Episode 5: “The Strangest Thing”

Episode 5: “The Strangest Thing”

Released Tuesday, 20th August 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
Episode 5: “The Strangest Thing”

Episode 5: “The Strangest Thing”

Episode 5: “The Strangest Thing”

Episode 5: “The Strangest Thing”

Tuesday, 20th August 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Episode Transcript

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0:06

I'm

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we get to this episode, I want

2:11

to let you know that you can binge

2:14

the entire season right now, ad free, by

2:16

becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. You

2:19

can hear every episode before they're released to

2:22

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2:26

Apple Podcast show page or

2:28

visit pushkin.fm slash plus.

2:31

Now onto the episode. Last

2:41

time on Where's Deer. Deer

2:46

was well aware of my past. We

2:48

discussed that in full detail. Long

2:51

before we started dating. You

2:55

can pretty much just take

2:57

out a Sharpie and just

2:59

cross out everything he says.

3:02

Like literally, he just, he's allergic to

3:04

the truth. He

3:06

is not a man that takes no. He

3:12

does not accept a no.

3:16

If any one of the parties,

3:18

them or me, the kids

3:20

or me, was found

3:23

guilty of her disappearance

3:26

or had anything to do with her disappearance

3:28

or death, we would

3:30

get nothing. One

3:43

thing that's been bothering me throughout

3:45

my reporting is my struggle to

3:47

find an objective voice. I

3:50

trained at a very traditional journalism school.

3:53

Our professors drummed into us the

3:55

importance of being objective, unbiased,

3:58

of stating the facts. Almost

4:01

everyone I've spoken to has some

4:03

kind of agenda. Okay,

4:06

maybe not Peggy, dear sister. But

4:09

everyone else has been smeared

4:11

with accusations or cloaked in

4:13

suspicion. I was

4:15

getting pretty frustrated. Was there

4:17

anyone who could be an objective outsider?

4:21

And then I met Carmen Ibanez.

4:24

We didn't have deep conversations. I would text her

4:26

whenever I would hear gunshots or screams over there.

4:29

And I said, Dia, are you okay? And

4:31

she's like, yeah, it was a coyote. Oh, it was a

4:33

rattlesnake or, you know, things like that. That's what I would

4:35

do. Carmen

4:39

runs a Christian youth camp just

4:41

down the road from Benita Vista,

4:43

Deir's ranch. She wouldn't

4:45

go as far as calling herself a friend of Deir's.

4:48

She'd heard Deir had a temper, so she tried

4:50

to keep her distance. And so

4:53

that's why I always had a healthy sense of boundaries with her

4:55

because I'm like, you know, I care

4:57

about your dogs. I care about your animals. I

4:59

care about you. But, you know, I wasn't like

5:01

friends with her, like per se. Carmen

5:04

remembers the last time she spoke to Deir.

5:07

It was about two weeks before Deir

5:09

disappeared. She says Deir

5:12

was extremely upset about something Clinton

5:14

and Chrisara had done. She

5:18

was crying, you know, what happens? We hold him

5:20

in our arms and all of a sudden they

5:22

turn on us. They want everything, Carmen. They want

5:24

everything. And I thought, OK, Deir, I know how

5:26

you are. You know, you're kind of dramatic as

5:28

well. You know, I'm thinking in my mind, what

5:30

have you done? It wasn't

5:32

the first time Deir had complained about her

5:35

kids. But Carmen says

5:37

she tended to exaggerate. So I

5:40

kind of took everything she said with a grain

5:42

of salt because I knew she

5:44

was dramatic. I thought, OK,

5:46

let's find out what the truth is. Regardless

5:50

of what Carmen thought of Deir, when

5:53

she heard her neighbor was missing, she gathered

5:55

her staff and leapt into action. We're

6:00

a Christian camp and so I care

6:02

about people, even if they're

6:04

not nice. Carmen

6:06

was the perfect person for this kind of

6:09

job. For

6:13

our summer camp, we have to

6:15

practise drills for fires and

6:17

also for missing camp or

6:19

drill, we say, in case somebody,

6:21

we can't find somebody and we time

6:23

ourselves and we do searches at every

6:26

building. I mean, so

6:28

we kind of know how to do searches for people

6:30

who are missing, right? Carmen

6:38

told me her version of what happened

6:40

the weekend deer went missing. And

6:42

it felt like a breath of fresh air because

6:45

finally I had an

6:47

impartial version of events. Finally,

6:51

I felt like I was holding a piece

6:53

of the truth. We

6:57

honestly thought, OK, she probably went

6:59

hiking and just injured herself.

7:01

That was the main, you know, that's what we

7:03

thought. We're going to go find her. We will

7:05

find her. I'm

7:09

Lucy Sheriff and this is

7:11

Where's Deer? Episode

7:14

five, The Strangest

7:16

Thing. When

7:30

Carmen and her staff showed up to Benita Vistaranche on that Sunday

7:32

in 2020, the day after deer disappeared, they

7:36

expected to be greeted with open arms. But

7:40

that's not exactly what happened. It

7:42

was the strangest thing. You know,

7:45

you would think Harper would have said, hey, thank you

7:47

for coming. It was almost like we were like in

7:49

the way kind of thing. It

7:53

didn't feel like we were going to be able to

7:56

do that. It didn't feel like we were welcome. a

8:00

chilly welcome. Carmen got

8:02

straight to work. We

8:06

got a megaphone from our camp. We got all

8:09

kinds of tools from our camp just to take with us. And

8:12

I was using it to yell out for

8:14

Dia, basically. And a lot

8:16

of people were out there. And at

8:19

one point I became very frustrated because I thought, well,

8:21

what's going on? And then I, you

8:23

know, I'm feeling like we're just, there's

8:27

no direction to this, right? At

8:29

some point, Carmen called a friend of hers

8:32

who worked at the sheriff's department. I

8:34

stood on the rock because there was no signal. And

8:37

I said, hey, why aren't you here? Said,

8:39

Carmen, we can't be out there till tomorrow anyways. You

8:41

know, it's 48 hours. Oh

8:44

yeah, that 48 hour thing again. It's

8:47

funny that someone who works at the sheriff's department

8:49

would say that because Riverside's

8:51

own standards manual specifically says

8:53

the officers shouldn't wait before

8:56

acting on a missing person's

8:58

report. They're supposed

9:00

to begin investigations right away. I

9:07

did reach out to the sheriff's department

9:09

to ask them about this discrepancy and

9:11

many other things. But I

9:13

did not get any response. Back

9:17

to Carmen's phone call. She

9:19

told her friend she thought Harper was

9:21

acting suspicious. He didn't

9:23

share any details that could help with the search, like

9:26

which places he'd already checked. I

9:28

said, I have all kinds of red flags going on. I

9:30

had just all kinds of alarms going off in my head.

9:32

I said, there's something not right. I said, and

9:35

I said, I'm usually right about these things. There

9:37

was also something else Carmen noticed.

9:40

He's riding around in a quad with this woman who

9:42

I don't know who she is, which is Diane Federer.

9:45

To me, it looked like there was something going on between them. Clinton

9:48

has mentioned this to me too, that

9:51

he and his private investigator thought

9:54

Diana Federer, dear's friend, may

9:57

have been romantically involved with

9:59

Harper. To be very

10:01

clear though, Harper and Diana

10:03

both deny this. Eventually,

10:07

one of Carmen and Dia's

10:10

neighbors mentioned something incredibly useful.

10:13

The ranch was covered in

10:15

security cameras. And she

10:17

was like, there's not a place here that Dia has not wired with

10:20

a camera. She was like, and I

10:22

know that because I just talked. The other day I was feeding

10:24

the animals, and she was like, she would talk to

10:26

me through the cameras. She was like, so there's got to be

10:28

something that shows us what happened

10:30

yesterday. And

10:32

because Carmen is Carmen, she sent

10:34

in one of her IT guys to check them out.

10:37

So he went inside and he couldn't get it

10:40

to come up, the server to turn on. He

10:43

couldn't get it to boot up basically.

10:46

He thought that somebody had tampered with it and

10:49

had damaged it so they couldn't. Wow. You

10:52

know, he said something happened here. I

10:56

don't feel comfortable going back in there by myself. I

10:58

feel like I'm at a crime scene. And

11:01

I'm putting my fingerprints all over the place. Another

11:05

member of Carmen's group went to search

11:07

the meadow. She told

11:09

Carmen what she saw. Ruby,

11:12

Dia's faithful dog, had followed her

11:15

and went straight up to a patch of

11:17

fresh dirt. She said

11:19

a dog laid down right out on the fresh dirt.

11:22

We turned around and he didn't want to leave. It

11:25

was almost like, it was like

11:27

maybe she was there. She

11:29

said the dog did not want to leave. We finally

11:31

kind of coaxed her back and got

11:33

her to go back with us. When

11:36

Carmen and her staff got back from being

11:38

out in the heat, they

11:40

wanted to make sure to check every

11:43

building on the property before they left.

11:46

There was one last place Carmen wanted

11:48

to search, Harper's

11:50

White Ford Motorhome. I

11:53

said I just need to have everybody, because I kind of wanted

11:55

to take over at that point. I said well somebody needs to

11:57

go and look. came

12:00

back and they said it's locked. And

12:03

so nobody offered a key,

12:06

nobody... No, and that's

12:08

the thing. That's when I started just

12:10

getting really... That was a Sunday when

12:13

we were all just like, you know, this

12:15

does not feel good. That was just like

12:17

the final confirmation, we just need to wait

12:19

for the cops to get here kind of

12:21

thing. The consensus was among

12:23

my staff, it was like, look,

12:26

I think we just got

12:28

called over to put all kinds

12:31

of footprints everywhere and to just

12:33

damage the crime scene, basically. That's

12:36

how we felt at that moment. And

12:38

so we laughed and

12:41

that was the final thing that just stuck in my head,

12:43

why couldn't we get into that motorhome? Carmen

12:46

returned the next day, on the Monday,

12:49

with homemade missing persons leaflets in

12:51

hand. But by then, Harper

12:54

and his motorhome were gone. He

12:57

was on his way to New Mexico. And

13:04

I'm like, why would you leave? So this

13:07

is your girlfriend, you're supposedly distraught

13:09

about her, right? I was

13:12

distraught even if I wasn't that close to Dia.

13:14

You know, I'm thinking, how can I be more

13:16

upset about this than you? You know, how

13:19

is that? This is not right, how

13:21

did he just take off? After

13:25

that weekend of searching, Carmen kept tabs

13:27

on the ranch. Diana

13:29

and Harper held Dia's power of

13:31

attorney, although nobody else seemed to know

13:33

this yet. When

13:35

the cops had finished their search, they

13:37

turned over the ranch keys to Dia's

13:40

children, who locked the gate. But

13:43

one night, soon after the search, Carmen

13:46

noticed a car heading up the

13:48

road towards Benita Vista Ranch. So

13:58

I saw a car go over there and I went over there,

14:00

I said, excuse me, what are you doing? To

14:03

Carmen's surprise, it was Diana

14:05

Federer. That's the one time

14:07

that I thought, oh my goodness, what the heck is this

14:09

woman doing here? I don't think anybody, I said, I don't

14:11

think anybody's supposed to be over here. I said, nobody's

14:13

supposed to be over here. She was like, I just

14:15

can't get a few things from the truck, something

14:18

for the animals. Carmen

14:21

had called the sheriff's department as soon as

14:23

she'd seen the car. And

14:25

when an officer showed up, she went

14:27

back home. Carmen

14:32

brought up so many things, but

14:35

there was one thing she mentioned, that to

14:37

this day still stands out to

14:39

me. She told me what

14:42

Harper said he'd been doing during the

14:44

window of time deer went missing. So

14:48

the story of what he was doing

14:50

on Saturday kept changing. When we were there that

14:52

day, on Sunday to search,

14:54

he said he had been burying brush in the

14:56

middle. Like

14:58

burying brush, what the heck? And

15:01

then later on he changed his story to I

15:03

was mowing the meadow. This

15:06

by the way, is Harper's

15:08

only alibi, that

15:10

he was out mowing the meadow. Speaking

15:16

with Carmen brought me back to

15:18

the immediate aftermath of deer's disappearance.

15:21

I felt like I was seeing those crucial first

15:23

days in a new light. But

15:26

my conversation with her also raised a

15:28

lot of questions about

15:30

Harper and Diana. More

15:35

on that after the break. I'm

15:37

Malcolm Gladwell, and I'd like to take

15:39

a moment to

15:42

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slash now. I

18:34

found the whole story about Diana

18:37

Feder taking stuff out of Dia's

18:39

truck so bizarre. It

18:41

was at night. The ranch had

18:43

been locked shut and Harper was away.

18:47

What was she doing there? Incidentally,

18:51

Diana had actually told me the whole truck

18:53

story before, without me even asking about it.

18:56

The first time I spoke to her. Let's

18:59

see. So the

19:01

sheriff's department ended their thing on

19:04

Wednesday. Because

19:07

that's the day I went back to

19:09

get the canned dog food for Ruby.

19:14

Ruby remember is Dia's dog, who

19:17

had gone with Harper on his trip to

19:19

New Mexico. Oh, so he

19:21

didn't take Ruby in the end? He

19:24

did, but he didn't have the proper food. And

19:26

I was, you know, I wasn't aware of the

19:28

proper food that she was supposed to be

19:31

being fed. And they said,

19:33

well, she always kept cans in her truck. So I

19:35

went back to go get the cans to figure out

19:37

what kind of medicated food she was eating. This

19:42

interview happened early on in my reporting,

19:44

before I knew about all the weird

19:47

twists and turns. But after

19:49

I spoke with Carmen, I felt I

19:51

had to call Diana back. I

19:53

wanted to run through some more of

19:56

these questions. So

19:59

I've spoken to Carmen. And I

20:02

just wanted to run... Oh, was that the labor? Yes.

20:06

Yeah. This time, Diana gave me

20:08

a more detailed account about the night she

20:10

went to Dia's truck. She

20:12

told me she went to the ranch with a friend. I

20:15

mentioned finding the dog food again,

20:18

along with something else. And

20:21

I told all this to the police officer. And

20:24

we went to the truck, and

20:28

the windows were down. We

20:32

opened the door. The

20:34

alarm went off. And

20:37

we grabbed two

20:39

bowls, dog bowls, a

20:42

leash, some

20:45

canned dog food from the car.

20:49

And on the front seat was

20:51

a safe, like a

20:53

lock box. And

20:57

when I opened it, there

20:59

was a gun in there. Oh. I'm

21:02

like, okay, why

21:04

is there a lock box

21:06

on the front seat with a gun? And

21:09

why did the police not take it with them? So

21:12

I leave with my friend, and we go out

21:14

front. And I guess that was Carmen and her

21:16

husband. They were walking their dog or walking. And

21:20

I said, well, we heard a lock. He said, yeah, we needed to

21:22

get dog food. So we'll be... And

21:25

we showed them everything. And

21:28

then I locked up the weapon and then told the police

21:30

about it. So

21:35

to recap, Diana found one

21:37

of these guns in Dia's truck

21:39

on Dia's ranch, which

21:41

by that point, I'm guessing, was

21:43

a potential crime scene. And

21:45

she took it. Diana

21:48

said it was for safety reasons. So

21:50

what happened to that gun? property

22:00

where nobody is staying. Hmm.

22:03

You know, that everybody should come on. I'm

22:05

like, no, no, no. No. So what

22:08

happened? No. So what

22:11

happened to it? Oh,

22:14

to the weapon. Yeah. Uh,

22:16

I, I told the police about it and

22:19

then, um, Clarkler said that

22:21

he wanted the weapon and

22:23

I said, it's fine in my face.

22:26

And he goes, no, I want to

22:28

keep all of D.A.'s property on

22:30

the property. And

22:32

I'm like, okay, well, what can I say now? I can't

22:34

tell him I'm not going to give it to him. I

22:37

mean, cause now, you know, technically he's

22:39

in charge. Yeah. So I let the

22:42

police know that I had to give him the weapon. By

22:45

many accounts, D.A. did own a lot

22:47

of guns. I tried

22:49

to find out what happened to that one. Harper

22:52

says he doesn't have it anymore. And

22:54

the police didn't respond to my questions about it. In

23:02

general, Diana disputed a lot of

23:05

what Carmen told me, particularly

23:07

about her and Harper. Harper

23:09

and I have never been

23:12

in a relationship. I met him, I

23:16

think it was been twice

23:18

before D.A. disappeared. Mm-hmm. Um,

23:22

yeah, he's just, uh, no.

23:28

While I had Diana on the phone, I

23:30

wanted to ask her about some of

23:32

Clinton's allegations. He believes

23:34

that Diana had something to do with

23:37

Deere's disappearance and that she

23:39

was working with Harper. He's

23:41

been pretty adamant to me that you're involved

23:43

somehow. Yeah. He's told the

23:45

police that and he's told

23:47

everybody else, just because you happen

23:50

to be asked by a friend

23:52

to help

23:55

them with their estate or what have

23:57

you when you pass. does

24:00

not automatically make you

24:02

a bad guy. Diana

24:06

denied having anything to do with

24:08

Deere's disappearance. I

24:11

mean, I can understand, you know,

24:13

like if something happened to somebody's spouse,

24:15

the person they could look to is

24:18

the other spouse, you know, and I

24:20

can understand why they would consider it

24:22

at first. But

24:24

there's no game. Yeah. None

24:27

at all. You know, I mean, I

24:29

mean, there's no money. There's

24:34

nothing. Diana said

24:36

there's no value in Deere's trust. Deere

24:39

was so in debt, Diana said,

24:41

that her estate is pretty much

24:43

worthless. This is hard for

24:45

me to verify because the legal

24:47

guardian of Deere's estate won't tell

24:49

me anything about Deere's financial situation.

24:52

But according to court records, Deere's

24:55

estate could be worth millions. Regardless,

24:59

a couple of years ago, Diana

25:02

withdrew as Deere's trustee anyway, giving

25:04

up any claim on Deere's assets. And

25:09

there was one last thing that Diana

25:11

told me that directly

25:13

correlated to something Carmen had

25:15

said. I asked

25:17

Diana why Carmen wasn't allowed to search the

25:20

RV. Diana was surprised

25:22

and said the RV had been searched.

25:24

It was searched twice. It was searched

25:27

on Sunday

25:29

and it was searched

25:31

again on Monday before he

25:33

departed in it. But

25:35

there was nothing in it. Nothing

25:37

that raised concern. And then she

25:40

told me this. The only

25:43

thing that did raise concern was

25:45

the RV was parked in the

25:47

field, in the horse field. OK.

25:52

And then, Carper had told the police that

25:54

he was mowing the field when

25:58

she supposedly disappeared. Yeah.

26:02

And he caught luck because it was up to

26:04

their knees. So

26:09

first, Carmen tells me Hoppe changed

26:11

his alibi, from burying

26:13

Brush in the meadow to mowing it.

26:17

And then Diana tells me that

26:19

the grass was definitely not mown.

26:23

That's really interesting about the meadow. That's

26:26

really good for you. That's right. And

26:28

he apparently was out there for hours

26:30

mowing the meadow. Well, I can tell

26:33

you right now that the

26:35

amount of time that he said he spent

26:37

in the meadow mowing is incorrect.

26:42

Hmm. He said he was out

26:44

there for almost six hours.

26:49

There's no way in heck he

26:52

could have been out there for six hours unless he took

26:54

an apple. I

26:58

couldn't help wondering, where were the police in all of

27:00

this? Have

27:04

they checked out Hoppe's alibi? I

27:08

don't know if they did, but what

27:10

I did learn is that Hoppe wasn't exactly concerned about

27:12

alibis. Because,

27:15

it turns out, he claims

27:17

he's known all along exactly what happened to Dia.

27:22

And he'd seen it

27:24

all unfold on the security cameras

27:26

tapes. We'll

27:35

be right back. Thanks

27:50

for watching! I'm

28:15

Malcolm Gladwell, and I'd like to take a

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t-mobile.com/now. In

31:01

May 2023, around Memorial

31:03

Day, three people broke

31:05

into Benita Vista Ranch. According

31:08

to a police report, they stole

31:10

some power tools, an old car and

31:12

a tractor. They

31:14

were arrested at the ranch and

31:16

later pled guilty. The

31:19

reason I'm telling you about this is because

31:21

it's after this burglary happens, three

31:24

years into our interviews, that

31:27

Harper suddenly mentions something new, something

31:30

he has never told me before. I'm

31:37

stuck. I'm stuck with what

31:40

we do once we find her, you

31:42

know? Obviously, you

31:46

know, in my opinion, they've always known

31:48

it was a murder because the video

31:50

shows that. And why

31:54

the video that was here at the ranch

31:57

that was taken. Oh,

32:00

what? I don't know anything about that video. What video

32:02

is that? Yeah, very...

32:05

We had surveillance on

32:09

the area in which

32:11

she was assaulted, basically.

32:18

This man, who I've been speaking to

32:20

for three years by this point, is

32:23

suddenly telling me about a security

32:25

camera which captured Dier being kidnapped.

32:29

And he's never, ever mentioned this before? In

32:32

fact, he told me this in 2021. I

32:35

always believed that she was going to

32:37

a safe zone. So I

32:39

always felt that she left, that I always

32:42

felt that she would contact me and

32:44

let me know that she was fine, that

32:47

contact never comes. That

32:49

same year, right before I

32:51

was thinking of visiting the ranch, Harper

32:53

told me something else. He

32:56

told me the security cameras

32:58

hadn't captured anything. Yeah,

33:01

you know what else? I'll take you upstairs and

33:03

show you the cameras. How they

33:05

do not see what happens is beyond

33:07

me and why. And

33:10

when he finally does mention the videotapes to

33:12

me all those years later, he

33:14

describes in detail what

33:17

he watched on this footage. He

33:19

launches into this wild chronicle

33:22

about Dier being kidnapped. It

33:29

takes place between the main house and

33:34

what we call the

33:36

cabin, which is across the street from

33:38

the main house. They

33:41

surround her. As she's

33:43

coming, they do not cause, they do

33:45

not communicate, they just surround

33:47

her. And that's

33:49

where the big guy halts

33:52

off and hits her to the side

33:54

of the white cheek. He

33:58

tells me that Dier's attorney called him. after

34:00

Deere went missing and told him to

34:02

watch the security camera footage. I

34:05

tried to double check this with Deere's attorney, but

34:07

in the middle of all of this, he died. So

34:10

I couldn't. Harpo

34:13

also tells me that Detective Alberto

34:15

Larero of the Riverside County Sheriff's

34:17

Department has seen the footage too.

34:20

He's been asked who they

34:22

were and why they haven't

34:24

been identified. He claims that

34:27

the video is not

34:29

clear enough to do facial

34:31

recognition on it. Have

34:35

you actually physically seen this

34:37

video? Yes. You

34:40

have? And when did

34:42

you watch it? When

34:45

we were doing the actual search for

34:47

her, her attorney called

34:49

and asked me to watch it. And

34:52

then after I had given it, he said, you

34:54

know, just he said, he

34:57

said, you know, I should have

34:59

taken a copy. I get it. So

35:03

just to recap, I've been

35:05

speaking to Harpo for years by this point.

35:08

And it's only after that Memorial Day

35:10

burglary happens that he brings up

35:12

these videotapes. He told

35:14

me that the people who burgled the ranch in

35:16

2023 were the same people he watched

35:20

on video kidnapping Dia

35:23

in 2020. There

35:25

were three burglars that came.

35:27

They made the same description

35:32

of those who killed her, almost

35:34

identical in height, weight,

35:37

and size. It

35:40

was hard to reconcile all of this

35:43

with what Carmen told me. According

35:45

to her, her IT guy

35:47

couldn't access the security footage on Dia's

35:50

ranch. He said someone had

35:52

tampered with it. Detective

35:54

Larero also told me that

35:56

no such tape exists. There

36:00

was one more strange aspect about

36:02

Harper's new theory. It

36:04

lined up with information from some of

36:07

Kelly Snyder's psychics, who work

36:09

with his missing persons organisation. They

36:12

said that three people, two men and a

36:14

woman, were responsible for

36:16

Deere's disappearance. We

36:19

heard this from Kelly Snyder back in episode three.

36:22

They were all saying the same thing independently.

36:26

Which was? That

36:29

she was murdered. She was murdered

36:31

by three people, two males and a female.

36:34

She was taken and,

36:37

you know, killed and buried. And

36:42

basically that was it. So

36:47

is Harper just taking what Kelly's

36:49

psychics said happened and sort

36:51

of mishmashing it with the people who burgled

36:53

the ranch? It

36:55

wouldn't be the first time that he treated

36:57

the psychics information as hard fact. Ultimately,

37:02

Harper believes that the three people in the

37:04

footage are part of a

37:06

drug trafficking motorcycle gang and

37:09

that they're heavily involved in Deere's death. Oh,

37:13

and that Clinton hired them. I

37:17

couldn't help but wonder, is

37:19

Harper simply making all of this up? If

37:22

he's lying, it would call

37:24

his entire narrative into question. And

37:26

most importantly, his alibi, that

37:29

he was mowing the meadow when Deere

37:31

disappeared. I

37:33

have been told by somebody who

37:36

was at the search that Deere

37:38

disappeared, that your alibi

37:40

changed. That you first said

37:42

you were burying Brush in the meadow, and then you

37:44

said you were mowing the meadow. And

37:47

then two people in one... I

37:49

said, I said, Brushing or mowing.

37:54

And people have said that the meadow wasn't mowing, that

37:56

the grass was long. The

38:00

meadow, the meadow, which you've

38:02

got to realize is where

38:04

the horses go out and

38:06

feast. That is approximately

38:09

five acres. The meadow goes on

38:11

for probably a mile and

38:13

a half. So

38:16

did I mow all of the meadow? No,

38:18

I mow what we use and

38:21

what is planted in grass, not

38:24

what is brush. There's

38:29

no way I'll ever know if the meadow was

38:31

mown or not. But in

38:33

any case, Harper is adamant that

38:36

at some point, Deere's body

38:38

will be found. Once

38:41

we find her, I

38:43

think without question, we will. Then

38:47

we need to address the issue with

38:50

the Sheriff's Department of why

38:52

Quentin Abrams was never interviewed

38:55

or interrogated. He

38:57

becomes the main suspect in

38:59

all of our investigations. Clinton

39:03

says that the Riverside Sheriff's Department has

39:05

questioned him, and he's

39:08

actually spent the past few years deep

39:10

in an investigation of his own. He's

39:13

taken all of his interviews

39:15

and tape recordings and documents and

39:18

finessed his theory of what

39:20

he believes happened to his mother. The

39:23

Deere was taken and killed by

39:26

a gang. Coming

39:54

next time on the

39:56

season finale of Where's Deere.

40:00

It's an emotional Katrina. You

40:02

know, it came in, it washed

40:04

everything out. Okay,

40:06

was that a location of where the body

40:08

was? It was a

40:10

location of something. I don't need

40:12

to hear that shit. Well, I need

40:14

to hear more specific. Do

40:17

we have a location where we believe

40:19

that she is? I think

40:21

there is a deal amongst multiple people to

40:24

split the spoils of war, so to

40:26

speak. Neighbours woke up

40:29

early Sunday morning to the

40:31

sound of a sheriff's helicopter

40:33

flying over Dia Abrams Ranch

40:35

near Idlewild. The

40:39

The The

40:43

The The

40:46

The The

40:51

The The The

40:56

Where's Dia is written and hosted by me, Lucy

40:58

Sheriff. Our producer

41:00

is Daphne Chen, editing

41:02

by Karen Schakirgy. Action

41:05

assistance from Joey Fishground. Fact

41:08

checking by Lauren Vespoli. Our

41:11

executive producer is Jacob Smith. Original

41:14

score, sound design and mastering by

41:17

Echo Shores. Where's

41:20

Dia is a co-production of Pushkin

41:22

Industries and iHeartMedia. You

41:39

can listen to all of Where's Dia right now,

41:41

ad-free, by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Find

41:46

Pushkin Plus on the Apple Show page for

41:48

Where's Dia, or at pushkin.fm

41:50

slash plus. called

42:00

Medal of Honor. It's

42:02

a moving podcast series celebrating the

42:05

untold stories of those who protect

42:07

our country. And it's brought to you

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