Family Members of Mitrice Richardson Ask Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station Captain for Tapes of Missing Woman

• Letter Seeks Added ‘Clarification’ on Whether Other Evidence Is Being Withheld

BY ANNE SOBLE

Family members of 24-year-old Cal State Fullerton honor graduate Mitrice Richardson, who now has been missing for over five months, wrote Captain Tom Martin this week, the outgoing head of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, seeking information about videos of her that he said he possesses.
Existence of the videotapes was disclosed at a meeting between these family members, Captain Martin, other Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials, and Sheriff Lee Baca in the sheriff’s office on Jan. 6.
The saga of Richardson’s mysterious disappearance has been chronicled at length in the Malibu Surfside News, including her family’s assertion that Lost Hills Station personnel are responsible for the young black woman not having been seen or heard from since the morning of last Sept. 17.
The letter signers: Richardson’s mother Latice Sutton, her aunt Lauren Sutton, her college mentor Ronda Hampton and family friend Charles Croft, are critical of the station’s handling of the Richardson’s arrest and release following a dispute over nonpayment of a restaurant check because they believe she was in a state of extreme mental duress, if not illness, when the incident occurred on the evening of Sept. 16.
They believe Richardson should have been held for a “5150” medical evaluation, instead of being released at 12:25 a.m. the next morning alone, on foot, with no money or cell phone (her purse and phone were placed in her impounded vehicle) in the isolated industrial area where the station is located.
In the letter, the four signers wrote: “We would like to follow up with you [because] we are concerned with the fact that the video of Mitrice in the “booking cage” was not revealed to the family, friends and possibly other law enforcement agencies involved in the search for Mitrice.”
They note, “What is most disturbing is that the video was withheld from the family, even after strongly expressing a desire to view any video footage of Mitrice;” and they add, “The [initial] denial of the video makes us suspicious as to what other critical pieces of information are being withheld from the family.”
The letter requests that Captain Martin, “Please contact us regarding some of our concerns—maybe some clarification on these issues will ease our minds.”
Additional information about the mother’s family’s search efforts can be found at www.findmitrice.info