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- [00:00]
Narrator
Why choose a Sleep Number Smart Bed.
- [00:02]
Listener
Can I make my site softer?
- [00:03]
Trina
Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?
- [00:07]
Narrator
Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your Sleep number setting it's the sleep number biggest sale of the year. All beds on sale up to 50% off the limited edition smart bed plus free home delivery with the purchase of any smart bed ends Monday. All Sleep Number Smart beds offer temperature solutions for your best sleep. Check it out at a Sleep number store or sleepnumber.com today with comprehensive reports.
- [00:32]
Trina
On local schools you won't find anywhere else. Homes.com is the only place to find the in depth info home shoppers want very in depth info. Curious about where a school ranks in the state? Look no further. Percentage of teachers in their first or second year? We've got it. Lowest student teacher ratio? No problem. The best cafeteria lunch in the district for your nine year old food blogger. Would it surprise you if we said yes? Homes.com we've done your homework. Get ready for more of the gripping mysteries you love, because Forensic Files is back and they're revisiting some of your favorite episodes. Come along as investigators, scientists and experts piece together evidence, clues and data in search of the answers behind violent crimes, unexplainable mysteries, and other strange occurrences. Listen to Forensic Files on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [01:35]
Sarah Kaelin
Previously on who took Misty Copsey?
- [01:38]
Trina
I mean, the problem with this is she could be anywhere and you don't have anything. You have a bunch of weirdos, but you know there's bottom feeders all over that area. Trina eventually made it home from school, called my mom. My mom asked her, where is my daughter? Do you know where my daughter is? And she says, I don't know. I tried many times in many ways to reach Trina and she did not want to do it. And I understand because I think she feels enormous guilt and enormous sadness and probably unfairly blames herself for something someone else did. My mom would say from time to time, she knows more than what she's telling us. I know she knows more than what she's saying.
- [02:21]
Sarah Kaelin
From ID and ARC Media, I'm Sarah Kaelin, and this is who took Misty Copsey. A few days into my trip to Washington, I'd finally reached Misty's best friend, Trina. The friend Misty went to the fair with the night she disappeared. Trina has not granted an interview to the media since right after Misty disappeared, but by some miracle she's agreed to talk to me. We'll meet at her house after work, and I spend pretty much the entire day checking the clock, watching the minute tick by. I'm really worried that at any moment Trina might call and back out. Every time my phone buzzes, I have a tiny heart attack. She's done so with reporters before, like Sean Robinson, as the last person known to be with Misty the night of her disappearance. Trina is such an important source of information, perhaps the most important source of information, at least of people I have any shot of talking to on this trip. And as I drive up, I'm imagining all the different ways this conversation could go. Trina could stonewall me. She could be defensive, she could be evasive. She could just straight up not answer the door. Her account of what happened that night as given to the police at the time, changed. What if she's still hiding something? I know that in 1992 she was hanging out with a 22 year old man named Michael Reiner, a man with damning accusations against him, including a violent sexual attack on a different minor. Michael denied that accusation. Still, with everything I learn, Michael Reiner is inching higher and higher on my list of suspects. I have so many questions for Trina, and I'm honestly not sure I'll get any of them answered. An hour and a half later, my producer and I pull up at Trina's house. The car that drove by us last time is parked in the driveway. At least she's home. I walk up to the door and ring the bell. As soon as Trina opens the door, my nerves melt away. Trina opens the door with a warm smile. She's barefoot in a comfy oversized sweater with three friendly dogs at her feet. It's remarkable how much she looks just like the girl I've seen in those photos, palling around with misty more than 30 years ago. The same curly dark hair down to her shoulders now tinged with gray, and a distinctive, slightly mischievous glint in her eyes, though now behind glasses. I still don't know how candid she'll be. But her energy is not defensive. It's actually very inviting. Trina leads us into the carpeted living room, past a portrait wall of family photos. The dogs continue to run circles around our feet, including a puppy just a couple months old. As we start to settle in around the dining table, Trina tries to give the dogs bones to distract them, like.
- [05:41]
Trina
He normally eats it on the carpet. Over here. That's not yours.
- [05:45]
Sarah Kaelin
It's no use. No matter what she tries, the dogs Insist on bringing the bones under the table and sitting directly at Trina's feet. So please pardon the occasional chewing and chomping noises in the background. While my producer sets up the mic, I start to tell Trina why I'm here. What I really want from Trina is one thing. The truth. And the best way to get it is to make her feel at ease, lower any walls she may have built over many years of being questioned about this case. I tell her the same thing I said in my email, that I want to understand Misty. I want to actually get a chance to know Misty, who feels like she's been a little lost in the story of her own disappearance, part of the case. Like, nobody even talks about her.
- [06:38]
Trina
You're gonna make me cry. Because you're right. She was lost as a person because people are what happened. Yeah. Who else is involved? Yeah. That kind of thing. But as a person, she's no longer there.
- [06:52]
Sarah Kaelin
What frustrates me about this is that these two ideas are not in opposition to one another. To understand what happened and who may have been involved, literally the solving of the crime, I must get to know Misty first. I know I say this a lot, but I can never overstate the importance here. The way the solution depends on knowing the person. Misty deserves this. All victims deserve this as a way to bring them justice and also as a way to recognize their humanity. So I start at the beginning. How did Trina and Misty first meet?
- [07:32]
Trina
I punched her. I think it was sixth grade because we were still in elementary, where we had recess, and we were playing tetherball, and the ball hit me, and she put her hand on my shoulder and asked if I was okay. And I got up and I punched her. And then I felt really bad and apologized the next day. She lived in the same trailer park as I did, so I went to her house and apologized. And she had a whole bunch of friends over.
- [08:03]
Sarah Kaelin
Turns out it's Misty's 10th birthday. Misty doesn't hesitate. She accepts Trina's apology and asks Trina if she'd like to join the party.
- [08:12]
Trina
I think I ended up staying the night there that night. Yeah.
- [08:16]
Sarah Kaelin
Misty and Trina instantly become friends. They just hit it off right away. Trina starts spending a lot of time at Misty's.
- [08:25]
Trina
My home life was very abusive at the time. My mom was an alcoholic, and I didn't want to be at home a lot. I stayed at Misty's house all the time. I avoided my home as much as possible.
- [08:40]
Sarah Kaelin
Misty's home in the Green Meadows trailer park. Community was a refuge for Trina. And when I asked Trina what she remembers about Misty's personality, I can see why.
- [08:51]
Trina
What pops is how bubbly she was. She got along with everybody. Super friendly, kind, gentle soul. Very into sports, basketball, baseball. Loved it all. Loved the horseback ride. You could always catch her in jeans and a T shirt. Just an all around great person. She was one of kind. Loved her mom, loved her dad very equally. Didn't talk bad about either one of them.
- [09:22]
Sarah Kaelin
This catches my attention. I haven't heard much about Misty's dad, Paul Copsey, who went by Buck, but it sounds like he was a bigger feature of Misty's childhood than I realized. Honestly, that makes my heart happy. Especially after all the police claimed about Misty having an unhappy home life. I did reach out to Buck and he did not want to speak publicly about the case, which of course I will never push past.
- [09:50]
Trina
I remember going to her dad's house. They lived in the mountains and so I liked going there. It was peaceful, it was quiet. We could go play in the snow. We could ride horses. We could do whatever we wanted. Most of the time we stayed in the house taking pictures of each other. We would dress up differently and take a picture, change our clothes and put something else on and take a picture.
- [10:13]
Sarah Kaelin
I remember going through this same phase with my best friend at that age, around the same time. I still have some of the pictures we took. Dressed up in each other's clothes, posing like we thought we were hot shit. It's funny how experiences like that are kind of universal. Trina also tells me they loved New Kids on the Block at that time. Those pics of me and my best friend. Yeah, I still have them in a New Kids Trapper Keeper. You can take the girl out of the early 90s.
- [10:45]
Trina
Vanilla Ice.
- [10:46]
Sarah Kaelin
Yeah, yeah.
- [10:47]
Trina
1992. Yep.
- [10:51]
Sarah Kaelin
Most of Trina's memories of Misty include someone else, too. Misty's mom, Diana.
- [10:58]
Trina
Diana was very affectionate towards Misty. They had a great relationship. Very loving and fun. She was a tentative mom that worked a lot and worked whenever she could. So a lot of times we would be alone. It would just be me and Misty while her mom worked. And her mom took on several jobs during that time. She wore a lot of makeup, a lot of makeup. And it would take her two hours to get ready and put her face together and do her hair. I remember her sitting in the living room with as much natural light in the mirror and putting on her face all the time.
- [11:41]
Sarah Kaelin
Trina says she was spending so much time there, she even started Calling Diana mom.
- [11:47]
Trina
I called her mom because she was mom.
- [11:52]
Sarah Kaelin
This is exactly the kind of information, I mean, when I talk about really getting to know a victim and the details of her everyday life. In Misty's case, I see more and more pointing to a stable, secure home life that would be very unlikely to drive a kid to run away. Running away, which does happen to be clear, is about escaping. It's about the lesser of two evils. Diana sounds like she was a busy working mom a lot of the time, but it also appears that she was doing her best as a mom. And the home life for Misty was good. Unlike, for instance, Trina, who says she didn't really have a mother figure and in fact turned to Diana to fill that hole. As Diana stepped into that parental role for Trina, that meant at times, Diana had to lay down the law.
- [12:51]
Trina
She was also strict to the rules, definitely. If we were out of line, we knew it and she would call it out. Not an abusive mom, but if you were in trouble, you knew it. And so we just didn't get in trouble as much as possible.
- [13:07]
Sarah Kaelin
Misty's brother Colton told me once that Diana was soft and loving, but that she could be a gangster, too. She had that side of her. It was best not to mess with Diana Smith. In the spring of 1992, Misty and Diana moved out of Green Meadows.
- [13:30]
Trina
Green Meadows was at the bottom of a hill, and they moved to the top of the hill into a duplex.
- [13:36]
Sarah Kaelin
At that time, this is the duplex in Spanaway where Misty and Diana are living in. In September of 1992, even with more distance between them, Misty and Trina remain attached at the hip. Trina remembers meeting up to go to a grocery store nearby.
- [13:53]
Trina
We would go get donuts and eat the whole entire dozen.
- [13:59]
Sarah Kaelin
Not long after Misty's move, Trina moved too, to a town called Sumner in the opposite direction.
- [14:06]
Trina
My mom woke me up one morning and said, put everything in your suitcase. You're leaving, and dropped me off. To me, at the time, it was a random lady. I had no idea who she was.
- [14:18]
Sarah Kaelin
This random lady was Trina's new guardian, a woman named Marlene. The more I learn about Trina, both how hard her teen years were and how grounded and open she is now at 48 years old, the more empathy I have for what this entire ordeal must have been like for her, what it's still like, actually, it's clear that it's all very fresh and the pain of it is still right at the surface for her. In online discussions, I've seen People question if Trina knew more than she's let on. She's been vilified. I feel terrible about that and even worse about having bought into it to some degree myself. So this is the backdrop on September 17, 1992, when Misty and Trina decide to go to the Puyallup Fair. That afternoon, Diana and Misty come to pick up Trina.
- [15:20]
Trina
She changed in the car from her school clothes to play clothes. And then her mom dropped us off. The day was a great day. We were together, we were having fun. I can't remember what we did first, but we rode rides. I remember one particular ride that we were in a bucket seat and it was in a cage and it went around, but you spun as it was going around. And I was absolutely terrified. But she was laughing the whole time. I could still see her rocking back and forth, forth, making the car spin.
- [15:57]
Sarah Kaelin
Trina's been smiling as she talks about their afternoon at the fair. Then she stops and wipes her eyes.
- [16:04]
Trina
I miss her. And I. I know she's not there, but I don't ever want to rehash the feeling of being with her at the very last time and not knowing it was going to be the last.
- [16:18]
Sarah Kaelin
We're now getting into the hardest part of my job. I'm okay with crime scenes. I'm okay with diving into the minds of the most horrible people in the world, but asking someone to open up their own wounds, to get deep into the details of the worst thing that ever happened to them. This feels like an invasion. I know it's critical to ultimately helping them have some answers and maybe. Maybe even some peace. But it always feels ghoulish, and I feel enormous guilt over it here. What I have to figure out is if there's something Trina's not revealing, not necessarily out of malice, not because she was involved. I do not believe that at all. But maybe out of guilt or fear or even a detail in her memory she didn't realize was potentially important. I ask her to walk me through the night from the moment she and Misty realize it's time to leave the fair.
- [17:18]
Trina
It was probably 7:30, 8:00 o', clock, and I remember it getting dark. We had school the next day, and we went to the main gate where there was a bank of payphones. And then we decided we'd go and call our rides.
- [17:34]
Sarah Kaelin
Call our rides. I need her to clarify. This seems to line up with what she told police, as in that she and Misty called Reuben and Michael before calling Diana to say that they had missed the bus. I've never been sure which version to trust. There's Diana's version in which Misty said she'd take an 8:40pm bus. And there's Trina's version in which they call Reuben and when he says no, they call Michael. My producer Tessa reads my mind. I thought the plan originally was that.
- [18:12]
Trina
Misty would get the bus home and then she missed the bus. No, the original plan was our friend would pick us up that drove and that was Reuben.
- [18:25]
Sarah Kaelin
Okay, now we're getting somewhere.
- [18:35]
Listener
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- [19:35]
Narrator
Why Choose a Sleep Number Smart Bed.
- [19:37]
Listener
Can I make my site softer?
- [19:38]
Trina
Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?
- [19:42]
Narrator
Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your Sleep Number Setting it's the Sleep Number Biggest sale of the year all beds on sale up to 50% off the limited edition smart bed plus free home delivery with the purchase of any smart bed ends Monday. All Sleep Number Smart beds offer temperature solutions for your best sleep. Check it out at a Sleep number store or sleepnumber.com today.
- [20:05]
Trina
Get ready for more of the gripping mysteries you love, because Forensic Files is back and they're revisiting some of your favorite episodes. Come along as investigators, scientists and experts piece together evidence, clues and data in search of the answers behind violent crimes, unexplainable mysteries and other strange occurrences. Listen to Forensic Files on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [20:35]
Narrator
Hello listeners. Meet Lisa hey there. Lisa runs an online boutique specializing in sustainable fashion. With acast, she found a whole new way to reach eco conscious shoppers.
- [20:45]
Sarah Kaelin
Yep. I recorded a quick ad targeted listeners interested in fashion and sustainability using Acast's Audience Attributes targeting feature and set my budget. Before I knew it, people all over were hearing about my shop.
- [20:57]
Narrator
Now that's a smart way to grow your business. Hey Lisa, what's trending right now?
- [21:01]
Sarah Kaelin
Shopping sustainably and my sales, of course.
- [21:03]
Narrator
Start reaching your ideal audience through podcast ads with Acast. Visit go.acast.com advertise to get started.
- [21:13]
Trina
Foreign.
- [21:17]
Sarah Kaelin
It'S not news to me that the night of the fair, Misty called Reuben Schmidt for a ride. Diana told reporter Sean Robinson that when Misty called her around 8:45pm saying she had missed the bus, Misty suggested she could try calling Reuben for a ride. Diana said she explicitly told Misty to try to find someone else, knowing that Misty was fully aware of the fact that Diana did not approve of Reuben hanging around her daughter. When Diana gets home from work the next morning and Misty isn't there, she immediately turns to Reuben for answers. Reuben also admits that yes, Misty called him, but he says he didn't have the gas to go pick her up. Trina's story is different in a significant way. Trina is saying there was never a plan to take a bus. Misty's plan all along was to call her friend Reuben Schmidt and that Reuben had previously agreed to give Misty and Trina a ride home. I asked Trina to help me understand something. Is there a chance that she was not upfront with Diana about that? Because what Diana has said was that Misty had shown her like I've done the research, I can take the bus, I know it's this route and I will take the bus home.
- [22:42]
Trina
I don't remember any of that. Mostly because we don't have bus routes like at the fingertips like we do now. How would she know what bus to take? I don't remember us saying we're going to ride the bus. For Misty and I, we knew we were going to call Ruben the entire time.
- [23:02]
Sarah Kaelin
The bus route point is a good one, but there were ways to get the information. A person just had to work a little harder for it than we do today. But it's also possible that this was a fib. Misty told Diana to get permission to go to the fair. Even the most well behaved kids do this. All of us told little fibs here and there to get our way. I try to push on this a little further to clear up whether or not Diana knew the plan was always to call Rubin, or if Misty and Trina weren't exactly honest with Diana about their plans 30 plus years later. She's just not sure. Either way, she remembers that when they call Reuben, he bails on them.
- [23:51]
Trina
Ruben said he didn't have enough gas, didn't have enough money. I had money I could give him. He could have that for gas. As long as he could come down and pick us up. No, couldn't do it.
- [24:04]
Sarah Kaelin
Ruben's out, so Trina suggests someone else. Michael Reiner.
- [24:10]
Trina
Why don't we call him? And at that point it was a pager. So I paged him. And then on the payphones there was always a number that you could have people call you back on. So I paged him with that number to call me back.
- [24:25]
Sarah Kaelin
For those who skew a little younger in age, Trina has done a pretty straightforward job of explaining it. There was often a little strip of paper under clear plastic with the number of that particular payphone just above the number pad so that someone could have people call back. Because calls from payphones were more expensive than from a house phone. Obviously this worked for paging people too. When we got into the beeper era.
- [24:54]
Trina
I don't remember if Mike actually answered or said he couldn't make it or what happened. I know that we called Reuben back, told him how to break into Misty's house to get money, and then we could give him whatever else we had to get wherever he needed to go.
- [25:14]
Sarah Kaelin
Let me take a second here to explain the general geography of the area we're talking about the friend's house where Ruben is staying and the duplex where Misty and Diana live are about three miles from each other in Spanaway. Spanaway is just over 10 miles southwest of the fairgrounds in Puyallup. So it's plausible that Reuben didn't have enough gas or money to get gas to drive those 10 miles to Puyalla. But he might have been able to drive three miles to Misty's house to get some money out of her piggy bank. And I can see how a couple 14 and 15 year old kids might think this is a positively genius idea. As I've said before, teenagers will go so far not to get in trouble with their parents. Parents that they'll sometimes actually get themselves into even more danger. Especially with a mom like Diana, who Trina tells us was no nonsense, we didn't get in trouble. So yeah, I believe that even a well behaved kid like Misty would have told Reuben how to get money from her piggy bank. But their pleas are unsuccessful at that point.
- [26:30]
Trina
Still, still, the answer was no.
- [26:34]
Sarah Kaelin
This, Trina says, is when they finally call Diana, they're stuck, stranded. Their plans have fallen through. They need help.
- [26:46]
Trina
I don't remember the conversation that we had with her mom. I just remember her mom being very angry and figure it out. Finally, at some point, we leave the fair and we walk a couple blocks down the street to where there is a bus depot. I had $10 and I gave her the money that I had and we talked about her getting on the bus and I would walk home.
- [27:12]
Sarah Kaelin
Trina's guardian's house isn't exactly around the corner. It's just over three miles away on foot.
- [27:18]
Trina
But it was definitely shorter than Pjall just ran away.
- [27:24]
Sarah Kaelin
So Trina gives Misty the $10 in her pocket and they part ways.
- [27:29]
Trina
I remember giving her the money and saying our goodbyes and leaving her at the bus stop is the last time I saw her.
- [27:39]
Sarah Kaelin
I asked Trina how she was feeling in that moment. Was she panicked, scared?
- [27:45]
Trina
No. No. I thought she'd get the bus, I'd walk home. I wouldn't get in trouble for lying to my guardian at the time. Even leading up to the very end, it wasn't a scary thing. We were upset that our friend bailed on us and was not picking us up. But at that time, no, I definitely thought she was gonna get on the bus. And we talked the next day.
- [28:11]
Sarah Kaelin
This story makes a lot of sense. I don't get the feeling that Trina's being evasive or hiding something or struggling to come up with answers to my questions. But one thing isn't adding up in Trina's second statement to the police. She said she walked part of the way, and then Michael Reiner did come pick her up. I asked Trina about this, and she explains Michael did call her at the payphone when she paged, but he also said, no, I can't come get you. About a mile into her walk, Michael. Michael finds her on her route and picks her up for the last two miles or so of the journey.
- [28:54]
Trina
He saw me and pulled into the parking lot, and then I realized it was his car. And obviously I walked into the parking lot and got into his car with him and he was going to drive me the rest of the way home. We stopped at the river. We had intercourse in the car. He drove me home. We talked for a couple minutes, and I got out of the car and then went into the house and he drove away.
- [29:27]
Sarah Kaelin
Like the payphone stuff. This might sound a little ridiculous for our younger listeners. She pages him, he says he can't come, but then he just Starts driving and hopes he'll find her. This is another one of those things that might sound like it's tough to make sense of. But in the pre cell phone era, we often picked meeting points and had to, you know, actually stick to our plans in order to meet up with people. Sometimes we did have to drive around looking for a friend we were meeting. It doesn't strike me as far fetched that Michael would have changed his mind and then started driving the route Trina would likely walk home and try to find her. My producer chimes in to clarify something. So another thing. And again I'm like trying to clear up some stuff that feels like perhaps it's been game of telephoned around.
- [30:19]
Trina
Yes.
- [30:19]
Sarah Kaelin
Is that Michael was coming to pick you up and Misty said like I.
- [30:24]
Trina
Don'T want to get a ride with him. Yeah, she hated him. He got my virginity. She did not like him at all. He was older. She did not like him because of my relationship with him.
- [30:36]
Sarah Kaelin
But he never put the moves on Misty or anything like that.
- [30:39]
Trina
No, she was protective of me. She didn't like him because of me. And to her he wasn't good looking, long hair, smoker, you know, no way. She wouldn't smoke, she wouldn't do drugs. She wouldn't have adult relations. To her. He was a creep because he took my virginity and we were still having relations. Not because of what comes to light of the history that I had no idea about.
- [31:14]
Sarah Kaelin
Ah yes, Michael's history. That previous accusation of a sexual assault of a minor. Again, he was a juvenile when it reportedly happened and he denied it happened, but it was allegedly a violent sexual assault of a younger girl. One that started when he tried to get her into his car.
- [31:37]
Trina
I understood his. I guess he was a pedophile. He wanted to conquer virgins. I knew that I was one of several women that he was with in a day. I knew that and I was okay with that. Well, in my mind I have no idea. But we talked about it. We were openly talking about things like that it was him that wanted to. How many times could he have sex in a day with how many women? But I didn't know about the other minor. I didn't know he got in trouble for that.
- [32:20]
Sarah Kaelin
Trina was 15 years old. This was being groomed. Michael was taking advantage of a girl who was destabilized, living in an abusive home. This really is textbook stuff.
- [32:35]
Trina
He was supplying my cigarettes. He was supplying attention. He would take me out to coffee, which was away from my house and he was giving me the Attention that I was not getting at home.
- [32:53]
Sarah Kaelin
This explains why Trina lied to the police. Why at first she told them she walked all the way home. No mention of Michael picking her up. Knowing all this context, it makes perfect.
- [33:06]
Trina
Sense why I was protecting Michael. I didn't tell them about our sexual. I didn't tell him that we went to the river and had intercourse. He was older. I was under the age. I was protecting him. I didn't want him to get in trouble. And that's why I lied.
- [33:27]
Sarah Kaelin
I don't think I was wrong to have questions about her account when I was getting it third hand from media portrayals of information taken from police reports. But now, face to face, my reservations have completely melted away. All the questions were little puzzle pieces I have been missing. But now they've all dropped into place and the picture is clear. Trina is telling me the truth. I'm confident of that. So now, with all this and knowing why Misty disliked Michael Reiner out of a sense of protecting her friend, not because he had behaved inappropriately towards her personally. It also clarifies the picture around him. He wanted to conquer virgins. It's gross. A devout girl like Misty would be right up his alley. Is it impossible he dropped Trina off by her 10pm curfew and then went back for Misty? No. But he told police he went home after dropping Trina off. Does that mean I can completely rule him out? No. Personally, I think it's a bit far fetched to think he might have gone looking for Misty. Misty could have been anywhere by then. And it sounds like she hated him. No way she'd call him back again for a ride. She probably didn't even have his number. But these are not definitive reasons to rule him out. These are my personal opinions. If I hear of any other reasons to pursue Michael, I will. But right now, from what I've learned about Michael, I'm growing increasingly suspicious of someone else. Someone whose number she did have. Someone she did call Reuben Schmidt. It's finally time to get to it. What does Trina know about Ruben?
- [35:39]
Trina
Listen up. You can get the new iPhone 16e.
- [35:41]
Sarah Kaelin
With Apple Intelligence for just $49.99 when you switch to Boost Mobile.
- [35:46]
Trina
We pulled so many all nighters to give you this deal. And hey, stop messing with the mic. I'm just helping this catch people's attention. This is a great deal. Exactly. So it doesn't need all that. Fine. Get the new iPhone 16e available at.
- [36:02]
Sarah Kaelin
Apple Store locations and the Apple Store online.
- [36:04]
Trina
Visit your nearest Boost Mobile store for full offer details. Apple Intelligence requires iOS 18.1 or later restrictions apply.
- [36:09]
Listener
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- [37:09]
Narrator
Why Choose a Sleep number Smart Bed.
- [37:10]
Listener
Can I make my site softer?
- [37:12]
Trina
Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?
- [37:15]
Narrator
Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your sleep number setting it's the sleep number biggest sale of the year all beds on sale up to 50% off the limited edition smart bed plus free home delivery with the purchase of any smart bed ends Monday. All sleep number Smart beds offer temperature solutions for your best sleep. Check it out at ASleepnumber store or sleepnumber.com today. Say hello to Samantha hi there. Samantha built a SaaS platform that helps small businesses manage their workflow, but she needed a smarter way to reach decision makers.
- [37:48]
Sarah Kaelin
That's where Acast came in.
- [37:50]
Trina
They helped me produce a professional audio.
- [37:52]
Sarah Kaelin
Ad which played to business owners and ops leads using their audience attributes targeting tools. Suddenly my platform was showing up in the ears of the exact people I needed to reach.
- [38:00]
Narrator
Now that's streamlined marketing. Samantha, what's your tip for scaling smart?
- [38:04]
Sarah Kaelin
Solve a real problem and make sure the right people hear about it.
- [38:08]
Narrator
Promote your business with podcast ads on Acast. Get started@goacast.com advertise on Friday, September 18.
- [38:25]
Sarah Kaelin
Trina goes to school like usual. She and Misty are in different schools at this point, so to her knowledge nothing is awry.
- [38:35]
Trina
I went to school the next day, came home, the answer machine was blinking, played the message and it was Diana freaking out. Where's her baby girl? Where is Misty? And it Was several messages Cursing and screaming and freaking out on the phone. I immediately called her house and realized that she never made it home.
- [39:03]
Sarah Kaelin
I ask what was going through her mind.
- [39:05]
Trina
Probably what's going through my mind right now. How, why? What happened? She was so sweet and so young. What happened to her?
- [39:27]
Sarah Kaelin
These are the thoughts of a grown woman. At the time, Trina wasn't thinking about Misty. As young and vulnerable, she was clinging to hope.
- [39:37]
Trina
She'll call me as soon as she gets home. Never got that call.
- [39:47]
Sarah Kaelin
This is all Trina knows. For months, her best friend has disappeared. Her friend's mom is freaking out. The police aren't looking for her. No evidence has been found, no suspects interrogated. Misty is just gone.
- [40:06]
Trina
Life continues. And so I had to continue going to school and kind of get updates from her mom if her mom would call me and let me know.
- [40:16]
Sarah Kaelin
Five months later, the jeans are found. The police finally begin to actually investigate the case as anything more than a runaway. Finally, for the very first time, in an investigative capacity, the police talked to Trina, the last person known to be with Misty that night.
- [40:36]
Trina
I do recall them bringing pictures of her clothing. The jeans, the sock, the rolled up pants. Those were exactly what she was wearing. Those were the jeans and those were the socks. I remember seeing the jeans and knowing exactly that. That's what I knew it was hers. I knew they were not on her anymore and something happened to her because they're not on her and they were dirty and they were in the ditch and somebody threw them away like they threw her away.
- [41:16]
Sarah Kaelin
Trina still can't believe the original investigators didn't talk to her for. For so long.
- [41:22]
Trina
I don't think they cared. I don't think they cared at all. Being the last person to see her. Why wouldn't you want more information from me?
- [41:32]
Sarah Kaelin
Trina did not make any attempt to contact the police herself. Again, she was 15 years old. If the police had bothered to speak to her sooner, Trina could have told them that their whole runaway theory was absolutely ridiculous. From day one, her mom and her.
- [41:51]
Trina
Had a really good relationship. There would be no way she would run away. There would be no way. And if she ran away, she would run away to her dad's. They had a relationship. It wasn't a bad relationship anywhere around.
- [42:08]
Sarah Kaelin
Police contacted Misty's dad. She never came to his house. As far as anyone knows, he didn't exactly live close. I don't have an address for him at the time, But Trina says he lived, quote, up in the mountains and.
- [42:22]
Trina
Not to tell me about it? No, absolutely not. There was no reason to run away. She wasn't being abused, she wasn't being harassed. She loved school. She loved the sports that she played in. She loved her mom. They had a great relationship. They were best friends. They were really close. She didn't run away. Something happened to her.
- [42:45]
Sarah Kaelin
I ask how what happened to Misty and the police mishandling affected Diana. Trina starts to cry. After a long silence, she responds.
- [42:59]
Trina
She turned to the bottle and I don't blame her, but she was drinking before it happened. But she called me so many times drunk and yelled at me that I knew something. I did something.
- [43:15]
Sarah Kaelin
Trina looks devastated as she says this. She tells me this went on for years. That Misty's mom would call her at all hours of the night demanding answers. Answers that Trina didn't have.
- [43:29]
Trina
And I finally decided I had enough. My mom wants a beer too. I didn't need her being abusive and I don't blame her. I was just as innocent.
- [43:48]
Sarah Kaelin
Trina cut ties with Diana and they never got back in touch. It was a loss Trina felt profoundly. She's long wondered how Diana's drinking impacted the way police handled this case.
- [44:02]
Trina
She called me a million times yelling at me. She probably called the police a million times and lost the respect. But again like trying to find her answers. They didn't do their due diligence and didn't treat the case like they should have. And then to find out that she passed away, it's not being know that she went to her own grave not knowing. She hit that bottle hard and the answer's not at the bottom.
- [44:40]
Sarah Kaelin
There's no other word to describe all this but intense. This is the first time the tragedy of this story really cuts me deep tragedy that radiated out of this incident impacting Diana, but also Trina. The fact of the matter is that if the police had jumped into action the moment Diana reported Misty missing, even if it was too late to find her alive, maybe they could have gotten answers, resolutions for Diana and she wouldn't have taken her anger and uncertainty out on Trina. The ripple effects of Misty's loss might not have spread so far. Maybe Diana did have a drinking problem and it really appears to have impacted the way the police treated her. But again, that is absolutely no excuse for the investigators actions and police letting critical evidence and suspects slip through their fingers. Including a person who clearly should have been on their radar from day one, Reuben Schmidt. My conversation with Trina has led me to feel pretty sure Michael Reiner did not do this, and it's led me to feel more certain that I want to ask Trina more about Reuben Schmidt. I asked how Trina and misty even met 18 year old Ruben.
- [46:08]
Trina
Through a mutual friend, Dee Dee Miles. Dee Dee hung out with Ruben a lot. We always hang out on Dede's front porch. We would sleep out there. We would make ice cream out there. We hung out on the front porch in tents. And he had a car. I didn't care for the guy, but that's because I was interested in somebody else. I honestly didn't know that Ruben and Misty had a relationship. Further than acquaintances, more than a friendship.
- [46:40]
Sarah Kaelin
Just to be super clear, I asked if there was any. Anything romantic going on. Trina scoffs at that idea.
- [46:49]
Trina
No. She's so innocent. She wore the chastity belt. She wasn't gonna give up anything until she got married. I gave up mine early. And she got so mad. Oh, she was mad. She went to church. She was a good girl. She was not gonna partake in that. Not even a kiss or anything.
- [47:10]
Sarah Kaelin
Were you under the impression, though, that Reuben liked her?
- [47:15]
Trina
I think Reuben liked anything that walked. Anything that was under 18.
- [47:20]
Sarah Kaelin
I reached out to Rubin to verify this. He did not respond. This was something Diana obviously clocked in him and made her dislike him immensely. I'm sure her dislike and distrust was only made worse by when she reportedly overheard him telling Misty that he got horny just looking at her. Apparently, Misty wasn't the only one on the receiving end of Rubin's problematic attention. Trina lists three other teen girls by name. I'm withholding their names for privacy.
- [47:57]
Trina
I don't think they were as in a hookup, but he definitely hung out with them. It's a different world back then, and you can see it now, but back then you couldn't see the grooming. He ended up raping after Misty disappeared.
- [48:17]
Sarah Kaelin
Sean Robinson reported on this accusation, noting that Trina's friend filed an incident report in early 1996. She was 18 years old. Two weeks later, she backed out of pursuing an investigation and as is the case far more often than not, ultimately did not pursue charges. She told law enforcement that she was undergoing counseling relating to rape.
- [48:45]
Trina
I know he raped her. She told me. I don't know about the case of Ruben being pressed charges. I do know that he raped. Yeah.
- [48:58]
Sarah Kaelin
I ask Trina if I can contact this friend. This is a significant allegation and I'd like to substantiate Trina's memory. Trina tells me that she passed away, so I Can't confirm anything with her, but if the friend told Trina this, I'm inclined to believe it happened. Knowing all of this goes a long way towards cementing Reuben Schmidt into a viable suspect. Reuben was eliminated as a suspect by original investigators and even in more recent investigations by Puyallup pd, still no charges have been brought against him. If such an obvious suspect is never charged after all this time, the police must have a reason, right? I think it's time to lay out everything we know. We'll start that deep dive next time. Coming up on who took Misty Copsey?
- [49:58]
Trina
To me, there's no one who was floated as a suspect that we could absolutely rule out. Even Reuben Schmidt? I wouldn't say absolutely not. He's not a suspect. Nobody knows for sure whether Ruben comes and picks her up. Did he give her a ride? Did he? We do not know. Did he tell the cops? I drove up to an area that is not that far from where these genes were discovered. Yes, he did. She mentioned it to me about, you know, Ruben was the one who had something to do with that girl that was missing. And I was like, what girl that was missing?
- [50:38]
Sarah Kaelin
Who took Misty Copsey is produced by ARC Media for id. You can follow our show wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love it if you could take a second to leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts. Now you can fly anywhere in the.
- [50:57]
Trina
World and pay discount prices on your airline tickets. Book a flight today to London, Paris, Madrid or anywhere else you want to go and pay a lot less guaranteed. Call the International Travel Department right now at Low Cost Airlines, 8002-1551-4180-0215-5141. That's 800-215-5141. Acast powers the world's best podcasts.
- [51:33]
Sarah Kaelin
Here's a show that we recommend.
- [51:36]
Trina
If.
- [51:37]
Sarah Kaelin
You'Ve ever dreamed of quitting your job.
- [51:39]
Trina
To take your side hustle full time. Listen up.
- [51:41]
Sarah Kaelin
This is Nikayla Matthews, aome, host of.
- [51:43]
Trina
Side Hustle Pro, a podcast that helps you build and grow from passion project to profitable business. Every week you'll hear from guests just like you who wanted to start a business on the side. If you can't run a side hustle, you can't run a business. They share real tips and so I started connecting with all these people on LinkedIn and I saw target supplier diversity was having office hours.
- [52:03]
Sarah Kaelin
Real advice. Procrastination is the easiest form of resistance.
- [52:08]
Trina
And the actual strategies they use to turn their side hustle into their main hustle getting back in touch with your tangible cash and sitting down and learning to give your money a job like it changes something. Check out side Hustle Pro every week on your favorite podcast app and YouTube.
- [52:26]
Sarah Kaelin
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.
- [52:32]
Trina
Acest. Com.