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This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Everyone is telling her she dreamt it, but in the woman in cabin 10, Lo Blacklock is determined to uncover the truth in the gripping new thriller coming to Netflix October 10th. Keira Knightley plays a journalist aboard a luxury yacht who witnesses a crime she can't unsee. Adapted from Ruth Ware's best selling novel, directed by Simon Stone. Watch the woman in Cabin 10 only on Netflix on October 10.
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Hey there, among the missing listeners. Long time no speak. It's been a while, hasn't it? A long while, in fact. So first things first. Thank you for sticking with me. I know it's been a big gap between episodes and I want to say sorry for that. There are a whole lot of reasons why I'm not going to go into all of them right now. But what I will say is today's episode is a big one. It's complicated, it's layered, and it demanded to be written and produced the right way. Rushed just wasn't going to cut it. If you've been with me from the start, you'll know there's something I've always tried to do on this show and in the investigation in general. I don't ever want to paint a person in a particular light or push you toward a conclusion I've already made. That's not the point. The point is for me to lay out everything as clearly and fairly as I can and let you, each of you listening, come to your own conclusion. That's been my approach since day one, and I'd argue it's never been more important than it is in this episode and the one that comes next. When I've looked at Elaine's case over the years, both here in the podcast and on my own private deep dive, I've tried to keep my perspective unbiased. Sure, I'll highlight when something doesn't add up, or when a person's behavior comes across as suspicious. That's part of the work. But what I won't do is just throw a name out and pin a theory down and declare this is what happened. That's not how real investigations work in my eyes, and I've always believed that that kind of shortcut is a flawed and sometimes dangerous approach. That's something I'll always stand by. Over the past few weeks, I've had a flood of questions from listeners asking me whether we'll circle back to the ground we've already covered. The short answer is yes, and the long answer is a very resounding yes. After episode 11, which will serve as the last episode that lays out all the broader leads and theories. We're going to swing back around, put it all under a microscope, see what holds up, what falls apart, and hopefully whittle down the possibilities to just a few that really stand the test of scrutiny. But, and this is important, that doesn't mean the new information has dried up. Far from it. In fact, there's more coming to light almost every single day, and as quickly as I can. Once it's ready, I'll bring that to you, too. So for now, settle in, get comfortable. Because in this episode, we're diving into the part of the case I know so many of you have been waiting so patiently to hear about. The last person we know for certain saw Elaine before she disappeared. What is truth, really? Is it simply the first version of a story that gets told? Sometimes information can come through at the worst possible time. Like, for example, in the middle of your daughter's ballet recital when you receive an anonymous email from a throwaway account with a Sometimes I can hold myself back, push it to the back of my mind and just wait until the time is right. Today was not one of those days. What happens when a story changes? Does the new story become the truth? Does that wipe out the first version completely? Sometimes I can hold myself back. I glanced down at my glowing phone screen, scanning the email again. The pull to dive right in was strong. My heart and my brain were at war. I almost excused myself, but then I looked up. My daughter was on stage, pirouetting, her eyes searching the crowd for her parents. It took less than a second for her gaze to lock onto mine, and in that instant, her whole expression softened. She knew I was there. I slid my phone back into my pocket. Today, I told myself. This can wait. And here's the bigger question. Do we just accept what we're told because someone says it with confidence? Or is there a gray zone to the truth, a space where one version holds some of it, another version holds some more, and the real answer lives somewhere in the messy overlap. Sometimes I can hold myself back. Today was not one of those days. I made it to the back of the theatre before it hit me like a ton of bricks. In the middle of everything, I'd forgotten the most important thing. And as I slipped my phone back into my pocket, I turned just in time to see my daughter spin again, searching for me. But then her eyes locked onto me. Standing at the back of the theater, she knew I hadn't left her. So how do you make the determination If I tell you one version of events and then I change it later, how do you know which one is the truth and which one is a lie? Or is it possible that sometimes, strangely enough, both can be true and false at the very same time? That question, the shifting, slippery nature of truth, has haunted me for more than four years now when I think about Elaine's disappearance and specifically about the hours she spent with Divine. Because here's the thing, his comments about how the morning played out when Elaine left his house, they don't stay consistent. What began as one truth slowly became another. And the million dollar question is this. Were those stories shifting to match the facts? Or were the facts being bent and reshaped to fit the story? I don't think we'll ever have a definitive answer, especially since Divine continues to refuse to talk about it. But me, I've got my suspicions. Because I think most of the answers might already be right there, hidden in the data I've been staring at all along. I'm Troy Taylor and this is among the missing Sam. So let's start here. Originally, Divine told Susan and Jeff Elaine Woke up at 4am Acting strangely, singing even before immediately leaving. He said she came back briefly to grab her keys and then left again. But here's the problem. None of that is reflected on the CCTV footage that was handed over to GPD and then passed on to Susan Park. And because of that, plenty of people suggest the story simply isn't true. Some believe Susan and Jeff just made it up to confuse or cover over what really happened and to grow the speculation around Divine's involvement. But here's the problem with that. Elaine's friend Daisy said straight out in her initial interview with Jaden that Divine also told her the 4am version. So in my view, that cancels out the idea that Susan made that story up. The compeers, as far as I'm aware, have never clarified this. Though I know both Devine and Tonya had been asked numerous times, their response has always been the same. We've told you what we know. If you want to ask any more questions or want more information, speak to Detective Krivak. So when it comes to the 4am 6am thing, we're a little stuck. Which version is the truth? Well, for me at least, there's really only one reliable source for answers. The data. People lie. People forget. CCTV footage can be edited or even misinterpreted. Blood spatter can be manipulated. But raw data, that generally doesn't lie. Assuming, of course, that it's never been in a position to be manipulated. And when you look at the data in Elaine's case, you start to see things that stand out. So let's rewind to the night before Elaine disappeared. Elaine was supposed to meet Divine around 1pm that afternoon, but she didn't actually make it to his house until around 8:35pm she goes into his bungalow, spends about an hour and a half inside, and then heads back out to her car to grab something. Whatever it was, it was small enough to slip into her pocket because she doesn't appear to be carrying anything when she goes back inside. And while she's out at her car, something strange happens. The mystery car, never formally identified, drives slowly up and around the cul de sac, passing by a lane without stopping. Now, here's why that kind of stands out. Divine's house was the only finished property on that end of the street. The other houses were at the far end, past the turnoff that led out of the complex. And let's not forget, the complex is behind a gate. If you don't have the code, you can't get in. And all of that means there was no reason for a car to be driving past Divine's house at all. None. As it exits the complex, it passes an Uber pulling in. An Uber that's come to pick up Divine and Elaine to go to the movies. Elaine goes back inside, comes out with Divine a few minutes later, and they head off. That Uber takes them to Woodland Hills amc where they watch XXX Return of Xander Cage. Afterwards, they grab a different Uber home, getting back to Divine's place at around 1:10am from there, things get a little fuzzier. What we do know is that Elaine goes back inside with Divine, and at some point she's on her phone listening to music, browsing social media. Then at around 3:45am, her phone activity stops. And this is where the 4:00am story starts to get interesting. Is it just a coincidence or is it possible that she did leave at 4am just maybe not the house itself? Here's my speculation. Based on that data, I think it makes sense that Elaine may have actually left his bedroom at around 4am and then I think she fell asleep in the living room, waking up later than she planned. By then, let's say her phone's dead, she gets into her car, plugs it in, and by 6:28am, notifications flood in. So my hunch here is that Divine was probably telling the truth at first. Then the CCTV was reviewed and this version didn't line up with what the footage showed. That mismatch makes him look like he could be lying. And so the story shifts, the timing corrected to match the cameras. Pure speculation. I know. But it's that scenario that makes the most sense to me. Still, speculation is in fact. And if there's one thing that this case teaches us, it's that facts are slippery. Even the CCTV footage, which you'd think would be straightforward, isn't. Here's what it shows Elaine leaving Devine's house, supposedly at 6:05am but the timestamp on that same footage, well, it says 9:05am Then on a neighbour's camera, we see a car, maybe Elaine's, maybe not, driving toward the gate. Then we have the gatecam footage. It shows a timestamp of 7:14am and unmistakably shows Elaine's car leaving the compound. Confusing, right? But when you consider the compeer family originally came from Florida, it starts to make a little more sense. Add to that the fact that movie theaters don't usually Show Films at 2am on Sunday nights, and yet we see Elaine and Devine returning from the movie at a timestamp of 4:09am it all suggests something. The cameras were probably still on Eastern time three hours ahead. But then we had another snag. How could the license plate camera be out by not just an hour, but an hour and 7 minutes? Daylight savings could account for the hour, but the seven minutes. That's a little harder to explain. And I've never seen any other footage from the gate. And nobody I've spoken to has either. So all we have to work with is the timestamp. You could assume the system was just off by an hour and seven minutes. You could assume the neighbor's footage really did capture Elaine's car. But should we just keep assuming? Of course, you can take the case of Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is usually the right one. But if there's one thing Elaine's case has taught me, it's that nothing here is simple. Nothing about this case makes any sense. Even the data doesn't always hold up. Because here's something people sometimes forget. Elaine's phone isn't Elaine. Elaine's car isn't Elaine. Just because her phone logged steps, which it does around the time that she leaves divines, it doesn't mean she was carrying it. Just because her car drove through that gate, it doesn't mean she was the one behind the wheel. The gate camera shows a car leaving. Yes. The phone shows steps, both are data points, but neither is proof of Elaine's physical movements. Still, we have to start somewhere. So for now, let's work off the assumption that she did leave at 6:05am, got into her car, spent a couple of minutes sitting there, and then drove out of the gates at 6.07am her last confirmed digital interaction with Divine, at least as far as we know, comes at 6:28am when Lane adds him back to her Find My Friends. That detail was confirmed into Live and Die in la. Except, well, it turns out that it actually isn't confirmed since To Live and Die in LA aired. I've had a lot of conversations with Mike Einsinger. He's been on Elaine's case nearly as long as Rosemary Wheeler. He's poured through gigabytes of data, sat in on countless interviews, and built a very close working relationship with gpd. So naturally, when I had a question about the Find My Friends detail, Mike was the first person I asked. And what he told me was they got it wrong. According to him, Elaine didn't add Divine back on Find My Friends. It was the other way around. Divine added her. Now, I don't pretend to know more than Mike does, but that explanation has never really sat right with me. That would have been just 23 minutes after Elaine walked out of his house. And Divine has previously said, and we'll cover this soon, that he was worried about her, that she was acting strange, and that he even tried to stop her from leaving. She leaves anyway. And then what? His response is to quietly send her his location, but not to message or call her or try to find out that she's okay? I don't think I can agree with that. I think they had it right the first time. And if that's the case, then Devine did have access to Elaine's location that day. From there, here's what we know about Devine's contact with Elaine. He tries calling her three times at about 10:15am and two more times around 1:34pm after that. Her phone appears to go dark at 3:42pm and because call records don't show attempts that never connect, if you don't leave a voicemail that is, it doesn't log. We can't know for certain whether he tried to call her again after that point or not. But what I can tell you is he never once sent her a message. Not that morning, not that afternoon, not that night, not ever again. No iMessage, no Instagram DM, no other channel at all. And to me, that is a big red flag. Now, to be absolutely clear, I'm not saying Divine did have anything to do with Elaine's disappearance. What I'm saying is that the lack of follow up suggests something was off. Something, in my view, doesn't add up. And the hardest part of all of this is there's someone out there who could easily answer these questions. Someone who could clear up these little fragments, set all the contradictions and let people focus on the parts of the case that truly remain unexplained. That someone, obviously is Divine. But as I said back in episode two, Divine won't talk. He's given one interview, just one, with Neil Strauss and Jayden Brandt for To Live and Die in la, and we're going to break that down shortly. But beyond that, nothing. He won't sit for interviews, he won't answer questions, he won't help. And from the outside, it kind of feels like he never really has. Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. 1. It's $15 a month.
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I've spent a lot of time reviewing the interview between Neil Strauss, Jayden Brandt, Divine Compare, and his parents, Tonya and Shakim. Running it back, rereading transcripts, looking carefully at tone. And the truth is, a whole lot of it looks very different when you place it against the wider context. We now have things that might not have stood out before start to take on a different weight. I'm not going to walk through every second of the interview. You can hear it for yourself in full. In season two episode 11 of To Live and Die in LA, it's called the Last 12 Hours. But I do want to look at the parts that are worth pausing on, because when you really study them, some moments are more telling than they might seem at first glance. Neil opens the segment by referencing something Susan told him. She said that when she asked Divine why Elaine had been there that night, he told her Elaine had suddenly reached out out of the blue and suggested they see a movie. Now, that came from Susan, so we can't lock it in as a direct quote, but here's what I can say with confidence. Elaine was not the one who re established contact that day. She doesn't appear to be the one who reached out. Their first contact on that day, Friday 27 January, the day before she disappeared, was at 11.45am and it wasn't from her, it was from Divine. Divine called Elaine on that Friday. Divine tried to call Elaine 11 times. And Elaine, she called him once. Just once. So right off the bat, it doesn't really line up with the idea that Elaine just reached out. If anything, the record suggests the opposite, that Divine was the one trying to repeatedly get hold of her. But I digress. Let's get back to the interview. Early on, Neil asks Divine to describe his relationship with Elaine. He references that January 3rd breakup text, the one where Elaine says, I love you enough to let you go and I need this year to really invest in myself. And Divine's reply, I can't lose you. You're all I've got right now. But then Divine tells Neil something that kind of caught me off guard. He says, we were never official. It was never the traditional like, will you be my girlfriend? Thing. And I've got to be honest, that doesn't really line up with their messages because as early as late November, they're already throwing I love you back and forth. So it doesn't really read as a never official in my eyes. Divine goes on to talk about his call with Elaine on the 28th of January. He says they talked about the fact that she was struggling, that she was trying to deal with everything, and that they'd agreed to see each other when he got back from Utah. When Neil asks him about the texts saying, you can't hold all that in, Divine explains that he was referring to the sexual assault Elaine suffered at the Father and Playboy cardi concert in July 2015. We'll come back to that a little later because there's more to say about that. But for now, here's how I interpret this part of the conversation between Divine and Neil. Divine seems to be suggesting that Elaine came over to his house on January 27th specifically to open up to him more about the assault. And Neil seems to take it the same way. Divine goes on to say Elaine also opened up about her relationship with Susan, that things at home felt weird and that she didn't want to be there, that she didn't like living there and it didn't feel authentic. He adds that it felt like things had escalated that night, that she'd argued with Susan, but she hadn't told him the details. And we know that's true. Elaine had borrowed money from Susan. Susan expected it back by a certain time, and when it wasn't, she was furious with Elaine for breaking her word. Based on the timeline, those angry messages from Susan line up almost exactly with Elaine's arrival at Devine's. It makes sense that when she got there, she was emotionally elevated. And I don't think it was just Susan who contributed to Elaine's frustration. As Sadie has said before, Elaine seemed annoyed when she stopped just after 7pm to pick up her curler. So there's a consistency there, too. And let's not forget something else. Elaine had been in the car for hours that day, back and forth across la, from downtown to La Crescenta and then finally out to Calabasas. And if you don't know Los Angeles geography, let me tell you, that's a long haul. And she was doing it all while fielding repeated calls from Divine asking where she was, how far away she was, what's going on. And remember, she was originally supposed to be driving from La Crecenta to Calabasas to pick him up, then take him downtown before taking him back to Calabasas and eventually driving herself home to La Crescenta. I challenge you to plug that into Google Maps and see how long it says that'll take and then double that, thank you. Los Angeles traffic. It is a lot of time on the road and a whole lot of gas to use for someone who has pretty much no money, so. And amongst all that, she's also trying to solve that problem. And earlier in the day, things between her and Susan seemed okay. And they must have been because Susan agreed to lend her the money. So we know at least at around 1:20pm When Susan sends Elaine the money, everything was okay between. So put all that together. Susan being angry with her, the stress of driving all day, the constant phone calls, the pressure of getting herself there, the desperate attempt to get money, and then a last minute need to drive back to lacrocenta to drop the curling iron to Sadie. And yeah, you start to get a clearer picture of Elaine's mindset when she finally arrived at Divine's annoyed, stressed, anxious and feeling harassed. That makes a whole lot of sense to me. It doesn't really feel like a revelation from here. Neil pivots. He asks Divine whether Elaine was messaging or calling anyone that night. And Divine's answer strikes me as, I don't know, kinda interesting. Instead of just giving a straightforward no, he takes what feels like a defensive stance, saying, not that I remember, but you'll find that if you unlock her phone, almost like he's saying, the evidence will back me up. That kind of phrasing always makes my ears perk up, because why add that part? Isn't that clear? If they got the information, they'd be able to see that. So it feels like there's a reason that that's put out there. Neil then asks one of the key questions from that night. Did they drink? Did they smoke? Did they use anything? And Divine shuts it down instantly. Absolutely not. No. No elaboration, no hedging. Just a hard wall. An unquestionable no. And I'll be completely honest with you here, I don't buy that. Not for a second. Not when you look at Elaine's Snapchat footage or at the tone of so many of their messages. It just doesn't fly with me. And later we discover it didn't really fly with Neil either. But unfortunately, Neil doesn't push on this point. He moves on. Next, Divine describes how the night wound down. He says they crashed out around 1 or maybe 2 in the morning. But listen carefully to how he words it. He says, I fall asleep. We both she falls asleep, I fall asleep. And then she just wakes up. And like I've never seen nobody get dressed that quick, the order kind of changes. First he falls asleep, then she does. Then it's we both fall asleep. And then he flips it one more time. She falls asleep and then he does. And here's the problem. We know Elaine didn't fall asleep at 1 or 2. Her phone data shows she was active, interacting with social media and Spotify until nearly 4am so why was it important to resequence? Why does it matter to him that she's falling asleep before he does? Why is that a detail he feels the need to nail down without follow up? Divine jumps ahead to the next morning. We've covered this part before, but let's go through it again. He says Elaine wakes up, gets dressed really quickly and pretty much leaves. Then almost immediately, he corrects himself. Not pretty much. That's exactly what she did. She left. And he piles on the emphasis. That was the last time I saw her. That was literally the last time I saw her. And I don't know about you, but it kind of feels like there's a bit of a pattern here. I fell asleep, then she did. No, wait, she fell asleep, then I did. She pretty much left. No, she left. That's exactly what she did. And then that was the last time I saw her. No, that was literally the last time I saw her. Each time he starts with softer, more flexible language, then he goes back and tightens it, makes it absolute. Now, again, I want to be super clear here. I'm not saying Divine was lying. What I'm saying is it sounds to me like he'd been coached or at the very least advised to avoid wishy washy language. Because in a situation like this, the last thing you want in an interview is I think, or I'm not sure, because people draw conclusions on those things and on the mistakes that you make in the things you say you want definitives. This happened, then that happened, then that. And listening to him here, it's hard not to hear the fingerprints of an attempt at media training. Then Divine makes a comment that really stands out to me. He says, that's when we see her moving kind of fast on the tape, out the gate to her car and she leaves. But here's the thing. We don't see that that portion of the footage is missing. One point I want to make is by the time this interview happened, everyone in that room knew that Susan didn't have that footage and nor did the To Live and Die in LA team. It had been a point of contention for a while, and unfortunately, neither Neil or Jayden asked him to explain how was it extracted? Who extracted? Extracted it. Is it correct that GPD accidentally erased it? Or are they confused like so many others have been about the order of things? Divine moves on to say he was worried about Elaine that morning. And I'm going to read his words verbatim because as we covered earlier, he didn't try to message her after she left. He called a couple of times, but he never tried to get in touch again. It doesn't really tie in to his words. He said, I don't really think you should leave. I don't think you should wake up and just drive right now because your head is all. I could tell your head is all flustered and you may as well just leave in the morning, you know, or let Me Uber you? At least you shouldn't be driving, you know. He says he wasn't sure if she was having a panic attack, but that she woke up, suddenly, seemed strange and started getting dressed very fast. And he adds that she was singing to herself. Not loudly, not in a way that was crazy, but softly. And she wasn't dancing. He makes that clear. And you know what? To me, that sounds a whole lot like what you might do if you had earbuds in listening to Spotify like Elaine was that morning. Here's another thing. He keeps referring to it as the middle of the night. He says it over and over. It was so weird to wake up in the middle of the night and leave. Why would she leave in the middle of the night? The idea really seems to puzzle him and I don't know, is a 6am departure, a puzzling middle of the night departure? I know 4:00am is. From there, the conversation shifts to what Divine did or didn't do. Afterwards, he says he can't remember if he called Elaine that morning. Maybe he did, but she didn't answer. And he admits that he didn't save any of their text messages after she went missing, just like it would appear almost nobody did. Neil then moves on to Tonia and Shakim, asking why they didn't get involved in the searches. And their answer, in a nutshell, is they didn't really like Susan or the way she was handling things. And I do get that because even early on on the Help Find Elaine park page, there are a whole lot of people saying something wasn't right, that Divine's actions were following a very well established pattern of a boyfriend or husband who's been involved in the disappearance of their partner. When you look at these cases, like the handful I mentioned at the end of the last interview episode, you can see they're right. Shutting down, refusing to talk, not participating in any searches, trying to distance yourself from the missing person. All of these things can kind of create an air of guilt. Finally, Neil asks about one of the strangest moments of all, why Tanya and Divine drove past the March 12 search yelling for Daisy. And their answer? Well, they say people were chasing them to take their photos because of who they were. And yes, people were taking photos. I've got those photos. But from what I can gather, it was because of what they were doing that day, not because of who they were. By that point, the compares were seen as refusing to help, refusing to share the full CCTV footage, refusing to talk about Elaine's last morn, refusing to participate in the search. And then there they were, circling the search site more than once, with Tonya eventually stopping to yell, where's Daisy? That bitch? I mean, let's be fair. What reaction did they expect from that? They also mentioned that a leading entertainment figure initially offered to help Shakim, and essentially he told them he didn't really want them to get involved, saying he didn't trust Susan's approach. They don't say whether it was Queen Latifah, Shakim's longtime business partner, or Kevin Hart, who owned the house next door at the time, later bought the Kimberly Pierre's property privately in 2021 and was working with Neil Strauss on his memoir, I Can't make this up, right around the time Elaine disappeared, but it was likely one of the two. And then the interview is officially over, with what feels like very few answers, never for another interview to occur. There's no clarity on the 4am 6am thing, no answer on what happened with the CCTV footage, no more information on what Elaine took that night, nothing about whether she went back for her keys or not. In reality, Neil and Jayden, they left pretty much without a single answer, and the whole thing ends up feeling kind of like a PR opportunity for them rather than an actual interview. One more thing before we move on. I've got to jump back to the very end of the interview when everything is winding up, everyone is exchanging pleasantries and saying goodbye, and Sikim closes out the conversation with a line that I find astonishing every time I hear it, remembering that everybody in that room knows that the footage cuts off at 6:05am and that nobody has seen Elaine leave. He says the video don't lie. The video don't lie. Maybe that's true, Sikim. Maybe the video doesn't lie. I just wish we had it so we could all agree with you. In the days after the car was found, Susan reached out to Detective Krivack at Glendale PD to ask if he could obtain a copy of the compare's CCTV footage. According to Susan, Krivak told her he wasn't in a position to do that, but that she could request it herself. So on Sunday, February 5, Susan FaceTimed Tonya. She specifically asked for the footage showing what time Elaine and Divine got back from the movies, as well as the window between 4am and 5am, which is the time at that stage, they believe that Elaine left the house. Based on Devine's statement, Tonya told her she'd check whether the footage was available and that if it was she'd get it to her by the following Saturday. Susan says she followed up and followed up again. And finally she was told that their IT guy had extracted the data but that she couldn't review it directly. If she wanted a copy, she needed to go through Detective Krivack. The same Detective Krivak who told her he couldn't get a copy. On February 16th, Susan went to Glendale PD and met with Krivak. He handed her the disk containing the footage. But when she sat down and watched it, something jumped out. Immediately, the footage cut off right as Elaine reached her car. Every other clip on the disc showed all of the cars entering and exiting, except this one. Alarmed, Susan called Glendale pd. Their response was that they Glendale PD probably mapped up when they were copying the footage across and that they themselves had seen the full footage, including Elaine's car driving away. But here's the problem with that. I have that same disk, and it's in its original file structure. And the cut doesn't happen at some arbitrary timeline marker. It cuts off at the time code of 6:05am and 0 seconds exactly. Which means it wasn't a copying error. It's exactly how it was extracted. Now, just to be clear, I'm not saying Glendale PD were intentionally misleading Susan. The footage is confusing. The timestamps don't line up with local time, there's consistent in and out traffic, and it's easy to confuse one clip for another. Almost everyone who's looked at the footage has walked away scratching their heads at some point. But the reality is this. The video cuts off at 6:05am and whether that's the way it was extracted or GPD made a mistake in copying it, the compares had the chance to fix it. Susan's records show that she and Jayden specifically asked Tonia to re extract the footage on February 27 during a meeting at the Compeer's House at 5pm and in that same meeting, Tonya told them that Detective Krivak had asked her the same thing the week before, but she'd said the footage had already been deleted. After the extraction, they deleted the whole lot. It was gone. Not recoverable. The only footage of a girl who's missing from their house less than a month before is completely deleted. So to this day, as far as I know, nobody has actually seen the footage of Elaine driving away that morning. Except maybe Divine Tonya, Shakim and possibly Detective Krivak. And without being able to sit down with them and ask directly what really happened with that Footage. All we're left with is speculation. Now, let me add something here just to lock down the timeline of what we do have on those CCTV clips. The first clip, the one showing Elaine arriving, starts at 11:35pm on the timecode and runs for exactly 10 minutes, ending at 11:45pm almost three minutes in. At 11:37pm and 57 seconds, we see Elaine's car enter the frame for the very first time. A few seconds later, at 11:39 and 32 seconds, Elaine walks out of the frame on foot, heading in the direction of Divine's bungalow. And after that, once she's inside, nothing. The footage just keeps rolling for another 5 and a half minutes with zero activity before the clip ends. The second clip is the one of Elaine and Divine leaving for the movies. It's also the clip that shows the mystery car circling the cul de sac. This one starts at 1:18 and 0 seconds and it ends at 1:25 and 0 seconds. At 1:19 and 5 seconds, Elaine walks out of Divine's house and heads to her car. That's the exact moment the mystery car passes by. The last significant thing we see happens at 1, 22 and 24 seconds when the Uber carrying Elaine and Divine leaves the frame. After that, the footage rolls on for another 2 1/2 minutes, completely uneventful. The third clip shows them coming back from the movies. This one's shorter. It runs from 4 hours, 9 minutes and 4 hours, 11 minutes. And at 4 hours and 9 minutes and 23 seconds, the Ubers headlights appear in the distance. By 4 hours, 10 minutes and 47 seconds, the car's dropped them off and is leaving the frame. That clip too has a small built in buffer. 23 seconds at the beginning, 13 seconds at the end. And then we get to the final clip, the one that matters most out of all of them. The footage of Elaine leaving Divine's bungalow. The clip runs from 90300 to 90500. And here's the kicker. The first thing of any importance doesn't actually happen until 9 hours and 42 seconds when Elaine finally walks out of the bungalow. That's just 18 seconds before the clip cuts off. Almost two full minutes of buffer before she leaves the house. But absolutely no buffer at the end. And here's the question I can't shake. Whoever extracted these clips clearly made an effort to build in buffers. Long ones at the beginning and the end of the first couple of clips, a smaller one on the third. So why on the one clip that mattered the most. Did it stop 18 seconds after she walked out of the house, before she got in her car, before she drove away? Why didn't we see her drive away? And why was there no buffer on the end of that? It doesn't make sense. Now, I want to be transparent here. I've spent countless hours analyzing the footage frame by frame, running it through detailed analytics, and I also know it's been reviewed by a video forensic company. And their conclusion is the footage that we see hasn't been altered or tampered with. What we have is exactly what was extracted from the system through all that work. Here's something I can tell you with certainty. Despite all the theories that circulate online, there's nothing in those clips to suggest an attack or an ambush. There's just some of the wildest speculation I think I've ever heard attached to this case. That said, there is one moment in the footage that I just can't shake. It's kind of eerie. It's easy to miss. It happens in the very first clip, the one showing Elaine's arrival. She pulls into the cul de sac, sits in her car for a minute or so, and then gets out, walking toward Divine's house. If you watch carefully, you can see her head bobbing along the top of the brick fence as she walks in. Then right at the end, just before she rounds the corner, she pauses. She stops for a second. Nothing happens. And then suddenly, something pops out from behind the hedge. It's so fast, even if you've watched the footage in detail, you've probably missed it. It's impossible to say exactly what it is. But from my perspective, it appears to be roughly at the same height as Elaine's head. My very first impression was it almost looked like she was peeking out from behind the hedge. But then, less than a second later, she appears. She walks around the corner and heads toward Divine's bungalow. Maybe it could have been her elbow, maybe her hair flicking. All I can really say is this. In the footage, Elaine reaches the end of the hedge. She stops. Something pops out. And then she starts walking again. Outside of that moment and the glare of what appear to be paparazzi lights, there's nothing else unusual in the footage. Nothing out of place? Well, nothing, that is, except the mystery car.
- [38:46]
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When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com Debra had to have surgery. I had hip surgery in November of 2024. Her United Healthcare nurse Crystal checked on her.
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We do a routine call after surgery and I could tell that she was struggling.
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Deborah needed help. My infection markers were through the roof and Crystal knew what to do.
- [39:28]
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I called the hospital and said she's.
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Coming in and got Debra the help she needed.
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Crystal and United Healthcare saved my life.
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- [39:44]
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The Mystery Car Ever since I've heard someone use those words, it's had this kind of weight to it. Like we're talking about an urban legend or a secret weapon. Or maybe even the smoking gun that could blow a lane's case wide open. The way people spoke about it, you'd think that if we could just figure out who was behind the wheel that night, all the answers would fall neatly into place. When I first started, back when every lead felt electric, the mystery car was everything. It was the thing I obsessed over, the thing I kept circling back to Washington. The rest of the case felt like it was sliding through my fingers. I won't run you through the full blow by blow of the footage again. If you've been following along, you already know the basics. It's the car that sweeps around the cul de sac on the CCTV footage as Elaine is at her vehicle. But I will tell you this. The first time I heard Rosemary, Susan and Michelle Westervelt talk about it in their interview when they described it as a suburban. I made it one of my missions to crack it, to take this grainy, frustrating mystery and try to pin it down. And honestly, it became a way to break up the monotony. Picture me at my desk, splitting CCTV footage into grids, frame by frame, over and over. A blurry grey square. Hours of it. So sometimes I'd switch tracks, give my eyes and brain something new to chew on. And that something new was usually the mystery car. I threw everything I had at it. AI tools to sharpen the resolution, scaling guides to measure height, headlight spacing, overall size. I cut the image different ways to try to isolate details, anything that might give me an edge. And at the same time, I cross reference it against the database I'd been building of vehicles connected to every person of interest in Elaine's case. SUV in the folder. Dark sedan in the folder. One by one, eliminating filtering and waiting for the day I'd finally be able to line the dots up. It was a long process. Complicated, frustrating, but it was way more engaging than staring at those endless grey squares of cctv, let me tell you that. And then finally, just as I was ready to give up, which is always the case, right? I had a breakthrough. Turns out it wasn't a suburban. It wasn't an SUV at all. It was a sedan. And that discovery meant that all the filtering of vehicles I'd done up to that point meant that was pretty much useless. I'd been looking in the wrong category of car. But in that moment, I didn't care. I celebrated because it meant that we were one step closer to finding the answer. I zoomed in, compared measurements, and one particular feature stood out. The tail lights. They weren't regular. They weren't rounded. They weren't curved. They were square. That one little detail was enough to narrow it down. I opened Google and started combing through every sedan I could find with tail lights shaped even remotely like I was seeing in the footage. And to my surprise, there were really only two main contenders. One was the Lincoln Town Car, the other, a Volvo S60. When I pulled up images at the Lincoln, my heart sank a little. Calabasas is crawling with them. The Town Car is basically the workhorse of chauffeurs in Los Angeles. There'd be hundreds of them around on any given night, and trying to figure out which one it was felt like an impossible task. Like I was further away than when I started. I sighed. I closed the Town Car tab in my browser. And then there it was. The other option. A Volvo S60. At first, I didn't think much of it, but then something clicked. That feeling when your brain suddenly registers a connection before you've even put it into words. My eyes widened, my chest tightened, my pulse jumped. I'd seen this car before. Not on the footage, but in my records, in the files I'd already been through, in the list of vehicles tied to people in Elaine's world. I scrambled quickly out of my browser, opened my vehicles folder and started flipping through it entry after entry until it finally hit me, Staring me right in the face. A dark colored Volvo S60 connected to Elaine's case. For the first time in a while, I spoke out loud to nobody but myself. Holy shit. Because there was only one person in my records who drove a Volvo S60. And that person was Susan Park. But that's next time on among the Missing. Thanks for listening. If you're looking for more of among the Missing, jump on over and take a look at our subscription offer on either Apple Podcasts or Patreon. There's some really great content on there already, including expanded interviews and our first subscriber only bonus episode she said she want to disappear. 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've got any questions you'd like to be addressed our Q and A episodes, please visit our website at among themissingpodcast.com 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 Scherzer, written by Troy Taylor. Our theme song is Lucid Symphony by Dirty Freaks. Ghislaine 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.