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As we prepare for a new season of Up and Vanish this January, please check out The Vanishing Point, a new series from the Up and Vanish team. This podcast is absolutely free. But if you want to listen to it ad-free, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus.com or on Apple Podcasts.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast and do not represent those of Tenderfoot TV or their employees. This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In every community, there are outliers. It doesn't matter where you are, a big city or a small town. And that's the case on reservations too.
As our team spoke to people in and around Hoopa, the so-called end of the road seemed to have a reputation of being the place where outliers live. But it was time for our team to see this place for themselves. Our team is currently standing at the end of the road. It's an area Emily Risling frequented and the spot her family believes she disappeared from.
There isn't much here, except for a few trailers, an old building, and the river. Hey Frank, it's Laura, the journalist. Frank, a resident of the end of the road, claims he actually saw Emily near the time of her disappearance, and that she told him about plans to float downriver.
Though the behavior wouldn't be unusual of Emily, some Hoopa residents are suspicious of Frank. I think it's okay. Hi. Hi, Frank. My name's Laura. I work with Allie Hostler. Huh? I work with Allie Hostler for the paper. My name's Laura. Well, come on in. Laura and Jamie went to Frank's home to talk to him about what he remembers. She wasn't on drugs. So she seemed in good spirits. Yeah. She wanted to clean up my house and...
Yeah, she was a very good spirit. And she walked around naked a few times and that never bothered me. Tell us the last thing that you remember Emily saying to you or doing while she was here. Me and my cousin, that's where we were sitting at and he was the last to talk to her. And she carried on a normal conversation. But she was on a mission. She wanted to get to APA. What is there? What is that place? Nothing.
this bunch of spiritual praying grounds. That's why she wanted to go in that direction. She could have said, "Hey, can you take me to Appa?" And I would have found a way to get her there. But she didn't ask. But I believe she's still around here. Not in this form of life, but wondering why no one's come forward and say, "Hey, I've done something to him," or, "I've seen him last," or something. No one's getting involved in things like this no more.
Frank's trailer is small, worn by the glow of a wood-burning stove. There are clothes and other belongings scattered on every surface. Despite the rumors, Frank himself seems unintimidating. He has a worn look about him, the type of eyes that seem like they've weathered a challenge or two. Limping a bit from an injured ankle, he wears a boot on his left leg.
Emily, it still bothers me about her. And it bothers a lot of other people. And I don't see how you can just come up missing.
Frank seemed open to talking about Emily, and he wants to set the record straight about his cooperation with law enforcement. What message do you have to people that are spreading things about you? I let them talk. They got nothing else better to do than to talk about me and things that is not even true. Then I heard everybody say, yeah, she's buried underneath his house, and he's got her somewhere, this and that. And how stupid is that?
I'm Slicia Stanton, and this is The Vanishing Point.
Jamie and Laura regroup with the rest of our team and Yurok Tribal Police Chief Greg O'Rourke. As O'Rourke mentioned, after a series of arrests, he's quite familiar with Frank.
In fact, a few days prior to our visit, Frank had been released from Sempervirens, the primary mental health facility serving the area. Although rumors still swirl, Frank was never a suspect. In fact, he was interviewed three times by law enforcement and his account remained consistent. And the fact is, Frank might have been the last person to see Emily, but without a time or date confirmation, Pequon Bridge remains her last verified location.
As for our team, they perceive Frank as forthcoming, at least during their visit. He even spoke openly about his lifelong struggle with substance abuse. Still, the overarching mystery persists. What became of Emily Risling that fateful October day? Allie Hosler from the Two Rivers Tribune suspects that the river holds clues. I know several people have gone missing in the river and
You know, usually it's up to family members to recover them, to either launch a boat and go recover them themselves or even people will wait at the mouth of the Klamath and wait there for their loved one to get washed out. My brother actually drowned in the river in 2013. He was running from police.
That's sort of a common thing where people will jump in the river to evade police in a pursuit. And he did that and he didn't make it out. So I know of at least three other people around my age that did the same thing. A lot of them make it, some of them don't. I think that's just the general fear of police. There's an overall fear of certain officers not treating people fairly.
You know, there's been cases where people from here have been beaten in jail by correctional officers. There's also a fear of, if I go to jail, I can't use my drugs. I don't have access to drugs like I did before. So when you're an addict and your addiction's taking over your life, avoid jail at all costs because you have to either find drugs in jail or you have to clean up. And not everyone wants to clean up.
While there are still so many questions surrounding Emily's disappearance, we know that substance abuse may have played a role. And if it did, she wouldn't be alone. According to the CDPH Overdose Dashboard, the area encompassing Hoopa Valley reports an opioid death rate eight times the state average. And Ali says it's not only the folks struggling with addiction whose lives are in peril. The spouses, the kids, the parents, the friends,
the community, nothing and no one seems immune. To better understand where this crisis began, we spoke with Humboldt County Sheriff William Hansel.
In Humboldt County, we had a pervasive drug culture. It started with marijuana and then it goes to psilocybin mushrooms and methamphetamine. Heroin was huge, cocaine and now fentanyl. And a lot of people say, well, you have a lot of people that looks like are suffering from either being addicted to drugs and becoming zombie-like. Is that because of the substance abuse or is that because of mental illness? I think it's obviously a little bit of both.
We have people that have that dual diagnosis. If they are addicted to drugs, they oftentimes have some mental illness that's tied to it. Being a rural jurisdiction in California does not make us immune to the fentanyl issues. And we've seen a huge number of fentanyl overdoses here in our county. It has doubled every year for the last three years, which is way too much. We've outfitted all of our deputies with Narcan.
in hopes that if we come across someone who is overdosing, that we can save their life. And that has happened several times over the last couple of years. I believe that there are people that explicitly target people in tribes because sometimes they're stuck in the reservation or maybe these people are stuck in an addiction or two.
You're looking at people that want to take advantage of the system in place. And there are cartels, there are gang members, there are people that are anti-government that hide out on tribal land because they believe that there's some kind of insulation by living in the tribal community. And the cartels see that they can take advantage of people by giving them money, giving them drugs, giving them access
buys them time, buys them opportunity to live amongst members of the tribal community. And when law enforcement does come, it is a very difficult task and oftentimes they're shunned. It can become very dangerous. - I'm going to Mexico City and it's going to be an awesome vacation, all thanks to Viator.
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You can do more without spending more. Learn how to save at Cox.com slash internet. Cox internet is connected to the premises via coaxial cable. Cox mobile runs on the network with unbeatable 5G reliability as measured by UCLA LLC in the US to age 2023. Results may vary, not an endorsement of the restrictions apply. So clearly drugs are a hot button issue in California and particularly in Humboldt County where Hoopa is located. But health concerns and potential overdoses aren't the only risks.
It really feels like it's still the Wild West, and they don't really have a handle on it in terms of policing that area. They never have. We called on Chief Judge Victoria Shaw, a tribal judge in California, to tell us more about some of the more hidden obstacles. I mean, people blatantly growing up
illegal marijuana, it's created an outlaw culture. And so that goes hand in hand with outlaw justice or just, I already break these laws. I'll break a couple more.
Once marijuana was legalized in 2016, the regulatory fees and environmental standards basically priced a lot of people out of the trade. And then the subsequent boom in marijuana farming meant supply quickly outpaced demand. It destroyed sellers' economic advantage.
With all of these changes, many struggle to maintain their way of life. In California, illegal marijuana cultivation continues, and unfortunately, it's gained a reputation for not treating workers fairly. So many people relied on the marijuana industry to pay their bills, to feed their children, to survive. They didn't really have...
a resume and a skill set to be able to support themselves in other ways. So many people who were already self-admitted outlaws turned to other areas of crime. So whether that's maybe selling fentanyl instead of marijuana, or that's stealing, burglarizing places,
Maybe they're just in such a desperate state, they don't really care anymore about other people. They're just out for themselves and they're addicted now. So I think there's sort of a belief that if you are a criminal, you can get away with it easier, longer, and maybe forever in a place like Humboldt County. I learned pretty early on growing up there that
Be careful what situations you put yourself in. Everyone's super territorial and aggressive about it. And that's to say there's not really lovely, beautiful things and people. There's definitely that, but you could just break it down by statistics. Something's more likely to happen in some places compared to others, and that's reality.
Humboldt County is home to ancient redwood forests, environmentally sensitive creeks and streams, and pot. This scenic stretch is where 60% of marijuana is grown in the United States. Experts tell us it's not the climate or the soil that draws farmers here, it's the isolation. You have a range of farmers.
Those who do it right and follow the rules and the illegal grow sometimes hidden on federal land. And there's another startling statistic. Humboldt County also has the highest rate of missing person cases in the state. There's a lot of stories connection with the illegal marijuana industry that was for years people would go missing and that was almost an accepted fact. To be fair to the law enforcement,
Native people aren't the only ones that go missing up there and aren't found and aren't looked for. Like, a lot of people go missing up there and most of them are never found. Historically, criminals have sought Indian reservations to hide out on because they know they're even less likely to be found and arrested if they have warrants or they're suspected in other cases. So it almost attracts those types of people
When I was a kid growing up there, and this is just purely like school gossip, but people would say, oh, Humboldt County is the serial killer capital of the world because people can hide out there. And there's a million places to hide bodies. It is a very beautiful place and it has a lot of healing energy. But yeah, there's people in the shadows that aren't there for that. ♪
Over and over again, as we delved into these missing persons cases, the topic of drugs kept surfacing. It was a sign that this was a piece of the puzzle worth investigating further. But even after we did, so much was still unanswered. We were left with the same central question. What happened to Emily Riesling? Here again is Chief Greg O'Rourke. It's not that I think that.
I can't confirm foul play. I can't confirm a drowning. But I have to be objective and have to be open-minded to that's a possibility. And without any indicator of foul play, then, you know, the likelihood of that possibility becomes stronger. The Risling family hasn't found these answers satisfying. They hope for more searches of the area. They hope that Emily will one day be found.
And I remember telling Emily's mom...
is still having an opportunity to be able to help her people by her message and her story coming out. And, you know, poor Judy, you know, who cried on that. And, you know, I felt bad, but it's, you know, also how I see it. And as for Judy Risling... It's frustrating. I run into people every day that have no idea about this crisis that's going on in the Native communities. So I think bringing awareness...
And searching immediately, these are just like any other missing people. Emily would be out there advocating for this. And so in a way, it's kind of like her talking through me to keep this out there in the public.
I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. ♪
Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.
Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. We good? We're good to go. Okay. Okay, so we can start by, you can introduce yourself, your connection to Simi, and just anything else you feel comfortable sharing. Okay, so I'm Aurelia Alatorre. I am 27...
As we looked into Emily's case, we learned about other cases in the area, and some of them shared similarities. One of these stories was Sumi Juan's. Like Emily, before she disappeared, Sumi struggled with mental illness. My connection to Sumi, she is my mother.
And I haven't lived with her since I was five. I wouldn't live with my dad, and there was just always, like, custody battles. So it's really hard for me when I'm asked about my mom, like, it's really hard for me to say, like, who she was because I didn't really grow up with her. Aurelia hasn't seen her mom in 13 years. So we were living in Reading, and we had come over to Hoopa for a dentist appointment, which we did frequently in races.
I was coming out and I was going to make a new appointment and they have this board right when you walk out and I had seen this poster of her. She was wearing a white t-shirt. Her hair was in a bun with flyaways and that was the first time I'd seen it or heard anything about it. And it said she was missing like September, October. It was kind of just a shock.
Aurelia learned about her mother's disappearance from a missing poster at the dentist's office. Her family had been hopeful that Sumi might turn up, so they'd kept her disappearance a secret. It was best to not upset Aurelia, they'd reasoned, but their plans had the opposite effect. I didn't say anything until we got home, because it was like, is that even real? And I talked to my dad about it, and he said, well, we were hoping she was going to come back. So they didn't say anything.
I don't know many details, but I know that she had a really hard life. Without many memories of her mother, Aurelia relies on family and friends to help fill in the gaps. And I have recently been told that she had us go live with my dad because she wanted us to have a better life. She essentially just gave us to my dad, but she was also dealing with her mental health issues, so I get it.
Laura wrote an article about Sumi for the Two Rivers Tribune. Juan was 32 years old when she was reported missing to the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office on October 29, 2010. According to the Sheriff's Office, Juan was last seen by family members in early October or September 2010 at Hoopa Elementary School. All current information about Juan's case is listed under the unsolved cases on the Humboldt County's website.
Juan is described as a missing person under suspicious circumstances. Can you talk a little bit about how your mom's disappearance has impacted you? I feel like I've just been surviving, to be honest.
When my mom went missing, it felt like nobody was searching for her, like even her own tribe. Like, it was very little effort, so it was just disappointing to see. So it was mostly silence? I know that there were searches. It isn't like how it is, like, now if someone goes missing. I mean, they put out rewards. They're everywhere, and that wasn't the case. Laura interviewed Sumi's mother, Aurelia's grandmother, Sylvia Carpenter. This is what she had to say.
Carpenter explained that the last time that she saw her daughter, Juan was on her way to see a Hoopa resident who Carpenter suspected was a drug dealer. "I said, 'What are you doing? You know how they are. I've never seen her again after that.'" In the years that followed Juan's disappearance, Carpenter said a family member of the alleged drug dealer implied to Carpenter that they knew Juan's whereabouts. "They came to me and said, 'You want to know something about your daughter? You have to come and see me, but you have to come by yourself.'"
Carpenter said, "For real?" And I didn't go. I never did go. Carpenter said that she was eventually told that Juan's remains are allegedly under a cement slab at the home of the alleged drug dealer in Jupa. He would never let anybody go there, Carpenter said. He's been no good his whole life. I've heard a lot of things about my mom's disappearance and everything has ended with murder. And those stories are hard to hear.
And what's even more crazy is that person who ever did it is probably someone we know. We all know here. And they're just walking around. The alleged offender Aurelia is referring to hasn't been named a suspect. And it's unclear if he was investigated for Sumi's disappearance or if the talk around town is just gossip. We don't have any further information on this person. But a press release published by Humboldt County Sheriff's Office in November of 2010
did indicate that there may have been potential leads. Humboldt County Sheriff's detectives are interested in speaking to two people they believe spent time with Juan near the time of her disappearance. Detectives are attempting to locate Robert Hodge Jr. and Deborah, jealous of him, both of Hoopa. Sheriff's detectives wish to emphasize that neither of the two are suspects in the disappearance.
We attempted to locate Robert Hodge Jr. and Deborah Jealous of him. And while we weren't able to locate Robert, we found through a public record search that he had been arrested in 2019 during a meth and heroin bust in Hoopa. We were able to locate information on Deborah Jealous of him. Sadly, a newspaper article from 2018 states that she passed away after being found unresponsive in an alleyway. Our team had an interview scheduled with Sumi's mom, but when they arrived, she'd changed her mind.
Other family members also declined her interview requests. Laura has her thoughts on why they may not want to talk. Based off of what I've been told, she was last seen heading towards a person who is living in Hoopa at the time, and he was a known drug dealer. And that seems to have been the last sort of concrete time that anyone saw her. And it's...
In tight-knit, insular communities like Hoopa, it's hard to get away from a person of interest.
When a case goes unsolved for so long, those fears, they fester. Aurelia is no stranger to this. I mean, I'm constantly concerned something's going to happen to me and my kids. I just, as a mom, I became so paranoid.
We were in Sacramento and I was going to take them to the park and I drove around for like 30-40 minutes because I was too scared to get out of the car. It's like I'm so vulnerable if something happens like I can't save both of them. So it's different. Now anything can happen. Like nothing's impossible. It's crazy because my mom went missing on the reservation but this is where I feel the safest. I don't know if I could really live anywhere else.
Aurelia proudly displays a tattoo on her collarbone, a dandelion, half blown away in the wind, her mother's name above it. It's a memento, one that honors her mom and reminds her of her spirit. So it was my first tattoo, and it was funny because the tattoo artist, he was like, oh, I'm going to need to add some white because you're a little dark.
My mom was very dark and my grandma, she's pretty dark too, so it's kind of funny. I think that's great that you have that. That's very special. Yeah, I actually, my grandma had gave me like a couple journals of my mom's and one of them said who she was, I'm Sumi Gayawan, and she said I have three beautiful daughters that I love dearly, so I'll probably add that somewhere. The last 13 years have presented challenges for Aurelia.
She's determined to use her experience to help others. Just recently in the last couple of years, I went through such an angry phase. When someone would come up missing or anything, I'm like, well, why should I care? They didn't care. And then I'm like, and that's terrible now that I think about it. But I was just so angry. And now I'm like, OK, I want to be a part of whatever they're doing. So I recently I took this job. I applied for MMIP Advocate.
I want to be able to help individuals impacted by a family member or a friend who was murdered or missing. We can help them, assist them to go if they need a place to stay or just directing them to different resources. And I am a little nervous with the job because I still deal with it on a day-to-day basis. So I'm just a little nervous that I might, it might be too much for me, but I'm going to do it as long as I can.
Allie took us to the MMIP office, the same one where Aurelia works. It's an unassuming building right off a tree-lined road. This is the Hoopa Valley Tribe's MMIP and Domestic Violence Prevention Program office. The office provides a lot of support, including a safe space for victims.
It's a resource that caters to a wide range of needs. Whether it's escaping dangerous situations or simply finding a calm, secure spot to do laundry, it's a valuable asset to the community.
There's a whole Indian Health Service Clinic campus here with several programs. There's a medically assisted treatment program office. There's a medical clinic. There's a diabetes prevention program office. And then also this MMIP office is a couple years old, but a fairly new addition. But the tribe recognized the need to address the MMIP epidemic here on the reservation and establish this office as part of that.
As the team walks down the hallway, a bulletin board in one of the rooms grabs their attention. It's covered with flyers. When they get close enough to read the board, they see it's cluttered with missing posters. It's been over a month now since... According to the FBI, 5,200... A majority of the cases in our database were actually mothers and children. There was reportiveness. A lot of people say it's difficult to get... American women are 10 times more likely... I think somebody did something to my dad.
With MMIP cases overwhelming law enforcement, the Up and Vantage team dives into a new unsolved case from the Hoopa Valley area. That's next time on The Vanishing Point. With Virgil? Oh, Virgil Bustle? Mm-hmm. Oh, man. I've heard a lot of stories. I heard he was put inside of a chipper, spread out all over. Why would someone want to hurt Virgil? I don't know. Virgil was a pretty tough fella. So you'd have to catch him by surprise.
So the person or this being or whatever that made him disappear is pretty strange. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Vanishing Point. This six-part series is released weekly, absolutely free. But if you want to listen to it ad-free, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus.com or on Apple Podcasts. The Vanishing Point is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey.
Silesia Stanton is our host. The show is written by Meredith Stedman, Alex Vespestad, and Jamie Albright, with additional writing assistance by Silesia Stanton. Executive producers are Donald Albright and myself, Payne Lindsey. Lead producer is Jamie Albright, along with Meredith Stedman. Editing by Alex Vespestad. Additional editing by Sydney Evans. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Additional production by Laura Frader and Allie Hosler.
Research by Laura Frader and Taylor Floyd. Artwork by Byron McCoy. Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Mix by Dayton Cole. Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing, and the Nord Group. And a special thanks to Greg O'Rourke, the KIDE 91.3 radio station in Hoopa, the Two Rivers Tribune, and all of the families and community members that spoke to us.
For more podcasts like The Vanishing Point, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit us on our website at tenderfoot.tv. Thanks for listening. Every day we rise, challenging ourselves to work for what we believe in. At U.S. Border Patrol, protecting our borders is more than a job. It's a calling. Agents answer the call, working together to keep our country and community safe. If you're ready for a new mission,
It's Madeline Barron from In The Dark. I've spent the past four years investigating a crime. When you're driving down this road, all right, plan on killing somebody.
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