4. Hopscotch

Mitrice went missing early on a Thursday morning.

On Friday night, her mother called Mitrice's mentor, Dr. Rhonda Hampton.

I was driving home from work.

I, I remember it, you know, like it was yesterday, and her mom called and said, "You know, has Mitrice reached out to you? I haven't seen her." So on my drive home, I'm telling her, "No, I, you know, we were gonna have lunch on Monday, but I haven't talked to her since then." And then Mom proceeded to tell me how she had been at the restaurant and acting s- you know, strangely and that, um, she had been arrested and released.

Mitrice had been released approximately 43 hours earlier, and no one had heard from her.

And besides the sighting at The Smiths, there'd been no other reports of anyone seeing her.

Her girlfriend, Desiree Black, finds this odd.

I think that it would be, um, just kind of missing the point if we didn't acknowledge the fact that she was a young, Black, single female in Malibu, Calabasas, somewhere where wasn't exactly made for us, somewhere where she should have stuck out.

Somebody should have seen her, and I think that is one of the pieces to the story that's kind of still astonishing to me, that nobody saw her, because those just being facts, the fact that she was young, attractive, Black, female-

Alone

... alone.

If someone saw her, they would have remembered that in Calabasas.

She would've been hard to miss, and that makes people a target.

Latice had filed a missing persons report at Lost Hills Station the day she disappeared.

Deputies took it as a courtesy because Mitrice being a resident of the city of LA, it was really an LAPD case.

When the deputy at Lost Hills told Latice that someone matching Mitrice's description had been seen in Monte Nido early Thursday morning, Latice had driven out there, but no one else seemed to be looking for her daughter, and she felt that crucial time was being lost.

And Mom called me because she said she, she did not know what to do because they were not searching for her and there was no planned search, and she asked if I would, um, contact the detective on the case to try to plead for help.

The detective was Kristin Merrill with the LAPD Missing Persons Unit.

Dr. Hampton says Detective Merrill told her LAPD Missing Persons didn't have funds to mount a search.

There would need to be a compelling reason to search for Mitrice.

If you go to the LAPD Missing Persons website, this is all spelled out.

Quote, "Since being a missing person is not a crime, police are given a very limited role while conducting these types of investigations.

As a general rule, all people have a right to be left alone, and police intrusion into their lives must be minimal." It goes on to say that where foul play is suspected or the person is otherwise endangered, the police will investigate.

So when it started looking like they weren't gonna search, I, you know, of course my anxiety's rising, and you just say whatever it is [laughs] you can say to get the help that you need.

She shared some background on Mitrice's mental health and the details about her behavior at Joffreys.