cover of episode Episode 2: “She Built Her Own Prison”

Episode 2: “She Built Her Own Prison”

2024/7/30
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Pushkin. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and I'd like to take a moment to talk about an amazing new podcast I'm hosting called Medal of Honor.

It's a moving podcast series celebrating the untold stories of those who protect our country. And it's brought to you by LifeLock, the leader in identity theft protection. Your personal info is in a lot of places that can accidentally expose you to identity theft. And not everyone who handles your personal info is as careful as you.

LifeLock makes it easy to take control of your identity and will work to fix identity theft if it happens. Join the millions of Americans who trust LifeLock. Visit LifeLock.com slash metal today to save up to 40% off your first year.

Choosing employee benefits can be hard. Keep your business competitive by looking out for your employees' needs with quality benefits from the Hartford. The Hartford Group Benefits Team makes managing benefits and absences easy while providing your employees with a streamlined, world-class customer experience that treats them like people, not like policies.

From supplemental health benefits to coverage for life and loss, the Hartford has flexible products and personalized service solutions to meet the needs of your employees. Keep your workforce moving forward with group benefits from the Hartford. Learn more at thehartford.com slash benefits. The most innovative companies are going further with T-Mobile for Business.

Together with Delta, they're putting 5G into the hands of ground staff so they can better assist on-the-go travelers with real-time information, from the Delta Sky Club to the Jet Bridge. This is elevating customer experience. This is Delta with T-Mobile for Business. Take your business further at t-mobile.com slash now.

Before we get to this episode, I want to let you know that you can binge the entire season right now, ad-free, by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. You can hear every episode before they're released to the public. Sign up for Pushkin Plus on the Where's Deer Apple Podcast show page or visit pushkin.fm slash plus. Now, on to the episode. Last time on Where's Deer.

Julie and I have spent hours and hours and hours going over every scenario that it could possibly be, and we came down to the same thing. She did not leave of her own accord. You know, obviously, when you're the last person to see him, you always become the suspect.

Two days after Dia disappeared, Keith Harper, the man who says he was Dia's fiancé, drives to New Mexico. And within a week, police in San Juan County obtain a warrant and search a large, fenced-in storage building belonging to Harper. The cops also search Harper's motorhome, on the grounds that it's linked to a missing person or possible homicide.

They remove a section of the driver's seat and seize it as evidence. Several weeks later, Harper sues the police to get his RV back. He wins, and nothing else comes of it, as far as I know. Harper eventually returns to the ranch, where he and Diana Feder, Dia's close friend from Idyllwild, have a showdown with Dia's two kids, Clinton and Krasara. I talked to Clinton about what went down that day.

He's this very tall guy with dark cropped hair, green eyes, and a bit of a nervous energy about him. Although, perhaps that's to be expected under the circumstances. I feel that I have to speak for my mother because I don't think anybody else really can speak for me.

Around a month after Deer's disappearance, Clinton says that he and his sister drove up to Bonita Vista Ranch with their attorney to take Deer's truck. They didn't want Harper having it. But that's when Diana stops them in their tracks. She hands them a piece of paper, a legal document, that has Deer's signature on it.

She handed us the power of attorney, and the power of attorney is shockingly broad if you read it. I mean, it gives them total control over whether or not to sell or buy anything. I think it even says even while she's alive. In other words, Deer's children can't take the truck, and they also have to turn over their set of house keys to Diana and Harper, the keys to Deer's kingdom.

Deer's children had only met Harper and Diana a few weeks before this encounter. Clinton told me he also had no idea that Harper was engaged to their mother. How did that feel? How did that feel? Yeah. Strange. I mean, just weird that people I didn't know were in our family home that we spent millions of dollars building and exerted a lot of effort on designing. And I had gone up there ever since I was a little kid.

Clinton is suspicious of Harper and Diana right off the bat, even though he has no evidence that proves they had anything to do with Deer's disappearance.

This confrontation sets up something that will continue to snowball for years. A power struggle that will become so big it will consume Clinton and Harper's lives. Clinton versus Harper. Battling it out over Dia's estate. The more I've learned about Dia's life, the more I've wondered, how did someone who had a family and friends and a supposed fiancé end up with all these people fighting over her estate?

How did this glamorous blonde go from living in her mountain paradise in a town called Idyllwild to completely disappearing? It's been hard to understand Dia. I've had to craft a picture of her through the people she left behind. Even if I'm not quite sure, I can totally believe what they're telling me. It can be a bit of a mindfuck, to be honest. It feels like I'm looking at Dia through a prism or a warped pair of glasses that distort everything.

But in this episode, I'm going to tell you about how Dia ended up on a huge ranch in the mountains at odds with her family, living with a man who says they were secretly engaged. I'm Lucy Sheriff, and this is Where's Dia? Episode 2. She built her own prison. It took me a while to track Peggy Kenshalo down, Dia's younger sister, and tell her

But I did, and eventually met her at her studio apartment in the San Diego suburbs. Right away, Peggy seemed like the key to unlocking who Dia used to be, before she got caught up with the Idlewild crowd. She called me Piggy Puff. And I called her, I think my mom told me, I couldn't say Lydia, so I called her Dia. And that's how she got Dia.

Peggy told me that she and Dia grew up with their older brother Jim in a nice house with an avocado orchard on a patch of land in La Mesa, a small inland community east of San Diego. Even though Dia was the middle child, she was the one given special treatment. I remember my dad bought us all Pinto's cigars. Yeah.

And my brother and I got these like stripped down pintos, but Dia got a two-toned pinto that had like fur, like carpet in it. And she even had a radio. And so she kind of got, you know, she had the perks for being a middle child. And she always said, I'm the middle child. I'm the meat in the sandwich. That's her choice. The family had chickens and dogs, and Dia loved her animals.

Peggy remembers one intense moment in particular that happened after Dia's dog died. She had a dog one time named Coco that got hit by a truck and she went up there and scraped up its blood and stuff and stuck it in a baggie. I will never forget. It was weird, but she loved her animals. Along the way, something changed. Dia became interested in makeup and fashion and fancy things.

In getting out of La Mesa and leaving that version of Dia behind. She was funny. She was hilarious. But then she got this money thing where it was everything, everything to her. And it just created a monster.

Peggy is honest about her older sister, unflinchingly honest, to the point where I feel almost uncomfortable talking this way about a woman who's not here to speak for herself. You know, she enjoyed money. She wanted more. Enter Clem Abrams, a much older real estate developer who was from the wealthy enclave of La Jolla, San Diego.

Dia found him in a listing of who's who. Basically, this old school way of dating where young single ladies could find local eligible bachelors. We snagged him. Dia and I did this together back in Jim's old bedroom. I'll never forget doing this. It's called who's who in San Diego. And I called and I would like flirt with him. And then I'd give the phone to her and she would flirt with him. And it was hilarious. And then they met. Clem was old money. Dia had struck gold. Everybody loved Clem.

Clem was really down to earth. Clem used to drive around an old El Camino. Not flashy? No, no, not at all. He didn't have to be. In 1984, Deer got pregnant with Clinton. And so Clem and Deer, who was four months pregnant, tied the knot in front of 100 guests with a reception at SeaWorld. Although, not before signing a prenup on Clem's insistence.

Dia became this socialite in San Diego, and her siblings saw her less and less. Until one day, Peggy and her brother Jim told me, she just cut them out. The only ties she had left to that life in La Mesa. I think she felt put off by us. We liked simple things. She wanted grand things. And she had her own family by that point. Clem, the husband, and their two children, Clinton and Cressara.

Clinton says he was incredibly close to his mum. When Clinton was around 13, Dia left La Jolla and moved to Idyllwild, to her Bonita Vista ranch, without Clem.

Though he still supported her financially. And over time, cracks began to show in Clinton and Dia's relationship. It just wasn't a day-to-day interaction, really. And so it was, you know, more sporadic. I'd talk to her every couple weeks or see her, you know, every month or two months or so. That kind of thing. According to her friends, Dia felt the kids didn't make an effort to see her. Although Clinton says that wasn't the case.

Regardless, Clinton and Deer's relationship did come under strain when Clem's health began deteriorating. I didn't feel like she shared the same degree of concern at the time. I thought everybody was being callous because I was so sensitive to him dying.

Clinton also started to take over Clem's businesses, including the upkeep of Deere's properties in Idyllwild. And he and Deere disagreed over how to manage them. Clinton is a real estate guy. He loves land. He loves property. He prides himself on having good business sense. And he was pushing Deere to get rid of one of her properties. It wasn't really a point of contention, but the interest rate on it was just horrific.

And nobody living there. It was a large monthly nut to cover. I asked Clinton's sister, Krasara, to do an interview too, several times. But I didn't hear back from her or her lawyer. So I can't tell you much more about their relationship. Still, Clinton says their disagreements were never that serious. And it was his mother who started pulling away, not him or his sister. And he doesn't know why. From the outside looking in, she had the perfect life. I mean...

the best husband. I mean, my dad was just so gentle and giving, gave her everything she ever wanted. You know, she had multiple properties, horses, all the jewelry that she could ever want. You know, she went antiquing, she traveled the world. I don't know. I can't explain it, but she did have a tendency to kind of create her own misery in a certain way.

But if Dia's life was that perfect, why did she leave everything behind and move to this remote mountain ranch? Maybe her life looked perfect on the outside, but she must have had her reasons for leaving La Jolla. Dia seemingly had everything that she'd wanted as a child. She lived in the glamorous seaside town so beautiful that it's known as San Diego's Jewel by the Sea. But she turned her back on it for the craggy San Jacinto Mountains.

Clinton says she literally locked herself away from the world. I would call her paranoid because I always told her that. I said, you know, you came out here and we built this beautiful mansion and it's full of all of these valuables. But she would have doors that locked from the inside. So you had to have a key to get out of the house. And so I would always kind of say, you know, you have all these guns and it's kind of like you built yourself up.

a little bit of your own prison. Like you're guarding, you know, all these treasures up here in the mountains. When I piece together everyone's different versions of events, I can see a pattern of estrangement. Dia distancing herself from those closest to her. And where her family was moving out of the picture, these other characters, her Idlewild crew, Diana, and eventually Harper, started moving in. That's after the break.

I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and I'd like to take a moment to talk to you about an amazing new podcast I'm hosting called Medal of Honor. It's a moving podcast series celebrating the untold stories of those who protect our country. Brought to you by LifeLock, the leader in identity theft protection.

Now you may think, I'm smart, I'm careful with my data, I don't need to worry. But the truth is, a lot of your personal information is in the control of others, like your doctor's office, your bank, your insurance provider. All it takes is one breach of any organization that has your info and you could become a victim of identity theft.

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Learn more about taking your business further by visiting t-mobile.com slash now. In October of 2016, when Dia was 62 years old, something happened that I think shows just how isolated she felt. Dia needed major back surgery because she suffered from lower back pain after falling off a horse years ago. On the day of the procedure, Krasara went with her mother to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla.

Not only was the surgery intense, Dia struggled during her recovery. The doctor's notes described Dia as crying continuously, lying on her side and sobbing, and saying her pain was an 18 out of 10. The doctor recommended seeing a psychologist for depression. I've looked through the thousand-plus pages of Dia's medical records from that surgery, and reading them was pretty heartbreaking.

The doctor wrote in his notes, quote, discuss discharge plans and having adequate emotional support for her. She says everybody in her family is too busy. I really feel for Dia here. This woman who is in her 60s with a family feels that she is completely, utterly alone in the world. And it's also this precious moment where I feel I can almost hear Dia in her own words. Then there was this other thing that Dia says happened.

Oh, wait, I should make that clear. Harper says that Deer says happened. I know, it's confusing. Sometime after Deer got out of surgery, Harper says Deer told him this story about Clinton coming to visit her in the hospital. And she talked about how she was thirsty and she asked if he could get her something to drink. And she said, you know, I was coming out of the hospital

drugs that they had given me. And she said, you know, I was a little disoriented for a while. But she said, you know, after I took the drink that he gave me, I slipped into a very deep coma. And I was in that coma for nearly two and a half days before I came out and nearly died. They thought that they were going to lose me. And she said, I honestly believe that he administered me some form of

A drug that was intended to take my life. Wow. And did she tell anybody else about that? Oh, she told the doctor. There was nothing in the medical records about this accusation. But there was this note in her chart. Found her unresponsive to name and stimuli. Unable to wake up. Called 911 and sent to ED for further evaluation.

I had no luck tracking down Deer's doctor to find out more. I did ask Diana about the story, though. Was she concerned that Clinton may have tried to poison her while she was in hospital? She was adamant that he did. Wow. That he slipped her something while she was there. Of course. I asked Clinton about this, too.

What is your response to these accusations that you tried to poison your mother when she was in hospital? It was totally silly and not even worthy of a thought. Clinton also disagreed with what Dia had told her doctor, that everyone in her family was too busy for her. I think, unfortunately, she could be melodramatic. I don't doubt that the doctor made the assessment that she was depressed or sad because she

Regardless of what actually happened, the surgery seemed to be a significant turning point in Dia and Clinton's relationship.

Whether she was growing apart from her kids or not, she felt like she was. Dia was in a long period of recovery from surgery for about two months after being discharged. During that time, according to court records, she created her own trust, separate from her husband's. In it, she put all of her antiques, guns, jewelry, and property, including the Bonita Vista Ranch. Dia was the sole trustee

She was in charge. She had control. In the trust agreement, she had her attorney include this line: "Truster leaves nothing but her love and affection to her son, Clinton Abrams." In the event of Dia's death, Chris Sarah would become trustee of the entire estate and inherit everything. And that might have been the end of it. Except Dia wasn't finished making changes to her trust.

More after the break. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and I'd like to take a moment to talk to you about an amazing new podcast I'm hosting called Medal of Honor. It's a moving podcast series celebrating the untold stories of those who protect our country. Brought to you by LifeLock, the leader in identity theft protection.

Now you may think, I'm smart, I'm careful with my data, I don't need to worry. But the truth is, a lot of your personal information is in the control of others, like your doctor's office, your bank, your insurance provider. All it takes is one breach of any organization that has your info and you could become a victim of identity theft.

LifeLock is a leader in identity theft protection and empowers you to take control of your identity, alerting you to more uses of your personal information and fixing identity theft if it happens. Guaranteed. All your money back. LifeLock offers extensive proactive protection and all plans include the LifeLock Million Dollar Protection Package.

So start protecting your identity today. Save up to 40% off your first year of LifeLock identity theft protection. Go to LifeLock.com slash metal to save 40% off. Terms apply.

The Medal of Honor podcast is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. It's a special thing to be a member of Navy Federal because they're a member-owned, not-for-profit credit union that invests in their members with amazing rates and low fees. That's why members earn and save more every year. If you are active duty, a veteran, or have a family member who is a veteran or service member, you're eligible for membership.

become a Navy Federal member today. Navy Federal Credit Union members are the mission ensured by NCUA Equal Housing Lender. The most innovative companies are going further with T-Mobile for Business.

Tractor Supply trusts 5G solutions from T-Mobile. Together, we're connecting over 2,200 stores with 5G business internet, powering AI so team members can match shoppers with the products they need faster. Together with Delta, T-Mobile for Business is putting 5G into the hands of ground staff so they can better assist on-the-go travelers with real-time information.

By leveraging the nation's largest 5G network, Delta aims to improve operations across nearly every part of the journey, from check-in and boarding to departure, arrival, baggage handling, and beyond. Tractor Supply, Delta, and T-Mobile for Business are all passionate about connecting people and places while delivering exceptional customer experiences along the way. These partnerships are paving the way for unprecedented innovation.

Learn more about taking your business further by visiting T-Mobile.com slash now. Although Dia and Clem were still legally married, they lived their separate lives. And according to Julie Stanford, Dia had an active love life. She liked cowboys, that type. They were mostly pretty boys, you know, and they were useless. Julie is the third slice to the Dia Diana Julie pie.

This tight-knit trio who'd been such good friends before Dia disappeared. Julie and Dia had known each other for years. Basically, when I needed rescuing, she helped me. When she needed rescuing, I helped her. You know, that kind of thing, that kind of good friendship. Dia confided her love troubles to Julie. She didn't have a lot of luck when it came to finding the right guy. She would date guys that were online and online.

But that's exactly what Dia did. According to Harper, they met sometime in the spring of 2016 on a dating site called Farmers Only.

Harper told me about the first time they met face to face. He'd flown from Colorado to California after months of talking to Dia online. She picked me up at the airport. She had Ruby in the back, her dog. And I looked at her and she had Jay in her car. And I said, boy, you are a country girl, aren't you?

Harper says they spent four blissful days together. Horseback riding, hiking. And then the adventure was over. Harper flew back home to Colorado. But they kept in touch. And then he decided to come back for another visit.

And then another. Until the end of 2016, a couple of months after Dia's surgery, he says he just moved in for good. You know, the ranch was pretty overgrown when I first came in. You could hardly see the cabin. But we started lining the place up because, you know, her tent was to use it as an Airbnb and it just needed the work before it done.

Julie disputes the timeline when Harper moved in, saying it was more like 2018. Regardless, when Julie finally met Harper, she approved. Harper owns land and businesses in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. He's a soul-of-the-earth kind of guy, unlike the pretty boys Deer usually went for. He gets his hands dirty. Harper knew how to do things, repair things, work around the ranch.

And that was something she needed, and someone to kind of lean on. She was lonely, and that's still, that's void. Harper and Deer had something else in common too. They both loved money. There was one occasion when Julie and Deer were showing Harper around Julie's place. Back then, Julie lived in a trailer on a beautiful property that used to be a cattle ranch.

There's this stretch of time where I don't really know what's going on up there at the ranch. Harper says that after he moved in, they just lived their lives, traveling around the American West and managing the ranch.

But then something happened that caused a domino effect of events. Deer's husband Clem died. She died on December 12, 2018. And she said to me, you know, it's Independence Day. It's the first day that I actually feel free.

On that very same day, on Dia's Independence Day, she went back to that trust she created after her surgery and she revisited the part that left her entire estate to her daughter. I've seen this document.

I've seen how over the name Chrysara Abrams, Dia scribbled four or five lines in black ink. She wrote, denied, dated it 12-12-2018, and added her initials D-A. A few pages later, next to that line which said, quote, Truster leaves nothing but her love and affection to her son, Clinton Abrams, Dia added in her own handwriting, quote,

and daughter Chrysara Abrams. So at this point in time, if Dia were to suddenly drop dead, her children would get nothing. All these changes to Dia's trust reflect, in real time, changes she wanted. Unlike wills, trust impacts your life immediately because they dictate how your assets are managed.

In that same crazy month, December of 2018, as if enough hadn't happened already, Harper says he proposed to Dia up on a hill overlooking the ranch on a rock formation. It was up to the butterfly rock. It's up by the waterfall. We would get married. The idea was it would be in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It would be at the key times. There's a little church there. That's where we had identified it.

He says he gave her a gold engagement ring. But Dia never told anyone they were engaged. At least, nobody I've spoken with.

And Harper claims there's a reason for that. If Dia married Harper, she might lose out on the financial support provided by Clem's estate. When she brought it up to her attorneys, they said, you're foolish, Dia, because he has written in there that if you don't marry, you continue to get benefits. If you marry, you would find yourself maybe out of any recourse of getting anything.

That's the reason we didn't vote for it on it. Oh, so you weren't going to get married? We decided not to get married on the advice of the attorney. And here comes another domino. Remember, there are two trusts at play, Deer's and Clem's. And after Clem's death, Deer doesn't just change her own trust. She takes another look at Clem's. The entire time Deer lived in Idyllwild, Clem was paying the bills.

When he was alive, he provided for her, made sure she had everything she needed. But now their children were left in charge of his trust and in charge of how much money she was going to get. So although Clem had provided for his wife throughout his life, now that he was dead, the money didn't seem like it was flowing in Dia's direction like it once was. Here's a good example.

A couple months after Clem died, a once-in-a-generation flood hit Idyllwild. Harper says it caused intense damage on the ranch. And it took out the bridge, it took out the dam, and it left cavities everywhere. And once he had asked Clinton if he would help make the repairs, he refused. He said, you know, if you're eating, that's all you need for right now.

Harper also told me that in January 2020, the kids cut Dia off financially. Clinton says this wasn't the case at all. He says that he sent his mother plenty of money. She was never cut off, not even for a second. I did know about the flood. I don't recall being asked to help. I do recall her discussing it as a potential reason why she couldn't attend Clem's memorial, and I said,

You've got to find a way. This is your husband. And I'm throwing a nice service. That's about really the extent. They love to try and make it sound as if we were refusing her money or some such thing. Did she make it to your dad's memorial? She did, yeah. Again, we have these two opposing narratives. Whatever the reality of how much money the kids were sending Dia...

we do know that she felt it wasn't anywhere near what she deserved. To make things more complicated, there was a change in tax law that affected the amount Dia stood to gain from Clem's estate. So as Clem's legal wife, she was expecting to get around half of his estate, around $5 million. But after the change, she could potentially be left with nothing. Zero. So...

Six months after Clem died, Dia filed a lawsuit against her own children to modify Clem's trust and invalidate that prenup she'd signed with him all those years ago. Dia felt the prenup was unfair and that she'd been pressured into it. She wanted $6.7 million, minimum. Dia and the kids volleyed objections and amendments back and forth through San Diego's Superior Court,

The kids did not want to comply with their mother's demands. Dia was stressed. She texted Diana about it in April of 2020. "I'll tell you everything that's going on with the kids," Dia texted. "It's anyone's worst nightmare." And Diana remembers another comment Dia made, again, about the kids. I had already been aware of the different things that the kids were doing to make her life miserable.

with the lawsuit. And she turned to me and she said, if anything ever happens to me, Clinton did it. So we're almost back to that June of 2020, back to the day when Dia disappeared. But there's one other thing I've got to tell you about before we can close that loop of time. Remember that Dia had crossed Krasara out of her trust and had very specifically noted that Clinton would get nothing?

Well, Dia made one more major move. She changed her trust. Again. Dia named a new beneficiary. Keith Leslie Harper. And, as an alternate trustee, second in command if something happened to Harper was Diana Fedder. This meant that if anything happened to Dia, Harper would assume control of her trust and benefit from her entire estate.

All her antiques, bank accounts, jewelry and property. Assets worth potentially millions of dollars. Two weeks after Dia made this change to her trust, she disappeared. Coming up on Where's Dia. There was a piece of paper that said that she feared for her life. He would constantly call me, constantly text me. Is Dia dead? Is Dia alive? She says over and over, over and over again.

to me and others that if I disappear, it is my son's doing. Where's Dia is written and hosted by me, Lucy Sheriff. Our producer is Daphne Chen. Editing by Karen Shikurji. Production assistance from Joey Fishground. Fact-checking by Lauren Vespoli. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith.

Original score, sound design and mastering by Echo Shores. Where's Deer is a co-production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. You can listen to all of Where's Deer right now, ad-free, by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Find Pushkin Plus on the Apple show page for Where's Deer or at pushkin.fm slash plus.

I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and I'd like to take a moment to talk about an amazing new podcast I'm hosting called Medal of Honor. It's a moving podcast series celebrating the untold stories of those who protect our country. And it's brought to you by LifeLock, the leader in identity theft protection. Your personal info is in a lot of places that can accidentally expose you to identity theft.

and not everyone who handles your personal info is as careful as you. LifeLock makes it easy to take control of your identity and will work to fix identity theft if it happens. Join the millions of Americans who trust LifeLock. Visit LifeLock.com slash metal today to save up to 40% off your first year.

Malcolm Glabel here. Let's re-examine the details of your employee benefits. With the Hartford Group Benefits Insurance, you'll get it right the first time. Keep your business competitive by looking out for your employees' needs with quality benefits from the Hartford.

The Hartford Group Benefits team makes managing benefits and absences a breeze while providing your employees with a streamlined, world-class customer experience that treats them like people, not policies.

From supplemental health benefits to coverage for life and loss and more, the Hartford has flexible products and personalized service solutions to meet the diverse and unique needs of your employees. Keep your workforce moving forward with group benefits from the Hartford. The Bucks got your back. Learn more at thehartford.com slash benefits.

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