Mobsters, Motorcycles, and Monsters - EPISODE 9 (The Bakersfield Three) | Forensic Files

I once spoke with a mother whose four-year-old daughter was kidnapped from her front yard picked up over their
fence as the child's older siblings had their backs turned for maybe 30 seconds 11 days later her body was found in a
cotton field her name was Jessica Martinez she was the most beautiful little girl the only daughter in a
family of boys she was their princess a real life doll her murder was never solved it'd been nearly 30 years since
her kidnapping when her mother told me that trying to explain the pain of losing a child is like trying to explain
what a rainbow is like to someone who can't see color I think that's the most simple way to put it you can try to
explain the pain and the person hearing about it can try to imagine it telling themselves it would be horrible a
nightmare pain they can't imagine but that's just it they can't imagine it they can't understand
I think that's why Cheryl Dy and Jane latched on to each other and became so close so quickly after that first
meeting back then they could say we're all in the same boat especially Jane and Cheryl but now Cheryl was in a boat all
alone floating endlessly through a new kind of grief she didn't think was possible I can think of maybe a few very
very few people who are in this horrible Club that can say um not only did they kill your son
but they probably hurt him really badly before he was killed and then they decided that they' just chop him up and
throw him away like garbage in a bag in the river who can say that nobody can say
that we have no peers to talk to all of a sudden Diane doesn't understand that side of the story I mean her son was
gunned down in the middle of a street right all of a sudden Jane these these women that I've been relying on and
talking to all of a sudden Jane doesn't know this part who do I talk to about this you can't just walk into you know
go have coffee with someone talk about your son being cut up [Music] I'm Olivia Lavo and this is the Bakers
field 3 [Music] [Music] and so it becomes very very lonely very almost I would I don't even know
how to express it really it's you had this loneliness before and this kind of self-imposed isolation because you know
you just don't feel like being around people and you're crying all the time and and then all of a sudden that circle
gets smaller and smaller smaller smaller smaller at the same time Jane was also going through a new kind of pain that
neither Dy or Cheryl could relate to a lot of people assumed that the news that neither body part belonged to Bailey
would be incredible for her mother and her entire family which Jane understands as she even says herself what kind of
mom hopes a body parts their daughter it's a deeply complicated mind set of course Jane wants Bailey to be
found alive but at this point it had been 8 months with no signs of life and countless people telling her that they
had heard that Bailey was dead she'd been hearing lots of horrific stories of the various possibilities of what
happened to her daughter but none was worse than hearing she might never find her if the leg had matched to Bailey as
Dreadful as the thought was that her body was just stuck out there in the lake as Jane puts it at least she would
have found found her I know it sounds weird and I just want to find her or pie of
her I need to bring my daughter home I don't know where to look for her and somebody needs
to you know just give me GPS points and or send me a picture from the map where she is and I'll go out and get
her though dy's son James was never missing Dy understood a little bit of what Jane was going through before D was
born she had an ant go missing she was in all the detective books whatever happened to Genie
long they never found her the prime suspect was always her ants estranged husband who was a police
officer they investigated but they could never find anything he had taken a shovel from my grandmother's house that
night asked for a shovel the two little boys um weren't old enough they just remember waking up
in the dark and he said your your mom isn't here when they were asking where's Mommy while Dy never knew her aunt Genie
she grew up seeing the life-altering effects her disappearance had my grandmother you know having a child that
was missing and not knowing what happened to her was very difficult for her and so I can relate to Jane and not wanting
to be that person you know wanting to find Bailey now even though the lake was really no
longer a place where Jane could go look for Bailey she still kept going I would always go out to the lake I'd kind of
become attached to the leg and I've said that before because I thought it was Bailey but it wasn't Bailey so it was
somebody else's daughter out there and they didn't know she was there so as moms would you know do little memorials
for her after the female leg didn't match to Bailey it solidified her identity as a
Jane Doe but the moms didn't think that was fitting we always called her lady in
the lake and I forget which one of us said oh liil it might have been D or Cheryl but it's like okay liil we'll
call her Li for lady in the lake the moms vowed to continue their mission to raise money for the
specialized soner equipment to search the lake for the rest of Lil's body if it wasn't my daughter it was somebody's
daughter out there true to their word they formed a nonprofit called the Bakersfield 3 and got to work planning a
fundraiser to bring in the 20 grand or so for the equipment in some ways I think advocating for Lil short for lady
in the lake was almost a bit of a distraction for the moms as they were still processing the gravity of the arm
in the river matching to to Micah this meant the rest of Micah was likely in the river and the river is far more
difficult and dangerous to search and then there was the horrifying story his remains told unlike the leg
found in the lake that was believed to have detached naturally Micah's arm was clearly severed by a saw and placed into
a bag weighted down with rocks great effort was put into trying to ensure he'd never be found there was also a zip
tie around Micah's wrist here's Sergeant Garrett how unusual is it to have a case
with dismemberment highly unusual have you ever had a case before no that you know
is a whole another uh degree of craziness in this case that uh kind of goes to the character of the person if
you're willing to to do that that's uh not very common you might remember Sergeant Garrett at
the time was a homicide detective so he was only officially assigned to work James's case but after the confirmation
that mic's arm was found the top law enforcement officials agreed it was best Sergeant Garrett officially be the lead
detective on all three cases Bailey's case up until this point was being handled by a different agency the
sheriff's office and we had never seen the sheriff hand over one of their cases to the police Department to us in the 17
News Room this felt significant here's 17 news anchor and reporter Alex fiser once we heard law
enforcement say that we knew okay there's something big about about what's going on there's something something
crazy about this case paired with the gruesome revelation of Micah's dismemberment it fueled a lot of
suspicion that myself and others had already been hearing here's 17 news reporter Jason katowski
there were all sorts of rumors about who might be involved in this the two big ones were the cartel and the Hell's
Angels motorcycle club some people swore it were true others were skeptical here's me talking to a friend of Micah
James and Bailey Jeremy Bell so what's up with all the Hell's Angels talk about this case I think it's just talk H
Angels wouldn't not get involved with this [ __ ] they have no reason to they're probably trying to keep their
name as far away from this as possible I mean I didn't even know there were Hell's Angels in
Bakersfield to be honest with you uh any true patched in members you won't know who they are oh they're not like wearing
there absolutely not this [ __ ] no a true patch in Hell's Angel member is you wouldn't be able to tell him from from
any other Regular Joe they come off as very polite and well-mannered guys right they did the Toys for Tots
and that image [ __ ] but if you're not a p member they'll cut your throat before
you can even blink an eye during their own investigation the three moms were warned to stay away from
anyone in an outlaw motorcycle gang but Jane of course couldn't help herself if there was a chance a biker had
information Jane was going to talk to them I would even so up to motorcycle groups when I would see on like how they
would have Gatherings at places like the motorcycle clubs I didn't really know who was who at the time you know and I'd
hand out my flyers one time Jane walked up to a group of bikers at a diner and handed
them Bailey's flyer when one of the members said to her why would you give us a flyer do you think we know where
she's at and I go no I just know that you guys know a lot of people and if you could help you know spread
the word to find my daughter I believe something happened to her and kind of give like the quick spill about Bailey
and the three and and they're like oh okay unlike other gangs biker gangs and Bakersfield seem to fly under the radar
when it came to being connected to any crimes it was very rare we in news would ever hear them come up maybe once every
few years of that I can only only think of two cases in Bakersfield they were linked to one was a suspicious death and
the other a suspicious disappearance charges have never been filed in either more recently the president of the
Fresno chapter of Hell's Angels a city 2 hours north of Bakersfield was convicted
of murder charges along with two other chapter presidents for reportedly killing a fellow ha member and somehow
illegally cremating his body at a local Funeral Home alls this to say when the hell's
angel's name was brought up in the Bakersfield 3 case people thought yeah that's a group who could make people
disappear and it goes without saying the Mexican drug cartel had no shortage of horror stories of making people go
missing torture and dismemberment around this time I got an email from Matt Queen throughout the
last 9 months or so covering the three cases I had periodically tried to get him to do an interview with me the email
said first and foremost before he'd ever consider sitting down with me I would need to issue a public apology for
trying to crucify him by giving Jane Bailey's Mama platform part of the email read this story is too big for you
Olivia I need a real reporter I applied your efforts but I question your motives
the email continues in regards to Bailey and Micah they were both very careful not to say too much about quote the
family whoever they are they were very dangerous people according to Micah on two occasions Micah handed me a folded
up piece of paper and instructed me only to open it if he didn't contact me in one hour that it would probably mean
he's dead I laughed at him I used to think he was skitso the things Bailey told me I dare not repeat I just want to
keep my family safe there isn't much more I can say or do to help so it seemed like many other people
I'd spoken with regarding the Bakersfield 3 case Queen was also scared of whatever and whomever Bailey and
Micah were wrapped up with and then two months after we'd filmed it the Dr Phil episode aired The
Bakers field 3 two missing and one killed is it three mysteries or one which started its own sort of [ __ ] storm
of rumors and chatter about the case I thought that Dr Phil Show to be honest was a big mistake huge mistake as a
detective that would have really hindered my investigation this is retired Bakersfield Police detective Bill Darby
bill is someone who lives and breathes the police department as he'd say it he was born into it Bill's Father Bill
Darby senior was a detective at the same Department Bill remembers being a teenager in the '90s piling into his
dad's yellow pickup truck and seeing a photo of a little girl tucked into the visor the little girl in the photo is
the same little girl I mentioned at the beginning of the episode Jessica Martinez who was abducted and murdered
at age 4 Bill Darby senior was assigned to the case before her little body was found in a cotton field driving along
one day Bill Jr asked his dad why do you keep that photo in your personal car why
not your police car bill senior told him every minute I'm in my police car I will
always be working her case and she knows that and so does her mother but that little girl needs to know I'm thinking
of her every day day every second of my life this last June on his 77th birthday
Bill senior suffered a massive stroke as he struggled on life support his wife told him you will see Jessica in heaven
within minutes after that he passed peacefully after his death Bill Jr found that same picture of Jessica still
tucked into his dad's sun visor not every detective has that same passion and dedication but Bill Senor
did and it's the same kind of passion I see in his son Bill Jr worked for the police
department for 20 years before breaking his back on the job and he was not ready
to retire not even close there's just a couple passion cases that I wanted to close out before I left so those those
stick with anybody forever one of Bill's passion cases became one of mine and even though I was
at the time a young fairly inexperienced reporter Bill became almost an informal
invest instigative partner of mine and then you got involved with a Bakersville 3 case which I avoided like the plague
because of the media tension and I just thought something I don't want to get into it cuz I know I get sucked in and
you sucked me in bill is a Burly guy who could certainly come off intimidating but he's really a big teddy bear he's
compassionate and truly wants to help victim's families I knew he'd be perfect to speak with the moms when you're
talking to the victim's family you treat it has the most important thing going on
because it is and that's something and I'm not casting any Stones I know historically not specifically this case
that an overwhelmed detective can sometime sometimes lack that empathy I certainly lack the empathy at times but
I could certainly fake it you know I my own stressors at the time I had three four three young kids and a baby and
stressful work but damn it if one of my kids wasn't here dinner if there were only three and not four I would want the
detach giv me all their attention so you when you're in front of him when you're
talking to him you give them that respect Bill agreed to meet with the moms and let me pick his brain about the
case not long after the doct Phil special aired which he calls a huge mistake his reasoning is he says it
dramatized an already dramatic case which in turn spurred tons of rumors talk and outlandish tips investigators
had to track down Sergeant Garrett will tell you they weren't all bad some turned out to be good but for a minute
there it certainly seemed to cause a bit of a headache for the department and for
the moms there seemed to be an uptick in horror stories they were hearing about their kids Jane was consumed with
thoughts about Bailey being tortured and dismembered like Micah she couldn't sleep at night she was struggling to
function I saw she was just going crazy not literally just she's losing her mind
over her kid as we all would part of the struggle was the mom's feeling like the
police department wouldn't share anything with them and to the police department's credit that's pretty
typical for them with any families but having a case that involved three families three families who were going
on national TV Together made them I think even a little more reserved than usual which to be frank drove the moms a
little crazy at times and Bill thought he could help with that originally I wanted to not really help in the
investigation but to walk the victims through the investigation to give them comfort and
let them know hey this is what's happening here this is why they're doing there's a method to the madness in my
mind I honestly thought I was helping the police department by answering their questions so that they they weren't
bugging them to be honest I introduced Bill to the moms in a conference room at the news station where the three of them
had a massive table nearly completely covered in their notes and charts and documents they'
created almost immediately I saw that they were 24/7 talking to each other and talking
to people that were involved and getting a lot of information and I thinking as a
detective man this would be information overload I'll admit this is around the same time I myself started to get
slightly overwhelmed with the amount of different players different crimes different connections that were being
thrown out there I remember one night I was Home Alone unable to sleep and I found myself messaging with a
self-proclaimed drug dealer who knew the circle and who told me that Micah was wrapped up with the cartel and his body
was dumped in a minine shaft in the desert then at some point the conversation shifted to talk that a
white supremacist Neo-Nazi gang member ordered a hit on Micah from prison it became increasingly harder to know what
was a red herring and what was a lead worth chasing I mean for a while there you
remember it was the Talk of the Town and everybody has their opinions and everybody solved the crime within a
week another problem was a lot of people who wanted to give their two cents on the case had no actual involvement it
was all pure hearsay happening at dive bars and hair salons making its way back to us look how many people are suspects
in this in different genres of people you had bikers you had Mexican Mafia you had you know cartels all sorts of stuff
it's just it I saw it the snowball going downhill Bill wanted to try to boil it down go back to
the basics if you will focus on the most logical explanation for things which is
what Sergeant Garrett was also doing the simple answer is usually the the correct
answer to things and people tend to make things more complex at a certain point part of what made the case start to feel
complex to me at least was trying to find a direct link between James's murder and Micah and Bailey's
disappearances as I looked into it early on without having a lot of evidence in front of me one thing was becoming
glaringly obvious is that Bailey and Micah were most likely related for sure James I still think was a
coincidence I mean nefarious as it was I don't think James's murder was directly
related to those other two to be clear the three moms never thought there was one singular killer responsible for all
three cases but for a while at least it seemed like there had to be something between the one Monon time frame and the
overlap of friends here's Jeremy Bell again I'm almost like 100% positive that that Micah and Bailey's Micah and Bailey
had nothing to do with with James they might have known each other they might have hung out but they those were two
two separate interest and Bailey and James's friend Jessica I think this is something totally
different that his brother probably knows more about this brings us to a part of
James's case that is difficult to say the least for his brother Ryan Google my name just Google my name and see what
comes up you know that's what I have to deal with now after the do Phil Special Air in early 2019 it became apparent
that a lot of people thought Ryan had information about his brother's murder he wasn't sharing including Dr Phil
apparently here's a clip of the episode you know who shot your brother why haven't you told the police if I
knew who if I knew I would have told him give me a polygraph please please you don't know who shot your
brother no and if I did I don't even think I'd let the cops have their chance bill when looking at the case took the
Dr Phil approach Ryan's the key I could be wrong my earliest instinct is Ryan knows every freaking thing about
that he's lining up his ass sorry I'm very passionate about that CU I think he's a
punk he's hiding behind his addiction his crap it's his damn brother he either saw it knew it was going to happen or
knows afterwards he knows the whole story people's main reason for thinking Ryan could know more is simply that Ryan
was at the chiropractor's house that night when the chiropractor allegedly said he was going to quote call his boys
who'd be strapped if James came by James did come by and as Ryan was apparently driving out of the chiropractor's
neighborhood James was shot to be clear Ryan isn't the only person who's told me the chiropractor
made a threatening comment towards James someone else told me that about a week before James's murder he heard the
chiropractor say something similar to what Ryan shared here's James's friend Jeremy
again they knew who shot him who sh all of us did Ryan had to have known Ryan had to have known Jesus Christ James's
car James was found literally within a 100 yards from that dude's house right right he wasn't a bad neighborhood he
wasn't in gang territory he was in it was a nice brand new neighborhood there's no crime over there there's no
driveby shootings no none of that [ __ ] like there's no other possible person that could have
done other than other than that chiropractor the overall consensus was the chiropractor would be pretty unlucky
if he really had nothing to do with it to have allegedly made the comments he did and afterwards James is
coincidentally killed outside his house people people also zeroed in on Ryan essentially being an eyewitness to all
of it but the information he' shared with police wasn't resulting in an arrest which people thought was strange
even Matt Queen had something to say about it Matt pulled Cheryl and I aside in court one day in in the hall and he
looked at Cheryl and he goes I don't know what to tell you you know I have no idea where Mike
is he told me I needed to talk to Ryan he goes your son knows what happened I asked D how she felt seeing
one of her sons be scrutinized so much over her other son's murder I feel like he's been put through the
ringer do I still believe he knows more than he knows I do only in that I know he was on drugs
and I know that that night I know he had been taking drugs and I sometimes think
when you go through a traumatic experience your brain protects yourself do I think Ryan shot his
brother absolutely not do I think Ryan was involved in having his brother shot absolutely
not but do I think there's little nuances I do nuances I mean when you're saying
that are you saying um well like for instance can't remember that he can't remember like for instance Ryan went in
and out of that neighborhood twice and that silver sedan was sitting there Ryan knows cars like the back of
his hand he can look at a mirror a grill but yet he doesn't remember the make of the car for the life of me
trying to [ __ ] remember what kind of car was that what kind of car was that silver car it was a silver four-door car
full size but what kind like God damn it Ryan [ __ ] think I mean people have said he's purposefully doing that
because he's afraid for his life D doesn't think his lack of memory is intentional but others do and believe
that he's afraid for his life because one theory of James's murder is that it was supposed to be RH who was killed
even D has considered it two weeks prior to James being killed I had a really bad
dream that Ryan was killed and I was just hysterically shaken and James said Mom you don't understand
he goes Ryan's dealing with some really bad people and so I wonder if it was meant
for Ryan and not James if possibly Ryan was involved with something or someone and James was trying to help help
him here's Ryan's take on that theory I thought about it for a minute and considered it but anybody around us
knows what I look like and they know what he looks like they know what kind of car I drive and what kind of car
James drove a quick editor's note here the interview you just heard with Ryan and
Dy were recorded when Ryan was still using drugs he's been clean now for over a year and a half but D says his
recollection of the night of the murder is still the same whatever the twist in James's case
may be many assume there must be one if there's been no arrest though shortly after James's murder the chiropractor
did spend a little time Behind Bars after making a plea deal in a Narcotics case however after meeting the required
for his probation that charge was expunged from his record so technically he's not considered a convicted felon
he's also no longer considered a chiropractor four months after James's murder He was ordered to surrender his
medical license the board of Chiropractic examiners cited his drug conviction as unprofessional conduct at
last check he has not tried to get his license reinstated no one I spoke with could
tell me what he's been up to in recent years it seems he's kept a low profile and my attempts to speak with him have
been unsuccessful as of this recording the chiropractor has never been charged with
the male theft and check fraud you've heard a couple people implicate him in and when it comes to James's murder he's
never been publicly named a suspect by law enforcement how has there not been an
arrest in the case so there's a lot of cases that as a homicide investigator works that uh you kind of know what
happened but you can't always prove like for court purposes what happened to Sergeant Garrett I'm sure the talk about
how James's case seems solvable from people outside of the investigation can be frankly annoying we're essentially
like football fans screaming at the TV about the quarterback's performance from the comfort of our couch and I can
imagine unsolicited advice and criticism is particularly irritating seeing as in
homicide cases you have to keep everything then close to the chest so Sergeant Garrett isn't really able to
defend his investigation his responses have to be vague at best here's what he could say well in any homicide case you
can't approach it with a narrow scope of view you want to be able to look at everything you just never know what
evidence you'll have that leads you in a certain direction on any investigation so James's case is more complex than
than it appears I was being pulled in a lot of directions by people related to the
case a few months into 2019 the one-year anniversaries passed for the three cases
as spring crept into summer we got an unexpected announcement from the police department they sent out a press release
confirming that Micah and Bailey's cases were believed to be connected to each other but they said they could find no
direct link to James's murder and the two disappearances it wasn't that the news
itself was groundbreaking as most people including the moms had essentially already come to that conclusion but it
still felt significant and sort of odd did this mean the Bakersfield 3 was really the Bakersfield 2 and if all
three victims knew each other and all died or disappeared within a month what made Bailey and Micah's cases connected
but not James did Micah and Bailey disappear for the same reason was the same person or
persons responsible [Music] it doesn't matter if you're Olivia Lavo 5 foot nothing and 100 nothing or big
fat build Arby with a gun on his hip if he wants to kill you he's going to kill you that's next time on the Bakers field
[Music] 3 for

EPISODE 9/15

Mobsters, Motorcycles, and Monsters Rumors and terrifying stories about the Bakersfield Three become the talk of the town.

When two friends go missing back-to-back, and in between their disappearances, a third friend is murdered, their mothers begin their own investigation. As the connections between the three cases are explored, the mothers navigate devastating twists and turns, including one revelation that shakes the community to its core.

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The Bakersfield Three Podcast https://casefilepresents.com/the-bakersfield-three/

----- CREDITS

Writing & Narration – Olivia Lavoice Audio Editing - Anthony Telfer Production and Music – Mike Migas Animation - Mat Rydzik, Paulina Szymanska

Special thanks to the mothers and family of the Bakersfield 3 & KGET News Station

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Brief Summary

The episode covers the tragic stories of three missing children and their families' struggles for closure and justice.

Key points

The Pain of Loss. A mother describes the indescribable pain of losing her child, comparing it to explaining a rainbow to someone who can't see color.
Desperate Search. A mother expresses her desperate need to find her missing daughter, even if it's just a piece of her.
Lady in the Lake. Moms honor an unidentified victim by naming her 'Li' for 'lady in the lake.'
Dismissive Email. A journalist receives a blunt email from a source questioning her motives and capabilities.
Detective's Dedication. A detective's commitment to a cold case is highlighted by his promise to always work on it.
The Chiropractor's Threatening Comments. Ryan was at the chiropractor's house when a threatening comment was made about James.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's like okay liil we'll call her Li for lady in the lake.

Moms decide to name the unidentified victim as a way to honor her.

6:53WatchMay 20, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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