Now that the decomposed remains of Mitrice Richardson have been recovered from a rugged mountain canyon in unincorporated Calabasas, troubling questions are being raised about not only how Richardson died, but also how authorities handled the mentally disturbed woman’s 11-month disappearance from the outset.

By Monday, when the Los Angeles resident’s skeletal remains were found by state park rangers investigating an abandoned pot farm in the area — located roughly five miles from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station — sheriff’s officials had already been under fire from the woman’s parents and members of the Pasadena-based Friends Group. The Friends Group said Richardson, who suffered form severe bipolar disorder and was arrested the night of Sept. 16 for failing to pay for a meal at a restaurant in Malibu, should not have been released from custody early the following morning, when she vanished, without money or transportation. They are demanding that the Sheriff’s Department change its nighttime inmate release policy, calling it inhumane.

Richardson’s parents, Michael Richardson and Latice Sutton, who were never married, are both suing the county and the Sheriff’s Department, claiming negligence. Sutton is also claiming wrongful death.

“Here’s how I would describe it: insistent inconsistency. It’s all about the Sheriff’s Department and they’re doing what they think is best for them, regardless of anyone else. I’m totally appalled,” said Gerda Govine-Ituarte, chair of the Friends Group.

“I definitely think it’s possible that the sheriff’s [department] had something to do with this or they’re covering something up. None of this stuff makes sense,” Govine-Ituarte said. “Their story doesn’t fit. I can think of 30 questions off the top of my head. And as this goes on, there will be more questions. This woman lost her life and it could have been avoided.”

Two weeks ago, Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles and Las Vegas police officials announced that they believed Richardson, who would have celebrated her 25th birthday in April, had been living in Las Vegas since sometime after her disappearance on Sept. 17, based primarily on a supposed sighting in June by a former high school friend of the woman.

Officials at that time said they had as many as 70 credible sightings and actually believed Richardson, a one-time beauty pageant contestant and honors graduate from Cal State Fullerton who was being mentored in her advanced studies of psychiatry, was working as a prostitute in Vegas casinos.

Then on Monday, all hopes for her being alive were dashed when officials found a human skull and bones about two miles from the last place Richardson might have been seen — Monte Nido, an upscale neighborhood in unincorporated Calabasas.

At about 6:30 a.m. — roughly six hours after being released — Richardson was possibly last seen by veteran KTLA newsman Bill Smith. Smith called sheriff’s deputies after spotting someone who resembled Richardson sitting on his backyard steps. A trained dog was used in subsequent searches and picked up Richardson’s scent on that street, but then lost it there.

If that was Richardson, the last known person to see her before Smith was a uniformed deputy who her mother saw in a video walking out the door of the sheriff’s station right behind Richardson immediately after she was let go.

Since showing Sutton that tape and other images of her daughter undergoing a mental breakdown during her few hours in custody, the Sheriff’s Department has refused to release the tape and other items related to Richardson’s stay in the facility. Richardson’s parents and Congresswoman Maxine Waters have called on the FBI to take over the investigation.

But perhaps just as strange as all of those circumstances may be is what both mainstream media and sheriff’s officials are still not acknowledging: the racist and sexually demeaning graffiti discovered in June in an isolated culvert in an undisclosed area around where Richardson was last seen. The graffiti has since been covered up with paint by sheriff’s officials. Before they were painted over, the Pasadena Weekly obtained pictures of those images, which depict nude African-American women posed in several sexual positions. One of the murals has the women — which many have said bore a resemblance to Richardson — naked and on her hands and knees with a joint in her mouth.

“There are so many unanswered questions,” said Ronda Hampton, a psychologist and Richardson’s mentor. “Why was she in that pot farm? We know the sheriff’s were fully aware of that farm, so why didn’t they search that area? After the mural of the woman with pot in her mouth was found, why didn’t they go back and search that area?”

LA County Department of Coroner spokesman Craig Harvey said a final determination on how Richardson died could take six to eight weeks or longer. At a press conference Thursday, Sheriff Lee Baca said there were no signs of foul play.

Richardson was arrested at Geoffrey’s restaurant in Malibu after customers complained about her acting strangely. Further, she was unable to pay an $89 bill. Sheriff’s deputies took her into custody, leaving her purse and driver’s license locked in her car, which was parked at the restaurant. At around 12:35 a.m. Sept. 17, Richardson was released from custody and allowed to leave the station, even though she had no phone, money or car, which was still parked at the restaurant.

According to Hampton, the first investigator working on the case said the deputies told Richardson to put all of her belongings in her car. Later, Lt. Mike Rosson of the Sheriff’s Department Homicide Division said something different. He said one of the reasons they had to take her to jail was because she didn’t have her ID, not because her offense warranted arrest.

Although Michael Richardson also said he saw his daughter in Downtown Las Vegas in January, Sutton never believed her daughter was there and repeatedly requested that law enforcement search for her where she was last seen — Monte Nido.

On Tuesday, before the bones recovered a few miles from Monte Nido were formally identified as Richardson’s, Sutton held a press conference in front of the coroner’s office and accused law enforcement officials of stonewalling her and leaving her in the dark when she tried to get information about her daughter’s remains.

The county Office of Independent Review finalized a 58-page report in April clearing deputies and the department of any wrongdoing in the Richardson case. Sutton requested a copy of the OIR report from the Sheriff’s Department back in April and did not receive a response. She then read about the report in the paper. In a letter to the Sheriff’s Department’s Ben Jones, Sutton wrote, “I am very disturbed and outraged that a reporter from the LA Times has been able to obtain a copy of the report. Again, I am learning information regarding my daughter’s case through the media, which is not only unprofessional; it’s despicable, deceitful, deceiving, dirty and disgusting!”

At Thursday’s press conference, which was also held at the coroner’s office, Sheriff Baca confirmed the identification of the remains, but said, “We have no indication of a homicide at this point. I don’t believe that the remains are capable of telling us a story.”
That wasn’t good enough for Michael Richardson, who told reporters at the press conference that he’s holding the Sheriff’s Department directly responsible for his daughter’s death.

Nevertheless, Baca insisted the deputies acted properly. However, he said, “properly doesn’t necessarily mean that we couldn’t do something more.”

One change that Baca said could come from all this is how deputies handle citizen’s arrest complaints filed by businesses. When Mitrice was arrested at Geoffrey’s, patrons and employees said she was exhibiting bizarre behavior, claiming she was from Mars and that she was here to avenge Michael Jackson’s death. Management at Geoffrey’s filed a citizen’s arrest complaint with deputies.

“Is an $89 bill enough to take someone into jail?” Baca added. “There is more than one way to handle a problem.”

Shirley Spencer, treasurer of the Friends Group, said she was distressed to hear Baca blaming Richardson’s disappearance on the restaurant manager who called for help from deputies.

“Just one more sad spin by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on a very tragic outcome. I am personally concerned about the credibility of those who are to serve and protect us. We have all lost something today,” Spencer wrote in an email to the Weekly.

“I believe accountability is the issue here,” said Govine-Ituarte. “No one should get a pass on this. That goes from the top down. If people keep pressing and asking questions, the truth will come out. Hopefully this will never happen ever again to anyone’s son or daughter.”

Editor Kevin Uhrich contributed to this report.

Just as puzzling as recent claims that a Los Angeles woman who has been missing for nearly a year is living as a prostitute in Las Vegas are the details about the case that are not being mentioned in any coverage of her disappearance.

For instance, no mention of the racist and sexually graphic graffiti found near one of the last known places 25-year-old Mitrice Richardson was seen before disappearing on the morning of Sept. 17 has been made in the Los Angeles Times or any other news outlet covering the case, except CNN and the Malibu Surfside News. The graffiti was located in an isolated area about seven miles from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, where Richardson was being held for allegedly skipping out on a bill at a local restaurant. Sheriff’s officials released her from custody at around 12:35 a.m. without a phone or a way home to LA.

Nor do other news agencies mention that the very last place Richardson might have been seen was near the backyard of former Channel 5 newsman Bill Smith, who lives in Calabasas, about 12 miles from the station. Smith, who reported seeing an African-American woman on his property at around 6:30 a.m. Sept. 17, is identified in the Times story only as a local “homeowner.”

Another recent development involves LAPD Capt. Kevin McClure, who spoke at the press conference last Thursday announcing a possible sighting of Richardson in Las Vegas. His daughter and Richardson’s younger half-sister play on the same softball team, and according to Richardson’s mother, Latice Sutton, McClure, the president of the La Verne Girls Softball Association, tried to get her daughter kicked off the team. Sutton had no idea McClure was working on the case until she saw him on TV at the press conference. McClure did not respond to requests for comment.

But the latest publicly known twist to this already strange story is how it is now being framed by authorities and the media, said Shirley Spencer, a longtime Pasadena activist and treasurer of the Friend’s Group, which is working to reform the sheriff’s inmate release procedures.

Even the national media is now reporting not on a woman who is missing, but a woman who doesn’t want to be found, Spencer said of Richardson, a standout graduate of Cal State Fullerton and an aspiring psychiatrist who suffers from bipolar disorder. The media is portraying Richardson as doing as good a job as possible of staying away — all while never once calling loved ones, and leaving credit cards unused and about $2,000 in savings untouched, said Spencer. The city of Malibu has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the woman’s whereabouts, and the county Board of Supervisors has put up $15,000, but no one has claimed the money.

The authorities, Spencer said, “have portrayed the situation in a way that puts the blame on Mitrice, saying, ‘Look, she could be out here in Vegas prostituting or something.’ All this craziness could have been avoided. The issue is still the sheriff’s after-midnight release policy.”

Now, according to the LAPD, the Sheriff’s Department and Las Vegas officials, Richardson may be a prostitute — a hunch authorities have based on sightings by her father Michael Richardson and Greg Amerson, a childhood friend of Mitrice Richardson’s who claims to have seen her in June at the Rio Hotel and Casino.

“It’s completely flipped around,” Spencer said of the story that’s now being broadcast about the case. Since the disappearance, Sutton has filed a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department, alleging wrongful death and negligence for releasing Richardson in the dead of night. Through the process of discovery, the “magical lawsuit,” as her attorney Leo Terrell calls it, will give Terrell and Sutton access to videotapes and documents that are currently being withheld by the Sheriff’s Department. Terrell also plans to depose all of the deputies who were on duty at the station that night.

“The story has been spun completely away from what the mother has been trying to accomplish,” Spencer said of the lawsuit filed by Sutton. “Now, instead of searching for a missing daughter, Mitrice is supposedly in Las Vegas and she has chosen not to be found.  This is a totally different spin.”

Gerda Govine-Ituarte, chair of the Friend’s Group, said Sutton is living a nightmare.

“Now Latice is worried for her younger daughter,” the one who is being targeted for expulsion from the softball league, “in an environment that is stressful and has been ratcheted up by the conflict of interest involving Kevin McClure,” Govine-Ituarte said. “Latice mentioned that the softball team parents are supportive of her daughter, but she’s still concerned. Whether or not he’s pulled off the case is up to the LAPD, but at the end of the day, I don’t think anything’s going to happen. What Latice is going through I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”

Two weeks ago, the Weekly reported on the father’s side of the case. But during two interviews, Michael Richardson never disclosed that he had seen his daughter in Downtown Las Vegas in January. The Weekly also reported that LAPD detectives asked Michael Richardson for DNA samples, which he refused to provide. A few days after criticizing Sutton for filing a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department, the father’s attorney filed a suit on his behalf, also alleging negligence on the part of the Sheriff’s Department.

Currently, LAPD and Sheriff’s Department officials say they are putting all they can into finding Mitrice, with 10 to 20 officers and deputies working with Las Vegas authorities to track her down.

“This is the first lead in the 10 months that we have been doing this that we are unable to show that it is not a good lead,” McClure said at the press conference in Las Vegas, referring to Amerson’s sighting of Richardson. “It is not a verified sighting of her here, but we feel good enough to come up here and spend a good deal of time to get that information out to the community — that we believe she may be here.”

McClure told reporters that more than 70 waitresses, bartenders, security officers and others in both Nevada and California have reported possible sightings of Mitrice.

Her father told authorities that he also saw a woman in Las Vegas resembling Mitrice in Downtown Las Vegas in January. He said he raced through traffic to reach her, but she disappeared into the crowd.

“And she was actually sighted by somebody who actually knew her and had had a personal relationship with her, and that individual is very confident that the person he approached in the Rio hotel, that it was Mitrice Richardson,” McClure said, referring to Amerson, who once took Mitrice to a high school formal.

Sutton hopes her daughter is still alive but does not believe she is in Las Vegas. Nor does she believe the sighting of Mitrice by Amerson is credible, primarily because he has not seen her in more than nine years. Contrary to statements by law enforcement officials during the Las Vegas press conference, Mitrice did not grow up with or spend any significant time with Amerson, according to a press release issued recently by Sutton.

“It is very curious to me why law enforcement officials would pursue this witness as a ‘credible lead’ and conduct a massive search effort at this time, but not pursue the lead from Mitrice’s biological father with the same tenacity and credibility when Michael reported he saw someone who he believed to be Mitrice back in late January,” wrote Sutton. “Why do law enforcement officials want so desperately for the public to believe my daughter is living in Las Vegas? I want my daughter home, not used as a PR pawn for certain law enforcement agencies.”

Sutton believes a massive search should be concentrated in the area where she went missing, not in Las Vegas. She has told authorities that if they believe Mitrice is in Las Vegas, the FBI should get involved because Mitrice is now considered critically missing and has ostensibly crossed state lines, making it a federal concern. LAPD and sheriff’s officials disagree.

In May, Congresswoman Maxine Waters requested that the US Department of Justice investigate whether Mitrice’s civil rights were violated when she was released. Waters also sent a letter to the FBI in December requesting a similar investigation.

Mitrice was exhibiting bizarre behavior at Geoffrey’s restaurant in Malibu, but she passed a field sobriety test at the time of her arrest. Both parents believe she was experiencing a major mental breakdown when she was released in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar area without resources or transportation. Mitrice’s parents believe she should have undergone a psychiatric evaluation before being released, but the Sheriff’s Department maintains that she was acting rationally and that they were required by law to release her in a timely manner.

“She decided on her own that she’d leave in the middle of the night,” said McClure at the press conference in Las Vegas.

Sutton, however, said she personally witnessed the booking video of her daughter, which the Sheriff’s Department has since refused to release. Based n what she saw, Sutton said Mitrice was clearly not in a proper state of mind to be released. Sutton said the tape also showed a uniformed deputy follow Mitrice out the same door when she was released.

At the press conference, McClure acknowledged the “very tense relationship” between Mitrice’s family and LA investigators, and accused her family of “ridiculing” the LA law enforcement agencies. 

According to Sutton, after KTLA reporter Bill Smith called the Sheriff’s Department to report a woman fitting Mitrice’s description sitting on his back steps, trained dogs followed Mitrice’s scent down the street from Smith’s house, where it suddenly vanished. A search party combing that area found murals depicting African-American women resembling Mitrice in several degrading sexual situations.

“I don’t think law enforcement’s efforts in Vegas are diversionary, because every lead should be followed up,” said Govine-Ituarte. “But just because they follow one lead doesn’t mean they should stop following the other leads. The last time Mitrice was seen was leaving the sheriff’s station and possibly in Smith’s backyard. When they whitewashed the graffiti, it told me they just don’t want to deal with the situation. It’s a real disservice and the support that Latice should be getting on a consistent basis from the authorities is missing in action. She has been disrespected at various times by the LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department. Mitrice’s release was totally inhumane. When you look at the scope of the law enforcement official’s efforts, they’ve fallen short.”

A very different story

By Justin Chapman and Kevin Uhrich, Pasadena Weekly, 8/5/2010

Just as puzzling as recent claims that a Los Angeles woman who has been missing for nearly a year is living as a prostitute in Las Vegas are the details about the case that are not being mentioned in any coverage of her disappearance.

For instance, no mention of the racist and sexually graphic graffiti found near one of the last known places 25-year-old Mitrice Richardson was seen before disappearing on the morning of Sept. 17 has been made in the Los Angeles Times or any other news outlet covering the case, except CNN and the Malibu Surfside News. The graffiti was located in an isolated area about seven miles from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, where Richardson was being held for allegedly skipping out on a bill at a local restaurant. Sheriff’s officials released her from custody at around 12:35 a.m. without a phone or a way home to LA.

Nor do other news agencies mention that the very last place Richardson might have been seen was near the backyard of former Channel 5 newsman Bill Smith, who lives in Calabasas, about 12 miles from the station. Smith, who reported seeing an African-American woman on his property at around 6:30 a.m. Sept. 17, is identified in the Times story only as a local “homeowner.”

Another recent development involves LAPD Capt. Kevin McClure, who spoke at the press conference last Thursday announcing a possible sighting of Richardson in Las Vegas. His daughter and Richardson’s younger half-sister play on the same softball team, and according to Richardson’s mother, Latice Sutton, McClure, the president of the La Verne Girls Softball Association, tried to get her daughter kicked off the team. Sutton had no idea McClure was working on the case until she saw him on TV at the press conference. McClure did not respond to requests for comment.

But the latest publicly known twist to this already strange story is how it is now being framed by authorities and the media, said Shirley Spencer, a longtime Pasadena activist and treasurer of the Friend’s Group, which is working to reform the sheriff’s inmate release procedures.

Even the national media is now reporting not on a woman who is missing, but a woman who doesn’t want to be found, Spencer said of Richardson, a standout graduate of Cal State Fullerton and an aspiring psychiatrist who suffers from bipolar disorder. The media is portraying Richardson as doing as good a job as possible of staying away — all while never once calling loved ones, and leaving credit cards unused and about $2,000 in savings untouched, said Spencer. The city of Malibu has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the woman’s whereabouts, and the county Board of Supervisors has put up $15,000, but no one has claimed the money.

The authorities, Spencer said, “have portrayed the situation in a way that puts the blame on Mitrice, saying, ‘Look, she could be out here in Vegas prostituting or something.’ All this craziness could have been avoided. The issue is still the sheriff’s after-midnight release policy.”

Now, according to the LAPD, the Sheriff’s Department and Las Vegas officials, Richardson may be a prostitute — a hunch authorities have based on sightings by her father Michael Richardson and Greg Amerson, a childhood friend of Mitrice Richardson’s who claims to have seen her in June at the Rio Hotel and Casino.

“It’s completely flipped around,” Spencer said of the story that’s now being broadcast about the case. Since the disappearance, Sutton has filed a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department, alleging wrongful death and negligence for releasing Richardson in the dead of night. Through the process of discovery, the “magical lawsuit,” as her attorney Leo Terrell calls it, will give Terrell and Sutton access to videotapes and documents that are currently being withheld by the Sheriff’s Department. Terrell also plans to depose all of the deputies who were on duty at the station that night.

“The story has been spun completely away from what the mother has been trying to accomplish,” Spencer said of the lawsuit filed by Sutton. “Now, instead of searching for a missing daughter, Mitrice is supposedly in Las Vegas and she has chosen not to be found.  This is a totally different spin.”

Gerda Govine-Ituarte, chair of the Friend’s Group, said Sutton is living a nightmare.

“Now Latice is worried for her younger daughter,” the one who is being targeted for expulsion from the softball league, “in an environment that is stressful and has been ratcheted up by the conflict of interest involving Kevin McClure,” Govine-Ituarte said. “Latice mentioned that the softball team parents are supportive of her daughter, but she’s still concerned. Whether or not he’s pulled off the case is up to the LAPD, but at the end of the day, I don’t think anything’s going to happen. What Latice is going through I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”

Two weeks ago, the Weekly reported on the father’s side of the case. But during two interviews, Michael Richardson never disclosed that he had seen his daughter in Downtown Las Vegas in January. The Weekly also reported that LAPD detectives asked Michael Richardson for DNA samples, which he refused to provide. A few days after criticizing Sutton for filing a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department, the father’s attorney filed a suit on his behalf, also alleging negligence on the part of the Sheriff’s Department.

Currently, LAPD and Sheriff’s Department officials say they are putting all they can into finding Mitrice, with 10 to 20 officers and deputies working with Las Vegas authorities to track her down.

“This is the first lead in the 10 months that we have been doing this that we are unable to show that it is not a good lead,” McClure said at the press conference in Las Vegas, referring to Amerson’s sighting of Richardson. “It is not a verified sighting of her here, but we feel good enough to come up here and spend a good deal of time to get that information out to the community — that we believe she may be here.”

McClure told reporters that more than 70 waitresses, bartenders, security officers and others in both Nevada and California have reported possible sightings of Mitrice.

Her father told authorities that he also saw a woman in Las Vegas resembling Mitrice in Downtown Las Vegas in January. He said he raced through traffic to reach her, but she disappeared into the crowd.

“And she was actually sighted by somebody who actually knew her and had had a personal relationship with her, and that individual is very confident that the person he approached in the Rio hotel, that it was Mitrice Richardson,” McClure said, referring to Amerson, who once took Mitrice to a high school formal.

Sutton hopes her daughter is still alive but does not believe she is in Las Vegas. Nor does she believe the sighting of Mitrice by Amerson is credible, primarily because he has not seen her in more than nine years. Contrary to statements by law enforcement officials during the Las Vegas press conference, Mitrice did not grow up with or spend any significant time with Amerson, according to a press release issued recently by Sutton.

“It is very curious to me why law enforcement officials would pursue this witness as a ‘credible lead’ and conduct a massive search effort at this time, but not pursue the lead from Mitrice’s biological father with the same tenacity and credibility when Michael reported he saw someone who he believed to be Mitrice back in late January,” wrote Sutton. “Why do law enforcement officials want so desperately for the public to believe my daughter is living in Las Vegas? I want my daughter home, not used as a PR pawn for certain law enforcement agencies.”

Sutton believes a massive search should be concentrated in the area where she went missing, not in Las Vegas. She has told authorities that if they believe Mitrice is in Las Vegas, the FBI should get involved because Mitrice is now considered critically missing and has ostensibly crossed state lines, making it a federal concern. LAPD and sheriff’s officials disagree.

In May, Congresswoman Maxine Waters requested that the US Department of Justice investigate whether Mitrice’s civil rights were violated when she was released. Waters also sent a letter to the FBI in December requesting a similar investigation.

Mitrice was exhibiting bizarre behavior at Geoffrey’s restaurant in Malibu, but she passed a field sobriety test at the time of her arrest. Both parents believe she was experiencing a major mental breakdown when she was released in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar area without resources or transportation. Mitrice’s parents believe she should have undergone a psychiatric evaluation before being released, but the Sheriff’s Department maintains that she was acting rationally and that they were required by law to release her in a timely manner.

“She decided on her own that she’d leave in the middle of the night,” said McClure at the press conference in Las Vegas.

Sutton, however, said she personally witnessed the booking video of her daughter, which the Sheriff’s Department has since refused to release. Based n what she saw, Sutton said Mitrice was clearly not in a proper state of mind to be released. Sutton said the tape also showed a uniformed deputy follow Mitrice out the same door when she was released.

At the press conference, McClure acknowledged the “very tense relationship” between Mitrice’s family and LA investigators, and accused her family of “ridiculing” the LA law enforcement agencies. 

According to Sutton, after KTLA reporter Bill Smith called the Sheriff’s Department to report a woman fitting Mitrice’s description sitting on his back steps, trained dogs followed Mitrice’s scent down the street from Smith’s house, where it suddenly vanished. A search party combing that area found murals depicting African-American women resembling Mitrice in several degrading sexual situations.

“I don’t think law enforcement’s efforts in Vegas are diversionary, because every lead should be followed up,” said Govine-Ituarte. “But just because they follow one lead doesn’t mean they should stop following the other leads. The last time Mitrice was seen was leaving the sheriff’s station and possibly in Smith’s backyard. When they whitewashed the graffiti, it told me they just don’t want to deal with the situation. It’s a real disservice and the support that Latice should be getting on a consistent basis from the authorities is missing in action. She has been disrespected at various times by the LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department. Mitrice’s release was totally inhumane. When you look at the scope of the law enforcement official’s efforts, they’ve fallen short.”