Episode 6: “Spoils of War”
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Last time on Where's Dia. I think we just got called over to put all kinds of footprints everywhere and to just damage the crime scene, basically. You know, in my opinion, they've always known it was a murder because the video shows that. And why the video that was here at the ranch...

One day, about three years after Dia went missing, the Riverside Sheriff's Department made a dramatic move. Around a dozen police cars swarmed Bonita Vista Ranch. A white and green sheriff's helicopter flew above. Local CBS News reporter David Godfreyton rushed to the scene to report the unfolding events.

Neighbors woke up early Sunday morning to the sound of a sheriff's helicopter flying over Dia Abrams Ranch near Idyllwild. The cops demanded, through a loudspeaker, that Keith Harper come outside. They handed him a search warrant. And on a large trailer, the cops carted in a heavy backhoe, presumably to dig deeper.

Did you hear what happened a couple weeks ago? Yeah. Yeah, they went in a helicopter and all that, you know, which was like, yay, finally. Julie Stanford is Deer's longtime Ida Wild friend. When I spoke to her in October 2023, the cops had just searched the ranch. For her, it felt like a glimmer of hope. They must have been down because how could they go there and try to get the helicopter and all the police involved?

Essentially, they have something. This all happened three years after Dia disappeared. I couldn't help but wonder what information the cops had that made them search the ranch again. They would have had to show probable cause to get that search warrant, that a crime had likely occurred on the ranch, and that evidence of the crime was going to be found there. Though, when I tried to get a copy of the warrant from Riverside Superior Court...

They told me there wasn't one for that date and redirected me to the one from 2020. I don't know what the cops found at the ranch, if anything, because they haven't responded to my questions about it. But what I do know is Harper wasn't arrested and he continued living at Bonita Vista. It felt like a huge anticlimax, this sudden flurry of activity and then once again, pretty much nothing, as far as I could tell. ♪

Unlike the cops, Clinton Abrams, Dia's son, and Harper have been willing to share what they've discovered along the way. Clinton has interviewed people who knew Dia and followed all kinds of leads, leads that even I thought were too outlandish to pursue. As for Harper, well, he's still working with those psychics. In our season finale, where things stand today as the search for Dia continues.

I'm Lucy Sheriff, and this is Where's Deer? Episode 6, Spoils of War. The food is in my truck and the water's in my truck. I have a case of water on the boat and I have a 55-gallon cooler on the boat. You might remember Kelly Snyder from an earlier episode. He's the former DEA agent who runs Find Me, the non-profit that searches for missing people.

You didn't get the word that I brought 500 bottles of water? Right around the time the police showed up at the ranch last year, Kelly, Harper and some others embarked on a search for Dia's body. Keith, you ready? I was out of the country, so one of my producers, Jacob, tagged along instead. The, uh...

The team was going to search the same lake the cops had searched years earlier with their sonar equipment and divers. Although the Find Me group was focusing on the shoreline of the reservoir rather than the murky lake bed. And actually, this was Harper and Kelly's second time going to this particular part of Lake Hemet. They'd gone three months earlier with cadaver dogs. And there'd been a promising development.

the dogs had shown interest. And when you have three dogs showing interest in the same exact area, then that's telling you something to indicate that more than likely there's human remains in this vicinity. But it wasn't just the dogs' reaction that brought them back to this spot. Like I mentioned before,

Kelly's network of psychics share coordinates of where they thought Deer could be buried. And this spot, in Lake Hemet, was one of them. So they felt like this place had potential.

On the first search, though, they couldn't reach the area where the dogs showed interest. The hole is approximately 30 to 40 feet deep, and at the time we didn't have the dogs' harnesses to lower them into the area. This time we brought our boat and we're going to approach the area from the lake, and then the dogs can walk easily into the hole where we believe that Dia Abrams' remains are either buried or somewhere in that vicinity.

This time around, they approach the spot from two different angles. The dogs and their handlers go by boat. Harper, Kelly and Jacob go by land, hiking towards the embankment. The next one, you see where that rod's coming down from the telephone pole? Yeah, that's what I was zeroing in on. The search team reaches the shore and the dogs do their thing. After some time, the dog handlers hike over to Harper and Kelly to give them an update.

Their dog, Sol, detected something. I got a full alert from Sol. Say again? I got a full alert from Sol. If you got a full blown alert then that... I can't guarantee it's a body but there's something... Yeah, remember what we talked about last time? The cadaver dogs alerted to some kind of human presence.

But as one of the dog handlers points out, the dog could be picking up on anything with a trace of what's referred to as human decomposition. Basically, the scent that's emitted by human remains. Without digging, there's no way to know exactly what's there. And Kelly won't dig without the cops present.

And so, reluctantly, they have to stop there. Kelly will take note of their coordinates and send them over to the cops, hoping they'll return to the site and continue the search. Kelly and Harper are disappointed, to say the least. And somewhat surprised, they look down the embankment towards the lake at a washout of fallen trees and debris. I would have given money on this spot, though. I mean, to me, that's just perfect, but...

See where I would, I would do it right down in here. But how do you get there? Well, there's a trail. I know there's a trail, but holy shit, you're carrying a body. Throughout this search, Kelly has been on and off the phone with one of his psychics. She's been advising them on where she thinks Dia is buried. I would tell her to summon Dia. She's a better one. See if she can see us.

Kelly calls his psychic one last time, just in case Dia's given her any extra guidance. Pretty much. She said Dia didn't come to her. God damn it. She asked her to, and that was, what, two, three hours ago? Shit. I'd feel ten times more better if we just do with that one site. Harper has fixated on one particular spot.

that the psychics pinpointed, and that he previously marked with flax. He wants the dogs to search it again. I just don't want to pass up an opportunity that could. I understand where you're coming from, but that's not where the dogs showed interest. That's the only reason I would say, would discount it, that it would be not necessarily a waste of time, but...

It's just, if you have someone, a psychic, telling you that it's in between certain flags and it's all in this area, would it hurt to spend another hour or two just searching the general area one more time? But Harper is vetoed. And so the search party and Jacob decamp back to Bonita Vista Ranch to try and unpack the day and have some much-needed lunch.

Can I get some frickin' bread here pretty soon? He's working on it, man. Dude, calm down. One of the dog handlers takes out his phone and shows the group a video of the spot where the dog alerted. Harper gets agitated. OK, was that a location of where the body was? It was a location of something. I don't need to hear that shit. I need to hear more specific. Do we have a location where we believe that she is?

We have a location where we believe something is. That's putting off decomp. It's under a boulder. It's a 10-ton boulder. I cannot say that that is a body. But human decomp, I mean, my dogs are trained to alert on a tooth, a fragment of a bone, any blood, tissue. In your opinion, there's something dead. Something putting decomp off. Finally, Harper seems to give up. So...

My understanding is that we're going to file a report. We're not going back out, right? We're done. I don't think there's much we can do in that area, I mean, that we haven't already covered, unless we've got new areas to search. I debriefed with Kelly a few months after the search. He was still confident that Deer is buried in that Lake Hemet spot where the dog alerted. He tells me he sent a second report to the Riverside Sheriff's Department. But as far as I know,

They've not taken any action. They have not gone back to search for our dogs, who incidentally never, never, never met. Say that there's something human where they alerted two of our dogs, our best dogs. And as far as we know, they have not gone there to search. As I say these words, Dia is still missing. We can't even say whether she's dead or alive.

It's easy to get caught up in the chaos of Dia's story. People turning on each other. Wild theories that are almost too wild to believe. There is, after all, a special kind of ugliness that rears its head when money's involved. But I keep coming back to the fact that at the center of all of this is a woman who one day in 2020 just suddenly disappeared from her own home.

One moment she was there, the next moment she was not. And that, regardless of who or how or why, is truly heartbreaking. For now, all that remains is a group of people racing to find out the truth in their own way. Racing against the clock as one very important date swiftly approaches. More on that after the break.

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50% to Harper, 25% to Clinton, and 25% to Krasara, her daughter. It's hard to imagine that the date isn't on everyone's mind, like some ticking time bomb. Because if any of those three are found to be involved in Deer's disappearance, they get nothing. While Harper searched with dogs and psychics, Clinton focused on tactics.

He pushed for some of Dia's property to be liquidated. And with those funds, the court-appointed guardian who represents Dia's estate set up a tip hotline. And a $300,000 reward was established for anyone with information leading to an arrest and conviction or the discovery of Dia's whereabouts. But this wasn't just any old reward. Oh, no.

This, as Clinton explained to me, was a trap for Harper. Well, the way I structured it was that the reward was going to be the bait and it would be made manifest that he was involved in my mother's disappearance and he wouldn't get anything. And we'd have the case solved and we'd have him removed. Right. So was it your idea then to, because there's that really interesting caveat that

where if one party is found to have an involvement, everything goes to the other party. Was that your suggestion? Yeah, that was me. Oh, wow. Okay. That was my little trap strategy. But it backfired. Despite his efforts, Clinton has never been able to pin anything on Harper. And now Harper is in line to get 50% of his mother's estate. It was a gamble, Clinton admits. And now he regrets it.

He gambled too much. And I couldn't believe that I compromised with, you know, the devil. When that little trap didn't work, Clinton tried something else. He attempted to work with Harper directly. Harper sent me a screenshot of their conversation. And this is what Clinton texted him. Harper, you want a deal? What is the deal, Clinton?

Why do you think he's saying that?

This is what, you know, I thought originally he was asking to kind of work together. And then what I got, the more I got into it, what he's asking, it's for me to come forward and kind of tell him that I'm responsible. And then he has something to go back to.

Law enforcement, you know, is what I kind of got. Clinton insists that he was just trying to get information out of Harper. Either way, Harper does not fall for Clinton's booby trap. It all feels like a strange loop, but it's almost satisfying. These two sides who've been at war trying to pin the blame, OK, still trying to pin the blame on each other, coming together to try to work out some kind of deal.

Despite all of Clinton's strategizing, nothing really seems to happen to Harper. Until in November 2023, the same month as Kelly's search, Harper ends up getting into hot water all by himself. He gets himself kicked off the ranch. Harper texts a real estate agent, asking if she's interested in listing the ranch for sale.

Word gets out that Harper is trying to sell Dia's ranch, even though he doesn't have the authority to do so. And five days later, a judge removes Harper as trustee of Dia's estate. Just. Like. That. Later that month, eviction notices are posted outside the ranch. It seems Harper's time at Bonita Vista is up.

He denies trying to sell the ranch and considers fighting the decision. The purpose was to determine the value. What is the value, primarily, of the property? And anyway, the judge just pulled me. He said, yeah, it looks like you were intending to list it. And I said, no, I was not. And anyway, that's how I got removed from trustee.

Eventually, Harper packs his bags and leaves. Even though he's removed as trustee, it doesn't affect him potentially getting half of Dia's assets. I call him, as he once more is doing that long, long drive from Idlewild, across the deserts of Arizona, into New Mexico. I left the ranch today. Wow.

How does that feel? You know, it was a tough, tough, tough thing. But the situation you get, either you work with the court or you work against them, and they can take away all your privileges, you know? So after a long consideration and time, I decided to leave. And so my concern is this, that if I'm gone...

They will never work at finding her. I keep imagining Bonita Vista Ranch, now that Harper's gone. Those impressive, western-style gates, locked and chained shut. Dia's antiques, gathering dust. The endless land stretching towards the mountains, slowly growing wild. I wonder how Dia would have felt. Her pride and joy. Her home.

sitting empty. Soon, it could be sold to some stranger who will probably fit it out in that modern dude ranch style. And every trace of Dia will be gone. But what happens to the people in her life? What happens to that vacuum she left behind? We'll be right back. The most innovative companies are going further with T-Mobile for Business.

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In some way or another, Dia's disappearance has shaped the life of everyone in this podcast, including mine. As I wound down my reporting, it felt right to touch base with them all, to see how they were moving on, how they were finding closure. I'll start with the one silver lining I found in all this mess. Dia's siblings, Peggy and Jim, had told me how much they missed their niece and nephew, Chrysara and Clinton.

how sad they were that their family was estranged. And so I spoke to Clinton, and I suggested perhaps he might want to reconnect with his aunt and uncle, given that his father was dead and his mother was still missing. Eventually, he gave them a call. It was unbelievable. It was an unbelievable scene. Just to see our nephew...

This is Peggy Kanchelo, dear sister. And if anything came out of this tragedy, it's this, that we have our nephew back. We have him. We have him back. He's our kid. You know, I'm sorry about whatever horrible thing happened to my sister. I am. But we have my nephew back. Peggy's trying hard to move on.

Despite the toll it's taken on her and her family. It's an emotional Katrina, you know, it came in, it washed everything out. She's not the only one who felt like things fell apart when Dia disappeared. It's been four years of nonstop obsession of the mind and the gravitational pull.

that I cannot seem to extricate myself from no matter how hard I try. I just have to, have to do something to always try and move the ball forward. Thanks to his years of research, Clinton's developed a theory about Harper and about what happened to his mother. To me, he's culpable, he's guilty, but he also serves as the patsy, as the fall guy.

And it's the low-hanging fruit. He's the easy guy to pin this on. And I think there are so many other people involved and so many other people who know. And I think as long as law enforcement doesn't pursue those other angles and ask deeper questions, I don't think they'll ever solve the case. Clinton doesn't believe that Harper is solely to blame for Deer's disappearance.

Yeah, I don't give too much credit to Keith Harper. I don't think he's a criminal mastermind. I think he's a buffoon. I think focusing too much on him, it's just too narrow of a perspective. His theory is that a motorcycle gang took Deer, an underground sinister intelligence operation that has access to high-tech surveillance equipment. He believes Harper struck a deal with this gang.

Let's go with your theory for a minute. If she's kidnapped and she's killed by somebody who isn't Harper, what is the motive? Like, what are they getting out of it? They're getting a 115-acre ranch and millions of dollars in antiques and jewelry and...

I think the actual property was desired. I think there was a deal amongst multiple people to split the spoils of war, so to speak. Clinton believes this gang would be able to access Deere's assets through Harper. But there is, of course, no evidence to prove this. When I first interviewed Clinton, we met in San Diego out in the open at a coffee shop.

But that's the last time we met face to face. Since his mother disappeared, he seems to have become increasingly paranoid, sending me hundreds of emails with what he says is evidence he's being harassed. He's convinced his house is bugged, that he's under surveillance by this gang who killed Dia.

I've received a tremendous amount of harassment. Well, I've had buried pornography left on my mailbox. I've received unmarked packages that contain very obscure threats and also direct threats. I've had loud motorcycles that have basically, you know, kind of followed me and stalked me for a number of years.

Clinton is adamant that the same people who killed his mother are out to get him. I believe it was, you know, a message to me, you know, we can get to you too. And I totally understand that it, you know, sounds crazy to most people. I don't know whether Clinton is paranoid or if he is truly being harassed by some kind of gang.

But he was sent this really crazy package. I've seen pictures of it. The envelope didn't have proper postage, so it was likely hand-delivered. On the front, it said, There were all these court documents inside about rich people who disappeared in mysterious circumstances and the fights that ensued over their money.

There was a letter too, which made some pretty far-fetched claims. It read,

The letter ended with an ominous line. We are really interested to see how you act when you get this letter, because it will tell us a lot about all of you. To this day, Clinton has no idea who sent this, or if they might be involved in Deer's disappearance. But understandably, it freaked him out. I mean, how concerned have you been for your family's safety?

Extremely concerned, very concerned. Have you thought about just stopping your search? Yeah, I have. I don't know if I can move on so long as we don't have answers. What's so frustrating is that I know that people know, but they just won't say.

The fact that half of Deer's estate will go to her maybe, maybe not fiancé, Keith Harper, would be a bitter pill for me to swallow. It's never been about, to me, what I get, but the principle that he gets 50% when I know that he knows what happened to her and is involved is disgusting.

My mother always told my sister and I, this is for you kids. This is for, you know, I'm building this for you guys. I hope you cherish it. And I know she, she poured her heart and soul onto that property to an extreme extent and just loved it, uh, wholeheartedly. And, uh, the fact that it's going to be liquidated just instantaneously and split amongst all parties breaks my heart. Um,

And the fact that Keith Harper, in my view, a scumbag, gets 50%, I'd rather it go to anybody but him. It's strange to think back to when I first started investigating Deer's disappearance. I was so desperate for leads, to speak to someone who knew her.

And I got what I wanted. I've had these two men who knew her well bombarding me with theories that feel so big, so outlandish, that they can't possibly be true. Can they? When I first interviewed Harper, he told me he didn't know what happened to Dia, that perhaps she'd run off. Later, he told me he couldn't understand how the surveillance tapes on Dia's ranch hadn't captured what had happened to her.

And then, as he began working with Kelly's psychics, Hopper changed his story. He told me that the surveillance tapes had captured what had happened, that three people had kidnapped her, and he'd watched it all. Even now, it's hard to pin him down to one concrete story. What now? Like...

Do you think you're ever going to get closure about what happened? Like, how long are you going to fight for? How long are you going to keep persisting with... Until she is brought forward. And that could happen in the next couple of weeks. So let's say, let's say body is found. Do you feel confident that a perpetrator is also going to be brought to justice? Yeah. Yeah.

I think once they put Clinton under investigation, he will fail. For now, Harper is living in Colorado, although he still owns his 85 acres of land in a remote corner of Arizona. He's filed a motion to get half a million dollars out of Deer's estate. Half, he says, is to compensate for the time he spent working on the ranch. The other half...

is paying back money he says he put into the ranch while he lived there. As for Julie Stanford, she felt like Idlewild changed after her friend went missing. It didn't feel like this safe, idyllic community anymore. Julie told me she was scared. Scared that she knew something she wasn't supposed to know. And so, she left and moved away, halfway across the world. She's haunted by memories of her friend. I don't know, it...

At first, Julie was stuck between theories. Julie remembers a telling remark Dia made, sometime after Dia had changed her trust to include Harper. She can't remember if Dia told her firsthand, or if she heard it from a mutual friend.

But what she said, when she did the paperwork, she goes, here's your damn ranch, Harper. Wow. Yeah. Like he was bugging her for it. I think he just wanted stuff. He always wanted stuff. It's memories like this that cause Julie to change her mind about Clinton and Krasara and turn her attention to Harper. There would be no reason for the kids to do anything, George, because they were already off the will.

So my basic feeling now, I didn't want to think this in the beginning because I liked Harper because Harper was helping Dia. But that's not the feeling I have about him now. I think Harper is responsible for Dia's disappearance. And I frankly am afraid of him. Can I record this conversation? You can always record the conversation. I have nothing to hide.

Right before we released this series, I gave Harper one more call. With so many fingers pointed at him, I felt like I needed to talk to him again. And I had questions of my own I wanted to ask. Even in our conversations over the years, I've noticed discrepancies in things that you have told me. Contradictions. And so it doesn't look good. I've got to be honest. It doesn't look great.

And why are you talking to me then? Because I'm a journalist and it's my job to get all sides of the story. Bring out specific things. Let's talk about that. Okay, so... I brought out specific things. I asked him if there was something more to his friendship with Diana Federer. No, hell no.

I asked him why he changed his story about the security camera footage on the ranch. I was advised by the attorney that I was to examine that, but I was not to say anything until after the investigation was completed.

I asked him about leaving town so soon after Dia went missing. I have told you multiple times why I leave. To pay a tax bill. What was happening on the day that that investigation was to happen? The cops were going to show up and search the ranch?

They were going to come up and search the ranch. They had called and they said, we will close the ranch down when we arrive. Any vehicle that you have on the property must be removed or it will stay. What would you do? So if you knew how this was going to play out and you were going to be suspected, would you have stayed? I didn't suspect it. I thought we were dealing with a missing person.

Harper has an answer for all of it and insists everything I've been told is pure speculation. And perhaps he has a point.

As far as I know, there is no hard evidence. So it seems like the only way this thing is going to get resolved is if her body is found. Exactly. That's why we're moving ahead to get that done. Okay, well... And if I were guilty of her murder, would I move ahead and try to find her body? And have I been investigating that from the very beginning? Yes, I have.

Harper is pushing Kelly to go back to the spot where the search dogs alerted. This time, to dig. Since as far as Harper knows, the Riverside Sheriff's Department hasn't. So they should be held accountable for what they have not done. Because this case should have been solved in the first year and a half. It has gone on for now four and a half years. His frustration with the police is palpable. And he's not the only one, either.

The Riverside Sheriff's Department has made some puzzling decisions throughout this case. I've heard this from nearly everyone I've spoken with, like Julie, for example. And it's the police. That's what made me angry is they never wanted to interview any of us that were close to us. So it seemed like they didn't follow through with their due diligence on all aspects. And that was very maddening.

Carmen Ibanez, Dia's neighbor who runs the Christian Youth Camp, said something similar. She told me Detective Alberto Lerero, the lead investigator on Dia's case, took three years, three years to interview her. I mean, I've been talked to more by more people like you and other people than I have been talked to by police.

And, you know, it's just, it's kind of sad, you know. I try to be nice, but the rest of my staff says it's police incompetence. Because why wouldn't you, why wouldn't you just talk to the neighbor? Isn't that the first people you want to talk to? You would think that there'd be more effort put into it. I've also been frustrated by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. I've tried desperately to find out what leads, if any, they have.

But they've declined to confirm any information about the investigation. So I'm left with a bunch of what-ifs. What if the cops had shown up sooner? Would we know what lay beneath the dirt that Deer's dog Ruby laid down on and wouldn't budge from? What was in Harper's RV that Diana says was searched? Was the meadow really overgrown? And if it was, where does that leave Harper and his alibi? What if he'd never been allowed to leave the ranch?

It's strange, Carmen told me, that despite the close-knit nature of Idyllwild, this small town whose mayor is a golden retriever, there are still no answers about what happened. Everybody hears everything, so that's the thing. The word spreads really quickly. Even though people pretend like they don't know anything, everybody knows about everybody. So it kind of makes it even more strange that nobody seems to know what happened. Yeah.

Exactly. I mean, it's very frustrating. I mean, I, I, just for the sake, I mean, I don't care what she's done in her life. I don't think anybody deserves that. I've been wondering how I can wrap up this story after four years of reporting, when I know I'll always have a few niggling questions at the back of my mind. That's the problem when you report a story about someone who's not here to tell their version. You're left with that vacuum.

You're left trying to peer at a blurry picture that will never quite come into focus. There is one final loose end on my mind. The other coordinate the psychics came up with way, way back in Kelly Snyder's original report. The one in the middle of nowhere in Arizona. Because I mapped it out.

And I cross-referenced it with a report from Clinton's PI, the part where he mapped out the route Harper took, according to the cell phone towers that Harper's phone pinged. And if I take that PI report in good faith, and I'm buying into the whole psychics thing, then Harper was in the same region as the psychics coordinate when he left Deer's Ranch on that Monday morning and drove all the way to New Mexico in his RV.

I ask Kelly Snyder, and he can't remember why they haven't searched the area. Especially because his helicopter, search dogs, dive team, his entire search crew are based in Arizona. I try and persuade him to send a team out, as long as I can tag along, of course. So, as much as I'd like to think I can just walk away, I'll be keeping in touch with Kelly, just in case he ever does decide to search that Arizona location.

And when June 6th, 2025 comes around, I'll be giving Harper and Clinton a call. Just in case. Where's Dia is written and hosted by me, Lucy Sheriff. Our producer is Daphne Chen. Editing by Karen Shakerji. 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. Special thanks to Sophie Crane, Amy Gaines-McQuaid, Nina Lawrence, Kira Posey, Jordan McMillan, Owen Miller, Jake Flanagan, Sean Carney, Carrie Brody, Eric Sandler, Christina Sullivan, Sarah Nix and Greta Cohn.

Additional thanks to my partner, Maurice, and my agent, Joy Folks, at the Gurnert Company. To read more about Dia's case, check out David Godforsen's reporting at CBS8. Where's Dia is a co-production of Pushkin Industries and iHeart Media. I'm Lucy Sheriff.

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