The Vanishing Point: Episode 6, Agency Road

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Speaker 6 It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the killing of a wealthy family at Whitehouse Farm. But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong.

Speaker 7 I know there's going to be a twist, won't they? A massive twist.

Speaker 8 At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case.

Speaker 6 I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker.
Find it now in the In the Dark podcast feed.

Speaker 5 As we prepare for a new season of Up and Vanish this January, please check out The Vanishing Point, a new series from the Up and Vanish team. This podcast is absolutely free.

Speaker 5 But if you want to listen to it ad-free, subscribe to Tinderfoot Plus at TenderfootPlus.com or on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 9 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast and do not represent those of Tenderfoot TV or their employees.

Speaker 9 This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 This level of conviction left us all wondering what it would take for law enforcement to actually act on these eyewitness accounts.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 10 Okay, well,

Speaker 10 when this all started with Khadija, with her boyfriend at that time, Niji Follis,

Speaker 10 his mother stayed in this house down here.

Speaker 10 So

Speaker 10 she eventually stayed down there with Niji.

Speaker 11 Ronnie Hostler, Khadija Britton's grandfather, who you heard in the previous episode, offered to give us a tour of the Kovalo house where Khadija and Niji Follis were staying.

Speaker 11 It's right down the street from Ronnie's house. You can see it from his driveway.

Speaker 10 She stayed there a long time.

Speaker 10 He would leave because he had other girlfriends besides her.

Speaker 10 I don't know of him ever beating her down here. If he did, I'm sure she would have

Speaker 10 told me.

Speaker 11 Khadija moved in with Follis after high school. This house belonged to Niji's grandmother, who also lived with them.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 While Khadija stayed there, it seems things were somewhat stable.

Speaker 11 There was some sense that even though Khadija's family didn't approve of her relationship, with her living so close by, they could at least keep watch over her.

Speaker 10 But I haven't been in there since

Speaker 10 we lost Khanisha

Speaker 10 five years ago.

Speaker 10 That's when he

Speaker 10 drug her out of the house and threatened to kill her right there.

Speaker 11 But now, to Ronnie, this house serves as a constant reminder of everything that's gone wrong.

Speaker 10 When she came up missing, they had this all blocked off.

Speaker 10 So I come walking down here and the deputy stopped me right right here.

Speaker 10 I said, what's going on here?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 10 we heard that there's some blood and stuff in that house. So we're going to go in there.
Well, they found out that when they went into that house, they bleached it and they painted the one room.

Speaker 10 Well, him and Khadija was in that room.

Speaker 12 How did they know that the wall had been painted, the room had been painted?

Speaker 10 They could smell the new paint.

Speaker 10 There's some places where they could smell the bleach

Speaker 10 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 they said that everything was clean so there was nothing they could do

Speaker 10 khadija always told me she was okay but

Speaker 10 didn't really tell me what what was going on And I knew there was abuse. I knew that.

Speaker 2 And so you drive past this house every day, the last place you saw Khadija. What's that like?

Speaker 10 It's bad. Bad.

Speaker 10 Then I feel guilty. I feel like I should have done something.

Speaker 10 I should have put a stop to it.

Speaker 10 The only way I could help her is if she wanted help.

Speaker 10 I still felt guilty for not doing it.

Speaker 10 Felt like it was my place to...

Speaker 10 Step in.

Speaker 10 Maybe that's why I'm doing what I'm doing now.

Speaker 12 You've done so much for her.

Speaker 10 I'm not done.

Speaker 1 Not done yet.

Speaker 11 I'm Celicia Stanton, and this is the vanishing point.

Speaker 7 The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office of the Detective Bureau has so far invested 3,400 to 62 hours in this investigation.

Speaker 7 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.

Speaker 11 This is a 2018 press conference update on Khadijah Britton's case.

Speaker 7 The main investigative lead in this case, Niji Fallus, was arrested and the sheriff.

Speaker 11 Well, many of her loved ones hoped justice would be served.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 7 We want to solve this crime. As a father myself, I certainly can understand the anxiety,

Speaker 7 the nightmares, the fright that the family has. We are continuing our investigation of this crime that we are not stalling.

Speaker 7 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, we need to find her.

Speaker 11 Niji Fallas, 37 of Kovalo, only spent 15 months in prison after Khadija's disappearance. And his sentencing wasn't for kidnapping, spousal abuse, or murder.

Speaker 11 Instead, he was found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Speaker 11 He was arrested and released again a short time later, but ultimately, police haven't been able to charge Fallus in connection with Khadija's disappearance because of what authorities say is a lack of evidence.

Speaker 11 And they believe the only way that will change is if someone else comes forward.

Speaker 9 So it was my job to round those people up, the ones that were rumored to be involved in her disappearance.

Speaker 11 Here again is former Kovalo police officer Trent James.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 So when I would find them, I would call the detectives down in UK and say, hey, I I got so-and-so. Do you want to come out here and interview him? No, bring him to us.

Speaker 9 So then drive in an hour and a half each way to do a drop-off.

Speaker 9 And, you know, I'd go back out to Kovalo and do it again until I rounded up every fucking person. But that's when I finally got Sammy Leggett.

Speaker 11 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 threaten Khadija and force her into an SUV at gunpoint.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 9 What happened was Niji went over there in a black SUV, and it was him and the person driving the SUV. Sammy Leggett.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 And Khadija and Niji are sitting in the back seat of the SUV. Sammy Leggett's driving and they're arguing like non-stop back and forth.
And at one point, Niji tells Sammy, stop the fucking car.

Speaker 9 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?

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 Sammy drives back to her house, which is probably half a mile away.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 I can't remember if she said he was crying, but definitely like something happened. Like he was visibly distraught, agitated, like freaking the fuck out kind of a thing.

Speaker 9 And so they got in the car together. They drove back to her house.

Speaker 9 And he had been on the phone calling somebody else at that point.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 And then Antonia and Nietzsche left Sammy's house. And we don't know what happened after that.

Speaker 9 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, obviously, we're not going to know because she's dead.

Speaker 9 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?

Speaker 10 And nope, that was it.

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Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 And at first, Ronnie thought this was going to be their big break.

Speaker 10 I asked him, are you guys going to press charges?

Speaker 10 He said, no.

Speaker 10 So why not? He said, we need at least five five witnesses.

Speaker 10 I said, well, there's only four people involved.

Speaker 10 But he said, they're not going to do nothing unless they get five witnesses.

Speaker 3 So the one that happened recently, did that count?

Speaker 15 The one you just spoke about?

Speaker 10 Evidently, he's not going to use him because he said it won't do no good to only use that one witness.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 In that time, her family has pressed for more answers about what happened that night in the woods and what Niji Fallis might have done to her. And many rumors have circulated since.

Speaker 9 You know, after some time goes by, it's 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.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 And the list went on and on and on and on and on with the rumors.

Speaker 9 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?

Speaker 9 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?

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 So that Mercedes at a later date got set on fire, oddly enough, by some random person.

Speaker 9 And it doesn't take a detective to figure that one out.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 Some folks speculate it's because her body has been moved to various locations.

Speaker 11 Trent James has a man named Frank, not to be confused with the Frank we met in previous episodes, was helping Niji with this.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 So he definitely had some help doing that. But Frank was one of the ones that was supposedly helping him move her body.

Speaker 9 Anyway, Frank was on parole, freshly released from prison, and he got pulled over and he had like some ammunition. When you're a felon, you can't can't possess ammunition, not even one bullet.

Speaker 9 One bullet is a felony. They could have sent him back to prison.
And he had like some meth and stuff on him too. So he had some, you know, decent charges while being on parole, freshly out of prison.

Speaker 9 So he was one that, you know, obviously never said anything.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 9 Like, 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?

Speaker 9 Like, you know, give us something.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 10 And Ronnie's like, what the fuck? I'm like, what the fuck?

Speaker 9 I was like, what are you talking about, man? What person is going to be angry that you let Frank?

Speaker 9 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 Khadijah's body. No one's giving a fuck about that, man.

Speaker 9 They're going to be happy that there was some fucking resolution to this case.

Speaker 9 But that was the response from the actual sheriff that is still the actual sheriff there.

Speaker 9 And he won't even return Ronnie's phone calls anymore. He completely fucking ignores him.

Speaker 9 That's the ultimate guy in charge at that department. So that should tell you everything you need to know about like why that case has been handled the way that it is.

Speaker 10 we spoke to ronnie about the status of the case and his feelings on mendocino county sheriff matt kendall matt kendall keep telling me uh his famous lines was his perpetrator is 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 and i had to tell him i said you know, Matt, I said, I don't have time.

Speaker 10 I'm soon to be 80 years old, which I am now.

Speaker 10 I don't have time.

Speaker 10 We want her. Not going to stop.
I'm getting to where I don't really care anymore about who I step on.

Speaker 11 We reached out to Sheriff Kendall, but he declined to comment.

Speaker 11 In an article published in the Redheaded 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.

Speaker 11 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, a body or confession or other hard evidence.

Speaker 11 Without the support of local authorities, Ronnie feels hopeless in his quest for justice.

Speaker 11 especially considering the insular nature of the community.

Speaker 10 There's people out there that know what happened to her. They know.

Speaker 10 But

Speaker 10 here in the valley, we're all related. He's related to us.

Speaker 10 His whole family is related to me in one way or her in one way, my wife or Connie.

Speaker 10 If you

Speaker 10 say something about one family member, then you're going to get retaliated by another family member and it's just going to go clear around.

Speaker 10 That's why there's nobody going to say anything.

Speaker 10 I mean, some of those people, I was just like sisters to me, but not no more.

Speaker 10 There's a lot of friends that we were just, you know, so close, and that's not no more.

Speaker 13 Um, can you get Meredith and you, and I can get, can I get a picture of you three?

Speaker 1 Are you sure?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 11 Our guide for both Hoopa and Kovalo, as we've introduced her many times before, is Allie Hostler.

Speaker 11 Her name might now sound familiar for other reasons.

Speaker 11 That's because Ronnie and Connie Hostler are her aunt and uncle. Khadija is her cousin.

Speaker 11 When our team left the Hostler home, Allie mentioned that she wanted to show us something special, a Kovalo landmark.

Speaker 13 Yeah, do you want to tell us about what we're

Speaker 2 seeing?

Speaker 10 Um,

Speaker 13 so this is an

Speaker 13 old rundown concrete building that I'm not sure what used to be here,

Speaker 13 but it's provided an excellent canvas to commemorate Khadija.

Speaker 13 Sort of a powerful space that's open yet enclosed and

Speaker 13 is very visible from Highway 162, which is the highway that runs straight through Kovalo.

Speaker 11 Our team is standing in the shell of an old dilapidated building. As Allie described, it's open yet enclosed, almost like a pavilion.

Speaker 11 On the inside, one of the walls contains a giant black and white painting of Khadija.

Speaker 11 Though there's a chain-link fence and overgrown weeds, it's beautiful.

Speaker 13 This is Khadijah Britain, a painted mural of Khadijah Britain.

Speaker 13 It's really nice.

Speaker 13 You can see her from the road. And when you come in, if you know to look, you peek over here and she's

Speaker 10 right there.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 16 Tell us about that.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 13 We did everything we could to help our loved ones and they're still gone. And then to know that

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 13 I think the domestic violence issue is,

Speaker 13 I don't really know how to encapsulate how important that is, but

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 13 She must have truly been in fear for her life and

Speaker 13 now look,

Speaker 13 the system failed to protect her.

Speaker 13 Even family couldn't protect her.

Speaker 13 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,

Speaker 13 they're done investigating. And,

Speaker 13 I mean, what more can they investigate? We don't really know, but

Speaker 13 I feel like we find out more

Speaker 13 as journalists visiting places and talking to people than what is in a case file.

Speaker 13 My uncle Ronnie has gone above and beyond and done more investigating as an elder in a small community than the police have done. For being 80, like he goes all over

Speaker 13 to events and rallies and

Speaker 13 all these banners you see and posters you see all over town.

Speaker 13 Like he's out there putting them up and making sure they're kept up and wants the people responsible for whatever happened to Khadija to be reminded every day.

Speaker 13 He wants them to see her face and know that he's not giving up and they want justice.

Speaker 13 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

Speaker 13 so many of our people.

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Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 They're calling for justice for the many folks in Humboldt County who are missing or murdered.

Speaker 17 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.

Speaker 11 Each protester holds a sign, some demanding action from law enforcement, others featuring the face of a lost loved one.

Speaker 9 And we're really scared at this time for our community that there's no justice going on.

Speaker 11 And so today... There's friends, family, and spouses, employees and advocates from the MMIP offices.

Speaker 16 There's no fair treatment, no fair investigation, no fair trial.

Speaker 11 And as they march, they call out the names of all those whose fate is still a mystery.

Speaker 11 Some names we recognize.

Speaker 11 Others are new.

Speaker 11 Each with their own story of heartbreak, frustration, and turmoil.

Speaker 11 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, God!

Speaker 17 Too many!

Speaker 17 We need help!

Speaker 11 Since our trip to the Pacific Northwest, there have been multiple violent deaths of young Indigenous people.

Speaker 11 In fact, just weeks after our trip to Kovalo, 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.

Speaker 11 Last month, the shooting of a local Indigenous man in Hoopa by the California Highway Patrol reignited conversations about policing and jurisdiction on reservations.

Speaker 11 These communities are still struggling.

Speaker 11 The Up and Vanished team left town with Khadijah'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.

Speaker 11 How do we prevent tragedies like this from happening in the future? What can be done?

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 Seeing these larger efforts to make this more visible is really,

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 We can't just wait until they're missing and then address the problems with investigations.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 11 We asked Allie what measures she's seen taken so far to create change.

Speaker 15 There's a lot of recent effort within the last two years coming from the tribe. I know our tribal court system

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 So I see these intervention type projects being implemented throughout the entire tribe and our neighboring tribes.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 So this new push through the state is really important. It's key.

Speaker 11 Senator James Ramos, the first Native American in the California legislator, authored the Feather Bill, which became law in 2023.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 In October of 2023, Governor Newsom also signed Senate Bill 43 into law.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 A law like this could have impacted Emily Risling's case.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 There's still a lot of distrust between policymakers, law enforcement, and the Indigenous community.

Speaker 11 We asked Chief O'Rourke his thoughts on how to improve the relationship between law enforcement and Indigenous peoples.

Speaker 8 Every single Native person in the state has some story about

Speaker 8 some abuse or some police brutality, some police mistreatment, either real or perceived.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 They may not give all the information that's pertinent to the investigation, and that hampers it.

Speaker 11 Greg's officers are attempting to overcome that history of conflict with what they call a trauma-informed approach.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 Then officers can be better equipped to de-escalate situations and build trust.

Speaker 8 Taking a trauma-informed approach is not a new concept, but it is with hops, and it's certainly within the community. And so

Speaker 8 being open to this and finally being able to have an explanation why

Speaker 8 your son, your family member, even you yourself may feel that anger, may feel that frustration, why you act out the way you do.

Speaker 8 Being able to identify it and label it then now gives a community a path to be able to address it.

Speaker 8 The two things that are coming out are cops need more training.

Speaker 8 Yes, we do. I'm not saying that we don't.
And cops need to learn how to de-escalate.

Speaker 8 When it comes to those issues, I truly, truly believe that adopting a trauma-informed approach addresses those.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 The Bureau of Indian Affairs has a confidential tip line.

Speaker 11 If you have information about any of the cases that we covered or any other missing or murdered Indigenous person's case, you can submit a tip by texting 847-411,

Speaker 11 calling 1-833-560-2065.

Speaker 11 or submitting a tip on their website at bia.gov.

Speaker 11 During this project, families opened their doors to us to tell us their most heartbreaking stories.

Speaker 11 We recognize the strength in that, and we hope that one day they will find the answers that can bring them closure.

Speaker 11 Our guide, Allie Hostler, 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 I wish it would happen faster, but I see it happening more and more.

Speaker 11 We'd also like to thank Laura Frader for her dedication to these cases. This all started because of a voicemail that Laura left us.

Speaker 15 I just think being of service, whatever your skill set is, use it. for other people.

Speaker 15 Like if all you can do is wash the dishes, like wash the dishes.

Speaker 15 It might 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 And the more people know about these, these cases, I think that just puts pressure on people gently, the folks who are responsible for solving it.

Speaker 15 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 be solved.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 11 We hope this series enlightened you. We hope it taught you something new.

Speaker 11 And we hope it reaches people that might have tips or resources that can help the families in search of their loved ones.

Speaker 11 For connections to law enforcement in North California, the Mendocino County Tip Line is 800-782-7463.

Speaker 11 You can remain anonymous. The Humboldt County tip line is 707-268-2539.

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 11 If you'd like to donate to any of the organizations that we've mentioned, please do so. Your donations make a difference.

Speaker 11 If you're looking to help in the simplest way possible, as Laura said, share these stories. With your help, Emily, Sumi, Andrea, Virgil, and Khadija will never be forgotten.

Speaker 5 Thanks for listening to The Vanishing Point, an Up and Vanished series.

Speaker 5 And a special thanks to the Up and Vanished team for bringing these stories to light, and to Celicia for navigating us through very important cases.

Speaker 5 You can check out Celicia's other podcast called Truer Crime wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 Thanks again for all your support and stay tuned for the new season of Up and Vanished coming in January.

Speaker 5 The Vanishing Point is a production of Tinderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Celesia Stanton is our host.

Speaker 5 The show is written by Meredith Stedman, Alex Vespested, and Jamie Albright, with additional writing assistance by Celicia Stanton. Executive producers are Donald Albright and myself, Payne Lindsay.

Speaker 5 Lead producer is Jamie Albright, along with Meredith Stedman.

Speaker 9 Editing by Alex Fespisted.

Speaker 5 Additional editing by Sidney Evans.

Speaker 5 Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Additional production by Laura Frader and Ali Hostler.
Research by Laura Frader and Taylor Floyd. Artwork by Byron McCoy.
Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set.

Speaker 5 Mix by Dayton Cole. Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing, and the Nord Group.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 For more podcasts like The Vanishing Point, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app, or visit us on our website at tenderfoot.tv.

Speaker 5 Thanks for listening.

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Speaker 19 Every story has layers. And sometimes, the truth hides in plain sight.
I'm Josh Dean, host of Chameleon, the podcast about people who transform, deceive, and survive.

Speaker 19 From con artists to unbelievable yet true occurrences, we dive into stories where nothing is ever quite as it seems. Because to understand the world, you sometimes have to change the way you see it.

Speaker 9 Listen to Chameleon, wherever you get your podcasts.