A large search in Malibu on Saturday did not turn up 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson who has been missing since Sept. 17.
By Laura Tate / Editor
The family of Mitrice Richardson, the 24-year-old woman who went missing after dining in Malibu and then was arrested and released by Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station officials two weeks ago, is pleading for the public’s help to find her.
Michael Richardson, Mitrice’s father, said he is offering his classic 1966 Chevy Impala, estimated to be worth $20,000, to anyone who can provide him with information that would lead to the safe return of his daughter.
“[I will give it to the person who gives me information that leads to] when this girl is in my arms,” Michael Richardson said. “I need to be able to carry her [in my arms] and tell her everything’s going to be alright …”
Detective Steven Eguchi of the Los Angeles Police Department, which is the lead agency investigating the case, said on Tuesday in a telephone interview that a $10,000 reward for information leading to Mitrice Richardson’s whereabouts is “in the works.” The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved the $10,000 reward offer late Tuesday night.
A large, multiagency search was conducted Saturday in the Monte Nido area and in Malibu Canyon from Mulholland Highway to the coast involving about 177 people, Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station Capt. Tom Martin said.
Richardson was dining alone in Malibu at Geoffrey’s Restaurant, located on Pacific Coast Highway, Sept. 16, when the management called the Sheriff’s station after she could not pay her $89 bill and she exhibited signs of acting strange, according to restaurant owner Jeff Peterson. Sheriff’s deputies who arrived on the scene conducted field sobriety tests, Martin said, but found that she was sober. She was arrested on misdemeanor charges for possession of marijuana in her car and defrauding an innkeeper.
According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s inmate information portal on the Internet, Richardson was booked at the Lost Hills station in Agoura at 11:03 p.m. on Sept. 16 with a bail amount set at $2,500. She was then released at 12:25 a.m. and after leaving the station, Richardson was briefly sighted lying on the lawn of a local area residence. No one has seen or heard from her since.
Richardson’s family members and friends are outraged that Sheriff’s officials released the young woman in the middle of the night and let her go off alone, without a cell phone, identification or any money. Her mother, Latice Sutton, father and the family’s lawyer appeared on television news outlets during the past week, claiming that the Sheriff’s Department has double standards and that if their daughter were a “Brittany Spears or Lindsay Lohan” she would have been driven home by deputies.
Capt. Martin said that all necessary protocol was taken, and Richardson was allowed to make phone calls and that she did not seem disoriented when she was released. He also said the jailer had tried to convince Richardson to stay at the station until someone could come and get her.
“She said she didn’t want to do that and that she was going to meet friends,” Martin said. “We were obligated to release her at that point.”
However, Michael Richardson said that Sheriff’s officials should have kept her at the station, especially since Mitrice’s mother had called to say she was on her way to pick up her daughter. They have also complained that the Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles Police Department have not done enough to find their daughter and do not believe that an effective enough search on the Saturday after Mitrice went missing was conducted by Sheriff’s officials.
Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s deputies had conducted a smaller search Sept. 19, which involved four dogs and 12 to 14 personnel, Martin said. Also employed in that search was a person who Martin said is called a “man tracker,” someone who is trained in tracking shoe prints. The captain believes they found Mitrice’s shoe prints at the house where she was reported lying in a backyard early the morning of Sept. 17. The homeowners had called the Sheriff’s station after seeing her early that morning, but Mitrice had left the scene before deputies arrived.
In the meantime, Mitrice Richardson’s family has been searching for clues to her whereabouts and her frame of mind at the time of her disappearance.
That she was so far from home, alone, and behaving as she was described by the management at Geoffrey’s was not characteristic of the college graduate, family and friends say. Her father thinks that maybe someone might have put something in her drink.
“I’ve been telling the world she’s never ever done anything like this before,” Michael Richardson said. “I know something was slipped in her drink….”
Her family has been going through her journals, calling friends, searching through her Facebook pages, phone records and her last point of contacts.
Richardson said his daughter’s journals expressed how adamant she was about wanting to become a dancer and excited about passing the CBEST test so she could work as a substitute teacher.
“Mitrice has been dancing since she was three,” he said. “Everything she did was based on what she wanted to be-a mentor to dancers, to students, that she was working toward her master’s in psychiatry … She wanted to be a positive influence to all these different people.“I just don’t understand what happened …”
Mitrice Richardson is African American, with brown hair and hazel eyes. She is five-feet, six-inches tall and weighs about 135 pounds. She was last seen wearing blue jeans and a dark shirt. Anyone with information about Mitrice Richardson’s whereabouts, or who was at Geoffrey’s restaurant the evening of Sept. 16, is asked to call the LAPD Missing Persons Unit at 213.485.5381.