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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 the four cases we've covered so far, we've encountered a lot of hearsay and speculation, but not nearly close enough yet to a definitive conclusion.
when we learned that there was a named person of interest, as well as multiple witnesses. In this next case, we were going to make the four-hour drive to interview as many people as possible. With this many leads, what could possibly be obstructing justice?
Meet Ronnie Hosler. The team met Ronnie at his house in Covolo.
a small town on tribal land four hours south of Hoopa Valley. Ronnie is a husband, a father, and a grandfather. But lately, he's taken on a new role, the role of an advocate, an unwavering voice for his people. I'm always hoping that people would listen to what I'm talking about because it's happening not only here but all over these reservations. So many unsolved cases.
I want somebody to finally step up and start holding these sheriff departments accountable. Ronny Hosler and his family have been appealing to different sheriff's departments and government officials ever since February 8, 2018, the day his granddaughter, Khadija Britton, went missing.
Khadijah was the light of Ronnie's life. And though Khadijah was his granddaughter, she lived with him for a time. And he and his wife tried to nurture her many talents to give her a life filled with opportunities. Khadijah stayed with us for maybe a year or two years. We really tried to do everything we could, you know, keep her, you know, concentrate on her academics, you know. She was a really good basketball player, you know. We supported her on that. We traveled with her.
It just hurts. Khadija's family feels that her case has been downplayed by authorities, especially because they believe that the evidence in her case clearly points to the person responsible for her disappearance. I was really sorry the way they handled that. They treated it like it was just another girlfriend-boyfriend thing, which, you know, it wasn't.
You knew who took her. You knew what he's capable of. He's got a rap sheet. Everything. Endangerment. Child abuse. Child endangerment. How long is he in jail for right now? He's out. He's out? Yeah, they let him go. He's right here in the valley with us. I'm Cilicia Stanton, and this is The Vanishing Point. ♪
I'm actually a Nomo Ake from the Nomo Ake tribe. Khadija is Nomo Ake Wailake. We were both raised here. Growing up, she was a very happy child. Connie Hosler is the mother of Khadija Britton. She's a petite woman with dark hair and eyes. You can see the heaviness in her expression. Connie and her family had high hopes for Khadija after she graduated high school with a 3.2 GPA.
It was a big deal, especially given the low high school graduation rate of the area. Khadijah and her mom talked about plans for a community college in Mendocino and about ways that she could pursue a career in something she was passionate about. Growing up, she always wanted to play basketball in that WNBA, and she was good enough to do it. She just got, you know, with the wrong people.
Connie says she can't help but wonder if Khadija, or Deej as she calls her, would have pursued those paths. Maybe she'd still be here today. Khadija was kind of in a bad way. She hung out with the wrong people, obviously. She stayed with this person, Nichi Fallis, who had three children. And she was a good person that she took care of them. She cooked for them, did what she needed to. She just, she cares about people.
When you say she was kind of in a bad way, what do you mean? She was into drugs. She hung out with this guy who sold drugs. She would come to my house quite often just to bathe and shower because where they stayed, they didn't have a shower. Her and I talked a lot. She didn't like the stuff that I said. If I said anything negative about Nietzsche, she didn't like it. I would try to tell her I could help her get away, which I could have. I could have sent her to a
like a rehab or just someplace where she would be safe. She didn't want to hear it. If she didn't like it, she would just stop and leave. Connie told us she recognized that her daughter was struggling with addiction. So it had to be a couple, like maybe two or three years that she was on drugs. And I used to be an addict also. So I was just like, I'm done. I moved to a different spot. I started working at the school.
And I said, you can do it. You know, you can get out. You can do something. You could go to college. She said, I thought I was better than her or better than anybody. And I go, it's not even like that. Just straighten your life out. It'll be a lot better. But she didn't want to hear that. She wasn't ready. As Connie mentioned, Khadija started seeing a man named Niji Fallis. He was nearly 20 years her senior, and he had three children of his own.
I would have never hung out with somebody like Nietzsche Follis, but that was her choice. And she was only 18 when she kind of started hanging out with him. What was he like? I didn't see the bad side of him. He was respectful to me. I didn't see anything negative. But I had people that told me that he was being rough with her. And so I stepped in, and then she kind of got mad at me. And she goes, "Oh, no, Mommy, I'm OK. It's OK."
So then I kind of left her alone. Tell me about the last time that you saw Khadijah. She happened to show up at my house, and that's when I sat down and I go, "Sis, we can get you help. We can get you out of here." That was like two weeks before she went missing.
because she would tell people I was mad at her so she couldn't come see me, which wasn't true. She just didn't want to come see me because she didn't like the things that I would say to her or about Niju. She didn't want to hear it. So I was never mad at her. She just chose to tell people that I didn't want her around, which wasn't true. So I hadn't seen her for two weeks before she went missing.
Connie tried to reach Khadijah multiple times after those calls on February 7th of 2018.
When she still couldn't reach her the next day, she notified tribal police. Not long after, her family began circulating missing persons posters, offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to Khadija's whereabouts. "Khadija was kidnapped at gunpoint in Covalo, California and has not been seen or heard from since." Police were able to gather this account from two witnesses who claimed to be at the scene.
Again, this is Khadija's grandfather, Ronnie Hosler. According to his recollection, the witnesses said they were all at the house of a mutual friend of Khadija and Niji's. This is what he heard through the grapevine.
Khadijah was with him, two boys and a girl. They went in there, they wanted to party with these two guys there, but they said, "We don't want to party." So they were getting ready to leave while Khadijah went into the bathroom. She wouldn't come out. That's when the witness explained things escalated. Having lost his temper, Niji stormed back inside the house. He described a pistol that this boy had. So they stood on the porch and watched him beat her by the car.
and throw her in a backseat, and they took off. When this story began to spread throughout the community, Niji was nowhere to be found. I'm going to Mexico City, and it's going to be an awesome vacation, all thanks to Viator.
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Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Khadija Rose Britton was last seen at a residence in Covalo, California on Friday, February 8th, 2018, while being forced into a car at gunpoint by her ex-boyfriend, Niji Fallis. No one has seen or heard from Britton since that night.
The witness testimonies were a huge break for investigators in identifying Niji Follis as a person of interest. But it was information that would only get them so far, because at the time, Niji was nowhere to be found. And more than that, these claims, they were a start, but could they really be substantiated? What would have triggered a violent outburst like this? Was it all part of a larger pattern? My mom was killed through domestic violence.
Khadijah knew about that, but I didn't really, like, drill it into her. Again, this is Khadijah's mom, Connie.
I don't know. In this valley, it's like a lot. We see a lot, but nobody ever gets away. I mean, I was part of domestic violence. I finally got away. So I took me and Khadijah and, well, my son, and I moved to Lake County into a shelter, and we stayed there for like a year just to get away from it because...
Their father was coming into my house and fighting with me. So when Khadijah was in high school, she told us she didn't want to go to school and leave me because she was afraid what he would do. So that's when the tribe had a lady that helped us, and she's like, "Come on, we'll just pack you up and move you." So they did. So I was fortunate. You know, not a lot of people get away. Not a lot of people stay away, and that's the sad part.
Domestic violence is somewhat of an epidemic in the Kovalo area and on reservation land in general. In fact, according to a 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice, 83% of American and Alaskan Native women have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime. The person we talk to next is no stranger to navigating these complex issues. Right. Yeah, no, I can share everything. I'm not prohibited from talking about any of it. You know, I don't work for that agency anymore.
This is Trent James, a private investigator based out of Houston and former deputy sheriff at the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office. He was stationed in Covalo at the time of Khadijah's disappearance. We asked him about his experience in Covalo. So very small community, very, very rural. The valley itself is composed of various areas that are reservation land and some that are not.
Basically, I like to relate it to the resident deputy position as being back in the 1800s where it's one sheriff for an entire town. That's pretty much how it was. It's a gnarly place to work. It is. It's pretty hardcore. A lot of homicides, a lot of kidnappings, robberies. I've seen and dealt with pretty much everything you can imagine. And as a cop, especially in that capacity as a resident deputy, it's better to get to know people on a personal level. They learn that you're a human. They can trust you.
And so Khadijah and her family just happened to be in that group of people that I got to know. Trent James tells us that the violence that Khadijah experienced at the hands of Niji escalated in January of 2018 after he brutally assaulted her.
from what she said that she was trying to leave him the relationship was toxic which it was for sure and she was trying to break up with him and he wasn't having it so she left that night she walked away from him she went to one of his relatives houses and niji found out she was over there and he went over there walked in the house grabbed her by her hair pulled her outside and then started just beating the out of her and forced her into his vehicle
and drove away. And at some point, I think that she was able to get out of the car and kind of ran away. And then she went to, I think it was her stepmom's house, and they called 911. And she was super beat up. You know, I saw the photographs and she had a visible injury to her face where, and according to her, he kicked her, punched her a bunch of times, hit her with a hammer at one point.
And so she reported it and they looked for Niji that night, but he was nowhere to be found. So the deputies did a warrant for his arrest. Tribal police took a report too. And the next day when I was on duty, it was like, okay, let's find this guy. And I already knew who he was. I had a lot of interactions with that guy. He was a known meth dealer, always had guns, been to prison multiple times already at this point.
and he was not pleasant to interact with by any means at all. And in that area, it's very challenging to find people on the reservation like that that do not want to be found. They have a lot of family members, a lot of friends, and it's very easy to go into hiding and, you know, and a lot of people don't want to quote unquote snitch. And he was one of those guys that did have a lot of resources in that regard.
I think it was like a week had gone by at this point. We still hadn't found him. Following her report of the January assault to law enforcement, a restraining order was issued against Niji. At the time, he was a convicted felon out on bail. So this report led to an immediate warrant for his arrest. According to the Coalition Against Domestic Violence, women in abusive relationships are about 500 times more at risk when they decide to leave a relationship.
So maybe that's why, a few days later, and unbeknownst to her family, Khadija's story changed. Khadija showed up to the tribal police station in Kovolo with Niji's sister. Her name is Casey Fallis. And Khadija told the tribal police, hey, you know that night that I reported Niji beat me up? Well, I lied. I made the whole thing up. It was actually his sister, Casey, who beat me up.
that I got in a fight with, she's standing right here next to me and I need to drop the charges against Niji." And Casey, standing there, corroborated her statement and said, "Yep, that's right. I beat her up." That was a very common thing, not just on the res, but in domestic violence situations in general, where the victim of a crime will come back and change their statement because they no longer wish to testify.
In this case, more than likely it was due to the fact that he threatened to kill her or, you know, more bodily harm. She was obviously afraid of him. And that's more than likely what made her want to go and try to drop the charges. But Khadija's request to drop the charges couldn't be fulfilled. She'd made the request to the tribal police department and they didn't have the authority to do so.
After Khadija went missing, felony warrants were issued for Niji for a slew of charges, including burglary, possession of a firearm by a felon, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, and corporal injury to a spouse, cohabitant, or dating relationship, meaning Khadija. The warrants were out, but Niji Fallis was nowhere to be found still. Trent James remembers being more determined than ever to track him down.
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Learn more at cbp.gov slash careers. 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, well, yeah.
You know, it's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. 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. This was like a month, a long fucking time since a warrant was originally issued. And it was some random ass house that none of us ever fucking expected ever in a million fucking years. After asking around town, one of Trent's friends, a sergeant on the tribal police force, got a tip on where Niji was staying.
So Trent and tribal police headed there and surrounded the home. So you pull up to a reasonable distance and you get on your PA on your patrol car and say, "Hey, fuckface, get out of the house. We know you're in there. Come out with your hands up. If we see anything else in your hands, you're going to get shot, right?"
Six days after pointing a gun at Khadija and forcing her into a car, Niji Follis was arrested and booked in the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.
I was there for his first interrogation with the detectives. They called me in because I had known him more than anybody. He got taken down to Ukiah and I was sitting there with the lead investigator at the time and Nietzsche, it was just us three in a room. And Nietzsche just, he just kept saying, "I don't know. I don't know where she's at. I don't know. Beats me." Yeah, you do, you know, like, but he just kept saying, it's so fucking irritating. I still remember this shit.
He's just like, oh, it's not my business. It's not my business. I was like, bro, you were fucking dating her for six months. She was at your house every fucking day. What the hell are you talking about? Plus, I know you're a controlling piece of shit and you beat your chick. So yeah, everything she does is your business. Don't give me that bullshit. No, it's not my business. Okay. What other friend could she be hanging out with then that we don't know about? That's not my business either. You know, so it's just like that. And, um,
Niji is very familiar with the justice system, so it was completely fucking nowhere. We had nothing to hold over his head and he knew it, right? So he knows. He knew. He knew what he did was going to be sufficient and he wasn't going to get caught up for it. Eventually, Niji went before a judge to face the charges. So we went to court maybe four or five times. Every week we would go down there and then they would postpone it. Then they would do this, they would do that.
They read that statement on the stand. She explained everything that he'd done to her. I knew then what was going to happen was that Khadijah wasn't there to witness, so they had to let him go. He was never charged with her kidnapping or her being missing. He was never charged.
Nearly all the charges against Niji Fallis were dismissed by the district attorney's office. And all that remained was a single charge of possession of a firearm by a felon. We're not entirely sure why. Niji served 15 months of a four-year sentence before he was back in Mendocino County in February of 2020. Four months later, he was arrested again, this time for possession of drug paraphernalia and a stolen firearm.
The violation led to a 27-month sentence, but he was released from federal prison in half that time. Since then, he's gone on to face multiple charges in state and federal court related to drugs and firearm possession. He has yet to be charged in connection with the abuse or disappearance of Khadija. Currently, Niji Fallis resides somewhere in the local community. It's a fact that causes some Kovolo residents, like Khadija's family, to worry.
Do you see him out? I do see his family. And I go to the store the other day, and it's his sister. And it affected my son at that time. He's like, "Man, Mom, I could just hurt her. I could just hit her." It's like, you know, "Let's just go. Let's, you know." But it affects me every single day. I don't go to no more events here in this valley. I kind of stay away. Of course, I don't know what I'll do, how I'll respond if I run into him.
We tried to locate Niji Fales, but were unable to do so. Ronnie continues to advocate for Khadija. At a recent press conference, he expressed his frustration with the police and the lack of action against Niji. That case was all dropped because she wasn't there to witness against him. Why? That's one of the biggest questions I have is why? Why is my granddaughter still missing? This whole investigation comes back to the moment that Khadija was forced into that car.
What happened after they drove off? What is Niji not saying? And are there others that could come forward to provide the full story? According to Trent James, both witnesses who gave testimony of that day have unfortunately passed away. But one of them, on their deathbed, expanded on their original story. She claimed that when Khadija and Niji got into that car, they weren't alone. In fact, she'd been their driver. And the way she says that the car ride unfolded
is very concerning. Do you guys all believe what I'm telling you guys? We want to know why. Why is she still missing? Why this guy had to kill my granddaughter? Next time on the season finale of The Vanishing Point. She said that Niji called her on her cell phone and he sounded like upset. Like he was crying and he was like, I fucked up, I fucked up, I didn't mean to. And she's like, what the fuck are you talking about? 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. Cilicia Stanton is our host. The show is written by Meredith Stedman, Alex Vespestad, and Jamie Albright, with additional writing assistance by Cilicia Stanton.
Executive Producers are Donald Albright and myself, Payne Lindsey. Lead Producer is Jamie Albright, along with Meredith Steadman. Editing by Alex Vespestad. Additional Editing by Sydney Evans. Supervising Producer is Tracy Kaplan. Additional Production by Laura Froeder and Ali Hosler. Research by Laura Froeder 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 Tinderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit us on our website at Tinderfoot.tv. Thanks for listening. It's Madeline Barron from In the Dark.
I spent the past four years investigating a crime. When you're driving down this road, I plan on killing somebody. A four-year investigation, hundreds of interviews, thousands of documents, all in an effort to see what the U.S. military has kept from the public for years. Did you think that a war crime had been committed? I don't have any opinion on that. Season three of In the Dark is available now, wherever you get your podcasts.