Episode 10: Cat Eyes

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Speaker 5 I had just started making this show when I learned that Jeffrey had been murdered. It was just after New Year's Day, 2024.

Speaker 5 I had been talking to Susie on the phone, and when she told me the news, it felt completely inconceivable. Jeffrey had been the one to identify Daisy's body.
He made sure that she wasn't a Jane Doe.

Speaker 5 He testified at Victor's trial. The guilty verdict was partly because of him.
Here's how Detective Sanchez put it.

Speaker 6 On the stand, he was great. That kid was amazing, right?

Speaker 6 But if it wasn't for him, it would have been, it would have taken a lot longer, right? And when we talked to him, he was,

Speaker 6 you know, he wasn't scared. He was,

Speaker 6 you know, it was forthcoming.

Speaker 6 Just tell us what you know, okay?

Speaker 5 It was one horrific tragedy, one senseless act of violence. that had ended the life of yet another teenager from the same apartment complex.

Speaker 5 And so, as I spent the next few months putting in requests to interview the detectives on Daisy's case, I realized I had another murder to ask them about.

Speaker 5 Jeffries.

Speaker 5 Usually, homicide detectives are the ones with all the information.

Speaker 5 They're the ones who get to choose when to withhold it and when to share it, whether to put out bulletins on social media, or to work the case without the help of the public.

Speaker 5 They're often the ones tasked with delivering horrible, life-shattering news, telling people when someone they love has been murdered.

Speaker 5 But when I began talking to Luko and Sanchez, it became clear to me that they didn't know about Jeffrey's death. Because when I sat down with each of them, they spoke about him in the present tense.

Speaker 8 For example, here's something that Detective Luko said: I'm sure now he's 13 or 14, but at the time he was 10 or 11. Not any older than that.

Speaker 3 And very bright.

Speaker 5 Jeffrey actually was older than that. He was 13 when he identified Daisy's body.
He was 16 when he died of multiple gunshot wounds just three years later.

Speaker 5 When Detective Sanchez spoke of him, he said in the present tense, he's a young kid.

Speaker 6 You know, I'm not going to tell you how old he is, but he's a young kid and he was very courageous to say, hey, listen, you know, I think I know who that is, right?

Speaker 5 I found myself in this strange situation because now I was the one who had news to share with the detectives.

Speaker 5 I had to tell them that their main witness, the teenager who helped them solve Daisy's murder, had also been the victim of a homicide. I didn't really know how to share this news.

Speaker 5 Lugo had been on a tight schedule when we first talked, and I had so many questions about Daisy's case that it seemed like it wasn't the right time to ask about another one.

Speaker 5 Detective Sanchez and I talked just a few days after that. And during the end of our conversation, I decided to bring it up.

Speaker 9 I have another case that I wanted to ask you about.

Speaker 7 Is it a homicide?

Speaker 10 Yeah, it's a homicide case.

Speaker 9 Did I handle it? I don't know. I don't know who's handling it.
Maybe you can tell me who it is.

Speaker 1 Figuring out the words to say was really tough.

Speaker 7 So I decided to pull up a local news article on my phone.

Speaker 5 It didn't mention Jeffrey by name, presumably, because he was a minor. But I decided to read the first couple of lines of it to Sanchez and see if it rang a bell.

Speaker 9 A 16-year-old boy was killed in Compton. Sheriff's Department said a man was also found at the scene who had non-life-threatening injuries.
And so this is the homicide department's number.

Speaker 9 I just don't know if you're working this case, and I'll tell you why.

Speaker 5 It's not totally random.

Speaker 7 I'm not saying.

Speaker 1 But so this case,

Speaker 9 the 16-year-old boy that was killed was Jeffrey.

Speaker 8 No way.

Speaker 7 No way.

Speaker 6 That's the first time I've heard it.

Speaker 7 Holy shit.

Speaker 5 Sanchez and I sat there in the conference room in silence.

Speaker 5 He looked visibly uncomfortable.

Speaker 5 I mean, his mouth was literally hanging open, and his eyes kept darting back and forth between me and Miguel, who had been sitting next to me holding the microphone across the table.

Speaker 5 It was as if Sanchez wasn't sure whether we were playing some kind of sick joke on him.

Speaker 5 I didn't know what to say.

Speaker 9 Finally, I broke the silence. Yeah, so I guess I would just be curious to know if there's any sort of headway in that investigation.

Speaker 6 Let me look into it. Okay.

Speaker 7 Why'd you

Speaker 6 that you just wrote me?

Speaker 7 That's part of my French.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I'm sorry to tell you that. I know, I know.
I wanted to tell you earlier, but I knew it would derail kind of, I wanted to find out.

Speaker 7 I would have walked out.

Speaker 9 I know, I know. It's so upsetting.

Speaker 7 I'm going to call the mom.

Speaker 7 I know, I really want to know what happened.

Speaker 9 Because I feel like there's things that happen like that, you know, all over LA all the time. And then you never hear about it.
And you're like, what happened to this kid? Or what was their name?

Speaker 9 What was their story?

Speaker 9 Um, I'm sure you deal with that a lot, too.

Speaker 6 You put a dent for all my date, that might have to be cool.

Speaker 7 I know, me too, me too.

Speaker 12 I'm gonna have to go fill this thing with vodka or something.

Speaker 13 Oh my god, I know.

Speaker 9 I've been sitting with this knowledge, and so yeah, upset about it, but I would love to know if there's any.

Speaker 6 I'll look into it. Okay, um, and if the investigators are willing to talk, I'll

Speaker 6 forward them to you.

Speaker 9 Thank you because he's a part of Daisy's story, and like you said, he's a part of why Victor ended up getting convicted, you know? Damn, holy crap, yeah, and he was 16.

Speaker 6 Pardon my French, I speak a lot of French.

Speaker 7 Edit that, Miguel.

Speaker 8 All right, dude, that's messed up.

Speaker 7 Like,

Speaker 6 where's the mom would have called me? She wouldn't have called me.

Speaker 9 You don't know who's working it?

Speaker 7 I'll have to look. Okay.
I'll have to look.

Speaker 9 Okay.

Speaker 6 I'll have to.

Speaker 7 So I'll have to ask

Speaker 6 the guys at the front desk to say, hey.

Speaker 6 Damn.

Speaker 6 come on.

Speaker 1 This is your job.

Speaker 12 Yeah, but that kid was a good kid.

Speaker 7 Like, and he.

Speaker 9 I know, so was Daisy.

Speaker 6 I know, I know. I mean, yeah.

Speaker 7 Damn, poor kid.

Speaker 6 I remember walking the kid into the courtroom.

Speaker 6 Like, right? Like he's like,

Speaker 6 he was my kid. Like,

Speaker 6 you know, hey, don't worry about it. You'll be good.
That's that's messed up.

Speaker 1 I'm Jen Swan from London Audio, iHeartRadio, and executive producer Paris Hilton. This is my friend Daisy.

Speaker 5 Episode 10, Cat Eyes.

Speaker 5 After I told Sanchez about Jeffrey, I knew I had to tell Luco too.

Speaker 5 He agreed to meet me at the Homicide Bureau for a follow-up interview. And that's when I filled him in on my conversation with Sanchez.

Speaker 9 The other thing that I told him during our interview, and I don't know if he told you too, was that I found out that Jeffrey, the main witness, was murdered.

Speaker 7 Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 9 Did you know about that?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 7 It's very tragic.

Speaker 8 He was such a nice boy, but

Speaker 8 he's just a victim of the area, right? I think

Speaker 8 it's so dangerous for them in the area. It's almost heartbreaking that

Speaker 8 things like this

Speaker 8 occur in Compton.

Speaker 5 Lugo's response was surprising to me, especially because when we first sat down in his office just two weeks earlier, he gave no indication that he knew about this other homicide case, about how it dovetailed with Daisy's.

Speaker 9 And so I asked him, Do you remember where you were when you learned about Jeffrey?

Speaker 8 About his murder?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 8 I think they told us here.

Speaker 5 Maybe it was the way he hesitated or restated my question, or maybe it was just the stark difference in his reaction versus Detective Sanchez's.

Speaker 5 But I had this feeling that he was not being honest with me. He'd always been a little defensive when speaking about Daisy's case, and I understood why.

Speaker 5 Here I was questioning him about what he'd been doing during the investigation and why Daisy's friends felt like they had to start their own.

Speaker 5 But I guess I thought that since this case wasn't one that he was working on, he might be a little more forthcoming with me.

Speaker 5 But to me, it felt like he was again assuming the role of the detective with all the answers, the football coach with all the plays.

Speaker 5 As we walked out of the conference room, I began to question other things that he had told me about Daisy's case, about how he'd been working the investigation, about how difficult it was, about how exactly Victor had been caught.

Speaker 5 And I wondered, could I really trust any of it?

Speaker 5 In the hallway, Luco stopped and introduced me to a detective named Joe Purcell. He's an old-timer who trained Luco here.
That was about three decades ago.

Speaker 8 This is Jennifer Swan.

Speaker 8 She's a podcaster.

Speaker 8 She used to write for New York magazine.

Speaker 7 Oh, is that right?

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 9 I'm a freelancer

Speaker 9 doing a podcast about a story that I covered a couple years ago. Oh, no.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 9 About a murder in Compton.

Speaker 7 Oh, first aid. That's never happened before.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 Maybe he didn't mean it that way, but it sounded like what some of daisy's neighbors had imagined the police might say a murder in compton that's never happened before like it was some kind of joke some kind of punchline compton murder but we we cut the guy a papa's a beer in reality

Speaker 9 is that right wow yeah well it had been a couple of months and the family you know the family was wondering what's going on with this why isn't he arrested so they put out their own tick tocks and instagram trying to find him and on the same day i felt like i had to jump in and explain that the police had gotten this big assist from social media they were like putting his photo out people were calling blowing up your cell phone saying i've seen him here yeah

Speaker 8 yeah

Speaker 8 seen him everywhere and it could be dangerous right if the parents in this case it worked out fine but i was telling her

Speaker 8 it could be dangerous if they wanted to be someone and they put his picture up as a murder class bank yeah and it turns out someone else committed the murder yeah Lugo was always downplaying the role of social media in solving this case.

Speaker 5 Like when I first interviewed him in this office just a couple weeks earlier, I asked him about the moment he saw the screenshot showing Victor at Papa's and Beer. He told me he barely saw it.

Speaker 8 It came, yeah,

Speaker 7 I remember seeing it late in the evening.

Speaker 8 Maybe we were so busy

Speaker 8 during this time. And

Speaker 8 I remember seeing something to that effect and we already knew where he was at and

Speaker 8 and we're not here to and I told you this already Jennifer our relationship we've it we wanted to be those are our victims right Susie has suffered enough and I know she was upset for a time because nothing was being done

Speaker 8 but we have to wait to make sure that

Speaker 8 we have to be able to prove it, right?

Speaker 8 We can't just arrest someone and then we have to cut him loose and then he leaves to a country that we don't have a treaty with and we'll never get him back, right?

Speaker 5 Okay, maybe it's worth pointing out that Luco actually did have proof. This is based on his own admission.
He had the DNA match. Sanchez confirmed this when he gave testimony at trial.

Speaker 5 He said the CODIS hit came back less than two and a half weeks after Daisy's murder. The first results came back on March 12th.

Speaker 5 And the official letter from the California Department of Justice, that came back March 18th. Anyway, I was curious about this screenshot, about how it led to Victor's arrest.

Speaker 5 But when I asked Lugo about it, he seemed almost agitated by the question.

Speaker 8 I don't want to get in an argument, and if they think they had a lot to do with it, I want them to...

Speaker 8 It's okay, right? It takes the team and whatever, but we know what we did, we know

Speaker 8 who we talked to, we know the fly, once the flyer went out with the

Speaker 8 with the arrest

Speaker 8 and wanted all over social media. That's when things happen.
But if they want to believe that it was them and all of them, that's okay, too.

Speaker 5 This flyer that he's talking about, it's the one the sheriff's department put out on Facebook.

Speaker 5 Lugo is saying that it was this social media post that led to Victor's arrest, not the ones put out by Daisy's friends and family.

Speaker 5 But those TikToks had apparently made an impression on the detectives. That's at least according to Victor.

Speaker 5 When I interviewed him recently, he told me that when he came into the office for his interrogation, which, you know, never actually happened because Victor didn't know what a lawyer was, he told me that that was true.

Speaker 5 The detectives, he claimed, had teased him for being famous on TikTok.

Speaker 5 Here's Here's how Victor says that conversation went.

Speaker 11 How did you become aware that they were looking for you on TikTok?

Speaker 11 Uh

Speaker 11 detectives told me

Speaker 11 they're just

Speaker 11 calling me names,

Speaker 11 telling me that

Speaker 11 all you're seeing is like you were on TikTok.

Speaker 5 So what really happened? Did Victor get arrested because he was TikTok famous? Was it the Instagram DM that led to his arrest?

Speaker 5 Or was it the voicemail that Sanchez said that he got that very same morning that Susie saw the screenshot?

Speaker 5 I realized I wasn't going to get a straight answer out of the detectives. If I really wanted to get answers, I had to take matters into my own hands.
I had to go to the scene of Victor's arrest.

Speaker 5 I showed up to Papa's and Beer on a weekday afternoon.

Speaker 5 It was the off-season, and the bar was nearly empty, which was honestly a little weird for a place that feels a bit like a cruise ship docked on the beach.

Speaker 5 There's this sprawling outdoor area, and there's clusters of tables surrounding a mechanical bowl and a live music stage that sits directly on the sand. I ended up taking a seat inside.

Speaker 5 It was kind of a smaller area. It felt more like a sports bar, with wood-paneled countertops, big-screen TVs, and loud reggae and rap music blasting over the speakers.

Speaker 5 I ordered nachos and I started talking to the bartender. And when I told him about why I was there, his eyes lit up.
He had followed Victor's murder case.

Speaker 5 He'd even tracked down news footage from the trial.

Speaker 16 When I see his mom in the news, she touched my feelings.

Speaker 12 She touched your feelings.

Speaker 4 Yes, like what?

Speaker 17 Daisy's mother. Yeah.

Speaker 16 It's hard and we lost a life, innocent life.

Speaker 5 It's hard when we lose innocent life, the bartender said. He didn't want to be identified by name, so I'm just going to refer to him as the bartender.

Speaker 5 He said that he felt for Daisy's mother and for Victor's, that he was shocked by the details that emerged at trial.

Speaker 5 And the reason he was so invested, the reason he wanted to see how the story had ended, is because he himself had been part of it. Victor had been his coworker.

Speaker 16 He's nice guys, quiet, relaxed. He's coming and doing his job.

Speaker 5 Nobody had suspected that he'd been hiding in plain sight after committing a murder across the border. I mean, the bartender did think it was a little weird that his new coworker came from the U.S.

Speaker 5 to work in Mexico, essentially, as a food runner. Especially because he really didn't even speak much Spanish.

Speaker 5 But the bartender never questioned the only two things he thought he knew about his co-worker. That his name was Billy and that he was from Arizona.
Both, of course, would turn out to be lies.

Speaker 17 Anything else then he told Shaban?

Speaker 16 Billy the kid. Who else?

Speaker 16 He's no really don't touch nobody.

Speaker 5 Billy the Kid, the Wild West outlaw who went on the run after committing a series of murders. It was the nickname this bartender had given to Victor, having no idea just how fitting it really was.

Speaker 5 The bartender's main impression of him was just that he kept to himself,

Speaker 5 except for when he was drinking. That's when he became an entirely different person.
The bartender described this version of Victor as aggressive, violent, unpredictable.

Speaker 5 How long did he work here for?

Speaker 16 He's coming by

Speaker 16 in April.

Speaker 4 April?

Speaker 16 April? Yes, the first days of April. He worked like three months when the police were.

Speaker 17 He was arrested July 2nd, I think.

Speaker 5 See?

Speaker 16 Yeah. Like three months.

Speaker 5 Wow, that's a while.

Speaker 5 Did he ever, do you think he ever went back and forth?

Speaker 17 Because people kept saying they saw him in LA, but maybe they saw somebody else.

Speaker 16 Probably they think it was somebody else.

Speaker 17 So you think he never left once he got here?

Speaker 16 No.

Speaker 16 He was always here. He always here.

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Speaker 5 Finding out just how many months Victor had been in Mexico made me rethink so much of what I thought I knew about the hunt for him.

Speaker 5 It meant that all of those sightings of Victor, all around Southern California and all of these surrounding states, they were sightings of guys who weren't actually Victor.

Speaker 5 It made me think of people like Valerie Arellano. She went to high school with Daisy and she thought she may have seen Victor on the train platform.

Speaker 5 She and so many others were on high alert for months, watching their backs around Compton in Southeast LA.

Speaker 5 And it also made me think of the skateboarders, or maybe the guys with gauged ears, who had repeatedly been mistaken for a murderer.

Speaker 5 I thought about what could have happened if someone had tried to capture the wrong person. When I talked to Victor on the phone, he didn't specify exactly when he left for Mexico.

Speaker 5 He just said that He had been eating breakfast one morning at a shopping center, which is really casual, right?

Speaker 5 And he met someone who was on their way to Mexico. Victor suspected that authorities might be looking for him, and so he decided to catch a bus with this person.

Speaker 5 He claimed that he later discovered he'd been recruited into some kind of drug smuggling operation, so he ran away. Next thing he knew, he found himself bussing tables at Papa's and Beer.

Speaker 5 I can't confirm this story, but it did make a lot of sense what the bartender was telling me, which is that Victor had been in Mexico nearly the whole time he'd been on the run.

Speaker 5 Sticking around LA or crossing back and forth across the border, it would have been risky for someone who had just committed a heinous crime.

Speaker 5 Then again, it was also risky to be working at a tourist bar. That's something the bartender couldn't quite figure out either.

Speaker 16 I don't understand

Speaker 16 why he's coming and working this place.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's such a strange place because it's so visible.

Speaker 17 It's so like public.

Speaker 16 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And when he's busy right here, thousands are coming from LA, from everywhere, those Of course,

Speaker 5 you know, it's kind of wild to me that Victor went under the radar for as long as he did while working in such a popular place.

Speaker 5 But eventually, his past caught up with him, as it almost always does.

Speaker 5 He was having beers with some coworkers after work. The busy season of spring break had finally ended, and they were looking to relax.

Speaker 5 The bartender I talked to told me that he usually didn't like to go out drinking with his coworkers. But that night, he made an exception.
He got a bottle bottle of tequila for the table.

Speaker 5 Everyone was celebrating. One of his coworkers decided to film a video of the group.

Speaker 5 And I should point out that this was actually a different coworker than the one who sent that video to the Justice for Daisy Instagram page.

Speaker 5 The guy who took this video, he didn't know at the time that the foodrunner known as Billy was wanted for murder. Nobody did.
He took the video, I assume for the same reason that anyone does.

Speaker 5 He wanted content for the Graham, something to post on the feed. Evidence of a good time had.

Speaker 5 On a sunny, breezy morning in early July, the good times came to an end. Victor showed up to work in the morning.
It was July 2nd, and he began sweeping the streets.

Speaker 5 It was part of his job to clean the windows and all the outdoor areas of the bar. That's when the Rosarito police pulled up, got out of the car, and handcuffed Victor.

Speaker 5 The bartender had no idea what was going on. He just remembered that the arrest happened really quickly.
There was no big struggle. There was no argument.
It was all over in a minute.

Speaker 5 The bartender said his boss later pulled him aside. He looked distraught.
He'd come across a video on TikTok and discovered that Billy the kid was actually Victor, the fugitive.

Speaker 5 So he called the police. And then he felt bad about it.
The bartender said he tried to comfort his boss.

Speaker 16 My boss, he feels sad because he reported Billy.

Speaker 16 I give you a card and that, you know, you're doing great you're doing great you're doing justice that's it the rest is history the rest he said is history

Speaker 5 but the more i dug into that history the more i talked to people in all these different places the more complex it became

Speaker 5 I had come down to Mexico in search of the definitive story of how Victor came to be arrested.

Speaker 5 I had been thinking that there were only a couple of possible explanations, and I was hoping that whoever I talked to at the bar might be able to confirm one of them for me.

Speaker 5 It was either the Instagram DM or it was the phone call that Sancha said he got as a result of the sheriff's Facebook post. But here I was at the bar presented with a third scenario.

Speaker 5 Victor's boss had seen Daisy's friend's TikTok and he called the police on him. Maybe Victor being TikTok famous did have a lot to do with his arrest.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's possible that all of these scenarios unfolded roughly at the same time.

Speaker 5 Maybe there's no way to know for sure, but what seems clear to me is that in all of these scenarios, the arrest was a direct result of social media, whether it was a TikTok or an Instagram DM or a Facebook post.

Speaker 5 The influence of these platforms was huge.

Speaker 5 And maybe it's cheesy to say, but it really is a testament to the power of the internet, of social media, of information traveling and converging at exactly the right moment, being seen by exactly the right people, all of them in different cities, honestly different countries, and all of them with the same goal of getting justice for Daisy.

Speaker 5 And they did it. They found her killer, and they made sure that nobody would forget Daisy's name or her story.

Speaker 5 Jeffrey's mother, Wendy, is still waiting on justice and wondering what that might look like in her son's case. I reached out to both detectives assigned to it.

Speaker 5 They said it was an act of investigation and that they couldn't comment on it. I also submitted multiple public records requests.
I wanted to get police reports from that day.

Speaker 5 They all got denied for the same reason. They told me it was an ongoing investigation.
Then I requested a copy of Jeffrey's autopsy report.

Speaker 7 Thanks for calling the medical examiner's office.

Speaker 8 This is the records section.

Speaker 7 How can I help you?

Speaker 13 The LA County Medical Examiner Building is on the east side of LA,

Speaker 5 kind of near where the 5 and the 10 freeways meet. It's housed in this brick building from the early 1900s, and it's got marble walls and these big chandeliers.

Speaker 5 The place looks regal, but inside, people are having some of the worst days of their lives.

Speaker 5 They come here to get autopsy reports, but also to do things like collect their loved ones' belongings belongings after they've been sent to the morgue. It's pretty heart-wrenching stuff.

Speaker 5 I waited in the lobby, and then I was escorted down into the basement where all the records are stored.

Speaker 7 Do you want to do a card?

Speaker 6 Yeah, I'll do a card.

Speaker 5 I handed over my credit card, and I was given a manila envelope. I walked down the hallway, took a seat on a wooden bench, and opened up the envelope.
I started thumbing through the report.

Speaker 5 It was about 30 pages long. And as I flipped through it, I found a summary of what detectives believe happened on the day that Jeffrey was killed, which is this.

Speaker 5 Jeffrey and a few friends had ordered a pizza.

Speaker 5 When the pizza delivery guy got there, this is according to the report, Jeffrey and another friend flashed guns and attempted to steal his jewelry and cash.

Speaker 5 At some point, a pizza delivery guy apparently took hold of one of the guns. One of Jeffree's friends ran away, and at some point, about a dozen shots were fired.

Speaker 5 The police know this because of the bullet casings they found on the ground. Most were from a rifle, some were from a handgun, but that's about all the authorities know for certain.

Speaker 5 That and the fact that three different bullets pierced Jeffree's body. One in his arm, one in his chest, one in his head.

Speaker 5 As far as I know, the police have not charged anyone for Jeffree's murder. Again, they've told me that the investigation is ongoing.
This is also what they've told Wendy, his mother.

Speaker 5 One way that she's been attempting to process her grief is by posting videos of Jeffrey on TikTok,

Speaker 5 by remembering the good times and sharing them with others.

Speaker 4 Oh.

Speaker 5 I can see the frown in your eyes. Let me see.

Speaker 5 Let me see.

Speaker 5 Let me see.

Speaker 14 Yeah, that's the original video.

Speaker 5 This video was was taken at the Mall Food Court.

Speaker 5 Jeffrey was wearing a white hoodie and sipping on a purple smoothie.

Speaker 14 And that day, I remember we were sitting, and then I was recording him, and I told him, I'm like, dude, you don't even have green eyes. I see all brown and just like teasing him around.

Speaker 14 And he's like, he's like, all shy and everything. And I'm like, Jeffrey, let me see your eyes.
And he's like, he's like hiding. He's like, no, mom, stop.
And I'm like, let me see.

Speaker 15 How old was he there?

Speaker 14 This was. Oh, it was last year.
The beginning of last year.

Speaker 14 The beginning of last year.

Speaker 7 February 23.

Speaker 5 It was filmed on February 23rd, 2023.

Speaker 5 It only hit me later that that date was the anniversary of Daisy's death. It was exactly two years to the day after Jeffrey identified her body.

Speaker 5 The day after his death, Wendy uploaded this video to TikTok. She put a sentimental music track over it.
The lyrics went, I didn't know today would be your last.

Speaker 5 Jeffrey's smiling and laughing in the video. When he looks into the camera, his eyes are, of course, green.

Speaker 5 R.I.P., Miohitos de Gato. Wendy wrote on the video, my little cat eyes.

Speaker 14 I didn't have any followers. I had just started my page.
And I started with

Speaker 14 my little dog.

Speaker 14 My little dog. Oh, yeah, I saw that.

Speaker 14 My little dog, my kids,

Speaker 14 uh-huh, this little chi-woga that I have. Then I just posted a few videos of my mom after that when she passed away.

Speaker 14 Oh my gosh, and then that was the first video that I posted of Jeffrey, which was that one was the one that went viral. Wow, it has a million views.

Speaker 14 That's what I'm telling you.

Speaker 14 That's why I noticed it went viral. And then I got a lot of views.

Speaker 7 How do you think it went viral? I don't know. Oh, I don't even know.
I don't know.

Speaker 14 I don't know how they go viral, but

Speaker 14 I guess it started popping up on everybody's like for you page or something.

Speaker 4 That's right.

Speaker 5 This video has over a million views. It reminded me of something that Sarah Turney, that true crime TikToker and podcaster I spoke to in the first episode, told me.

Speaker 5 She said that TikTok, it's kind of like a slot machine, and you never really know what's gonna hit, what's gonna be rewarded by the algorithm.

Speaker 5 In Wendy's case, it was this short clip of her son just being himself, being a kid in a food court with his mom.

Speaker 5 Wendy wasn't using TikTok to try to find his killer. It wasn't a call to action.
It was simply a way of remembering Jeffrey

Speaker 5 and maybe of finding comfort from strangers.

Speaker 5 Wendy scrolled through her phone and showed me more photos of Jeffrey over the years. Some of them were goofy.
They captured these random silly moments at home.

Speaker 14 I found a video the other day. I was going through my pictures and then I saw a video of he's like, yeah, I'm a YouTuber and my mom's mom's mad because I don't give her her phone back.

Speaker 14 I'm like, dude, what you're doing it on my phone.

Speaker 14 I was like, Of course, I want my phone.

Speaker 1 Wait, was he actually a YouTuber?

Speaker 9 Was he making fun of YouTubers?

Speaker 14 No, what he was, I guess he was like,

Speaker 14 he wanted to be a YouTuber. He's like, Hey guys, welcome to my YouTube channel.
And I don't know what, like, this is a famous YouTuber. I'm like, dude, you're not even anything yet.

Speaker 7 Like, be quiet.

Speaker 5 And there were other photos and videos that marked these big milestones.

Speaker 9 Where was that? He's all dressed up.

Speaker 14 He He graduated. That's when he graduated from middle school.

Speaker 9 He looks very serious.

Speaker 14 He was mad because I was having him close everywhere at the park.

Speaker 15 He's like, mom, another photo?

Speaker 14 Yeah, he's like, mom, just take one or two pictures and that's it.

Speaker 14 Because it was hot. He's like, mom, stop.
It's hot already.

Speaker 15 And now you're glad you have all the photos, you know?

Speaker 14 Yeah, that's what I told my kids. I'm like, dude, you guys can't be mad at me trying to take pictures or videos.
I'm like, because that's all I'm going to keep, memories.

Speaker 14 I'm like, you guys are going to get older and all that. Like, nobody's going to know anything about you guys.
I'm like, only me.

Speaker 14 I'm like, only me. I'll have all the memories.

Speaker 16 Yeah.

Speaker 5 This series is dedicated to the memories of Daisy De Lao and Jeffrey Tinoco.

Speaker 5 Thank you so much to everyone who shared their memories of them with me, including Juan De Lao, Daisy's grandfather. He died in late 2024.
And thank you so much to all of you for listening.

Speaker 11 Hi, everyone. This is Paris.
Thanks for listening to my friend Daisy. If you or someone you love is experiencing abuse, you are not alone.
Help is available 24-7.

Speaker 11 Contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline for free confidential support. Call 800-799-7233.
Text start to 88-788 or visit thehotline.org. Your safety matters.

Speaker 7 Reach out today.

Speaker 5 My Friend Daisy is a production of London Audio with support from Sony Music Entertainment. It's reported, written, and executive produced by me, Jen Swan.
I'm also your host.

Speaker 5 Our executive producers for London Audio are Paris Hilton, Bruce Gersh, Bruce Robertson, and Joanna Studebaker.

Speaker 1 Our executive producer for Sony Music Entertainment is Jonathan Hirsch.

Speaker 5 Our associate producer is Zoe Kulkin.

Speaker 1 Production Assistance and Translations by Miguel Contreras.

Speaker 1 Sound Design, Composing, and Mixing by Hans Dale Sheeh.

Speaker 5 Tracy Lee fact-checked this episode.

Speaker 1 Joel Rickert is our legal counsel for this series. Our head of production is Sammy Allison, and our production manager is Tamika Balance-Kolosny.

Speaker 1 Special thanks to Steve Akerman, Emily Rossick, and Jamie Myers at Sony, Ben Goldberg, and Orly Greenberg at UTA, and Jen Ortiz at The Cut.

Speaker 1 Ah,

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