The Vanishing Point: Episode 6, Agency Road

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In the last episode, former Humboldt County Sheriff Trent James was pretty adamant on his opinion of what happened to Cootie Jaw, and who he believes is responsible, namely Niji Follis.

This level of conviction left us all wondering what it would take for law enforcement to actually act on these eyewitness accounts.

It's not entirely clear what they're waiting for,

or why these accounts haven't been enough.

And Niji, if you hear this, we'd like to interview you. Okay, well, when this all started with Khadija, with her boyfriend at that time, Niji Fawless, his mother stayed in this house down here.
So she eventually stayed down here with Niji.

Ronnie Hostler, Khadijah Britton's grandfather,

who you heard in the previous episode,

offered to give us a tour of the Kovaleau house

where Khadijah and Niji Follis were staying.

It's right down the street from Ronnie's house.

You can see it from his driveway. She stayed there a long time.
He would leave, because he had other girlfriends besides her. I don't know of him ever beating her down here.
If he did, I'm sure she would have told me. She didn't.
Khadijah moved in with Follis after high school.

This house belonged to Niji's grandmother, who also lived with them.

It's a long, trailer-style home with blue sides fading to gray.

And in a green yard adorned with stones on either side is a walkway leading to the front door.

While Khadijah stayed there, it seems things were somewhat stable.

There was some sense that, even though Khadija's family didn't improve of her relationship, with her living so close by, they could at least keep watch over her. But I haven't been in there since we lost Khadija, five years ago.
That's when he drug her out of the house, threatened to kill her right there.

But now, to Ronnie, this house serves as a constant reminder of everything that's gone wrong.

When she came up missing, they had this all blocked off. So I come walking down here and deputy stopped me right here i said what's going on here

you missing they had this all blocked off so I come walking down here and a deputy stopped me right here I said what's going on here well we heard that there's some blood and stuff in that house so we're gonna go in there well they found out that when they went into the house they bleached it and they painted the the one room. Well, him and Khadija was in that room.
How did they know that the wall had been painted, the room had been painted? They could smell the new paint. And there's some places where they could smell the bleach.
Are you thinking maybe they were painting and bleaching just to get rid of any, like, evidence of domestic violence? Well, that's what they claim.

The police?

Yeah.

They said that everything was clean,

so there was nothing they could do.

Khadijah always told me she was okay,

but she didn't really tell me what was going on.

And I knew there was abuse.

I knew that.

And so you drive past this house every day, the last place you saw Khadijah. What's that like? It's bad.
Bad. Then I feel guilty.
I feel like I should have done something. I should have put a stop to it.
And the only way I could help her is if she wanted help. I still felt guilty for not doing it.
Felt like it was my place to step in. Maybe that's why I'm doing what I'm doing now.
You've done so much for her. I'm not done.
I'm not done yet.

I'm Slecia Stanton, and this is The Vanishing Point. The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, the Detective Bureau, has so far invested 3,462 hours in this investigation.
And we're not saying that by saying this is the biggest we've done, but I want people to understand that we're not taking this investigation lightly. — This is a 2018 press conference update on Khadijah Britton's case.
— The main investigative lead in this case, Niji Fallis, was arrested. While many of her loved ones hoped justice would be served, we now know the main suspect in her disappearance, Niji Fallis, the man who was said to have beaten her and threatened her into a car at gunpoint, has eluded any sort of legal ramifications from this case.
We want to solve this crime.

As a father myself, I certainly can understand the anxiety,

the nightmares, the fright that the family has.

We are continuing our investigation of this crime.

We are not stalling.

We're continuing. And hopefully today, somebody out there will understand

that the right thing to do is get the information to us.

Honestly, whether she's dead or alive,

Thank you. Today, somebody out there that will understand that the right thing to do is get the information to us.
Honestly, whether she's dead or alive, we need to find her. Niji Fawless, 37, of Kovolo, only spent 15 months in prison after Khadija's disappearance.
And his sentencing wasn't for kidnapping, spousal abuse, or murder. Instead, he was found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
He was arrested and released again a short time later, but ultimately, police haven't been able to charge Follis in connection with Khadija's disappearance because of what authorities say is a lack of evidence. And they believe the only way that will change is if someone else comes forward.
So it was my job to round those people up, the ones that were rumored to be involved in her disappearance. Here again is former Covalo police officer, Trent James.
So every time I would have to use informants and my expertise to go track these people down and find them because they were all in hiding, of course. And some of them had warrants.
So when I would find them, I would call the detectives down in Uki and say, Hey, I got so-and-so. Do you want to come out here and interview them? No, bring them to us.
So then driving an hour and a half each way to do a drop-off and, you know, I'd go back out to Covalo and do it again until I rounded up every fucking person. But that's when I finally got Sammy Leggett.
Sammy Leggett is one of two witnesses who was in the house the day Khadija went missing. She'd tell law enforcement that she watched Niji Follis threatened Khadija and force her into an SUV at gunpoint.
Sammy Leggett has since passed, but her testimony to Trent James

is the most information we have about what happened to Khadija after she got in the car. What happened was Niji went over there in a black SUV.

And it was him and the person driving the SUV, Sammy Leggett.

So Sammy Leggett, Niji and Khadija leave that property.

And they drive down the road on Agency Road, probably like 100 feet, not very far.

And Khadija and Niji are sitting in the backseat of the SUV. Sammy Leggett's driving, and they're arguing, like nonstop, back and forth.
And at one point, Niji tells Sammy, stop the fucking car. So she stops the car, and then Niji gets out, pulls Khadija out, and tells Sammy to get the fuck out of there.
So Sammy leaves the area. And this is like late at night, right? There's no streetlights, okay? There's no nothing.
It's pitch black. And so you can't really see anything.
Again, not highly populated either. So they get out and stay there.
Sammy drives back to her house, which is probably half a mile away. And then about 30 minutes later, Sammy, and this is her statement, she said that Niji called her on her cell phone and he sounded like upset.
Like he was crying and he was like, I fucked up, I fucked up, I didn't mean to. And she's like, what the fuck are you talking about? And he's like, come back and pick me up.
I'm back over here. And so she drives back over there immediately.
And it was just Niji by himself, no Khadija. And Sammy's like, where's Khadija? And he wouldn't say shit according to her.
And I can't remember if she said he was crying, but definitely something happened. He was aibly distraught, agitated, freaking the fuck out kind of a thing.
And so they got in the car together. They drove back to her house.
And he had been on the phone calling somebody else at that point. And then right when they got to their house, almost immediately, his other girlfriend at the time, her name was Antonia.
she showed up in a black mercedes sedan picked him up and then antonia and niji left sammy's house and we don't know what happened after that and it took me forever to get that out of sammy like i talked to her so many times and whether or not she knows more um obviously we're not going to know because she's dead. But even on her deathbed in the hospital, you know, the detectives were right there.
Like, are you sure you don't fucking know anything else? And nope, that was it. Hey, Payne Lindsey here.
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Law enforcement has been gathering these statements for years now.

So... Law enforcement has been gathering these statements for years now.
So what progress has been made on Khadija's case? Apparently, another witness statement was made to police very recently. And at first, Ronnie thought this was going to be their big break.
I asked him, are you guys going to press charges? He said, no. So why not? He said, we need at least five witnesses.
I said, well, there's only four people involved. But he said, they're not going to do them unless you get five witnesses to it.
So the one that happened recently,

did that count?

The one you just spoke about?

Evidently, he's not going to use him because he said it won't do no good

to only use that one witness.

Despite the rumored number of witnesses that night,

the statements in this case are kind of a mess.

Two of the main witnesses are now deceased.

Some of the statements have since been recanted.

And according to Ronnie,

local authorities have been told

that they need at least five eyewitness statements,

a number that feels arbitrary.

It's now been five years since Khadija was last seen.

In that time, her family has pressed for more answers

about what happened that night in the woods and what Niji Follis might have done to her. And many rumors have circulated since.
You know, after some time goes by, you start to hear all this crazy shit about, like, what happened or where she could be. So it's like, she's at a house party in Lake County.
No, she checked herself up into rehab up in SAC or Redding. Or no, she got chopped up and she's at this property buried.
She got set on fire. She's at this property.
She's tied to a tree way out in the National Forest. She got put into a trunk and driven.
Or she got human trafficked by the cartel. Now she's down in Mexico.
And the list went on and on and on and on and on with the rumors. If you have any basic law enforcement experience, especially out there on the reservation, you know that Niji had something to do with this, 100%.
Like he just did, okay? There's no guessing about that fact. He fucking did, right? But it's like, what did he do with her body after that point? The rumor was that that black Mercedes that picked him up, they went and fucking put her in the trunk and fucking took her somewhere and moved her a couple different times.
So that Mercedes at a later date got set on fire, oddly enough, by some random person. And it doesn't take a detective to figure that one out.
Law enforcement conducted multiple searches in the area that Khadija was said to be dropped off, but no body or clues of any nature have been found. Some folks speculate it's because her body has been moved to various locations.
Trent James has a man named Frank, not to be confused with the Frank we met in previous episodes, was helping Niji with this. Dead bodies, I've moved a shitload of them.
They're heavy as fuck. So he wasn't doing that shit by himself.
And he certainly wasn't moving it with his girlfriend only. So he definitely had some help doing that.
But Frank was one of the ones that was supposedly helping him move her body. Anyway, Frank was on parole, freshly released from prison, and he got pulled over and he had some ammunition.
When you're a felon, you can't possess ammunition. Not even one bullet.
One bullet is a felony. It could have sent him back to prison.
And he had some meth and stuff on him too. So he had some decent charges while being on parole, freshly out of prison.
So he was one that obviously never said anything, but Ronnie I know reached out to Matt Kendall, the sheriff, and said, hey man, I heard you just got Big Frank and he's got all this shit going on. Can you say, Frank, do you want to go back to fucking prison for this stupid shit or do you want to maybe help us out with the Khadija situation? us something.
And Matt Kendall told Ronnie, Ronnie, I can't do that because if I did that, the public would be pissed if I'm out there trying to cut deals with Frank. And Ronnie's like, what the fuck? I'm like, what the fuck? I was like, what are you talking about, man? What person is going to be angry that you let Frank off or with a lesser sentence for some bullets and some shitty personal use of meth if he would provide information for the location of Khadija's body.
No one's giving a fuck about that, man. They are going to be happy that there was some fucking resolution to this case.
But that was the response from the actual sheriff that is still the actual sheriff there. And he won't even return Ronnie's phone calls anymore.
He completely fucking ignores him. That's the ultimate guy in charge at that department.
So that should tell you everything you need to know about why that case has been handled the way that it is. We spoke to Ronnie about the status of the case

and his feelings on Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall.

Matt Kendall kept telling me his famous lines was,

his perpetrator's going to do life by the installment plan.

And I know what the installment plan is.

Then he kept telling me, it's going to take time. It's going to take time, but we're going to do this.
I had to tell him, I said, you know, Matt, I don't have time. I'm soon to be 80 years old, which I am now.
I don't have time. We want her.
I'm not going to stop. I'm getting to where I don't really care anymore about who I step on.
We reached out to Sheriff Kendall, but he declined to comment. In an article published in the Red-Headed Black Belt dated February 2nd, 2022, Sheriff Kendall stated, quote, In these areas where people don't talk to police, we have a hard time solving crimes.
He continued by stating that he believes that some people in Round Valley know something, but to move forward with filing charges, he will need, quote, Without the support of local authorities, Ronnie feels hopeless in his quest for justice, especially considering the insular nature of the community. There's people out there that know what happened to her.
They know. But here in the Valley, we're all related.
He's related to us. His whole family is related to me in one way or her in one way, my wife or Connie.
If you say something about one family member, then you're going to get retaliated about another family member, and it's just going to go clear around, and that's why there's nobody going to say anything. I mean, some of those people, I was just like sisters to me, but not no more.
There's a lot of friends that we were just, you know, so close, and that's not no more. Can you get Meredith and you, and I can get, can I get a picture of you three? Sure.
Yeah?

Our guide for both Hoopa and Kovolo, as we've introduced her many times before, is Allie Hossler.

Her name might now sound familiar for other reasons.

That's because Ronnie and Connie Hossler are her aunt and uncle.

Khadijah is her cousin.

When our team left the Hossler home, Allie mentioned that she wanted to show us something special, a Kovlo landmark. Yeah, do you want to tell us about what we're seeing? So this is a old rundown concrete building that I'm not sure what used to be here, but it's provided an excellent canvas to commemorate Khadijah, sort of a powerful space that's open yet enclosed and is very visible from Highway 162, which is the highway that runs straight through Kovaleau.
Our team is standing in the shell of an old, dilapidated building. As Ali described, it's open yet enclosed, almost like a pavilion.
On the inside, one of the walls contains a giant black-and-white painting of Khadijah. Though there's a chain-link fence and overgrown weeds, it's beautiful.
This is Khadijah Britton, a painted mural of Khadijah Britton. It's really nice.
You can see her from the road. And when you come in, if you know to look, you peek over here and she's...
I think... And I know that you do so much work to spread the word, but I know this is also a very personal case for you.
Tell us about that. It's just hard when you know it could be prevented.
And, like, to have it happen in all of our families seems like over and over and we're so helpless.

We did everything we could to help our loved ones

and they're still gone.

And then to know that she had a restraining order,

she had been to court,

she had testified about the domestic violence

and her abuser took her and there's still nothing we can do about it. I think the domestic violence issue is...
I don't really know how to encapsulate how important that is, but it takes a lot to get to the point where you reach out for help and for her to reach out like that and actually follow through with the court process and follow through with restraining orders. She must have truly been in fear for her life and now look, the system failed to protect her.

Even family couldn't protect her.

And now it's as if the police don't, they're done.

It feels the same in Emily's case.

Like, they're just, they're done investigating.

And, I mean, what more can they investigate?

We don't really know, but I feel like we find out more as journalists visiting places and talking to people

I'm going to go. we don't really know, but I feel like we find out more as journalists visiting places and talking to people than what is in a case file.
My uncle Ronnie has gone above and beyond and done more investigating as a elder in a small community than the police have done. For being 80, like he goes all over to events and rallies and all these banners you see and posters you see all over town, like he's out there putting them up and making sure they're kept up.
And wants the people responsible for whatever happened to Khadijah to be reminded every day. He wants them to see her face and know that he's not giving up and they want justice.
I don't know if they'll ever have closure and it hurts me to see people I love in so much pain and know that they may never have closure. I feel like that's happened with so many of our people.

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I'll bring you a little bit more time.

What do we want? What do one call. What do we want?

What do we want?

What do we want?

When do we want it?

No!

When do we want it?

No!

This is a rally for the MMIP movement in Northern California.

A crowd of people walk down the street dressed in red and black, the colors of the MMIP movement.

They're calling for justice for the many folks

in Humboldt County who are missing or murdered.

This is our trail of tears,

and we're out here trying to bring awareness,

trying to get them to come outside and talk to us

and actually take this seriously.

Each protester holds a sign,

some demanding action from law enforcement,

others featuring the face of a lost loved one. And we're really scared at this time for our community that there's no justice going on.
There's friends, family, and spouses, employees and advocates from the MMIP offices. There's no fair treatment, no fair investigation, no fair trial.
And as they march, they call out the names of all those whose fate is still mystery. Some names weman! Others are new.
Robert!

Robert!

Brent!

Brent! Dominique! Dominique! Lopez! Each with their own story of heartbreak, frustration, and turmoil. Robert! Indonesia! Indonesia! While we wish we had the ability to cover all these unsolved cases, The number of them for one small region in Northern California is almost too big to comprehend.
Too many gone! Too many! Too many gone! We need help! Since our trip to the Pacific Northwest, there have been multiple violent deaths of young Indigenous people. In fact, just weeks after our trip to Covalo, a 15-year-old girl was beaten to death, and a 20-year-old man was shot and killed.
Both crimes were closed by arrest. Last month, the shooting of a local Indigenous man in Hoopa by the California Highway Patrol reignited conversations about policing and jurisdiction on reservations.
These communities are still struggling. The Up and Vanish team left town with Khadija's eyes watching.
And they hope by sharing these stories, it opens the door for change and support. That it causes a wider community to care about the big questions.
How do we prevent tragedies like this from happening in the future? What can be done? I think social media has helped movements build steam and grow support and also help alert people on other reservations that this is happening all over. Seeing these larger efforts to make this more visible is really, really encouraging.
We're getting visibility. And hopefully the end result is we save lives and we change policy and we start to pay attention.
And let's talk prevention here. We can't just wait until

they're missing and then address the problems with investigations. What are we doing to safeguard women who are mentally ill, who are prone to sex trafficking, or they're in the foster care system, or they're in the juvenile court system,

all those young people, not just women,

are at an extremely higher risk of being missing or murdered. So I feel like my job in it is to provide information and to get the word out.
We asked Ali what measures she's seen taken so far to create change. There's a lot of recent effort within the last two years coming from the tribe.
I know our tribal court system has been working on implementing a juvenile wellness court, which will help youth get back on track and work on finding ways to keep those youth on a positive track so they can make positive decisions into adulthood. So there's a truancy prevention program.
There's a suicide prevention program right now. There's becoming more access or easier access to mental health support services.
So I see these intervention type projects being implemented throughout the entire tribe and our neighboring tribes. Addressing the issue now, I mean, gosh, I feel like prevention is the best way to address it.
And then looking at policy changes now, I know California just signed the feather alert. So this new push through the state is really important.
It's key. Senator James Ramos, the first Native American and the California legislator,

authored the Feather Bill, which became law in 2023.

This alert system is similar to Amber Alert and is activated by tribal police or law enforcement

when a Native person goes missing under unexplained or suspicious circumstances.

In October of 2023, Governor Newsom also signed Senate Bill 43 into law.

This is a very good idea. under unexplained or suspicious circumstances.
In October of 2023, Governor Newsom also signed Senate Bill 43 into law. This new mental health law expands the definition of gravely ill, covering individuals who are unable to care for their basic needs due to substance use or untreated mental illness.
A law like this could have impacted Emily Rissling's case. These new policies may create change, hopefully positive change, but the community feels that the urgency for new policies, like the instatement of the Feather Act, is few and far between.
There's still a lot of distrust between policymakers, law enforcement, and the Indigenous community. We asked Chief O'Rourke his thoughts on how to improve the relationship between law enforcement and Indigenous peoples.
Every single Native person in the state has some story about some abuse or some police brutality, some police mistreatment, either real or perceived. So how it relates to MMIP is when the investigating agency responds, the people in the family, they may not be willing to cooperate with the investigation.
They may not give all the information that's pertinent to the investigation, and that hampers it. Greg's officers are attempting to overcome that history of conflict with what they call a trauma-informed approach.
It involves studying how trauma works and making sure officers can recognize the signs of a person who appears to be experiencing symptoms of trauma. Then officers can be better equipped to de-escalate situations and build trust.
Taking a trauma-informed approach is not a new concept, but it is with cops, and it's certainly within the community. And so being open to this and finally being able to have an explanation why, you know, your son, your family member, even you yourself may feel that anger, may feel that frustration while you act out the way you do.
Being able to identify it and label it then now gives a community a path to be able to address it. The two things that are coming out are cops need more training.
Well, yes, we do. I'm not saying that we don't.
And cops need to learn how to de-escalate. When it comes to those issues, I truly, truly believe that adopting a trauma-informed approach addresses those.
As we've heard multiple times in this podcast, people are often reluctant to speak to law enforcement, but there are other ways to submit tips.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has a confidential tip line.

If you have information about any of the cases that we covered or any other missing or murdered Indigenous persons case, you can submit a tip by texting 847-411, calling 1-833-560-2065, or submitting a tip on their website at bia.gov. During this project, families open their doors to us to tell us their most heartbreaking stories.
We recognize the strength in that, and we hope that one day they'll find the answers that can bring them closure. Our guide, Ali Hosler, also hopes for better times ahead.
And we want to acknowledge her commitment to advocacy and thank her for trusting us with these stories in the first place. We're seeing the times change.
I think we're in the generation of healers. We're in a new era where people are starting to feel empowered.
They're starting to say enough is enough. I wish it would happen faster, but I see it happening more and more.
We'd also like to thank Laura Frieder for her dedication to these cases. This all started because of a voicemail that Laura left us.
I just think being of service, whatever your skill set is, use it for other people. Like if all you can do is wash the dishes, wash the dishes.
It may not be actual dishes, but like writing letters or calling people up, just whatever your skill set is, whatever your time allows, just do it. And even if it means listening to the podcast and telling someone about it, like that's washing the dishes, like you're sharing the story.
And the more people know about

these cases, I think that just puts pressure on people gently, the folks who are responsible for

solving it. And not only will they feel pressure, but I think maybe supported in some way, like

we're behind you as well, like we want this to be solved. And I really think that we can do that

with this podcast. Just wash the dishes if that's all you have to do.
Just do that. We hope this series enlightened you.
We hope it taught you something new. And we hope it reaches people that might have tips or resources that can help the families in search of their loved ones.
For connections to law enforcement in North California, the Mendocino County tip line is 800-782-7463. You can remain anonymous.
The Humboldt County tip line is 707-268-2539. If you're Indigenous and need advocacy support or healing resources as a survivor of trauma, visit the Sovereign Bodies Institute at sovereign-bodies.org.
If you'd like to donate to any of the organizations that we've mentioned, please do so. Your donations make a difference.
If you're looking to help in the simplest way possible, as Laura said, share these stories.

With your help, Emily, Sumi, Andrea, to light, and to Silesia for navigating us through very important cases. You can check out Silesia's other podcast called True or Crime wherever you get your podcasts.
Sharing these stories is one small way to ensure that the missing are not forgotten. So please keep submitting stories by email, cases at tenderfoot.tv.
Thanks again for all your support and stay tuned for the new season of Up and Vanished coming in January. The Vanishing Point is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey.
Silesia Stanton is our host. The show is written by Meredith Stedman, Alex Vespested, and Jamie Albright, with additional writing assistance by Silesia Stanton.
Executive

producers are Donald Albright and myself, Payne Lindsey. Lead producer is Jamie Albright,

along with Meredith Stedman. Editing by Alex Vespestead.
Additional editing by Sydney Evans.

Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Additional production by Laura Freider and Allie Hosler.

Research by Laura Freider and Taylor Floyd. Artwork by Byron McCoy.
Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Mixed by Dayton Cole.
Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing, and the Nord Group. And a special thanks to Greg O'Rourke, the KIDE 91.3 radio station in Hoopa,

the Two Rivers Tribune,

and all of the families and community members that spoke to us. For more podcasts like The Vanishing Point, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit us on our website at tenderfoot.tv.
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