Episode 3: “Inside Information” 37:28

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Sign up for Pushkin Plus on the Where's Deer Apple podcast show page or visit pushkin.fm slash plus. Now, on to the episode. Last time on Where's Deer. From the outside looking in, she had the perfect life. She got this money thing where it was everything, everything to her. And it just created a monster. We were so in heartburn place and we took him down the road and looked and

And he just saw dollar signs. She turned to me and she said, if anything ever happens to me, Clinton did it. In the aftermath of Dia's disappearance, Keith Harper wrote letters to local police, the Riverside County Sheriff. He was trying to persuade them to keep looking for her. And he also tried something unexpected.

or at least surprising to me, for a guy like Harper. He called up psychics across the country to try and persuade them to look for Dia. Yes, psychics. And that's how a guy called Kelly Snyder got pulled into all of this. Keith Harper, who stated he was the fiancé of Dia, contacted our organization, I believe it was in February or March of 2021,

which was about eight months after Dia went missing. Kelly worked for the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, for two decades. But now, he runs a missing persons nonprofit called Find Me. They mostly work on cold cases, and they try to find people who've been missing for years, sometimes decades.

They have search teams, divers, cadaver dogs, the works. Oh, and they also work with all kinds of psychics.

Almost all of them have the clairvoyant and the clairstations, you know, all the clairs. And then some of them are mediums, so they're actually able to talk to the dead person. Then we have remote viewers. Kelly says they've had a lot of success using his team of around 100 psychics who live all over the world. He tells me they've helped solve 121 cases. And it seems like they've gotten some attention over the years.

Bruce Willis once attended a Find Me fundraiser. I think I've only had two people currently in the group that do channeling. But anyway, back to how Kelly got dragged into all of this. Harper had reached out, asking for help. And he asked us to investigate it using our methodologies and methods.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, he was already contacting various psychics around the country. Was his behavior kind of normal for someone in his situation? Actually, he was an incredible pain in the ass. He would constantly call me, constantly text me. When do you think you might be able to do this? And what kind of information are you getting? Is Dia dead? Is Dia alive? This kind of crap all the time.

Harper was convinced that Kelly, with his crew of psychics, could uncover what happened to Dia. Before Kelly decided whether to get involved, he called Riverside Sheriff's Department. He always contacts local law enforcement before taking on a case. He wanted to know if they'd be interested in receiving any information he might find. Kelly says he spoke to a Riverside sergeant. They were...

And he immediately started telling me that Keith Harper was one of the people that they had as a person of interest. And he said, there are others that I will not name to you. But since Keith is asking for your help, I wanted you to know that he is a person of interest in the case.

By the way, the cops wouldn't confirm that with me. They also won't share names of official suspects. But Harper did tell me that they've questioned him multiple times. After his call with the sergeant, Kelly brought up what he'd learned with Harper. And he said, yes, I'm aware that I am a person of interest and I'm probably their primary suspect.

And I said, why do you say that? And he goes, well, shortly after Dia went missing, I had to go out of town. And that raised a lot of eyebrows. And I said, well, when did you leave? And he said it was about two and a half days after she went missing. And originally he told me he had something that he had to do

in New Mexico and here in Arizona, but I forget what he told me he had to do. And then I said, "Well, why couldn't you postpone it?" And he said, "One of the reasons I had to go out of town was I had to report to my probation officer." And there's that probation story again. You might remember from our first episode, a friend of Deer's also said that Harper talked about leaving town with Deer's dog Ruby to check in with a probation officer.

Harper denies saying that, though, and still insists to me that he was heading to Arizona to pay a tax bill. What were some of your thoughts at the beginning of all this towards Keith and towards what might have happened? Well, yeah, I mean, originally I just had him labeled somewhere in the 75 to 90 range as far as being guilty. And he had every reason to harm her emotionally.

But so did Kursara and Clinton, just because so much money's involved. Clinton and Kursara, Dia's children. So that's always been on my mind. And I've talked to him numerous times about it, confronted him on numerous occasions. And I just get the feeling that he knows a little bit more than he's trying to share with me. But then I don't.

I don't have that 80, 90% feeling anymore. If anything, he's probably 50% involved in some capacity. But, you know, all three of them have a reason to have her deceased. They're going to be incredibly wealthy.

You might remember, just two weeks before Deer went missing, she revised the details of her trust. She put Keith Harper and her friend Diana Federer in charge, should anything happen to her. That meant the ranch, her assets, everything she owned was legally in their hands. So while Harper was hounding Kelly, the cops, and all those psychics, Clinton mounted his own search.

He recruited lawyers to fight Harper and Diana in court, and he hired private investigators to start digging. And so two camps form. Clinton with his team of lawyers and private investigators, and Harper with all his efforts to get people like Kelly and the psychics to help. Both men racing to pin Dia's disappearance on each other. ♪♪

Yeah, there's just so many unknowns and ups and downs in this. And it literally all surrounds the fact that she was so wealthy. Money talks and bullshit walks. I'm Lucy Sheriff, and this is Where's Dia? Episode 3, Inside Information.

I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and I'd like to take a moment to talk to you about an amazing new podcast I'm hosting called Medal of Honor. It's a moving podcast series celebrating the untold stories of those who protect our country. Brought to you by LifeLock, the leader in identity theft protection.

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When I first get in touch with Harper, a few months after Deer's disappearance, he bounces all these theories off me of what might have happened. But after a while, he whittles the theories down to two main possibilities. She either take him or she leaves on our court. If she was taken, you know, she says over and over, over and over again.

He's convinced that in either scenario, it all leads back to Clinton. If Deer ran away, it was because she was scared of him. And if she was kidnapped, it was on Clinton's orders. And then, at some point, Hopper even starts to believe he's in danger. I've always felt at risk.

And all the time, if they took her, if they killed her, I never believed she was dead. But if they did kill her, I'm just another plug in their system. So...

Yes. Okay. He goes back and forth between these two theories. Between wanting to believe Dee is still alive and having this hunch that something terrible has happened to her. It can get a little confusing. So who's... I don't want to... I'm not trying to lead you down the wrong road, but I'm going through a logical explanation.

As time goes on, Harper's search intensifies. And so do his calls to me. These are just some of the voicemails he left me. Anyway, this story is getting ready to blow wide open. If you want some information, we can talk.

Somewhere in all of the conversations, I realized he was becoming quite the regular presence in my life. This is Harper. Just checking in with you. And I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with that. He catches me when I'm out driving, cooking dinner, or out with my friends. Thank you for all the service that you do. I'm deeply in your debt. Thanks. Bye. Bye.

Oh, and he thinks my name is Lisey, despite my repeated attempts to correct him. Give me your name one more time so I can put the name with the number. My first name is Lucy, L-U-C-Y, and my surname is Sheriff, like the cop, but with two R's and two F's. He never got it. And he still calls me Lisey.

At one point, the calls got so bad that I had to take a break. Remember how Kelly said Harper was really persistent? Yeah, I knew exactly what he meant. It felt like Harper was trying to pull me in as a teammate, an ally.

It all got to be too much. I didn't speak to him for a good few months. And to be honest, it was great to have a break.

But then I got this nagging feeling, like I had to find a way to finish the story. And there was something else that happened, which, be warned, is a little L.A. woo-woo and definitely not very British of me. I often have incredibly detailed, insightful dreams. And I had one of those dreams. I was hiking on a narrow switchback path, ducking under branches, heading towards the mountains.

It was sunny, and I felt at peace. And then I heard a voice, a male voice, and it said just one thing. Find Dia. And then I woke up. The next day, I took a deep breath, picked up my phone, and I dialed Harper's number. Hi, Nancy. Hi, Guy. How are you? Oh, God, it's been a hell of a ride for a year. A lot had happened since we last spoke. They have now...

I'm going to pause here for a minute and talk about this inside information, which came from Kelly's psychics.

After Kelly finally agreed to help Harper, he put his psychics on the case. Oh, and by the way, Kelly doesn't get paid by Harper or the cops. Anyway, Kelly sent an email to his entire network, all 100 or so of them, asking who was interested in helping. And he gave them some basic information. Every time we receive a missing person case, I send them a photograph,

I just want to say, I've lived in LA for long enough now to just accept that this guy, this ex-DEA agent who is a gruff, meat and potatoes kind of guy, uses psychics to find missing people.

Generally speaking, it's hard to say how seriously law enforcement takes psychic information. A lot of departments categorically say they don't use them.

But I did find a rather amusing report from the California Department of Justice. It's old. It was published in the 90s. But it shares some tips on how law enforcement could use psychics. And it refers to officers who said psychics, quote, provided them with otherwise unknown information.

And that in some cases, quote, missing bodies were discovered in areas described by the psychic. So there's that. But back to Kelly. After he wrote to his psychic network, more than half responded saying they had information about Dia. So where do you think Dia is? Well, if you're asking the question dead or alive, she's deceased.

This is the first time I've heard someone definitively say they think Dia is dead. And yes, I know this information is coming from a team of psychics. But Kelly takes it at face value. And just to be clear, the psychics don't receive names from Kelly of any possible suspects. And they're told not to confer with each other either.

The psychics who responded to Kelly's call-out shared information about who they thought was responsible for Dia's death. Thirteen of them said Dia had been abducted and killed by her boyfriend, husband, or significant other. A handful said her son was responsible. And then, curiously, there was another theory, that there was a trio of individuals, two men and a woman, who were involved in her death.

This theory stuck out to Kelly because it came from four of his mediums, who he says can be especially accurate. Quick reminder, a medium is someone who can speak to the dead. They were all saying the same thing independently. Which was? That she was murdered. She was murdered by three people, two males and a female. She was taken and, you know, killed and buried. And...

Basically, that was it. Some of the psychics also shared specific coordinates of where they thought Dia's body could be buried. One coordinate was on Dia's ranch. Two were nearby in Lake Hemet, a large reservoir in the mountains. And a fourth option was in the middle of nowhere in the Arizona desert. Kelly writes all this up and shares his report with the sheriff's department.

He won't send the full thing to me. He says it's confidential and could jeopardize the case. But remember, this isn't necessarily just all woo-woo nonsense. Kelly's psychics have actually helped find missing people, at least according to the testimonies on Find Me's website. The fact that there were other people who could be responsible for Deer's disappearance...

was just wild to me. That meant there's a chance that Harper might be telling the truth, which would track with the fact that he's asked so many people for help. Police detectives, psychics around the country, another missing persons organization. Why would someone reach out to so many people if they had something to hide? Well, yeah, and that's probably the most...

The moment the psychics weigh in seems to be the point that Harper gives up hope Dia is alive. He uses some of the details from Kelly's report

to further back up his theory that Clinton is involved. And he never, ever sways from that conviction. They have a lot of information about what has gone down and who may be responsible for it. Harper actually starts talking about all of this as the truth. And it's so crazy for me to watch him go through this process.

of not knowing and stumbling around in the dark with all these different theories, to then grasping onto this vague information that's fed to him by psychics and holding onto it as a pure, hard fact, as the ultimate truth. It confused me at first, until I understood what was happening. You look at how she's killed and how she's been placed, that's a professional kill.

That's just not somebody's telephone. And in Bering, they've gone to an excessive extent to hide her. Wait, who are you talking about now? Dita. You said if you look at how she's been killed. If you look at how she has been killed at place in the lake, she's been weighted down. There's all kinds of evidence to hide her. But you don't know for sure that she's there.

Well, I don't know for sure she's there, but I think we'll find out. Harper believes that what Kelly's psychics are coming up with is enough to prove his innocence. Although, to be clear, there is no actual evidence, just narratives provided by the psychics. I hate to ask you this, but if they do find her and she's not alive, do you anticipate the police coming to question you again?

After Kelly sent his report to the cops, Harper was texting and calling me excitedly. He was convinced they were going to find Deer's body imminently. But it would be months before the cops acted. We'll be right back.

I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and I'd like to take a moment to talk to you about an amazing new podcast I'm hosting called Medal of Honor. It's a moving podcast series celebrating the untold stories of those who protect our country. Brought to you by LifeLock, the leader in identity theft protection.

Now you may think, I'm smart, I'm careful with my data, I don't need to worry. But the truth is, a lot of your personal information is in the control of others, like your doctor's office, your bank, your insurance provider. All it takes is one breach of any organization that has your info and you could become a victim of identity theft.

LifeLock is a leader in identity theft protection and empowers you to take control of your identity, alerting you to more uses of your personal information and fixing identity theft if it happens. Guaranteed. All your money back. LifeLock offers extensive, proactive protection, and all plans include the LifeLock Million Dollar Protection Package.

So start protecting your identity today. Save up to 40% off your first year of LifeLock identity theft protection. Go to LifeLock.com slash metal to save 40% off. Terms apply.

The most innovative companies are going further with T-Mobile for Business. Red Bull harnessed the strength of the T-Mobile 5G network to launch point-of-view drones and give fans unmatched views of their extreme sports, while broadcasting in real time from some of the most remote locations in America. This is heart-pounding fan experiences. This is Red Bull with T-Mobile for Business.

Take your business further at T-Mobile.com slash now. At the heart of every mission, there's a constant, an unshakable force that stands ready day and night. That's you, the one who rises before dawn, the one who meets every challenge head on. At American Military University, we understand the demands of military life and the unique challenges you face. That's why our tailored programs are built

for flexibility and designed to fit into your busy schedule. And when times get challenging, we're here for you with 24-7 mental health support. With AMU by your side, you're always a step ahead, always ready to take on what's next, both in service and in life. Trust in your preparedness. Trust in AMU, American Military University. Always prepared.

While Harper is out consulting psychics, Clinton has a more grounded approach.

On that weekend in June 2020, when he got a call from one of Dia's neighbors to say his mother was missing, he sprung into action right away. She said, "Dia's missing. I'm really worried that something happened to her, that Harper or somebody else harmed her in some way. And you got to come up here right now." He immediately went into high alert mode,

even if he still wasn't really sure what was going on. I didn't know if, you know, this was being blown out of proportion or understated or if she had a migraine and was, you know, got a hotel somewhere or if she had been murdered or it was just kind of fog of war type of situation. To Clinton, it didn't matter that he didn't know all the details. He felt he was going into battle and he was going to take precautions.

What I did was I immediately called a private investigation company and I paid the deposit right there for dogs. Dogs. As in search dogs. I don't know the precise terminology, the proper nomenclature for these type of dogs, but essentially cadaver dogs or bloodhound dogs or, you know, some type of dog that could find her. Harper had been with Dia for at least two years, but Clinton says he'd never met him.

Despite this, on his way up to the ranch, Clinton says he calls Harper. But I did that to, you know, instill a little fear into him. And I told him to bring me some clothes that Dia had worn recently so that the dogs had a scent, a reference scent, to go off of. Clinton arrived at the ranch, and almost immediately, he said any hope he had that Dia may be alive vanished.

because he felt like Harper was acting suspiciously. He said some weird stuff about, you know, if you go up the hill and you find a corpse, you know, don't touch it because it might be a crime scene or some such very strange commentary. Did you think that there was any chance that Dia had left on her own? I did not. I thought pretty much automatically based on how people were behaving that she was gone.

Clinton noticed some odd things around the ranch, too. Things Harper hadn't mentioned to me. The second-story balcony door was kicked in from the outside, and there was trim, splintered trim, throughout her master bedroom. That was the only sign of forced entry that I saw. I also saw a bunch of notes around the room that kind of were very repetitious in what they said. I don't particularly...

want to go into the specifics of that because the investigators said that you know that's information they don't really want to reveal but they were in your mother's handwriting they were in my mother's handwriting written multiple times over and over basically the same message and also amongst those papers there was a piece of paper that said that she feared for her life so

In the months after Dia's disappearance, Clinton not only hires a private investigator, he tries playing detective himself. He starts calling up all these people who lived in Idlewild and questioning them in great detail. He compiles a cache of recordings and documents that he'll later send to me. And he starts developing his own theories of what happened. For example...

He believes that Harper was in a relationship with Dia's friend Diana Feder and that they worked together to make Dia disappear. Harper would call Feder "Di," you know, short for Diane, obviously. But, you know, it was very—it was as if they had known each other for years. Harper and Diana adamantly deny all of these accusations.

And Diana said she'd only met Harper a couple of times before Deer went missing. Clinton's P.I. turns up something else, something noteworthy. When Harper traveled to New Mexico in his RV two days after Deer disappeared, he used his cell phone to make calls. Clinton's P.I. told me that he managed to track down the cell phone towers that Harper's phone pinged off. And they showed Harper in the middle of Arizona,

not too far from one of those coordinates that Kelly's psychics had pinpointed. While all of this is going on, Clinton and his sister Krasara are moving forward with a lawsuit they filed. They want Harper kicked off the ranch, and they want him and Diana removed as trustees of Diaz estate. We were pushing ardently to have her removed as trustee because to me and to my sister and to everybody, we felt that

It was quite obvious that he had some involvement in Dia's disappearance. In their court case, the kids claim Harper isn't taking proper care of the ranch. He isn't being a good trustee. For one, they say that Harper was pouring concrete over the ranch to create an RV park. And they accuse Harper of not taking care of Dia's beloved animals.

And he was allowing the animals to get eaten either by mountain lions or they would get hit by a car or they would magically disappear. And what would that have meant to your mother? She would have been devastated. And I mean, it's impossible to describe how she would have felt. Clinton and Krasara's lawsuit drags on for years, by the way, with Harper and Diana maintaining their innocence.

Diana actually removes herself as trustee and relocates to Georgia. When Harper isn't dealing with court summons from Clinton, he's hounding the police. He even addresses a letter to the sheriff of Riverside County, complaining about their incompetence and urging them to keep searching for Dia. He's also completely fixated by Kelly Snyder's psychics. Kelly focuses on one of the psychics' coordinates in particular.

He thinks Dia's body was dumped in Lake Hemet. And if Kelly believes it, you can bet Harper believes it too. Harper pushes the cops hard to act on Kelly's report and search Lake Hemet. And finally, in November of 2021, three months after Kelly filed his report, Alberto Larrero, the lead investigator on the case, sends out divers to search the lake with sonar equipment. Harper watches the entire thing.

This whole scene is just so utterly bizarre.

Harper, camped out somewhere on the shores of this lake that's used for normal activities like hiking and boating, snapping away with his camera, and the cops confiscating his SD card. Just what? I asked the Riverside Sheriff's Department about all of this, but they didn't respond. And after all of that, the divers don't find anything.

Harper and Kelly come up with this new theory, that Deer's body was in Lake Hemet. But somehow, the information from Kelly's report was leaked from the sheriff's department.

And they think that in that three-month period between Kelly filing his report and the cops searching the lake, the killer came and moved Deer's body. The speculation just seems to grow wilder and wilder. Dredging a body from a lake and moving it? I don't know. It just doesn't feel that likely to me. And then there's Clinton's theories that Diana and Harper were in a relationship and they're both involved. And again...

I find myself wondering how both sides could be so adamant that their version of events is the truth. Because they can't both be right. By this point, I'd gone down to San Diego to meet with Clinton face to face. And it only seemed right that I do the same with Harper too. Plus, I was pretty curious to see Benito Vista Ranch for myself. Harper had been telling me all about it.

including about numerous security cameras around the property and where they were positioned. You know, I'm not opposed to having you come back to the ranch. Oh, that would be great, actually, because then I can kind of really get an idea of the layout and what's around. Yeah, you know what, I'll take you upstairs and show you the cameras. How they do not see what happens is beyond me. And why.

So I'm planning this trip against my boyfriend's advice. And then I get an email. It's a Google alert that I'd set up on Dia's name. It was a link to a news story on CBS. 46-year-old Jody Newkirk died on the Bonita Vista Ranch near Idlewild just after sunset on December 23rd, 2021. Someone, a woman, had been found dead on Dia's ranch.

Next time on Where's Dia. You can pretty much just take out a Sharpie and just cross out everything he says. Like literally, he just, he's allergic to the truth. Where's Dia is written and hosted by me, Lucy Sheriff. Our producer is Daphne Chen. Editing by Karen Shikurji. Production assistance from Joey Fishground.

You can listen to all of Where's Deer right now, ad-free, by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.

Find Pushkin Plus on the Apple show page for Where's Deer or at pushkin.fm slash plus.

I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and I'd like to take a moment to talk about an amazing new podcast I'm hosting called Medal of Honor. It's a moving podcast series celebrating the untold stories of those who protect our country. And it's brought to you by LifeLock, the leader in identity theft protection. Your personal info is in a lot of places that can accidentally expose you to identity theft.

and not everyone who handles your personal info is as careful as you. LifeLock makes it easy to take control of your identity and will work to fix identity theft if it happens. Join the millions of Americans who trust LifeLock. Visit LifeLock.com slash metal today to save up to 40% off your first year.

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