A report last week found no evidence the county sheriff’s department mishandled the remains of Mitrice Richardson. Richardson’s family said the report was biased in favor of the department, and criticized the department for failing to change its detainee release policy.
By Michael Aushenker and Julie Ellerton / Special to The Malibu Times
A report by a county watchdog agency last week found that 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 Office of Independent Review (OIR), which was investigating the allegations, had reportedly 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.
Steve Whitmore, senior media advisor for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, told The Malibu Times, “From the very beginning, the Sheriff’s Department did everything we were supposed to do.”
Richardson’s family disagreed strongly. Latice Sutton, Richardson’s mother, was too distraught to comment, but her sister Lauren Sutton said the report was disappointing.
“We were devastated and very disappointed to hear that this was their conclusion,” Lauren Sutton said. “The OIR report, in Latice’s mind and mine, was truly biased on behalf of the Sheriff’s Dept. Facts that they looked at were not treated as relevant, it did not show an unbiased evaluation of the actual facts of the case.”
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 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.
Many people have said it was at best a poor decision to release Richardson, who some have suggested was suffering from bipolar disorder at the time. The jailer who processed Richardson told the Los Angeles Times she recommended to Richardson that she stay until the morning, but Richardson refused.
“They need a policy in place to evaluate someone showing signs of mental distress before releasing them,” Lauren Sutton said last week.
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.
Both Whitmore 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.
The OIR report released Wednesday last week 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 Whitmore 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.”
Whitmore acknowledged the OIR correctly identified a confusing discrepancy between statements made by the detective and the coroner’s captain.
“The OIR did their best to untangle that and they were unable to do so,” he continued. “Regardless of the miscommunication, the coroner’s pathologist said…her analysis and findings were not impacted in any way. The coroner’s office did not deem [Richardson’s death] a homicide, they officially classified it as undetermined.”
Richardson’s parents, Michael Richardson and Latice Sutton, feel otherwise, believing their daughter could not have made it to the remote area where she was found and was instead murdered by someone. Last year, the Richardson family hired its own forensics expert to examine Mitrice’s remains. The pair received a $900,000 tentative settlement from the county last August.
According to Whitmore, the $900,000 settlement was a cost-effective decision.
“The Sheriff has said publicly that the department did err, [but] the legal settlement does not represent culpability,” Whitmore said.
When pressed on which points Sheriff Lee Baca believed his department had erred, Whitmore said Richardson should have been cited, not arrested, and reconnected with her personal belongings.
“He believes we could have done better.”
Baca held a press conference last Wednesday when the OIR report was released in which he repeated the department’s position. After the press conference, Sutton denied to a KTLA reporter that Richardson had a history of bipolar disorder, but confirmed that Richardson was under a lot of stress at the time: a broken relationship, her parents’ divorce and studying in order to get into law school.
When asked by the reporter if she thought Richardson had been murdered, Sutton replied, “I absolutely feel that she was murdered. My sister feels that she’s been murdered…We hiked in the area where she was found. We found a bone where Mitrice’s bones were left by some murderer.”
She said she let Baca know that Richardson’s family will not give up.
“We’re going to find justice one way or another,” Sutton said. “We’re not going to go away.”