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Peyton Moreland (1:10)
You're listening to an Ono Media Podcast. Hey everyone and welcome back to the into the Dark podcast. I'm your host, Peyton Moreland. Thank you so much for being here. Please engage with this episode. Go leave a comment on Instagram any any engagement supports the show and I would really appreciate it for my 10 seconds today. It is Garrett's birthday. It's Garrett's birthday today. He's gonna go play golf, I'm gonna go to the gym and then we're gonna do dinner, we're gonna watch a movie at home. Garrett's very nonchalant king and he doesn't love being celebrated, so we don't do parties or anything like that. We just do a good little night at home and in. He loves watching movies together, so that's what we're gon. Garrett and I don't really do, like gifts for each other all the time for every holiday, so I don't have anything for him other than just like a note and stuff. I don't know if anyone was even wondering that and I don't know why I felt the need to say that, but I did. All right, so that is my 10 seconds today. If you haven't yet, please go over to Instagram and wish Garrett a Happy birthday. He's 31.
Laura Richards (2:26)
Sheesh.
Peyton Moreland (2:27)
He's old. I'm just kidding. If you're older than 31 and listen to this. It was a joke. All right, you guys, I love you and let's get into the episode. Trigger warning. This episode includes discussions of pregnancy loss, so please Listen with care. Now, there are a few things that are guaranteed for everyone, no matter what. Everybody who's alive today was born and then everybody dies. There is no escape from that. But when a new baby is born, you're usually not thinking about death. You're picturing all of the years that they have ahead of them growing up, getting a sense of who they are, and maybe even becoming a parent for themselves. But today I'm telling a story of a woman who gave birth and that set a chain of events in motion, which all ended with her murder. So let's get into it. This woman's name was Laura Abarca, and she lived in Wichita, Kansas, where she had a close relationship with her family and her neighbors. Laura was a hard worker, too. She was a first generation immigrant who came to the United States as a teenager. And afterward she held low paying jobs from the age of just 16 years old. While she was working full time, she also made her way through high school and then community college. It sounds exhausting, but no matter how tired she was, Laura was always a warm person who got along well with others. And she needed that kind of personality because in 2008 or so, when she was about 19 years old, Laura worked at a local steakhouse. Now, eventually she moved on from that job and got a position at Chipotle instead of. But if you've ever worked in customer service or in any kind of restaurant job, you know how important it is to get along with the people and seem friendly. And that's who Laura was. She was working at another restaurant in 2015, which is how she met a man named Manuel Gonzalez. He also worked at the same restaurant. But as Manuel and Laura got to know one another, something clicked. And before long, they were dating. And they got serious pretty fast. They moved in together within a year. And then in early 2016, Laura Emmanuel realized they were expecting a baby. This was good news for Laura, who was 27 at the time. She was very excited to become a mom. She told her mother, who lived with her and Manuel how much she was looking forward to growing her family. And Manuel and her mother were all in as well. All three of them were committed to raising the child together and giving them a warm, loving home. They filled the apartment with a crib and other supplies. Her friends threw her a baby shower. And then finally, little Sophia was born on November 11, 2016. Now Laura and Manuel were over the moon. It felt like a new chapter for them both. Well, on November 16th, Sophia was just six days old. But Manuel and Laura had bills to pay. And they couldn't afford to take a long break from work. So even though he'd only been a father for a week at this point, Manuel picked up a shift at his job. Like Laura, he worked in a local restaurant in Wichita. And that day, Laura's mother, Guadalupe, was also working. Which meant that after her boyfriend and her mom had both left home, Laura was home alone with her newborn baby, Sophia. Now, throughout that afternoon, she was quiet. She didn't reply to any texts or answer any phone calls. She was busy with a newborn. So this doesn't raise any red flags for anyone. Not until later that afternoon when Manuel got home at the end of his shift. And before he could even step back into the apartment, he saw something that made him instantly concerned. The door to the apartment was open. Now, Manuel never left without locking it up behind himself. And he knew that Laura also wouldn't leave the door open. And neither would Guadalupe. So something was very wrong. He rushes inside and he finds Laura lying on the couch. She was covered in blood and there was a visible gunshot wound on her forehead. Laura wasn't breathing or moving, and it was clear that she was beyond saving. Laura, who had just given birth a week earlier, was dead. Now, of course, right away, Manuel's next move was to check on his brand new daughter to see if she was okay. But Sophia wasn't in her crib or in the rocker, or honestly, anywhere near her mother's body. She wasn't in the apartment at all. Little Sophia had gone missing. Now, right away, Manuel ran to a neighbor's unit for help. He was too upset to know what else to do. But after he managed to explain to them what had happened, the neighbors convinced him to call the police. And he made the 911 call. And right away, detectives rushed over to survey the scene. They noticed some details that Manuel had originally missed. Like there were no signs of a struggle in the unit. The apartment was surprisingly neat and tidy, or as neat and tidy as any household with a week old newborn could be. Plus, Laura didn't have any defense wounds. There was no sign that she had tried to fight off an attacker. In fact, she might have actually been holding her phone when she was shot. It was lying right near her body. So this told police a few things. Perhaps Laura knew her killer. She might have let them in the apartment willingly. And then, based on the crime scene, it seemed the person had pointed a gun at Laura's face and then shot her before she could even react. She didn't have a chance to run away or Defend herself. So their first theory was that Laura must have been murdered by an ex boyfriend. See, before she got together with Manuel, she had been with a different man. He also lived in Wichita, not too far from Laura's apartment. And it seemed very possible that in a fit of jealousy, he could have come over and shot her. So the investigators number one priority, after talking to her friends and family, was to find the ex boyfriend. And they did, in Kansas City. See, he was out of town the day she was murdered, almost 200 miles away from Laura's home. He had friends who confirmed his alibi for the whole day. So it was clear he couldn't have done it. The police needed to keep looking. Now, their next stop was to question all of Manuel and Laura's neighbors. The woman who lived next door told the police that she had seen someone leaving Laura's apartment that day. She'd spotted a woman coming out of the door. This was just a few hours before Manuel got home from work and found Laura's body. Now, like I mentioned before, Laura was a friendly, outgoing person. The neighbor knew her, and she was confident that the lady leaving Laura's unit was not Laura. And more alarming, the neighbor said that the woman had visible blood on her. Now, unfortunately, the neighbor didn't recognize who the woman was, and she couldn't give the police any details that would help identify her. But next, when they questioned Laura's mother, Guadalupe, she told the detectives something interesting and more useful. She said that on the 15th, this was just the day before the murder, a friend had come over to visit. It was a woman Guadalupe knew as Jesse. Now, unfortunately, Guadalupe didn't know Jesse's last name or where she lived, so it wasn't much to go off of. Still, Guadalupe said that Jesse had dropped by because she was looking for a place to live, and she was interested in an open unit in Laura's building. So she had a lot of questions for Laura about what the property managers were like, whether it was a good neighborhood, those sorts of things. She also asked a lot of questions about security, about whether the building used surveillance cameras or if there were on site guards. And Laura actually reassured her just the day before she was murdered that it was a great neighborhood and very safe. But Jesse still had plenty of specific questions. Now, at the time of this conversation, Guadalupe didn't think much of Jesse's words. But now, with Laura dead, she had to wonder if Jesse had been asking about security because she was planning on coming back and attacking her daughter. Almost like she was trying to figure out if there were any building security measures that she would have to get past. The police also found this story about Jesse very suspicious, but they needed more information to figure out exactly who she was. Well, they had one more big clue, and it's something I mentioned earlier. The police had Laura's phone. They collected it from the crime scene, and when they pulled digital records from it, they saw that Laura had been exchanging WhatsApp messages with a woman, Yesenia Sesmas. And in those conversations, Yesenia had told Laura that she was planning to come over and visit on November 15th. This is the exact same time when Guadalupe said Jesse was there. And even more alarming, she talked to Laura about visiting again the next day. Meaning this woman had plans to come to the house the day Laura was murdered. Now, Yesenia was 34 years old, and she had been friends with Laura for a very long time, almost a decade. They met while they were working together at the same restaurant. It was this steakhouse I mentioned earlier. And even after Laura moved on to a different job and Yesenia moved out of state, the two of them stayed in touch. I mean, by 2016, Yesenia lived in Dallas, Texas. That was more than 350 miles away from Laura's home in Wichita. But still, the two of them texted and sent WhatsApp messages regularly. They talked on the phone about relationship problems, money issues, everything. As it turns out, Yesenia and Laura had similar lives, and it was easy for them to relate to one another. And toward the beginning of 2016, they realized they had one more thing in common. They both became pregnant at about the same time Laura was expecting baby Sophia. While Yesenia learned that she was going to have her second son. She already had a little boy, and now he was about to have a baby brother. But tragically, Yesenia's younger son was never born. She lost him in a miscarriage. And after this, Yesenia was devastated. She didn't know how she could go on. In fact, she didn't even tell any of her friends or family members what had happened. It was too painful to even talk about the pregnancy loss. The only person she opened up to about her miscarriage was Laura. I have a podcast that I know my listeners will enjoy called Fear Thy Neighbor on Fear Thy Neighbor from id, hear true stories from the victims of deadly neighborhood disputes. Most violent crimes that captured the public's imagination are about serial killers or crimes of passion. But what happens when the person you fear the most is living right next door? Each episode focuses on a different town where neighbors fall out over what should be minor and resolvable issues like when a neighbor borrows a lawnmower but returns it damaged, which sets off a violent course of events. Or how a man in Vancouver moves into a new building, finds himself helping out an elderly neighbor. Then they had several disagreements and a falling out that leads to his death. Here are these true stories told by the victims, their families and their neighbors, featuring real 911 calls and surveillance archives One of my favorite episodes is called Blizzard of Blood. A single woman and her two young sons believe they have found a perfect new apartment on a quiet street with an on site landlord, and soon after the lease is signed, the landlord begins to exhibit controlling and obsessive behavior, frequently monitoring the comings and goings of his tenants and flying into a rage over perceived parking infractions. The family's once idyllic living situation turns into a living hell of arguments and intimidation that finally ends in bloodshed and two shocking murders. Listen to Fear Thy Neighbor wherever you get your podcasts.