The Vanishing Point: Episode 5, Covelo

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Our latest podcast series, Wisecrack, was just named one of the best of 2025 by Apple Podcasts. It's an amazing honor.

Speaker 6 Not only was Wisecrack selected, but the first episode called Knock Knock was also chosen as one of the best episodes of the year.

Speaker 6 We're seriously beyond grateful, and I want to thank you for supporting Tinderfoot TV. And this is your sign, if you haven't already, to check out our podcast, Wisecrack.

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Speaker 6 As we prepare for a a new season of Up and Vanish this January, please check out The Vanishing Point, a new series from the Up and Vanish team.

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Speaker 6 In the four cases we've covered so far, we've encountered a lot of hearsay and speculation, but not nearly close enough yet to a definitive conclusion.

Speaker 6 When we learned that there was a named person of interest, as well as multiple witnesses, in this next case, we were going to make the four-hour drive to interview as many people as possible.

Speaker 6 With this many leads, what could possibly be obstructing justice?

Speaker 13 I'm having a little hard time. I got hearing aid things, and they don't work half the time.

Speaker 13 You can holler at me because my wife does.

Speaker 14 Okay, all right.

Speaker 3 How long have you been married?

Speaker 13 We got together in 1966.

Speaker 13 One summer night, I fell in love, but she said you did. So so.

Speaker 2 Meet Ronnie Hosler. The team met Ronnie at his house in Kovalo, a small town on tribal land four hours south of Hoopa Valley.
Ronnie is a husband, a father, and a grandfather.

Speaker 2 But lately, he's taken on a new role. The role of an advocate, an unwavering voice for his people.

Speaker 13 I'm always hoping that people would listen to what I'm talking about because it's happening not only here, but all over these reservations. So many unsolved cases.

Speaker 13 I want somebody to finally step up and start holding the sheriff departments accountable.

Speaker 2 Ronnie Hostler and his family have been appealing to different sheriff's departments and government officials ever since February 8th, 2018, the day his granddaughter, Khadijah Britton, went missing.

Speaker 2 Khadija was the light of Ronnie's life. And though Khadijah was his granddaughter, she lived with him for a time.

Speaker 2 And he and his wife tried to nurture her many talents to give her a life filled with opportunities.

Speaker 13 Khadija stayed with us for maybe a year or two years.

Speaker 13 We really tried to do everything we could, you know,

Speaker 13 keep her, you know, concentrate on her academics, you know. She was a really good basketball player, you know, we supported her on that.
We traveled with her.

Speaker 13 That just hurts.

Speaker 2 Khadisha's family feels that her case has been downplayed by authorities, especially because they believe that the evidence in her case clearly points to the person responsible for her disappearance.

Speaker 13 He's got a wrap sheet. Everything.

Speaker 13 Endangerment. Child abuse.
Child endangerment.

Speaker 3 How long is he in jail for right now? Do you know?

Speaker 5 He's out? Yeah, they let him out.

Speaker 13 He's right here in the valley with us.

Speaker 2 I'm Celicia Stanton, and this is the vanishing point.

Speaker 14 I'm actually a Nomalaki from the Nomalaki tribe. Khadija is Nomalaki, Wailaki.

Speaker 14 We were both raised here. Growing up, she was a very happy child.

Speaker 2 Connie Hostler is the mother of Khadija Britton. She's a petite woman with dark hair and eyes.
You can see the heaviness in her expression.

Speaker 2 Connie and her family had high hopes for Khadija after she graduated high school with a 3.2 GPA. It was a big deal, especially given the low high school graduation rate of the area.

Speaker 2 Khadija and her mom talked about plans for a community college in Mendocino and about ways that she could pursue a career in something she was passionate about.

Speaker 14 Growing up, she always wanted to play basketball in that WNBA, and she was good enough to do it. She just got,

Speaker 14 you know,

Speaker 14 with the wrong people.

Speaker 2 Connie says she can't help but wonder if Khadija, or Deej, as she calls her, would have pursued those paths. Maybe she'd still be here today.

Speaker 14 Khadija was kind of in a bad way as she hung out with the wrong people, obviously. She stayed with this person, Nietzsche Follis, who had three children.

Speaker 14 And she was a good person that she took care of them. She cooked for them.
Did what she needed to. She just, she cares about people.

Speaker 3 When you say she was kind of in a bad way, what do you mean by that?

Speaker 14 She was into drugs. She hung out with this guy who sold drugs.
She would come to my house quite often just to bathe shower because where they stayed they didn't have a shower

Speaker 14 her and I talked a lot she didn't like the stuff that I said if I said anything negative about Nietzsche she didn't like it I would try to tell her I could help her get away which I could have I could have sent her to like a rehab or just someplace where she would be safe she didn't want to hear it if she didn't like it she would just step in and leave

Speaker 2 Connie told us she recognized that her daughter was struggling with addiction.

Speaker 14 So it had to be be a couple, like maybe two or three years that she was on drugs.

Speaker 14 And I used to be an addict also. So I was just like, I'm done.
I moved to a different spot. I might start working at the school.
And I said, Dege, you can do it. You know, you can get out.

Speaker 14 You can do something. You could go to college.
She said, I thought I was better than her or better than anybody. And I go, it's not even like that, Dege.
Just straighten your life route.

Speaker 14 It'll be a lot better. But she didn't want to hear that.
She wasn't ready.

Speaker 2 As Connie mentioned, Khadija started seeing a man named Niji Follis. He was nearly 20 years her senior, and he had three children of his own.

Speaker 14 I would have never hung out with somebody like Nietzsche Follis,

Speaker 14 but that was her choice. And she was only 18 when she kind of started hanging out with him.
What was he like?

Speaker 14 I didn't see the bad side of him. He was respectful to me.
I didn't see anything negative.

Speaker 14 But I had people that told me that he was being rough with her. And so I stepped in and then she kind of got mad at me.
And she goes, oh no, mommy, I'm okay. It's okay.

Speaker 14 So then I kind of left her alone.

Speaker 3 Tell me about the last time that you saw Khadija.

Speaker 14 She happened to show up at my house and that's when I sat down. I go, sis, we can get you help.
We can get you out of here.

Speaker 14 That was like two weeks before she went missing because she would tell people I was mad at her so she couldn't come see me, which wasn't true.

Speaker 14 She just didn't want to come see me because she didn't like the things that I would say to her or about Niji. She didn't want to hear it.
So I was never mad at her.

Speaker 14 She just chose to tell people that I didn't want her around, which wasn't true. So I hadn't seen her for two weeks before she went missing.

Speaker 14 She called me on the 7th and said, mommy, whatever you do, do not open the door for anybody until lay low. So right there, I was like, dears, what's going on? And she hung up.

Speaker 14 I called her phone right back. It just went straight to voicemail.
And I kept calling and it kept doing the same thing. So I never got a hold of her again after that.

Speaker 2 Connie tried to reach Khadija multiple times after those calls on February 7th of 2018. When she still couldn't reach her the next day, she notified tribal police.

Speaker 2 Not long after, her family began circulating missing persons' posters, offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to Khadija's whereabouts.

Speaker 3 Khadija was kidnapped at gunpoint in Covalo, California and has not been seen or heard from since.

Speaker 2 Police were able to gather this account from two witnesses who claimed to be at the scene.

Speaker 13 Two witnesses, they said the same thing. The one girl claimed that it was an accident.

Speaker 2 Again, this is Khadija's grandfather, Ronnie Hostler. According to his recollection, the witnesses said they were all at the house of a mutual friend of Khadija and Niji's.

Speaker 2 This is what he heard through the grapevine.

Speaker 13 Khadija was with him, two boys, and a girl. They went in there, they wanted to party with these two guys there, but they said we didn't want to party.
So they were getting ready to leave.

Speaker 13 Well, Khadija went into the bathroom. She wouldn't come up.

Speaker 2 That's when the witness explained things escalated. Having lost his temper, Niji stormed back inside the house.

Speaker 13 He described a pistol that this boy had.

Speaker 13 So they stood on the porch and watched him beat her by the car

Speaker 13 and throw her in the back seat. And they took off.

Speaker 2 When this story began to spread throughout the community, Niji was nowhere to be found.

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Speaker 17 Khadija Rose Britton was last seen at a residence in Covalo, California on Friday, February 8th, 2018, while being forced into a car at gunpoint by her ex-boyfriend, Niji Fallas.

Speaker 17 No one has seen or heard from Britton since that night.

Speaker 2 The witness testimonies were a huge break for investigators in identifying Niji Fallis as a person of interest.

Speaker 2 But it was information that would only get them so far, because at the time, Niji was nowhere to be found.

Speaker 2 And more than that, these claims, they were a start, but could they really be substantiated? What would have triggered a violent outburst like this? Was it all part of a larger pattern?

Speaker 14 My mom was killed through domestic violence. Khadija knew about that, but she didn't, I didn't really like drill it into her.

Speaker 2 Again, this is Khadijah's mom, Connie.

Speaker 14 I don't know.

Speaker 14 In this valley, it's like a lot. We see a lot, but nobody ever gets away.
I mean, I was part of, I was a part of domestic violence. I finally got away.

Speaker 14 So I took me and Khadija and, well, my son, and I moved to Lake County. into a shelter and we stayed there for like a year just to get away from it because

Speaker 14 their father was coming to my house and

Speaker 14 fighting with me. So, when Khadijah was in high school, she told us she didn't want to go to school and leave me because

Speaker 14 she was afraid what he would do.

Speaker 14 So, that's when the tribe had a lady that helped us, and she's like, Come on, we'll just pack you up and move you. So, she they did.
So, I was fortunate.

Speaker 14 You know, not a lot of people get away, not a lot of people stay away.

Speaker 14 And that's the sad part.

Speaker 2 Domestic violence is somewhat of an epidemic in the Covalo area and on reservation land in general.

Speaker 2 In fact, according to a 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice, 83% of American and Alaskan Native women have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime.

Speaker 2 The person we talk to next is no stranger to navigating these complex issues.

Speaker 12 Right.

Speaker 12 Yeah, no, I can share everything. I'm not prohibited from talking about any of it.
You know, I don't work for that agency anymore.

Speaker 2 This is Trent James, a private investigator based out of Houston and former deputy sheriff at the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office. He was stationed in Covalo at the time of Khadija's disappearance.

Speaker 2 We asked him about his experience in Covalo.

Speaker 12 So, a very small community, very, very rural. The valley itself is composed of various areas that are reservation land and some that are not.

Speaker 12 Basically, I like to relate it to, you know, the resident deputy position as being, you know, back in the 1800s where it's one sheriff for an entire town. That's pretty much how it was.

Speaker 12 It's a gnarly place to work. It is.
It's pretty hardcore. A lot of homicides, a lot of kidnappings, robberies.
You know, I've seen and dealt with pretty much everything you can imagine.

Speaker 12 And as a cop, especially in that capacity as a resident deputy, it's better to, you know, get to know people on a personal level. They learn that you're a human, they can trust you.

Speaker 12 And so Khadija and her family just happened to be in that group of people that I got to know.

Speaker 2 Trent James tells us that the violence that Khadija experienced at the hands of Niji escalated in January of 2018 after he brutally assaulted her.

Speaker 12 From what she said, that she was trying to leave him. The relationship was toxic, which it was for sure.
And she was trying to break up with him and he wasn't having it. So she left that night.

Speaker 12 She walked away from him. She went to one of his relatives' houses and Niji found out she was over there.

Speaker 12 And he went over there, walked in the house, grabbed her by her hair, pulled her outside, and then started just beating the shit out of her and forced her into his vehicle and

Speaker 12 drove away. And at some point, I think that she was able to get out of the car and kind of ran away.
And then she went to, I think it was her stepmom's house and they called 911.

Speaker 12 And she was super beat up.

Speaker 12 You know, I saw the photographs, and uh, she had visible injury to her face, where, and according to her, he kicked her, punched her a bunch of times, hit her with a hammer at one point.

Speaker 12 And so she reported it, and they looked for Niji that night, but he was nowhere to be found. So the deputies did a warrant for his arrest.
Tribal police took a report too.

Speaker 12 And the next day, when I was on duty, it was like, okay, let's find this guy.

Speaker 12 And I already knew who he was. I had a lot of interactions with that guy.
He was a known meth dealer, always had guns, been to prison multiple times already at this point.

Speaker 12 And he was not pleasant to interact with by any means at all.

Speaker 12 And in that area, it's very challenging to find people on the reservation like that that do not want to be found.

Speaker 12 They have a lot of family members, a lot of friends, and it's very easy to go into hiding. And,

Speaker 12 you know, and a lot of people don't want to quote unquote snitch.

Speaker 12 And he was one of those guys that did have a lot of resources in that regard. I think it was like a week had gone by at this point.
We still hadn't found him.

Speaker 2 Following her report of the January assault to law enforcement, a restraining order was issued against Niji. At the time, he was a convicted felon out on bail.

Speaker 2 So this report led to an immediate warrant for his arrest.

Speaker 2 According to the Coalition Against Domestic Violence, women in abusive relationships are about 500 times more at risk when they decide to leave a relationship.

Speaker 2 So maybe that's why, a few days later, and unbeknownst to her family, Khadija's story changed.

Speaker 12 Khadija showed up to the tribal police station in Kovalo with Niji's sister. Her name is Casey Fallus.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 12 Khadisha told the tribal police, hey, you know, that night that I reported Niji beat me up. Well, I lied.
I made the whole thing up. It was actually his sister, Casey, that I got in a fight with.

Speaker 12 She's standing right here next to me, and I need to drop the charges against Niji. And Casey, standing there, corroborated her statement and said, yep, that's right.
I beat her up.

Speaker 12 That was a very common thing, not just on the res, but in domestic violence situations in general, where the victim of a crime will come back and change their statement because they no longer wish to testify.

Speaker 12 In this case, more than likely, it was due to the fact that he threatened to kill her or, you know, more bodily harm. She was obviously afraid of him.

Speaker 12 And that's more than likely what made her want to go and try to drop the charges.

Speaker 2 But Khadija's request to drop the charges couldn't be fulfilled. She'd made the request to the tribal police department and they didn't have the authority to do so.

Speaker 2 After Khadijah went missing, felony warrants were issued for Niji for a slew of charges, including burglary, possession of a firearm by a felon, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, and corporal injury to a spouse, cohabitant, or dating relationship, meaning Khadija.

Speaker 2 The warrants were out, but Niji Fallus was nowhere to be found still.

Speaker 2 Trent James remembers being more determined than ever to track him him down.

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Speaker 12 This was like a month, a long fucking time since a warrant was originally issued. And it was some random ass house that none of us ever fucking expected ever in a million fucking years.

Speaker 2 After asking around town, one of Trent's friends, a sergeant on the tribal police force, got a tip on where Niji was staying. So Trent and tribal police headed there and surrounded the home.

Speaker 12 So you pull up to a reasonable distance and you get on your PA on your patrol car and say, hey, fuckface, get out of the house. We know you're in there.
Come out with your hands up.

Speaker 12 If we see anything else in your hands, you're going to get shot, right? That's why I cuss so much too. Like, these aren't the guys that you're,

Speaker 12 you know, you're going to be like, sir, can you please put your hands behind your back? Like, no, fuck no. You will get eaten alive, eaten alive

Speaker 12 in two seconds so yeah you say get the out of the house he gave up immediately

Speaker 2 six days after pointing a gun at khadija and forcing her into a car niji follis was arrested and booked in the mendocino county sheriff's office

Speaker 12 i was there for his first interrogation with the detectives They called me in because I had known him more than anybody.

Speaker 12 He got taken down to UKAIA and I was sitting there with the lead investigator at the time and Nietzsche. It was just us three in a room.
And Nietzsche just, he just kept saying, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know where she's at. Oh, beats me.

Speaker 12 Yeah, you do, you know, like, but

Speaker 12 he just kept saying,

Speaker 12 it's so fucking irritating. I still remember this shit.
He was just like, oh, it's not my business. It's not my business.
I was like, bro, you were fucking dating her for six months.

Speaker 12 She was at your house every fucking day. What the hell are you talking about? Plus, I know you're a controlling piece of shit.
And you beat your chick. So yeah, everything she does is your business.

Speaker 12 Don't give me that bullshit. No, it's not my business.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 12 What other friend could she be hanging out with then that we don't know about? That's not my business either. You know, so it was just like that.
And

Speaker 12 Niji is very familiar with the justice system. So it was completely fucking nowhere.
We had nothing to hold over his head and he knew it, right? So he knows. He knew.

Speaker 12 He knew what he did was going to be sufficient and he wasn't going to get caught up for it.

Speaker 2 Eventually, Niji went before a judge to face the charges.

Speaker 13 So we went to court

Speaker 13 four or five times.

Speaker 13 Every week we would go down there and then they would postpone it, then they would do this, they would do that.

Speaker 13 They read that statement on the stand. She explained everything that he'd done to her.
I knew then what was going to happen: that Khadija wasn't there to witness, so they had to let him go.

Speaker 13 He was never charged with her kidnapping or her being missing. He was never charged.

Speaker 2 Nearly all the charges against Niji Follis were dismissed by the district attorney's office. And all that remained was a single charge of possession of a firearm by a felon.

Speaker 2 We're not entirely sure why.

Speaker 2 Niji served 15 months of a four-year sentence before he was back in Mendocino County in February of 2020.

Speaker 2 Four months later, he was arrested again, this time time for possession of drug paraphernalia and a stolen firearm.

Speaker 2 The violation led to a 27-month sentence, but he was released from federal prison in half that time.

Speaker 2 Since then, he's gone on to face multiple charges in state and federal court related to drugs and firearm possession. He has yet to be charged in connection with the abuse or disappearance of Khadija.

Speaker 2 Currently, Niji Fallus resides somewhere in the local community. It's a fact that causes some Kovalo residents, like Adija's family, to worry.

Speaker 3 Do you see him out?

Speaker 14 I do see his family and I go to the store the other day and it's his sister and it affected my son at that time. He's like, man, mom, I could just hurt her.
I could just hit her.

Speaker 14 It's like, no, let's just go. Let's, you know.

Speaker 14 But it affects me every single day.

Speaker 13 I don't go to no more events here in this valley. I kind of stay away from course.
I don't know know what I'll do, how I'll respond if I run into him.

Speaker 2 We tried to locate Niji Fallus, but we're unable to do so.

Speaker 2 Ronnie continues to advocate for Khadija. At a recent press conference, he expressed his frustration with the police and the lack of action against Niji.

Speaker 18 That case was all dropped because she wasn't there to witness against him.

Speaker 13 Why?

Speaker 18 That's one of the biggest questions I had: why?

Speaker 18 Why is my granddaughter still missing?

Speaker 2 This whole investigation comes back to the moment that Khadija was forced into that car.

Speaker 2 What happened after they drove off? What is Niji not saying?

Speaker 2 And are there others that could come forward to provide the full story?

Speaker 2 According to Trent James, both witnesses who gave testimony of that day have unfortunately passed away. But one of them, on their deathbed, expanded on their original story.

Speaker 2 She claimed that when Khadijah and Niji got into that car, they weren't alone. In fact, she'd been their driver.
And the way she says that the car ride unfolded is very concerning.

Speaker 18 Do you guys all believe what I'm telling you guys?

Speaker 13 We want to know why.

Speaker 18 Why is she still missing?

Speaker 18 Why this guy had to kill my granddaughter?

Speaker 6 Next time, on the season finale finale of The Vanishing Point.

Speaker 12 She said that Niji called her on her cell phone and he sounded like upset.

Speaker 12 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?

Speaker 6 Thanks for listening to this episode of The Vanishing Point.

Speaker 8 This six-part series is released weekly, absolutely free.

Speaker 6 But if you want to listen to it ad-free, subscribe to Tinderfoot Plus at TinderfootPlus.com or on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 6 The Vanishing Point is a production of Tinderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Celicia Stanton is our host.

Speaker 6 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 Lindsey.

Speaker 6 Lead producer is Jamie Albright, along with Meredith Stedman.

Speaker 8 Editing by Alex Vespested.

Speaker 6 Additional editing by Sidney Evans.

Speaker 6 Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Additional production by Laura Frader and Allie Hostler.
Research by Laura Frader and Taylor Floyd. Artwork by Byron McCoy.

Speaker 6 Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Mix by Dayton Cole.
Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing, and the Nord Group.

Speaker 6 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 6 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 6 Thanks for listening.

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 19 Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.