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- [00:13]
Rosemary Wheeler
Oh, let me start out by saying I didn't know Susan before Elaine went missing. I mean, I knew. I think maybe I could pick her out in a crowd, possibly. But I knew Elaine. And when, you know, I kept trying to contact Susan because I had known Elaine since she was so little. I mean, driving her to dance competitions or doing her hair. Her kids were so little, they couldn't do these things on their own.
- [00:42]
Troy Taylor
This is Rosemary Wheeler. Back when they were kids, her daughter Gina and Elaine used to dance together in the same troupe. Even back then, Rosemary felt a kind of maternal connection to Elaine. She remembers her as sweet, polite, and always kind. The type of person who was always quick to smile, quick to laugh, and always the first one to help someone up if they fell. So when Elaine went missing, Rosemary felt it in her gut. She felt compelled to get involved, like there was some sort of invisible string pulling at her, demanding she start searching just as she would if it were her own child that was missing. And less than eight days after Elaine's car was found on Pacific Coast Highway, Rosemary was in the thicket, side by side with Susan Park. She was coordinating searches, chasing down leads, gathering evidence, and working with search and rescue teams, homicide detectives, and bloodhound handlers. She and Susan became a team, inseparable for a long time, bound by the search for Elaine.
- [01:47]
Rosemary Wheeler
When I first met Susan, it was on my front porch the first time I had actually, like, probably even had a conversation face to face with her. And, you know, it's funny because early on, you know, I would hear from some moms around, you know, be careful around her. She's, you know, she's just different, you know, And I just said, william, we're all different.
- [02:11]
Troy Taylor
Rosemary and Susan came from very different backgrounds, and Rosemary was aware that there was significant cultural differences between the two of them. Their views on things often clashed, but for the most part, she chalked them up to those differences. She pushed the clashes aside and focused on what mattered most, that they both wanted to find Elaine. For a while, that shared goal kept them together. But within 18 months, that bond they'd built began to. To unravel. Trust eroded, tensions grew, and eventually, they went their separate ways, each pursuing the search for Elaine from their own independent corners. But let's go back to the beginning.
- [02:51]
Rosemary Wheeler
I remember it was the super bowl weekend in 2017, and I was sitting with my youngest daughter, Peyton, and we're watching, you know, the game, and then a news, you know, like a news break or breaking news comes through, and Peyton says, oh, my God, Mom. That's. I think that's Elaine Park. Isn't that who Gina danced with? And I'm looking at her, and I'm looking at her, I'm like, oh, my gosh. I think it is. And then they said, from Glendale. I'm like, oh, no way. I couldn't believe it. And shortly after that, when her car was found, I started really calling or Facebook messaging Susan to help out because I just couldn't believe it. This just doesn't happen in our neighborhood here. It was upsetting to me, and my girls are both like, mom, don't do that. Just be careful. And I'm like, no, listen, ladies, if anything ever happened to any one of my kids, I certainly hope someone would step up and help me just the way I am. And it started there. And I met Susan face to face a few days after February 10th. Once the GoFundMe was set up and.
- [04:04]
Troy Taylor
The Facebook page, in the early days, Susan and Rosemary set up a GoFundMe account for Elaine with the intent of using whatever donations they received to fund the search and all of the hidden expenses that come along with that sort of thing. It performed well, eventually raising $16,000 and providing the two a base to really kickstart investigation.
- [04:25]
Rosemary Wheeler
You know, I think we had raised something like $6,000 on GoFundMe. And I'm like, let's. I don't care. What if Jaden, even though he's listed as whatever pro bono, he's still going to incur costs for people he has to use. So who cares? We're raising money. Let's pay for these phone records. Let's pay for whatever we got to pay for. And her reply to me is, she's like, I don't know. I mean, it's so expensive. And what if we find her and I have to give her a funeral? I thought, oh, my God. Well, you know, I. I think let's just think positive here, and let's just find her. The first time the news got a hold of the CCTV footage or when Susan got a hold of it and it was ABC7, it was Eileen Frere who had come here. I think it's like, February 20th, it might have aired.
- [05:25]
Troy Taylor
She was almost right. It was February 23rd. Here's a clip from that interview. Eyewitness News reporter Eileen Freire joins us.
- [05:32]
Rosemary Wheeler
Live from Glendale with what we've learned.
- [05:34]
Troy Taylor
From watching these private video clips.
- [05:36]
Eileen Freire
Eileen and Mark. They are the last known images of Elaine park before she disappeared nearly a month ago. Images captured as she left her former boyfriend's home.
- [05:45]
Div's Mother
I had this odd feeling because she didn't text back. She was just not responding to everything and her phone was off.
- [05:53]
Eileen Freire
Numerous searches turned up no sign of Elaine. Susan reached out to Elaine's former boyfriend.
- [05:58]
Div's Mother
I asked him that as a mom, I really want to see a last image of her.
- [06:05]
Eileen Freire
Susan says Div's mother provided the video, seen here for the first time on Eyewitness News. It shows Div and Elaine leaving an Uber to see a movie the night before she disappeared. They returned just one in the morning.
- [06:18]
Div's Mother
He said that at that time, at 4 o'clock in the morning, she all of a sudden got up shaking and singing and looked like a panic attack.
- [06:28]
Eileen Freire
Susan says Div told her Elaine got dressed and left. She walks outside, but the video stops at 6:05am her car is seen leaving the gated community, but it's too dark to see who's driving.
- [06:42]
Div's Mother
Please come on safe, because I love you a lot.
- [06:48]
Rosemary Wheeler
They asked her on that day, where do you think Elaine is? And she looked up, you know, and she said, I think with the angels. And I. I think I audibly gasped because I was like, there's no, no, no, no, they're not possible.
- [07:03]
Troy Taylor
For Rosemary, it was a jarring thought. At the time, it seems she and Susan were in completely different headspaces. Rosemary still holding on to hope that Elaine was alive and somehow, somewhere, that they'd find her and bring her home. It seems Susan, however, had already processed a much bleaker outlook. A few days before the Eileen Freya interview, on February 20, Susan was interviewed on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. When Nancy asked her about Elaine's car leaving the Compeers gated community without a clear view of who was driving, Susan responded, as far as I know what my concern is, maybe the body's inside there in the car. It was a comment that would throw most people for a spin, referring to your own daughter as the body just weeks after her disappearance. It was blunt, cold and horrifying. But Susan isn't like most people. She forgets things, then remembers them, and then forgets them again. She keeps certain details locked away, even when there's no real reason to. Other times, she shares everything without hesitation. Sometimes she controls the flow of information, but often the things she guards don't seem to have any real evidentiary value at all. And I guess that's part of what fuels some of the suspicion around her. She doesn't behave the way most of us believe we would behave if our child went missing. But the truth is none of us know how we'd behave in that situation unless we've been through it. That said, Susan would be the first to admit that she wasn't a great mother to Elaine. She didn't love her the way she should have. They had major clashes, and she sent Elaine some incredibly horrible text messages. There were a lot of things that she was guilty of, but murdering her own daughter, That's a big call. What is clear about Susan, though, is that she is about as far from an optimist as you can get. Whatever her worst fear is, in her mind, it's not just possible, it's inevitable. For Susan, the idea of Elaine being dead was simply a reality, at least one that was no less likely than her still being alive. But for Rosemary, who could not be more different to Susan if she tried, it was a shocking, morbid thing to say, and it was the catalyst for the seed of doubt that slowly began to permeate in her gut. She couldn't feel it yet, but that invisible thread, the one that had dragged her into the search to begin with, it had wrapped itself around her heart, tightening more and more as the days went by. And it started dragging her toward a world more devastating, more confronting, and more confusing than she ever could have predicted. A world that would change her life forever. And once it yanked, there'd be no turning back. I'm Troy Taylor, and this is among the Missing.
- [10:24]
Rosemary Wheeler
We argued so much. We as. I mean, as much as I. I put so much into it, but we, you know, we argued and, you know, but we still stuck together and, you know, through the whole thing. And I was ever so grateful for when Mike and Ann Marie and Neil and Ingrid stepped in. I mean, they took over every. Every cost. They paid for everything. They put the money up for the reward. They paid for Jaden. There wasn't there. It was. It was remarkable. And I. When we first met them, oh, my gosh, I guess it was maybe we had the search on March 12th or 14th. So it was after that. It was near the end of March when we met with the Malibu gang, and they were phenomenal. You know, it was. It was great. It was such a great thing.
- [11:18]
Troy Taylor
You might remember the names Mike, Anne Marie, Neil and Ingrid from episode one. They were part of the To Live and Die in LA podcast team and what Rosemary casually refers to as the Malibu Gang. They got involved in the search for Elaine early on, around March, about six weeks after Rosemary herself had joined the search effort, just over a month after private investigator Jayden Brandt from Origin Investigations was brought in on February 22 when Jayden and the Malibu gang started their own investigation. Rosemary helped where she could, but for the most part, she stayed by Susan's side, focused on whatever it was that Susan felt needed to be done.
- [11:56]
Rosemary Wheeler
Working with Susan, you know, is like working for Susan. I did everything, get this, do this. I ran around like a chicken without a head for her. And, you know, and I get it. I mean, maybe she's too distraught to, you know, you know, you don't know what you're going to be like until you're, you know, in that kind of position. And it's a position you never hope you're in. But, you know, I did what I had to do. And, you know, it's, it's, it was tough, you know, and I mean, there are times where I would just feel so terribly sorry for her because she really doesn't have any support. Her ex husband doesn't support her. You know, he would rather just sweep everything under the carpet and not even mention it. It just is such a crazy dynamic, you know, I'd wish it on nobody. And she really was in it alone, you know. He didn't come to the search either.
- [12:53]
Troy Taylor
Ray, Elaine's father, never really helped look for Elaine. He didn't show up to the physical searches, he didn't attend press conferences, never gave interviews, and never made a single public plea for help. He just kinda did nothing. It was as if Elaine's disappearance was an inconvenience to him rather than a tragedy. It seems he felt it somehow reflected badly on him in the Korean community. And all I can put that down to is the early theory that perhaps Elaine had suicided from the start. Susan suggested that suicide might have played a role in Elaine's disappearance. The police seem to latch onto that idea almost immediately. And despite a mountain of evidence suggesting otherwise, they've never really moved away from it.
- [13:42]
Rosemary Wheeler
I really thought at the beginning, I really, really thought, we're going to find her. It's, there's no way, you know, she's just somewhere that she's just taking a break, isn't suicidal, you know, she was, I mean, she had plans, you know, and she wanted to travel and I mean, she's exploring so many different opportunities as far as the career goes. It just isn't true. I, I kind of think it, it downplayed the whole situation with the police, unfortunately, you know, with a car park there and all our stuff left in the car. I mean, they did two, I think they did two ocean searches for her in the Area where her car was found, you know, and they did thorough searches, you know, right after they had picked up. I mean, and it was raining, too. And they say that it's actually better when it's raining and you have the scent dogs out there, because it brings the scent up more. And there was nothing, not even any sign of a scuffle. Let's say if we ever found evidence it was there, whoever's car she got into, she got in willingly. She would not. She's not the personality to, you know. You know, I'm just getting taken kind of thing. No, no, she's a. She would fight. She's. She was a tough girl. She wouldn't go down easy.
- [15:00]
Troy Taylor
2 February was a key date in Elaine's disappearance. It was, of course, the day her car was found abandoned on Pacific Coast Highway. But it was also the first day Susan and Jeff had gone to visit the compare family at their home in Calabasas. It just happened to be Elaine's father Ray's birthday. And that morning, Susan had left a note for Elaine on the whiteboard in her room that read, elaine, as soon as you decide to come home and you are home, please let me know at your earliest. I am so worried. I do love you. When Elaine's car was discovered, the Glendale Police Department were called out to the scene and eventually it was towed back to the station. They kept hold of the car and all of her belongings from within it for about two weeks before everything was released back to Susan. From what I can determine, it appears they didn't do any significant processing of any of it. The lease on Elaine's car was in Ray's name. A couple of months after her disappearance, he sublet it to a third party. And by June, the car had been totalled in an accident and sent to a salvage yarn to be auctioned off with any potential remaining evidence lost forever.
- [16:09]
Rosemary Wheeler
February 2nd, they find the car. February 2nd was also Ray's birthday. When they got the car back. When they got, you know, Elaine's car back, I think Susan and Jeff picked the car up. I think Ray had come to her house to pick it up. But, I mean, you know, to sublet the car. You know, I think I would have preserved everything. I. I mean, even, like, dust for fingerprints on the laptop and all the stuff in the car. I don't know, it just was such a horrible situation.
- [16:40]
Troy Taylor
When a patrolman from the Lost Hills Sheriff Department found Lane's car, he noted that her belongings were neatly arranged inside in the front console. There were two iPhones, her current iPhone 7 still, according to Susan, plugged in, and an older iPhone 6 that was damaged beyond recovery. There's contention around whether her phone was actually plugged in and whether she actually had a charger in her car or not. Susan says she absolutely did because the phone was plugged in when it was found. On the flip side, the patrolman who found the car told Jayden he didn't recall finding a charger at all. Unfortunately, we can't verify any of that because the patrolman who found the car never lodged a report of what was found. All we have to go on are people's memories and the two people who saw it. Susan and the patrolman have a difference of opinion on what they saw. Aside from her phones, her laptop sat on the passenger seat, stacked neatly with her purse, cash, and a few other personal items. A small vial of marijuana was found on the floor near the passenger seat. In the back seat, they found her black backpack and a light blue duffel bag. The trunk held more of her things. Shoes, makeup, and clothes. Everything was there, organized, as if she just stepped away for a moment.
- [17:56]
Rosemary Wheeler
I mean, even with, like, Daisy, who is the sweetest, she's such a sweetheart of a girl. She's like, elaine is not neat. I even think they, like, argued about, like, keeping the kitchen clean at their apartment. I mean, and even, you know, Susan would say, always telling her to clean up, or, you know, like, she was very messy. She wasn't neat by any means. But the car, when they found it, everything was neatly placed, which is just really, really uncharacteristic.
- [18:27]
Troy Taylor
And that's a good point Rosemary raises about Elaine's car. It was found with all of her belongings stacked neatly on the passenger seat. Almost too neatly. If the car was staged suggests that whoever did it didn't know her well, because if they did know her well, surely they would have realized that arranging everything so perfectly would be a huge red flag, because Elaine would never leave her personal items stacked neatly like that. Especially in a situation where she's in distress or leaving in a hurry. It feels unnatural, like someone trying to make it look a certain way without really understanding how it would look if that had actually happened with Elaine.
- [19:03]
Rosemary Wheeler
Look, do I think Susan did this? I don't know for sure. Absolutely nobody knows for sure. I would love for her not to have been the one that harmed Wayne, but I can't say no, you know, and I. I can't say no. I know for sure she didn't do it. You know, it's like I see. I see her as that little girl that she honestly light up a room when she walks in. She just had this smile and this level of energy that you don't see all the time, you know, and regardless of where you are, you knew that when she walked into the room, you know, she just had the cutest voice, like this raspy little. She's so tiny, too. And she had this raspy voice and a smile that would just really, you know, brighten anyone's day. I'm telling you, she was. She was something else. There really isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about her or. Or I'm always looking too. I mean, I'm always looking for her just because what if she's still out there? I mean, I hate to admit that, you know, it's most likely that she is dead, but, you know, I. I'll never stop looking. You know, every once in a while I'll see a face and I'll stop the car and look twice or. Because I still have that hope that she's out there somewhere.
- [20:44]
Troy Taylor
One of the leads Susan and Rosemary pursued together came through the Help Find Lane park messenger inbox in early September 2018. It was from a woman named Michelle Westervelt. Michelle didn't waste time with pleasantries. Her opening message had a real sense of urgency. Call me immediately. I have incredible information relating to Elaine's disappearance. When Susan and Rosemary met her in mid September, they realized that urgency wasn't just a one time thing. It was who Michelle was.
- [21:14]
Michelle Westervelt
I'm thinking that she's somewhere between here and Utah. That's what my thought is, because you guys had no idea that he led Divine Love to Utah. From.
- [21:23]
Div's Mother
From California to Utah. That's a long.
- [21:26]
Michelle Westervelt
That's a long distance. Doesn't it make it more of a bigger situation knowing that he went and hid out in Utah and you know, he has a friend named Un. Right.
- [21:34]
Rosemary Wheeler
That's what. We didn't know any of this until. Until you.
- [21:37]
Michelle Westervelt
Right.
- [21:39]
Troy Taylor
Michelle was in rehab at the Tarzana Treatment center when she met a guy named Ben Kim bk, as she called him. He was, as she put it, her rehab crush. She thought he was handsome, maybe a little mysterious, and she really enjoyed spending time with him. They were housed in the same wing, and they'd spend the night hanging out together in the rec areas, watching TV and chatting. One night, somehow the conversation drifted to Elaine's disappearance. Before rehab, Michelle had been obsessed with the case. As early as May 2017, she'd been actively engaging on posts in the Help Find Elaine Park Facebook group, heavily pushing the theory that Divine was involved. She couldn't understand why he hadn't been arrested or even named a suspect. So when she met bk, this good looking guy who not only knew about the case, was actually friends with Divine and had been there at Divine's guest house the night Elaine disappeared. She was stunned. And just as she'd promised in her original message, BK's story was incredible. According to him, everything that had been said about the night at Devine's place, the night before Elaine disappeared was a lie, completely fabricated, molded into a plausible story to cover up what really happened to Elaine.
- [22:57]
Michelle Westervelt
They never went to a movie that night. That's why I keep on telling you they never went to a movie that night. And so that Uber that, that you guys saw leave, that wasn't Elaine and, and Divine, that was BK and his girlfriend. When he heard on the news that they left on an Uber, he was like, that was me. And he said it was so weird because he was, he was hanging out of Divine's house beforehand.
- [23:17]
Rosemary Wheeler
Yeah.
- [23:18]
Michelle Westervelt
And, and Divine was very nervous and was, you know, like, you got to get out of here before Elaine comes. So he said, you were just up, he's with a girl. And so they just called an Uber and they left. And I think that was the same Uber because I think that they, with the, the cameras once they did some editing. So I, I don't think they ever went to a movie that night unless you saw footage of them on camera at a movie theater. I don't believe that. Who was there? He said that they were fighting. He said he knows her daughter very well. Who was fighting? Elaine was fighting with Dubai. They were fighting over some type of jealousy issues. Because Divine gets all these girls and gets so much, you know, attention. Divine wanted him out of the house. Like normally he hangs out there with Elaine and other people. He said Divine was like, you got to get your. Get the out, basically. And, and then Elaine came over and then that's when she came up missing.
- [24:17]
Troy Taylor
As much as Susan wanted this to be a breakthrough, the first witness account, the finally tie Divine to Elaine's disappearance, even she couldn't ignore the holes in Michelle's story. The biggest problem, the CCTV footage, It was Elaine in that video, categorically, unquestionably, Elaine. That was a fact that couldn't be twisted or explained away. And no matter how much Michelle believed BK's versions of events, that one detail alone made it impossible to take his claim at face Value. But like almost everything in Elaine's case, even that detail wasn't entirely straightforward. Yes, the CCTV showed her leaving Divine's house, but she was wearing different clothes than she was when she arrived just a few hours earlier. In the one interview Divine gave to Neil Strauss and Jaden Brandt, he explained that Elaine had borrowed a pair of his tracksuit pants and a sweater at some point during the night, and that's what she was wearing when she left for the movies. By the time she left at 6:05am the next morning, she changed back into the clothes she'd arrived in. It was a small detail, but in a case filled with uncertainty, even that added another layer of questions.
- [25:27]
Div's Mother
So, from the Uber. We tracked down the Uber people. The Uber people, we spoke to them. They picked up the Divine and Elaine supposedly coming back from the movie theater theater, and they didn't see any fighting happening. So do you think that might not even be an elite? Is. Is girlfriend Asian?
- [25:47]
Rosemary Wheeler
No.
- [25:48]
Michelle Westervelt
A BK girl?
- [25:50]
Div's Mother
No.
- [25:50]
Michelle Westervelt
Yeah, bk. BK is the one that. He's Korean.
- [25:54]
Div's Mother
No, my question is from the movie theater coming back to Divine South. Right. If it was on or someone else and was it another Asian girl? And then maybe the Uber thinks that's Elaine, but that wasn't really Elaine. So they were saying he was testifying that he picked up to Divine and Elaine saw the movie theater and they were going home. And they didn't sound like they were fighting.
- [26:19]
Michelle Westervelt
They did see a movie, but BK even said to me, I don't think they ever went to that movie theater. That's what BK said to me.
- [26:26]
Troy Taylor
Eventually the conversation shifted to what had been happening recreationally that night and whether Elaine and BK had any kind of history. Had they met before? Were they friends? Was there more to it?
- [26:37]
Rosemary Wheeler
Were they using that night? Do you know if they weren't doing.
- [26:39]
Michelle Westervelt
Yeah, they weren't. She had a Xanax addiction. Yeah, she was addicted to Xanax and I think he was kind of her supplier. Okay, that's what it sounded like to me, that he kind of supplied her with her bars.
- [26:52]
Div's Mother
Knows each other.
- [26:53]
Michelle Westervelt
They know each other very well. Very well. How long.
- [26:55]
Rosemary Wheeler
How long has known Elaine?
- [26:59]
Michelle Westervelt
It sounds like since Divine and her have been dating.
- [27:02]
Div's Mother
Okay, that's.
- [27:03]
Troy Taylor
We.
- [27:03]
Div's Mother
I already know that part. Yeah, that's like about November 4th is.
- [27:07]
Michelle Westervelt
One day you better get to. Divine knows the answer. He's a young guy and this is going to weigh hard on his soul and he's going to eventually tell the wrong person and you're going to find out exactly what happened to Elaine?
- [27:19]
Div's Mother
And you think they murdered her? Is that what you're what BK is thinking, or.
- [27:23]
Michelle Westervelt
Oh, definitely.
- [27:24]
Div's Mother
The BK thinks. Yeah. That they murdered her.
- [27:27]
Michelle Westervelt
He does.
- [27:28]
Div's Mother
Does he have any kind of proof or fact?
- [27:31]
Michelle Westervelt
He doesn't have any proof or facts. He just said that after the situation, it got very quiet, like with him and that family. He said he was there for Christmases, Thanksgivings. He said he's seen Divine grow up, basically.
- [27:45]
Rosemary Wheeler
Bk, did he live in the area?
- [27:46]
Div's Mother
Does he.
- [27:47]
Rosemary Wheeler
Did he live with. Oh, yeah.
- [27:51]
Div's Mother
Okay, so. So when on your. One of the texts, you said something about West Hills. I'm going, what do you mean, West Hills? So that's Mike's house. So they were there, Elaine and everybody was.
- [28:02]
Michelle Westervelt
Yeah, Elaine would go over to his house and she would roll their joints. He said she was like the, you know, roller for the joints.
- [28:09]
Div's Mother
So when that. On that same three days, four days of that incident, Elaine was there.
- [28:16]
Michelle Westervelt
Yeah, he said he saw her there night before she disappeared. He said he saw her. He didn't see her the night she disappeared. He just knew she was coming over because he had to leave. But the night before, he said he was effed up on mushroom and that she came over.
- [28:29]
Div's Mother
When do you think we could meet him or do I talk to you the first?
- [28:32]
Michelle Westervelt
He wants to be left out of this completely. I talk to him because these people, he. He's scared of it. He's just so scared. Like me. Even talking to you about this is like he.
- [28:43]
Rosemary Wheeler
He's.
- [28:43]
Michelle Westervelt
He's constantly going over to me. He's like, michelle, like, you don't understand. If you let out my identity, I can. I could be rude.
- [28:50]
Div's Mother
No, I understand.
- [28:51]
Troy Taylor
BK was terrified this would come back on him. Genuinely afraid for his life. At least that's what he told Michelle. According to her, that fear was the reason he didn't want to talk. Michelle, on the other hand, she wasn't scared. She just wanted the truth to come out. She wanted justice for Night. She wanted her to be found and laid to rest. But Susan doesn't really operate that way. As soon as she left the rehab centre that day, she began obsessively trying to track down bk, almost to the point of desperation. If she'd had the time to open the phone book and call every single Kim in it, I'm pretty sure she would have done it. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not find him. BK became incredibly elusive. He wiped his social media, ignored messages, and if Susan did have the right phone number, he dodged every single one of her calls. Still, she refused to let it go. And she and Michelle kept working together, chasing BK all the way into early 2020. And then she finally got the good news she'd been praying for. Michelle had finally managed to get hold of bk. But the celebration was short lived, because not only did BK deny everything he claimed, he didn't even know who Michelle was. Michelle was not ready to give up. She told Susan she would keep pushing for answers and she did. But those answers were never to arrive. Because within a month, her last text message to Susan saying she was going to go and push to get the truth. Michelle Westervelt was dead. On March 25, 2020, Michelle Westervelt died in hospital. According to her autopsy, she died of an accidental overdose of a mixture of fentanyl and methamphetamine. It gave Susan pause for a moment. But even after Michelle's passing, Susan did not let go of the lead. She continued to try to track BK down. All of this despite the glaring issues in the story he had told Michelle. For one, as I mentioned earlier, the CCTV footage from Devine's property clearly shows Elaine. That alone contradicts the idea that the entire night had been rewritten to hide what happened. And when I spoke to Rosemary, she had this to say about the CCTV footage.
- [31:22]
Rosemary Wheeler
I sent all the CCTV footage that I had to Criminal Forensics and to see. They're like, they're like the most famous and world renowned kind of CCTV forensics and stuff like that, security footage. They do forensics to see if anything had been altered or changed or, you know, anything tampered with, and it came back clean.
- [31:49]
Troy Taylor
Michelle also claimed that Divine fled to Utah as soon as Elaine disappeared, but there's no proof of that. In fact, we know that Susan met with Divine and his family at their house in Calabasas on February 2, the day Elaine's car was found. So he was definitely still in town at that point. We also know he was in Utah the week before Elaine disappeared. So if he left, it certainly wasn't in direct response to her disappearance. And what is probably the biggest problem with BK's version of events is the claim that Divine told him to leave the night before because he didn't want him there when Elaine arrived. That doesn't add up at all. Divine was expecting to see Elaine the entire day. She kept telling him she was on her way and then she wasn't. By the time she actually did show up around 8:30pm, he had no real reason to believe that she'd follow through that time either. Regardless of it all, I still looked into Michelle's lead, because every lead is worth checking out. Sometimes the most bizarre theories turn out to be true. Truth is stranger than fiction, right? But after digging in, talking to people, following the trail, it seemed like there was nothing there other than Susan. No one believed Michelle's claims. It started to look like she'd made it all up. That there was no real connection between BK and Divine. That it was just the fantasy of someone battling a severe drug addiction, hyper fixated on a missing person's case. At least that's what I thought at the time. You'll recall from episode two, I was just about ready to have a cup of coffee and head to bed when the all too familiar ding of a new email rang out from my laptop. When I'd opened it up, I was shocked to find it was an export of all of Elaine's Snapchat data sent over by Susan Park. And I was even more shocked at what it contained. Over a thousand photos and videos stretching all the way back to September 2016 and running right up until January 26, just a day and a half before Elaine disappeared. But it wasn't just the video and photo media. There were also chat threads. A lot of them. One even going beyond the time she disappeared. To say I was flabbergasted would probably be the understatement of the century. A chat with one of her friends on 22nd February, 20 whole days after her car was found, and almost a month after she disappeared. It was absolutely shocking. The adrenaline pumped through me as I opened it, but it wasn't the breakthrough I'd been hoping for. It was a conversation between her friend Cody and her account. Only it wasn't Elaine behind the screen. It was Jayden Brandt, the private investigator Susan had initially hired to look into Elaine's disappearance. It was his first day on the job, and digging through her social media must have been at the top of the list. Going further back, it became clear that while there was a substantial amount of information in there, there was also a lot of messages that had been purged, as is generally the case with Snapchat. Thankfully, there was enough to give me a window into her circle of friends, her general conversations, and in some cases, a snapshot of the kind of life she was leading. Most of it was just your regular teenage stuff. Party invites, music recommendations, general gossip, that kind of thing. Some casual mention of drug use, but nothing particularly shocking. Until there was something particularly shocking. Something that had me reaching for that Whisky bottle again. Turns out in mid-2016, Elaine wasn't just using drugs recreationally, she was also offering to sell them. And not an ounce of weed or a gram of coke or a couple of bars here or there. We're talking about commercial quantities, thankfully only of weed. But still, in June, she offers a friend in New York five to six pounds of marijuana at $1,800 a pound. That's a transaction that would have been worth over $10,000, would have been considered a federal felony, and had she been caught actually going through with the deal, could potentially have seen her sentenced to five years in prison. She did dabble in smaller middleman kind of stuff. For example, in the same conversation with her friend Kim X Kush, Elaine also offered to sell hash oil, wax and fentanyl, or fire as she called it. But nothing anywhere remotely near the weed deal. I checked into it and as far as I can tell, the deal never actually happened. But it did raise a much bigger question for me. If she was offering to move that kind of weight, then she must have had access to that kind of weight. And if she had access to that kind of weight, where was that access coming from? And more importantly, could it have played a role in her disappearance? After reading through the remainder of the chat threads and finding nothing of any real significance other than that, I moved on to the Memories folder with that thousand odd list of photos and videos. They dated all the way back to September 16th. The early ones were generally just of Elaine goofing around filters turning her into a cat or a dog or a bee or a llama. They were gut wrenching to watch this happy, carefree girl completely unaware of what was to come in just a few months time. But it was her December and January videos that I wanted to start with. The ones that might give me some perspective into the weeks leading up to her disappearance and might hold some clues as to what actually happened. Her last video was from the early hours of January 26th, the same morning she ran out of gas on the 118210 freeway merge where Susan and Jeff had to come and get her. In the clip, she's at a party in Sam Dimas with her friend Cody. She smiles at the camera, then turns it to face him and he says something like, we're gonna get lit like a duck. It's a 10 second clip with nothing else really of interest. It looks like she must have left the party to head home around 1am because there are messages from both Cody and another friend, nick, at around 2am both checking in to make sure she got home safely. And that raised another question. If Elaine did go home at 2am, then why did she go back out later? And where was she going with almost no gas in her tank? What was so urgent that she risked and ultimately ended up being stranded? It wasn't lost on me that the deeper I dug to find answers, the more questions I ended up with. It's just the nature of this case. Answer one question and you end up with 10 more questions. Wasn't the first time, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Her last photograph, whilst not really of any evidentiary value either, was kind of ominous. It was of Elaine lying on her bed in her bedroom. She was looking at the camera, but you can't really see her face. The top half of it is obscured by this black kind of lace thing, almost like a black veil. You can almost make out her mouth and her nose, but it too is obscured by what kind of looks like white bubbles or ripped paper. It's like her face is still there. We just can't see it anymore. I went further back and found that some of her earlier videos from both January and December did at least answer one of the questions that had been floating around in my head for a while. Was Elaine in Malibu often? Was it a place she liked to visit to get away from it all? In particular, was she familiar with Pacific Coast Highway? And the answer to all of those questions was yes. In the weeks leading up to her disappearance, Elaine had been out there, often filming the ocean, marveling at the view, climbing rocks along the shore. It added weight to the theory that she might have gone to PCH that morning of January 28th to watch the sunrise. She did love the area, so it makes sense. And her Snapchat also contained a number of videos and images of both the sunset and the sunrise from numerous different vantages around Los Angeles. What the videos showed was that Elaine loved her cats and her dog. She loved her friends dearly. She loved to go out and explore the world, parking up at viewpoints at night, watching the light sparkle across Los Angeles and the valley below, visiting places like Jim Morrison Caves and Salvation Mountain and Joshua Tree. They show her going for a walk up near Griffith Observatory with one of her friends. But what they don't show, and what has been the subject of frequent speculation, is anything suggesting that Elaine was a keen hiker, particularly one who would be heading out at six in the morning after being awake all night to hit the hills? Sure, she walks places sometimes to see things like the caves and Salvation Mountain, but there is nothing to suggest that she was a hiker. One of the things the videos do show, and something that's super important in my eyes is Elaine did have a phone charger in her car, a lightning cable plugged directly into one of the USB ports. Most of the time when she was driving, her phone was plugged into it. If you're wondering why that matters so much, well, for one, it helps pinpoint when something might have happened to her because as we'll get into in a future episode, her phone was dead by 3:42pm and two, it could also explain why Elaine's car battery was dead and why when it was found on February 2, the electrics were still switched on. I closed out the December Memories file and checked the time. It was just past 4am very much time for me to take my weary eyes and to get a few hours sleep before I needed to get moving again. But I decided to just take a quick look at the November files and and news that I'm sure will be shocking to absolutely nobody. The idea of going to get some sleep completely disappeared from my mind as I had with the January and December folders. I worked backwards, reviewing every photo and every video in detail, taking note of anything I thought warranted further investigation. 5am rolled around, then 6. Then before I knew it, my kids were up getting ready for school and looking for breakfast. I'm slightly ashamed to say that morning breakfast consisted of two cookies and a glass of milk. I was just about to log off and get the kids in the car when I opened it. The video I definitely was not expecting to see. It showed Elaine and Devine at a party in an apartment somewhere, sharing what appeared to be a cup of lean, essentially a mix of cough syrup and codeine. They looked happy and like they were having a great time, Elaine almost beaming to be there next to him. But it wasn't actually Elaine or Divine or what they were taking that caught my attention. It was what I spotted in the background. And it's safe to say my kids were late to school that day. Because right there, clear as day, gesturing toward the camera a couple of seconds before the video cut off, was none other than Ben Kim. The very same Ben Kim Michelle Westervelt had been talking to Susan and Rosemary about all the way along. But that's next time on among the Missing.
- [43:20]
Narrator
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. 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 our Q and A episodes, please visit our website@amongthemissingpodcast.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.
- [44:28]
Troy Taylor
And her case is still open with.
- [44:30]
Narrator
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 1715 12.