Tracker Dakota Black

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Speaker 6 At first glance, when you come to this area in Oklahoma, It is very beautiful. It's serene, but we have missing people that are never found.
There are homicides that are never solved.

Speaker 6 There's lots of dark secrets that live here.

Speaker 6 My name is Dakota Black. I'm a tracker and detective with the Pottawatomie County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 6 And I was brought into the missing persons case for Michaela Miyave.

Speaker 6 And as soon as we arrived on scene, we started tracking the area and trying to locate her.

Speaker 6 We had multiple deputies and detectives in the woods looking for her.

Speaker 6 We were searching every place that we could potentially think of to try to locate Michaela.

Speaker 7 There's something strange. She might be in there.

Speaker 8 She might be. She may not be alive.

Speaker 9 I was not looking

Speaker 10 for

Speaker 9 an individual that was breathing. I was looking for my daughter's body.
And I don't know why.

Speaker 6 Sometimes it's hard to not take cases personal. They tug at your heartstrings.
And this one was one of those.

Speaker 7 What was it about this woman that fueled you this way?

Speaker 6 Just who she was.

Speaker 12 My sister Michaela is the strongest person I know, has the biggest heart, is the most caring, wants to take care of everyone and put everyone before herself.

Speaker 8 I love you. I love you most.

Speaker 2 I love you more.

Speaker 12 Her main goal in life was to be around children, to help children, especially ones in need.

Speaker 13 Everybody that knew Michaela had nothing but love for her.

Speaker 13 We had a huge response from our community.

Speaker 2 Everybody really wanted her family.

Speaker 12 We just went out there looking for her, didn't sleep for days, didn't eat for days. It was raining cold.
We were just out there for days.

Speaker 14 Was there a part of you that say, you know, there's a chance we may not find her?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 6 It seemed day after day, the chances were getting more slim of finding her alive.

Speaker 9 I just knew that she was gone.

Speaker 3 I can't imagine how scared she was.

Speaker 6 It's just sad.

Speaker 6 Sad that it ended the way it did. It didn't have to end this way.

Speaker 6 I was driven, and I was not going to go home. I was not going to stop until this case was solved.

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Speaker 14 Peter Van Sand reports, tracker Dakota Black.

Speaker 10 The guys at the sheriff's office call her a cool dude with long hair because they say she's meaner than any of them.

Speaker 10 In the gun range and in the field.

Speaker 6 That fence that's hanging, I had to go underneath that into the water.

Speaker 10 Her name is Lieutenant Dakota Black. She's a train tracker and detective with the Pottawatomie County Sheriff's Office in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

Speaker 6 I go out to scenes when there's manhunts or trying to locate individuals.

Speaker 10 Her specialty is finding the missing, whether alive or dead.

Speaker 6 I have found them underneath piles of leaves and trees and abandoned homes, sheds. I've found them pretty much in any area you can think of.

Speaker 10 Often by her side, her partner, Deputy Haven, a trained therapy dog.

Speaker 10 For kids and other family members caught in the crossfire of tragedy, Haven provides comfort and consolation, a consoling presence she herself would rely on in the coming months as she embarked on one of the most heart-wrenching cases of her career.

Speaker 6 This case will stay with me forever, and it will be one that I always remember through my whole life because of how cruel it was.

Speaker 12 The last thing we said to each other

Speaker 12 was, I love you.

Speaker 10 Friday, September 15th, 2023, began like most days for Andrea Mayavi with a 7 a.m. phone call from her best friend and younger sister, Michaela.

Speaker 12 I wish I would have known I would have said so much more.

Speaker 19 I'm grateful for that.

Speaker 12 At least I said, I love you.

Speaker 10 The next morning, Saturday the 16th, the phone rang as usual around 7 a.m. Only this time, it wasn't Michaela.
It was Michaela's husband, Frank Byers.

Speaker 12 He's hysterical, crying, screaming. Can barely understand what he's saying.
And he says, Michaela didn't come home last night.

Speaker 12 He ended up telling me that Michaela went on a date. the Friday night before with a bald man in a white truck.

Speaker 12 They left and she never came home last night.

Speaker 10 At the time, Michaela and Frank were headed for divorce, says Andrea. They were still living on the same 10-acre property in Macomb, Oklahoma, but in separate homes.

Speaker 10 So at first, Andrea wasn't worried.

Speaker 12 My first thought is, she's single. I hope she had fun.

Speaker 10 But Andrea's mood began to shift when her many calls to Michaela went to voicemail.

Speaker 12 By noon, I was worried. And one o'clock, I was really worried.

Speaker 10 Their mother, Barbara Harper, was also anxious. Michaela was supposed to help out at the family restaurant that afternoon, but she didn't show and hadn't called.
Unheard of for Michaela.

Speaker 9 And the more I prayed about it, the more I realized that

Speaker 9 something serious had happened.

Speaker 10 Frank also reported Michaela missing to the Pottawatomie County Sheriff's Office that afternoon. My wife's been missing since it was late last night.

Speaker 22 She left at 5.30 strongly called morning.

Speaker 2 And the last time that anyone has heard from her has been at 8 p.m. And your name?

Speaker 22 My name is Frank Byers, P-Y-E-R-S-C. What's her name? Her name is Michaela Byers.

Speaker 10 The deputy on duty, Dustin Richardson, felt he needed to put eyes on the ground. He got to Macomb around 4 p.m., his body cam rolling.

Speaker 24 He'd given me the information over the phone, but I just wanted to see where she was coming from and see more of the details.

Speaker 10 Frank made a point of showing the deputy the last Facebook message he said Michaela sent him after she left, assuring him she was, quote, fine and to back off.

Speaker 25 Did you see the guy at all?

Speaker 10 Then he told him the story about Michaela driving off with a bald man in a white truck.

Speaker 10 If I had a guess away, I don't know.

Speaker 10 Maybe 200.

Speaker 10 Deputy Richardson then asked if he could see the house where Michaela was temporarily living.

Speaker 8 Can I go take a look around?

Speaker 24 So she's been staying in this little thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 10 But the shed-like home was locked, and Frank said he didn't have a key, but he did have something to say about their relationship.

Speaker 26 We have an open marriage where,

Speaker 26 oh, that's a brand new thing. I don't like it, but I agreed upon it because I'm trying to fix our marriage.

Speaker 10 At that point, the deputy decided to take a quick drive to the school where Michaela worked as a teacher's aide. Maybe she had gone there.

Speaker 2 Man,

Speaker 25 this

Speaker 25 Frank Byers called in saying his wife was missing.

Speaker 10 He called his son, also a deputy, from the car.

Speaker 25 This guy is squirrely, man.

Speaker 8 This Frank guy is squirrely.

Speaker 24 The sensation was that there is nothing about this story that is

Speaker 10 really true. While the deputy was at the school, friends and family started showing up at the property, including Michaela's mom, Barbara.

Speaker 9 When I first got there, I didn't even speak to anyone.

Speaker 9 I was on my hands and knees crawling through brush out in the pasture.

Speaker 3 We've got to find where she's at.

Speaker 2 How are you?

Speaker 10 This is Deputy Richardson with his body camera rolling. as he returned to the property late that afternoon.
Frank had smashed open the lock lock to Michaela's place with a hammer.

Speaker 23 I looked and I immediately saw empty shell casings from what appeared to be.22 caliber.

Speaker 24 He told me that she sits in there and shoots out at animals, the coyotes and stuff.

Speaker 26 There's a few times I've heard her shoot.

Speaker 10 By then, more deputies had arrived.

Speaker 24 I had asked him where she kept that gun and he said it was in his house.

Speaker 2 Is it in there now?

Speaker 24 I had him walk me to his house and he walked inside and he pointed at it. I had pulled it from where it was in there.

Speaker 23 Treat it like always.

Speaker 24 And put it in my vehicle.

Speaker 10 The gun, according to the deputy, appeared to have been recently fired.

Speaker 13 That's pretty recently.

Speaker 24 I made phone calls to

Speaker 24 get our criminal investigation team out there because I just... It was off.
There was something that needed to be looked into more.

Speaker 18 Hey,

Speaker 8 I'm on that missing person thing still.

Speaker 10 This is suspicious as s ⁇ .

Speaker 10 Investigators ushered family and friends off the property and blocked the driveway.

Speaker 19 I remember walking back to my car

Speaker 2 and just screaming at God,

Speaker 2 asking him why.

Speaker 2 Why did you do this? Let this happen.

Speaker 19 Just take me.

Speaker 2 Take me. And let us find her and just take me.

Speaker 10 The missing person's investigation was now a possible criminal investigation,

Speaker 10 and that's when the call went out to lead detective Lieutenant Dakota Black.

Speaker 6 We definitely needed to figure out what was going on.

Speaker 10 As soon as Lieutenant Dakota Black got the call that Michaela Mayave was missing, she jumped in her vehicle and sped to Macomb.

Speaker 10 What was your immediate mission?

Speaker 6 To locate Michaela. We needed to locate her.
We didn't know where she was.

Speaker 13 Say it was 1366.

Speaker 10 Detective Black and her partner on the case, Detective Marcus May, now the undersheriff, put out a Bolo alert.

Speaker 10 Be on the lookout

Speaker 13 it was be on the lookout for a white male with a beard bald head driving a white truck we wanted all of the local law enforcement and surrounding agencies aware that we do have a situation developing over here the tips from this rural area where everyone seems to know everybody came pouring in

Speaker 6 every white pickup truck with tenant windows was getting called into the sheriff's office.

Speaker 10 None of the sightings panned out, but the search took on a life of its own.

Speaker 6 Flyers were posted everywhere. Social media ads were everywhere.

Speaker 13 Michaela Miyave

Speaker 13 was beloved by everybody. They were demanding every resource possible to go find Michaela.

Speaker 10 In Dakota, this was a woman with enormous heart, right?

Speaker 6 Absolutely. She loved her family.
She loved her friends. She loved children.

Speaker 10 Michaela fell in love with children when she herself was still a child. Her mom, Barbara, ran a daycare.

Speaker 9 We weren't just a daycare, we were the family. And she loved those kids, especially the babies.

Speaker 10 Sadly, Michaela was unable to have children of her own, but that didn't stop her. In her 20s, Michaela fostered and would eventually adopt these two kids, a brother and sister.

Speaker 12 She dropped what she was doing, went and took classes, got certified

Speaker 12 to make sure that she could give those kids a home. She did.

Speaker 10 Around that time, an old high school classmate named Frank Byers contacted her out of the blue through Facebook. Frank, who was divorced, had primary custody of four young daughters.

Speaker 12 Frank was telling her a story that the current girlfriend he was living with was abusing his four daughters.

Speaker 12 So my sister took him and all four girls in in and just started basically taking care of them.

Speaker 9 She felt like the kids needed her and she sure needed them.

Speaker 9 Probably the happiest I'd seen her in a long time with those girls.

Speaker 10 Frank and Michaela got married in 2022. They built their lives together in Macomb.
Population 24.

Speaker 9 It's just country. It's 100% country.
The kids are 100% country.

Speaker 10 Michaela was going to college to get her teaching degree while working at the local elementary school.

Speaker 9 And she would stand up for the kids and if she saw a child that was dirty or wasn't taken care of, she would take it to the principal and, you know, bring awareness to it.

Speaker 12 I think that was her biggest thing in life was to help little innocent kids that needed adult help. She always felt responsible to do that.

Speaker 10 Countywide, dozens of people turned out in the cold and pouring rain to slog through mud and tick-infested woods in search of their beloved teacher.

Speaker 10 But one person at the heart of this mystery conspicuously appeared not to search. Michaela's husband, Frank Byers.

Speaker 6 He never participated in a single search. He never volunteered to go out with any of the search parties to go out and try to find Michaela.

Speaker 12 And it wasn't like, oh my God, my wife is missing.

Speaker 12 He never seemed like concerned about that. He seemed more concerned about himself.

Speaker 11 What were you noticing about Frank Byers?

Speaker 13 The lack of any

Speaker 13 human emotion. I mean, he did not seem scared.
He just wanted to know what we knew. He just, it didn't seem human at all.

Speaker 10 Investigators were already zeroing in on Frank.

Speaker 13 We strongly suspected Frank.

Speaker 10 Three days after Michaela was reported missing, Frank Byers agreed to be questioned by Detective Black at the sheriff's office. The interview was audio only.

Speaker 28 At this time, I just want her found.

Speaker 10 The detective tried to win his trust by playing the good cop.

Speaker 28 Again, I couldn't imagine. I mean, it's hard not knowing, you know.

Speaker 28 And when everybody's pointing a finger at you, I'm sure it doesn't make it any better.

Speaker 28 Yeah.

Speaker 28 I feel like I gotta defend myself and tell everyone that no, this is what happened. This is the truth.

Speaker 10 She pressed him, but not enough to make him stop talking.

Speaker 28 Did you ask her about the date before she left? I did, and she told me it was none of my business. Same thing as if I went on a date, it's none of her business.
Okay.

Speaker 28 So she never said a name or anything, how she met him, how she knew him? No.

Speaker 10 After answering questions for two and a half hours, Detective Black let him go home. The search for Michaela continued.

Speaker 10 Barbara remembers crawling through brush, wearing snake protectors when she says she had a premonition.

Speaker 6 I heard Michaela tell me, Mama, I'm in a tin horn.

Speaker 19 I said, oh my god, she just told me she's in a tin horn.

Speaker 10 Barbara frantically started looking for tin horns, pipes or culverts used to divert water under roads. But there was no sign of Michaela.

Speaker 10 Then came the call to 911 on day five that would prove her mother's intuition was right.

Speaker 29 Ma'am, I don't know exactly where I'm at, but I'm on Hamilton Road. I was searching with my friend for my cousin that's missing Michaela Miade,

Speaker 29 and I think that we just found her.

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Speaker 10 The chatter of locusts permeated the air, an eerie sense of foreboding.

Speaker 10 Michaela Mayavi had been missing for five days.

Speaker 12 I got a phone call from my friend, and she said, I need you to sit down. And she said, They found someone, and it's a female.
I'm like, Is she dead or alive?

Speaker 10 Earlier that day, a cousin and her friend had been out searching about half a mile from Michaela's house house when they were stopped in their tracks by a strong, sickening odor.

Speaker 10 The friend followed the intense smell down a ditch to a tin horn. He saw something sticking out.
It was a hand.

Speaker 31 I was searching with my friend for my cousin that's missing Michaela Mende.

Speaker 31 And I think that we just found her.

Speaker 10 It was the call Detective Dakota Black had been dreading.

Speaker 6 It was devastating to everybody. I mean, it was absolutely terrible.

Speaker 10 Just as Barbara had imagined, Michaela was in a large drainage pipe beneath the road.

Speaker 6 She had been drug into the middle area, and she was wrapped in the carpet. She had one sock on her foot that had teddy bears on it, and her shirt was actually pulled up over her face to cover it.

Speaker 6 I mean, it was hard. It was really hard.

Speaker 6 So dark in there.

Speaker 10 Detective Black wouldn't leave Michaela's side. The two women had been born one day apart in the same year.
But that wasn't their only bond.

Speaker 6 I did feel a connection with Michaela. I have a history also.

Speaker 3 I've been in bad relationships.

Speaker 9 It could have been me.

Speaker 6 On more than one occasion, I just got lucky.

Speaker 10 While the detectives were working the scene, Michaela's family gathered just up the road.

Speaker 6 You could

Speaker 6 hear them crying up there, and they were trying to come down here where she was.

Speaker 10 But the crime scene was blocked off.

Speaker 2 We can't link to the TikTok Central. I could verify.

Speaker 22 6099.

Speaker 4 Please.

Speaker 15 I never once doubted that it was her.

Speaker 23 If anyone goes to the tape without permission, they immediately go to jail. I don't know.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 Can't you tell them we're here?

Speaker 13 Of course, of course we're going to tell you.

Speaker 3 I felt like I needed to see her

Speaker 2 because she'd been out there for five days without me.

Speaker 19 And I just needed to be with her, and they wouldn't let me.

Speaker 19 She needed me,

Speaker 19 but I wasn't there.

Speaker 10 Michaela's remains were placed in the coroner's van for the journey to the medical examiner's office.

Speaker 12 My mom and I both realized that it was probably her

Speaker 19 in there.

Speaker 2 And that we would never be able to hold her and hug her again.

Speaker 12 My mom started to chase the van.

Speaker 1 I just followed it down the road just as fast as I could.

Speaker 15 And somebody hollered at me and asked me what I was doing.

Speaker 19 And I said,

Speaker 19 my baby is in that van.

Speaker 10 Detective Black was so angry, she had to hold herself back.

Speaker 6 I wanted to leave that night and go and arrest Frank, but I knew it's better to move thoroughly than to act quick.

Speaker 10 The two investigators had already begun building a strong circumstantial case against Frank Byers. The bullet casings in her home.

Speaker 10 His unlikely story that Michaela agreed to an open marriage.

Speaker 26 She wanted to start dating other people.

Speaker 10 And left with a bald man in a white truck.

Speaker 26 She embraced the guy in a hug, and then they got in the truck and left.

Speaker 11 When you asked Michaela's family about this open relationship, what'd they say?

Speaker 6 Absolutely not. They said there was absolutely no possible way that Michaela would have ever done that.

Speaker 10 Investigators learned from interviews and from Frank's own social media accounts that he was the one who was cheating.

Speaker 12 Frank Byers is the biggest cheater.

Speaker 12 He was cheating on her. As soon as he moved in.
Every time he would go out of town, he was creating dating profiles.

Speaker 10 Frank worked for an environmental cleanup company cleaning up hazardous materials. He spent a lot of time on the road.

Speaker 6 He would meet women at gas stations, he would meet up with them at hotel rooms.

Speaker 6 He would text them while he was home with Michaela and hide it from her.

Speaker 13 He was communicating with females the day Michaela was murdered and immediately afterwards.

Speaker 12 He was sending pictures to women the day of her funeral, asking, how do I look in my tux?

Speaker 10 Frank's cheating got so bad, Michaela moved out about three months before her murder.

Speaker 12 She packed a bag and she came and stayed with me for a week. I held her where she cried every night.
She felt like a failure. But I avoided you.

Speaker 10 But Michaela's love for the little girls kept drawing her back, says Andrea. I love you.

Speaker 8 I love you most.

Speaker 2 I love you more.

Speaker 13 I love you most.

Speaker 10 Michaela went back to the 10-acre property, but not to Frank. She temporarily moved into that little structure behind his to stay close to the girls.

Speaker 10 Frank tried to win her back, promising to change, but the cheating continued. Detective Dakota Black would later discover this conversation in which Michaela told Frank she was done.

Speaker 33 I've never once been dead set for divorce until today.

Speaker 10 Michaela recorded it two days before her murder.

Speaker 33 I'm just saying you have officially lost me.

Speaker 10 Detective Black believes she recorded it to expose Frank's infidelity.

Speaker 33 I'm stating to you right now that you have officially broke the last string that was holding me to you.

Speaker 33 Okay.

Speaker 33 And you have nobody to blame but yourself for doing it.

Speaker 10 That Friday, September 15th, Michaela returned from work to pick up her things and leave for good. But Frank, it seemed, had other plans.

Speaker 10 Detectives would later recover these images captured on a home security camera on his phone.

Speaker 10 Detective Black believes he thought he had deleted them.

Speaker 11 Where is Michaela in this picture?

Speaker 6 This is Frank's home, and she's coming through the front door.

Speaker 10 Michaela stayed for 14 minutes. The detective believes they were arguing.

Speaker 6 Here's Michaela again.

Speaker 6 She's leaving.

Speaker 10 This is the last picture of the series. Frank's standing at the door of his home.

Speaker 7 And what do you believe happened after this last photograph was taken?

Speaker 6 I think this is when he exited his home and went to her home and killed her. I think this is when he killed Michaela.
Within minutes.

Speaker 10 Michaela was shot in the head.

Speaker 6 Michaela had a gunshot wound right here in the front. She had one on the left side, and then she had a Graze wound on the same side.

Speaker 11 The last image she may have seen on this earth was her own husband holding a rifle, and then the shot fired.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 10 It started as a simmering anger.

Speaker 12 And I just got to say this because I'm pretty angry.

Speaker 10 And grew into a raging fury. People wanted to know why Frank was still walking free.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry.

Speaker 13 The most difficult part was knowing that we were accumulating evidence to Frank's guilt and Michaela's murder, but we were unable to release that or share that with the public.

Speaker 6 We knew Frank was guilty. We knew Frank was not a good husband.
We knew Frank was lying. We knew lots of things, but we couldn't prove everything.

Speaker 6 And I wanted to prove everything to make sure he stayed in jail.

Speaker 10 Detective Black spent 18-hour days at the office with her sidekick haven.

Speaker 10 The therapy dog now there for her.

Speaker 7 Give me a sense emotionally how tough this was for you.

Speaker 6 It was tough mentally. I was drained.
I was mentally exhausted. I had lost weight.
I was tired. But I was not going to go home until this this case was solved

Speaker 10 frank used the time to defend himself on social media i am innocent and everything will come out

Speaker 10 he also appeared on local news even today i called her i mean

Speaker 17 i know she's not here but

Speaker 17 it's just a

Speaker 17 fact that

Speaker 26 I have her number still and her phone still on somewheres. And

Speaker 17 it would have been nice to stay here, boys.

Speaker 10 Many in the community tuned in to watch Frank Beyer's interview, including Lieutenant Dakota Black.

Speaker 11 Did it make you angry?

Speaker 6 It did make me angry.

Speaker 6 It was sickening to see that a beautiful woman was gone from the world and that while he's on TV professing his innocence, he's still in communication with other women, trying to have intimate relationships with them.

Speaker 10 Detective Black tracked down scores of these women. Crystal Cantrell was Frank's girlfriend before he met Michaela.

Speaker 32 He's very good at making you believe him and then he's kind of like a snake. Once he gets you in there, he bites you.

Speaker 10 Detective Black learned Frank wooed Crystal the same way he wooed Michaela. with a false story that his daughters were being mistreated by his current girlfriend.

Speaker 10 And like Michaela, Crystal had a soft heart.

Speaker 32 I love kids. You know, I have kids of my own, so I just felt really bad for them.

Speaker 10 Shortly after they moved in together, Crystal says Frank started to show his true colors. He isolated her from friends and family and controlled her every move.
They fought.

Speaker 10 One night, she woke up to see him looming over her, clutching a pair of handcuffs.

Speaker 32 I closed them so he couldn't use them on me. And then after that, he just got on my back and was choking me.
He had wrapped his arms around me and had his hand on my throat and he just didn't let go.

Speaker 10 Crystal was able to get away but was too afraid to report the incident to the police. She left Frank for good but says it could have been her in that ditch.

Speaker 32 He would have killed me.

Speaker 10 If Frank ever harmed Michaela, she never told her mom and sister. Sometimes they they saw bruises, but Michaela always said they were just from rough housing with the kids.

Speaker 12 I think if I think about it too much,

Speaker 12 I swear I will go down a dark hole and not come out

Speaker 19 because I did see the bruises and I just chose to believe and not question.

Speaker 19 And maybe if I would have questioned, it would come out differently.

Speaker 10 Bit by bit, Detective Black and her team built a profile of a murderer.

Speaker 6 So this photo was taken at Walmart.

Speaker 10 Using the date on a Walmart receipt found on Frank's property, the detective was able to track down this security camera photo.

Speaker 11 What's in the cart?

Speaker 6 There is bleach, ammonia, and a mop.

Speaker 11 And mop, ammonia, and bleach equals what in your mind as an investigator?

Speaker 6 Crime scene cleanup.

Speaker 10 They were also able to match the carpet in the ditch.

Speaker 2 I'll help you. Oh, I got it.

Speaker 10 To one a neighbor had given Frank and Michaela for their dogs.

Speaker 13 You gave them that carpet about eight or nine months ago?

Speaker 6 Yes. Frank took the carpet that was given to him by the neighbor and used that to roll Michaela's body in.

Speaker 10 They believe Frank killed Michaela around 4 p.m. and left her body in her home.
He then picked up his girls after school and drove them around,

Speaker 10 returning home about 8 p.m.

Speaker 10 That's when the detectives believe he started to move her body.

Speaker 13 The kids reported in interviews once they returned home that Frank was outside most of the night. He wasn't in his bed.

Speaker 10 Detective Black says there were fresh tire tracks leading to Michaela's little house.

Speaker 6 We believe that the tire tracks actually came from a vehicle backing up to load her body to take it to where she was located.

Speaker 10 The detectives believe Frank drove Michaela's body to the edge of the ditch, pulled her out, and then let her body topple the 12 to 15 feet to the creek bed.

Speaker 10 They believe Frank then climbed down and dragged her into that pipe underneath the roadway.

Speaker 10 Once Frank got rid of the body, he concocted a plan to cover up his crime.

Speaker 13 So she took the phone with her lately?

Speaker 26 Definitely. As far as I know, she took her phone with her.

Speaker 10 Remember, he told the deputy that Michaela had messaged him from her phone that evening, telling him back off.

Speaker 10 But investigators would later find Michaela's phone in Frank's bedroom.

Speaker 10 Detective May confronted Frank in a second interview.

Speaker 13 So I'm just trying to

Speaker 13 understand

Speaker 13 how,

Speaker 13 if she left with her phone and was communicating with you through her phone on Facebook, how that phone was in your bedroom.

Speaker 26 I'm just going to detect it.

Speaker 26 I mean, I don't.

Speaker 26 I mean, I don't have an explanation, honestly.

Speaker 10 But investigators did have an explanation. Michaela had two phones, an iPhone and a MotoG phone.

Speaker 10 Frank had both of them.

Speaker 6 The MotoG phone was an old phone of Michaela's that she hadn't been using for quite some time.

Speaker 13 She can just push in that hole, it pops the tray out.

Speaker 10 Frank knew how to get into that old phone.

Speaker 21 So there's a SIM card for those who don't know. That's what it looks like.

Speaker 10 So he switched the SIM card from her iPhone. Why does he do that?

Speaker 13 To gain full access to all of her accounts. That's how he was texting himself, pretending to be Michaela.

Speaker 13 And in fact, it was him the entire time.

Speaker 10 The evidence was mounting, but they were still waiting on two key pieces of evidence they had sent to the forensic lab for testing.

Speaker 6 I needed a smoking gun that I knew was not going to let him out. I knew it was going to keep him there.

Speaker 21 What have you just unwrapped here?

Speaker 13 This, what do we have here? Is the projectile recovered from the 2x4 inside Michaela's bedroom.

Speaker 10 In addition to the shell casings found on the floor in Michaela's home, they later found this bullet wrapped in what they believed was Michaela's hair embedded in the wall.

Speaker 10 They hoped it would test positive for Michaela's DNA.

Speaker 10 And then there were these boots.

Speaker 6 So these are Frank's work boots. They were recovered on the night of the missing persons report from his bedroom.

Speaker 11 And what did you spot on these boots that was of interest?

Speaker 6 So we had found a substance that we believed could be blood, but he also works with lots of chemicals. So we were unsure if that would be something that got on there while he was at work.

Speaker 10 38 days after Michaela went missing, they finally got the results. They weren't able to get a genetic confirmation on the hair, but the boots were a different story.

Speaker 10 The substance on Frank's boots was blood. Michaela's blood.

Speaker 6 As soon as we got that, we were like, we're going right now.

Speaker 21 You had your man. We had our guy, yes.

Speaker 6 We were waiting for that arrest.

Speaker 6 So it moved fast after that.

Speaker 10 It was close to midnight. Flashing police lights lit up the darkness.

Speaker 10 38 days after Michaela was reported missing, Detective Black, Deputy Richardson, and a special ops team moved in to arrest Frank Byers.

Speaker 11 He thought he was smarter than everyone, but he was outsmarted, right?

Speaker 6 Yes, I think he was surprised.

Speaker 6 I swear, I didn't think

Speaker 10 Lieutenant Black finally had Frank in her grasp and right where she wanted him, in handcuffs, headed to jail. Detective May called Michaela's family with the news.

Speaker 34 That was a hallelujah moment.

Speaker 1 That was about time moment.

Speaker 9 We couldn't get her back, but we knew he wasn't walking free anymore.

Speaker 10 Detective May says they were done with Frank's lies.

Speaker 13 They know, Frank.

Speaker 10 And they confronted him with the hard evidence they'd taken weeks to gather.

Speaker 13 Now's the opportunity to let us know what happened.

Speaker 26 I mean, I didn't have to do it. I mean,

Speaker 13 why was there blood on any boost?

Speaker 26 I mean,

Speaker 26 I can't answer. I mean,

Speaker 26 I don't know. I mean, honestly.

Speaker 10 Frank Byers was charged with first-degree murder. The DA was seeking the death penalty, but the defense requested a deal to save his life.

Speaker 10 15 months after Bayer's arrest, he agreed to plead guilty and serve life without parole.

Speaker 10 Michaela's mom was bitterly disappointed.

Speaker 3 I feel that the plea deal was a cop-out.

Speaker 34 The moment...

Speaker 19 The second that she took her last breath, he chose that.

Speaker 19 And he got to choose what he got for punishment, too. And that's not okay.

Speaker 19 It's not okay.

Speaker 10 The plea deal isn't the only thing upsetting Barbara. She doesn't think Frank acted alone.

Speaker 21 You're absolutely convinced that Frank had somebody help him.

Speaker 15 I'll go to my grave believing that.

Speaker 12 I think he had to have had an accomplice. I don't think that he could have moved her body on his own at all.

Speaker 10 Physically, he could not have done it.

Speaker 12 No, I don't believe so.

Speaker 6 I think we all agree that it would absolutely be difficult to move her,

Speaker 19 but

Speaker 6 people are scared. They can do amazing things.

Speaker 13 What they're saying is not unreasonable. If the evidence is presented to us one day

Speaker 13 that suggests that, we'll take it and we'll run with it to its fullest extent.

Speaker 15 I come and I sit and I look at that place down there. I went down and hung all kinds of crosses and different things.

Speaker 9 He didn't just take from us. He took from his own children.
Someone that loved them, that put them first.

Speaker 6 It didn't have to end this way.

Speaker 1 He could have let her leave.

Speaker 6 But he didn't.

Speaker 10 There's cold justice for Michaela. For Detective Dakota Black, tracker, her painful work continues.

Speaker 9 Michaela would want her life to mean something.

Speaker 10 Barbara is starting Michaela's Purple Butterfly Foundation to fight against domestic violence.

Speaker 12 That was her goal, her mission in life was when you see someone in need, help them.

Speaker 12 When I think of Michaela, I think of sunflowers. I think of

Speaker 12 joy.

Speaker 13 She would love that though.

Speaker 3 You know she would with all those sunflowers.

Speaker 3 I sure miss her smile, her laugh.

Speaker 15 Oh, that laugh was something else.

Speaker 12 She was my best friend. I strived for her to be proud of me because I looked up to her even though she was the little sister.
I still lay in bed and talk to her like she's still right there.

Speaker 12 I feel like she's watching over us every day.

Speaker 14 If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

Speaker 18 You think you understand how this business works, but you don't.

Speaker 27 Landman, TV's biggest phenomenon, returns to Paramount Plus from Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Yellowstone, starring Billy Bob Thornton.

Speaker 18 You have to know the rules of the game and bend them, and you really have to know them to break them.

Speaker 27 Demi Moore.

Speaker 17 I want success.

Speaker 27 Get it for me. Andy Garcia, Allie Larder, and Sam Elliott.

Speaker 18 You don't even know the game you're playing, do you?

Speaker 27 Landman, new season, now streaming. Only on Paramount Plus.

Speaker 17 Tulsa is my home now.

Speaker 27 Academy Award nominee Sylvester Stallone stars in the Paramount Plus original series, Tulsa King. His distillery is a very interesting business.
And we gotta know the enemy.

Speaker 27 From Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Landman. What are you saying?

Speaker 2 I'm alright.

Speaker 27 If you think you're gonna take me out,

Speaker 2 it's gonna be really

Speaker 17 difficult.

Speaker 27 Tulsa King, new season now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus.