying to the FBI about abuse of inmates in L.A. County jails. In February 2020, he began a 3 year sentence in Federal Correctional Institution La Tuna, a low-security prison outside El Paso, Texas for his role in obstructing this inquiry.

Paul Tanaka, second in command at LASD, was sentenced to five years in prison for obstructing the same investigation. Tanaka also had ties to white supremacist gang, the Lynwood Vikings (they sound like real stand-up guys, don’t they?)

Baca was never interested in Mitrice’s case and wanted nothing to do with her family. He constantly dodged their requests for more information, for example, the security footage and his deputies followed his lead. Despite lying and gaslighting her family, he insisted that his department never did anything wrong.

Michael Richardson Takes A Stand

Frustrated with the lack of progress being made in the investigation into his daughter’s disappearance, Michael Richardson decided that enough was enough. Why wasn’t Mitrice’s case getting the attention it deserved? Michael called the Mayor of Malibu, Andy Stern, to demand that more be done. Stern, not particularly interested in what Michael had to say, told him he was on his way to a meeting and did not have time to talk.

But Michael was not going to give up so easily. Stern was also a Malibu real estate magnate, whose properties went for millions of dollars. Michael called him on his real estate business number, but this time told him he was a famous football star interested in purchasing one of Stern’s properties. This got Stern’s attention; he offered to cancel the meeting he had planned and come meet him right away.

When Stern realized who Michael was, he was mortified; a story like this one would be really bad for him as mayor. In November 2009, as a result of Michael’s efforts, the city of Malibu authorized a $15,000 reward for anyone with information regarding Mitrice Richardson’s disappearance and current whereabouts.

Finally, A Real Search

On January 10, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department finally conducted the kind of search Mitrice’s family had been hoping for; one of the most extensive searches for a missing person ever carried out by the LASD. The search included 336 trained searchers, scouring 18 square miles of ridges, canyons and trails, on horseback and on-foot, aided by dogs. A helicopter picked up searchers, dispatching them to harder-to-reach areas.

While the search turned up no evidence as to Mitrice’s whereabouts, it gave Michael Richardson hope that his daughter was still just missing.

“The beautiful thing about today is that they didn’t find a cadaver,” he would say after the search.

“Lost” Video Footage Appears

Mitrice’s booking photo from the night she disappeared; bear in mind Mitrice was usually very well made up and would never go out with her hair like this, according to Latice (source: patch.com)

Mitrice’s family continually asked for the security footage from the Lost Hills Station the night she disappeared, but their requests were ignored. They were lied to for months about whether it even existed. It wasn’t until March 2010 that they were asked to the station to view the footage from that night (which seemed to magically appear from the Chief’s desk drawer).

There were multiple red flags which the footage brought up: for one, parts were edited out. Right away, Latice could tell her daughter was not well and not acting like herself. She was distressed and acting manic. Footage of Mitrice inside her cell showed her struggling and acting erratically: “She’s grabbing at a door where she’s swinging back and forth,” Latice said. “She’s pulling at the back of her hair.”

For Latice, it became that much more evident that her daughter was really suffering that night, and the deputies had shown no compassion or humanity towards her. Due to the information from the LASD being so sketchy and incomplete, their true actions that night were never fully revealed.

As a result of finally being able to view the footage, Latice filed a negligence and wrongful death lawsuit against Los Angeles County and Sheriff’s Department officials. The main reason for filing the lawsuit, she said, was to give them the right to demand information about the night Richardson was arrested: “This magical lawsuit will allow me to obtain every single document in the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department and to depose every officer and detective involved.”

Mitrice Is Finally Found

August 9, 2010 saw the discovery that everyone had been dreading, nearly 11 months after Mitrice went missing. Latice was coming to terms with the painful reality that her daughter was almost definitely dead, while Michael was holding out hope still that Mitrice was out there somewhere.

Around 1pm, park rangers were patrolling the rough, mountainous terrain of Dark Canyon in search of illegal marijuana grow operations, which were known to occur in these locations due to their remoteness. Reaching these spots is no easy feat; there are no trails, so it requires scaling steep rock faces and cutting through much of the wild undergrowth.

The area they were searching is about 8 miles from the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, and 2 miles from Bill Smith’s home, where Mitrice had last been seen alive. They were making their way through a deep ravine when they came across a human skull. The park rangers called in their finding at 1:30pm. Deputies arrived around 3pm, and needed to wait for a helicopter to take them down into the ravine.

At 5pm, a 7-person team from the coroner's office arrived, with the expectation that they would be required to follow the standard protocol for when a body is found: photographing the remains, inspecting the site for clues and establishing a crime scene. However, this was not to be; you won’t be shocked at this point to find out that the sheriff’s department completely bungled the handling of Mitrice’s remains also. While detectives were airlifted to the location of the remains, the coroner’s team were not. In fact, I don’t believe the coroner’s team were ever airlifted down - a total departure from how a crime scene would usually be handled.

Mitrice’s family were notified that remains had been found and that they likely belonged to Mitrice. When the family asked if they could come to the site, however, the deputy on the phone was rude and dismissive, saying there was no point in coming. Latice asked how they would treat the site, i.e. would they be treating it as a crime scene, and when they would be removing her daughter’s body. The deputy told Latice that the area would be secured and treated as a crime scene, and that the remains would be airlifted out in the morning, because it was too dark to take them that evening.

But instead of doing as they said they would, at 8pm that evening, the deputies haphazardly gathered up the remains they could find, put them in the helicopter and flew back to the station. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t look very hard and there turned out to be many bones missing. The coroner’s office was shocked at the actions of the sheriff’s department. As the L.A. Times reported, the coroner insisted that "he was 'very clear' with sheriff's officials [regarding how the remains should be handled], and could not think of another case in which a police agency had moved entire skeletal remains without coroner's approval."

On August 13, Sheriff Baca made a statement, announcing that the body which had been found in the ravine was that of Mitrice Richardson. "We have no indication of a homicide at this point. I don't believe that the remains are capable of telling us a story," he said. Baca went on to say that they only found a “skull and some bones”, which was untrue. In fact, they also found a large portion of mummified remains.

Latice (front left) with three friends, set up a memorial in the location Mitrice’s remains were found (source: Wikipedia)

Latice was able to convince Baca to let her and a small group of close friends go to the scene. While they were there, they set up a small memorial. While looking around, they found one of Mitrice’s finger bones. This further demonstrated how careless the sheriff’s department had been when they had originally been on the scene.

How Did Mitrice End Up There?

There is a lot of speculation about what really happened to Mitrice that night, despite the assertion from LASD that there was no foul play (what with how badly they handled everything in this case, it’s not surprising that there are doubts about their conclusions). One LAPD detective would later tell Los Angeles Magazine, "It sounds like someone abducted her, killed her and at some point dumped her body.”

Her clothing was found slightly further up the ravine from the majority of her remains, and did not show signs of having been removed by animals, suggesting either she removed them herself or someone else did.

There were also some bones, for example her femur bone, found part way up the ravine. Mitrice’s hyoid bone, which would likely have been broken if she had been strangled, was never recovered.

Mitrice’s family and friends are also convinced that her death was not an accident. Ronda Hampton, whom Mitrice had been interning for, said: “The problem that I have with this case is (investigators) were too quick to conclude that it was not murder. They never put out there that there is a possibility of homicide. There is no way Mitrice could have hiked that canyon.”

Some believe that because some of the body was mummified, it may have been buried somewhere else, dug up, and then dumped in the ravine later.

The official coroner’s report called the cause of her death undetermined; if they had been able to follow proper procedure, they may have been able to make a more solid determination.

Aftermath of Mitrice’s Death

Latice and Michael filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the LASD, citing that Mitrice should not have been released from jail that night as she was showing clear signs of mental instability. They were awarded $900,000, which they split equally between them.

Mitrice’s family have never faltered in their pursuit of justice. In February 2016, California Attorney General Kamala Harris agreed to open an investigation into Mitrice’s death after receiving a heartfelt letter from Michael Richardson, in which he wrote:

"You see, Ms. Harris, I look at you and I see Mitrice Richardson. A young, intelligent, smart, black, and beautiful young lady who busted her butt in school to one day become someone who could be helpful and make a difference."

Michael Richardson continues to seek justice for Mitrice (source: LA Daily News)

Latice Richardson (center) at a press conference (source: here)

However, after looking into the case for nearly a year, AG Harris’s office sent a letter to Michael Richardson explaining that they could find no evidence of wrongdoing in the handling of Mitrice’s case by the LASD, and they would be ending their inquiry. Michael, gravely disappointed with the decision, accused AG Harris of only taking interest in his daughter’s case to gain publicity during her race for the United States Senate (to which she was elected in November, 2016). “Kamala Harris is a phony,” he said. “We don’t need people like that leading us.”

There was another glimmer of hope when the new L.A. County Sheriff, Alex Villanueva, at a memorial service for Mitrice at the New Testament Church in Los Angeles on Sept. 7, 2019, announced that he wanted to assess the whole case from the beginning with a set of fresh eyes. However, a few weeks later, Sheriff Villanueva announced that there would not be a new investigation, as he had reread the department’s investigation and saw “no reason to rehash a case already subjected to investigations by the state attorney general’s office, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s Department’s internal review.”

This was another blow to the family, particularly because Villanueva was basing his decision on the case report by the sheriff’s department under Sheriff Baca, which had been so neglectful and unhelpful during the investigation into Mitrice’s disappearance and death.

He did go over the changes in the LASD which would take place to avoid what happened to Mitrice happening to someone else. Now, a missing person’s report for an adult can be filed right away, instead of waiting 24 hours, as the deputy on the phone told Latice the night Mitrice disappeared. Deputies will ensure that people have their cellphones and other personal belongings before the are released from jail. Most importantly, Villanueva said that people exhibiting mental health problems would be evaluated before being released.

Mitrice’s case has never been closed, Villanueva said, and the department continues to welcome any new information.

My Thoughts

As I referred to at the beginning of this piece, I strongly believe that funds given to police departments should be reallocated. Mental health services, for example, are horribly underfunded. Mitrice Richardson would likely still be alive today if a mental health hotline existed.

Mitrice’s case also raises many questions about the conduct of the sheriff’s department - how can they receive so much money and yet fail a victim and their family so miserably? They were neglectful and careless both while Mitrice was in custody and during the investigation into her disappearance. What exactly were they being paid for?

Another question which must be addressed is why did they not care? Was it because Mitrice was a black woman? Was it to do with the fact she was a lesbian? Would her disappearance have been treated differently had she been a white woman? In my opinion, this is very likely.

Even if they didn’t kill her directly, their actions definitely played a role her death. If they had been responsible and showed some compassion, and just kept her in custody as they said they would, she would have gone home with her mother. Mitrice Richardson did not have to die. The deputies who showed such blatant disregard for her life should be held accountable.

Mitrice Richardson (4/30/1985 - 9/17/2009)

Other cases like this one that you might find interesting include the mysterious Jamison Family deaths and the Freeway Phantom Murders.