WANTED: Justice for Hassani Campbell and Tianna Kirchner from Everett
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Hi, crime junkie, i'm your host. Ashly flowers. And we're traveling to a place that I keep telling you to stay out of, though clearly, I can't take my own advice because I actually went to washington just recently.

I've been looking into this wild case there that are not quite ready to tell you guys about just yet. But let's just say that it's another example of all of the reasons to stay out of washington. But you know, I always go back.

Almost two years ago, I brought you two cases from two different states that needed your attention, one of which is in ever washington. And I do have a feeling that i'll be going back here soon for more reasons than one high crime junkie. I'm your host. Ashly flowers, in today's story is about two kids who were failed by the very system in place to protect them, and who are both still waiting for justice. These are the stories of a Sunny cambell and Diana cartoner.

It's a little after or four P M. On August tenth, two thousand and nine, when police in oakland, california get a french call from a man who tells them that his Foster son is missing, Louis ross tells the dispatcher that he just showed up to the shoe store where his Fiona works with her niece and news in to because they were Fostering them and he was gonna ch them for the rest of the day. He says he parked around back and got there.

One year old ellia out of the car and walked her around to the front of the door, and then he went in and open the back door to go at. Five year old has SONY. According to an article by phillip rose and bomb for CNN, Lewis says that he was gone for less than five minutes, but when he got back to the car, her SONY was gone.

He tells police that he searched around the car, but he didn't see him anywhere. And not wanting to waste a valuable time, he called police. Law enforcement arrives on the scene soon after Lewis makes the call, and they immediately begin searching the surrounding area and talking to Lewis and his beyond a Jennifer cambell, they learned that hasani has the rebo Polly, which impacts his ability to walk.

And that's why Lewis said he left him in the car for a few minutes to begin with going through the back door is easier for him then walking all the way around to the front. Lewis and Jennifer insists to police that her Sunny isn't the type of kid to just wander away on his own. They've ve never had an issue with him walking off.

And even if he did their confidence, he couldn't gotten too far because SONY wears LED braces to help him walk. So even though he can walk pretty well in his own, he's not quite as slippery as maybe other five year old can be. Plus the store is surrounded by other businesses and houses.

There's a lot of people out that day. He has to be around somewhere. Police are down a two block radius surrounding the shoe store and canvas the area.

They stop people on the street. They go into all of the surrounding stores and restaurants. They even even go door to door and ask neighbors to check their backyards and basements.

They even make a point to check in on all of the registered sex offenders in the area, as well as contact her Sunny and elia's biological parents to see if they know anything. But no one does and everyone's clear that same day. And if there are any security cameras in the area, they're never reported on.

So I can't say if anyone caught anything on tape. So that's when police bringing the dogs, six of them to try and pick up a cent from a car. They also call in a helicopter to see if they can spot anything from the air, but they still come up empty handed in the search dogs.

Can you even pick up hasani sent outside of the car, which to them indicates that hasani didn't just get out and walk away? Is at this point that some of the officers on the scene begin to question whether or not hasani was even in that parking lot to begin with? They aren't jumping to the conclusion that Lewis did anything sinister, but as the last person who saw his Sunny, they're na take a closer look at him and his story and they also get his permission to take his car for testing.

The following day, the FBI announced that they're joining in on the investigation and both Lewis and Jennifer are asked to take polygraphs. Lewis agrees, but Jennifer actually declines to take one because she's pregnant and she's concerned that the stress might hurt her baby. Now the results of Louis polygraph aren't immediately released by police, and the fact that they are initially saying whether he passed or failed starts to turn public opinion of him from sympathetic to suspicious ous.

And listen, a lot of the public is watching this because the news about huston's disappearance has spread like wildfire through the community of oakland, and within a few days, against national attention, when they and see Grace air, a segment about the disappearance on her show, one of the things that people really focus in on is the fact that Lewis left his honey in the car despite saying that he could walk without assistance. That, combined with not parking in the front of the store to begin with, really makes the public question shifts their opinion. The source for arizona continues over the next few days.

But at some point, Lewis announces that one of the descriptions of his soni put out by police is actually incorrect. You see, when police publish initial descriptions of his Sunny, he was described as wearing leg braces that would be visible over his paths. But according to Lewis, now this isn't true.

He says hasani does wear braces, but they go under his paint so they actually wouldn't be visible. He says that this misreporting is worrisome because someone could actually seen his SONY, but disregarded the citing because they didn't see the braces. But when he makes this announcement, people are like, okay, why did you wait a few days to tell people that make this correction? Like this is a pretty huge discrepancy, but that's not the end of the discrepancy because he does IT again after a few more days past.

And then he says that his Sunny doesn't wear a leg braces at all. He says that he wears ankle braces that are designed to give him arch support and help him and they don't go all the way up his legs, which again, that's a pretty important detail to get wrong. Now I can find where this this communication came from, but IT doesn't do any favors for Lewis and Jennifer.

In fact, IT makes them look even more suspicious. But suspicious or not, it's around this time that Lewis and Jennifer started sitting publicly that they don't agree with how the investigation is being conducted in an article for sf gate by Jackson. They underbit king.

They say that they understand why police would look into them first, specifically Lewis, because he was the last one to see his SONY. However, they say that police are only looking at that, and it's not just police public scrutiny all on them as well. And IT doesn't help that police are saying they are aren't any other leads.

In fact, a full week after the disappearance, they say that despite all the publicity the case has gotten, they have received less than fifty tips in total, which they say is unusual. And the more time that passes without any needs or any sign of a Sunny, the more their innocence gets called into question, especially when several things come out about Lewis that makes everyone wonder if his concern for his faster son is all an act. A little over a week after hasani y's disappearance, police say that some parts of Louis story regarding the day his Foster son went missing are a little odd.

For one, they say that earlier that day, Lewis had taken him to a poll, your own part, auto salvage AR, to look for a specific car part. Now what's taught t about this is that he left the yard without even getting out of his car. Now, this is really unusual, because typically with places like this, you have to get out of your car to go physically, look for the part, like dig through stuff.

So the fact that they drove all the way out there, didn't get out of the car and then left doesn't sit well with people. Now they they aren't sure what he was doing there. But according to another article by jacks and banter back in, they searched IT, but didn't find anything by itself.

This probably wouldn't be anything that people would think twice about. Weird, sure. But there could totally be a reasonable explanation. Like maybe he got there.

Lewis decided that he didn't need the part, or considering his son's only five i've gotten and realized, bring five year old along might be more trouble than it's worth. But regardless of the reason, this incident gets cast in a totally different light when IT comes out that Lewis had failed his polygraph. Now, as soon as this becomes public knowledge, Lewis ultimately dispute the results.

In an interview for an nbc bay area article by Jessica Green, he says, quote, they gave me five questions. Three were controls. Is my name Lewis ross? M, I thirty eight years old.

Do I live in free month? Then they asked two other questions around the case. They showed me the result that said, I was ninety nine percent deceptive. So he told me, I did you to get my name right. Quote, now the investigators never comment on Lewis claims here, so we only have his word to go on.

And since we know polygraphs definitely aren't the most foolproof way of telling whether or not someone is lying, I don't think this is, you know, like the final nail in the cost or whatever. But along with this discovery that Lewis failed his polygraph, the police also say that they found a late text glove in his car. They don't say anything specific about the glove, and they never released anything else about what they did or did not find in the car when they looked at for testing.

But Lewis has an explanation for this too. He says that his soni, mister olia, had been playing with the glove and IT shouldn't be viewed as suspicious ous. Now Lewis is taking medical assistance classes at the time, so the glove could have been from that.

But at this point, no one is buying his excuses, not to mention like this could be a massive choking hazard for a one year old. So even if he had those gloves with him for something entirely innocent like his class, IT seems reckless to let one year old play with IT. So again, things like aren't looking good, but a lot of IT could be explained away as coincidental.

But something else comes to light that destroys whatever public sympathy was left for Lewis. A text message from Lewis to Jennifer sent days before his sonny was reported missing. And IT gets weak. That text reads, quote, this is over.

I will watch her, but he will be out on the bark and is your responsibility to get him so you and quote, so just for some context, bark stands for bay area rapid transit, basically an above ground subway system. So what he's saying here is that he's going to keep watching olia, but he's threatened to leave his sunni five year old, his sunni, at one of these stations. When this tax leagues, Lewis tries to explain IT away by saying that he and jennie were just having a coton hood simple argument that was resolved quickly and listen, giving him the benefit of the doubt for a second.

I think we can all probably admit to saying something dramatic in the heat of the moment, but I don't know what kind of simple argument involves. Threatened to a band in a five out at a subway, even when saying stuff, you don't mean like that's not part of IT, whether he was just being dramatic or not. Child protective services, who have been aware of the situation from the beginning, remove a lea from their custody after this.

And then on friday, August twenty eight, seemingly out of the blue, both Lewis and Jennifer arrested. Lewis arrested on suspicion of murder, and Jennifer on suspicion of being an accessory to murder. In another article by Jackson vender bacon, police say that, quote, this is not a missing person's case anymore.

This is a homicide investigation. And we are talking to the people responsible and quote, but here's the thing, when IT comes to actual hard evidence that has soni has been foshan's urd red and Lewis and Jennifer did IT. They never say what they have.

And once the two of them are arrested, they're never actually charged with anything you see from the time of arrest. Police have forty eight hours, not including the weekends, to charge them. So since they're arrested on friday, they basically have until tuesday afternoon.

So for a minute to the public at least, IT looks like justice is finally gonna be served. Even though police haven't found his sony's body. Everyone's hopeful that Lewis or Jennifer r is going to confess something that will finally know what happened. But the public hopes are ashes when Jennifer released monday afternoon without having any charges file against her, and the next day Lewis is also released again about having any charges filed.

This is a truly devastating turn of events, and many people question why they even bothered arresting Lewis and Jennifer in the first place if they didn't have enough to charge them with anything, or even how police are social 和 soni was murdered without finding him。 John burr and attorney y, who had been consulting with the couple, was really vocal on his belief that an arrest was the wrong move for police. He said that he was likely done to try to make them turn on each other and give something up, but there was no real solid evidence, he says.

So police had to release them, and they showed their hand, which apparently was empty. However, even though the two were released, the police still stand by their belief that they were the ones responsible for her son's disappearance and presumed death. In fact, according to an article by Henry K.

V for S, F gate, they even go so far as to say that his Sunny never even made IT to the shoe store to begin with. And basically the district attorney states that they just simply didn't have enough information to charge either of them at the time. After Lewis and Jennifer r were released, both of them pulled completely out of any search efforts for his soni, which just cast more suspicion on them. But even if they were ready to give up on the search, others weren't.

Specifically, one woman named Sherry lin Miller SHE runs a print shop, and even though she's never met his soni or his family, he says there's something about the missing five year old that makes her want to keep searching for as long as IT takes zone of timber faith sherlin helps to organize a dive of a nearby lake in conjunction with san hose search and rescue, which is an all volunteer nonprofit organization that assist law enforcement in search and rescue Operations. It's not clear what brought them to this lake, but despite over one hundred volunteer showing up to help out, they don't find anything that could be linked to his SONY. Later that same day, the searchers even branch out to a nearby park and game reserve.

They do end up finding a switcher and a sock that are definitely too big to have been histories, but they turn their findings over to police anyways, just in case. However, they later come back as having nothing to do with the missing five year old hasani six birthday comes and goes on september twenty six. And despite continuous efforts from the community and police to find him, everything they try comes up empty.

In december, sherrin helps organize a team of searchers to try and bring more attention to her son's case. SHE prints, fires, SHE hands out t shirts and about fifty people set out around town to hang missing posters and talk to local residents. One of the places that the volunteers go to hang posters is on Lewis and Jennifer street.

And reportedly, two volunteers had an interaction with Lewis that stuck out to them as being really strange, as two of the volunteers were hanging a poster on a parking sign outside his home, Louis ducked his head out of an upstairs window and shout, IT, you guys need to stay out of my yard. Now, according to an article by Justin burton for sf gay, they weren't even in his yard. They were on the street, and neither of them had done anything to provoke that kind of reaction.

But nothing really came of this. But that was just weird if few more months passed without any news from police or hasan y's former Foster family. But then on february second, two thousand and ten, shaolin gets a call out of the blue from a woman who says that SHE knows where her sonny's body is.

Now this woman claim he knows because she's a psychic, which, I mean red flag number one there. But even though the tip definitely isn't the most credible, IT is the first lead anyone has had in months. The psychic directs her to a local state park, and that afternoon, Sherry lin and a small group of searchers head to the park and search in the location.

The psychic said he saw his body in her vision. However, they don't find anything, but they also don't give up hope. And the next day, the same group of searchers returns to the park, this time with the psychic woman in to, once they get there, the woman says that the train doesn't match her vision.

So SHE brings them to another state park that apparently does, but they not find her sony's body there either. At the time, the police were aware of this tip, but they didn't participate in the search. And unfortunately after this, the case goes cold.

On the one year anniversary of his sony's disappearance, oakland police hold a press conference where they once again state that they know her. Sonny was killed by Lewis, but they don't release any new information. And that's IT.

No one's been charged. No further arrests have been made. Who is in Jennifer or even living in california anymore? They split up after the birth of their child and moved out of state, even though his SONY has never been found.

One of the things that stuck out to me right away when I learned about his disappearance was the immediate work from the public and police. The whole community of oakland seem to rally together to try and find this little boy and bring him justice. But in the next story, I want to tell you, that's actually not the case. And IT highlights the failures of the very systems that are put in place to keep tragedies like this from happening.

The second story I have for you today starts on october twenty two thousand and sixteen when police in wouldn't bill washington get a call from a woman who says that she's concerned about her step great grandchild, nine year old t on a, according to an article from king 5 news by Cindy wise， SHE tells police that he hasn't seen tiana in four years since he was about four, five years old. And based on some things that Diana's mother and siblings have said over the years, he believes that Diana is dead. So this is obviously shocking, right? Like, how can you wait four years before reporting someone missing, much less someone you think is deceased?

Well, when police asked her, he says that he was told Diana was dead. So for a long time, I guess IT wasn't weird that he hadn't seen her, but at some point the stories were changing enough that the shifting accounts of how he died weren't adding up. Like SHE says, a tan's mother, trisha, told her several conflicting stories about where tana was over the last four years.

Like at first, IT started with tiana going to live with another relative due to some behavior issues, but then he was told that tiana had actually died of the chicken pox. And now the most recent story is that he drowned in the bathtub several years ago. So the window police are also shocked by this information, especially the fact that this seems to have been a four year saga, and no one has gone to law enforcement until right now.

And when they check their records, they don't see anything like a death certificate on file. So while they're still on the phone, they ask her if anyone else knows about tiana supposed death. And the woman says that, yes, multiple members of their family were given variations of the same stories, and that even cps has been looking for tiana for the last four years as well.

Now, when I heard that C. P. S, has been unsuccessfully looking for this girl for years.

I just about lost my mind because at least to me, if your job is to make sure the kids are safe and you can put eyes on them for years, like something is wrong here, I actually asked our researcher about this because he used to work at D. H. S.

Hearing in inDiana. And I asked, why wouldn't they have called police before this point? And the best explanation SHE could even come up with was that there just might have been understanding issues. So basically what he said is like these checkers, which should have been weekly or monthly because of potential understanding, maybe became like every six months because of case.

I mean, you talked about how cases that take a long time often get push to the back burner because while you're trying to stay on top of the cases already have, new ones are always coming in. So things get missed and sink to the cracks. But these are things, these are people, these are children.

And ask her, I were having this discussion. I mean, he made IT very clear that not putting eyes on her child four years should have been a cause for concern. Like there isn't a legion reason this didn't get reported.

SHE was just trying to figure out why maybe I didn't. And she's a truth lying for assistant that is so broken. It's actually not uncommon for slips like this to happen again.

That is not to say that they shouldn't have called police. They absolutely have as soon as they realized that they hadn't seen tiana. But this tip from the relative only ends of getting worse, because before he hangs up, the woman on the phone gives police one last chilling detail.

SHE alleges that after t on a died, trish and her husband Jordan placed her body in a plastic tub filled IT with concrete and then hit her under another relatives trailer. Now I don't know what makes her think that he never says, so i'm not sure if someone else told her or if t on his parents said something. But either way, when police hear about that, they waste no time and look up where exactly trailer is.

IT turns out it's actually in another jurisdiction, so they hand the case off to the snohomish county police. And when no homage county takes a look, they are surprised to find that the cortona family has already been on their radar. IT turns out a social worker from child protective services had already been in contact with another detective regarding tea on is wear about, although for some unknown reason, a missing person's report was never filed.

So obviously the next person that police want to talk to is that social worker to figure out why the heck they didn't file a missing person's report. They get in contact with them and they confirm that C P S has been trying find her for a while now. But every time someone tried to locate Diana, her mother would refuse to CoOperate, which I guess I thought that if C P S tells you that they need to see your child, you have to comply.

But when I was talking with our researchers, SHE said that actually doesn't have the authority to force you to produce your child. This is why the police can be called in for more difficult situations. But doing that will just cause more work for an R, T.

Overloaded case worker. So one of the first things that police try to nail down with this cps worker is how long the'd been looking for tiana? Because I remember this great grandmother told police that cp s has been looking for her for years.

But this timeline is something that both parties disagree on. According to an article by dan caused to for king five news, C, P, S states that they have only been looking for tiana for several months, not years. But in that same article, police alleged that they were told by cps that the search has been going on for several years.

So whether this is just a nice communication or something worse, I don't know, but either way, this little girl hasn't been seen by her family for a while. By now, police have launched a full scale investigation in to where tyana could be. They learned from cp s that their first contact with the family was in two thousand and seven when tyana was born as a drug exposed infant, and therefore he lived with her grandmother while they worked on reunification with her mom.

But bi, two thousand and ten, when tiana was three, that reunification happened and cp s closed the case. The last official record of her was from later that year in september that when he received an immunization, once that first case was close, the family moved around a bit and C, P, S, states that they didn't have any further involvement. Until june of two thousand and sixteen, one of toni siblings reported to school officials that her stepfather Jordan had touched her inappropriately.

So the school called both cp s and police. Now when Jordan was interviewed, he actually admitted to the allegation, but unfortunately there weren't any charges filed and he was let go. I can't find anything in my source material that would tell me if he was just allowed back into the home right after admit to something like that.

But eventually I do know that he moved back in with the family. Police learned that shortly after this, a social worker asked trisha a to provide them a list of everyone who lived in their house. And according to the article I mentioned earlier by cindi, wise treasures complied.

But tiana isn't on the list. So this is what caught the social worker's attention because they had a record of tana from back in two thousand and ten. But when trisha was confronted about this, like why SHE oba said, not here, russia, just double down and said that he didn't have any more kids.

So the C. P. S. Worker goes and talk to trisha, three other kids, and at least one of them says that tiana was living with another relative, although they didn't know who, and they say they hadn't seen her in years.

So the social worker goes back to treasure. A confronts her with this, but treasure refused to give them any information. The only thing he said was that tyana was with someone.

SHE never says who and SHE says that she's asked this mystery person to give cp S, A call. But surprise, surprise, that call never came. So it's at this point that C, P, S, finally contacted law enforcement and asked for help.

This is August now. A detective did contact treasure and aska. Tiana was at the time, and treasure said that he was on a camping trip with a friend and would be back on september second in time for school to start.

SHE told the detective that he would let them know when tiana was back. Once again, a call never comes in, and the september second deadline came and went with no sign of tiana. C, P, S, did contact local schools to try and find out where tiana was enroll, but according to a king five article by lia via, they found out that no school in the area had her on their rosters.

And shortly after this is when tones great grandmother contacted the police to tell them that tiana was dead. So now that they are caught up with what's been going on, police execute a search warrant, add that trailer that there's suspicious of on october twenty nine. And what they find just confirms their worst fears.

When police look under the trailer, they find a plastic bin filled with concrete. They removed the bin from the property and take IT to the medical examiner's office. And over the next few days, they're able to confirm that IT does, in fact, contain the remains of a little girl who was likely around four years old at the time of her death.

Finally, on november third, they announced that the remains are, in fact, those of tiana cartoner, but they don't release a cause of death. And actually a cause of death has never been released. Police also never released anything about the state of the remains.

I mean, considering how long tyana was under the trailer, i'm not sure how much they even able to let go on if they could tell the cause of death in the days following the discovery of tiana, trisha kids are removed from the home and placed in the care of friends and relatives. Police also interview multiple members of tiana's family as well as her mother and stepfather. There hasn't been a lot released regarding what to shua and Jordan had to say, but in an affidavit obtained by people, multiple family members remember smelling a really strong foul older around the time when tiana is thought to have died.

In this affidavit, those family members state that when they asked about the smell, treasure would tell them that their neighbors were just really into fishing. It's thought that after this is when they put the on his body in the plastic bin and covered IT with concrete to hide the smell. That affidavit also says that treasures had asked another relative for help moving the bin to the trailer.

It's not clear whether or not that relative knew what was inside, but they do say that when they put their hand on the lids, supposedly to open IT, trisha put her foot on the top and warn them not to open the lid. But still, at this point, this is what's baffling my mind. No one went to the police.

All of a sudden, this little four year old girl is gone. There is this weird smell. You were asked to bury a bin.

The little girl doesn't come back for not weeks, months, but years, and no one comes forward. When cps interviews tyana siblings, they described multiple instances of abuse towards tyana from both trisha a. And Jordan. One of them, in particular, describes an incident where four year old tyana hit her head in the bathtub.

According to the washington state department of social and health services, SHE says that Jordan went in to get her after he hit her head, and when he came out with her in his arms, SHE could see that ton's face was black and blue and there was blood coming from her head. Jordan then took tiana to the bedroom, then gathered up the rest of the kids and took them out to dinner. SHE says that when they came back, Diana was just gone, and trisha told them that her biological father's family had taken her to live with them because they couldn't handle her anymore.

After this, none of toni siblings remember seeing her anymore, nothing after that day, they said their mother, even packet of t on us things, including all the photos of her that they had in the house and stored everything and relatives shed. Now there are some more details that also come out about just how much cps knew in the months leading up to the discovery of t on his body. Specifically, one of the most frustrating things that comes out is that trishna had misdirected C P, S, S.

Searches for tiana multiple times. Like whenever he was asked about t is where about SHE would flat out lie and give the social worker names of people who didn't even ist. So not only was SHE refusing to CoOperate, but he was actively obstructing their investigation, which could resolve in legal penalties like failure to report or false reporting.

But IT doesn't even seem like SHE ever faced those charges in the weeks following the discovery of tiana remains. Law enforcement doesn't release any information about their case against trisha and Jordan if there even was a case against treasures and Jordan. But later, according to an article for king 5 news， a separate dh investigation determine that, quote, both were responsible for negga gent treatment of the girl but not responsible for physical abuse.

And quote, that article also states that Tasha admitted to tyana dying while in her care, but wouldn't get consistent stories regarding exactly how would happen. According to that same article, tiana's autopsy was completed soon after her remains were discovered. But like I said, the results have never been made public, and despite what seems to many, even me like kind of an open in short case, police still have not made an arrest, and that's IT.

There hasn't been an update from police since two thousand seventeen. And right now, the people responsible for at least covering up her death are just out there in the world living their lives. In the last update from police in two thousand and seventeen, they say that they're still actively working on making sure they're crossing their teeth and dot in their eyes because they want to get IT right.

But it's been over five years since tyana died, and there still hasn't been closure. The systems put in place to protect kids like a soni and tiana failed them between overwork social workers and holds in the system. There has to be a way to make sure tragedies like these are stopped before they can even happen.

And I don't have the answers for how to fix something like this, which is so fundamentally broken. But one of the organizations working to try and give kids like tiana in a Sunny, a safer future is child held, which is the oldest and largest national nonprofit focused on eradicating child abuse. Child helps mission is to meet the physical, emotional, educational and spirit al needs of abused, neglected and at risk children and their programs and services focus on prevention, intervention and treatment of child abuse and neglect.

One of the resources that they provide is national hotline. And this hot line is staffed by highly trained crisis councillors, twenty four, seven, three, sixty five. This hot line allows phone, text and chat, and there are even translation services available in more than one hundred and seventy different languages to learn more and support the efforts of child help. You can visit child help dot work, and if you are in need of the child help national child abuse hotline, you can contact them at one eight hundred four a child, and if you have any information about the two cases we cover today, contact information for the appropriate authorities can be found in the shower notes.

Again, you can find those resources in our shown notes. You can also find them on our blog post where we have all the source material for this episode. That's crime june podcast dot c. Be sure to follow us on instagram at crime genti podcast, and i'll be bath next week with a brand new episode.

Crime junkie is an audio chuck production, so what do you think, chuck do you prove?