Summary
On September 16, 2009 at 10:00 PM, Mitrice Richardson, a lovely 24 year old, African-American, 4.0 college graduate, was arrested at
Geoffrey’s restaurant in Malibu by Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, technically for
not paying her bill. According to restaurant staff she was “acting crazy.”
According to deputies she was sane and sober; yet they had her car towed and
took her to jail for ticketable offenses. The arresting officers had her leave
her purse, money, and cell phone in her car. She was taken to the Malibu/Lost
Hills Sheriff’s station fourteen miles away.
Her mother called the station
before Mitrice got there. Despite assurances that they would keep Mitrice
overnight, she was released at 12:30 AM in a very remote location with no car,
no purse, no cell phone, no way home. She just walked off into the night. She
was seen briefly seven miles down the mountain at about 6:30 AM but then she
vanished never to be seen again. Her remains were found eleven months later in
a remote canyon about two miles from where she was last seen.
Immediately Mitrice’s family asked for video footage of her
in jail. The captain of the station lied, saying there was no video whatsoever.
Four months later it was learned there was footage from four cameras on a tape
in the captain’s desk. This highlights the lies, deception and convoluted
investigation by the authorities, whom to this day have no clue as to how
Mitrice was murdered.
A Word From The Producer
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Hi, I’m Chip Croft, producer of Lost Compassion. I began shooting this documentary ten days after
Mitrice Richardson went missing in 2009 after she was released late at night
from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff station and vanished. I have been working on
it continuously ever since. I was deeply involved in the search for Mitrice,
following leads, challenging the authorities and helping to keep her story
alive in the media. I have been producing documentaries since 1983, taught
production and computer graphics for twenty years, and have received ten film
festival awards.
You too have the chance to be an important part of the
Mitrice story. Your funds may be key to solving this case by helping us get her
story to those who can expand and accelerate the investigation. Possibly we may
reach someone with direct knowledge of the perpetrators who will come forward
with information leading to the apprehension of those who are guilty of her
disappearance and ultimately her death.
It is difficult to summarize Mitrice’s story, as it is
complex and sprawling. The producers of Discovery Channel’s Disappeared featuring Mitrice said they were glad we were
producing this documentary because there was so much more than they could fit
into a one–hour TV show.
Our Lost Compassion
trailer introduces the basic story but you will learn so much more from the
complete documentary. Please keep in touch with this site. We will be posting additional
items and updates here frequently to tell you more and keep you up to date on new
developments in the story. You will also find updates, photos and links on our
Facebook page at www.facebook.com/LostCompassion.
What We Need & What You Get
We urgently need funds to complete Lost Compassion and to make it a high quality production that will
receive maximum exposure and distribution. We have been shooting and editing
the production on a shoestring for four years and we are stretched to the limit
for funding. Lost Compassion is a
big, complicated story much of which has never been told by the mainstream
media. Now is the opportune time to complete and release the documentary, as
described in the Impact section below. To do this we urgently need funds for
final shooting, post production tools, high quality graphics, legal fees, music
rights, and to pay professional production and postproduction personnel to help
us create an award winning documentary and reach the large national audience
that Mitrice’s story deserves.
We are offering great perks that will recognize your
contributions in many ways, on screen and off. On some levels, you can even get involved in
helping the production. You can see the “Perks” on the right side of this page.
The Impact
The purpose of
Lost Compassion is to initiate a truly proactive investigation into Mitrice
Richardson’s death and reach those who may have knowledge that will solve this
case. While her case is still technically open, the Sheriffs and LAPD have
never conducted anything resembling a thorough investigation. We believe the
main reason is that one or more Sheriffs deputies and people connected to them
may have been involved in Mitrice’s disappearance and death.
Typically the authorities never conduct a rigorous
investigation when the culprits may be one of their own. As far as we know,
none of the deputies who arrested Mitrice nor any deputies at the station have
ever been truly investigated by the Sheriffs or LAPD. Also, we believe that
many important leads that we supplied to the authorities on suspects have never
been investigated.
With
the recent resignation of Sheriff Baca and the pending election of a new Sheriff,
we feel
Lost Compassion will stimulate the new Sheriff to revisit
Mitrice’s case and even set up a task force to thoroughly review the
investigation as if it were a cold case, and perhaps finally bring the FBI into the
case. It may also help to get those guilty of, or with key knowledge of,
Mitrice’s disappearance and death to come forward with key information leading
to solving the case.
On a grand scale,
Lost Compassion will show those who have relatives or friends who go missing how to deal with the authorities, searches and to keep their story alive. Additionally how, when the missing person is a person of color, extra effort is required to gain the respect of the authorities and the media.
When someone goes missing, the lives of those close to that person are thrown into a shocking, tumultuous, unfamiliar world.
Lost Compassion takes the audience inside this world where they can experience the stress and craziness yet learn to cope with it and take necessary actions to find missing persons.
Other Ways You Can Help
Please help us reach or exceed our funding goal by
broadcasting this Indiegogo link to all of your friends, relatives and anyone
else that you know who may be able to help us. Use social media, email or simply word of mouth to alert the world to this important opportunity to tell Mitrice's story and bring her justice. The larger the audience we
reach, the greater our chances for success.
• New update! 3/18/14 - We were just picked as the best crowd funding film this week on the UK web show, The Naked Filmmakers. They choose the best film each week to fund. Here's what they said about "Lost Compassion."
"This is the most important film we've featured thus far." "If you're gonna put your money into something, put it into "Lost Compassion." "A film that really needs to be made." See the video in our gallery section!