1 – Bond Girl
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IT was slayed on a saturday afternoon when Douglas carker and ambled down to the end of his driveway and the hollywood hills to check the mail to the west. Way out over the paci c. You might have seen a line of Bruce coloured clouds puffing themselves up, looked at them, and business. L, I was in for some rain. IT was at that moment the Douglas is why france was, who was buttoning in the garage, looked up and noticed that a Young woman in a White sports car had stopped in front of her husband.

IT was a meadii, and there was a very pretty girl, pretty blond girl in there with, or what looked with her entire wardroom next to her. And he took very.

frazer was overheard. The girl in the sports car asked Douglas about a house that resembled the castle. Dougal said he didn't know what he was talking about that france was, did.

And I kind of yelled out, so know the castle is that place on Green valley. It's sort of a black up at the corner of a of a little street and it's got got know statues all around IT little little. That is the castle. That's what we call the castle.

really. I washed over the Young woman's face, along with what anticipation, anxiety, excitement all mixed up in those big blue eyes, doulas current, and knew the look. For decades, he'd been a celebrity photographer in hollywood.

He made his reputation taking iconic pictures of stars and those who had stars in the eyes. Young woman said, thank you and pulled away. And as the red Taylor disappeared around the band, Douglas turned to france walls and said.

is another one of those like little hopeful girls who going to a photo shoot?

I hope she's gonna OK and the White sports car was on her way to a photo shoot or but SHE thought was a photo shoot. There was Christie Johnson. SHE was twenty one years old that day. SHE would not see twenty two.

Christie Johnson disappeared february fifteen. And after telling from he was going to meet a man about a movie role.

Yes, this is a story about what happened at Christie Johnson on saturday afternoon. But it's about more than that, it's about dreams. And a man who told a lot of Young women like Christie that he could make their dreams of hollywood starting come true.

He talked about big box. He named numbers of money that I can't recall today. But IT was a lot of money.

You said, are you kidding me? He said, you're perfect. You're going to calls money. You're going to be famous as you're going to be on all the talk shows.

It's a story about what can happen when the people who administer our courts play, let's make a deal with justice. And it's about a group of victims and near victims determine to turn the tables on a predator.

He did try this rules on all of us, and that seemed to be enough to bond us together. We all feel very connected like a sister hood.

They were everything to the case, and without them we most like they would not have had a case. I'm kiss Morrison. And this is murder in the hollywood hills, the podcast on deadline episode one bad girl.

That saturday morning had begun like any other day for Christie Johnson with a phone call from her mom.

We enjoyed with each other and doing things together and um have have a very close relationship that's the voice .

of Terry hall， Christies mom.

So on that saturday. Every every fifteen and we spoke on the phone and he told me that he was going to the shopping mall and I said, okay um great you know don't buy you know anything because i'm when as I mean to pick something now it'll be your valentine's present that .

i'll send you which seemed like a fine idea. So Christie, grab her purse, gas up the midtown, headed for starbucks. The photo shoot was the last thing on her mind that morning. No, that thought had even occurred to her.

Later that afternoon, Christy's roommate Carry barris h was getting out of the shower when he heard the door of her statement apartment open from the cranching clinker sounds of shopping bags out in the living room. Kerry, guess that Christie was back from the mall. Then came a knock on her bedroom door. And when he opened IT, there was Christie smiling from .

ear to ear. The.

this is the way kerry remembered IT days later in a phone call with police I D guy.

And I mean, he was like, really excited to look, i'm kind of breaking in out the high as .

kerry dressed, Christie continued gushing about a man you just met at the mall. The words were tumbling out so fast. Kerry could only catch one word out of every five photograms bond movie audition.

Looking for a fresh face are looking for someone I can address my movie.

Oh yes, IT was going to be quite a production shooting on location in europe, cheese off.

he asked. He had a passport because that would be out of the country for shooting. He would have to leave in a week. He said the pay was like a hundred thousand dollars, which made me Carrie .

might have been skeptical, but Christies blue eyes were LED up to about two hundred watts. There was an addition for the part that afternoon. Christie couldn't believe her luck.

And then SHE says, liquid, I got to wear and then Christ .

rummage through her shopping bags and pull out of man's White dresser, T, A black mini skirt and then a pair of sky highs to little heels.

SHE had to be real self and sexy. I think they're looking for. They were going to give her a nip right to war. But as IT SHE showed up in a college shirt and a super mini skirt for .

the next fifteen minutes or so, crist model, ever think sh'd bought for her addition that afternoon? Everything except the new sheer nyon hose she's bought. No time for that now. SHE had a shower, do her hair and makeup. The audition was at five thirty, and Christie didn't want to be late.

He said, I know the area is and is really nice. And SHE said, that may be rigid, may not he? He said, there are gonna other girls there.

He dressed, twisting and turning to Better appraiser look. And what about that tattoo of hers? The hybrid as flower, her lower back when he got in florida at that time on vacation, would he see IT? But IT show up on camera didn't seem likely.

SHE pulled on one of the two new pairs s of sheer nyon home SHE d box to the addition, and then her powder blue cordero is that sleeped a shirt SHE bought last week the long with the matching pipe. Christine APP raised herself in the mirror SHE looked good. SHE can really do this.

He kept saying what they were looking for in the person, you know, because you had to show a lot of leg.

then a hug for kerry, and then chrystie was out the door or cost you on hangers. The still leos talked under one ARM. Christine Johnson must have been up in the hollywood hills, desperately looking for that landmark castle house when her cell phone LED up with the word mom. Maybe SHE was preoccupied, worried about being late perhaps, or maybe he simply didn't hear her phone buzzing. But whatever the region SHE wasn't .

answer in her found I thought, I well let you know how Young adult ts are. Sometimes they choose not to answer their cell phone and they see their mother calling.

That's Christies mom Terry hall.

May be he didn't return your battery, so I didn't think too.

Now why would SHE, SHE and Christie talked for us to meet a good twenty minutes before Christie went after the mall?

Actually, that was the last time I spoke to Christie.

That's the thing about last times you ever know. If no, could you know? So this is IT. It's over. It's the passage of time and the LED heavy weight of memory that brings that kind of clarity, afraid with meaning and longing and regret. But of course, at the time, all of that was still on imaginable for Terry hall.

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Sunday morning, there were sixteen, two thousand, three broke, gloomy and overcast, a terrier holes home in loscalzo, three hundred fifty miles down the coast. A chilly rain was falling around Christy's place in ana Monica. Good day to sleep in.

So Terry hall waited until he was pretty sure Christie would be up before calling. But no answer. Terry tried again in the afternoon, no answer than that evening, no answer. SHE wasn't answering her phone.

I thought not as strange. You always .

talked everyday, everyday. We be odd that we .

wouldn't I mean sometimes as a couple times as a day, just even briefly.

So saturday goes by on the sunday. How are you feeling inside about there's what are you thinking?

I'm thinking to myself that either SHE hasn't recharged her cell phone, so that's why she's not picking up or that maybe she's been in the car accident. I mean, all the Normal things that a .

parent would .

think when they can't get a hold .

that I stay in monday. Terry was up early, her mind, a jumble of thoughts about Christie. The son had just broken over the rooftops to reach when he reached for her phone again.

So that's why first thing um in the morning when I couldn't get a hold of her on a cell phone again, I called her on her direct line at work and when I got her answering message on her works phone is when I became very alarmed because I know he was always at work on time eventually Terry .

got through to somebody else at the office who told her Christ just didn't show up. Didn't call in sec either. That was concerning and they .

were concerned as well. And so at about this time, it's now he was supposed in at work at nine and now it's going to be ten, ten, thirty. And i'm thinking something is not right here.

No kidding. So Terry called the santa ica police just to see if maybe Christie been in an accident. My first reaction was.

oh my god, know, maybe our cars gone off a Cliff. They haven't found her. So they suggested that I call all the local hospitals, which I did.

And I I was almost avoided .

of having feelings. I was just on the phone the whole time.

Terry house spent a lot of time on whole that morning waiting to be transferred, waiting for someone who would say, no, man, we have no Christie Johnson here. No, no, jane dose either IT was during those moments in between when some kind of elevated music or whole music music drowned in her ear and the memories would have come to mind. Memories of Christian brother Derek growing up in northern california and michigan before there is messy divorce from the kid's father kirk Christie had been a beautiful child, sun kissed blood, skinny as a rail with the freed nose .

SHE always had A A peacefulness and a joy to her, and always very easy to be around memories.

Those summers ers of the solar toc yacht club, risky, turned into a pretty good, safe. But IT was in high school that Christie really began to blossom.

SHE could tire, hear back in a pony tail and where no makeup and look absolutely smashing, or SHE could, you know, put on her high heels and a great outfit look, look totally a different way too as well.

Terry o was forty six that morning when he died, number after a number later, when I SAT dowle. Terry, her pale grey Green ized brightened when I was. He talked about Christie and the time before.

and you see a lot of the pictures to take him on the beach.

Christian of the beach. How did you tell you you wanted to move to? And can you tell me about that?

Oh, gosh, we had lived in california for some time where course was born. Then we had moved back to michie. He wanted to come back california because we become out here on visits, and all of our family is out here.

So after Christie finished up a freshman year of college in michigan, when SHE once again told her mom he wanted to move back to california, Terry said, okay.

the plan at that time was a temporary appear od of time. He was going to be living with her grandmother down in the central test area and going back to college.

That was year two thousand. A few months later, Terry returned to california as well, and SHE settled in the bay area, but Christie stayed in SATA beria with her grandmother and enrolled at the local community college.

How do you be right now a little bit tired? Need a little pick me up.

That's from a home video clip, Christie putting on a public speaking demonstration for one of our classes, or topic, how to make a vanilla lotte.

The most important getting ingredient, your need is the actual stress of beans.

IT was well Christie was living with her grandmother that he was bitten by the show bizz bug.

So um that summer SHE um had the opportunity to work on a film that was seen film down in a hotel coast area.

The movie people hired her to be a production assistant. Those long days on the set, hanging out with the crew and seem to have a profound effect on Christ. He thought, you know.

I would really like to be involved in this industry. Bet on the production side of IT. You know, on the other side of the camera, SHE actually went to a school for makeup artistry. SHE worked as a makeup artist for about year in los Angeles.

And then after about year, he said, you know, maybe this is a good time for me to go back to school and get my college to right? Yeah and if was a good experience, but he realized the value of going back to school. So he got an apartment with two of the girls in sa Monica.

Christ had only been in that SATA oc apartment a few months when he met that man, the mall one dangling a chance for her to get back into the movies. But not does a makeup artists know. This time around, Christie Johnson from soga tc, michigan is going to be a bond girl.

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The squad room of the santoni police department was quiet as a tomb that monday afternoon. Detective Virginia, ia. Open an chain, has the second floor, detect the bureau to itself.

The metal desks, the half empty coffee cups, the works IT was presidents day. Most people had the day off, but detective open an chain, was catching up on some paperwork and Frankly, enjoying the solitude. He couldn't miss those fit steps coming in.

SHE looked up, and there was patrolman mark holland, something on his mind. Clearly, pollen said he had been working on a missing persons report. Just talk to the missing woman's roomed.

The roommate said he hadn't seen Christine since saturday afternoon, said Christie had been going to meet a photographer. Helen could just tell something wasn't right. This didn't seem to be about someone who suddenly took a road trip on a wm. No, this one felt different.

And he was my old training officer. So like, okay, tell me what's gone on and he.

that's detective of chain and I said.

i'm not feel, feel good about IT either. IT kind of fell. T like the Linda so back case, he was a radars cheerleader that went for a photo shoot and ended up being murdered.

Open chain. I'd been a patrol officer back in one thousand nine and ninety five when Linda so bec went missing was in her case. But he remembered the media courage like IT was yesterday. The mystery .

surrounding model Linda sebek maybe solved today. And the news is not good. Police say the former L A radar .

cheerleader is probably a murder victim and a hollywood photographer. R reportedly told police where to find her body in the Angeles national forest. Lindau c disappeared a week ago.

then turned out had been murdered by that photographer. He was later convicted of Loring her to a remote desert location with the promise of showcasing her face and body. In a when I first interview detective open chain back in two thousand six, he told me he feared that was whether that happened to Christie.

Unfortunately, Young women tend to be vulnerable. They mean well, but they just don't have the life experience. A lot of these men are extreme corn artists, and they're very good at what they do.

So you you have that feeling when you got this case different from a Normal missing person's case in any other .

respect or just different because he was known to contact her mother every day and then all of a sudden phone contact stop um multiple messages were left on her cell phone again very unusual because he lived by her cell phone as means of communication .

for the next twenty four hours, detective open chain in ic growing team of investigators did everything good investigation do they put out an all point and alert for Christ's White muslim biota. They checked Christi's debit card account and found that on the today Christie disappeared, the card had been used at century city mall booming deal at one thirty three, at the guest store one thirty seven, and then three miles away in a shocking pink building on loss antia called Tracy lery at two fifteen and checked with store security yield at only one video clip that came from gas. There was Christie paying for the black mini skirt or blond hair, pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a black ball cap, black short sleeve t shirt, White genes. All in all, Christie had spent three hundred fifty six dollars that afternoon on the outfit for her audition, exactly what the photographer told her, aware, at least that's what Christie told her room might.

There were no other purchases made. And again, that's how SHE lived. Her debit card was her cash line. And all of the senate stopped.

You know, something?

We knew something had happened, whether he was an accident or something, that something had happened to her .

Carry barish, the roommate, and also told police that Christ had purchased tickets to a party in L. A. For that same saturday night.

So has he gone there? Have you met someone that anyone seen her investigators check with the rave party organizers, and sure enough, they saw Christy's name on the list of tickets holders. But unlike the rest of them, her name had not been checked off at the door.

Christie was a no show. But why? Where had shi gone?

We track down where her last thing on the cell phone came from and IT came from the Laural canyon area.

but at least seem consistent with the roommates story about Christie driving to her audition in the hollywood hills.

It's one of those that the hair on your back of your neck just stands up because you're going good. That does not sound good.

And that is where the trail seem to hit a dead. And somewhere in the hollywood hills, Terry hall, who d come down to los Angeles to be on hand, had been told very little by the police about what their investigation had found or fail define.

And at this point, I didn't have any information as far as what the police officers had actually said to the roommate, her roommate, or what her roommate had said to the police officer. I wasn't getting the full story at this point.

The police were holding their cards close. No need to panic. They assure Terry. They were doing all they could.

Terry was very worried about her.

How did you handle that?

I basically tried to tell her what we were doing, and then IT got to the point where we were getting more and more wrapped up and that so I said, i'm going to .

have my captain handler. And because you couldn't each other, what you, what you thought?

Well, I was still hopeful that he was alive, but I couldn't say i'm hopeful that she's alive. You just got to do IT delicately, detective.

Open chain had run down and really SHE had and was no nearer to finding Christie then he had been on the day SHE first got the case. What goes through your mind in a situation like that? What what are you thinking about her?

Basically praying that .

she's okay. Maybe he's keeping her somewhere, but she's alive and yeah.

not that he heard exactly kind .

of run out of things to check. And what then this is going to the police go to the public.

think IT was going to the public, asking to the public, we were the chief, had a press conference, and he basically gave some of the details of Christie. You know how old he was, her description, the type of car, and if anybody is seen her or her car, please contact us.

IT was wednesday afternoon, but then I had been five days since Christie was last seen the press conference had provided the media with photos of Christie and her White meta and with a carefully worded statement that red twenty one year old saa Monica woman, who may have been on her way to beverly hills to meet a photographer, has not been seen for five days for much of the L A media. Another story about another Young woman gone missing.

There seemed to be a lot of other stories vying for attention. As a reporter, I was aware of the missing person's case. That's Andrew blankstein.

He spent twenty three years of the L. A times govern crime in courts before joining N, B. C. He said that in two thousand and three, crime in the city was on the rise.

A missing person's case rates, but in terms of covering crime day to day, once IT hits that level where it's a homicide, then you you're trying to go back and and and put the pieces together in some ways like detectives wood, that press conference had been the police equipment of a hail mary pass with time running out. But IT worked. The next day, the police deep line started ringing.

IT helped us tremendously. We got a call from a Young lady on our tip line, and SHE told us that SHE brand approach the century city more.

What did SHE described? You remember.

he said that shit was approached by someone who said that he was affiliated with the extreme ban movie and that he would make a perfect poster girl or James bon girl.

Bond, James bond approached to the century city mall. Those tidbits had not been released to the public. Detective open chain instantly knew this color was someone SHE needed a meat face to face.

This season on murder in the hollywood hills and he looked Normal, Normal.

You just said, I think you're very attractive, and I just want to let you know that well, thank you very much. He told me he, he really liked my legs. I was working shorts and that he was working closely with the James bond movies.

He's a one man and he's very, very good at IT.

Murder in the hollywood hills is a production of deadline and nbc news. Tib chem is a producer, ryan drew, kelya dean and martial house fell their audio editors cars and commons and kiani read or associate producers. Adam gordin is co executive producer, paul ryan is executive producer, and lisa al is senior executive producer. Roman be see news audio sound mixing by bob malarone and castine Anderson. Price and barns is head of audio production.