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Try this experiment.Go to the grocery store and don't get caught. In other words, no one must ever be able to prove that you were even there.
For me to do it, for example, I'd have to turn off my internet so my ring doorbell doesn't catch me leaving, and that is suspicious in itself.
Then I'd have to leave my phone at home since there are many ways my location can be tracked and the Malibu team is following me on Find My Friends.I won't be able to use my car either since that has built-in GPS.
And I'm not sure how I'd even enter the grocery store or pay for my food since there are cameras inside and outside the store.And what if I ran into someone I knew?There'd be only one way for me to get away with going to the grocery store.Time.
Enough time for camera footage to expire and for memories to fade.
If you can evade suspicion for 30 days, you're pretty much all set.
And when Elaine Park went missing, this window expired. At first, she was considered voluntarily missing.Then, after the car was found, the lead detective left for training.Jayden came on the case almost a month later.
As for security footage, the cameras mounted at nearby intersections evidently don't record.The footage in the buses driving up and down PCH was only preserved for about three days.
The automated license plate reader system used by law enforcement was down at that time for maintenance.And every accessible satellite photo of the area that could be found from around this time was too low definition to identify a vehicle.
Even around Elaine's home, there's a YMCA with a camera at the freeway exit that could have captured her if she did drive home.But after several weeks, that footage expired also.
Even the one house with a camera at the beach near where Elaine's car was parked wasn't operational due to construction.So sometimes, our criminal gets away with murder, or a missing person's case isn't solved due to time passing and pure luck.
So when Mike called and told me that Elaine's phone had finally been unlocked, I hoped that even despite the time that had passed, someone's luck had run out. Season finale, part two, chapter 27.
So, you're not gonna believe this, man, but apparently, Cellebrite has the technology now to unlock an iPhone 7, and they've unlocked Elaine's phone.I just found out.
Oh my God, oh my God.Like finally, we may really know something.
Yeah, so hopefully we'll be able to get the answers that we're looking for.This could answer a lot of questions.I mean, not being able to see her communications for like the last 24 hours, you know, before she went missing is pretty crazy.
So getting access to that would, it should tell us a lot.
As soon as we get the file with Elaine's cell phone data, the first thing we do is, we don't touch it.We bring it to a data forensics company to analyze it.And this is what they discover.
When the data comes back from Cellebrite having unlocked the disabled phone, is that data complete or is it reconstructed?Are we missing things?
What we've been able to determine from the data set that we've received There were some discrepancies and I believe just some overall oddities with the data set in general.
Because the phone itself was actually locked in an inaccessible state due to the passcode lock, when Celebrity unlocked the device, it actually allowed the user to get at the data, but some of the previous data that was available was just in a kind of free space or unallocated state.
The passcode for Elaine's phone turns out not to be the numbers that spell out fuck, which was Susan's last attempt that disabled it.Interestingly enough, it turns out to be the numerals of Devine's street address.
The next thing we do is review Elaine's texts from the 24 hours before she went missing.The day before, January 27th, she mainly texted with four people.
her friend Sadie, who came over to get her curling iron, her dad, who she picked up $50 from, Divine, who she was supposed to see closer to 2.30 p.m., but ended up seeing around 8.30 p.m., and her mom, who she borrowed $20 from and promised to pay back at 6 p.m.
At 6.01 p.m., her mom texted to get the money back, then sent four more reminders over the next three hours.At 9.04 p.m., Elaine finally responded, yeah, sorry, give me till later tonight.
Her mom responds a minute later, keep your word, with keep in capital letters, followed by three exclamation points.You said at 6 p.m., followed by 11 exclamation marks.Those are the last texts from the evening of January 27th.
Here are the texts from the morning of January 28th, when Elaine left Devine's house, drove through the community gate there at 6.06 a.m.and disappeared.
to 85147, there are three messages that come through from Elaine's mother.It says, now, the next one says $20, and then the following one says, now, with, again, a bunch of just illegible characters afterwards, looking like she's angrily typing.
It's worth noting that there are no texts expressing concern for Elaine's car or her safety. which is why Susan said she went home from her boyfriend's in the middle of the night.These messages, according to the analyst, appear to have been unread.
Anything else you're seeing?
We see at 10.13 to 10.15 three incoming calls coming from Divine.Interesting.Very interesting. Yeah, and just kind of leading up from the day there, we have a few text messages that look to be automated text messages.
And at 1.10 p.m., she received a text message from Sadie.
Sadie's text simply reads, what are you doing today?
And then following that text message, we do have a couple of cookies for Pandora. As well as, it looks like you have two calls again from Devine at 1.33 and 1.34 p.m.And then three calls from Elaine's mother at 1.36, 1.36 again, and 1.42.
I'm assuming it's a no, but did she answer any of the calls from Div or her mom, or were they all unanswered? So the incoming calls all have a duration of zero for all calls coming in that day.Got it.
Do we know if she's using any other apps to communicate with anyone such as Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp?
Given the timing here, we do not see any entries from those applications that are suggesting that she would be using them.
The analyst adds that the last time Elaine appears to be on social media is 3.20 a.m.on the morning of January 28th, when she apparently checks Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.Any other activity of note?
Yeah, so what we see just for that morning is we see a couple of cookies at 7.13 a.m.for the Pandora app.
Does that mean she was listening to Pandora?
Yeah, it does look like the Pandora app was being used, as later on you'll see at 9.32 a.m.there was a notification from Pandora asking, are you still listening?Don't miss a second of the music you love.
The forensic analysis mentions one other activity on the phone, in another app.
that the Find My Friends app, there was some kind of usage that occurred there, whether it be a lane to somebody else or somebody else to the lane.
The analyst has a time for this activity, 6.28 a.m., 22 minutes after the lane left Devine's gated community.However, the analyst doesn't know anything else about the nature of this Find My Friends activity. but it is highly significant.
For those who don't use an iPhone, Find My Friends at the time was the app used to track the location of a friend or a family member.That's obviously around the time that she went missing, and we don't know who, or do we know who?
And how come we can't tell just because of the nature of the data?
Yeah, given the way that the data is actually stored within the database, we can see when the update occurs as it gives us a date and time for that, but there's no database that keeps a tracking log of when or who is accessing Elaine's location as well as Elaine accessing somebody else's location.
Is there any way to find out the location that she sent or the type of share it was?
So given the data that we do have or were able to parse, it does appear that we do not have a location that was parsed in this.So it doesn't appear that Elaine may have sent out the location.
Can we trust the times?Can we trust that there was a Find My Friends activity at 628?Or might that be from another day entirely?
So I believe the times that we do actually have that are parsed are reliable.
While it appears that Elaine didn't send a specific location, such as she did on the night she ran out of gas and texted her mom a pin indicating where she was, the analysis can't determine anything else.
I ask every question possible, and he says he'll keep looking into it, but there's not much more that he can do at this point.It's frustrating, but I have a few other important questions for him that may help get us closer to an answer.
If somebody had access to the phone, deleted the messages and then just left it there, would we be aware of that?Or could that be possible?
It could be possible if someone prior to the device itself being powered off or losing power, if they had the pin code to gain access to the device, then yes, there could be a possibility that messages may have been deleted off the device.
This is the first clues we have to what Elaine did after she left Divine's house.So if we were to sort of walk through it, what we know is, I mean, her mom texted and called.Divine called several times.Pandora was used.
And any other activity, if it was deleted, we wouldn't know about.We know those things existed and there could be more.Is there anything else I'm missing outside of the text from Sadie?
No, kind of just, you know, looking at what we have here.Yeah, really the most important thing is, you know, early on in the morning we see at least access to the Find My Friends application, not knowing what direction it's going in.
If we have an iPhone 7 and we get it to you, can we download the data onto a phone and almost just kind of recreate Elaine's phone with all its messages?
Yeah, I mean, typically that's not something that is kind of orthodox in what we do, but what we're able to do is we can actually create an iTunes backup and look for a phone model and version number on eBay that's similar
to Elaine's iPhone iOS version, and just kind of do a restore of that iTunes backup to that device.
And it'll kind of just allow you to emulate what you're seeing on Elaine's phone so that you don't run over the original evidence, but get a chance to kind of just look through it maybe in a different view.
We found the right iPhone 7 to transfer the data to, and we didn't look too deeply into the phone until a few days later. But when we did, something unexpected turned up.
An extra message appeared, and it appeared in Elaine's message thread with Divine Compare.It was a system message, and it reads in its entirety, iMessage, you started sharing location with Div.January 28th, 2017, 6.28 a.m.
Before jumping to any conclusions, we immediately called a forensic analyst to verify this.
All right, can we all hear each other?
We can, you know, fairly safely assume that at 6.28 a.m., Elaine manually shared a location with Dave.
Yeah, that would be safe to say at this point, yes.
How can we find out what that location is?
Well, and that's the problem.We're trying to figure out, you know, if we can see physically that the locations are shared, which is awesome, but we can't see anything else.
Now that we know this location share and the time it was sent is likely accurate, we dive a little deeper into what it may mean.
Here is the clone of Elaine's phone.You can see that the last thing in the Div thread is that she started sharing location with Div.There's a note kind of like when they had their amicable breakup where she stopped sharing her location with him.
The first thing we notice is that about a week after Elaine broke up with Devine, she stopped sharing location with him.That was on January 11th.She also stopped sharing her location with her friend Daisy on that date as well.
So as far as we can tell, unless someone who had access to her phone deleted themselves from the app, the only other person besides Devine who was able to follow Elaine on Find My Friends at the time was her friend Sadie.And we did ask her about it.
So you're on Find My Friends.And so what happened when you checked?
When I checked, it was when Susan messaged me on Facebook.I went to go check.That was like the first place because I wanted to see if I could see where she was.And it said no location found.
And I'm assuming it might have been because her phone was already off.
Right.Yeah.The timing would work where her phone was off.That was two days afterward. For clarity, Susan first messaged Sadie on Facebook on January 30th, two days after Elaine's disappearance and two days after her first phone call to the police.
So by this point, Elaine's phone was already off.The next thing we look into, did Divine know for a fact that Elaine had shared her location with him?
Mike and I experiment to find out what may have happened on Divine's end of the phone when the location was shared.Okay, did you get that location share?
I did.So it shows up as like, and I'll send you a screenshot of it, but it shows up as like a little map with a pin drop on it.And then I also got a notification to my phone that said, Neil Strauss, current location.
Got it, because on my phone, it's a picture of a map.So we can actually rule out that Elaine sent him.Here's where I'm at, which rules out the fact that she was going to meet somebody, because it isn't like, oh, I'm here, have them meet me here.
That's a different kind of location share.There are different kinds.
What we're trying to determine is what was Elaine's intention in sending the location share.Was it because she and Devine were seeing each other again?Was it because she was in trouble and wanted him to be able to track her?
Or did Devine ask her to do this before she left? it seems less likely that it was a prearranged meeting with Divine or someone else.In that case, she would have sent a pin drop.
Based on what we know, it seems likely he slept until just after 10 a.m., then started cluster calling Elaine, which he has a pattern of doing when she doesn't answer.Okay, I'm gonna do one more location share.
I'm gonna share my location indefinitely.
So, okay, so a notification came to my phone, like to my home screen, but nothing is in the thread.
Yeah, there's nothing in my thread from it.Like, it's questionable whether or not somebody would see something like that.
This is interesting and somewhat surprising.
It means that when you start sharing your location with someone, you get an alert in your message thread on the iPhone that you started sharing your location with them, but they don't see anything in their message thread.
It only shows when you stop sharing your location with them.Even though we're on a later version of iOS, we checked our messages from 2017, when we first started following each other, and the alerts work the same.
And I wish I could just go back in time and ask that question.You know, we'll see if he'll respond to us or if we can ask one question.
You know, I'm wondering if maybe we should call the police and to talk about, to just talk through this piece of it with him.
We meet with the police and share all this information with them.And it does appear that they didn't know this information prior.However, our feeling on walking away from the meeting is that they don't find it significant.
We live hopeful, however, that they will bring Divine in and at least ask him about it.The timing is just too important.
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Like probably right here.
And it's sad that it's just us.Yeah.On the third anniversary of Elaine's disappearance, we decided not to do an event, just in case Susan wanted to do something.
However, when the date arrived and nothing was even planned for Elaine, we all went to the spot where she disappeared to say some words about her.We didn't want her to be forgotten, and we certainly weren't ready to give up yet.
Yeah, we were in the market earlier buying these flowers.Anne-Marie was like, what do you think she would like?Like what kind of flowers do you think she likes?
That's why we got those yellow flowers and they're kind of like, there's orange and red.Maybe she would like those flowers.
It was a year ago today that we had a press conference and press event for Elaine here.And sat down there on the beach and had a little circle and spoke about Elaine and read some of her poetry.And it was really a beautiful thing.
And now it's another year.And we still really don't know what happened, which like breaks my heart.But like Elaine, we haven't forgotten about you.We care about you and will always care about you.And we really are not gonna rest.
until we find out what happened and there's some justice.
Yeah, we're going to find out the truth.
And we're always going to take care of Justin, make sure he's good in his life.And, you know, you've got your family of origin, your family of choice.I guess we're your family of non-choice.Yeah.You didn't get to choose us.You stuck with us.
But we really admire who you became after all that you've dealt with. like the irrationality and the difficulty and the sadness of being not wanted by your dad and your mom.
Yet through it all, you came out as a good person despite all you went through.And always trying to better yourself, but always trying to experience life.
And when that rap you did about how you want to grow up and have a family and see the world and all your searching of travel sites, the fact that you never got to do that, it's not fair, it's not right.
The next step in the investigation was the decision to release this podcast and bring in more information as we continue to press forward, presenting each new development to the police.
Yet even Divine isn't brought in to ask about the location sharing.So ultimately, before airing this final episode, Jaden reaches out to him for comment through his father, Shaquem.Oh, hey man, what happened?
So, yeah, I mean, he answered.He was nice.
He said specifically, I have no comment about that.He said him and his son have been very cooperative with everything.I asked him, I said, if perhaps you want to talk to Divine and you do want to comment or talk about it, let me know.
And he said, no, we have no comment.
Yeah.I mean, I was on the phone with him for, you know, like five minutes.He was very nice.But it was clear that, you know, he was not going to make a comment.
And I mean, like I said, I tried to do the, well, you know, check in with your son just in case.No.I mean, he still may call me back.Who knows?You know what I mean?But I doubt it.
I said, you know, I'm not sure if you, you know, following along with the podcast or any of that stuff, you know, I mentioned that, you know, and he, he said, you know, no, you know, we haven't listened to the podcast or, you know, you know, he just said a couple of times, you know, we've been very cooperative with, with everyone.
The compare silence leaves us with three possibilities of what could have happened on Devine's end of the location share. Possibility one is he saw it and didn't care, or think it was significant, which is odd.
Possibility two is he saw it and purposely didn't share.Possibility three is he never saw it.So let's say you wake up and you've got all your notifications on, and you just unlock your phone and look at things, could you miss that?
The last active thing you do is you start location sharing with Divine, then you start listening to Pandora, and then you disappear.I wish they at least commented so we could evaluate it.
We also reached out to Susan for comment on the questions for her that weren't asked at the polygraph test.
She initially appeared receptive, so this podcast's executive producer, Donald Albright, sent her a list of questions that were raised in the previous episodes. She responded via text.
Thank you for the opportunity, but the questions that are asked seem to be focused on me, Susan, defending myself, and not about exposing the lies and inaccuracies in the podcast.
She sent a follow-up text later, adding, I, Susan, have decided that it is not in the best interest of solving Elaine's case that I, Susan, go on the podcast and respectfully decline.
And I appreciate that since you have viewed all the raw footage, that you do not view me, Susan, as responsible for Elaine's disappearance.Thank you.
If you are interested in Susan's perspective, however, she has posted her differences with this podcast on the Help Find Elaine Park page on Facebook, which I should add that Rosemarie is no longer a part of.
Although she started the page, she was removed as an administrator over the course of the season.So now, after four years, let's take a look at everything we've learned and experienced and explore the possibilities of what happened to Elaine Park.
Chapter 29, Possibilities and Conclusions.So, yeah, I want to walk through the pros and cons of each possibility.
I called Jayden, and we take a look at all the data we now have, and try to figure out, within this subset of information, what is possible and what isn't. Possibility one, suicide.There's one story that she could have done something to herself.
Right.So, I mean, well, you have either the water or you have, you know, a hiking trail and some sort of a jump scenario.
This is a narrative that both Elaine's mother and father have mentioned. Elaine was having problems at home.The trauma of her sexual assault had recently resurfaced.
She'd cut off many of her friends, and she was upset when she arrived at Devine's house, and she left his house in an inexplicable rush early in the morning.
It is conceivable that she then drove to the Pacific Coast Highway and did something to herself.However, there's a problem with this theory.The location where her car was found.
The intention was to jump or hike or something.There's plenty of spots along her route that she would have had to take from Devines to where the car ended up.
And I recall we had information on a case where someone died in a drowning during some endurance swim right in that vicinity.That was like a day or two before the car was at his very close proximity in time and location.
And the body washed up like two days later. The bodies do wash up, one.And two, you know, whereas that woman jumped off of the cliff.
Jaden is referring to a case that we investigated that did turn out to be a suicide.However, the location where Elaine's car was found was a flat stretch of beach, and divers and helicopters searched for Elaine and found nothing.
This was a location where she would have had to walk into the ocean.It's a pretty wild way to commit suicide.
Though suicides in this manner do and have occurred, bloodhounds didn't pick up a clear scent of Elaine on the beach or anywhere in the vicinity.
In addition, it's highly unlikely that no one would have noticed Elaine walking fully clothed in the water at that time.So the probability of this or even an accidental drowning is very unlikely since no body was ever found.
Possibility two, voluntary missing. Many reported missing persons cases turn out to be people running away.So the question is, with the stressors in Elaine's life mentioned earlier, did she decide to just leave and start a new life?
So if you leave your phone and computer, which you could at least sell, you know you have no money in your account and you've left what the money you have from your dad in your car.So running away, to me, is even less likely.
Like, no way you leave cash.There was cash present.She's not going to leave that.
We did investigate this theory, handing out flyers around LA and even at Coachella, a music festival Elaine likely wouldn't have missed.
In addition, if you factor in the state of Elaine's car, the location shared with Divine, the lack of any sort of data trail on her, it makes this possibility even more unlikely.Possibility three, someone Elaine knew.
In most solved murder cases, the killer is someone the victim knew. and Elaine, because she'd recently cut off many friends and moved back home, had a very small circle.
In the 24 hours before she disappeared, she only texted her friends Sadie, her father, her mother, and Devine.We previously discussed her relationship with her ex-boyfriend Lolo.She was driving with Lolo in the passenger seat.
She was pulled over, a gun was found, and Lolo had a court case about this coming up.
That's making a small problem into a huge problem.The other thing is the problem is not what Elaine says.
The problem is, do you have a registration for this gun?And that's not something Elaine can testify.The police found the gun.Elaine didn't know it was there, so there's literally nothing Elaine can say that's going to change the nature of that case.
Right.We've also explored her relationship with Divine, the last person known to have seen her and who was also re-added to her Find My Friends that morning. There's no apparent motive for Divine to do anything.
In other words, if he's upset because they broke up, well, they were connecting and loving together that night.However, we know this.
What we know for a fact is he doesn't want to be in trouble with his parents, or be in trouble in general, which is why he maybe doesn't share some things.
And so maybe something happened that she was going to run an errand to meet some people and something happened.
Yeah, I do think that probably he knows a little bit more than what he's telling us.I don't know necessarily the significance of whatever he's not telling us.We know that he really didn't have opportunity.
He didn't leave the house, he didn't leave the neighborhood.I mean, certainly you could say that he went on foot behind the houses or things like that, but that's all quite far-fetched.
And unexpectedly, we ended up looking into Susan, Elaine's mother.Here's just a narrative for Susan.Elaine moves home. from kind of staying with Daisy in December.
In the meantime, mom is out of work, financial issues, child support that dad is paying kind of just informally cuts off in December, so she's not getting money for Elaine, and Elaine is always asking for money, is always requiring money, and there's an insurance sum coming up that's gonna bring money in.
And also, Elaine's just in inconvenience.They're always fighting.It's creating a lot of stress in her life.
Yeah, there's a couple of sub-scenarios there.You know, she did make that slip of the tongue that said it was an accident.
What Jayden is referring to is an interview between Susan and the FBI investigators I unofficially brought in, where according to them, at one point, she called what happened to Elaine, this accident, then corrected herself and said, Elaine's case.
It's worth mentioning here that it wasn't Susan's lack of emotion or even her harshness to Elaine that ultimately made her seem suspicious.There are plenty of troubled parent-child relationships, and there are also cultural differences.
It was the inconsistent and conflicting information in her account of the circumstances around Elaine's disappearance that gave many the impression she was hiding something.
Maybe she was just telling people what she thought they wanted to hear from a mother in this situation. But when combined with the cadaver dog hits in Elaine's room, it needed to be investigated deeper.
Yeah, I mean, we also coupled that with the text messages, you know, where she tells her to die, die, die. Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, for me, this is something to explore.
I mean, you... Is there anything making it impossible for Elena to go home?She leaves Dibs, she gets on the highway, she starts her own location, she's playing Pandora music, she arrives home.Is there anything making that not possible?
No.There is such a large body of, you know, elements that are really, really troubling.
Let's walk through this for a second, which is interesting, which is if Divine or Lolo or any of Elaine's ex-boyfriends had behaved in the same way, meaning their alibis don't seem plausible and are shifting a little bit, if they're reporting it to the police before doing any other apparent investigation into it, if an ex-boyfriend did exactly what Susan did, they'd probably be seriously interrogated.
I agree.Yes. But again, I mean, couple that with getting rid of all her belongings, like right away, putting furniture out to the curb.Just, you know, again, I agree with you.
If anyone else had displayed that, if Elaine was a married woman or was living with her boyfriend and her boyfriend or husband did that, I can't stress how that would be perceived.So negatively, that would just be crazy.
Right? You know, if we explore the Susan theory, what makes it so unlikely is why would a mom do that to their grown 20-year-old daughter?It's so rare and unlikely.
And whether it's a question of size and strength or a question of a bad way to solve a problem versus I'm kicking you out of the house, it also seems like an extreme way to solve a problem.
Right, and we talked about that because, you know, Elaine is an adult.She had lived on her own.Certainly, you know, Susan would have been within her prerogative to kick her out of the house and say, I'm not giving you any money ever again.
And that would have been just fine.And Susan doesn't strike me as being a person that would really have a problem with that.Right.That definitely does, you know, create an issue for that theory.Because, yeah, why would she do it?
Jayden and I discuss other people in Elaine's life that have been interviewed on this podcast.And no matter what possibility we explore, we're left with one big hole.
While there may be questionable circumstances around the people in Elaine's life, and certainly many people close to a missing person can appear suspicious when scrutinized, the fact is there isn't one shred of physical evidence that points to anyone Elaine knew.
Possibility four, a stranger. There's one scenario that's rarely been brought up, both by the police and those who knew Elaine, perhaps because it happens so infrequently.Let's explore this for a second.We know Elaine left Devines at 6.06 a.m.
that Saturday.A car that could be hers is seen on video making a U-turn at the 76 gas station at 6.26 a.m.
From there, within about a minute, Elaine could have pulled into the spot where her car was found, parked, and then at 6.28 a.m., started sharing her location with Devine.
We also know that Cookies arrived from Pandora at 7.13 a.m., so presumably, she started streaming music around then.And from this point, here's one of several at least plausible scenarios. Puts on Pandora, reclines her seat, goes to sleep.
Someone's coming by, there's a lot of RVs around there and all kinds of different characters that sort of live in their cars.Somebody's walking by, they see her sleeping in the car.She wakes up. Maybe she smokes some weed, they go, oh, do you smoke?
Let's smoke together.And they invite her into their car, and she thinks they're cool and trusts them.Or B, they say, hey, can you help me really quickly with something?
I'm trying to get this, you know, we're trying to get something in the back of the truck, kind of like Ted Bundy would do, and ask someone to help him.She goes to help him, they close the door, and off they go with Elaine.
I mean, absolutely possible.And your scenario is certainly the most likely, you know, in that vein. But we just don't have anything to, there's just nothing to investigate there.Right.There's just nothing to investigate.
It's generally not a plot line that is followed until something presents itself.And there's a thread to pull until someone says, you know, comes forward with a video or a photograph or some new information.
Because we double, triple checked all possibilities for video evidence, all possibility for witnesses that we can locate and put there, you know, we don't have anything.
So you can't really look at that and say, we're going to investigate the random abduction.
So it's interesting, an investigation is about what's investigatable.It's not always about what happened.
Right, I mean, yeah, you have to take the paths that you can take, you know, to look into things.I mean, again, and I think that is most clearly manifested in the complete opposite of Susan and this mysterious individual.
A lot to investigate, nothing to investigate.And then everything else kind of in the middle.
It looks like we were sort of narrow this down.Every one of these theories has a problem.If it's divine, what's his motive?If it's Susan, how did she do it?If it's suicide, where's the body?
And if it's a random abduction, it's just highly unlikely that location at that time.
And it's interesting that what we've come up with when we started this, we said, you know, we're going to go with sort of you know, these different scenarios, like impossible, unlikely, possible, likely, you know, highly likely.
But we ended, what we ended up with is just a big sliding scale of possible.
Chapter 30, Look Up to the Light.
the human mind has a need for closure.When we begin to investigate or listen to these cases, we want to find out what happened.We want answers and we want justice.
So we can then begin the next story or the next investigation and feel that there's some sort of fairness operating in this world.It's uncomfortable to live with uncertainty, without a resolution, without knowing.
But have you ever stopped to think that the same need for resolution, the same need for closure, is what causes so many of the murder cases we follow closely?
In the case of Hedaya Shabani in the first season, that closure meant the horrific murder of an affair partner.And when instead, it created a new and bigger problem, it led to a suicide.
Is there really any murder that cleanly solves a problem.I think if you look at any murder case, it would be immediately apparent that, oh, well, why, why would you do this?You know, people murder people all the time.
You know, you know, an infidelity of a husband murders the wife or vice versa, or murders a significant other's lover.Like, that's a terrible decision to make.You could just get a divorce or work through it or whatever.
I think it's human nature to want that instant gratification or that instant relief.And by committing that murder, you get that instant relief.And then you'll deal with the problem later.
We don't know what happened to Elaine Park.But if someone did do something, they didn't solve a problem, or satisfy an urge, or relieve an anxiety.They only complicated their life, and harmed the lives of many others.
And if we can't find justice now, somewhere, at some point, what happened will hopefully become clear.The police at our last meeting said the key to solving these crimes is patience.
Living with that uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty that we spoke about, until sometimes, years or decades later, the truth is found.
In the meantime, the six of us, Ingrid, Annemarie, Rosemarie, Mike, Jayden, and myself continue to seek these answers every day for Elaine.There's a lot of work still to be done.
A deeper analysis that's now available of Elaine's phone may be able to show her locations after she left Devine's house.And new information has come in that we're looking at and communicating to the police about.
Though discussing it at this point would disturb the investigation, I will share it in an update as soon as I can.
In the meantime, proceeds from this podcast will be added to the reward for information leading directly to the whereabouts of Elaine Park.It will now stand at $250,000, and it will remain in place until the end of the year.
Steps have also been taken to ensure that it can be collected anonymously.But if you had to find some meaning in it, some purpose for you or message in it that's What would that be?
I just hope she knew that I always loved her.You know, I always wanted the best for her.I imagined us growing old together as like a cool aunt and uncle duo thing, and we've talked about that too.And so it's kind of just like carrying on that spirit.
The life lessons I get from my sister are all about enjoying the moment and just, um, just embracing what's happening right now, you know, because she was so spontaneous and just like living in the moment.
And so that's the type of feel and spirit I want to cultivate and keep going with, you know, for my future kids and all of that too.
And they're going to know, like I'm going to tell them stories about Elaine and, you know, they're going to know who she is for sure, you know.
you know, like, oh, your aunt would have loved doing that with you or something like that, you know, and tell them stories.
For me, at this point, I would love closure so that I could move on, but I've also kind of, like, been settling with the idea that I may never know.
So the thing I think about is, like, I just hope if anything bad happened to her, that she didn't have to suffer and that she wasn't in any pain you know, that she was able to be okay, you know, past this world too.
I think all of us agree, have always agreed, that Elaine is a really talented lyricist.Like, she really would write down these thoughtful poems and speak them and record herself.
We all thought that they were valuable, and so we put this song together and I sent the recording of Elaine to Zakari, and it was, like, so easy to put it together because, like, she's such a good writer.
I'm not special, I just listen to the signs of this earth I wasn't perfect, but redemption's the beauty of rebirth, rebirth And I'm on a different plane, my lines don't think the same as book to star And I'm on a different plane, my lines don't think the same as book to star And I'm on a different plane, my lines don't think the same as book to star And I'm on a different plane, my lines don't think the same as book to star Look up to the light, light Look up to the light
Look up to the light Balance been interrupted, cosmic telling me go off I'm on a bigger mission, got no time for petty fights Or hit me behind Twitter doors, maybe show you the light Went all upside down for y'all as my sacrifice I was really working when I was going out those nights, you see I'm not special, I just listen to the signs of this earth I wasn't perfect, but redemption's a beauty every birth There's always lessons to learn, never not room to grow This applies to individuals and all of your souls
Look up to the light Look up to the light Look up to the light Look up to the light
It's hard to break cycles, but stay consistent, you'll prevail.You gotta be your change now, no more running around your tail.Don't do wrong by others, don't envy them to fail.Hold your hands with your brothers, before you tip them scales.
You can't control the cards you've been deckered.Half fit, start slow, think chess is not checkers.Perseverance even through hard times, look up to the light.Look up to the light.Look up to the light. This is the real key.
You gotta see how people see.You gotta breathe how people breathe.It's all in the psychology.Perspective, respect boundaries.I overlook VVSs and gold towers.I value ones connecting using inner powers.
I'm sorry for the drought, but hey, you liked my showers?Then continue spreading love.Stop and smell the flowers.
Thank you for listening to season two of To Live and Die in LA. Bonus episodes will be added as new information is available.Please note that this is still an active investigation and the police have not named any suspects.
Everyone mentioned should be presumed innocent.We've presented this step-by-step documentary of our experiences while searching for Elaine Park in order to share Elaine's light and story, and in hopes that this podcast helps lead to justice for her.
And if you do have any information that can help, call us at 213-204-2073.Or you can email us also anonymously at LiveDieLA at tenderfoot.tv.To Live and Die in LA is a production of Tenderfoot TV and Neil Strauss in association with Cadence 13.
Executive producers are myself, Donald Albright, and Peyton Lindsey.Produced and edited by Tristan Bankston. Consulting producer, Alex Vespistead.And additional editing by Mariah Winter.Mixed and mastered by Cooper Skinner and Devin Johnson.
Original music and score by Makeup and Vanity Set.With additional musical services by Tristan Bankston.Cover design by Trevor Eiler.
And special thanks to Chris Corcoran and the team at Cadence 13, Oren Siegel, Oren Rosenbaum and Grace Royer at UTA, The Nord Group, Station 16, Jason Charles Miller, Charlene Lee, Beck Media and Marketing, and the many listeners of this podcast who've also spent their time looking for answers and supporting this investigation.
The closing theme is Look Up to the Light by Elaine Park, featuring Zachary and Mike Einziger, produced by Zachary.
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