Troy Taylor (0:01)

Before we dive into today's episode, I just want to take a second to tell you about some of the amazing stuff we have going on over at our Patreon page. We've got all the regular things you've come to expect from your favorite podcast subscriptions, like ad free episodes, early episode drops, bonus content, Q&As, and live chats. But we also have something we think is pretty unique. We call it our case File Evidence packs. They're a collation of all the actual evidence we're discussing in that week's episode, including copies of messages, bank records, phone records, you name it. If we talk about it in the show, it's in the evidence pack. After all our episodes are done, you'll have a comprehensive pack of all the evidence we've discussed in the case, as well as detailed timelines, overviews of persons of interest, and theory breakdowns. And this is where the real value kicks in, because you'll be able to look at everything in granular detail. This could be your chance to make a real difference in Elaine's case, because who knows, maybe you'll spot something I didn't. If you head on over to our patreon page@patreon.com among themissing, you can check out the case file evidence pack for episode one right now for free. And if you've already signed up to one of our subscription tiers, I want to thank you for supporting us and for helping push Elaine's case further into the spotlight. Elaine's disappearance, like so many others, deserves attention, and your support helps us continue to investigate, share Elaine's story, and shine a light on missing people who are too often forgotten. Check it all out@patreon.com amongthemissing Today's episode of among the Missing contains content that may be distressing to some listeners, particularly those triggered by references to SA and human trafficking. Listener discretion is advised. This is crazy. Nobody wants to talk. Not Elaine's family, not her friends, nobody. Susan? She won't talk. At least not on the phone. She's been through so much after Elaine disappeared that it's like she's just run out of words. Jeff? He's busy. Rain? Elay's dad. He hasn't wanted to talk since the day she disappeared. Privacy, apparently, is more important. Travis has a bad cold, so even if he wanted to talk, he can't. And Divine, he definitely doesn't want to talk. The second I reached out, he blocked all of the among the Missing socials, then my personal podcast socials, and then he even went and found my private accounts and blocked those, too. Elaine's friends, Daisy, Elizabeth, Alex, Cody, Kristen. Nothing. Not one of them has responded to the multiple messages I've sent. The Glendale Police Department. I got in touch with their public information officer, Lieutenant Steve Corrigan. He was nice enough to put in a request for me to talk to the detective on Elaine's case, but it turns out there isn't one right now. The previous detective, Kim, got promoted, and from what Susan's been told, nobody has taken over yet. Lt. Corrigan did get back to me, though. And the official word from gpd? They don't want to talk. Even the people online who were so vocal about Elaine's case when the To Live and Die in LA podcast came out, they're silent now. There's no one talking on the Help Find Elaine Park Facebook page. The Elaine park subreddit is a ghost town. But you know what? I do want to talk. If I sound a little frustrated right now, it's because I am. Nobody wants to talk about Elaine. Nobody wants to talk for Elaine. It's too hard, it's too inconvenient, or it's not the right time. But Elaine is still missing. Her case is cold, even if Glindale PD won't say it out loud. No one's fighting for her anymore. No one's truly looking. Except for Rosemary, Wheeler and Susan, albeit quietly. It's like everyone else would rather just forget. So if you're wondering why I'm doing this podcast, well, there's at least part of your answer. Somebody has to speak for Elaine. Somebody has to keep telling her story, keep pushing, keep demanding answers. And if that somebody has to be some guy who's never met her, who lives 7,933 miles away, well, so be it. Because Elaine does not deserve to fade into the background. She deserves someone to fight for her. And if nobody else is going to do it, then I'm here. I'm all in. Susan has said in the past that Elaine felt unloved in life, and I can't stand the thought of her being unloved in death, too. So to everyone I've annoyed or inconvenienced by trying to get you to talk, well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you need to get used to it, because I'm not going to stop, and neither should you. Elaine needs a voice. She needs attention. She needs people to keep saying her name, because that's how these cases get solved. Somebody out there knows what happened to her and if we all stop talking, that person walks free. One person who is willing to talk is Rosemary Wheeler. She's been advocating for Elaine since day one. And even though the To Live and Die in LA podcast made it clear she suspected Susan had something to do with Elaine's disappearance, and Susan knows it. Susan still believes that Rosemary's heart is in the right place. She knows Rosemary won't ever stop searching for the truth. We'll get to know Rosemary a little better in future episodes. The one friend of Elaine who has spoken to me, at least over DMs, is Sadie. But even then, she's not keen to get too deep. And I get it. She's genuinely broken by Elaine's disappearance. She was one of the last people to see her alive, and she carries that weight. Every day she grapples with the thought that maybe if she'd done more, or maybe if things had been done differently, Elaine would still be here. Maybe she'd be driving that Range Rover, living in that house with the white picket fence and the golden retriever, raising the two mini mes she'd always dreamed about smiling, laughing, rapping, marveling at the world around her, just like she always did. But the truth is, nobody saw this coming. Nobody could have. Nothing can change what happened to Elaine. Nothing can bring her back. But we can make sure she's not forgotten. We can be her voice. And maybe if we're loud enough, she'll finally get the justice she deserves. And thankfully, I'm pretty good at being loud. I'm Troy Taylor, and this is among the missing. When I first started talking to Susan park, it was clear she didn't have much trust left to give. She felt like the world had turned against her in the search for Elaine. In her eyes. Over and over, people worked to gain her trust, only to end up turning on her, twisting her words and her willingness to talk to the point where in some cases, she was pinned as the prime suspect in the disappearance of her own daughter. That's probably why it took a long time her to open up to me. Some days she'd answer my questions right away, especially if they were about divine. She'd send over documents, details, anything that might help piece together a timeline of Elaine's last days. Other times, if my questions came too close to the sun, anything that could possibly be interpreted as her or someone close to her having anything to do with it, she'd pull back. She'd disappear for just long enough that it felt like the need to answer my questions had faded. In time, though, something Shifted. She began to trust me. And we reached a point where she would answer all of my questions, even if she didn't like them. Eventually, her trust in me became unwavering. And when it did, the floodgates opened. And I found that Susan herself spent a huge chunk of her day, every single day, digging into things, following up on new leads, going back over old leads, meeting with homicide detectives, talking to literally anybody who would offer any kind of explanation or lead or conclusion to Elaine's case, regardless of how absurd they might seem. And I had to ask myself, if she really had something to do with Elaine's disappearance. If she'd killed her daughter, whether by accident or not, would she still be doing this? The To Live and Die in LA podcast was over. Detective Kim had all but told her the case was inactive. Jayden Brandt, the original PI on her case, had moved on to new cases because, of course, he had to. He'd been looking into Elaine's case pro bono. If Susan were guilty, she'd already gotten away with it. So why keep digging? Why risk exposing herself? Why share complex data with me, a data Analyst? Location tracking DMs, IP and Mac addresses, device log files and router access records. With that kind of data, sooner or later, if she had been involved, I would catch her out. Because nobody can hide forever. If she did have something to hide, why hand all of that over? It just didn't make any sense. Some people will say, well, that's what a psychopath does. They stay involved, they keep themselves linked to the crime. And sure, sometimes that's true. But if you look at past cases, you'll find that killers, psychopaths or not, don't do that forever. At some point, they stop. I've gone through mountains of information, combed through everything piece by piece. And through all of that, I haven't come across a single piece of hard evidence that Susan was involved. Sure, you can connect dots, you can draw conclusions. And are there a ton of coincidences? Absolutely. But there's nothing concrete. I guess all of this is to say, eventually Susan and I reached a point where we trusted each other. And I guess that's why, when I asked if she could get me access to Elaine's social media accounts, specifically Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, she said she'd give it a shot. I figured that data analyzed in conjunction with everything else we knew could be a game changer, much more so than any gas analysis ever could. If I could dig into Elaine's digital footprint, maybe I could start finding real answers. And start piecing together what happened in the weeks leading up to Elaine's disappearance to see if there were any clues to be found. In the meantime, while I waited for what felt like an eternity, I the social media data, a terrifying new lead came in, emailed directly to Susan by someone calling themselves Dark Path. In the early days of investigating Elaine's disappearance, I'd formed this kind of routine. I'd roll out of bed half asleep, having had five, maybe six hours of broken rest. The result of rolling onto the early hours of the morning, digging into Elaine's case, and possibly of the 14 cups of coffee I'd had the day before. The first stop was still always the coffee pot. Then I'd somehow organize myself enough to get my kids ready and dropped off to school. I'd inevitably stop at the coffee shop on the way home to top up the caffeine that was already brimming at my ears before sliding into the ridiculously comfortable armchair at my desk, switching on my heater, and diving into whatever was next on my list of leads to hopefully cross off. On this particular morning, I switched on, opened my email, and found a message from Susan sitting there, the subject of which was Dark Path in the body. She'd simply written, what do you think? I took a cursory scroll and found that this thing went on for miles, email after email after email, reply after reply after reply. And I kept catching glimpses of words that made me feel, well, uncomfortable, to say the least. Words like trafficking and pimp, auction and bidder. Some of the tips that came in on Elaine's case were amusing. Some of them generated an enormous amount of hope, seemingly within the realm of possibility. Enough to make you think, hey, maybe this one is the real deal. And then there are the ones that leave you feeling empty, devastated and broken. Unfortunately, that morning, the tip that came in sat in that third bucket. I want you to know I've edited some of the communications here to tone down the depravity of it all for both you and for me, Because I don't think I could even bring myself to read out loud what some of the actual messages said. How can I contact Susan? It started simply. Susan tells him he's in the right place, and he dives straight into things, barely missing a beat. I will request you let me remain anonymous. Your daughter is being held against her wish by a sex trafficking ring. She's being subjected to horrible things by multiple men on a daily basis. Susan's response is immediate. She promises anonymity, begs for help, and even Mentions the reward, which at the time was $140,000. But the mysterious sender isn't interested in money. They're only interested in control. I'm not interested in having the reward. She's going to be sold and the highest bidder will take her. I'm waiting for the site they'll be put up on, and I'll give you the username and password for it. But if you involve the cops, this ends in body bags. Just do what other pimps do and you'll get your girl home. Susan promises she won't involve law enforcement, and she asks about the protocol for this sort of thing. Dark Path tells her on the site, you'll just set a price and wait. If another pimp puts in a higher price, you increase yours. It's like normal bidding. Think of it like ebay, but for people. Once I get the site, I'll forward it to you. This was more than just a threat. It was psychological warfare. Susan knew that if this was real, her daughter's fate hung on a sick, twisted bidding war. But was it real? She waited for the website link. And she waited and waited and waited. But it never came. Finally, 12 hours later, out of the blue, Dark Path emails Susan again. Ma'am, it's happening now. And provides a username and a password, but no link to any kind of site. He follows up 20 minutes later. Where are you? It's over. Why didn't you answer? I expected you would be on alert all day. Just waiting for my email. She's gone. Susan was devastated, furious. She demanded answers. Why hadn't they sent the site link? Why hadn't they given her proof? Dark Path doubled down. I wanted to make sure you were there so I could change the IP address. I started asking if you were there for a reason. I couldn't change anything because it's all done. The auction only takes a few minutes and they close everything down. I'm so sorry. She was so close to getting home. Susan responds, you could have taken a screenshot of her and sent it to me. So far, nothing you said makes sense. He replies, I've not asked you for anything. Funny how when someone is trying to help by doing the right thing, everything turns against them. It's not my responsibility to take screenshots. As I stated earlier, I don't need your money. You think everything is about money. Did not explain clearly. You had two hours to give me this website. Dark Path. The website is put up and within 30 minutes it's taken down. I don't even know why I'm explaining this to you. You are ungrateful. Thinking money solves everything. This was a total mistake to try and help Susan. Shattered and angry, doesn't respond. Remember my reference to that emotional rollercoaster in the first episode? Well here's an example in black and white. Desperate hope broken into unbearable devastation. It's soul destroying. There was no more communication between Susan and darkpath for over a month. But the exchange between the two played on Susan's mind and eventually she reached out again expecting the email account to have been disabled. Hi. I've been thinking about you a lot. I'm very sorry about the last attempt. Obviously you know her whereabouts. If you could send me a recent photo or a photo of activity of the bidding site, I will trust you with all my heart and follow your instructions from now on. To her surprise, she received a reply only a few hours later. Ma'am, it's been a month since I told you about the site. The dark web changes on a daily basis with different updates. You should have asked me for this information. Then I could have provided you with at least recent site activity pictures. Your daughter is now in California. It's been a very horrible month for her. If you want to get her, I can find a way to arrange for this to happen. If not, then there won't be no need for name calling and wasting my time. Susan replies, yes, I understand. I was just skeptical. But I've got nothing to lose by contacting you because I want her back. So that's why I contacted you after a while. I miss her very much. Please find her for me and guide me. This email does not alert me as soon as an email is sent. Is there a better way to communicate as soon as you'd want to contact me? Darkpath replies saying he'd rather keep the communication running via email, asking if he'd like her to go ahead and make arrangements and if she's ready Now. Susan asks for proof of life and darkpath replies I will make contact to see if he's willing to sell her first. If he is, then he gives me details on what he wants done and I'll forward it to you, including a photo if I can convince him. A few hours later he comes back again. It's going to be a difficult situation. He just asked why I'm following him, specifically asking for Elaine when he has a lot of other girls too. I can't tell him he'll be paid 100k if he gives a picture. It will only make things worse for no pimp can afford to pay that much. And we need him to believe you're a pimp. She's in San Jose and waiting for him to decide on what he wants done. And you'll have to go by his rules to get her back with or without a picture. What matters most is she gets home. I'm not doing this for other people, no matter what the number is. I just don't agree with kidnapping anyone, drugging them and forcing them into the sex trade. Susan responds to tell him the funds aren't hers, they're from donors and they won't release anything until they have proof of life. Darkpath responds to say he's not looking for 140k, probably no more than 20k, but that the guy hasn't even decided if he wants to let her go yet or not. Susan makes it clear without proof of life, nothing is happening. Dark Path tells her that that might not be an option if the guy is not willing to supply a picture. And it's either that she goes along with the by or she loses Elaine forever. Susan questions him on that. Surely he can get a picture. And if for some reason that's completely impossible, then she wants to know something Elaine would know. But. But they wouldn't like her middle name or her cat's names. Dark Path makes his view clear. Read this for you to understand my position. You are not a real pimp. You have no contacts to back you up on the Darknet. It's all a difficult situation. You can walk away. I won't blame you. Their dialogue continues for some time. Susan's trying to get an understanding of how this kind of thing works. And Dark Path's getting around things, continually trying to push Susan to comply with the requirements. And she'll have Elaine back in her arms in no time. They discuss how to transfer the funds and he makes the biggest mistake in their entire conversation. He tells Susan to FedEx them and actually gives her a name and address to send the funds to the guy who's holding her. His name is Jacob Davis and he lives in San Jose, about a nine hour drive from Susan. The good news is he doesn't want the full $140,000, just $12,000. Once he receives it, he'll release her and Susan can pick her up from the nearest hospital because, as he makes clear, she needs urgent medical attention. But Darkpath says again, if she even thinks of taking this to the police, it's all over. Elaine will be gone and so will he, because he's risking his life to help Susan out. But Susan was exhausted by this whole thing, and she knew if this thing was real, it was not something she knew how to deal with effectively on her own. So that's exactly what she did. On a rainy California night, Susan headed to the Glendale Police Department, where a sergeant by the name of Newton helped to continue the conversation with Dark Path in an effort to extract information that could help them identify him. And in the meantime, he kicked off a background check on Jacob Davis and the street address in San Jose. Susan, so you live in San Jose, too. Can you send a picture so I know who to find when I come to pick her up? How do you know for sure it's Alayne? Darkpath tells her he'll find her. There won't be any picture. And Susan asks him to confirm once and for all how it is he knows for sure it's Elaine? Dark Path replies, I would be stupid to do this if it wasn't her. It's not the proof you need, but it's the logic that should add up for you. When Susan asks for clarification that it's Jacob who's holding Elaine, Darkpath replies with just don't do the mistake I can see you're about to do of sending the cops to him. He keeps his hands clean and I will be the one to suffer. After cops talk to him and find nothing on him, they continue this dance back and forth for a long time, Susan pushing for proof. Dark Path saying it won't be provided, but that she's losing her shot to get her daughter back, eventually coming to a stalemate. Susan tells him she can't move forward without at least some evidence. It's Elaine they're talking about, if it's anyone at all. And Dark Path finally ends their communications, almost as simply as he started the month earlier. Ma'am, you just killed your daughter. And then nothing. Sergeant Newton called Susan a few days later to let her know that they'd found no trace whatsoever of a Jacob Davis in San Jose, and certainly not one who owned or lived at the address, provided that the entire thing, this desperate, agonizing threat of hope, was likely a cruel, manipulative scam. For the first time in months, Susan could breathe again. I shut my laptop for the day. Then some days, the toll taken of burying yourself in this kind of investigation made it difficult to continue. And this was one of them. I needed to let Elaine rest for a bit so I could rest, too. It was moments like this that things were really hammered home to me. I knew how horrible it could be to lose a loved one. Well, as much as anyone who hadn't gone through that could know. But what I had never really contemplated was the pain and torture that other things and other people would bring to you in the wake of it. That night, I read my daughter one more story than I usually would and gave her the biggest hug I think I've ever given her, the enormity of it all hitting me like a ton of bricks. Has it stopped raining yet? Not yet. Maybe tomorrow, said the elephant. Snuggle up everyone. You just don't know when everything you love could be taken away from you. I love you, darling. Love you too. Good night. Good night, sweetheart. Sleep well. Okay? You too. I tucked her in tightly, told her I loved her, and then headed back to my laptop, emotionally drained but more ready than ever to start searching for Elaine again. The FBI warns that families of missing persons are often targeted by fraudsters claiming to have information they exploit vulnerability, offering hope before demanding money. And on the surface, that's exactly what darkpath messages appeared to be. But there's always remained a question over the dark path emails. Were they just an elaborate hoax by some sitcom man trying to extort money from a grieving family? Or was there something more nefarious at play? Maybe one day we'll know the answer to that. But back to Taylor Campos and his alter ego, Stoney Baloney. Taylor's Facebook profile picture is something else. He's decked out in western gear, holding a gun that's just out of frame, looking focused, determined, like he's about to take something down. But when you scroll through the rest of his posts, comments and photos, that version of Taylor starts to fall apart. Instead of someone tough and in control, he comes off more like a lost kid, posting things that might have seemed funny back in 2017, but in the harsh light of 2025, probably don't land quite the same way. Or at least you'd hope not. His friend list is surprisingly short for someone who's been on Facebook for so long. 187 friends. That number, by the way. 187 also happens to be the police short code for homicide. Weird. His posts are a strange mix. Some fishing photos, memes complaints about capitalism, and then, randomly, a picture of cereal and milk in a plastic bag with a spoon stuck in it, and then a photo of a girl shooting up heroin while smoking crack at the same time. It's a mess, just like he seems to be. He's a really keen fisherman, which is probably something he picked up from his brother Tony. It's safe to say Tony's whole life is fishing. It seems from his Facebook and Instagram pages that his world is all fishing all the time, morning to night, from the second he wakes up to the second his head. It's the pillow. It was one of the first things I noticed when I started deep diving into Taylor at the very start in 2022. The brothers would head out early in the morning and in most cases, surf, cast, or fish from the shoreline. The post from a Stony Baloney account shook me. They were vile. And when I realized he had a connection to Travis, Susan's boyfriend Jeff's son, I knew I had to dig deeper. So I did. I started by analyzing the Stony Baloney Facebook page, looking at his friends, his interests, his activity. I've got this cool little tool that scrapes the list of friends off anybody's Facebook page. I used it to capture all of Elaine's friends, Divine's friends, and pretty much anyone else I found along the way who in my eyes, warranted any further investigation. It allows you to drop the new person's list in and then use a compare function to see if there are any matches between that person and any other person in the matrix. Basically a kind of six degrees of separation tool. When I dropped Taylor's list of friends in there, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I already knew he was friends with Travis, so I guess mostly I just expected to see a lot of crossover between Taylor's friends and Travis's friends. What I didn't really expect to find was a crossover between Taylor's friends and Elaine's friends, but there it was. Not only was Taylor friends with Travis, but he was also friends with a girl named Kendall who just happened to be friends with Elaine. Now I was sure there was more to this. This guy jumping on over to Elaine's missing person page, dropping the most horrific posts, presenting as just some basic troll. Not only was he friends with Travis, but he was also friends with one of Elaine's. There had to be more than met the eye. So I began digging a little deeper. And at every turn, I found more and more coincidences. After finding the connection with Kendall, I jumped back over to Taylor's page, looking to find any information on the nature of their relationship. Maybe they were just acquaintances in some met at a party kind of way. But no, that wasn't the case at all. Kendall wasn't an acquaintance of Taylor's. She wasn't even a friend of Taylor's. She was Taylor's Girlfriend. Remember when I said in the last episode that my jaw hit the floor multiple times during my investigation into Elaine's disappearance? Well, a few of those times are coming up right now. Because the deeper I dug into Taylor and eventually his brother Tony, the more connections and coincidences I found. While I was still trying to wrap my head around everything, the horrific posts, the connections between Taylor, Travis and Kendall, I went back to the Stoney page for more clues. And then something else jumped out at me. The date the Stony Baloney account was created. It felt important, but I couldn't immediately remember why. My brain was on information overload at this point. I'd been working on Elaine's case non stop for over a year, but something about February 10, 2017 rang a bell. February 10th. Eight days after Elaine's car was found abandoned on Pacific coast highway in Malibu. But what else? Thankfully, since day one, I'd been compiling a database of dates and events, a timeline of everything Elaine related. I opened that up, filtered down to February 10, 2017, and only one event showed up. It just so happened February 10th was also the exact date that the Help Find Elaine Park Facebook page was first established. The exact same date. At this point, I discarded my cup of coffee for a bottle of whiskey. This was going to take more than a caffeine infusion to get through. Not only was this guy friends with Travis and the boyfriend of Kendall, Elaine's friend, he also set up his throwaway account, the one he used to spew those horrible remarks about Elaine on her own missing persons page on the exact same day that very missing persons page was established. I buckled up and dove headfirst into the world that was Taylor and Tony. I started cataloguing every photo on Taylor's page. Who liked them, who commented, who was engaging with his posts. It quickly became clear that he and Tony were inseparable. But here's where it gets really interesting. Taylor and Tony were both obsessive Facebook posters. Almost every single day, sometimes multiple times per day. When I checked Taylor's timeline, there was a gap after January 28 through to January 31, right in the window when Elaine disappeared, he posted nothing. Not a single post. On the 24th of January, he made five posts. The 25th, four posts. The 26th, two posts on the 27th, two posts on the 28th, three post on the 31st, three posts. But in between those dates. Silence. Not one post. Convinced there was more to find here, that I was onto something important, I moved over to Tony's page and began deep diving into that too. And that was a little trickier. He had thousands upon thousands of posts, sometimes posting, and I kid you not, up to 20 or 30 times per day. I could never get far enough back on Tony's Facebook page to see whether he too had a gap in his posting. However, I was able to get that far back on his Instagram page. And guess what? Yep, there's a gap between 26 January and 2 February, the day Elaine's car was found abandoned on the PCH. When I was looking at those gaps, I also noticed something else right there on Tony's Instagram page. A picture of the brothers together fishing, casting off the rocks into the surf. The week before, Elaine went missing at a spot called Point Dume, which by the way, happens to be located in Malibu, just a few miles away from where Elaine's car was found. Turns out they were in Malibu a lot, fishing in the early hours of the morning. At this point, I needed more than just social media digging. I ran full background checks on Taylor and Tony, pulled their old residential addresses from 2017. Taylor lived in a little place in Sunland, not too far from Elaine's own house in Lacracenta. I plugged the address into Google Maps to get a closer look and again noticed something I hadn't seen before. Their house was strikingly close to the merge of the 118 and 210 freeways. Eight minutes away to be exact. Eastbound. The exact same direction Elaine was heading when her car broke down on the Thursday morning before she disappeared, where she had Susan and Jeff come out, bring her 2 gallons of gas and jump start her car. I also managed to get Taylor and Tony's plate numbers in the background check. So I started digging from that angle too. And I discovered Tony drove a 91 Ford Escape and Taylor a Honda Accord Wagon. I managed to find pictures of both of their actual cars and started the arduous task, filtering through hours upon hours of CCTV footage from the gas station on the corner of Coral Canyon Road on the morning of Elaine's disappearance at 6:26am There's a car that makes a U turn just to the left of the gas station. It's been speculated that the car making the U turn is Elaine's, which in my eyes is a fair assumption because it takes 19 minutes to get from Devine's house to that spot. It's the direction she would have come from if she were coming from Divine's house. And her phone activity starts again two minutes later, which is how long it would have taken her to get from that intersection to the point where her car was found. Watching a little further on, there was nothing of any real significance. No Honda wagons, no Ford Explorers. Until there was, at exactly 7:01am, a car resembling Tony's 91 Ford Explorer enters the CCTV from the right, heading in the direction of Elaine's car. It quickly zooms past the gas station. And then, within seconds, it's gone. I sat reeling from it all for a long time. Either that was a crazy number of freakish coincidences, or there was something more at play here. But from there, I really had nowhere else to go. So I packaged up all of the information I'd found and sent it across to Susan, who forwarded it directly to the Glendale Police Department. Their response almost immediately, without any time to actually have investigated anything, was, don't worry, it's nothing more than an Internet troll. And so the stony baloney lead kind of just sat collecting dust. Until, that is, I started prepping for episode one. Before putting the episode out, I decided to try to find Taylor and Tony, to reach out to them. Taylor, he's basically a ghost. No social media, no phone number, impossible to track down. But Tony, he's everywhere. So I messaged him and not surprisingly, I got a reply almost instantly. I told him I wanted to talk to him and Taylor about Elaine Park. He responded, asking who Elaine park was. I explained, told him I thought he and his brother could help answer some questions. But the moment I mentioned Malibu 2017, radio silence. I messaged him again and again and again. Nothing. He read every single message, but he never replied. In the meantime, I heard from Travis. He downplayed his relationship with Taylor, said they barely knew each other, maybe met at a party once, and that Taylor might have been a minor drug dealer back then, but he couldn't be sure. And that got me thinking. Elaine's breakdown that Thursday morning on the merge of the 118 and the 210, eight minutes away and in the direction of Taylor's house. Nobody knew where she was going. There were no records of her communicating with anyone about anything in relation to that Thursday morning. It was like she just headed out into the night. But she wasn't just out cruising the streets. She had almost no gas left in her tank. We know that because she ran out of gas. She was on a mission of some kind. But what was it? And where was she headed? They're questions I'm determined to find an answer to. But back to last week when I sent Tony a link to the first episode I'm what you call evil. Something strange happened. A couple of hours after I sent him the link, a friend of mine tried to head over to his Instagram to check out some of the stuff we'd been discussing. Only his Instagram, which was also his business. Instagram, with around 5,000 posts and 2,000 followers, which I'd been looking at the very morning I'd sent him. That link had been taken offline. It remained offline for around two days before it came back up. I tried calling Tony a couple of times to see if I could get to the bottom of things, but like so many others, he didn't answer. Tony also didn't want to talk, but I know he's listening. So, Tony, you've got my number, you've got my messages. If you and Taylor have nothing to hide, let's talk. Let's get the facts straight. And if not, well, I'll just keep digging because right now things are looking a little fishy. Not long after I started my deep dive into Taylor and his brother Tony, I'd hit a wall. I found myself about to jump back in to the next lead on my list when I heard the all too familiar ding of a new email coming in. It was about 9:30pm and when an email comes in at that time on that particular email account, that pretty much tells me that it's time to kick start the coffee machine again. Because it was going to be a long night and tonight was no exception. I clicked into my email account and saw there was a new message from Susan Park. The subject line simply read Snapchat. Turned out Susan had managed to get into some of Elaine's social media accounts. And there was the beginning of it right in front of me. I don't know what I was expecting, but given it was a disappearing messaging platform, I know I wasn't expecting much. Certainly not anywhere near what I got. There was an enormous repository of data there. Historic chat data, comprehensive friends lists, complete with names and full contact information. It was like hitting the data jackpot. I clicked into the Memories tab and found there were photos and videos saved there, too. A lot of photos and videos. And by a lot, I mean hundreds upon hundreds upon Hundreds of them. 1,327 of them to be exact, leading right up until the time Elaine disappeared. And some of them were absolutely explosive. But that's next time on among the Missing. Thanks for listening to among the Missing. If you know anything about what happened to Elaine or where she is. A Reward fund of $25,000 cash is still on offer. If you'd like any more information on the reward or you have any information relating to Elaine's disappearance whatsoever, please visit our website@ among themissingpodcast.com where you can send us a message or leave us a voicemail. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok at. Among the Missing Podcast if you're looking for more of among the Missing and you don't want to wait a week, you can listen to episode three this coming Sunday by subscribing to us on either Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Patreon, where each week you'll get additional audio content and early and free episode drops. If you've got any questions you'd like to be addressed in our Q and A episodes, please visit our website at among themissingpodcast.com and either send us a message or leave us a voicemail. Among the Missing is a production of FTM Media produced by Troy Taylor, Mark Tarulli and Fred Schurzer, written by Troy Taylor. Our theme song is Lucid Symphony by Dirty Freaks. Elaine park is still a missing person and her case is still open with the Glendale Police Department. If you have any information about her whereabouts, please contact them on 818-548-3135 and mention Elaine's case number 171512.