Olivia Lavoise (4:50)

There's no way two friends just go missing within a month of each other. Somehow, some way, I know they're connected. It's a haunting mystery, one that seems to grow more complex and dark.

Advertiser 2 (5:03)

The disappearance of Micah Holzenbake and Bailey Desbot.

Arturo (5:06)

And in between those two disappearances, a.

Olivia Lavoise (5:09)

Murder in a Bakersfield neighborhood where crime is rather rare. Is it three mysteries or one? These three people knew each other and they're all either at this point dead or missing. There's something big about, about what's going on.

Casey (5:23)

There's something, something crazy about this case.

Matt Queen (5:27)

I gotta find her to hold her one last time. Even if it is just her bones.

Advertiser 1 (5:33)

We're just trying to find out where they are. Just somebody tell me where they are. We will go get them. I. I will go dig. I will go dig and I will find them.

Olivia Lavoise (5:47)

Working in Bakersfield as a local news reporter was A unique time in my life. I had a hunger and drive I don't think could ever be replicated. I was a 20 something, making no money, working often obscenely long hours completely by choice, eating almost strictly microwave meals and fast food, and spending way too much time making sure my fake eyelashes and hair were just right. I look back on the days where I'd wear heels and a dress while knocking on doors in a rough neighborhood in over 100 degree heat, desperate to find someone who'd give me a soundbite describing hearing gunshots, which by the way, is almost always the same. I thought it was fireworks at first, and every time I'd get the sound bite, it was an accomplishment for maybe all of five minutes until the next breaking news event happened. And I loved every second of it. I lived and breathed it and felt a sometimes maddening need to be first, which is kind of the name of the game in local news, trying to break the big story, meaning you're the first reporter to uncover the information. When I first started, I envisioned myself going to a local bar after work where there'd be a group of deputies having beers. They'd welcome me to join them, and I'd end up leaving every night with a big scoop. But that never happened. Not even close. I quickly learned that usually if there's a significant event like a homicide or armed robbery, all of us reporters hear about it at the same time through the police scanners we have blaring in the newsrooms 24 7. We then all race out to the scene, elbowing each other, trying to get as close to the yellow tape as possible. My old news director, Mike Trihe, used to say, you make your own luck. So we'd persist with the ritual of digging, coming up empty and trying again another day. A built in. Part of that routine for me at 17 news was to go to the courthouse once a week and look through search warrants, doing this probably hundreds of times. I can only think of a few instances when I found a search warrant that was, to put it simply, anything good, Anything we'd put on the news. 99% of the time, any search warrants pertaining to a case the media would report on are sealed by law enforcement. It's rare that one slips through the cracks and you're lucky enough to find it. Despite all this, something kept bringing me back to court to look through them, still having that glimmer of hope that one day I would find something big. That day came in early summer of 2018, though just how big no one could have known then. I'm Olivia Lavois, and this is the Bakersfield 3. Going through my stack that day, I started thumbing through a warrant that was for a crime that, on the surface, seemed pretty dull, an investigation into a felon being in possession of a firearm. There's nothing newsworthy about a felon having a gun when they're not supposed to. It happens all. All the time. It's illegal, yes, but not significant enough to report on. This warrant, though, was different because of one little sentence that mentioned a missing woman who I'd later learned was named Bailey Despot. It then went on to describe a man named Arturo coming home while his wife was out of town and finding something odd. Here's Arturo to explain.

Arturo (9:49)

I see bags near my front door. I was like, wow, is my wife home? She's supposed to be home, like, the next day. And I said, well, maybe she's surprising me. That's what I thought. But the closer I got to the door, I noticed that that was not her luggage. And I was like, okay, that's weird. And I looked down, and there was a note, and it said, tell Bailey that I love her, but I cannot be with her.

Olivia Lavoise (10:17)

Arturo knew Bailey as a friend of his son's from high school. He recalled his son recently telling him that no one had heard from Bailey for several months.

Arturo (10:26)

It kind of stung me a little bit. I was like, well, she's missing. Why is her bags here? So I called him, and I go, son. I go, is Bailey here? And he was like, what? And he goes, no, she's not here. I go, son, her bags are here in the front. He goes, what are her bags doing? I said, I do not know. He goes, well, let me call her mom and find out.

Olivia Lavoise (10:49)

Soon after, Bailey's mother, Jane showed up.

Arturo (10:53)

And I never met her, and we're talking. She goes, yeah, this is her stuff. So she started going through her bags, and poor lady, she was so emotional. Like, this is what I gave her for her birthday. This is what I gave her last year. And, I mean, she was just crying. I was just, like, overwhelmed. And she's like, well, who dropped them off? And I said, I don't know. So we went through my cameras, and finally I found the footage of who dropped them off.

Matt Queen (11:20)

I'm like, oh, my God. That's Matt Queen, and he's got a gun.

Olivia Lavoise (11:23)

Bailey's mother, Jane, recognized the man, Matt Queen, as the guy she refuses to call her daughter's boyfriend. But it seems, for all intents and purposes, he was. And here he was about a month after Bailey vanished, dropping off her things at a friend's home. That really seemed like a random choice. And when he dropped her belongings off, as shown in the surveillance video, he was armed.

Arturo (11:49)

The gentleman, he pulled up to the door, and of course, nobody was here. We're all at work. So he puts the bags down. Then he goes back to a Suburban, and then he comes back, he gets the ladder, and he sits it on the back. But when he bends over to set the letter down, his sweater picks up, and he had a gun on his back. And me and Gene was like, wow. Like, we're just stung. Like, how about one of us was to be home? Like, what would the outcome would have been? I don't know.

Olivia Lavoise (12:21)

Jane called the police immediately after seeing the video for themselves. Investigators went to Matt Queen's house to speak with him, where they found a loaded gun, which, legally, as a felon, he can't have. Queen wasn't in jail for long, just a few days before he made bail. But this warrant described how after his arrest, he called his wife from jail. Yes, as I'd later find out, Queen had his wife and Bailey living with him under the same roof. We'll get more into that later. When Queen called his wife after his arrest that day, he told her to come get some things from his car before the cops could.

Jane (12:59)

Behind the driver's seat, there's a backpack, gray and black. Is it there?

Olivia Lavoise (13:06)

Yeah.

Jane (13:07)

Okay, take that. In the house, in that backpack is all the letters and everything with all the evidence that she left on. You know what I mean? That James and Lion shit. It's all stuff that she wrote about her mom. That's why I left you the phone, too. The Snapchat is still on that phone. You don't have to access it. If you open it, you inside in that Snapchat. It is all crime, like evidence to show that Jane is a fucking lying, manipulative, crazy person.

Olivia Lavoise (13:37)

It appeared Queen was telling his wife in the backpack there was evidence that, quote, she left, she being Bailey. He referenced letters and a phone with a Snapchat account that would show Bailey's mom, Jane, acting crazy. It seems at that point, Queen sensed detectives were looking at him for Bailey's disappearance, and he blamed Jane for that. In addition to the letters and phone, Queen also asks his wife to see if his tools are there.

Matt Queen (14:08)

Your tools are still here.

Jane (14:09)

Okay. And he has to take those to the job right away.

Matt Queen (14:14)

All right, I gotta go get him.

Jane (14:16)

Yeah, go get him right now, because, you know, hey, listen, to everything I say right now. Careful. I love you.

Advertiser 1 (14:22)

All right, bye.

Olivia Lavoise (14:24)

Queen told his wife to go get his brother and have him take the, quote, tools in his car to the dump right away. It sounded suspicious, of course. So according to the search warrant I'd found, detectives wanted to search Queen's home, vehicles and phone for evidence that he could be involved in the manufacturing of illegal firearms. Seemed pretty obvious to me. That sure, maybe if police discovered evidence of that, it'd be a bonus. But what they were really after was evidence pertaining to the missing woman. He'd been living with Bailey. I thought looking at him for illegal guns was just their way in. And having this warrant was my way into the story. I remember when I first saw Bailey's photo. She's striking, tall, slender, with long dark hair and big green eyes. There was something classic and effortless about her beauty. She stood out. But as I looked at photos of her on Matt Queen's Facebook page, what stood out even more was Queen's extensive, bizarre and somewhat fascinating social media presence. He had numerous posts about looking for Bailey that included missing flyers he'd made himself that said he last saw her getting into a black SUV with a heavyset man. But what really caught my eye were screenshot text messages he posted between himself and Bailey's mother, Jane. One screenshot showed Queen sent this text to. At first I thought you were simply an overprotective mother and I respected that. But it is now clear that Bailey was right all along. You have a mental disorder. Yes, Jane, I'm twice her age. Get over it. Find something else wrong with me. You're obsessed with Bailey and it's not healthy. I'm in love with her. And if I'm not mistaken, she's in love with me. Keep trying to drive a wedge between us, it's only weakening the strength in yours.

Casey (16:23)

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Advertiser 2 (19:41)

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Olivia Lavoise (20:18)

Naturally, I had to hear what Jane had to say about all this.

Matt Queen (20:21)

You wanted to interview me and I was very hesitant. I remember. And you're like, well, I think the best thing is to get it out there. And I'm like, yeah, but they're telling, I can't do that. It might scare off the bad people or something.

Olivia Lavoise (20:35)

Jane was in a tough spot at this time. A little over a month after her daughter's disappearance, detectives had told her to stay away from media, which, by the way, almost never makes sense in missing persons cases. How can someone be found if no one even knows they're missing? Being told to avoid the news, but desperate to get the word out, Jane had taken to hanging literally 3 thousands of flyers around town. That first phone call, she was pretty disappointed to know that none of the flyers had caught my attention. Apparently, as I explained, I hadn't heard of her daughter's case until finding the search warrant that day. If you haven't heard of Bailey's case, asked Jane, have you heard of Micah Holsonbake's case? I told her I hadn't. Well, he went missing a month before Bailey did, and the two of them were friends. Jane said, now this sounded a bit more complex than I initially thought this case was going to be. Even more so when Jane explained how the connection between Micah and Bailey was made in the first place. I found out that after Micah Holsonbake went missing in late March, Micah's brother immediately started his own investigation, of sorts, of someone he spoke with said he should try to track down a couple of people who might have information, including a young woman, Bailey parent.

Advertiser 1 (21:58)

That's weird. That doesn't sound like anybody we know.

Olivia Lavoise (22:03)

That's Micah's mom, Cheryl. The name Bailey parent didn't mean anything to them then. But a few weeks later, Cheryl and her husband Lance were out in Bakersfield looking for Micah. Sometimes they would drive around aimlessly when they'd ran out of people to talk to. That day, Cheryl and Lance spotted a missing flyer for a young woman. How horrible. Her family is going through what we're going through, they thought. Then they noticed the name Bailey. Only the last name listed was different. It was despot. The Bailey, they were told, knew Micah was Bailey parent. But something in Micah's dad, call it fatherly instinct, told him to do a little digging. The flyers had clearly been made by the missing woman's mother, Jane.

Advertiser 1 (22:49)

But he looks her up on Facebook and he's like, jane's last name is parent. That's Bailey parent. Oh, my God.

Olivia Lavoise (22:59)

And there it was, the name Micah's brother had been given shortly after Micah went missing. The initial disconnect was Bailey and Jane having different last names, but there was no mistaking it this was the same Bailey.

Advertiser 1 (23:13)

She supposedly knew something, is what we had been told. You better talk to Bailey, parent.

Olivia Lavoise (23:18)

Now, knowing she, too had gone missing, Cheryl says Lance had a horribly grim theory.

Advertiser 1 (23:24)

He said, mike is dead and she knew too much.

Olivia Lavoise (23:29)

Regardless of if the hunch was right, they knew there was something going on here.

Advertiser 1 (23:34)

We had no proof of anything. We just knew they were gone.

Olivia Lavoise (23:38)

Cheryl and Lance hadn't been getting far with detectives and were determined to get answers themselves. So they reached out to Bailey's mom, Jane.

Matt Queen (23:47)

I was very leery. I didn't trust anybody. I didn't know who to trust. I didn't trust them in the beginning. They probably didn't trust me. But we had two things in common. Our kids knew each other, and they were missing.

Olivia Lavoise (23:59)

Jane met with Cheryl and her husband at a restaurant where, over pie and iced tea that sat untouched, they discussed the horrifying possibilities of what could have happened to their children. They compared notes and commiserated over the difficulty of getting detectives to take them seriously. After Jane told me all of this on that first phone call, the questions were endless. So I put together a short and simple story with the little I knew. It focused primarily on Bailey being missing and mentioned the possibility of a connection between her and Micah's cases. After it aired, social media immediately lit up with theories, the most popular being that Micah and Bailey were lovers that ran off to Mexico to be together. Among the comments, I remember seeing one from Lance, Micah's dad. It said something along the lines of the connection between the two should definitely be investigated, and referred to Micah and Bailey as acquaintances. I noticed someone responded to that comment, a girl named Sarah. Her response read, I was a good friend of Bailey's, and Micah was around a lot. We knew him more than just as an acquaintance. Also, I believe they are linked as well. I clicked on Sarah's profile. She had a few posts about Bailey's disappearance. One read, you are a good friend, Bailey. I know you're just hiding out somewhere. I bet you're a smart girl and I miss you and so does Queen. I love you, bae.

Advertiser 1 (25:28)

I couldn't tell you how or why her and Bailey started hanging out, but they did.

Olivia Lavoise (25:34)

That's Maddie, one of Bailey's closest friends. She says Sarah went to high school with them, but Bailey and Sarah didn't connect until after graduation, and they seem to get close very fast.

Advertiser 1 (25:46)

The wildness about them is very much the same, and that is what drew them so close together.

Olivia Lavoise (25:54)

Sarah and Bailey both loved a thrill. Both acted like they didn't care much about what other people thought. And I noticed they both looked very similar. Same body type, same fair complexion, with the same long dark hair and green eyes.

Advertiser 1 (26:10)

I know that Sarah was dating a different guy named Matt, and she's the one that introduced Bailey to Queen. So that's how all that happened.

Olivia Lavoise (26:23)

Sarah was dating a guy named Matt Van de Castiel who was good friends with Matt Queen. So when Bailey coupled up with Matt Queen, it seemed like that dream scenario. Friends dating another set of friends, getting to double date and hang out all the time. Both Matt's were much older than their girlfriends. Matt van de Castiel was 10 years older than Sarah. And Bailey and Matt Queen had lived twice the life they had. With their 20 year age gap, Queen had a wife and family. When Bailey and Sarah were in elementary school. Now, the four of them were spending a lot of time together. And apparently before he went missing, Micah Holsonbake was spending a lot of time with them too. When I got in touch with Micah's mom, Cheryl, she told me after Micah went missing, before she found out about Bailey and reached out to Jane, something strange happened.

Advertiser 1 (27:16)

I get this phone call out of the blue. The gist of her conversation was, my son is James Kohlstad. James and Micah were friends and James was killed.

Olivia Lavoise (27:31)

James Kohlsted was murdered about two weeks after Micah went missing and about two weeks before Bailey's disappearance. Here's James mom Diane, or Di, as we all call her.

Cheryl (27:44)

I'm reading on Facebook that Micah's missing. And I knew from conversations that James and I had that he had been hanging out with Micah.

Olivia Lavoise (27:56)

When Di saw Micah was missing so close to her son's murder, something didn't feel right.

Cheryl (28:02)

Just something in my gut.

Olivia Lavoise (28:05)

So she contacted Cheryl, who, like Di, had been doing her own investigating.

Cheryl (28:10)

Cheryl and I talked a lot. We were talking every day on the phone. We were starting to do our research. You know, names, background checks on different people. And just so many of the same names kept coming up.

Olivia Lavoise (28:25)

It was around this time that Cheryl and her husband discovered Bailey was missing. Suddenly, they found themselves looking at all three cases.

Advertiser 1 (28:33)

They were connected somehow. We had gotten enough information that we knew they had shared friends.

Olivia Lavoise (28:41)

As it was relayed to me that Micah, James and Bailey all knew each other and their mothers were trying to figure out if the three were connected. I knew I had to get the three moms in a room together. We agreed to all meet at Di's home. James mother Di, a medical billing specialist, keeps her home and her appearance impeccable. Cheryl, Micah's mother, a college finance professor, dressed the part simple. She let her hair start to gray and wore no makeup. Bailey's mother, Jane, a special education care specialist, dresses casual but colorful. Think jean overalls with a bright purple top and sunflower scarf tied in her hair. As the three of them sat down at Di's dining room table with me, I noticed how fragile they were. Trembling voices with what initially felt like a sense of apprehension. But the more we all spoke, I began to see a shift from anguish to a feeling of determination.

Matt Queen (29:39)

I didn't want to stop that day. I think we talked for hours, didn't we?

Advertiser 1 (29:43)

We talked a long time. I. I felt relief. I felt like somebody's finally listening. Who wants to hear more, more than Mike is missing? They wanted to hear what we thought was going on, the backstory of why.

Matt Queen (30:03)

This happened to him and the notebook.

Advertiser 1 (30:06)

After notebook after notebook that we had filled with information. I think we needed someone to give us that confidence that we could take this on, and I think you did give us that together.

Olivia Lavoise (30:22)

The three of them were emboldened and quickly adopted the motto, fight like a mother.

Advertiser 1 (30:28)

We began leaning on each other early on because who else do you call?

Cheryl (30:33)

And it was nice not to be walking that walk alone.

Matt Queen (30:36)

We could call each other anytime, day or night.

Olivia Lavoise (30:40)

Each of them brought a different skill set to the table. Jane, Bailey's mom, was the one hitting the streets.

Matt Queen (30:46)

Well, I was the flyer girl. I'm like, let me get out and do it. Cause if I'm not out there searching or doing something, I'm like, it's my sanity keeper.

Olivia Lavoise (30:57)

She hung up thousands of missing flyers for Bailey and missing flyers for Micah, and eventually a poster for all three of the cases that read the Bakersfield 3. Can you connect the dots for three friends? When it comes to connecting the dots, Cheryl, Micah's mom, was taking all the bits of information on the cases and all the people that Micah, James, and Bailey had in common and organizing it.

Advertiser 1 (31:24)

My career was in research and data collection, and so I knew how to take anecdotal evidence and I knew how to prioritize it and put it in a nice spreadsheet and make sure we passed it off to the right people. And I knew how to look for information.

Olivia Lavoise (31:40)

And James, mom, Di, I'm the one.

Cheryl (31:42)

That will make the calls and set up the appointments.

Advertiser 1 (31:44)

Yes, very much our schedule keeper.

Olivia Lavoise (31:48)

They recognized immediately they were a powerful team.

Advertiser 1 (31:51)

If we were by ourselves, you can't hold it together long enough to do it in this. In our situations, none of us could have held it together and done all of those.

Matt Queen (32:01)

Yeah, the detective work we did, the Google Earthings and the calling and the looking people up and we learned how to look and track people down.

Advertiser 1 (32:12)

Interviewing people till two in the morning.

Matt Queen (32:13)

On the phone, taking notes with a crayon when you can't find a pen.

Cheryl (32:18)

And convincing the local people to put us on their schedule and meet with.

Advertiser 1 (32:23)

Us and talk to us.

Olivia Lavoise (32:24)

Yeah, I remember the first time they showed up to my news station with a binder of timelines and spreadsheets and even a color coordinated diagram of people who were in the circle of friends with Micah, James and Bailey, complete with the individual's photos. I couldn't believe how much information they'd gathered themselves and how quickly they'd done it. Frankly, it was almost a bit overwhelming as they mapped out a plethora of different crimes they believed this web of people might be involved in, ranging from mail theft to drug dealing to sex trafficking. And it was all apparently happening in an area of town I didn't normally report on.

Advertiser 1 (33:05)

Very nice schools, nice neighborhoods, well, you know, large homes, people they talk about. Oh well, I live in this part of town, so that kind of stuff doesn't happen here. Oh yes it does. And maybe two doors down. You have no idea.

Olivia Lavoise (33:23)

It was a lot to untangle. The first, most pressing issue was understanding the ties between Micah, James and Bailey. Yes, they knew each other and had many people in common, but what was really going on with this group of people? And were the cases really all connected? It's one of the few times in my career where I've kind of almost been warned. Hey, you don't want to dig too deep on this one. That's next time on the Bakersfield 3.

Casey (33:53)

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to hear the rest of the Bakersfield 3, just search for it wherever you get your podcasts. It's a Casefile Presents production created by the same team behind Casefile with the same high standards you expect from us. I hope you enjoy the series. When it comes to protecting your home, reacting after a break in is too late. That's why Simplisafe has raised the standard in home security. Their new Active Guard Outdoor Protection uses AI powered cameras and live monitoring agents to detect suspicious activity in real time. So I know somebody is ready to act before anything happens. Agents can even speak to intruders, turn on spotlights and call police. Stopping crime before it starts. Simplisafe offers affordable monitoring plans starting at just $1 a day with no long term contracts. Or cancell fees. Trusted by over 4 million Americans, it comes with a 60 day satisfaction guarantee. Arming your system daily becomes a simple ritual that provides peace of mind, helping you protect the things that matter most. For a limited time, Casefile listeners can get a special 50% off your new SimpliSafe system with professional monitoring and your first month free@simplisafe.com casefile that's 50% off with professional monitoring and your first month Free@simplisafe.com Casefile there's no safe like SimpliSafe.

Olivia Lavoise (35:47)

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Advertiser 1 (36:00)

Wow, that's a lot of traffic.

Olivia Lavoise (36:03)

Much better, right? Traffic? Much better Ground Truth, the advertising platform for when you need real business results. Visit us@groundtruth.com.