Authorities remove bones from Malibu Canyon, caution against linking to Mitrice Richardson

Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said Monday night that they had removed bones found earlier in the day in a steep ravine in Malibu Canyon.

Investigators said they received calls from several people Monday who reported loved ones missing in the area. Mitrice Richardson, who vanished after being released from Sheriff's Department custody last September, was not in that immediate vicinity, authorities said.

Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore cautioned against jumping to conclusions that the recovered skull and bones were those of Richardson. He said it could take weeks before investigators identify the remains.

"The Malibu/Lost Hills station has received several calls from concerned people who said their loved ones have gone missing in that exact area," Whitmore said. "We need to remember that we don't know what we have here."

Richardson — a Cal State Fullerton graduate whose 25th birthday was in April — showed up at Geoffrey's restaurant in Malibu last Sept. 16, acting bizarrely and speaking gibberish. Unable to pay her $89 dinner bill, she was arrested and taken into custody.

Shortly after midnight, she was released from the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff's station in Calabasas without her car, which had been impounded, or her cellphone and purse, which were in the car. Several months later, police investigators discovered evidence in her diaries that she was probably suffering from severe bipolar disorder.

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By Carla Hall and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

August 13, 2010

In the 11 months since Mitrice Richardson stepped out of the Lost Hills/Malibu Sheriff's Station into the early morning darkness and vanished hours later, the mystery of her whereabouts twisted around false sightings from the ocean to Las Vegas.

Was that her at the Abbey in West Hollywood in late September? Or was she the badly burned body in a dumpster behind a building in Santa Fe Springs in October? Did her father really see her on a sidewalk near a Motel 6 in Las Vegas in January? Did a friend come across her in June in a Las Vegas hotel bar?

In her absence, she became a fixture on cable TV talk shows, the focus of debate over the sheriff's station's seemingly thoughtless decision to release a young woman without a car near a rugged canyon.

Richardson's mother, Latice Sutton, was skeptical of some of the sightings, particularly the most recent one in Las Vegas. She said that authorities should keep searching the area where her daughter went missing.

In the end, she was horribly right. On Thursday, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca confirmed that the skeletal remains discovered Monday in Malibu Canyon were those of Mitrice Richardson.

"The circumstances of this case are tragic," a somber-faced Baca told a news conference. "I am mindful of the fact that a mother and father are in deep grieving at this moment."

The saga started when Richardson was unable to pay an $89 dinner tab at Geoffrey's restaurant in Malibu and the staff called the Sheriff's Department. She was arrested and her car impounded. She was released from custody early Sept. 17 without her cellphone or purse — neither of which she had on her at the restaurant when she was arrested.

Her parents and critics contend that she should have been held longer for a mental health evaluation after she acted bizarrely at the restaurant.

Why Richardson even went to Geoffrey's remains as much a mystery as how she ended up in a steep-sided ravine, her badly decomposed body discovered only because park rangers were on a patrol of the area for illegal marijuana plants.

Sheriff's officials say there is no sign of foul play. Nor do they believe she fell to her death. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner's office estimated that her remains had been there at least six months, or possibly the entire time she had been missing.

Over several months, law enforcement officials carried out four searches covering a total of 40 square miles of Malibu Canyon.

Investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department, which handled Richardson's missing-person case because she lived in South L.A., spent months tracking clues and eventually were joined by Sheriff's Department detectives.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas got the county to offer a reward for information and questioned whether Richardson should have been arrested at all.

Friends and family members followed up on sightings. "If you knew how many buses I've chased down," Ronda Hampton, a psychologist who was a friend of Richardson, said recently.

And at a time when law enforcement agencies and the media have been accused of devoting less attention to minorities who go missing than to pretty, white women who disappear, Richardson — a black woman who was a strikingly attractive former beauty pageant contestant — got extraordinary attention, becoming a high-profile-enough case to make the cover of People magazine last fall along with several other missing people.

Only adding to the aura of her case was the intriguing and perplexing portrait that emerged of Richardson, a Cal State Fullerton graduate who worked as an executive assistant for a freight company in Santa Fe Springs, passed a test to become a substitute teacher, considered being a psychologist, and danced part time at a gay and lesbian club in Long Beach. LAPD investigators believe that she probably was suffering from a severe bipolar disorder.

She was living with her great-grandmother in South Los Angeles — but she also appeared to have been living in her Honda Civic, which was cluttered with clothing, make-up, books and the journals that she kept.

The night that she was arrested, she had shown up alone at Geoffrey's, charming strangers into allowing her to join their table — but alarming restaurant staffers when she couldn't pay her bill and spoke of being from Mars.

LAPD homicide investigators combed through her text messages, diaries, MySpace and Facebook pages and speculated that she may not have slept in the five days leading up to the fateful night at Geoffrey's.

At the sheriff's station, the jailer who processed Richardson found her cooperative and a little nervous. The jailer chatted about gospel music; Richardson talked about karma. She was booked on two misdemeanor charges — defrauding an innkeeper and possessing less than an ounce of marijuana in her car.

According to sheriff's officials, shortly before midnight, the station jailer told her that she was free to go, but suggested that she either stay the night in a cell — leaving whenever she asked — or in the station lobby since it was cold and dark out and her car had been towed to a lot.

Richardson said she would rather leave. At 12:15 a.m., she left with the possessions she came in with — her shirt and jeans, a brown hat and pink belt; two keys and her driver's license — signing a citation promising to return to the Malibu courthouse on Nov. 16, 2009.

Around dawn the morning she was released, a homeowner on Cold Canyon Road in the Monte Nido area of Malibu discovered a woman napping in his backyard and called the Sheriff's Department.

Investigators are convinced that it was Richardson, having somehow made her way from the sheriff's station on Agoura Road in Calabasas down into Malibu Canyon and east on Piuma Road to Cold Canyon. The woman left when the homeowner discovered her.

Investigators believe she was spotted two more times — once walking down Malibu Canyon Road about 7:30 a.m. and then a few hours later on Piuma Road east of Malibu Canyon. Her remains were found about 2 1/2 miles from that last sighting.

In the last year, her parents — who are not a couple — have seesawed between gratitude for the search efforts and frustration at the direction and pace of the investigation.

The Sheriff's Department faces two negligence lawsuits filed by the parents. And though the Office of Independent Review report says sheriff's personnel correctly handled the booking and release of Richardson, the department still faces questions about whether it should change its policy. Baca acknowledged that.

"The deputies acted properly," he said. "Properly doesn't mean we couldn't have done something more."

Richardson's father, Michael, said after Baca's news conference, "A lot of people wronged my daughter that night. It was a wrongful release based on her mental state."

Latice Sutton did not attend Thursday's news conference. But she sent out a text message: "It is with great sadness and grief that I [tell you] my baby, Mitrice Richardson, has gone on to our Heavenly Father. Thank you for all of you love, support and prayers."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mitrice-richardson-20100813,0,4741787,print.story

With the announcement Thursday that authorities had identified the skeletal remains of Mitrice Richardson, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has come under renewed scrutiny for its decision to release her from custody far from home in the middle of the night.

But the civilian jailer who processed Richardson at the Malibu-Lost Hills station on the night she was released told The Times on Wednesday that Richardson was offered the opportunity to stay but ultimately refused, saying she planned to "hook up with friends."

Sharon Cummings, a custody assistant at the Malibu-Lost Hills station, said Richardson was slightly nervous but lucid while being booked for arrest after behaving strangely and being unable to pay her $89 dinner bill at a local restaurant.

The booking process lasted less than two hours, Cummings said. During the time, Richardson was given a phone and made several calls. The jailer said she did not listen to the conversations but talked with Richardson intermittently, discussing gospel music and karma.

When authorities learned she had no outstanding warrants and had signed papers authorizing her release, Richardson was given the option to stay or go.

Cummings said she urged Richardson to stay because it was not only dark but cold.

"I told her maybe she should wait until morning and have breakfast," Cummings said. "She thought about it and said ‘Maybe I'll stay.' "

The jailer left to get some keys. When Cummings returned, Richardson had changed her mind and said she didn't want stay, according to the jailer.

The Office of Independent Review, which oversees the Sheriff's Department found that the department "properly and legally released" Richardson, according to a 58-page report.

But in the press conference identifying Richardson as the victim, Sheriff Lee Baca acknowledged the Richardson case had triggered "soul searching” in the Sheriff's Department.

Although sheriff's personnel acted properly, "Properly doesn't mean we couldn't have done something more,” Baca said in a news conference.

Cummings said that when detainees are showing signs of mental instability, jailers immediately contact the watch sergeant or watch commander. That didn't occur because Richardson was calm the entire time she was in custody.

In the end, Cummings said, Richardson had made up her mind to leave.

"She just didn't want to stay. I offered her the opportunity. I even tried to convince her to stay. She [Richardson] said she was going to hook up with her friends and she did not want stay."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/malibu-sheriffs-station-jailer-mitrice-richardson-offered-chance-to-stay-but-refused.html#more

August 13, 2010

The discovery of Mitrice Richardson's remains in a Malibu Canyon ravine this week cleared up some of the mystery surrounding the young Cal State Fullerton graduate, who disappeared nearly a year ago after being released from a remote sheriff's station. But it doesn't explain why anyone thought it wise to let Richardson go in the Malibu hills in the dead of night with no car, money or phone. If anything, the unhappy conclusion to the search for Richardson only raises more questions about the Sheriff's Department's approach to those it detains.

Deputies took Richardson into custody on the night of Sept. 16, 2009, at Geoffrey's Malibu for failing to pay the $89 bill for her meal. They booked her at the Malibu/Lost Hills station in Agoura and, after she refused two invitations to stay in a private cell until morning, watched her walk into the chilly night with no access to her car, no ride home and no buses running for six hours.

An internal probe by the Sheriff's Department and a draft report by the Office of Independent Review found that deputies had followed the department's procedures to the letter. The office's report argues that deputies had good reason to separate Richardson from her car, despite having found her to be sober — there were copious quantities of tequila, vodka and beer inside. Yet the report also asserts that deputies had no choice but to release Richardson after she was booked because they had no authority to hold her any longer.

Even if the department couldn't detain Richardson, that doesn't mean it was appropriate to release her on the doorstep of a station deep in Malibu Canyon. That's hard to defend regardless of Richardson's mental health, which deputies seemed to pay scant attention to before hauling her off from Geoffrey's. The department recognizes that it's not a good idea to release women from the county jail after dark — the Century Regional Detention Facility restricts nighttime releases for female inmates. If it's a bad practice at the jail, it's bad anywhere.

It may not be easy to avoid putting people at risk when they're released after dark on their own recognizance. The Sheriff's Department isn't a taxi service, and the sheer volume of people leaving custody — almost 500 a day — poses its own challenges. The solution may require deputies to think more about what will happen after a suspect is released before deciding where to book someone. Regardless, Richardson's tragic end proves that the department's eagerness not to hold people too long has public safety implications too. Her case shouldn't be closed until the department comes up with a better way to handle vulnerable people who come temporarily into its custody.

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