Report yields little light on Mitrice Richardson case

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The watchdog agency of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday said sheriff’s deputies did not intentionally mishandle the remains of Mitrice Richardson in Aug. 2010, despite allegations to the contrary by the county coroner’s office.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the Office of Independent Review (OIR), which was investigating the allegations, had been prepared to find the coroner’s criticism at least partly true, until a sheriff’s detective came forward during the investigation with new information that contradicted the department’s long-held version of events.

Richardson, 24, was arrested Sept. 16, 2009 in Malibu after she could not pay her dining bill from a local restaurant and exhibited signs of acting strange. After being taken into custody for defrauding an innkeeper and for possession of marijuana in her car, Richardson was released after midnight from the remote Lost Hills station without a cell phone, purse or means of transportation. After leaving the station, Richardson was briefly sighted on the lawn of a nearby residence, and then was never seen again.

Richardson’s bones were found in a ravine in Malibu Canyon in Aug. 2010. A county coroner’s official criticized sheriff’s deputies for moving the bones without consent from the coroner’s office. A sheriff’s spokesman said deputies moved the bones because it was getting dark and they feared animals might destroy them.

The OIR report released Wednesday blamed miscommunication between sheriff’s deputies and the coroner’s office for the incident. The report found that sheriff’s officials were originally given permission by the coroner’s office to move the remains when it was first thought that only a skull and a few other bones were there.

However, it was soon discovered that an entire skeleton was present under the remains that were originally found, and those remains were moved in addition to the bones and skull that sheriff’s deputies originally received approval to move.

Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter maintained that no permission was given to move the remains. Both the sheriff’s department spokesman and the department’s homicide captain said in 2010 that no permission was asked for by sheriff’s officials from the coroner’s office before the remains were moved.

But during the OIR investigation, the sheriff’s detective who was on the scene contradicted previous statements by his department, telling investigators that he in fact did call a coroner’s captain and tell him that more remains had been found, and that they were moved onto a plastic sheet.

According to the detective, the coroner’s captain told him, “whatever you’ve got on plastic, just bring it out.”

However, the coroner’s captain denied that he had ever received a phone call from the detective.

In light of the new testimony, the OIR report concluded, “Because of this conflict in the evidence, we will never know for certain whether such a request was made.”

Photo by Julie Ellerton