Yellow Rose - EPISODE 3 (The Bakersfield Three) | Forensic Files

there's an unspoken part of being a crime reporter where you have to ask yourself the questions how am I going to
make this victim stand out how am I going to make people remember this case how am I going to make them
care sometimes it's the crime itself that will grab people's attention like a case I covered where a young woman was
walking down the street on her birthday holding her birthday cake when someone gunned her down the crime scene was
surreal icing smeared the pavement the cake was Mash next to her body it was the day she came into the world and the
day someone took her out of it but more often than not if you live in an area with a high crime rate like
Bakersfield the crimes can start to blend together most of the cases involve adult male victims who are shot to death
most missing persons cases involve adults who don't have stable lives so it's a strange concept really that the
most horrific thing imaginable losing a loved one to violence can be difficult to stand out in a newscast a story about
a 5-year-old having a lemonade stand to raise money for their school can be more
memorable to viewers so for me making a victim Stand Out is important it's important for keeping their case in the
Forefront of people's minds which can help the chances of it being solved but it's also what every victim deserves to
be honored and remembered the way their loved ones would want them to be you have to go deep ER than just the
they would light up any room they walked into and they'd give you the shirt off their back because even if that's true
we've all heard it too many times about too many people you need something that made that person special everyone has it
sometimes it's just a little harder to find for some more than others Micah like so many other missing persons was
an adult who at the time was living an unstable life but once I started looking for what made him special I found it
easily I'm Olivia Lavo and this is the Bakersfield 3 [Music] Micah was very almost intuitive that
people who needed him I don't know how to express it really but he didn't just like you as a friend if you were his
friend you were his Micah's mom Cheryl says from a young age Micah seemed to have an emotional
intelligence a lot of people never achieve particularly when it came to coping with tragedy and helping others
navigate it people they'll say oh you're so strong for talking to us and you're how do you do this and and I think we do
it because Micah taught us how to grieve with people long ago he was very connected to individuals in their
grief and even without his family and parents really being that aware of it at the
time over the years I heard from a man who told me the story of his father who got into a terrible accident and became
paralyzed the man was a teenager at the time and he said it was so traumatic and
painful for him that he began distancing himself from his dad when his dad needed
him most he said it was Micah also just a teen himself who recognized this and went to him and made him confront his
emotions and deal with them he says Micah's advice changed his life and saved his relation ship with his father
I heard a couple other stories about how Micah helped people deal with hardship and grief but one story in particular
really stands out I learned early on that yellow roses were significant to Micah but only recently I found out
why yellow was Jennifer's favorite color rose is her middle name so it was just always you know the
yellow roses just kind of clicked Joan Burrow's only daughter Jennifer or Jenny B as her
friends called her went to high school with Micah Micah was her best guy friend and
as you see Micah wrote right there best friends forever on her yearbook and on the
pictures they were really close you know he was always real supportive of her he
was very supportive after she was gone too one morning their senior year Jennifer
was driving to work when something that's still unexplainable happened there was
no other car there was nothing in the road there was no animal there was nothing she just lost control
and pretty much was gone at the scene the loss devastated Jennifer's entire friend group in the beginning
they would come they would want to hang out in her room look at her pictures and
talk about her but mic was the only one who was consistent he would come over every year February 2D the day that you
know the accident happened and April 1st the day of her birthday for 17 years as long as
Jennifer had been alive Micah spent those two days with her family he always remembered you know no matter what he
was doing he would come February 2nd April 1st whatever he was doing in his life he always remembered Jennifer on
those days every year until he didn't when he went missing people started calling me did
Micah call you on the first did he show up no he didn't as Micah's loved ones put the
pieces together they determined Micah had been missing for a week before not showing up on Joanne's door on her
daughter's birthday with a yellow rose in hand at the time Micah was 34 years old but in order to really understand
the events that led up to his disappearance we have to go back to when Micah was just a boy as a child Micah
was precocious and smart and funny and clever and he always interacted almost better with adults
than other children his age Micah's mom Cheryl says Micah was very bright from an early age and took
pride in that at 5 years old he insisted on hanging a poster in his bedroom that
showed all the US presidents and then he proceeded to memorize all of them and their vice presidents when he was in the
kindergarten and he'd show off that he could point to him and then he could do it without looking and his family
nickname was stats because he could tell he used to statistics on pretty much anything he had a passion for Education
he excelled in all his classes he was the star of the debate and forensics teams After High School it was important
to Micah to go to the same College in the South as his grandparents he was just a few weeks
into his freshman year when terrorists flew two planes into the Twin Towers on September 11th
2001 and he he told us I'm I'm going to stay through the end of this year but I need to come home I think I'm going to
enlist in the military and of course we were very worried about that very concerned and I
did not want him really to do that but he came home that following summer and said I'm going in the
Navy Micah's mom Cheryl says Micah was very passionate about serving his country after 3,000 Americans were
killed in the terrorist attacks and in order to do so he may have lost over some health issues he had with the
growth in his throat but he couldn't hide it for long he was Ill a lot of basic training and it caused a lot of
infection he was very very sick so they told him that they were going to discharge him and he came home he was
devastated by that just really took that very hard but but he tried to accept it
the best he could and once he was back home he sought medical treatment for his throat soon after he was healed up from
that he decided I think banking would be fun ultimately he became a licensed financial adviser working at Wells Fargo
while also finishing his degree he just did very well really anything he applied himself to he could
do really well and um and things seemed to go relatively smoothly for a long time he had a a good
I think Young Adult Career going he was set he was really set for the Long Haul his personal life was also looking
promising at Wills Fargo he met a hardworking young woman they fell in love got married and not long after had
a baby he always said that he is the best part of me he's the best part of me it seems like it was the best time in
Micah's life transitioning from his 20s to his 30s he had a thriving career and he created a family he was so proud of
his Facebook page gives a little glimpse into what this time in his life was like
and what his wife and son meant to him one post of his reads fatherhood is more than a responsibility it's a gift and
since the day I became a father each passing day has become progressively sweeter than the day before it to share
share my life with such an incredible young man is a blessing Beyond description today I'm thankful for the
gift of fatherhood fatherhood also seemed to give him a deep appreciation for his
parents in numerous posts he refers to Cheryl his mom as his very best friend in this
life we talked a lot we talked we discussed every political election every County election
um propositions we'd sit and talk about pros and cons and he would hear something on the news
and he'd call me and he'd want to see what I thought about it Cheryl worked at a local University teaching economics
each semester Micah would be a special guest often helping her students open their first savings account I had
students who would come by my office and say you know your son really did a great
job and I think I'm going into economics because of that or I think I'm going to
switch to finance because of that and I loved having him there and he'd come by every once in a while and he just if I
wasn't in my office he'd leave a Post-It note on my door and I have one of those
notes um in my bedroom now it says I love you Mom your favorite son Micah he's he's my favorite oldest son
was a always my my response to that and um and I miss him I miss the person he was when he was
well when he was well he was wonderful talked too much he was too loud in the room he
was more than um everyone else in the room sometimes but but he really loved people Mike is Wellness was a fragile
thing constantly threatened and eventually overtaken by the same growth in his throat that caused him to have to
leave the Navy despite having surgery the growth grew back it caused him chronic pain as a result his family says
over a period of time several different doctors wrote him prescriptions for pain
Killers with everything the medical community knows today the CDC recommends people take opioids for 3 days or less
because some studies show it can take just 5 days for the drugs to change one's brain chemistry opioids trigger
endorphins muffling pain and creating a temporary feeling of pleasure but doctors have found that the body builds
up tolerance fast suddenly the pain is back coupled with crippling withdrawal symptoms the patient feels significantly
worse than before and becomes desperate for relief in time this happened to Micah and like millions of other
patients when his doctors cut him off he turned to buying oxy from a dealer one of the pills he got off the street was
laced with fentanyl causing Micah to overdose Narcan just barely saved his life when Micah realized how close he'd
come to death it seemed like rock bottom the life he'd worked so hard for was slipping from his grasp he was a husband
and father with a successful Finance career how would he become someone found slumped behind the wheel of their car
dependent on a stranger calling 911 and paramedics being able to break through the window for it was too late he wanted
it to be a wakeup call he went into various recovery programs and vowed to keep fighting to get his old life back
but after he ODed his family says he was never the same when the paramedics revived him they told him he had lost
oxygen to his brain from not breathing we don't know for sure but loved ones believed this caused a brain injury that
severely impacted everything in his life he told his mom Cheryl he couldn't get his thoughts to connect anymore work
suddenly was extraordinarily difficult Cheryl would later find notepads where he' try to write down lists of tasks he
needed to complete Cheryl said they were chaotic and on the back of one Micah had
scribbled I just can't think in time he lost his job and then his insurance which led him to losing
his doctors and the medical programs he needed eventually his marriage fell apart he lost his family and that was
everything from there his mental health began deteriorating Cheryl spent afternoons
locked in her office crying sometimes screaming on the phone with local mental health officials begging for help with
Micah the response was always the same programs were either full or if there was a spot they'd say no one could make
Micah get help he was an adult which made his parents essentially powerless it was very very hard to
watch and we knew the impact it was having on his family and we knew the impact it was having on us he was very
angry at us because he felt like we were he was he was very paranoid he thought we were taking everyone else's
side but his we he thought we were not doing everything we could to help him unbelievably paranoid at that point
and chaotic and his thinking was very unlike Micah he was his personality was changing by summer 2017 Micah's life was
drastically different than it had been just the year prior by this point he'd lost custody of his son and his circle
of friends had changed as well we found out later he was at a friend's house and
they were all like well hey you were you went to boot camp you know how to put guns together Mah was offered to use his
military skills to make some money building guns he knew that it was risky behavior that it wasn't right Cheryl
says Micah seemed to rationalize it by saying in other states the same practice isn't illegal just in California where
the gun laws are stricter than other parts of America however he may have made sense
of it Cheryl believes it was a choice that opened him up to a world that Micah was not fit to
[Music] enter Micah wasn't a gangster M didn't belong in this lifestyle and he knew
it he talked too much you could tell like he wasn't wasn't from the lifestyle cuz he
was curious he wanted to know everything this is a guy we're calling Sam he's the
same guy who called the cops and got Matt Vander Castile arrested in 2017 Sam was a drug dealer who met Micah through
the same guys that Micah was helping build guns what were your impressions of Micah honestly I thought he was a
cop he was just super well-dressed super nice the nicest person I've ever met in
the dope game never had a bad thing to say about anybody it was just really cool I didn't figure him for a drug
addict like that he was just a Goofy Goober he was funny he was uh like I said he was one of the nicest people
I've ever met another friend Micah met in the news Circle said he loved how Micah would sometimes come over in a
suit and tie they thought of him as classy and educated everyone agreed Micah did not belong in this new
world did you get the sense that he probably didn't realize what he had gotten himself
into yeah I don't think he knew how deep the water was Sam says he's clean now trying to
live a normal life but back in 2017 and 2018 his life was anything but and he was surprised that people like Micah
Bailey and Matt Queen wanted to associate with him they look really clean cut and then he throws someone
like me and I've got 90% of my body tattooed you know I'm from the ghetto and uh you know you wouldn't think those
circles meshed very well while speaking with Sam he made it clear the majority of people in Micah's
New Circle weren't the kind of friends most people would want I mean think about what we do to our
families when we when we're off doing drugs and how we're ripping our families off and stealing from our
families what makes you think a friendship's worth more than that Sam says when drugs and money are
involved you play by a different set of rules in life I wouldn't chop up a friend of mine I might put a bullet in
his leg at one point we got on this topic I had $200 worth of dope come up missing out of my house one time and I
held everybody in my house at gunpoint until I found it so I'm just curious were these people in the room were they
your friends or business associates uh some of them were my friends one of them was an
ex-girlfriend uh that was still really good friends with me so when you hold people like that at
gunpoint what happens afterwards I mean do you apologize do they still want to hang out with
you I told him sorry it was a big misunderstanding you know everybody hears a sack of dope for your troubles
uh just know I'm not going to play about anything missing out of my house so you've got to be
very strong-handed when it comes to uh showing people you know I'm not one to mess with I'm not one that you steal
from I'm not one you talk [ __ ] about did you ever hurt someone yeah yeah I think everybody in that life
has do you want to elaborate on that no you know there's no statute of limitations on
things there's a statute of limitations on most things except for murder yeah yeah it
is so that's a glimpse into some of the kinds of people that M has skills from the Navy and subsequent Talent building
guns opened him up to you know I've always said you just can't dabble you just can't dabble with with
evil people you can't just accidentally get your foot in the door because evil I believe evil can
take you over if you just open that door a bit a little bit more and a little bit
more Micah told his parents about some of the things he'd heard and seen and they were skeptical it was true and it
just seemed like such a bad movie you know it just seemed like an episode of The Sopranos which he loved he loved The
Sopranos and um it was just like really this just doesn't seem like are you sure like he
would tell us about being never mentioned names but he told us about being kidnapped and locked in the trunk
of a car and have having his hands and feet zip tied and being hauled out to an middle of
nowhere in an orchard and have his shoes taken from him and being told to walk back home or
whatever who who hears that we're just we're just middle income Suburban family we're going to work and coming home and
our young adult son is telling us about people locking him in their trunk can holling him to an orchard and holding
the gun to his head what would what would any family think what would your family think if
they heard that story about you keep in mind at this time his family knew Micah was struggling with his
mental health and substance abuse he'd become increasingly paranoid it'd be well
Micah that just sounds pretty far-fetched really I mean we we would make and of course we have a huge guilt
around all of that that we carry with us because we really made light of it and and we didn't believe him and we
begged him to go to the police we begged him if this is real we will go with you
and you need to talk to the police and he wouldn't go he was very very afraid numerous people who spent a lot
of time with Micah in the months before he went missing all described him as parent paranoid and very frightened they
also all mentioned how Micah would see things in this new crowd and he would take on almost a vigilante role this
came up in the previous episode here's Cheryl talking about some information she got after Micah first went missing I
had already gotten two phone calls from two different young women that Micah had
gotten out of uh what we later would know to be trafficking situ situations where they
were being held against their will and were being held to do things with men in order to
um take care of some debt they owed maybe it was for drugs maybe it was for other
things and we knew from these two individuals that Micah had helped them get out of that situation that he had
heard about it he had gotten wind of it and he went and physically got them and I
think that in that La those last few weeks Micah had figured out I'm just going to play both sides of
this fence playing both sides of the fence that is exactly what Matthew Queen said
in his Facebook post it sounded as if Micah was pretending to be cool with people he thought were involved in
trafficking with women while also helping those women at the same time which illustrates the strange delicate
precarious state of his life and his family saw his fear what they thought was just paranoia increasing here's
Cheryl describing one of the last conversations she had with her son he told me someone was trying to kill him
and he had to be as far away from his family from us as possible and I begged him to let me drive him back East to
family at that moment it was real enough in his head that I begged him to let me
take him out of town said nobody will ever find you on the end of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere in the
Midwest and his response was but they'll use you and they'll use them to make me come back lives have
been threat threatened not just mine is what he said by them Mah was referring to his ex-wife and his son which led him
to say something he'd never been able to admit before he literally said I hate to
say this but she was right she was right to take custody of him because I know that I've endangered him and she did the
right thing and she will do whatever it takes to protect him after that conversation Cheryl says
she saw Micah one last time in mid-march 2018 he was with a woman named Sarah they appeared to be casually dating but
this isn't the same Sarah who Bailey was friends with and queen started dating this is a different Sarah this Sarah is
Micah's age we're going to refer to her as Sarah G they got in the back of the car and he introduced me and she's very
nice polite he was telling her that uh I didn't listen to music on my radio I listen to always listen to audio books
he was teasing me about that because he very much loved music and uh so it was light-hearted it was
everything was seemed fine and that was the last time I saw him was walking away from me with this
young lady a few days later Micah was with Sarah G again when he called Cheryl he
was very agitated and he said mom Mom I really need your help I was like what do
you need Micah and he said I need to pay for this hotel room for the you know the
friend of mine that I you know that was in the car with me she can't go home and
she has her dogs with her and um I really need to pay for the hotel room Cheryl had recently given Micah
money and she told Micah she didn't understand why his friend needed a room why couldn't they just go back to
Micah's place he's like oh well we just we can't can't go to my place and why can't you why can't you
help me and uh he was very angry at me for not paying for this hotel room for this young
lady and he started yelling at me and I'd had enough I didn't want to hear him yelling
at me and um so I just said Mike I can't I can't talk to you and I hung up but that was the very last time I
talked to him I hung up on him I don't hang up on people anymore I hear people say oh just hang up oh
just hang up and I think don't do it just don't hang up CU it might be the last time that you talk to
them and you'll have to carry that around forever April 1st 2018 came and went without Micah showing up at Joanne
Burrow's home with a yellow rose in hand something was wrong and suddenly every word Micah said to his parents they ever
doubted swallowed them whole in an ocean of guilt we didn't believe him I just didn't believe him and I live we live
with that every day but Cheryl didn't drown in her guilt as she'd simply put it that wasn't an option as his mother
she was going to do whatever it took to find her [Music] son as I was writing this episode I
found a post on Micah's Facebook page from a few years before his disappearance Micah described an
incident in which he and his father thought Cheryl had gone missing the post explains it was a misunderstanding that
ended with the police finding a confused somewhat embarrass Cheryl teaching an econ class at her University as it
turned out Mike and his dad had forgotten that Cheryl was substitute teaching another class that went late
giving her a clear explanation as to why she was nowhere to be found on campus when her usual class ended hours earlier
Micah wrote quote I've never felt more terrified and helpless in my entire life than what I felt this evening ever I
love you so much Mom you're the glue that holds me together I thought about for how that
hour or so Micah felt that hopelessness and fear not knowing where his mother was that she would come to feel for him
a couple years later only it wouldn't be an anecdote to share with Facebook friends for Cheryl it would be life
altering and never ending when Micah wrote the post his life was stable full of love
achievements Milestones so many of a dream of reaching it was unimaginable to think that one day he would struggle
with addiction and lose it all it absolutely can happen to anybody Lance I been married almost 40
years we lived in the suburbs we both had great jobs we took our kids to church they grew up in youth group we
were living the American dream you know and if it can happen to our family it can happen to anybody listening to this
the extent of what would be revealed about the new world Micah found himself in and why he'd vanished would be darker
than anyone could have ever imagined [Music] he had just looked like he was scared
and he wasn't scared for him it looked more like he was scared for me because he knew who who shot him I don't care if
I live or die since this has happened that's next time on the Bakersfield 3 [Music]

EPISODE 3/15

Yellow Rose Not long before Micah Holsonbake disappeared, he was a successful financial advisor living in a nice home with his wife and son. But a prescription for painkillers changes everything.

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

Micah Bailey's life, struggles with addiction, and disappearance are examined through family stories and the challenges of crime reporting.

Key points

The Importance of Victims' Stories. Crime reporters face the challenge of making victims memorable. It's crucial for justice.
Micah's Impact on Grief. Micah helped others cope with tragedy, showing emotional intelligence and support.
The Fragility of Wellness. Micah's health deteriorated due to pain management struggles, leading to addiction.
The Turning Point. After an overdose, Micah's life spiraled, impacting his family and career.
Micah's Vigilante Role. Micah took on a vigilante role, helping women escape trafficking situations.
Last Conversation with Micah. Cheryl recalls her last conversation with Micah, filled with fear and urgency.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Making a victim stand out is important.

1:13WatchMay 20, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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