MISSING: Adea Shabani

Summary

Clues with Morgan Abshur and Kayla Moore: MISSING: Adea Shabani

Hosted by Crime House, powered by PAVE Studios

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Overview

In the episode titled "MISSING: Adea Shabani," hosts Morgan Abshur and Kayla Moore delve into the perplexing and tragic disappearance of Adea Shabani, an aspiring actress from Macedonia who moved to Los Angeles to chase her Hollywood dreams. This case, marked by deceptive relationships, suspicious behaviors, and unresolved clues, remains shrouded in mystery despite extensive investigations.

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Background of Adea Shabani

Kayla Moore [01:21]: "Adeya was born on March 16, 1992. Although her parents were Albanian, she grew up in the neighboring country of North Macedonia, which is just north of Greece."

Adea Shabani was depicted as a vibrant and ambitious young woman with dreams of becoming a famous actress. Her magnetic personality and dedication led her to enroll at the prestigious Stella Adler Academy of Acting and Theater in Los Angeles. In 2016, at the age of 24, she moved to LA, securing an apartment on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a symbol of her aspirations.

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Relationship with Chris Spots

Morgan Abshur [09:14]: "Adea and Chris seemed to be falling in love. They quickly became scene partners and soon their relationship intensified."

Adea formed a close bond with Chris Spots, an aspiring actor in his early 30s who had moved to LA from Colorado. Chris, who held a degree in psychology, leveraged his understanding of human behavior to excel in acting. Their relationship progressed rapidly, culminating in Chris proposing to Adea after just four months of dating in January 2018. Despite their swift commitment, red flags began to surface, hinting at deeper issues.

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Disappearance of Adea Shabani

On the morning of February 23, 2018, after a romantic Valentine's Day dinner, Adea and Chris reportedly had a severe argument. According to Chris, Adea ended the relationship abruptly, declaring she never wanted to see him again. Adea was last seen that afternoon, and her sudden disappearance raised immediate concerns among her friends and family, especially since she was known for her constant communication.

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Initial Investigation and Suspicion on Chris

Morgan Abshur [14:45]: "It was not usual for her to leave her door unlocked."

When authorities conducted a welfare check on Adea's apartment, they found her front door unlocked—a highly unusual and concerning sign in Hollywood. Inside, everything appeared normal except for the absence of her phone and purse, suggesting she had left willingly. The police initially considered the possibility that Adea had simply left town.

Chris, however, exhibited suspicious behavior. He delayed responding to calls from Adea's friends and maintained conflicting stories about their breakup. Notably, Chris was simultaneously engaged to Mary El Malik, a nurse with whom he had been in a four-year relationship, complicating his narrative.

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Chris's Behavior and Flight

As Adea remained missing, Chris's actions grew increasingly erratic. He requested to leave the couple's shared apartment, citing concerns over Adea's family having ties to the Albanian mafia—a claim with no supporting evidence. In early March, Chris left LA without Mary, effectively going into hiding, further arousing suspicion.

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High-Speed Chase and Suicide of Chris

On March 22, 2018, a nearly month-old missing person case led police to Chris. A red light camera in San Bernardino captured his pickup truck, prompting a tense pursuit. During the chase, Chris exhibited reckless behavior, including fleeing the initial stop and invading the personal space of a passenger. The chase culminated in Chris driving at high speeds until officers deployed spike strips, forcing him to pull over. Instead of complying, Chris remained in the truck and shot himself, dying instantly on the scene.

Kayla Moore [37:31]: "All of them are very strange...script pages for one of Chris's upcoming auditions, which also, if you have over 100 rounds of ammunition, I'm thinking you're considering doing something a little bit more drastic than just taking your own life."

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Clues and Evidence

1. Phone Records and Google Data

Morgan Abshur [34:03]: "According to his cell phone data, Chris was stopped there for 40 minutes on February 23rd. And investigators think that this is more than enough time to kill someone and then bury a body."

Police accessed Chris's cell phone records, revealing that he had been in a remote area called Lake of the Woods north of LA for approximately 40 minutes on the day Adea disappeared. This discovery positioned Chris as a person of interest, although no physical evidence was found at the initial search site.

Subsequent Google location data provided a more precise timeline, showing Chris's movements that contradicted his initial statements. His data indicated that he and Adea had made only two brief stops before reaching a secluded spot where Adea's body was later found.

2. Chris’s Confession to Merez

Chris allegedly confessed to his estranged father, Merez, about killing Adea during a visit on the night of February 23rd. Kayla Moore [44:22]: "He felt very certain that he did help Chris cover it up."

Kim Merez, Chris's ex-wife, claimed that Chris revealed details about the murder to him, including accusations against Adea and a traumatic confession about the crime. However, Merez provided inconsistent accounts, further muddying the investigation.

3. Discovery of Adea’s Body

Kayla Moore [56:02]: "The autopsy determined that Adea had died of blunt force trauma to her head."

On March 26, 2018, Adea’s body was discovered in the Spenceville Wildlife Area near Sacramento, wrapped in a tarp and secured with twine—clear indicators of foul play. The autopsy confirmed she died from blunt force trauma to the head. Despite these findings, Chris's suicide left investigators without a definitive perpetrator.

4. Involvement of Merez and Additional Clues

Merez's late-night phone call to Chris’s mother, Jade, and the discovery of a suspiciously large hole near his property raised questions about his potential involvement or knowledge of the crime.

Morgan Abshur [53:39]: "Come on. So you have to wonder, like, what part of all of this is he lying about?"

An anonymous crime scene investigator suggested that the materials found with Adea's body—twine and tarp—originated from Merez's farm, implying a possible link.

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Theories and Unresolved Questions

Several lingering questions remain:

• Merez's Role: Although there's no physical evidence implicating Merez, his behavior and conflicting statements suggest he might have knowledge about Chris’s actions.

• Alternate Suspects: The unusual evidence regarding Adea's computer usage and the possibility of another individual accessing her apartment remain unexplored.

• Pregnancy Claims: Adea’s friend mentioned a potential pregnancy, but no evidence was found during the autopsy to support this claim.

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The disappearance and subsequent murder of Adea Shabani highlight a case fraught with deception, conflicting stories, and elusive evidence. While Chris Spots emerges as a primary suspect due to his suspicious behavior and the circumstances surrounding his flight and suicide, the involvement of his father, Merez, introduces complexity that remains unresolved.

Kayla Moore [68:58]: "It is just a really sad case."

Ultimately, Adea Shabani's case underscores the challenges in solving high-profile disappearances where personal relationships are intertwined with deceit, leaving loved ones searching for closure amid unanswered questions.

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New Segment: Missing Person of the Week

In an effort to make a tangible difference, the hosts introduced a new segment aimed at highlighting missing persons to garner public assistance and awareness.

Kayla Moore [67:45]: "This week we're going to highlight David Round..."

Spotlight: David Round

• Location: Gresham, Oregon
• Description: 67-year-old male, cognitive disability, missing daily medication.
• Last Seen: April 23rd, 1000 block of Southeast 213th Avenue
• Details: Described as black, 5ft 10in, 190 pounds, bald, brown eyes, last seen in dark clothing.
• Call to Action: If seen, contact authorities via 911 or the non-emergency line at 503-823-3333.

The segment aims to encourage community involvement and aid in locating missing individuals, emphasizing the importance of collective effort in resolving such cases.

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Closing Remarks

The hosts emphasized the emotional impact of Adea's case and the ongoing need for support and awareness in missing person investigations. They encouraged listeners to share their theories, feedback, and engage with the community to help unravel unresolved cases.

Morgan Abshur [69:07]: "I feel very unresolved right now."

Kayla Moore [69:22]: "We hope that you guys found this case impactful..."

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Notable Quotes:

• Morgan Abshur [00:40]: "There was love bombing, there's gaslighting, there's. There's a lot going on here, you guys."

• Kayla Moore [07:05]: "Adeya had high goals for herself. She attended the American University of Paris."

• Morgan Abshur [26:16]: "This is our first break in this case because when police end up looking at the security footage..."

• Kayla Moore [45:21]: "So it is adding up in some ways."

• Morgan Abshur [53:39]: "Come on. So you have to wonder, like, what part of all of this is he lying about?"

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Final Note

Adea Shabani’s story is a poignant reminder of the fragility of dreams and the darkness that can lurk behind seemingly perfect facades. As Morgan and Kayla continue to seek answers, they honor Adea’s memory by striving for justice and awareness in the world of true crime.

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Transcript

[Kayla Moore]

Hi there, it's Vanessa Richardson. Crime House is your go to destination for the most gripping true crime shows on my show, Killer Minds. Join me and forensic psychologist Dr. Tristan Engels for two new episodes as we dive into the twisted story of the doctor Death serial killer Michael Swango. Craving more deep dives into the minds of the world's most dangerous killers. Follow Killer Minds on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you listen.

[Morgan Abshur]

This is Crime House. There was love bombing, there's gaslighting, there's. There's a lot going on here, you guys.

[Kayla Moore]

So when they arrive, they immediately see that her front door is unlocked.

[Morgan Abshur]

A somewhat convenient story because the other person who could shed light on it isn't around anymore.

[Kayla Moore]

And this is like where things start getting even stranger than they have already been this entire time. Hi, welcome to Clues. I'm your host, Kayla Moore.

[Morgan Abshur]

And I'm your other host, Morgan Abshur.

[Kayla Moore]

Today we're going to dive into a real life Hollywood nightmare. The chilling murder of aspiring actress Adeya Shabani. Adeya had moved to the United States from Macedonia with dreams of becoming, in her words, a different type of star.

[Morgan Abshur]

One moment Adeya was chasing the spotlight, the next she was gone without a trace. What followed was a twisted mystery, one that could have been a Hollywood script. Filled with suspicious characters, a wild high speed car chase, and an ending that no one saw coming. More on this case and the clues that defined it after this quick break.

[Kayla Moore]

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Bavarian Meats. Maybe you're like me and you love a charcuterie board. Some sharp cheddar, some honey olives, fig jam, brie, almonds, the works. Well, I am so excited to build a charcuterie board with Bavarian meats. Bavarian meats is naturally hardwood smoked and comes in original and hot. Spicy Land Jaeger. They're smoky. They have a little bit of sweetness, too. Despite having zero sugar, Bavarian meat snack sticks also have zero carbs, are packed with protein, and most importantly, are unbelievably delicious. Because when you've got great taste, you expect the same from your snacks. Oh, did I mention they're also portable? Toss a few in your gym bag or your glove box. I like to have one in my purse just in case. Wherever I feel like I need a little extra protein in my day. Pick up a pack today at your local grocer or stock [e-mail] podcast. But Bavarian meat snack sticks, great taste. Zero sugar.

[Morgan Abshur]

Hi, I'm Kristen Bell and if you know My husband, Dax.

[Kayla Moore]

Then you also know he loves shopping for a car. Selling a car, not so much.

[Morgan Abshur]

We're really doing this, huh? Thankfully, Carvana makes it easy. Answer a few questions, put in your VIN or license, and done. We sold ours in minutes this morning and they'll come pick it up and pay us this afternoon. Bye bye, Truckee.

[Kayla Moore]

Of course, we kept the favorite.

[Morgan Abshur]

Hello, other Truckee. Sell your car with Carvana today. Terms and conditions apply. Hello, guys. Hello.

[Kayla Moore]

Welcome back. Cluminati.

[Morgan Abshur]

Cluminati. It is official.

[Kayla Moore]

I think we've decided.

[Morgan Abshur]

I think so. It's a rank to it. I really like it. Cluminati. We're here. I saw your feelings about the botched board and I. I was really, I was really glad because I was worried. I, like, didn't do it for a couple episodes after I tried it and I'm like, oh, my God, like, what if the people hate it? And most of the comments I've seen so far have been like, no, I like it. It's kind of like keeping track. It's holding, you know, these investigations accountable and just bringing light to, you know, issues and investigative work that maybe could be a little better sometimes. So according to the majority, they like the botched board.

[Kayla Moore]

And Morgan went ahead and made us a new decked out one so that everyone can read it if you're watching.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, you guys, props to all the cricket girlies out there. Cricket is hard, you guys. Cricket is a beast. I appreciate all you people out there making, like, engraved stuff on cricket and.

[Kayla Moore]

Like, what is Cricut? Oh, yeah, I don't know about this.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's this little craft tool. It, like, you can laser cut vinyl, it can engrave stuff. You can have a pen attachment, but you have to use a computer and it's this whole thing. So I whipped out the Cricut. We. We use them to do our. Our wedding invitations, actually.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh. Oh.

[Morgan Abshur]

And it's just been a whole lear, so I whip that out. We have a new botched board, so I think you guys will be able to see it. And it might not apply in every case, which I do. Like, I think it's again, just a good reminder of, like, then how it's done.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, I just have it in case.

[Morgan Abshur]

Exactly.

[Kayla Moore]

And there are going to be a lot of cases where we don't need it. Yeah. Today might be one of those cases.

[Morgan Abshur]

Today might be one of them. I'm also just reaching out for some help for people that have been bit by spiders. I'm not sure what kind of spider. It was because I wasn't able to identify it, but I have been bit by a spider. Potentially a brown recluse. I'm a little nervous. I had a panic attack last night that I might have to have my finger amputated.

[Kayla Moore]

But you didn't see the spider. You just felt it right there.

[Morgan Abshur]

Felt it immediately. I was like, grabbing hay for the horses and immediately felt something. And it was like this searing, shooting pain. Like, I couldn't bend my finger. My vein. I could see the vein in my finger, which, like, you can't normally. It was like, bulging.

[Kayla Moore]

Ooh.

[Morgan Abshur]

So my first thought, I was like, do I have a blood clot in my finger? And then it was just like, to the touch. Just like you would touch it. Searing pain.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's been the craziest experience. Do.

[Kayla Moore]

And we have brown recluses in California.

[Morgan Abshur]

We do.

[Kayla Moore]

Okay.

[Morgan Abshur]

It just, like, bruised and, like, so scary. It is like a red rash and, like, if you compare my finger to brown recluse bites, it looks really similar. So I'm like, oh, okay.

[Kayla Moore]

Is it just one of those things you have to wait and see if, like, all the skin starts dying around?

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

[Kayla Moore]

Huh?

[Morgan Abshur]

Yep. I'm not gonna. Everyone just say a prayer. Morgan doesn't lose her finger. I don't want to lose my finger.

[Kayla Moore]

That's really scary. That or honestly when you said blood clot too, because those are like, that's one of my biggest fears.

[Morgan Abshur]

A DVT really freaks me out.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Just like getting one on a flight or something.

[Morgan Abshur]

I. And then it shoots up to your brain. Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

I mean, I have health anxiety as is a huge hypochondriac. And I think about that stuff all the time.

[Morgan Abshur]

I do, too. Okay, without further ado, enough about my cricket experience and my spider bites.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, we have a big one that we're going to dive into.

[Morgan Abshur]

Let's get into this. We heard you guys that you wanted lesser known cases. We feel this is one of them. Before we get into a day's case, I just want to remind everyone to stay until the very end of this episode. We have a new segment that we really want to talk about with you guys, and I think it's going to be really special and start making a big difference out there. So stay until the end. Even if there's chitchat. We're not done until we're done.

[Kayla Moore]

Yes. And also, for anyone who's watching this on YouTube, you're going to see some photos that'll help paint the picture of this case. And if you're listening, you can find those same photos on our Instagram. That's at Clues podcast on Insta. And so before we dive in, we're going to say that today's case does include mentions of domestic violence, suicide and suicidal ideation. So please listen with care. Okay, So a lot of what is out there about this case, a lot of what we listened to and consumed about this case does come from the investigative work of another true crime podcast called To Live and Die in la, which, just a side note, that podcast was made by Neil Strauss, who I always forget. He. He was like a reporter for a long time, but he wrote the game.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, I'm unfamiliar with the game.

[Kayla Moore]

The game is for those who don't know, like, that it's like a pickup artist book. It's a book about how to pick up women. Like, very toxic, early 2000s, how to pick up women advice. But the podcast was ultimately made by him and a private investigator who teamed up together and did, honestly, some pretty impressive detective work. Chasing down leads, talking to the family. And they really built this picture of Adeya, who's the young woman at the center of this case. So let's talk a little bit about who she was. Exactly. So Adeya was born on March 16, 1992. Although her parents were Albanian, she grew up in the neighboring country of North Macedonia, which is just north of Greece. She was described as being this natural performer. Even in her earliest diary entries, she would talk about her dreams of becoming a famous actress. Yeah, which is really cute. Everyone who knew her said she was very warm and outgoing. She had this zest for life, and people kind of knew right away that she was going places. She also had very high goals for herself. She attended the American University of Paris. And after she graduated, she moved to Dubai. This she saw as like a stepping stone for herself to save a little bit of money before she could head to the one place where she really wanted to go to follow her dreams. Right where we are today, Los Angeles, California. And Adeya arrived in LA in 2016 when she was just 24 years old, which I came here in 2015.

[Morgan Abshur]

Same.

[Kayla Moore]

There's so many parts of her story that just really, yeah, like, hit home for me. But I was also early twenties, trying to do, like, the Hollywood thing. Came out to la. She got an apartment right on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is funny because people don't normally live there. But, like, when you're coming to LA and you're like, where do I want to Live Hollywood, like that's where you pick. She started taking classes at the Stella Adler Academy of Acting and Theater, which is a really prestigious acting school that we have here in la. And thanks to her magnetic personality, Adeya had no trouble making new friends and connections. And one of those people who she got really close to early on in being in LA is this other aspiring actor in his early 30s, a guy named Chris Spots. The two hit it off really quickly. Soon they became scene partners and Adeya started telling her friends about Chris, how like knowledgeable and ambitious he was, how he was a great actor and she really believed in him. And it wasn't long before their relationship went from seeing partners to something a little bit more.

[Morgan Abshur]

But to me it seemed like a day. I was like really manifesting everything in her life. Like, yes, she wanted her name on a star on the, on the sidewalk and like her room was covered with, with movie posters of Leonardo DiCaprio. She had these quotes all over her apartment. Like she was really a girl that was manifesting and she was going to be a star.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, she was building her dream life.

[Morgan Abshur]

So who is Christopher Spots? Chris actually wasn't from LA either. He actually grew up in Colorado. His dad wasn't really in the picture when he was a kid and so he and his mom kind of moved around a lot during his childhood. But when he got older, Chris decided to go to college and he ended up at the University of Northern Colorado. It's here that he actually got a degree in psychology. And while he graduated in 2009, you would think, okay, psychology undergrad, maybe he'll pursue a career in mental health. But no, Chris turned his degree and his focus to something else, to theater. Kind of makes sense, right? Like he learned how people work, what makes them tick. So maybe he could then use that knowledge in acting to mold into these other people. So he took himself out to la. In the years after he arrived in Hollywood, he starred in several low budget and short films. You watched some of his reels, didn't you?

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, I did see his acting reel. I'll bring that up multiple times throughout this, don't worry.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, maybe we'll link it so you guys can form your own opinions on it too. A lot of these films were directed by friends that he'd made at the Stella Adler Academy of Acting and Theater where he was also taking classes, which is how he met adeya back in 2017.

[Kayla Moore]

And so throughout the fall of that year, 33 year old Chris and 25 year old Adeya seemed to be falling in love. Although they kept their relationship kind of on the DL, on social media, Adeya did gush to her friends about how perfect she thought they were for each other. In fact, they seem to be moving pretty fast, actually. So fast that after just four months of dating, in January of 2018, Chris reportedly proposed to Adeya and she said yes. I don't know if you've ever known anyone that's gotten engaged that fast from date, like just starting to date.

[Morgan Abshur]

Not personally, I do.

[Kayla Moore]

It really doesn't ever go well. It's, in my personal experience, a bit.

[Morgan Abshur]

Of a red flag for me.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, it's, it's very, very fast. And immediately the couple starts looking for an apartment. They even filled out a lease application for this two bedroom place that they were going to move into in March of 2018. That was the plan. And it seems like everything was still going very well heading into Valentine's Day of 2018. Because that evening Chris took a daya to this romantic dinner at a trendy restaurant in West Hollywood. But about a week after that dinner, on the morning of Friday, February 23, Chris and Adeya got into a pretty big argument. At least that's what Chris ended up telling his friends. Chris said that Adeya was so upset with him that she actually broke up with him that day. And according to Chris, she said that she never wanted to see him again. So it was a pretty big fight. That morning, Chris left Adeya's apartment. And a few Hours later, after 12:50pm that day, she stopped responding to any text messages. Now, Adeya was kind of known to be this prolific texter. She was always in constant contact with her friends and her family back in Macedonia. She texted a lot. So when she stops responding to texts on the afternoon of February 23, her friends and family immediately become pretty concerned. But it wasn't until Adeya missed her next acting class three days later on Monday, February 26, that people in LA started getting really worried. And that's because Adeya was this really committed student. We talked about her building, her dream life. She's like very dedicated to this dream. She never missed her acting classes. And that's why that afternoon some of her acting school friends called the police to perform a welfare check on her apartment on Hollywood Boulevard. And here's where things get a little iffy. So when they arrive, they immediately see that her front door is unlocked, which is very strange. I mean, we live in Los Angeles, this is la. You do not leave Your door unlocked here? Absolutely. Especially in the heart of Hollywood. It's just really not a good idea. I mean, we were talking about that guy in Valley Village that was on camera trying the doors, just trying door handles until he got into one and murdered someone. Like, it's very. It's a huge red flag if you go to someone's apartment and, like, the door is unlocked.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. And it was not usual for her to leave her door unlocked.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

So they were already kind of like, what's going on here?

[Kayla Moore]

But then they get inside the apartment, and everything looks fine. There's no signs of a struggle. It doesn't look like anything was stolen. It doesn't look like anyone got into the apartment and rummaged around everything. Her phone and her purse weren't in the apartment, though. It seems like she left and probably took those things with her, which, honestly could be a good or bad sign at this point in the investigation. But when the cops see that, they decide it's really not enough to be able to file a missing persons report, because they get to this apartment and they're like, okay, she's an adult woman. She took her purse and her keys. She left. Like, what do you mean that she's a missing person? She probably just, like, left for the weekend. Now, over the course of the last few days, Adeya's friends had also been trying to track down Chris to see if he had any answers as to what was happening with her. And it was surprisingly hard to get a hold of him during this time. He took a while to respond. And he is also someone who is, like, known for being pretty much in constant contact with people. So when he finally does respond to everyone, he says that he and Adeya actually broke up on Friday morning, the 23rd, and he hadn't heard from her or seen her since. And all of his friends say that at this time, he didn't really seem all that alarmed that Adeya was missing, presumably because he had been a little bit distracted over the last few days trying to patch things up with his other fiance.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, you guys heard that, right. Other fiance. See, the whole time Chris was dating Adeya, he was actually engaged to another woman nurse named Mary El Malik. Chris and Mary had been together for four years. They actually live together. They have two dogs together. Like, Chris had this whole other life.

[Kayla Moore]

A whole life.

[Morgan Abshur]

So while Mary was at work, Chris was off with a Daya. And so on Valentine's Day, when Chris took a Daya out to that fancy dinner in West Hollywood, it was at 10pm it was so late because Chris had done a romantic dinner with Mary earlier in the evening.

[Kayla Moore]

Unfortunately, I feel like LA is a place where you can get away with this because he's an actor, he worked like his schedule's all over the place, she's at work all day. Like he's kind of able to do both things. And then also you're like, well, it's a really popular restaurant. I couldn't get a reservation until 10pm like that's not unheard of.

[Morgan Abshur]

No.

[Kayla Moore]

On Valentine's Day. So like he, yeah, he was just able to do that.

[Morgan Abshur]

Now it's pretty clear Chris was really trying to keep these two women separated. And so when Chris started dating a daya, he kept marry a secret from her as well. But that didn't last very long. Just a few weeks into their relationship, a day I figured out Chris was engaged. And she was furious with him for lying about it. But Chris managed to win her over. He told A day that he was actually planning on leaving Mary soon. And Adeya believed him. You know, she's in love. She wants to make this work with him. Apparently she even texted one of her friends, quote, when the fiance is not in the picture, we are all lovey dovey. So she goes along with it, helps him keep this secret. You know, for her there's an end in sight and she's going to be with him fully, openly soon. But in the meantime, she keeps the relationship off social media, which would probably be seemingly really hard for a day. Like she like loved social media. Like we said, she was always in contact with her family and friends and like this was a big part of her life.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Also being an actress in la, like social media is part of the job.

[Morgan Abshur]

You have to market yourself.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And so over the next few months, keeping this secret, being the other woman. Air quotes. Right. It takes a toll on a daya. She hates having to sneak around. You know, it's hard knowing that Chris is at home with Mary when he isn't with her. And she really begins to suspect that he actually isn't going to leave Mary ever. You know, he's saying, I'm gonna break up with her, but you can only say something for so long and then your actions speak louder than the words.

[Kayla Moore]

Of course. Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And as things go on, things get more and more heated between Adeya and Chris. They start having these huge, explosive fights. Chris actually stole Adeya's iPhone twice because she was threatening to get in touch with Mary and tell her the Truth. Apparently these fights escalated into some pretty horrific moments, too. Allegedly in response to stealing her phone, Chris said Adeya threatened him with a kitchen knife. Then there was a time when Chris made an audio recording as he stormed out of an argument and got into his truck to leave. And that's when Adeya leapt into the bed of the truck to try and stop him from driving away. I've listened to the audio. We're gonna play a clip for you guys here. I'll let you make your own thoughts on it. You know, let me know what you think of the recording. But it's a really hard thing to listen to. I'm not recording anymore. You have beat me up. Get out of my truck. I have beat me up. You've taken my Rolex. You took my Rolex. You took my Rolex. You beat me up. Everything hurts. Just get out of my truck. I'm not getting out till I get my Rolex. Please get out of my truck. You have my Rolex. And my keys. And my iPhone. No. My second iPhone.

[Kayla Moore]

Yes, you have it.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yes. Even my find my iPhone shows me the address of your place. Do you think I have it in my house? Show me it. Show me. Open up your iPhone. So after this, Chris ends up driving off down the street. He leaves, and things just got more unpredictable and messy between the two of them. They did stay together, mainly because of how manipulative Chris seemed to be. Because as soon as he felt Adeya slipping away, he would do something wild to try to keep them together. You know, there was love bombing, there's gaslighting, there's. There's a lot going on here, you guys. Which may be why he ended up proposing to Aaya in January and then talked about moving in together. Filled out that rental application together.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Cuz he's like, oh, you want to see how serious I am? I'm willing to marry you and sign a lease together. And that quiets that argument for the time being, absolutely.

[Morgan Abshur]

He was pulling out all the stops, but it still didn't really seem like he had any real plans to break it off with Mary.

[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Morgan Abshur]

Your pet won't. They don't know what insurance is.

[Kayla Moore]

On the night of February 19, 2018, four days before Adeya disappeared, he and Adeya got into apparently what was their biggest fight yet. Chris had been dragging his feet on signing the lease on their new apartment together, which Adeya took as a sign that he wasn't really serious about their relationship. I mean, rightly so. After going back and forth for hours, Chris stormed out of a day as apartment and drove back to his and Mary's place. And in response, Adeya decided to take things into her own hand. She actually sent Mary a message on Instagram and it read, quote, hi Mary, I would like to talk to you urgently. It's about Chris. Please give me a call if you can. Which in the grand scheme of things is a very measured way to send that message, I would add. So, and then after that, she drove to Chris and Mary's apartment and parked on the street outside and she stayed there the entire night. And according to phone records, she called Chris 22 times that night, but he never Answered, that's because he was inside the apartment having to confess to Mary that he had been having an affair. And it was not going very well, as you can imagine. According to Mary, Chris told her that he'd had a fling with a Daya. Not that he was about to sign a lease with this woman, but he had been trying to break it off for months, and Adeya wouldn't let him. Always an excuse. And he told her that Adeya had actually threatened to take her life if he left. So he really framed it to be like, I'm put in this position where I can't leave this woman that I was having a fling with. And according to Mary, he also told her that Adeya's family had ties to the Albanian mafia, which is why he was afraid to upset her too much, though. I mean, we've looked into this case. There's, like, no real evidence that that's true at all. Regardless of the excuses, Mary was so pissed that on that night, she actually kicked Chris out of bed and made him sleep, literally, on a dog bed in the living room. And in the morning, Chris promised Mary that it was over between him and Adeya. But as we know, it definitely was not over. No. A few days later, on February 22, she caught him texting with a Daya again. And in response, Chris literally bent his phone until the screen shattered, just so Mary wasn't able to read his messages. And that's when she fully kicked him out of the apartment. So instead, with nowhere else to go, Chris managed to convince Adeya to let him stay at her place. Though it seems like Chris may have also tried to play the sympathy card with her a little bit. Seems like he told a Daya that his uncle in Sacramento had just died of a heart attack. And so on the night of February 22, the night before a day had disappeared, she let Chris spend the night at her place. Obviously, up until this point, Chris had been doing a ton of lying, but so far, his movements still line up with the story that he eventually told a Day as friends when they reached out to him, which is that they broke up on Friday morning, the 23rd, and she told him she never wanted to see him again. But a few days after A day went missing, the LAPD learned something that really called Chris's story into question. Investigators spoke to another one of Adeya's friends who showed them texts from a day before she disappeared that morning, Texts that seem to indicate they absolutely did not break up. Because in those messages, Adeya mentions that she's going to Sacramento with Chris for his uncle's funeral.

[Morgan Abshur]

And this is our first break in this case because when police end up looking at the security footage from the parking garage and the elevator of Adeya's apartment complex, they find that Chris's story is not adding up. The camera captures footage of them in the elevator. They are seemingly happy. They're wearing matching baseball hats. It goes and follows them into the parking garage where Adeya has a neck pillow and two suitcases, seeming like they're going away for a weekend trip. Yeah, no trouble in paradise. Clearly not breaking up.

[Kayla Moore]

Not this huge breakup that he said happened.

[Morgan Abshur]

The video then shows them getting into a car together and driving away. No sign of forcing into the car. They're just seemingly fine. And if you're watching on YouTube, you will see a picture of them in the elevator. It definitely doesn't look to me like they've just had a fight.

[Kayla Moore]

It looks like they're going on a trip together. Like they're spending a weekend.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, especially not a fight where a day says, I never want to see you again. Yeah, they're kind of looking at Chris now like, dude, your story is not adding up at all. And it gets even weirder when they make contact with Chris's family and they find out his uncle didn't die.

[Kayla Moore]

After finding this surveillance footage of a Daya leaving with Chris on February 23, 2018, the police call Chris in for questioning. And while he told Adeya's friends that the two of them broke up, he hasn't seen her since. This whole story that he's been sticking to, he tells LAPD a completely different story through a statement that was issued by his lawyer, actually. So in this statement, Chris says that he decided to take Adeya on a little trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain. It's this theme park that's right up the road. It's like 45 minutes north of us in LA. But this statement doesn't mention the trip continuing on to this funeral for his supposedly dead uncle. He does say, however, that on the way to the park, he and Adeya got into a fight. And he claims that she started slapping him and punching him while he was driving. So according to him, he pulled over on the side of the freeway in the north LA suburb of Santa Clarita and he let her out of the car. And according to his statement to police, that was the last time that he really saw her was when he let her out of the car after this fight. But that's not the only thing he says. He also tells them that after he dropped a day off in Santa Clarita on February 23, he actually kept driving north to visit his father, who lives on a horse farm in a rural area outside of Sacramento, which. That's, what, like a five hour drive? So you.

[Morgan Abshur]

Not a quick drive.

[Kayla Moore]

It's a hike up there. And he figured that this visit might be therapeutic for him and maybe it would help him, like, better understand some of the mistakes that he was making in his life.

[Morgan Abshur]

Okay, so clearly this whole thing is strange, right? Why two suitcases and a neck pillow just to go to Six Flags? Why. Why would you leave your girlfriend. Ex girlfriend. On the side of the road? Like, you guys, there's a massive highway to get up there. Like, it's not like it. Why would you.

[Kayla Moore]

It's also 45 minutes away.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's from LA.

[Kayla Moore]

It's far. To leave someone get home on their own accord.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's weird. So it's all sounding really strange. Right? So before I jump into this next part, I just want to preface this, that Chris's dad is also named Chris, but his last name is Merez. So from here on out, we're gonna refer to Chris's dad as Mrez. So here's the thing. Chris and his dad, Marez, have had a pretty rough relationship. You know, as I mentioned, his dad wasn't really in his life when Chris was growing up. In fact, he was never married to Chris's mom, Jade. He got Jade pregnant when they were in high school. And the way Jade describes it, this was allegedly a sexual assault. So understandably, she wanted to raise her son without any influence from this guy, which is why Chris almost never saw his father. But according to Chris's mom, this made Merez really angry. According to Jade, for years, Mrez was harassing her, stalking her, trying to get her back into his life. Supposedly, he broke into her house one time while she was gone and left a giant kitchen knife in her bed as, like, seemingly a threat.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, it's like the Godfather.

[Morgan Abshur]

Oh, God. That's. Yeah. She filed police reports about this, but authorities never charged Mrez with a crime. Though it was because of all of this that Chris and Mrez were never really close. Like a very strained relationship, from everything I've heard and read, and just a lot of resentment by the sounds of it, on Chris's part. Mary, who Chris was with for four years, had never even met Mrez, actually. So it's strange that on February 23, the day a Daya goes missing. Chris decides to pay a visit to his estranged father outside of Sacramento after supposedly kicking his girlfriend out of the car.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. And once the police hear that Chris went to go visit Merez, they decide to pay Merez a little visit. And he basically confirms right away, yes, my son did drive up to visit me on the night of the 23rd, and he was alone. But he says that Chris and him got into a fight almost immediately. According to Mrez, Chris left his house after just 15 minutes and went to stay the night at a hotel in Sacramento. And then he drove back to LA the next day, which is February 24, and returned to his and Mary's apartment. So Chris's official story, because we just talked about how far it is, like his official story is that he made basically a 12 hour round trip to Sacramento all so that he could see his dad for 15 minutes, the entire time of which they fought.

[Morgan Abshur]

Not really adding up for me.

[Kayla Moore]

Very, very strange. So it doesn't seem like the police really get much out of Chris or his dad either time that they're like, talking to them. So while they continue their investigation, Adeya's friends and family are really trying to keep up the search for her. Like there just needs to be something to keep the momentum going. So in the weeks after she disappears, they decide to talk to the media. Adeya's mother actually flies to LA from Macedonia to try and find her, which is just like the most heartbreaking thing I can imagine. But there's one thing that everyone pretty much unanimously agrees on. It's that Chris, with his conflicting versions of events, is starting to seem very suspicious. The problem is there's no physical evidence to indicate that anything bad has happened to a Day yet or that Chris was responsible. Like, the police still in their minds are thinking maybe she just ran away. It's like definitely looking weird, but that's on the table still. It's one of those, like, nobody no crime situations, which always get a little sticky. And so everyone keeps searching for a Daya. Chris starts getting more and more nervous. He insists to Mary that they need to leave their apartment and start staying in hotels. He says that they can't stay in the apartment anymore. Chris tells her it's because he's worried about A day's family and their supposed ties to the Albanian mafia, which we've discussed is probably not accurate at all.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

And in early March of 2018, he ends up leaving LA and essentially goes into hiding. Though it seems like Mary's had enough at that point, and she decides to not go with him. The LAPD continue their investigation all the same. They're not aware at that point, though, that Chris has left town. Like, they're still investigating, and he kind of is able to slip out without them noticing. And that's going to be a real challenge because they're about to make a pretty big breakthrough in the investigation.

[Morgan Abshur]

Investigators actually end up getting access to Chris's cell phone record. And this is our second clue in this one, because Chris's data tells a very interesting story. Story that's a little different than the one he's been telling.

[Kayla Moore]

So far, the data doesn't lie.

[Morgan Abshur]

So on February 23, his phone has him leaving LA and driving north, just like he said. But he doesn't stop in Santa Clarita at all like he had previously told police, which means he never let a day out of the car there. Yeah, Instead, he kept driving north without stopping until he reached a remote wilderness area in the mountains north of LA called Lake of the Woods. According to his cell phone data, Chris was stopped there for 40 minutes on February 23rd. And investigators think that this is more than enough time to kill someone and then bury a body. Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

And it seems like because of that, Chris is finally named as a person of interest in AA's case by the police. And so, on March 10, after uncovering Chris's cell tower data, police begin searching the Lake of the woods area. And while they're there, they actually don't find any evidence that Adeya was there or that there was, like, any dirt that had been turned up, any shallow graves or anything. Meanwhile, police are now trying to track Chris down again for more questioning because they have lost track of him. He was able to escape, and eventually they learn that he's staying with his family back in Colorado. Detectives decide to go make that trip. But at some point, Chris probably gets tipped off, because when they get there, to his family home, they realize that, like, Chris has left again. And that means Chris is officially on the lam. The LAPD flags his license plate number, so if any traffic cameras anywhere in the US Scan his plates, it's actually going to report his location. So in theory, they should be able to find him really quickly. And on March 22, 2018, almost a month after a day's disappearance, a red light camera does spot Chris's pickup truck near San Bernardino, California. That's about 60 miles east of LA. An alert goes out to the local police, and within a matter of minutes, sheriff's deputies pull Chris over as he's pulling out of a gas station. They get him so fast, the deputies approach the truck. They have their weapons drawn, but moments later, the truck starts up again and he speeds off down the road. The police end up chasing Chris for another minute or two before he pulls over again. And then they see another man jump out of the passenger side door and onto the side of the road. Then Chris hits the gas, gets onto the freeway, and he leads the police into a high speed chase. They end up having to lay those spike strips across the highway to stop him. Like, it gets. It goes on for so long that they have to like, physically stop the car. And that works. It shreds his tires. But Chris is really persistent. He tries to drive on just his rims for a while and eventually that's not working, so he has to pull over to the side of the highway. You can't get very far on just your rims. Once again, police surround the truck. They have their guns drawn. They order him to get out, but instead, Chris does stay inside of the truck and he shoots himself. He dies instantly on the scene. And when police search the truck afterwards, they find a whole slew of things in the car. All of them are very strange. There's like vodka, whiskey, THC gummies, testosterone pills, nutritional supplements for weightlifting, about a dozen self help books. There's two guns, a tape recorder, over 100 rounds of ammunition, and also script pages for one of Chris's upcoming auditions, which also, if you have over 100 rounds of ammunition, I'm thinking you're considering doing something a little bit more drastic than just taking your own life.

[Morgan Abshur]

That's a lot of ammo.

[Kayla Moore]

It's a lot of ammo to have. So shortly after this chase, an investigator interviews the man who jumped out of the Chris's truck. And his name was Chance, and he was one of Chris's childhood friends from when he was growing up in Colorado. Chance has like a whole story too. When the police start talking to him, he like starts giving them all this information. And he says that when Chris returned to Colorado In March of 2018, he was in a very, very, very bad place mentally. I mean, as we have seen, he was so stressed out from this police investigation that he was planning to get a hotel room in Colorado. And he had told Chance that it was definitely a possibility that he was going to die by su inside of the hotel room. But Chance said that at the time, he had actually convinced Chris to not go through with it. But that's when Chris asked Chance to join him on A mission. One that he said would prove that it wasn't him who killed Adeya. The plan was they were going to make this road trip to Sacramento to visit his father, Merez. And apparently Chris had confessed to Chance why they needed to confront his father. They said that after Chris supposedly dropped a day off in Santa Clarita, he called Mirez to vent about her. He said all these things about Adeya. He mentioned how she threatened to ruin his life. He said that's when Merez told him to not worry. Apparently, this is what this is all according to Chance. So, like, I mean, take everything with a grain of salt because, like, Chris is no longer around. But Chance said that Chris told him that Merez had said on the phone, quote, girls go missing from LA every single day. And according to Chris, Merez said that he would take care of it. And then he hung up the phone. And Chris ended up telling Chance that after this call, he believes his dad drove to Santa Clarita, picked a Daya up from the side of the highway, apparently where he had dropped her off, and either kidnapped her or killed her in order to protect him. So Chris wanted Chance to come with him to Merez's house near Sacramento so that they could, I guess, like, retaliate was the plan. And he told Chance, quote, listen, dude, if that body is anywhere, my dad is going to know where it's going to be. It seems like Chris, like, maybe his plan was to get back at Merez for what he did. Like, even though he didn't really exactly know what he had done to a Daya, he wanted to tie him up and be beat him until he told them exactly what had happened to her. According to Chance, that's where they were headed when the police stopped them outside of San Bernardino. And that kind of explains why they had all those guns and a tape recorder in the car.

[Morgan Abshur]

Now, obviously, a lot of this story doesn't really align with what we've heard.

[Kayla Moore]

No, I mean, off the bat, we know that they weren't in Santa Clarita. So it just, like, already is wrong.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, but it appears to police that, like, Chance is telling the truth, at least as far as Chance knows it.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, like, this is just what Chance was told and he has no reason to lie. Maybe.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, exactly. But Chance, like, also didn't really seem to believe Chris's story about his dad either. Chance said he was just trying to help and be a loyal friend, you know, help his buddy out in a time of need. I mean, it was very apparent that Chris was clearly struggling. Despite maybe not believing it wholeheartedly, he still shared all of these details with police. And after this, they uncover our third clue. You see, there were a lot of people wondering if maybe this story had some truth to it. On March 26, 2018, four days after Chris died by suicide, a search team discovered a shallow grave that held the remains of Adeya. But it wasn't at Lake of the woods where police had initially been searching. You know, this the place that Chris was at for 40 minutes on his long drive up. Instead, they found her body over 430 miles north of lake near a creek bed in the Spenceville wildlife area just outside of Sacramento. She was wrapped in a tarp that was secured with twine, a clear sign to police that they were dealing with a homicide. Something that was later confirmed by the autopsy, which determined that Adeya had died of blunt force trauma to her head. In their initial report, the LAPD didn't conclusively identify her killer, but they did speculate that Chris most likely had something to do with it, especially since a day was last seen getting into his truck and he was driving through the Sacramento area on the day that she disappeared.

[Kayla Moore]

Right. So we're kind of at this point where police think they know what happened. They're not sure entirely, but this is where the investigation basically ends. Their one prime suspect that they had, Chris, is dead. So they kind of just decide that there's nothing else that can be done. The case is closed, the person who did it is dead. There's nothing they can do. And then they just kind of wrap up the investigation. But Adeya's family is like very not satisfied with this conclusion. They felt like there was still a lot of loose ends. They ended up at this point paying a private investigator to continue the investigation after the police moved on. And he kept uncovering details that raised kind of a lot of new questions about what happened on the day Adeya died. For example, Adeya's body was discovered at the far end of a dirt road that begins just 200 yards away from Mirez's house. And as this private investigator talked to more members of Chris's family, he discovered something else about Miraz's potential involvement.

[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

At the grocery store, and in the park.

[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

In the family chat or trading those.

[Kayla Moore]

Late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay.

[Morgan Abshur]

Between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us.

[Kayla Moore]

WhatsApp message privately with everyone.

[Morgan Abshur]

Which brings us to clue number four. The phone call. On February 24th, one day after a day went missing, Mrez ended up calling Chris's mother, Jade. And this was really strange, right? Like, we've talked about their previous relationship and interactions.

[Kayla Moore]

Beyond estranged.

[Morgan Abshur]

Beyond estranged. It was clear that Merez was like, harassing, stalking, threatening Jade. Like, these two weren't good. So to get a call out of the blue when they haven't spoken in years, really out of the ordinary. So out of the ordinary that Jade actually took notes about this phone call, which she then later gave to this private investigator.

[Kayla Moore]

I mean, good for her for having the wherewithal to be like, I need to write some of this down because this is so weird.

[Morgan Abshur]

So smart. So based on this phone call, it seemed like Merez really wanted to talk about Chris's visit the day before. Merez repeatedly told Jade that Chris only stayed for 15 minutes, then left after they got into a fight, which is the same story that he told police. He also talked about Chris's affair and relationship troubles, which Jade also knew about. But here's where things get even weirder. According to Jade, Mrez kept repeating the line, people go missing from LA all the time. Same line that Chance had said.

[Kayla Moore]

So it is adding up in some ways. Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And when she asked if he was referring to Chris, he said, no, no. The girl Jade then replied, quote, oh, my God, Mary, what's going to happen to Mary? And that's when Mrez says, quote, no, the little one, the other girl, she's missing, presumably referring to Adeya. Now, this freaks Jade out because no one knows Adeya is missing yet. It's not on the news. It's only been a day after she was last heard from. Even her friends haven't reported her missing yet.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, there's no missing person's report at this point. No one's missing. She isn't really missing.

[Morgan Abshur]

So the only way Mraz knows this information is if he got it from Chris, if Chris told him about it or if maybe he was involved somehow.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. And this is like where things start getting even stranger than they have already been this entire time. So the only reason that police were even looking for a day his body in the Spenceville Wildlife area was because Mrz was the one that tipped them off. A few days after Chris died by suicide, Mrz actually called the investigators with a new detail about his son's 15 minute visit on the night of February 23rd. He said that when Chris arrived, he actually confessed to him that he had killed Adeya and buried her body by a creek in the Spenceville Wildlife area. And Mrez says that at first he didn't believe his son. He thought that maybe Chris was just so stressed out he was imagining things. But apparently when he told Chris that it he got so angry that the visit ended in a huge fight. And that's what caused Chris to leave a few minutes later. So that's what they were fighting about for those 15 minutes. According to Mrez, he was just a total bystander in this whole process. He had nothing to do with anything. He just listened to his son when he showed up and then his son got mad and left. The obvious question here though is if Chris told Mrz he killed Adeya on February 23, then why didn't Mrz call the police when Adeya's disappearance made the news a few days later? Or why did you not call the police immediately if someone shows up to your door and says that they killed someone? Like that is the time to get the investigation started. Mirez actually had talked to journalists, he had talked to investigators. He had even, and this part always breaks my heart so much, but he had even talked to members of a day his family during the month long search for her body. And he never once said anything about it. So I don't want to hear that you were just a, an observer of this whole situation. Like absolute garbage.

[Morgan Abshur]

That's honestly, that's sick. Talking to her friends and family. Yeah. Pretending to not say anything like, oh.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow, I wonder what happened.

[Morgan Abshur]

That's absolutely sick.

[Kayla Moore]

It's disgusting. And so this caused a people to wonder, was he just trying to protect his son or was he also trying to protect himself? Because it's starting to look a lot like the latter.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. And it's a somewhat convenient story because the other person who could shed light on it isn't around anymore. And so everything Merez is saying it's there's no physical proof that he was involved in a day's murder. Still, the private investigator hired by AA's family keeps on digging. And he gets some crucial help from Chris's ex fiance, Mary. Even as she was mourning her longtime partner, she wanted Adaiya's family to be able to have as much closure as possible. So she gave the private investigator access to Chris's Google data, which is our next clue. We talked earlier about the cell tower data, which police used to track Chris's approximate location on the day that Adeya disappeared. But your phone also tracks much more precise data about where you are through your location services that are just, like, embedded.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, it's terrifying how accurate your phone can, like, track your location or how were just talking about this. Like, if you have gambling apps on your phone, they know the room of your house that you're in.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. So unless you've told it not to, your phone is recording your exact location down to the very foot, you guys. And it does this. Like, even if you're on airplane mode.

[Kayla Moore]

Apparently it's just constantly tracking.

[Morgan Abshur]

Insane. And then all this information is actually stored by Google.

[Kayla Moore]

Don't you love that? Don't you love that there's a big tech company that knows where we are at all moments down to the foot.

[Morgan Abshur]

I've actually started, like, as you go to Google stuff, it'll prompt you, like, share your location to help better results.

[Kayla Moore]

Don't do it, guys. No, don't do it. It's not worth it.

[Morgan Abshur]

But luckily we have this info because it gives investigators a more accurate picture of Chris's movements on February 23rd.

[Kayla Moore]

No, absolutely. This is, like, the one in a billion time where it's, like, very useful.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. So it turns out that morning, Chris went to a hardware store in North Hollywood. And when investigators checked the store records, they found that Chris had purchased a pair of gloves, a flashlight, a large towel, and a shovel. Then he went to a day's apartment and picked her up. They drove straight up the i5 without stopping in Santa Clarita. But the investigators learned from this data that Chris didn't stop at Lake of the woods like police had originally thought. Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

Which is weird because that's what his phone had said.

[Morgan Abshur]

That's what it was looking like. Right.

[Kayla Moore]

40 minutes. That's like, an interesting, like, inaccuracy.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's a long, long window of time. Police thought he actually stayed there for 40 minutes because his phone lost reception in that area. So it kept pinging a Tower near Lake of the woods until it found reception again. Okay, got it.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

So, based on all of his Google data, he and Andea only made two brief stops for gas on the drive up to Sacramento. Meaning it's almost certain that Adeya was still alive and in. In the car with him at 7:53pm when they neared the rural area where Mrez lived. It also shows Chris didn't drive directly onto his dad's property when he got there. Instead, he turned onto a narrow gravel lane about a mile away. He followed it to a spot that was hidden from the main road by a low hill. And he stayed there in the middle of an empty field at night for about 21 minutes. According to the private investigator, this 21 minute stretch was likely when Chris murdered Adeya. He then called Mrez and then his Google data stopped for a bit. Likely because he turned off his phone.

[Kayla Moore]

Interesting time to turn off the phone after you've committed the crime. Doesn't feel like he thought it through at all.

[Morgan Abshur]

No. I'm. I mean, no, you would think someone would turn off their phone the whole day, but.

[Kayla Moore]

But then you see like Bryan Coburger too, like driving around in the area with his cell phone on. Like, it's just like a. People don't think about it.

[Morgan Abshur]

No. And we're going to get to that one.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

So here's where things get even shadier. Like, as if that's possible. The cell phone wasn't off all night. Chris would like, turn it back on to make a few calls or texts and then he would shut it off again. And even though Mraz kept telling everyone that Chris had only been at his house for 15 minutes that night, based on the Google data, Chris was actually on and around his father's property for five hours. So it's unclear if Mrez knew his son was on the property the entire time or did Chris pretend to leave and then just kept lurking. Mrez specifically told investigators that Chris never left his site during his alleged 15 minute visit. It's also worth noting that when police investigated Marez's farm, they found a shallow body sized empty hole that had been dug on another location on the property. Investigators said though, that it looked like someone had like started digging this hole, hit a layer of like rock or bedrock so they couldn't dig any further, and so they gave up and abandoned it. But when asked by police, like Mraz like, do you know anything about this? He said that the hole had been dug by his dogs, but then later changed his story to the hole had been dug by a coyote. In another interview, he suggested squirrels dug the hole.

[Kayla Moore]

A like 4 foot by 6 foot hole in the ground. Ground squirrels was not dug by ground squirrels. I'm sorry, you guys.

[Morgan Abshur]

I have ground squirrels all over my neighborhood. Their hole is the size of a large softball.

[Kayla Moore]

And they're just digging graves all over your neighborhood.

[Morgan Abshur]

No, come on, come on.

[Kayla Moore]

Who's going to buy that? What dog digs a human grave size hole?

[Morgan Abshur]

Like, no, he was the one that told investigators where to search.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, he clearly knew something.

[Morgan Abshur]

Come on. So you have to wonder, like, what part of all of this is he lying about? Even after a day his body was found and he admitted that Chris had confessed to killing her. Like, why does he continue to cover and cover so stupidly? Squirrels, you guys. Squirrels.

[Kayla Moore]

I know. Yeah. For a son that he was estranged from and yeah, is very odd.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. There also was a crime scene investigator that anonymously told the podcast to live and die in L. A. That they believed the twine and tarp that was found wrapped around a day a had come from Merez's farm.

[Kayla Moore]

I mean, that would make sense because he didn't buy that at the store. He just bought, like the flashlight and the shovel.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. And maybe Chris knew where to go on his dad's property, but, like, again, these two were very estranged.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, but how would he have known? It didn't seem like he visited the property that often.

[Morgan Abshur]

No, I don't buy it. And then there's a little bit more to his Google data. So just after 4am Chris finally checked into a hotel in Sacramento. And later that day, he did drive back to la. But his data shows that he stopped in multiple small towns along the way, going to random locations like a strip mall, a car wash, gas stations. And at one stop, the data showed that he went around back to the dumpsters. Again, to the foot. You guys.

[Kayla Moore]

Scary.

[Morgan Abshur]

And so private investigators believe that Chris was actually disposing of Daya's belongings. You know, getting rid of stuff, those two suitcases, all of this. But by the time investigators learned about all of this, those dumpsters had long been emptied.

[Kayla Moore]

Have you ever, like, read about how hard it is to recover things from a dump, like, even if they were dumped like the day before?

[Morgan Abshur]

So I do personally know because I've tried to do it.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, did you, like, throw something away that was important?

[Morgan Abshur]

My contractor threw away the door to our house. And it was like a really historical door. And so I tried to go find it and get it, and it was no. Shot in hell.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, my gosh.

[Morgan Abshur]

So, yeah, it's. It. It's using needle in a haystack. No, this is like a needle in the United States.

[Kayla Moore]

I remember reading about a case where there were the bodies of sex workers showing up in a dump in Orange county. And they were saying, like, it was something like every day an entire football field worth of trash was being thrown in this dump just on top of each other constantly. And so, like, once something's in the dump, it's like it's so gone, you'll never find it.

[Morgan Abshur]

No, it's. It's impossible.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

So over the next several months, the private investigator and Adeus family share all the info they've collected with this true crime podcast, To Live and Die in la. And roughly a year after Adeya's murder, a listener reaches out. They want to put the creators in touch with someone who has another clue about what happened that night. That someone was Merez's ex wife, Kim Merez. According to Kim, sometime after a day his body was found, Mrez came to her acting pretty upset. He told her that on the night of February 23rd, Chris showed up at the house and told him exactly how he had killed Adeya. Chris said that he had pulled over during the drive up and suggested that he and Adaiya sit in the bed of his truck and look out at stars. He then hit her in the head with the shovel while she was distracted. Chris even told Mrz that her body was still in the truck. And then Kim claims Chris asked Merez to help him bury the body.

[Kayla Moore]

That makes the most sense to me. Like, honestly, yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

According to Kim, Merez said he was reluctant, but that Chris played the guilt card, saying that Merez owed him this because he was never there for him when he was a kid. So Merez told Kim that he led Chris into the Spenceville Wildlife Area and held the flashlight while Chris dug a day's grave. Kim knew Miraz well enough to know when he was lying, or so she thinks. And she believed that during this confession to her, he was telling her the truth. She didn't think he had anything to do with the murder, but she felt very certain that he did help Chris cover it up. And obviously, like, we will never know what was going through Chris head. We'll never know truly, without a doubt what happened. And even if he was alive, like, could you believe any story you get from him? There's a lot of speculation on this case about how involved Mrez is was. And there's one last clue we're going to get into that's going to have us maybe speculating even more. So there was a ridiculous amount of phone calls between Chris and Merez in the days before Adeya's disappearance. As we've discussed, Mrez not a major presence in Chris's life. And so looking at Chris's phone bill in the lead up to Adeya's murder, you can see that they had pretty limited contact. If we look To November of 2017, Chris had four phone calls with Mrez. In December, they talked on the phone three times. But in February of 2018, in the 20 days before Adeya went missing, Chris and Merez talked on the phone 41 times.

[Kayla Moore]

That's twice a day.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

Three times in a month. 2:41 times in a month. That's a big jump. And in just the three days before a day as disappearance on February 23rd, they talked on the phone 14 times. In fact, they had a nine minute conversation that ended right before Chris picked up a Daya at her apartment.

[Kayla Moore]

It sounds like plotting. It's, it's a lot of time to come up with a plan.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's giving plot. Especially when you have multiple different witnesses saying that Mrez had made comments about women. People disappear in LA all the time.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, girls go missing in LA all the time.

[Morgan Abshur]

So this could be suspicious. It could not be. You know, maybe Chris was looking for someone who could talk him down from this plan. Maybe he was reaching out during a mental health episode. We're never really gonna know. And I will say there is no evidence to suggest that Mrez knew what his son was about to do.

[Kayla Moore]

That we have. Yeah, none that we know of so far.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yes, so far. There's a lot of loose ends and theories. Like clearly, I mean, I look to these phone calls and I have a hard time imagining his father was not at least in the know somewhat. The comments alone kind of make me really question the involvement. And everybody on Reddit that's learned about this case pretty much is asking one big question. Should Mrez have been charged with a crime? He has admitted that he held a flashlight. This was on his property. I mean, there's some people that think he should be charged at least with like accessory to murder.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, absolutely.

[Morgan Abshur]

So there's a lot of feelings out there on that. Others are saying the evidence on him is not gonna hold up. It's so thin. As for Chris and Adeya though, there's one detail I found that might have kind of been like the breaking point for all of this, like, a really big catalyst. A friend of a day as named angel said that there was a chance a day I might have been pregnant with Chris's baby. Apparently, she told another friend around February 12th that they weren't using protection, and she was happy over the thought of carrying his child. Though I never heard of there being any evidence of this pregnancy found in the autopsy.

[Kayla Moore]

I feel like you'd be able to know that in the autopsy.

[Morgan Abshur]

I think so.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

You know, they. They found her relatively quickly. Like, it doesn't seem like, you know, the evidence would have decomposed like some of the other cases we talk about, but nothing has ever officially been mentioned. And there's another loose thread in this one that I've seen talked about quite a bit. Now, we do know a Daya's door was left unlocked, but there's evidence to suggest that sometime that night, the day she disappeared, that there's use of her computer.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, you were talking about this. This isn't something I had really come across that much, but what was the big.

[Morgan Abshur]

On the computer? Yeah, it's big on the subreddit. There's never been any official mention of it. I will say, like, it seems like police really did their due diligence with this one. There's not a mark on the botched board. You know, they were really. They were traveling to Sacramento to interview Mrez. They went to Colorado to try to find Chris. They had this high speed chase trying to apprehend him. Like, there was no stopping what Chris was gonna do. Like, they did a seemingly good job and really thoroughly investigated this. But yeah, like, I would assume they checked her computer. They obviously it slipped out that there was use of it.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

But no mention of if files were deleted or what they really found during that part of their investigation. Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

It's interesting. I guess if it was used that night. Night it wouldn't have been Chris because they were gone.

[Morgan Abshur]

And so that's kind of the loose thread in this one.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, that is a really loose.

[Morgan Abshur]

Was there someone else that Chris called to, like, hey, can you go delete this? Unclear. Unclear.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Right. And then maybe that's why the apartment was left unlocked was because that person came in and out.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

And didn't lock it. Unclear one thing, too, that I remember Neil Strauss saying when he was talking, when they were, like, doing the press tour for this case, was he brought up? Because I agree with you, Morgan, like, ultimately, the police did find her body and they did investigate this case, and they were. I mean, there was like, Times where Chris was able to like slip away without them noticing. And that's like a huge. That was ultimately probably the reason he was able to like take his own life. He wasn't being surveilled. But like, Neil Strauss was talking about how in LA. I mean, we live in LA. Have you ever tried to call 911 here?

[Morgan Abshur]

Yes, but I'm more so Burbank.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh yeah, you're. You kind of have your own.

[Morgan Abshur]

But like, you know, when I lived in like Hollywood, like LA proper.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

Our home would get broken into multiple times. Like getting police to come out.

[Kayla Moore]

Yes. It's.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's a joke.

[Kayla Moore]

That's what he talked about. He just. In la, it is very difficult to get the police to respond to things.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's really challenging through like just because.

[Kayla Moore]

Of a variety of different reasons. But if you call like the non emergency line, it can be an hour and a half before you talk to an officer.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

And so he was saying that when it comes to missing persons reports, they are very quick to say, this is an adult that left. They will probably come back. If they don't come back, then you should contact us and we will file a missing persons report. And Neil Strauss was. This is what Neil says he was told by the LAPD that even if the police do get involved with a missing persons report, they recommend you also hire a private investigator, alongside which that.

[Morgan Abshur]

To me is insane because private investigators are not cheap. You guys. Like, this is someone with extreme expertise.

[Kayla Moore]

You have to be able to afford.

[Morgan Abshur]

The private investigator in this case was a previous detective. Like, yeah, they're not cheap.

[Kayla Moore]

No.

[Morgan Abshur]

So to have those resources to hire someone additionally to help you find your missing loved one or friend or whoever.

[Kayla Moore]

For that to be the expectation that if someone goes missing, you have to have the funds to be able to hire this person.

[Morgan Abshur]

That's pretty bad.

[Kayla Moore]

Is not great. And so ultimately, like Adeya's family was able to hire this private investigator, but it was still was like the police that I guess found her. But then the. The investigation was so inconclusive that the private investigator had to kind of finish the investigation and figure out exactly what happened.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

So it's just. Yeah, it's just a really sad case.

[Morgan Abshur]

No. And you were pulling up even the LA missing person website.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, we were. So. We were looking at the la. The. On the LAPD online website, there's a section for missing people. And it's so out of date, like not good.

[Morgan Abshur]

You guys.

[Kayla Moore]

The one person I looked up isn't missing anymore. It was a child that they found, actually, and he's safe. But they didn't, like, correct that on the website. A lot of the dates are wrong. The descriptions of people are wrong. The ages of nearly everyone were wrong.

[Morgan Abshur]

A lot of conflicting information.

[Kayla Moore]

A lot of conflicting information. It's like, how do you help out if you have all the wrong information on a person? Absolutely. So I was, like, I was really surprised to see. See that. So that's what we have today on the case of a Daya Shabani. We could spend years really, like, debating the intricacies of this case, but none of that will undo the tragedy of this murder. And unfortunately, AA and Chris's relationship did follow a cycle of abuse. Chris was manipulative and emotionally abusive to a Daya. There's maybe some evidence he was also physically abusive towards her. And this pattern of behavior eventually escalated into murder. So if you or someone you know is in a relationship where you feel unsafe, there are resources that can help. You can call the National Domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233. They'll help you find a shelter, find financial aid. There's also emotional support available for people. But just know that you're not alone, and there are resources out there not alone.

[Morgan Abshur]

And you deserve better if you are in a position similar to this. You guys. So. And with that, we close our case file, and not necessarily with a sense of resolution. I mean, Adeya's story is known, but there's no real justice for her, really.

[Kayla Moore]

No.

[Morgan Abshur]

And it could leave a lot of us feeling quite unsettled. But what this case does really have is Adeya Shabani, a vibrant young woman who is willing to do whatever it took to chase her dreams. She may not have gotten the chance to be the star she deserved to be, but to the people who loved her, a day will always shine bright. And for that, she will never be forgotten. And before we end this episode, we are going to be introducing a new segment. So when Kaylin and I started this podcast, we really asked ourselves what we wanted to do different. You know, there's obviously a lot of true crime out there, you guys. We hear other shows you listen to and things like that. So we wanted to be able to take this show and make a difference from the start. And so we are now going to be highlighting a missing person of the week and just trying to broadcast some other cases out there, really see if we can make a difference and spark some. Some change.

[Kayla Moore]

Totally. And this is something where we'll highlight someone every week. Morgan and I are going to be keeping track of these names too, but we would honestly love community involvement on this if other people want to help keep track of names like we're going to be searching through to see if there's updates on anyone but would love that. You can also feel free to send us recommend recommendations of people to highlight each week. This week we're going to highlight David Round so police in Gresham, Oregon are asking for the public's help locating a missing man. Caretakers reported that 67 year old David Round was missing from the 1000 block of Southeast 213th Avenue the morning of Wednesday, April 23rd of this year. Round has a cognitive disability and is missing required daily medication according to the police. Police we don't have much more information on the situation other than this, but Round is described as being black, 5ft 10 inches tall, about 190 pounds, bald with brown eyes and it's believed he was last seen wearing dark clothing. Anyone with information on Rounds whereabouts or has seen him should call 911 or you can call the non emergency line at 503-823-3333. And that's all we have for this episode of Clues. We hope that you guys found this case impactful. It's one with a lot of twists and turns and some loose ends that we are still very much hoping get resolved.

[Morgan Abshur]

I feel very unresolved right now.

[Kayla Moore]

Absolutely. I feel a little bit unsettled with this one. Also we want to hear from you guys your thoughts all like your theories, feedback, other like just thoughts on this case. All of that just makes this community so special.

[Morgan Abshur]

Absolutely. And at Crime House we really value your support. So again, share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow clues to help others discover our show. And if you're hungry for more content, we've got you covered. For more exclusive content, monthly bonus episodes, early access and ad free listening, join our Crime House plus community on Apple Podcasts.

[Kayla Moore]

Okay, we will be back next week with another case to unravel. Until then, keep searching and we will see you next time on Clues. Bye guys.

[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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