cover of episode Episode 4: “Don’t Go There Alone”

Episode 4: “Don’t Go There Alone”

2024/8/13
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Where's Dia?

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This chapter delves into the circumstances surrounding Jodi Newkirk's death at Bonita Vista Ranch, including her relationship with Keith Harper and the events leading up to her fatal ATV accident.

Shownotes Transcript

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.

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Take your business further at T-Mobile.com slash now. 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 buck's got your back. Learn more at thehartford.com slash benefits.

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 Dear Apple Podcast show page or visit pushkin.fm slash plus. Now, on to the episode. Just to warn you before we start.

This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault and violence. Last time on Where's Dia? We were pushing ardently to have her removed as trustee because to me and to my sister, we felt that it was quite obvious that he had some involvement in Dia's disappearance. He had every reason to harm her.

But so did Kersara and Clinton just because so much money's involved. In the fall of 2021, a woman named Jodi Newkirk was working on the Bonita Vista ranch. This was over a year after Deer was last seen.

It seems like Jodi was a kind of jack-of-all-trades. She handled the horses, cleaned, and did general handywoman stuff. For Keith Harper. This is a video from a local photographer, who Jodi took on a tour of the ranch. As far as I can tell,

The photographer is shown an idyllic setting, with no hint of what's happened here before or what is soon to come. In the video, Jodie is wearing a strapless, red, white and blue striped tank top, baggy jeans and chunky work boots. And her skin has a nice natural tan.

Jodi and the photographer walk up a gravel drive. There's a white RV parked underneath a pine tree, a large metal butterfly seat, and an outdoor gym. They go up to an old log cabin. The entrance is flanked by wooden horse heads. Inside, the cabin is dark and crowded, teeming with trinkets. Yeah, it's got a barbecue and an outdoor fireplace.

It's got great views. It does, doesn't it though? God, I love it here. It's so peaceful. God, I love it here, Jodie says. She offers to cut the photographer a deal on rent in exchange for new photos to advertise the ranch for events.

There was a lot going on up there. Renovations, a new bridge being built, and Harper was even hosting wedding ceremonies. So, yeah, it's always good to have kind of like an updated... Yeah, yeah, yeah. A totally new, you know, style. You know, look at it. A fresh look at it. Yes, exactly. Around three months after this video was taken, Jodie was found dead on the ranch.

Before I get too deep into who Jodie was and how she ended up dead on Bonita Vista Ranch, I want to explain why I'm telling you about her. It's not just because this is another tragic unexplained event that deserves some airtime, or because it provides another shocking twist in this strange story. I'm telling you about her because it's a chance to peer inside Harper's relationship with another woman.

In fact, that's really what this whole episode is about. Harper's relationships with other women. Their stories made me question whether Harper and Dia's relationship was really as picture perfect as he said it was. I haven't been able to speak with Dia. She can't tell me what Harper is like as a lover or a partner or even a friend. But these other women, they can. ♪

I'm Lucy Sheriff, and this is Where's Dia? Episode 4, Don't Go There Alone. Kelly Berkowitz-Trotter is Jodie Newkirk's sister. Oh, hi, sweetheart. I'm talking to my friend Lucy. We're talking about Auntie Jodie. Kelly explained to me that Jodie hadn't always been the happy and confident woman I'd watched in the photographer's video. For years, Jodie had struggled with drug addiction, in particular, meth.

And she'd done some things that strained her relationship with Kelly. My sister stole my identity many years ago, and she actually was arrested for it, and not by my doing at all, but she was caught, and she was going to have to serve jail time and stuff. But Kelly says that Jodi was working on trying to get clean. And it's crazy, I digress a little bit here, but...

On the 23rd of December 2020, she and I had a very loving, healing conversation about all of that where she apologized to me. Harper told me he'd hired Jodi to work on the ranch because she was renting out one of Dia's properties and she was behind on payments. Jodi could do some work to make up the missing rent.

But Kelly told me that Jodi and Harper met through a dating site, which I found interesting because that's how Harper said he met Dia. Regardless, by the time Jodi was working at the ranch, it seemed like she was on track. We were on such good terms and so much closer and there was like a...

Jodi was a hardcore drug addict. So as close as one can be with someone who is in that kind of state of mind. And she was trying a lot, you know, of different things to get herself clean, as she always had been since she was 15 years old. The day Jodi died, Kelly was on holiday in a remote cabin in the woods.

And so it took her a while to get cell service. It was driving rain that day, just such a terrible storm. And I saw that I had a bunch of missed calls from my brother-in-law, Lindsay. Lindsay is Jodi's ex-partner. And Kelly told me that he and Jodi were best friends, ride-or-die friends.

So when I saw that, I immediately knew something was wrong. And I was able to call him from my daughter's phone. And basically, I just remember standing there in this cabin with my daughter and one of my closest friends. Sorry. Okay. Your time. And yeah, Lindsay said that...

Jodi had been in an accident. She rolled over in an ATV and I was like, oh my God, is she okay? And he said, no, she's not. Lindsay had heard the news about Jodi from Harper. We didn't know anything about Dia. We didn't know anything about Harper. We were kind of on this crazy...

Kelly would soon come to learn a lot about Keith Harper and Dia Abrams. In part, because Jodi kept a detailed journal during those short few months she was living at the ranch. After Jodi's death, Kelly sent me pictures of the journals she'd found in Jodi's belongings. Jodi's journal entries are written like letters. A lot of them are addressed to Harper.

The first entry that Kelly sent me is strangely written to Harper and Dia. I asked my producer Daphne to read some extracts. "Dear Dia and Harper, So even though we never met, I really feel a bond with you. I hope from the bottom and all of my heart that you realize that I truly have you and yours, all of your animals, friends and home, possessions, and even Harper's best interests at heart. I do honestly think you will be coming home. I hope you like me.

Jodie's handwriting is erratic. It's big, looping, and in the same journal entry, she'll use two or three different pens, red ballpoint and then a thick black sharpie. There are a lot of capital letters and exclamation points. The rest of her letters are all addressed to Harper. And from Jodie's writing, it sounds like her relationship with Harper was more than professional.

I need to vent, I'm losing my mind. I realize that you sure can act like you like me a whole lot when you want me, but I really don't matter that much to you. I feel like you're a dog, a high-class gigolo.

Anyhow, you really do sleep with as many females as you can, and you tell all girls what they want to hear, and you tell them all basically the same thing. I really am feeling very strange about the "always going to miss me" comment in the text a few days ago. I don't like the way that sounds. Not a bit. It's weird. Fuck you, Harper. What we had wasn't really all that to you. I'm no Anna or Patricia, but you know what? I would have killed, died, given my right arm for you. Even if you don't deserve it. I know who you are.

I loved, love you anyway. You will see when I'm gone and I'm already gone. Goodbye. I don't know how much of what Jodi writes is objectively true, but Harper saw things differently. She came and rented a place on Toolbox. And I met her and she was having trouble paying for her rent. And she asked if she could come and work to help cover some of the expenses of it.

And then what was your relationship like with Jodie? And I ask this because obviously she had these journal entries which suggested that you may have been in a romantic relationship with her. No, never. Not even relatively close to that. But what was your relationship like with her? It was a working relationship. That's what it was.

The journal entries aren't dated, so I don't know exactly when Jody was writing those entries. It seems clear to me, though, that things weren't great up at the ranch, at least from Jody's perspective. And on the 23rd of December, they got much, much worse. Sometime around 5pm, Harper called 911. I have the coroner's report that explains what happened next.

An officer with the California Highway Patrol arrives at the ranch. He finds Harper giving CPR to Jodi. She's lying on the ground, pinned down by an ATV. The paramedics arrive, but it's already too late. They declare Jodi dead at the scene. The Highway Patrol officer noted that there didn't seem to be any trauma or injuries consistent with a rollover traffic collision.

he found Harper's account of what had happened to Jodie suspicious. Harper's version goes like this. On that day, December 23rd, Jodie decided to go out on an ATV to cut down a Christmas tree. It was raining really hard that evening. But according to Harper, Jodie went out anyway.

And then, Hopper says...

He found Jody lying in the mud, pinned down by the off-road vehicle. We do CPR. I do CPR on Earth for about 20 minutes until they actually show up with the paramedics. Kelly, Jody's sister, told me that at some point, Harper managed to reach Lindsay, Jody's ex. And Lindsay then relayed the tragic news to Kelly.

Kelly called around hospitals, trying to find out where Jodie's body was and what exactly had happened. She reached the coroner, who told her that Jodie was still on the dirt track, lying next to the ATV. In fact, the responders left Jodie's body outside, covered by a tarpaulin, for hours. They told me that they were still up there.

Because of the sleet and the hail, it was so bad up there that they couldn't move her body. And I was freaking out. Kelly was desperate for more information. Finally, she tracked down someone at the Riverside Sheriff's office. And I'll never forget that she just immediately went on the defensive about how...

It's an open investigation. They don't know anything yet, and it could jeopardize things to tell me anything. The details were still so murky. Eventually, she heard from Lindsay, Jodi's ex-partner, that there might be more to the story. And so they began their own investigation. Lindsay had said that he went on the internet and he found a...

thing about the ranch that Jodi worked on and he told me the story of Dia. And I was like, what the actual fuck? Kelly got Harper on the phone. She wanted answers. And Harper gave her a disturbing account. So he was like in the conversation telling me exactly what

she sounded like as he was trying to like it was fucked up I'm sorry I didn't realize that she was still alive when Harper got there I don't know if she was or not but he said that she made like a gurgling sound

when he was giving her CPR, but you can't trust anything the man says at all. Like, you can pretty much just, you know, just take out a Sharpie and just cross out every damn thing he says. Like, literally, he just, he's allergic to the truth. Anyway, I don't want to get too into the weeds on the conversation with him, but...

I got off the phone going, "Okay, this guy killed my sister." To be quite clear, there is no evidence proving this. And Harper has denied having anything to do with Jodi's death. But it was this feeling that Kelly had about Harper that made her determined to get hold of the autopsy report, which the cops didn't want to release. But she continued pressuring them.

It took nearly a year, but the cops finally unsealed it. We'll be right back. 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. Let's talk about what it takes to keep your business competitive. Sure, you need to be responsive to your customers, but it's just as important to look out for the needs of your employees.

They're the ones who keep things humming along and fuel your company's success. So let the experienced professionals at the Hartford provide the quality benefits that your employees deserve.

The Hartford Group Benefits makes managing benefits and absences a breeze, providing world-class customer care to ensure that your employees are treated like people, not like policies. The Hartford offers flexible products to meet the needs of every employee. From supplemental health benefits to coverage for life and loss, the Hartford has you covered.

So keep your workforce moving forward with group benefits from the Hartford. The buck's got your back. Learn more at thehartford.com slash benefits. This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. Hey, have you heard the news? Sauron has returned in season two of Lord of the Rings, the Rings of Power.

If you didn't see season one, you need to check it out. It's epic. And season two looks to build on that. If last season was all about the heroes, then this season is all about the villains. And I mean, who doesn't want to see the greatest villain of all time in action? So like I mentioned, Sauron is back. He's forging the rings of power. You get to see how powerful they really are. Nobody in Middle-earth is safe.

Okay, so I know a bunch of you have been counting down until this comes out, but really, this is a show anybody will love. If you love action, fantasy, or drama, you'll love Rings of Power. It's got it all, seriously. So don't miss any of the elf, wizard, or harfoot fun. Season 2 of Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, premieres on August 29th, only on Prime Video.

In the fall of 2022, the Riverside Sheriff's Department finally unsealed Jodie Newkirk's autopsy report. You might remember, Harper had said that Jodie was crushed by an ATV, a story that seemed suspicious at the time, to the highway patrol officer who attended the scene. When Jodie's sister Kelly finally got a hold of the report...

She learned what the coroner had found to be the cause of Jodi's death. Acute methamphetamine toxicity. In other words, an overdose of meth. The coroner found a glass pipe in Jodi's pocket. But for the manner of death, the coroner wrote, undetermined, because there was, quote, "...no evidence to determine if Newkirk administered the drugs to herself or if someone else administered it to her."

So we know what killed her, but we don't know how the meth got into her system. I did find one other interesting thing in the report. Alberto Larrero, the lead investigator on Dia's case, makes an appearance. He tells the coroner that he couldn't rule out foul play either. The cops questioned Harper, but he was never arrested. And as far as I can tell, there was no further action over Jodi's death.

Jodi's sister Kelly joined the growing list of people frustrated with Riverside Sheriff's lack of action. Oh, they didn't care. They didn't even want her cell phones. What? Nope. They didn't even do a search warrant. But Kelly did find out the police had interviewed Jodi a couple of weeks before she died. Kelly said Jodi had filed a police report claiming her horse had been stolen. It's a weird, complicated story. Surprise, surprise.

But Kelly said investigator Alberto Larrero later told her what had happened. And the police told me that she came down there and they took her into an interview room with a camera and they filmed the whole thing. And that's when they were telling her about Dia and Harper and telling her to leave. And Larrero said...

She was told. I don't know if he told me that he had told her directly, but he told me, I don't understand why she wouldn't listen. Why didn't she leave? I don't understand. She was told. I asked Lorero if this interview with Jodi had ever taken place. He told me he didn't remember. Eventually, Kelly held a memorial service for her sister. She hasn't gotten the answers she was looking for, and it's something she still struggles with today.

During our last phone call, right before we hung up, Kelly gave me a piece of advice. I had told her I'd been considering going up to the ranch before Jodie had died. He's invited me up there and I almost went. Don't go alone. If you go, bring men with you. I had been so curious to see the ranch, to get a feel of where Dia lived and who she was. And now I felt like I'd be taking this risk going up there alone.

I felt like I couldn't shrug off my reservations anymore. So I decided not to go. A couple of months after Jodie's memorial service, in May of 2022, Harper appeared in court in Colorado. It had nothing to do with Jodie or Dia. In fact, it was over an incident that had taken place about 10 years prior. And Harper was appearing in court because he wanted to be removed from the sex offender registry.

In 2011, Harper was convicted of groping two women on a snowmobile tour. He used to run an outdoor adventure business in Colorado. Harper pled not guilty to the charges. He spent a year in a county jail, had to complete a sex offender treatment program and register as a sex offender until 2025. Harper went to the Colorado court in 2022 to see if he could be removed from the registry a few years early.

He maintained his innocence and said he grabbed the women because they were about to fall off from the snowmobile. But his court petition went nowhere. I wondered what else was in Harper's past. So I dug around and it turns out there is more, a lot more. 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 Honour.

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. Let's talk about what it takes to keep your business competitive. Sure, you need to be responsive to your customers, but it's just as important to look out for the needs of your employees.

They're the ones who keep things humming along and fuel your company's success. So let the experienced professionals at the Hartford provide the quality benefits that your employees deserve.

The Hartford Group Benefits makes managing benefits and absences a breeze, providing world-class customer care to ensure that your employees are treated like people, not like policies. The Hartford offers flexible products to meet the needs of every employee. From supplemental health benefits to coverage for life and loss, the Hartford has you covered.

So keep your workforce moving forward with group benefits from the Hartford. The buck's got your back. Learn more at thehartford.com slash benefits. This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. Hey, have you heard the news? Sauron has returned in season two of Lord of the Rings, the Rings of Power.

If you didn't see season one, you need to check it out. It's epic. And season two looks to build on that. If last season was all about the heroes, then this season is all about the villains. And I mean, who doesn't want to see the greatest villain of all time in action? So like I mentioned, Sauron is back. He's forging the rings of power. You get to see how powerful they really are. Nobody in Middle-earth is safe.

Okay, so I know a bunch of you have been counting down until this comes out, but really, this is a show anybody will love. If you love action, fantasy, or drama, you'll love Rings of Power. It's got it all, seriously. So don't miss any of the elf, wizard, or Harfoot fun. Season 2 of Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, premieres on August 29th, only on Prime Video.

I'm going to tell you about two other women who Harper had relationships with. The first woman is someone I'll call Sarah, to protect her privacy. In 2000, an investigator with a local DA's office in Colorado filed an affidavit to obtain an arrest warrant for Keith L. Harper. The investigator said he had probable cause to believe Harper had committed four felonies, including first-degree sexual assault and second-degree kidnapping.

In his report, the investigator wrote up a detailed description of Sarah's allegations. I got a copy of it through a public records request. Sarah accused Harper of physically and sexually assaulting her. One time, during an argument, Harper allegedly grabbed her by the throat and threw her to the ground. Sarah described another disturbing incident that culminated in rape.

There's one other part of the report I'm going to read, where the investigator summarizes a third incident Sarah told him about. The report says, quote,

Harper then began pushing her down the hall, still holding his hand over her mouth and nose. When they arrived near the bedroom, she told me she stopped struggling completely because she thought to herself, I better stop fighting or I'm going to die. According to court records, she got a restraining order against Harper. There were multiple hearings before the trial.

From what I can gather reading through the court documents, Sarah, the main witness, tried to withdraw the charges. But by that point, it was in the DA's hands. They were the ones filing the charges against Harper. Sarah stopped cooperating. The DA's prosecutors tried to subpoena her to appear in court. Eventually, the judge decided Sarah shouldn't testify.

that doing so would cause her, quote, permanent impairment. I reached out to Sarah to see if I could speak with her, but didn't hear back. The prosecution's case fell apart. Eventually, Harper was only charged with third-degree assault. He pled guilty and was convicted on that charge. He was put on probation for a year and had to enroll in domestic violence classes. I asked Harper about all of this. It was dropped.

And the court finally released the fact, if I would agree to just take a class at the end, that those charges would be dismissed. Okay. Okay. So are you saying that... You've got to realize that... What's that? No, carry on. I was going to say, you've got to realize that there was... I had a business involved that she was going after.

You're saying she was fabricating what happened because she wanted to get... Oh, without a question. That's how she would have gotten access to the business. I felt uneasy after talking with him. He always sounded so sure, so convinced of his narrative. Like when he explained what happened to Jodie, it was like there was no room for any other perspectives or possibilities. It was his truth or nothing. And then I found another woman.

someone who was in a serious relationship with Harper for many years. She told me she wanted to share her experience, but to protect her identity, we're not disclosing her name, and we've distorted her voice. When they first met, Harper was charming, flirtatious, cheeky. She told me he had a charisma, which was almost impossible not to fall for. I wondered if this had been Dia's experience too. Long story short, he wooed me.

How does it feel talking to me about him? Do you talk about him much, what you went through? She told me in deep detail about her relationship with Harper. How they met, how he courted her, and then how the relationship soured. There was one particular fight she told me about. He chased me through the house.

I had got up and would run some more and he backed me against the wall with his forearm in my throat. Wow. And that, he was very angry and that's the closest. The thought was too close, you know? Yeah. Yeah. He is so much bigger than I am. Yeah. He is not a man that takes no. He does not accept a no.

Does he tell the truth? Is he a trustworthy person? He and I have that conversation a lot about telling the truth. I have to say no. No. I don't know if it's narcissism, but for the longest time, he told me he was a DEA agent. He told me that too, actually, when I first started speaking to him. He was never DEA.

I couldn't help going over those words. He is not a man that takes no. He does not accept a no. It reminded me of how much Harper had pestered me, and Kelly Snyder, to take on Dia's case. I have spoken with former partners of yours who have described instances of you allegedly being violent.

And then you put that together with whatever happened on the snowmobile, plus the fact that Dee is missing, plus the fact that Jodie Newkirk died on the ranch. And I'm sure you can understand that there is a pattern of events. And you have proof that those events, even though they are spoken of, they're true.

I was not there, so I cannot say. No, no. If there's violence, what proof did you have that violence occurred? Actually, police reports, you have those in your hands? Yes, I have a police report in my hands. And what does it say specifically? It said that you were sexually violent. It said that you grasped somebody around their neck.

Okay. And that went to court. And what happened with it? We spend some time going back and forth on this. He continues to deny that there's any truth to the allegations of violence, that the court didn't hold him accountable for all the charges, and therefore, they're not true. I mean... Well, then stick with the facts and don't stick with accusations. I was intrigued whether Dia knew about all of this. Of course, there's no way to really tell.

But I did ask Harper. So was your relationship that you had with Leah different from the previous relationships you've had? I don't understand that question. What would be different in a relationship? We had an excellent relationship. That's all I can tell you. Okay. Okay. Is there anybody else? What's that? No, no, no. Carry on.

To be clear, even with all this information about Harper's past, there's nothing that holds him responsible for anything that may have happened to Dia. And while I was busy digging around in Harper's past, events in the present day were still unfolding.

You might remember from the last episode that Abrams' kids sued Harper to get him removed from Deer's trust. Well, in December of 2022, a judge appoints a guardian, an independent, objective, legal guardian, to represent Deer's interests in court, although Harper still remains the trustee of her estate. And the judge also passes a settlement agreement between Harper and the two kids.

It feels like an uneasy sort of truce. It's all based on the fact that in California, if someone is missing for five years, they can be declared legally dead. And so, on 6th of June 2025, five years to the day that Dia was last seen, the state of California will presume her dead. And when that happens, all of her assets, the Bonita Vista Ranch, her antiques, her jewelry...

will be divided into three parts. 25% will go to Clinton, 25% to Krasara, and 50% to Harper. Yes, Harper would get double what each of Deer's kids receive. There's just one caveat.

If any one of the parties, them or me, the kids or me, was found guilty of her disappearance or had anything to do with her disappearance or death, we would get nothing. If the kids are found to be involved in D's disappearance, they get nothing. And if Harper is found to be involved, he gets nothing. This language in the court settlement, which was drawn up and agreed to by all three of them,

almost seems to incentivize Harper, Kressara and Clinton to pin Dia's disappearance on each other. Their narratives, their version of events becomes worth something because there's a reward for having one version of this story being held up as the truth. A multi-million dollar reward because if one of them is found responsible for Dia's disappearance, the others walk away with everything.

Next time on Where's Deer. I don't give too much credit to Keith Harper. I don't think he's a criminal mastermind. The consensus was among my staff. It was like, look, I think we just got called over to put all kinds of footprints everywhere to just damage the crime scene, basically.

Where's Deer 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.

This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. Hey there, you've got to check out season two of Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power. It's going to be epic.

To catch you up, Sauron has returned and nobody in Middle-earth is safe. Season two is all about the greatest villain of all time. And if you're like, I'm not into that stuff, think again. If you love action, fantasy, or drama, you'll love Rings of Power. Season two of The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, premieres on August 29th, only on Prime Video.

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 buck's got your back. Learn more at thehartford.com slash benefits.