Richardson advocate wants a reinvestigation based on new complaint against a former detective
Fifteen years after the disappearance and death of Mitrice Richardson, one of her strongest advocates has filed a new complaint against the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
In 2009, the 24-year-old Richardson was suffering a mental health crisis and acting bizarrely at Malibu’s Geoffrey’s restaurant. When the graduate student could not pay her bill, she was taken into custody at the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station. Despite assurances that her mother was to pick her up in the morning and that she would remain safe at the station, the young woman was released after midnight with no money. Her cellphone was locked in her car, which had been towed away from the restaurant. Richardson was last seen hours later in a Monte Nido backyard. She then went missing for nearly a year until her mummified remains were found in a remote creek bed.
Dr. Ronda Hampton, a clinical psychologist, originally filed several complaints years ago, after Richardson’s body was found in a remote Malibu canyon and moved against protocol without the supervision of the LA County coroner.
According to Hampton, who served as a mentor to Richardson, those complaints were filed “for various things that went on in the handling of her disappearance,” but at the time all involved with the case were cleared of wrongdoing.
The latest complaint filed March 22 targets Detective Dan McElderry, who apparently resigned from the force in 2017. Hampton claims McElderry and his partner removed Richardson’s body from a remote ravine in Malibu without the supervision of the LA County officer of medical examiner present. McElderry was recently cited in the wrongful conviction of Miguel Solorio on a murder charge. Solorio was exonerated in December 2023 after 23 years behind bars.
According to Hampton, “in reading what the Innocence Project put on their page, which is nowhere in the media really, they name McElderry. They talk about what he did and the accusation is perjury and/or falsification of information.”
The National Registry of Exonerations website states that “McElderry had testified falsely at Solorio’s trial.”
Hampton stated, “To me, if [a detective is]being accused of [perjury and falsification] to the extent that this man [Solorio] has been exonerated after 23 years, and [that detective] … supposedly investigated this guy’s case, but now whatever happened in that case he was exonerated…I’m also in contact with another family accusing McElderry of witness tampering and coercion of witnesses.”
Hampton is also awaiting word on any possible actions taken against McElderry since the December exoneration of Solorio. “I’m honestly waiting for them to tell because when you file a complaint they come back and tell you something,” she said.
The Malibu Times also made a Public Records Act request into complaints against McElderry or any other detective in the Mitrice Richardson case. The LASD acknowledged the department is typically obligated to respond within 10 days, but invoked its right to an extension of 14 days in circumstances where there is a need to search and examine a potentially voluminous amount of records. The LASD response also indicated the department is currently inundated with Public Records Act requests and is experiencing delays in processing them. The response also indicates that personnel matters could be redacted or exempt due to the privacy rights of the individuals.
Hampton still has questions about the detectives’ actions in the retrieval of Richardson’s body and personal effects.
Hampton intends to resubmit her complaints if she gets no response from LASD.
“If they go back and investigate what this person has done wrong, whether or not he’s still employed or not, they can still go back and find out what are the things he did or did not do in the case and do we need to reopen this in order to do what should have been done,” she said. “I’m saying go back. We know this guy will engage in less than scrupulous behavior which clearly has led to the conviction of Miguel Solorio for 23 years. So, we know he’ll do that. So, let’s go back and see what else he may have done or not have done. That’s what I’m asking for.
“I don’t feel like I’m grasping at straws. I feel that in every aspect of Mitrice’s disappearance and the way that her remains were treated there was just wrongdoing. I can’t sit here and do nothing and pretend like just because they send me a notice saying there was no wrongdoing … I’m not going to act like I believe that.”
Hampton has vowed to continue to remind “them [LASD] that what they did was wrong. You do not remove remains from a creek bed. They didn’t even take all of them. They had to go back.”
Hampton claims even she discovered remains at the site.
“You can’t tell me there was no wrongdoing,” she said. “At the very least they shouldn’t have removed her body. I’m not going to give up.”