Polaroid Picture - EPISODE 6 (The Bakersfield Three) | Forensic Files

[Music] nature reveals a truth about motherhood that crosses over all species most
octopuses are known to only lay eggs once in their lifetime because they guard their eggs so closely they refuse
to leave their side to get food slowly starving to death but hanging on until the eggs hatch after her babies are born
and float away the mother octopus perishes one species of spiders feeds her young regurgitated meals until
eventually signaling her babies to consume her which will give them the strength and growth to venture out on
their own before giving birth Bears set out on their own to a secluded Frosty Den where
they'll stay for winter but unlike the others they won't spend hibernation in a deep sleep mother bears stay awake to
stand guard and breastfeed losing up to 30% of their body fat to feed their cubs
once it's time for them to Journey out into the Wilderness the mother bear becomes a fierce protector against the
constant looming Shadows of larger male Bears who will try to kill her Cubs nature shows us that mothers are
biologically programmed to do whatever they have to in order to give their offspring the best chance of survival
they'll protect them at all costs even if it means sacrificing themselves most human mothers never lose
that drive to protect their child and if that ability to protect is ripped away from a mother in an instant nothing in
their world is Right anymore just something very just very surreal about having children and not knowing where they are
all of a sudden they're two and three years old and they're lost in the crowd again you know or that that fear of
losing your kids in the mall or it's just it's just very visceral I'm Olivia Lavo and this is the
Bakersfield [Music] 3 I remember feeling such a ress the first time I interviewed Micah's mom
Cheryl she always knew deep down her son was no longer alive she knew Micah wouldn't disappear willingly and the
thought that his body was discarded without love or care in a lonely Place only known to the killer was just too
much in our first interview she told me if someone would just tell her where Micah's body was she'd go dig him up
with her bare hands little did I know at that time how literal that statement was
was Cheryl and her husband Lance had been given a tip early on from someone who knew Micah and the Social Circle
he'd been spending time with and that man said his body was likely buried in the desert near the tiny rural town of
Maricopa about 40 Mi outside of Bakersfield we were going every weekend and digging in the desert for for our
son it it's an unbelievable an unbelievably horri iic thing to be doing I can't even express it I know at least
one person in our family had a real emotional breakdown because of that take a minute to think about
that literally digging in the dirt in a massive seemingly endless desert for your loved one's body that's what Cheryl
her husband Lance and their other Sons spent that summer doing that will break you but so we
sitting and waiting for someone to tell you no we haven't had time to go out and
search yet that'll break you too you might be wondering why Micah's own family had to do this why not train
professionals law enforcement to put it simply most law enforcement agencies cannot dedicate the time and resources
to searching a huge area for a body without having a pretty solid tip and even so when an area is that vast it can
seem impossible like looking for a needle and a hay stack we'd all later find out that law enforcement actually
did search this area but quickly concluded it was Impractical without being able to narrow down a smaller
section of terrain to comb through so Micah's loved ones did their own searches for months and during heat
stroke and sheer trauma all the while Cheryl's mindset stayed the same it was something she and Bailey's Mom Jane
connected on We're just trying to find out where they are just somebody tell me where they are and we will go get them
and I know Jane has that same I will just go I have a shovel you know I think Jane still carries one in her trunk I I
will go dig I will go dig and I will find her Jane would eventually take to what
seemed like endless searches for Bailey's body often collecting animal bones and Fields and bringing them into
the coroner's office just in case but in the summer of 2018 Bailey's disappearance was still fresh Jane had
hope she could find her alive I couldn't fall apart I had to hold it together and
I believe the Flyers now looking back help me not goes crazy I call it my flyer therapy Jane started hanging up Flyers
that same week that Bailey went missing they were handmade handwritten that was before I knew how to do do them on the
computer and I went all over and hung thousands of those up I thought surely if I hang these flyers up somebody's
going to help me find her every day started the same waking up Before Sunrise filling her car with gas
and hanging up flyers in the blistering heat until the sun went down some 12 hours later I lived off of crackers and
hardboiled eggs and slim gems in my dur go at the time you know I couldn't stop to eat wallpapering the town wasn't
enough Jane wanted to make sure she was reaching everyone so she began going to homeless encampments CD motels and other
areas of town most Suburban moms would never dream of going willingly just in case someway somehow someone there knew
something I couldn't think about it like being rough or scary because I was in my
MO on mode I've got to do this so you can't fall apart and I'm going to have to go to these places to try to find
information like I had my tear gas pepper spray and my fanny pack and a knife and I had my cell phone so
sometimes if it got kind of bad I would like maybe I should put my phone on video or I would call and say okay I'm
over here looking if something happens and then the other moms would be like Jane you can't be doing that Jane also
made it a habit of hanging out outside of the jails she figured jail was a place where criminals talked maybe
someone knew something sometimes I get lucky and the guys are just getting released or the
girls out there she keep change on her to give to newly released inmates if they wanted to make a call on the pay
phone and she'd hand out candy and snacks in exchange they'd take a flyer and promise to be on the lookout for her
daughter everybody was really nice so I've learned a lot about outward appearances don't always mean it's a bad
person like that old saying you can't judge a book by its cover Jane had been counting the months
weeks days and hours since Bailey went missing day 100 felt particularly painful such a big number such an
overwhelmingly long time to not know where her daughter was so she set out to do what she did best what gave her
purpose her flyer therapy about halfway through the day I got a call from her she was shaken up my 17 News
photographer and I went to meet her here's a clip from the interview we did with Jane that day in summer
2018 it's very shocking to me I mean who would do something like that I'm sure it's aant
me in rosale the quote nice part of town the area where Bailey was living when she disappeared someone had taken to
taking down Bailey's missing flyers and replacing them with new flyers and greasing the utility poles so Jane
couldn't hang hers back up the new Flyers were strange some had messages about sex trafficking mental illness and
then there was one that read quote beware of perpetrators in Disguise some people set fires wherever they go and
have mastered the art of playing the burn victim it seemed to me that someone was
trying to suggest that Jane was pretending to be a victim when she was really a villain here's a clip from our
interview that day no matter what you do or say about me or my family or how many
polls you greas them I will find a way to find my daughter and I'm going to find her and I'm not going to stop it's
the worst thing that could have ever happened to me in my life is to have um my daughter disappear and not know
where she's at so anything they do to me or try to scare me isn't going to deter
me from finding my daughter we ran a story focusing on the cruel mystery perpetrator destroying
Jane's Flyers ending with a message I hoped would pull on people's heartstrings give me GPS points I'll go
get her whether she's alive or dead I just fought my daughter and it seems it did the story
got lots of shares on social media including someone who was friends with Sarah not to be confused with Sarah G
the woman who was hanging out with Micah before he went missing and who was there
the night James was killed the Sarah we're talking about now is Bailey's self-proclaimed close friend who was
dating Matt vand Castile while Bailey was dating Matt Queen but after Bailey went missing and Matt vantile went to
jail Sarah and Matt Queen started dating each other after that Sarah's Facebook friend shared the story about Jane and
her destroyed Flyers a message popped up in their inbox from Sarah's Facebook account it read seeing you repost that
stupid ass interview of Bailey's mom is annoying I know you don't know the real side of it but I was the one that took
those down they're blasted up me and my boyfriend's neighborhood because she's constantly doing it to harass us we
leave all the others alone but she's literally not doing it to find Bailey she's doing it out of spite she
continued it was literally one street we took them down and it was just the neighborhood they only show one side of
the story from a [ __ ] psycho [ __ ] she's twisting it to make it look like we're actually doing something wrong
maybe we're tired of having to see it on every light post on every route to our home she's not doing it to find Bailey
she's doing it to throw Bailey's missing poster in our faces because we're dating the problem for Sarah was the
friend friends she sent these messages to just so happened to also be friends with Maddie Bailey's longtime best
friend when my blood boiled instantly Maddie was sent a screenshot of the messages she then sent them to
Jane who then sent them to me but no one had much time to focus on the supposed confession about the flyers as something
else far more pressing and unsettling happened the investigation continues tonight after a human leg wash theore at
Lake buav Vista the discovery Saturday morning sent shock waves through dozens of families who were there to enjoy a
weekend of swimming skiing and camping people sent us a picture of it and before the news had it or anything and I
remember telling charl and D I go this is Bailey's foot it looks just like how her feet
look our 17 news crews were there that day to capture what quickly became a huge story I went over and ask what
going on to the family and they said their 5-year-old daughter had found a body part on the beach oh my God it was
it was scary I felt so traumatized for the girl it was smaller we thought may be a child but we it they said it had
been in the water for a while while I was covering the story Jane called me horrified and sent me a
photo of the leg that showed it was from the kneecap down someone at the lake had
snaap the picture before investigators could get to it and and it had quickly found its way to Jane it seemed fairly
obvious that it wouldn't belong to an adult male the leg was Slender Petit and had on a high
sock um Jane was convinced by the sock on the foot of the leg that we had been sent the photo of that that it was
Bailey she was just overwhelmed with wanting to get out there and finding the rest cuz we knew that there
wasn't just a leg the rest of that person had to be in there James's mom D tried her best to
comfort Jane but there was no changing how she felt from the moment Jane saw the photo of the leg she made a point to
be at that Lake 24/7 desperate to find something a few days after the discovery Jane walked out of her house to her car
to head back out to the lake when she discovered she forgot something so I ran back in the house and by the time I came
out there was a Polaroid picture on my windshield of Bailey and Matt Queen and it said love you
Mom and I'm like oh my God you know I'm starting to it's like why would somebody
do that to make me think Bailey was alive like she put it there that that's not her in the
lake naturally with it being a photo of her daughter with Matthew Queen he was a
pretty good person to suspect of putting the Polaroid there but Jane also had other reasons to zero in on him about it
every 30 days he would do something to torment me to just let me know he's watching me and I think he was trying to
scare me away but he messed with the wrong Mom the first thing Queen had done was
about a month after she disappeared he sent Jane this weird video of Bailey it's hard to make out the first few
seconds did I I was like 16 and a hour if I left that's what I did when I was like 16 and I left if I left I left I
still don't have a good relationship with my mom with my mom with my mom it's bizarre the way it was edited
to have Bailey's words repeat over and over coupled with the fact that it actually isn't even a real video it's
edited audio that plays over a blurry photo of Bailey looking at the ground and what appears Bailey is saying about
leaving home at 16 and not having a good relationship with her mom is also baffling to her loved
ones why is he doing this why does he you know it made me angry because I knew he
did something otherwise he wouldn't be messing with me like that playing these head games you know every time he did
something I would take it down to the Sheriff's look look what he left on my car look at these signs he put outside
my house and up and down the street where I worked at look here's a big motorcycle burnout where he was in my
front yard letting me know he was there you know in the middle of the night you know and it was always St like well you
know you can't prove that was him and it's like I know it was him because that's what he did he watched
people in a sense by the time the Polaroid was left on Jane's windshield she'd come to expect Queen to mess with
her but this was different her emotions were more fragile than ever believing the leg found at the lake was Bailey's
the Polaroid with the love you Mom message seemed especially cruel you know and I was very careful
when I took it off the I I was just like freaking out because at that time I was
going to the Sheriff's Office practically every day with new evidence they kept saying well you know we still
think she could be in Mexico with Micah and I'm like she's not in Mexico mic is not in Mexico
at this time Bailey's case was still being handled by the sheriff's department whereas Micah and James's
cases were handled by the police department Jane found herself frustrated with the investigation and that
frustration only deepened after the discovery of the leg at the lake of course she insisted on being there for
the day volunteer search Crews set out to scour the water hoping to find the rest of the body she sat on the murky
sandbed with the other moms there for support with a kind of panicked anxiety-ridden suspense that was all
consuming wondering worrying waiting our news crews were there throughout the day
as it started out hopeful before fizzling fast here's a clip from my news story now Crews went out early today to
try to beat the heat the terer sheriff's department joined search and rescue volunteers to utilize specialized soner
equipment to help see what's underneath the surface we think the rest of the body is
probably somewhere in the lake as well we don't believe it flowed in from a river or a canal so we're out here to
kind of give it the old callers try to see if we can find the rest of the the remains Sergeant Biddle says the biggest
challenge is they really have no idea where to look he says searching the entire Lake essentially isn't an option
due to its size after turning up nothing today Sergeant Biddle says there are no
future plans to search the lake again uh it's it's really nothing more than thought in the dark at this
point they gave it the old College try that's when we started like okay what kind of equipment did they use how could
they not find somebody did they search the whole leg to some the old College try
suggested that search and rescue crews thought looking was essentially pointless that it wouldn't result in
anything anyways and that rubbed some people the wrong way but search and rescue crews weren't the enemy far from
it they are volunteers who every year deal with numerous drownings in Kern County which is the county that
Bakersfield is in you see Kar county is kind of Infamous for its River many refer to it as the killer Kar despite
the name and a giant sign on the route to the water that says stay out stay alive with a tally of drowning victims
underneath it the river attracts people from all over the state some parts of it
are much more dangerous than others but what often makes it so deadly is on the surface it looks calm you don't know
you're in danger until you've already been lured in and an undercurrent sucks you under within seconds so search and
rescue crews do a lot they save lives and they also recover more bodies than anyone really wants to think
about in the case of the leg and the lake they had some serious barriers here's a clip from a news story I did at
the time the say there's zero visibility near the bottom essentially they have to
use their hands to feel around now sonar equipment used to spot objects in the water has been borrowed from toer County
and used to search approximately half of the lake without having the specialized
equipment needed here in Kern County investigators and search and rescue volunteers are strategizing the best way
to search the rest of the lake but if the search for the rest of the remains in the lake was difficult a new
horrifying Discovery was about to make make their job significantly [Music] harder I thought we feared the
worst I thought we feared that he was dead and now all of a sudden it became now we're worried that he's been
chopped up that's next [Music] time for

EPISODE 6/15

Polaroid Picture Someone begins ripping down missing fliers and sending cryptic messages. Meanwhile, a human leg washes ashore at a popular local lake.

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

Mothers Cheryl and Jane share their harrowing searches for their missing children, Micah and Bailey, revealing emotional struggles and disturbing discoveries.

Key points

The Sacrifice of Motherhood. Mothers across species exhibit extreme sacrifices for their young, from octopuses to bears.
Cheryl's Desperate Search. Cheryl digs for her son Micah's body in the desert, driven by love and despair.
Jane's Flyer Therapy. Jane hangs thousands of flyers to find her missing daughter, Bailey, refusing to give up hope.
A Shocking Discovery. A human leg is found at a lake, raising fears and questions about Bailey's fate.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Nature shows us that mothers are biologically programmed to protect their offspring.

Discussing maternal instincts across species.

1:06WatchMay 20, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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