Fragments of a Crime [3]

There was evidence in the house and they would not listen to me. The proof podcast is back with a new case and a new season. And this time, the stakes are higher than ever before. The letters from the doctors said that I have such ones or less to live. I'm scared to hear them say it right now. A dying man is serving a life sentence for a murder he says he didn't commit. Did you ever question if they got the right person? I don't think I've lived it at the time. I don't think I believe it now. I'm scared to be sitting here in this damn chair talking about this shit. How many other cold cases are going to come forward to go, "Hey man, we need to look at my shit" because I didn't do it. How many more do we have? You can listen now to season three of Proof wherever you get your podcasts. And follow along with us as we re-investigate the murder at the bike shop. Everything I tell you is true. I'm not oceanant. One way or the other. I hope I don't bring a ton of shit down on me. I really do. Do you like a good ghost story? Maybe you wonder what it would be like to communicate with the other side. We'll put your Ouija boards away and just listen to Rattled and Shook. I'm your host Meredith and we've got a new season of Rattled and Shook available now, including themed episodes, guests, games, and immersive creepy stories sent by real people about haunted hotels, satanic panic, and ghosts galore. A new season of Rattled and Shook is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Warning. The episode you're about to hear involves descriptions of sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. This is not just a podcast. It is a journey. A dark step-by-step journey into a very unusual missing person's investigation. One involving everyone from number one recording artists to eventually the FBI. I'm taking you through it in real time for a specific reason. And that reason is so you can have all the information we do. And I'm presenting every piece of this puzzle, even the ones that don't fit, so you can join our team and help find out what happened to Elaine Park. Listen carefully to every detail in case you notice something we missed. Because there are clues here everywhere. I just couldn't see them at the time. [Music] Episode three, Chapter six. The tweets. [Music] Hey Kenny? Kenny? I'm on the phone with a music photographer who goes by the name Kenny Chosen. Some two months ago, 20-year-old Elaine Park went missing. And her friends and family believed that her disappearance could be linked to an assault that took place backstage at a concert some 18 months earlier. After a lot of digging, I believe I found a possible witness. And I've just asked him if you remember seeing Elaine Park backstage. I remember that I remember that, sir. Remember she was like, "My super fucked up." Like backstage, I saw an overbaby. I definitely remember that she was like not only hook-and-roll-crave-a-cardi, but also a lot of other people that were backstage. The idea was just like in the bathroom and then like they were just walking or one after the other or something like that. I was like, "Sure, it's all like with the fuck you guys all right, you know?" And then I looked up, "Oh, good." "Sure, I'm not going to be a part of this." You know what I mean? I asked him exactly how many people he was talking about here. "Pire like three to be honest." I remember like five or three. And then afterward did you like get a vibe on her when she came out? "Oh, when, yeah, when she, when she, when she looked like she was like straight and she didn't know like she was like falling off like, and she looked like she was conscious and knew what she was doing." I think that's really normal. So we're like, "Oh, girls, you don't have to show your fucking fucked up." And try to like go backstage and whatnot, you know? I think there was like some video of that going around. "Oh, there was?" I think. "I've never seen no video like that." So you don't think anyone took photos or videos? "No, I don't think anyone took photos or videos like that." Did you ever see her again or run into her at any point later? "No, I've never seen her ever again. That's the most wonderful thing about it." "I've never run into her." "I don't even know any of these girls that I meet or anything like that word. I just see what happens and I'm not like, like, forget about it, you know?" And that's what happens. Like, it's just come backstage and start trying to hit her with the artist. "Somebody was saying Kodak was there." "Oh, no, he's definitely not." "It was just, I think it was just father, play with the party and, you know, someone else." I also wanted to see if Elaine's ex-boyfriend divine compare had any connection to the people at the concert. "Do you know a guy named divine compare?" "No, I don't." I sent Kenny a photo and he said that he didn't recognize divine. "I wish I could remember more. I believe in the album or anything, you know, like, that's like, that's so bad that she's green and, you know, like, it's a girl, it's a young girl that I've met. I found out that she's missing out. That's kind of crazy." I noticed that Kenny Siddhalane was, quote, "super fucked up," but another point said she was straight. And he also denied saying something about this afterward to Elaine, as Elaine's friend Daisy told us. So he may be minimizing what happened at the very least. But even if he is, it's still clear that what took place was not okay. So I called Nooshin Valiza Day, a trauma-informed violence prevention specialist and a professor at UCLA and USC for a legal perspective on Kenny's account of what happened. "So if she was intoxicated under California Pale Code Section 261A3, she would not have actually been seen to consent, get in a place where she could actually consent to sex. If she had been intoxicated and folks had been able to see that maybe she had trouble walking, or that she seemed very drunk, or that she wasn't really slurring her words. That would absolutely fall under her not being able to give consent to sex or any sort of sexual interaction." And if she went to the police with this incident, could charges be filed? "Yes, absolutely. If she decided to go to the police and share with them, especially the details of what she had been taking and what she remembered, which, as you said, seems like she may not remember much from the event, then absolutely she would be encouraged to press charges, or she could just suggest that these are the reasons why I believe I was raped and she'd be able to press charges against the person or people. And also another fact that sometimes plays a role. So if they were too intoxicated or high to be able to notice that she was also intoxicated, or they reasonably believe that she was able to consent to it, then they might get away with the sexual assault as well." It's heartbreaking to think about what Elaine must have gone through and how much it had been weighing on her. We had to keep looking into this, and to find out if what happened was connected to her disappearance, as Jaden and Elaine's mother Susan had told us. And if so, who was responsible? Their theory hinged on four key pieces of information. One, a series of deleted tweets that Elaine allegedly posted just before her disappearance. Two, a periscope video Elaine has said to have recorded around the same time. Three, the text messages between divine and Elaine that Jaden told us about. And four, an account that two of Elaine's friends, Kristen and Danielle supposedly gave missing person's advocate, Rhonda Hampton, at the search for Elaine. Mike Einser-Grenade began by calling Kristen, who Jaden tells us screenshot of the tweets before Elaine deleted them. "Hello, hey Kristen, it's Mike calling. Hey, what's up?" "How's it going?" "It's okay, it's okay." Yeah, I know it's kind of a weird situation and an odd set of circumstances for the phone call. Just to explain a little bit, I'm sitting here with a guy named Neil Strauss and his wife Amy. Mike went on to ask Kristen about her relationship with Elaine. I knew her because Mike, we went to wide dances together. She would just tell it every time at the wide dance. It was an incredible dance, you know, and just like the funnest girl to be around. Everyone gravitated towards her. Once he graduated, it was like going separate ways. Oh, it's a hard job, sorry. It's okay. Kristen told us that a month or two before Elaine disappeared. For some reason, she blocked or stopped following most of her high school friends. She unfollowed me, but I still followed her. So I would see all of her posts. And I don't know, they just kind of got a little wacky. Just like not how she used to be in a school at home. Ever she started tweeting one night about how she was, um, yeah. Sorry. It's okay. About what happened at that concert? Um, I don't know what happened at the concert. I don't know the details, but I remember I texted her that night. But I followed her tweets. Sorry. Kristen went on to confirm that within a day of posting the tweets, Elaine deleted them. I first tried it to tweet, because I couldn't find them. And then I just messaged her that night, and I was like, you're so brave. So I was like, she's like, I miss you so much. I don't want your blessings. She was just trying to get it out. You know, like she started to like, holding it in. I thought that the tweets came like to me. Like she just wanted to ever listen to them, but that didn't work out. It wasn't good about their head. I thought it texted her that night. That's for sure. Sorry. It's for sure. It's for sure. It's for sure. Kristen promised to send us the screenshots she'd taken of Elaine's tweets. Next, we needed to ask her about the conversation that she'd had with Ronda Hampton at the search. So Mike reads her an email that Ronda sent to Jaden, as well as to Detective Kreevac, the officer in charge of Elaine's case at the Glendale Police Department. Ronda is claiming that you and Danielle told her this story. So I want to tell you exactly what was written. She says, "Hello, gentlemen. Below is a summary of a conversation that I had with two of Elaine Park's friends. While we were hiking, they informed me that approximately one week before Elaine's disappearance, she posted on her social media a video and a written statement that she had been sexually assaulted by one of divine compiers' friends. They indicated to me that her intention was to approach divine about the rape and to inform him that she wanted to press charges against his friend. They stated that the post has subsequently been removed, but they believe that one of their friends might have a screenshot of her statement. At some point, I asked them if the friend who sexually assaulted Elaine could have been "codak black". They laughed and stated there's no way he would do that. I informed them that he's recently been arrested and released for rape. They appeared shocked stating that they were not aware of this. I believe they may have more information, however we were not able to finish the conversation. I'm unaware of their names, but Susan would know. Thank you for your time. And now Susan is telling me that the two people are you and Danielle. Right now, I'm actually texting with Susan because that Susan is like in real time confirming. I had no conversation with her about Elaine being raped because Susan told me not to have a conversation with her about it. So I didn't. Nothing about "codak black" or "desized" to somebody or Elaine trying to talk to them about it like never. I asked, "That story is like complete bullshit." Like, none of that makes sense at all. Because I was told besides, like, just me and Susan talked about it, like not even anybody else. It's weird because, like, the search, I sent those text messages to Susan and she's like, "Don't show Ronda." And which text message is she talking about? The tweets are different text messages. Oh yeah, the tweets. The tweets, I mean. She's like, "Don't show her, don't tell her about the text messages and don't send her those pictures of the compararies driving by the search. I don't send them dirt. She's sending them to me." I don't know. It was so weird. I was like, "Ree, what are you trying to do? I don't know. I don't want to make her sound bad because I know she's free. No. I just thought that was really weird." And she didn't want you to send the pictures of the compararies to her either. She just wanted me to send her. And did she give you any reason why? No, she's like just going. Susan is literally texting me this right now. Kristen also said Elaine went to divine to confront about the rape. But I do not say that. She says, "Not exactly sure how I heard it." But she's saying that you told me. Yeah, not me. Maybe she's thinking of somebody else, but I don't know. This is a strange thing to. I didn't say that. And you know Susan well enough that she would not confuse you with someone else. No, yeah. You know me. That's really weird. Not sure. Say that. Nothing that I know of a bit being one of divine staff or her trying to bring it up to divine. The only thing I saw was her treat. I said to Susan. And that's it. Kristen, do you know if Danielle could have had a conversation with Rhonda like while you weren't there? She could have. We definitely should have talked to her. Do you think maybe that she was talking with Danielle? You want her to be different? Yeah. Before hanging up, Kristen added one other odd story from the search about when the parents of Elaine's ex-boyfriend drove by. We're at the command post area. Standing up, pliers, people driving by and then Danielle to save them, pliers, they drove off. And then later that day, I drove up near their house and I found the pliers that Danielle gave them, almost ground in the middle of the street. Maybe like a hundred feet from their gate. What? That was like what the fuck is going on? Like this is fucked up. They don't give a fuck. And was it just the parents in the car? Was the divide in the car too? No, he wasn't in the car. It was the parents and it looked like grandparents. He was driving around that day too because other people saw him, but I didn't see him. People saw him driving around, but not by the command post. I think they just saw him, like in different areas that they were searching. After we hung up, Kristen sent us the tweets. We were written on December 28, 2016, exactly a month before Elaine went missing. Before I comment on them, I want you to listen to them first. Here's an actress reading the tweets. Nobody assesses things that are never brought to focus. Ladies, be sexually liberal, embrace and love. Just put a price on it. Value yourself. As for the rape, the people involved know damn well who they are, but I don't fight fire with fire. I forgive them because now I can move on. I was so ashamed to be sexual in any way or express myself, but damn, I'm cutus hell and it's time I treated myself like the queen I am. It was ultimately my decisions that resulted in my mistakes. I blame no one. The important part is I can finally take care of myself right. The recent deaths have realized made me come face to face with myself, and I had to accept if I won't stand up for myself and women nobody else will. I'm not making it a legal matter because the more important way of the situation is that I stay true to myself and find myself justice. I understand rape is a word people don't like seeing on timelines, but awareness is the first step to healing and progressing before anything. I used alcohol as a way to numb myself and begin lowering myself to how I was that night, but I realized my mistakes don't determine character. (gentle music) It was up until this year I realized I was losing my peace of mind and the only way to strengthen myself is to forgive myself and shed light. I was raped and nobody gave me closure about it and I didn't remember it so I didn't remember the pain. I just dropped it and never spoke. Reading these tweets, I'm shocked. These are Elaine's words but she's saying the exact opposite of what we've been told. Elaine explicitly states that she is not going to the police so the theory that her seeking justice led to her disappearance is beginning to fall apart. She's choosing to focus on her healing and recovery. I want to do my due diligence though so I called Danielle Elaine's other friend that Ron to Hampton mentioned speaking to. Hello. Oh hey Danielle it's Neil Strauss. Hi. I'm a Rosemary's friend and she had just taught your mom and said to call you. Your name comes up a few times so I wanted to check the stuff with you. Oh of course you can ask anything. I'll try to answer like the best I can. Well I know you were having a discussion with Ron to Hampton and she had said like you had told her some stuff like about Elaine or what you guys thought happened. You know me and Elaine, you know we were friends for so many years right actually up like up into like the last two years we weren't close anymore quite it. I honestly I know you're going to ask me because I've heard about it too about being raped or whatever or whatever I don't know. I have no idea about that. I went and told Ron that that's not true because I had no idea about it. Like Kristen Danielle denies telling Ron to Hampton that Elaine was going to the police to press charges but there still remains one major piece of supposed evidence that the theory hangs on. A periscope video that Elaine posted shortly before her disappearance. Right before Elaine disappeared not many people saw this video but there was like a there's so it was like a periscope and you actually can't save the periscope so it's like going live but the videos don't get saved unless you want to save them but she like recorded a really intense rap that she had made up by herself and I actually stumbled upon it like she was live doing it and she was so tense like it and it was like probably a week before she disappeared which is weird and I just got bad vibes and I like heard it. Not many people saw it because it showed people online and there was only like two people watching so and I was one of them but it just seemed really intense like I don't know I'm like fine the video. Fortunately while searching online later that night I found several sites that saved deleted periscope videos and with some digging I was able to locate Elaine's videos from that time. The only one that touches on the details of her life before she went missing is this excerpt regarding her relationship with Divine. Holmes were always one of my favorite subjects and I love that smile. Now she's trying my couldn't resist. Versatility but kept it a hundred always had sauce in his wrist. I'm not a player I just crushed a lot and he was on my list. Passions a sexy thing about a man determined but with a twist. Ambitions as a right and mentality but sincerely can't be missed. Someone who's fearless but still jiggy with a shit you get the gist I'm not trying to be too I'm not trying to be too specific I guess it's a hit or miss. I'm doing me now though I tried to I tried to lay low and catch a vibe but he's too caught up in the dollar signs he couldn't read none of the signs I told him I spoke to God he said he was the number to my therapist so I put my cute ass in my jeans and packed and leveled up shit I'm not even pissed. I send Danielle the video just to confirm that it was the actual periscope video she was telling me about and she confirmed that it was. I suppose to a close friend Elaine might have appeared tense but there's not even the most remote indication that she planned to go to the police that she planned to confront a vine or that divine knew these people in any way whatsoever. In fact Elaine is very clear that her issue with divine is that he doesn't seem to care about her enough and that's it. Just to confirm that what Elaine was saying in private was the same as what she was saying in public I asked Jayden to send me the text he mentioned at our first meeting where apparently divine was trying to talk Elaine into not going to the police. The first thing I noticed when reading Elaine's texts is that it's clear that she and divine were in a relationship despite what his father had told Mike. The second thing is that it is true divine was telling Elaine not to do anything crazy and to call him but it wasn't because she was going to the police it was because she sent him this text. I love you enough to let you go and see you do good for yourself. I need this year to really invest in myself right now so I'm going to grind and spend time alone until I can get myself real right. We can both improve and do better you know. I appreciate everything you've done for me. You really taught me a lot about myself and showed me my value and nobody did and I'm never going to forget that. I wish you knew how I see you through my eyes. My heart has a real special place for you. I read divine's responses to this message and while he tells Elaine that he can't lose her because she's all he's got right now he doesn't say anything nasty or vindictive to Elaine. In fact he texts her I just want you to know that I'm here for you no matter what. I'm still going to do everything I can to find a way to talk to divine but in the meantime I just want to make sure there's nothing we're missing here before closing our investigation into this theory. One that Jaden told us the Lost Hill Sheriff's Department was ready to act on if the case was in their jurisdiction. So I call Ron to Hampton one last time. You know the narrative that was in your email that this stuff had happened to Elaine and she was going to kind of confrontive. I'm just trying to figure out the origin of that narrative. They told me that she was going to confront them. That's how they learned why she was going to the town. That's what they told her. So you feel like 100% you remember them saying that directly it wasn't either planted from another source or someone else there or something else like that. Because I asked them why did she go to the town in the first place and without a beat. They said, "You don't see that she was going to confront him about how she needs to say, basically, support her because she wants to talk to her as a race." And I said, "Well, how do you guys know that?" And they said it was either parents overbade from the big clamp or not. It was fun. I found the actual video because I found a site that saved some of those videos even though they go away. I sent it to Danielle. I said, "Is this the video?" She said, "Yes." And the video definitely doesn't refer to any of that stuff. I know now. All I know is that at the time it appeared to me that they were being forthcoming. They were just talking and informing me. It was very casual. I don't even think they understood what they were telling me. What happened is when they said about the race and I stopped and then I started getting more serious. And that's when I said, "Well, how do you guys know that? That's what she said." But by the way, they did say they weren't sure if it was parents or if they did say that she did that a lot. They both told me that they saw it, but they weren't the only ones who saw it. Oh, that. And I can't remember who they said the other was. I followed up on the last two things Rhonda mentioned. I checked Elaine's Facebook and it turns out that Elaine very rarely used that account and there were no recent videos there. Mike and I also spoke with the one other close friend of Elaine's who was at the search. The last person to see her before she went to Divine's house, Sadie. She never said she was going to confront him. I had no idea. She was even going to see Dave. She knew about the race before she said anything to me about it. Dave already knew about it before she went that night. So he knew way before. He knew before I knew. How do you know she knew? Because she told me that she told Dave and that Dave said that Daisy seemed like a bad friend because she left her and that's why Elaine wasn't talking to Daisy that whole month and that's what she told me and then I told her, well maybe you should talk to Daisy about it because I don't know if Daisy even knows that happened. I asked Sadie if she knew why Elaine was going to Divine's house on that particular night. This is something we're still not clear about because one of the challenges that Jaden and Elaine's mother are facing is that Elaine's phone is password protected and the texts from the last 24 hours or so before she disappeared never backed up to eye cloud. So we don't have her data from that crucial window of time. I don't know, just, I just do. That I can think of. I was the last person to see her and she didn't say anything to me about it. So, I don't know. I think the only other person who would know was Dave. Let's just walk through what we were told were the reasons for Elaine's disappearance, versus what appears to be the truth. Jaden, the private investigator working for the family, told us this. It deleted tweets that we got from friends that had screen shoted at the time, talking about seeking justice. She knew that the people that had raped her were friends of the line, and she was going to confront them. But it turns out that Elaine's tweets were focused on her own healing. The perpetrators had no apparent connection to Divine, and she'd already discussed the assault with him and he'd been supportive. We were also told this. The girl said that there was a video and she was going on and on and on about what happened to her and how she was going to go challenge Divine on it. But it turns out that in the video, she says nothing of the sort. She said she'd left Divine over a difference in values. And finally, we were told this. The other acts that were at this concert were two other hip-hop artists in Playboy Cardi and an artist in Kodak Black. But it turns out that Kodak Black was never at the concert. Somebody was saying Kodak was there. Oh no, he's definitely not. So for me, at least, the theory has completely fallen apart. So my question is, was all this legitimate or were we purposely misled? Thank you for listening to this episode. If you have experienced sexual violence and are seeking help or like more information, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. This is still an active investigation, so if you have any information regarding the disappearance of Elaine Park or any of the parties that have been mentioned here, please email us at [email protected]. You can call us anonymously at 213-204-2073. I've also posted several details about the case. You can find these on our social media accounts at LiveDieLAPod. Please reach out if you have any information, specifically, photographs or videos of the area where Elaine's car was found between January 28, 2017, and February 2, 2017. To live in Die Nla is a production of Tenderfoot TV in Neil Strauss, in association with Caden's 13. Executive producers are Neil Strauss, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay, produced and edited by Tristan Bankston, consulting producer Alex Vespasde. Mixed and mastered by Cooper Skinner and Devon Johnson, original music and score by Makeup and Vanity Set, with additional musical services by Tristan Bankston. The theme song is Love and War by Flurry, cover design by Trevor Eiler, Elaine's tweets and texts read by Abigail Bankston, and special thanks to Chris Corcoran and the team at Caden's 13, or Ensegel, or En Rosenbaum, and Grace Royer at UTA, the Nord Group, Station 16, and Beck Media and Marketing. Please subscribe, rate, and review an Apple Podcasts. Our hope is to expose these stories so that we may learn from them and hold those responsible accountable for their actions. Thank you for your support. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, Tenderfoot listeners. We want to hear from you. We just launched a survey and want to know about your favorite shows, your merch requests, and what you'd like to listen to in 2026. Give us the gift of your feedback, and you might be one of our winners to get free merch and a $100 Amazon gift card. Head over to Tenderfoot.tv/ServeY for more. Thanks again. Now here's the show.